“What?” I ask Sky. He has been staring at me ever since I picked him up from his house. Sometimes he frowns, then clicks his tongue, and picks himself up to speak before backing down. Seriously, he acts so weirdly sometimes I wish to get as far away from him as possible. But I can’t. I don’t have anyone else to rely on.

“You look mad,” Sky says. “Did something happen between you and Em? Were you too unimpressive last night?” He adds smugly.
 
A vein pops up on my forehead. I feel the urge to zap him with some nasty command. I hold myself down, push the anger away and say to him, “You and I both know nothing of the sort happened. If anything were to happen it should have happened between us, considering you were the last person I dropped off on the way back.”

Sky squints and then snorts in detest. “Are you implying something?”
I also snort to detest him. “The question isn’t if I’m implying something. The question is: what are you going to do about it?”

His eyes open wide in panic. I see his mental cylinders firing at full speed and then he slides away to the other side of the car, creating as much distance between us as physically possible. He’s so animated and so funny sometimes.

“You know I like June.” He says, his voice trembling. “So forgive me if you must, but I don’t think I like you like that.”
“That’s good.”
“Huh?”
I glance at him from the corner of my eyes. “I had to know whether you act so chummy with me out of friendship or you were having deranged thoughts about me.”

Sitting with his back firmly attached to the car’s front passenger door, he stares at me. His thoughts are painfully transparent from his creasing forehead. Eventually, he says, “Are you making fun of me?”

“What do you think?” I say with a smirk, my heart a little less heavy. It’s so nice to have a friend. I wish I had more people like him around me. But then again, not everyone can deal with sarcasm like him.

“Mother fucker--” He slides back into the seat. Then he punches me on the shoulder to show his disgust and sits back in the seat with his arms crossed.

He looks angry. Did I go too far this time? I don’t worry about it. I know he’ll be fine in due time.

We have known eachother for over a decade and we have fought so many times if someone looks at our history they’ll wonder if we are really friends or foes. We first met in elementary and have shared most classes together. He cried more than I did when he found out my parents had died in the accident. He stayed a whole day and night in the hospital beside me and refused to leave even when the nurses urged. He visited every day bearing gifts until even the nurses were acquainted with him and knew him by name. We drifted apart for a while when I went to stay over at my grandpa’s. I grew arrogant with my then newly found powers. But when I turned eighteen and could choose to go anywhere, the reason I came back to the city is not separated from him.

Running rampant in that small town, I realized that no power in the world had the strength to help me get over a broken heart. I replied that I needed friends, real friends, who cared about me and not brainwashed followers who could only follow my commands. I called Sky the day of my eighteenth birthday and he picked up on the third bell. We got off from the start like nothing had happened, as if nothing had changed. I knew then that I had to come back.

Now here I am, chauffeuring my brain-dead friend to school in a drug dealer’s car that he wanted to do to get some clout from other brain-dead strangers.

I turn right on 2001-north Orchard Street, slowing at the intersection just enough to glance at a black car parked on the side of the road. The car looks like something straight out of the GTA hood. It has broad white tires and a floor so low it seems to be dragging on the road. And the paint is so shiny, the thing is basically a mirror on four wheels. And I see some of the scariest-looking people I have ever seen in and around the car.

I see them and they see me. They seem to have been waiting for me, or for the car. It’s the same thing if you look at it objectively.

There are four of them. Two guys are in tank tops. The black one has trimmed his hair to the scalp, and two crossed revolvers tattooed on the neck under his left ear. The other guy, a thin Latino, with multiple face tattoos, has braided hair dyed yellow at the ends. I guess he’s the punk of the group. The third guy is a more than two-hundred-pound giant. He towers over the car standing on the other side of it. I’m sure I see his belt peeking over the car roof. Funnily enough, he’s holding a burger in one hand and soda in the other and staring at me while sipping on the soda. He’s truthfully the most surprising character among them. The fourth guy sits in the driver's seat with one hand on the wheel and another holding a smoking joint or cigarette. I believe it’s the former. I hope so.

They all seem to be packing guns. The Latino has one hand on his bulging belly, screaming that he has a gun and will put it at the slightest provocation. And he does try to pull his gun out when he sees me (or the car), but his tank-topped friend grabs his arms in time and calms him down by whispering something into his ears. It is a good decision. We are on the school street and not only is the police always scouting the area, but firing bullets at this location also risks injuring some innocent students. It will be a tragedy if that happens because of me. 

I don’t tell Sky anything and keep driving until we reach the school gate. There I stop the car and tell Sky to get out.

