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Chapter 28: Going Home
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Juicy Chapter 29: Reconciling the Past with the Present
Things moved sideways and for a while there was nothing but his staring eyes as he wavered on his feet. When he came to he had a moment of confusion as he tried to reconcile his past and the present. After a moment he remembered that he was not seventeen. He was soon to be twenty-five and he controlled his life.Troy checked under the bed for his box of keepsakes. Sitting on the side of the bed, he opened the cigar box, surprised that his mother hadn't moved them. He picked up the Pokémon cards and chuckled that these; his prized possessions were still in their hiding place. He left them out for his nieces and nephews and then dug through the box, rediscovering the little trinkets that had been so important to his childhood. He shook his head, unable to connect to the kid that had saved the ticket stub to the movie The Matrix. Absently he returned the box under his bed, and then he opened the desk drawers finding only some pens and pencils and scraps of paper.He suddenly rem
Juicy Chapter 30: Telling the Truth
Troy picked up his napkin and wiped his mouth, more as an excuse to stall than anything else. How did he tell his family that he'd been pretty much homeless since running away? "Well, for a while I didn't do very well." He cleared his throat and glanced at the kids, not wanting to go into details, especially in front of Lorie's eldest as the young girl seemed to hang onto his every word. Also, his disappearance had hurt his family. He didn't need to add to that pain with too much detail."What do you do for a living?" Lorie asked and then blushed as if she had no right to the information.He smiled in response. "It's h-hard for me to hold a n-normal job." Everyone put together the meaning of that and nodded in understand or looked elsewhere. He was unemployed. Troy cleared his throat. It was a true fact and he had come to terms with it. There were just certain jobs that were impossible for him to do. Once he'd gotten a call from a temporary service wanting him to drive a
Juicy Chapter 31: Not Making the Same Mistakes
Troy's lips began to twitch. He dropped his silverware on the table and it clanged loudly. "That's what you're concerned with, that a black woman might get her hands on my money?"Bob looked embarrassed and glanced at Lorie for support. Lorie threw up her palms as if to say that he was on his own for putting his foot into his mouth."It's just that your decisions haven't always been all that great-"Troy's jaw clenched. "How do you know, Bob? Tell me how you would have any ideas about my decision making skills?" Lorie's husband stood and ushered his children away from the table and Mom placed a hand on Troy's arm.He ignored it and continued. "Tell me, Bob, how would you survive the winter if you just got let go from your last fast food job because you stuttered so much that you couldn't take an order—and you're down to your last fourteen dollars, it's winter and your choices are A. suck a dick," his mother gasped and covered her ears. "B. Go to a shelter, or C. Go home to M
Juicy Chapter 32: I'm Your Family
Troy had been in charge of inspecting the building and he said that this one was good. The foundation was solid; there was no mold so no hidden water damage, no termites and the nearby shops kept it safe from hidden predators. He grinned and gave her the thumbs up. Later he approached the city with a request to purchase it for a dollar even though it had not been posted for sale. However, once the city's inspectors had shown evidence that the building had been used for drug activities, it was given the ok to sale. They had one year to rehab it. They did it in four months. Juicy would not be surprised on days when she would enter the building, while it was being rehabbed, to see several homeless men—including her own, sleeping there because they had pulled an all-nighter. She would stare at them with thankful admiration, knowing that she would never see these people in the same light again.One day Juicy and Troy stood in front of a building. Stenciled across the window were the
Juicy Chapter 33: We Need To Talk
"That woman should be ashamed of herself!" Miss Marcie said, a perpetual grimace ever present on her wrinkled brown face. Juicy wrapped the stiff piece of hair around the curling iron, expertly pumping the handle until there was a smooth curl bouncing beneath her fingertips."What did that heffa do now?" Juicy asked, barely listening to the old woman's idle gossip. It was hard for her to focus when she had so much shit cluttering her head. Is that how Troy felt; head wanting to explode?Miss Marcie continued. "Oh she came out wearing them stretchy slacks, with that big behind of hers! You know that woman shouldn't be prancing around-" Juicy listened as Miss Marcie's voice droned on and on while she threw in a 'hmph' or a 'you don't say?' in the appropriate places. Finally the last curl was in place and Juicy liberally sprayed Miss Marcie's hair to 'set' the curls. The older woman's face broke into a smile, probably for the first time in a week. "Beautiful." She beamed then paid Jui
Juicy Chapter 34: Where Is He?!
She did not understand why Troy had just left with those few words. It was now the middle of the night and he hadn't come back or called. They'd been living together since the nightmares had made it impossible for her to sleep through the night without him. Though living together was a slight stretch. He spent his nights with her and during the day, while she did heads, he did whatever homeless people did. Once they had the shop and there weren't people running in and out of the apartment, Troy could relax at home. They would lie in bed, snuggled under the quilt, watching a rented movie and Juicy would think, this is what other people do…Working closely together on the shop had allowed Juicy to see Troy in a different light. Maybe in her world he showed a lot of insecurity, but in his own world, with his friends and working with his hands, he was relaxed and very accomplished. He handled the deliveries, ordering the material, did most of the gutting of the old building himse
Juicy Chapter 35: Rest Is The Best Medicine
Ok, so the Doctor had been right about resting. Several days ago, when she was getting lightheaded all of the time and feeling tired, she thought she'd better make a doctor's appointment. Maybe she'd finally developed diabetes or perhaps her blood pressure had gotten out of control. Never in a million years would she have suspected that she was pregnant. Because she didn't have regular menstrual cycles due to the depo shot, she had been given an ultra sound. When that nurse said twenty-two weeks, she frantically began calculating in her head. Five months! Hell that meant that she was over halfway through a pregnancy that she hadn't even suspected! She had been so anxious to tell Troy. She'd been happy about it. Now, he'd ruined that for her. Now she was just afraid; afraid and angry.By the time she left the library and the free Internet there, it was already dark. She hadn't even gone to the shop at all. She had aspirin at the apartment so she just went home, tired, stresse
Juicy Chapter 36: Life Is But A Slow Death
When Juicy was eighteen years old her Momma died; not immediately¡ªit didn't happen in one day, and perhaps Juicy could consider her mother's entire life as a slow death. But it was when Juicy was eighteen that marked the end of the life that Jassmina Robinson had once lived.Juicy had come home from school. It was one of the few days that month that she'd even bothered to go to school. At the age of eighteen she was only in the tenth grade¡ªnot because she wasn't smart enough, but because she just didn't bother to attend classes. She had absolutely no interest in school. Juicy figured that she could be more productive bringing home money than sitting in a classroom all day while her clients found other people to take their money! Besides, she wanted to do hair for a living, so what good was history and math when she already had her future mapped-out for her? Besides, she barely knew what was going on in class. She didn't do the homework because she was too busy with customers,
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