Ganja on Fourth Street

Epilogue

Sixteen Years Later

Ethan Jackson walked into his small apartment he shared with his aunt and took off his shoes at the door before greeting his aunty who was on the couch watching the news.

"Hey aunty." He said avoiding the proper greeting which consisted of a kiss on the cheek or at least a hug.

"Come here." She said sternly as the thick smell of weed penetrated her nostrils. Ethan sucked his teeth before turning around, standing in place.

Shade looked at him, "I said come here."

He rolled his eyes and walked over to him. She quickly grabbed his jean jacket and put it up to her nose, inhaling the scent that was so strong, she couldn't deny her nephew was involved in some shit.

"I wasn't smoking, Shade. It was Jonsey and them."

"Don't tell me any shit, Ethan. Sit down..."

Ethan sucked his teeth once again, "Shade I'm tired. School got me beat and I just want to shower and go to sleep."

"That's great, I didn't ask. Now sit your ass right there and let me tell you something."

She waited for him to sit on the couch facing her. She grabbed the remote and turned of the television before getting up and going over to her room. She opened her top drawer and picked up an old picture of Laken and Emmanuel together at the rink on a random night. Shade had it printed out right after the fatal night for a conversation like this.

She walked back into the living room and put the picture on the table before sitting back down, "who are they?"

Ethan knew who his parents were, just didn't know much about them. As far as he was concerned, his mother died shortly after giving birth to him because of a screw up with the delivery and his father died from depression shortly after.

As he grew up, the details got a bit more shady but he never took it upon himself to figure it out. He didn't have that much of a connection towards them so he didn't find the need to.

"My parents." He simply answered.

"Do you know what they was about?"

"She died after giving birth to me and he died of depression, right?" He went with the story he was told most of his life.

She shook her head, "unfortunately that was a lie. I'm about to put you on to the real deal...your at that age where you deserve to know what happened and hopefully you can learn from their story."

Ethan leaned back, prepared for a story he was underestimating before it even started.

"I did my brother wrong by letting his son do whatever he pleased as long as he got himself home at a decent hour. He got caught up in the wrong things...instead of being focused on school he was focused on making a quick buck. Can I blame him? No, there were times where I didn't have shit to give him because I had so much to deal with at the time."

Ethan started to get more intrigued by the story.

"He got into that shit...weed. Most likely from one of his dumbass friends. I guess he finally learned he could make money selling that shit so he did just that...started selling a couple baggies and made a name for himself around the neighborhood. They called him The Plug because he was the only one who was getting business around here."