Red Eyes: Turned Out

Lamar hadn't ever thought that he'd be a drug dealer. His grandma had once told him that the streets were dark and dangerous. She had said that the only reason they looked like the easy way was because he couldn't see above them. She'd poked him in the chest with a stubby Vienna sausage fingertip. “Be aware of all the people around you. The crackheads. The meth monkeys. The whores on the corners that smile through the pain. There are dozens of dead ends in Lickton and most of end with you being zipped up in a body bag. Be smarter. Do good in school and get out of here.”

When he was a sophomore in high school he'd fucked up. Went to a party and got a hoodrat pregnant. She'd told him she was on the pill and either she'd lied or it had failed. He suspected it was the former but either way his life had changed with the birth of his daughter.

He had dropped out to get a job at the Ramada Inn but it hadn't been enough. Money for diapers, for formula, for his girl's habit. He saw only one solution: the street.