He must have sensed something on the way because he looks over at me with concern and asks, “Are you not coming to school today?”
“I’ll be there,” I tell him in the most deadpan way possible. “I just forgot to take out the trash today. Don’t worry about it.”
“Is something wrong?” He says glancing at the rear view mirror. In a way indicating that he also noticed the guys on the road.  
“It’s nothing. You go ahead. If Em asks about me tell her I send my love.”

Sky is apprehensive at first. Would I command him to leave if he wants to stay? It doesn’t come to that. He leaves eventually.

I wait until I see him enter the school building, ignoring the horns blaring behind me. Once I’m sure he’s really gone, I start the car and get into the other lane and drive back to the intersection and stop adjacent to the black Cadillac parked on the side of the road. The gentlemen are now inside the car. It’s impossible to see whether they are surprised or not to see me back, but they sure are confused.

I look over at them and ask. “Are you Nick’s friends?”
Three of them glare at me with their big beady eyes. They don’t make a sound, however.
I ask again. Only this time I demand an answer. “Do you want something from me?”
The bald guy is the first to react. “Yea, bitch.” He says. “We do want something from you.”
“Then what’s stopping you from coming over and getting it?”

Perhaps, my words trigger him. He straightens his back, reaches down, and pulls his gun at me. Then he starts waving the thing at me screaming, “You want some of this, clown? You want some of this, huh?”

I look at the driver who has been looking straight this whole time, and then back at the guy with the gun. He’s still screaming, his voice so high-pitched I believe he wouldn’t have any problem playing at the idols.

“Shut up,” I tell him and he seals his lips shut tight. It’s not that he wants to speak and his lips don’t open. He just doesn’t want to speak. That’s how my powers work. I can do this much but I’m no Bruce almighty. I can’t make a monkey magically appear out of anyone’s ass.

“Put the gun away and stay in the car,” I say again. “There are children here. Don’t you have common sense?”

If shutting him up only got me his friend's attention, then making him put his gun away made them sweat.

The driver, who’s most likely their leader could no longer ignore me and looks over the car window. His eyes flicker with interest. He’s not scared, only fascinated. That much I can see.

“What are you doing? Why are you doing as he’s telling you to do?” The yellow-haired boy –he’s the youngest among the four of them—tells the bald guy, but the bald guy has nothing to say. He glares, but that is the limit of what he can do at this moment. His anger is still there, he simply has no way to show it since I forbid him from speaking and acting up.

“So what do you want?” I ask the guy in the black Gucci hat. He’s wearing a Supreme t-shirt (which I’m sure is a collector’s item), has Rolex on his wrist, and has no respect for money.

He exhales a chest full of smoke from his nose then speaks out, “My boss wants the car back. And he wants us to take you away.”

His friends glance at him in togetherness. The heavy guy is simply confused why everyone’s talking so much today. His shock is the easiest to see; he has long stopped munching on fries and seems to have lost his appetite.

“Where’s Nick?”
“He has been detained.”

I shake my head. I made the mistake of sending Nick into the tiger's den with blood all over his body. I should have known better. The bosses behind him wouldn’t react kindly to his request to quit dealing drugs. Thankfully, he’s not dead. It’s a relief.

“Well, you can tell your boss. I took the car from Nick and I’ll give it back to him when I meet him. As for meeting your boss -- give me his address and phone number. I’ll call him when I’m free.”

“Sure,” The leader is about to give me the address when the yellowed haired boy and the heavy guy speak out behind him. “Nigger, what are you doing? Why are you acting like his bitch?”
“What?” The driver speaks. His voice so low it can make hell freeze twice over.
“He asked for the digits so of course I have to give them to him. What’s wrong with you two?”
“Nigga, you don’t have to give him shit!”

The hat guy shakes his head and turns to me, “Forget about him. I’ll message you the digit.

“Fuck!” The yellowed haired guy grabs his hair with both hands, not believing the things happening in front of his eyes.

“Did you take my number from Nick?” I ask the guy and he nods.
“Yea. We took everything from him when we tied him upside down naked in the factory.” The smile tells me he enjoys torturing others. And that he plans to do the same to me or worst. We’ll see about that.

The yellow-haired guy turns to the heavy guy sitting at the back. “Aren’t you going to stop him?”

“I don’t think I can.” The person says. He’s the calmest among them. It’s almost like everything happening here has nothing to do with him.

I get the message and see the address and the phone number neatly written.

 “I almost forgot. What’s the name of your boss?”

“He’s Frank Lucas, Jr. of Englewood, but everyone calls him the preacher.”

“Thanks. And don’t camp here like you are in the counter strike and waiting for enemies to appear. You are going to scare parents. I don’t want a rumor about a school shooting to spread in my school. We already have too much shit to deal with.”

“Sure,”

I turn the car around and wave them goodbye on the way back to the school, leaving the Latino dazed and confused. I don’t doubt he will be thinking about leaving the gang after this experience. I know I would.