Over the next few months...I guess it was a few months, but time was really all over the place while I was in the hospital....I went through three more surgeries. The first two didn't help. I, personally, think the first one messed my back up even more. After the third surgery, the feeling started to come back some, but my back hurt like a bitch. I stayed drugged up. My legs felt like they were waking up, instead of falling asleep...which is freaky as shit by the way...and my muscles would jump all the time on their own. But I guess the fact that I could feel anything at all was something...

Charity's summer vacation ended, so she wasn't around as much anymore, and after the sorry ass laws finally caught Rico, Jazz wasn't around as much after that, either. I guess she figured with Rico locked up, she was good. Nobody ever went on the block to question anyone about shit, before or after they found Rico...which I thought was weird. No laws, no Feds. Nobody. Apparently all that time Remmey had been running way more shit than I thought. He was just so lo-key about it, I didn't even know. Jazz eventually left the hospital and went to stay with mamA. She stayed there until they caught up with Rico. But as soon as they locked him up, Jazz started fuckin' up again.

One day, I woke up and Charity was standing over my bed like she wanted to tell me something.

"What?"

"Jazz is getting high again."

"Shit." I laid back and closed my eyes, but I couldn't go back to sleep. I was exhausted. Still being alive was exhausting me. And they were just starting to ween me off the morphine, too, so I was also hurting like a bitch.

After the last surgery, I had started regaining some mobility, but damn. This shit was unreal. I could see why Jazz wanted to stay high all the time. Without the morphine, it was all coming into focus.

All of it.

I shook my head and looked back at Charity. Rico hadn't even been locked up a month and Jazz was already back out on the street.

"Wally B wants to send her to rehaB)"

I shook my head no. "Rehab won't do shit for Jazz. Tell mama to take her to church." Charity rolled her eyes. "Tell Wallace to bring her back here to detox again, and then tell mama to keep her in church. All the time. You know y'all go like 'er day, Charity. Tell her to take Jazz witchyall. She needs to stay busy."

Charity shook her head. "Jazz only stayed in here last time because she was afraid to go outside."

I closed my eyes. She had a point. When I opened them again, Charity was leaned back in her chair, staring at her nails. I knew she was in deep thought.

"What?"

Her eyes lifted up toward me and she put her fingers down. "They said they're gonna start rehabbing you soon. So you can walk again..."

I nodded. She was looking like that was a bad thing.

"So...are you goin' back to it, too? Once you get out?"

I knew what she meant. "I hope not."

"I think you and Jazz should get out of here. Away from all this."

"Yeah..."

I left it at that. I had told Jazz that a million times, but now that I had so much time to think about it, what else did we really even know how to do?

I took in my sister's soft features. She looked more beautiful every day. More like mama and Jazz every time I saw her. I hoped nobody was fuckin' wit' her, because I couldn't do shit about it if they were.

"Charity...I don't know...what else there is to do..."

She nodded. She knew I didn't know anything other than what I had already been doing. That's why she brought it up. I wasn't even in the grade that I was supposed to be in, because I never went to school. I never went to school. Who had time for that shit?

"Yeah..." She nodded thoughtfully, like she was trying to figure out a plan for me. For the first time in a long time, I felt like she was the big sister, and I was the little brother. It was kind of nice. She suddenly stood up. "I gotta go."

"You alright?" She nodded. "Aight then..." I was kind of disappointed. It got boring as hell in there when no one was around, and all the dumb shit on TV just grated on my nerves, so I never watched it. Sometimes some of the nurses would come in and talk to me, but only when they had time. One of the nurses, who remembered me from when I used to come visit Sammy, found out that I was in there and would come down and talk to me whenever she could. But other than that...it was just me, God, and a whole lot of thinking about shit that I didn't want to think about.

Charity bent over the rail to hug me. "Love you, little brother."

I hugged her back. "Love you, too."

I slept for most of the rest of that day, but Charity must have gone straight home and told Wallace what I said, because when I woke up again, he was kicked back in a chair watching the game like we were old friends. I knew something was up because they never turned the TV on in my room. Everyone always moved real quiet around me.

Like I was sick.

Or dying...

When Wallace noticed that I was awake and staring at him, he gave me an upward nod and then nodded to the TV.

"Bulls." Then he went back to watching the game. When Jordan dunked, he slapped his hands together and shouted "Ha!"

