Jungle

Chapter 25

New Years Eve

Their third day in Chicago, Rico and Alexis got up early to see the city. Alexis' cousin was the tour guide and she was making sure they were enjoying their stay in her city. At the moment they were riding around the westside of Chicago and it was about time for them to eat.

"What y'all want first, Harold's or Portillo's?" Her cousin, Gabrielle asked.

"Portillo's." Alexis answered.

"Cousin, I can't believe it's been this long since we've seen each other. I remember I hated taking those long trips down south, but it was so much fun spending the night at your place." Gabrielle smiled.

"It wasn't fun cause you used to always make me get beatings." Alexis joked.

"On baby, we stayed getting our ass beat, G." She laughed.

"So what part of New Orleans you from?" Gabrielle looked in the backseat at Rico since he had been quiet the whole ride.

"Downtown." He answered.

"Lex, have I been there when I would visit? I know you from where Master P was from, uptown?" Gabrielle tried to remember what New Orleans was like.

"You've been downtown, just not where he's from. He from the ninth ward and yeah I'm from uptown, third ward, Calliope." Alexis proudly threw up her hood.

"I need to visit sometime soon. Y'all got to see my stomping grounds so I wanna see what it's like down there. You smoke, Rico?"

"Yeah." He was happy to hear about some weed.

"Y'all accents so cute, shorty. Even little shit like yeah sound good coming from y'all mouth. Hea' roll this up." She passed some weed to the backseat.

"Y'all the ones with the accents and crazy slang. On folks nem, on baby. You put something on everybody." Alexis told her.

Rico laughed from the backseat as he continued rolling up. Gabrielle arrived at Portillo's and parked the car so her and Rico could smoke before going in. After their quick smoke session, they entered Portillo's. Portillo's was mostly famous for its hot dogs, but they were there for another famous thing on the menu, Italian beef sandwiches. As they waited in the line, Alexis looked at the menu to see what else they served.

"Y'all want the sausage on y'alls?" Gabrielle asked because she was going to be the one placing the order.

"Whatever you recommend. I never had it before so I don't know the difference." Rico told her.

"Aight. We all getting hot and sweet peppers with the Italian sausage on it."

"I don't like peppers like that." Alexis said.

"You tweaking shorty, the peppers fye." Gabrielle smacked her lips.

Alexis sighed and agreed on the peppers. Once Gabrielle got to the register, she placed the order for three Italian beef sandwiches with peppers, an Italian sausage down the middle, and the sandwich dipped in the juice the meat was slowly cooked in. She paid for it, took a number and they found a seat.

About ten minutes later, their order was ready. The three of them sat at a table and took off the wrapping to reveal the Chicago favorite. The Italian loaf of bread was soaked in well seasoned juice with meat and peppers sticking out from each end. Rico wasted no time and took a bite to see what the hype was about. The trio combination of the thinly sliced meat, the sausage, and peppers had his tastebuds tingling. Alexis wasn't a big fan of peppers, but she didn't mind them on the sandwich.