Once You Go Hood.....

Chapter 9: Welcome To The Hood Pt.2

"It don't matter. Just grab a box of joint papers. I'm tryna save my Swishers." he replied. I looked at him like he was stupid.

"Like I'm supposed to know what that is." I said. I shook my head and grabbed one of the open boxes. I walked it back over to him and placed it on the bed next to him before I sat down again.

"These is Swishers but, it's cool. Come'ere. I'm bout to show you how to roll up." he said.

"What I need to learn that for? It ain't like I smoke." I said. He smiled.

"What if you date somebody that do? A female that can roll up, that shit is sexy to a nigga." he said. I smirked.

"I'm never gonna date anybody that smokes. I think it's unattractive." I said. He shrugged.

"Never say never, ma." he said before he stood up and pulled a tray from under his bed and sat down next to me on the couch. He pulled some weed buds out of the bag and sat them on top of the tray before he grounded them up and pulled out some rolling papers. I watched as he took all the intricate steps to rolling up the blunt and then took a lighter out of his pocket. and waved the flame over the outside, makin sure it was wrapped tight. He looked over at me after a minute.

"Think you can do it?" he asked. I shrugged. It didn't seem all that hard. I had watched him do it right in fornt of me so it wasn't like I had no clue of what I was doing.

"I guess." I replied. He sat the tray on my lap and handed me the bag of weed and the rolling papers. I took some weed out of the bag and grounded it up like I had watched him do, then proceeded to roll it up. He watched me carefully and every so often coached me on how to do a certain step. I held up the blunt to my mouth a licked the rolling paper to get it to roll correctly and then rolled the it. It had a sweet taste to it, sort of like strawberries. I looked down at the box which read 'Strawberry Swisher Sweets'. Figures. Once I was finished, I grabbed the lighter from his hand and did as he did to his blunt. I handed it to him and he looked at me seemingly surprised.

"Damn. I ain't never seen nobody learn that fast." I shrugged again.

"I guess I'm a fast learner." He smiled at me and took the blunt out of my hand.

"We'll see. You can roll a blunt but can you smoke one?" I arched my eyebrow at him.

"Who said I wanted to?" I asked.

"Nobody, if I remember correctly." he said before he lit one of the blunts and held it up to his mouth. He sucked on it for a few seconds before he took it away from his mouth and held the smoke in, then blew it out. Smoke bellowed from his mouth like a chimney and his eyes went relaxed.

"So what's up? You down or what? Either way it go, you 'gon get some kinda high cuz just bein in the same room as me 'gon get you a contact high." he said. I was not about to be another teen statistic, givin into peer pressure to try drugs. Never that.

"I'm cool. Drugs are just not my M.O."

He shrugged in indifference and laid back on the couch, slingin his arm over the back of the couch so that it was behind me. We sat there in silence for a minute. He was enjoying his blunt and I was just staring blankly at the TV. I really didn't know what to do with myself. I mean here I was, with a complete stranger, involuntarily getting a contact high and watching ESPN. Not exactly what I call fun. I could be at home, crying my eyes out and eating ice cream right now. I almost had the mind to ask him to take me home. That's exactly what I intended to do before he began to talk.

"So tell me about yourself, ma." he said. I looked over at him as he puffed on the blunt.

"What do you wanna know?" I asked. He took another drag of the blunt before he looked over at me.