LX Chronicles: New Money

I remember the day it happened. I was sitting at the kitchen table, hand across my forehead, elbow on the glass. My head was throbbing, perhaps
from the hunger that made my stomach growl, perhaps from the lack of
sleep I had been getting...All in all, my head hurt. Bills were scattered before me as were ashes from the lit wine black that occupied my other hand. Another pull was taken, trying to ease the stressful thoughts that clogged my mind. Where was the money for this...The money for that...Where was any money?
Through the thick white tobacco smoke, my eyes caught sight of an eviction notice...That red ink. Something about red ink disturbs me...Maybe because I was used to see it on returned papers with useless comments from professors I thought were just hating. I still got an A...Why all the dumb comments? Even with that college dream dead, I hated red ink. My new job wouldn't be able to pay my rent fast enough and I wasn't about to rob nobody.
I mean...Do unto others as you would like done onto you...And I wouldn't want to be robbed. Keep what you work for, I'll get my own. But at the time, I had nothing and no way to get anything. Sticking somebody wasn't seeming like a bad idea...And I know some niggas who would do it. A knock disturbed me from those thoughts, forcing me to move from my seat to descend the stairs and open the door.
I knew something was up from the smile on my cousins face...just as he
could I was still down from the dark circles under my eyes. But his
smile beamed nonetheless. "I got something."
I didn't even bother to nod. I just let him slip past my with a book bag
on his back. That furthered my suspicion...this dude wasn't in college. As he walked past me I caught a brief scent of something,a change in the air as he walked up the stairs. But the rich scent of the wine flavored tobacco still over weighed...My head still throbbed.
He went right to the table and slung the bag on the table, choosing to sit
where I had taken up a brooding residence moments before. I wasn't even
tight...He didn't know anyway. I stood against one of the walls in the kitchen that allowed me a view to the table, my left hand idly stroking the black beard I had grown...My mane, I called it. Simple things like that calmed me, stroking my chin. It settled the hunger for a better life for a minute..reassured me that things weren't so bad.
I smelled it before I saw it. Another scent, far more natural then the
scent of the wine black. It was strong, intoxicating almost. "The fuck
is that." I questioned aloud.
I paused for a second as he smiled...Not because he smiled, but because my voice sounded foreign. It was the first time I had spoken in awhile.
"New Money," he gloated."New Money."
I moved to stand closer to the table, eyes peering through smoke to
catch a glimpse of my cousins idea of "new money". It was a big plastic bag, filled with light green trees. Something about them reminded me of snowy little trees at first...I guess because they were green with this
white gleam. They had branches too and it was a lot of em...like a
forest in a bag. It wasn't the look that caught me tho, it was the
smell.
I always loved the outdoors and something about that scent reminded me of nature. It seemed refreshing to me, clearing that area of the the thick white smoke that black and mild produced. I couldn't lie...
I loved the smell of new money.
R. $olo