Chapter 14: Kush

Kush frowned and scowled when he saw me walking through the door of White Castle. I stood there for a moment staring at a young man I thought I'd never see again. He was young and healthy. He still had all of his teeth, and his looks hadn't been ravaged by crack, meth, heroine, ecstasy, and countless other drugs.

"What's up, Kenya?" he called from across the nearly empty restaurant.

A little white boy turned to look at me as if he didn't realize that Kenya was more than just a place.

I went up to the counter. "Can you take a break?"

He frowned. "Is everything all right?"

"Yeah. But I need to talk to you."

His frown deepened. "Okay, give me a minute."

I took a seat enjoying the aroma of steamed onions and the succulent sliders—a food item that I hadn't consumed since my stomach stopped properly digesting nearly everything I had enjoyed eating as a kid.

Kush brought over two cups of Coca Cola and slid one to me. He was handsome and looked just like our dad. He could have been so much…

"What's wrong?" he asked.

I took a deep breath. "Mama thinks I'm on drugs."

He stared at me as if I was simpleminded. "Well, are you?"

"No."

He rolled his eyes. "So…why are you telling me this? What's this got to do with me?"

"Because you are the reason she thinks I'm on drugs. She thinks that I'm following in your footsteps." Kush opened his mouth, but I continued. "Only I'm not following in your footsteps. Thanks to you I will never so much as smoke a joint, and neither will Nubia. Watching you destroy your life will forever change us."

"What in the hell are you talking about?" he scowled.

"You're probably not an addict…yet. But you will be. You will steal from all of us, including Mama."

"Kenya, you're nuts!" he sputtered.

"You're going to go to jail for breaking and entering. You're going to rob a house in Amberly Village, but the woman who owns it will be home. You're going to point a gun at her, and when you get caught, you're going away for years. In prison you're going to develop a hardcore addiction, some jailhouse tats…and probably a boyfriend."

His scowl deepened. "You are right out of your—"

"Your favorite drug is going to be crack," I interrupted. "I don't think it's been invented yet, but it's a cheap potent version of cocaine."

"Whoa, Kenya. What is your malfunction? You walk in here talking all this crazy shit—"

"I'm trying to save your life, Kush," I interrupted. "I'm just trying to save your life."

He looked away. "You don't know what you're talking about." He turned angrily back to stare at me. "I don't know what the hell is going on here, but you're wacked! Now go home!" He jumped up and stormed away.

Of course he was going to do that. I was telling him about things that hadn't happened yet. Of course he wouldn't believe me. And I didn't know much about what had led him down this road.

Wait…

"Dad told you that you're the man of the house. He told you to take care of Mama, me, and Nubia."

His steps faltered and he looked at me from over his shoulder.

Our Dad had died of lung cancer when I was seven. Making a nine-year-old boy the man of the house had obviously been a responsibility that had been more than my brother could handle.

He had never spoken of this with any of us. But once, after a stint in rehab, he had written me a letter. It was part of his recovery. Kush had blamed his downfall on that one request. I'd been pissed at his lack of self-responsibility. The important thing was that if what he had written was true, he had never told anyone bout that conversation.

Kush looked at me, his face going from anger to confusion and then back to anger. His jaw clenched, and he turned and went back to the kitchen area.

My body deflated. A sense of panic made me want to hop up and chase after him. If he didn't change, then I would never go home!

The little boy caught my attention. He was walking toward me. Where was the kid's mother? MLK wasn't necessarily a bad neighborhood, but it wasn't one that had many white faces.

I wasn't in the mood to deal with a lost kid trying to find his mommy or daddy, but I still couldn't turn away. He looked about ten years old and had straggly blond hair. He was wearing an oversized camo jacket, cut-off jeans that reached his knees, and combat boots. His blue eyes narrowed as he stared at me. That was strange enough, but what I saw clenched in his hands actually knocked the wind from my body.

It was a gray envelope that shimmered as if dusted by diamonds.

"Kenya," he said with eyes bright with excitement.

My eyes barely moved from the envelope. He was holding the envelope.

"Thank God!" he said. "I thought I was going to have to go to Africa."

I was so focused on that envelope that I barely registered his words. "Where did you get that?" I nearly shouted.

His eyes looked suddenly bored. "Now that's the big question. Maybe we can go somewhere and talk?"

I focused my attention on the kid. He didn't talk like a kid. I mean, he had the voice of a child, but his words…

He gestured for me to follow him outside. I looked over my shoulder at the counter where Kush would be, but I didn't see him. I shook my head and followed the boy outside.

"How do you know my name? How did you get that envelope?" I had so many questions but didn't know how to form them.

"First of all, I gather you've received an envelope similar to this one."

It never occurred to me that the envelope in his hands wasn't mine, and then I understood why the boy who talked like a man was standing in front of me with an envelope similar to mine.

"It…it happened to you, too?" I asked in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

"If you mean did I go to sleep in one time and then wake up in another, then yes." He held out his hand for me to shake. "My name is Bill, Bill Ealy. And I'm from the future."

After shaking his hand, I stared at him, feeling hot and cold as if I was going to black out. It had never crossed my mind that I wasn't the only one. Of course I wasn't. Tears sprouted in my eyes, and I tried not to hyperventilate or sniffle cry like babies do.

"It's okay," Bill said. "I understand. You're okay." He patted my back awkwardly.

"Is this real?" I croaked. "Because…because..."

"I know," Bill said. "It's crazy. Let's get out of here and I'll tell you what I know."

I followed the little boy with the combat boots and oversized camo jacket across the street to a parked car with black tinted windows. He got into the driver's side, and when I hesitated he gestured with his head for me to get in on the passenger's side. This wasn't the craziest thing to happen to me, so I did as he said.

"I live a short distance from here. We can talk there." Bill started up the car and pulled out into traffic.

He was so little that I couldn't believe that he was capable of handling a car. "Uh…"I said hesitantly. "Should you be driving?"

"Well, for the most part the cops don't stop me, tinted windows and all. When I do get questioned I explain that I'm a little person. I also have a fake license. Cost a shit-ton to get made but…" He shrugged. "But one must do what one must do."

I kept staring at him not believing what my eyes were seeing. "How old are you?"

He drove with confidence although he was barely big enough to see over the dashboard. "Technically I'm forty-eight. But here I'm eleven."

I digested that for a long moment. "How did you get here?"

He was fiddling with the radio controls, which made me nervous. My eyes had me convinced that this was an underage child attempting to drive and not a grown man trapped in the body of a child. He stopped when he got to a John Mellencamp tune that I recognized called "Jack and Diane." Of course his name had been John Cougar when this song first came out.

Bill bobbed his head and sang for a few moments. "I love this tune." He glanced at me. "First things first. What were you doing at that restaurant and who was that guy? Is he like us, from the future?"

"No, that's my brother. I was trying to tell him…I guess to convince him to straighten out his life."

Bill frowned. "You're new. How long have you been here, Kenya?"

New? "Two days. How long have you been here?"

He didn't reply for a long while. When he did he was staring at the road. "Two years."

"Two years!" I screeched. "Two years…that means you were nine years old when you got here!"

"Technically I was eight," he said ruefully. "I just had a birthday."

I sank into my seat. I was getting hit with more and more reality. And it was becoming clear that I was never going back to my real time.