Chapter 6

Senior Prom.

 Carmen’s’ brother Manny picked us up. Letting us know….letting me know that my big brother was dead. Shay was dead. He got shot by some guys buying drugs. It was a rough night. Carmen’s other brother Leon went looking for the guys who killed Shay. Five hours later he was dead. Manny called a truce then killed everyone under the truce, it was a bad thing to do but after that the killing stopped.

My mother never forgave me for my continued support of the Morales clan. I was thrown out of the house. I moved in with Carmen and her brother. We mourned the only way knew how. We got wasted and robbed some stores. We went on a suicide run. How many could we hit till we got shot or caught. Neither happened. Carmen and I lived in a way I didn’t think was possible. We got high, we got in the car and we went.

Manny got bigger and bigger and bigger jobs and we went. Carmen and I got closer and closer and we went. She left her tag on the walls, me smoking cigarettes just watching, soaking her in. She made me feel like every moment was the last, the last kiss, the breath, the last.

One day bled into the next and the day turned into a year.

In that year we reaped more havoc on the world than we could handle. In order to crash we did a lot of drugs. Our favorite drug was heroin. Liquid fire, ice caps melting, junk, smack, god there were so many words for it. So many songs for it my favorite Junk Head by Alice in Chains. And no there was nothing worse than a dealer who was high….

 Carmen didn’t come home one night. We looked, searched everywhere, put the word out that she was missing. Some knock on the door and a tip that some college kid she was scoring from had her. We went to the campus and found him. And he had her….all tied up….blood on the filthy rag in her mouth. I don’t know what he was thinking. Manny told me to handle it because if I didn’t he was gonna face a murder rap…he had too many.