My eye twitched. Too much commotion annoyed me.

Wallace looked over and apologized. "Sorry 'bout that. I love this game!" He looked back over at the TV, then back at me. "Ever been to Chicago?" I shook my head no. I had never been outside of Houston. "Hmm." He went back to watching the game.

It was pretty boring if you asked me. I mean, you can only watch grown men run back and forth after each other for so long before you start to wonder what the hell their life was really about.

Wallace glanced over at me like he read my mind. "You know, son..."

My eye twitched again. "I'm not your son." I was aggravated when I woke up. Charity had put too many things on my mind, and I was thinking about all of them the whole time I was sleep.

Now here come Wallace with all this damn noise.

Wallace didn't even blink. I had never seen anything faze him. I thought again about trying to be more like that. Not that I wanted to be like Wallace. I just figured that it would work to my advantage if people didn't know when they were pissing me off. Especially now that I couldn't do shit about it if they were.

"Ok, stepson." He watched me like Rico always did, waiting for a reaction. He didn't get one. I wasn't even sure how to react to that. Rico was more like my stepfather than this dude. "The game is a great way to relieve stress. To...check out sometimes. You know how to play?" I shook my head no. He nodded. "I'll teach you."

Wallace was trippin'. I couldn't even get out the bed by myself. Maybe he could teach me something more useful.

"You used to be on, right?" He continued to watch me, but his face never changed. "In Baton Rouge...in the 70s, right?" I let him know two things right then. A. I had done my research on him. B) He was a has-been. And I knew that, too.

He looked at me for a minute longer, and then back at the game. "Nah."

He knew where I was going with it, but Wallace was one of those OGs that never talked about what he may or may not have done at some point back in the day. I looked back at the game, too, and decided to come at him another way.

"Thanks for helping me take care of the women."

Wallace chuckled. "No problem."

Enough trying to get under this dude's skin. It wasn't happening. I got straight to the point.

"My aunt's not going to rehaB)"

Wallace didn't say anything. He just looked at me and waited for me to state my case. Something else that I should learn how to do, that might work to my advantage, while I was trying to get back to one hundred. It didn't register fully at the time, but in that one conversation I started to acknowledge the fact that zero to a hundred Kenney had to go. I couldn't even move that fast anymore. I couldn't even move at all anymore. Not from the waist down. I was at zero, and there was no one hundred for me, possibly ever again. I needed a new...everything.

I watched Wallace while he watched me.

"Jazz won't survive in there by herself," I continued. "She needs to be out here with us. She..." my voice trailed off while I formed my words carefully. I didn't want Wallace to think she was soft, that he could just do anything to her while I was laid up and couldn't get to him. "She's...not like mamA. She wouldn't survive on her own."

Now, Wallace more than watched me. He observed me. Everything about me. Like Rico. Then he nodded and turned back to the game. Wallace had a way of silently letting you know that he heard you, and that you didn't have to repeat yourself. I decided to pick that trick up, too, since I hated ma' fuckas telling me the same thing twice.

Wallace sat and watched the game while I sat and watched him. I could tell he knew I had my eyes on him, but he was kind of kicked back like shit lil nigga, look. Like I didn't even faze him. At all. Wallace acted like he didn't have shit else to do but sit there and be observed by some lil niggA. I could tell that's how he saw me and what he was thinking. That's how he had always seen me. As some little kid. Not Little Rico, definitely not Scarface. Just some little dude that was his woman's son. It was weird being around Wallace most of the time, because I wasn't just some little dude. I ran everybody's shit.

And I had been doing that for a very long time.

"Thought about going back to school?" Wallace eventually asked, eyes still on the TV.

Was he serious? Did he not see all this shit going on around me?

"Nah." I also looked straight at the TV. Fucking Charity and her big ass mouth.

"You need to."

I quickly sat up, as much as I could sit up, and stared at Wallace. Did this ma' sucka just tell me what I NEED to do?

"How tha fuck you think I'ma do that?" My mind still jumped quick, even if my body couldn't.

Wallace didn't even turn my way. He just kept watching the game.

"Be easy, son."

That's all he said.

I sat back and relaxed. That's all I could do. I wasn't in the mood for this shit. It was time for him to go.

We watched the rest of the game in silence, and then he stood up and slapped me five. I chuckled. OG.

"Aight then." I nodded to him.

And he left.