Jun 219 min read

Third Place: The Accident

Updated: Sep 19

The Accident

by J. C. Cole

Third Place

This piece includes language and themes that may be offensive to some.

Who we decide to spend our time with rubs off on us like a strong perfume. It affects the way we dress, the way we act, and how we hold ourselves up for the world to see. We often latch onto the group and test how much we are able to articulate ourselves within it, as we slowly but surely discover who we truly are as individuals. I don’t like this, but you do, so we must be nothing alike.

We’ll try different things, different people, different lovers and different enemies, weaving the fabric of our social circle as we grow into a person. We criss and we cross our paths, latching onto each other, detaching and trying again, until it feels just right. Until it feels genuine. I like this, you like this, so we must be friends.

Sixteen was a year of ceaseless, never-ending discovery. By this time I had finally found my niche of compatible comrades to spend all of my time with. We all agreed on the incredible shortness of life, and how quickly our youth would fade. We took advantage of every waking moment, and refused to conform to the pressures of school or the establishment. Because of this, we were all quickly labeled as the troublemakers, and would often be picked on by the administrators of every public institution in which we would step foot.

The easiest thing for them to do was to kick me out. On numerous occasions, I received no warning, nor any guidance. I was issued immediate suspensions, over and over again. I spent more time out of high school than I spent in it, and as a result, my grades took a nosedive. By my junior year, my report cards were showing straight F’s in all subjects save one. I received a C in fitness walking.

No one thought I was worth the effort to try and manage me or help me to uncover any of the reasons behind my rebellious attitudes. Every time I was reprimanded, it all but reinforced my disdain for them. I was a different kind of kid, and they had no idea how to handle me. As a result, I was left with no guidance, and all the time in the world to figure it all out on my own.

Up the hill, right at the stop sign, down the street, another right, and to the bottom of the hill, was the town's one and only trailer park. It would be the place that I spent a lot of my wandering around years, and where I would meet many of my friends for our afternoon and late night shenanigans. The park was a free for all, for all variations of ne'er do wells. Low income, welfare recipients, ex convicts, drug dealers, drug addicts, alcoholics, gangsters, junkies, you name it. The trailer park was home to a circus of good-for-nothings. Or at least that's how everyone else saw it.

For us, it was a safe haven for us teenagers to do drugs, smoke, or drink worry free and without anyone ever batting an eye. In fact, it was the tenants of these trailer renters that would help us score our weed, or booze or cigarettes, in exchange for their own weed, or booze or cigarettes. “I won’t say anything if you don’t say anything,” was the common phrase. And that's how things went.

As a sixteen year old without a job, I was often limited with my twenty dollar per week allowance. Movie money is how I pitched it to my parents. When in reality, I used the income for my weekly cigarettes, and dime bag, which I would almost immediately exhaust within days of receiving it. I had to find a way to up my game, so they say. So I decided to deal.

Tyrell and Javon were two of maybe four other black kids that lived in our town. They were older. Like in their twenties older. They didn’t go to our school, and kept a low key profile. They spent most of their time in the park slinging weed and drinking forties of Old English on the porch of their trailer. They were tough, but kind, and took an immediate interest in me.

Being a black man in a town full of white folks, you were instantly labeled as a delinquent, gangbanger, or thug. Tyrell and Javon were no exception. They were cast out of society before they ever had a chance, and had to make do on their own terms. And sometimes making due meant breaking some laws. Laws that were meant to keep them out of a more privileged society.

Tyrell had just come back from spending a few months in the state penitentiary for some non-violent crime he had committed. He was on a thing called probation, and risked going back if he was caught doing anything he wasn’t supposed to. Since no one in town was willing to give work to either Tyrell or Javon, they often had to resort to more discrete ways of making money. So they sold weed.

Since Tyrell couldn’t afford to be caught, both him and Javon had an idea. “Say bruh. How do you feel about making a little extra green on the side,” Javon hinted, as I handed him a ten for a ten sack. I had no idea what he was talking about, so he elaborated. “How do you feel about coming to work for us? Make us some money, and in exchange, your ganja is free?” Javon took a swig of his forty, and elbowed Tyrell. “Whaddya say?” Tyrell double downed.

The next week I went back to pick up my first ounce. Up until that point, I had never seen so much weed in my life. Along with it, they handed me a scale and some sandwich bags, as I nervously stuffed them inside of my school bag before giving them a quick nod. They said I should start at the high school. I was a student there already, and me and only me, would be able to access the many clientele that were there. I agreed.

The first week went by in a breeze. I sold my first bag on Monday, and was able to meet my quota by Thursday, leaving the rest of the ounce to either keep or sell. Since I would have spent my money on more pot anyway, I decided to keep what was left. I returned to the porch of Tyrell and Javon with a wad of cash. “My nigga!” Javon gave me an approving bro handshake before counting the bills.

The next week they gave me two ounces. I had it sold by the following friday. And on it went, for the next few weeks. I was slowly drawing more and more attention from the students of the junior and senior class. People who I wouldn’t even expect to talk to were coming up to me and asking things like, “Say. I heard that you were good friends with the jolly green giant,” or “Did you have an aunt Mary by any chance?” Everyone was smoking. And I mean everyone. Even the jocks became buddy buddy with me.

News travels fast, and for me it was a blessing and a curse. Soon enough the school authorities caught wind of what was going on, and called me into the principal's office. I was all too familiar with the set up. College degrees on the wall, some motivational poster, and a seat way too comfortable for its own good. Perhaps it was because I had sat so many times in that seat that it now had the permanent impressions of my rear end in its cushion.

In the room sat the principal, vice principal and the school counselor. They all looked extremely uncomfortable, like they had giant sticks in their asses. I leaned back and slouched low in my chair. “Do you know why we brought you in today?” The principal spoke. I shook my head and played dumb. He raised an eyebrow and spoke again. “The reason we brought you in here today, is that there was a rumor around school that you were dealing dope. Are you dealing dope?” The principal's eyes stared down at me without blinking. I remained slouched in my chair, shaking my head with a hesitant, no.

“Then I guess you wouldn’t mind if we took a look through your bag,” he insisted. He motioned to the counselor, who picked up my black Jansport bag with the iron on Rancid patches, and unzipped it. He reached his hand in and brought out a pencil. “How’d that get in there?” I asked sarcastically. “Don’t get smart with me,” the principal retorted.

I wasn’t worried. The stash was at home. I wasn’t the brightest kid, but I knew it would be pretty stupid to be carrying around dozens of grams of illegal drugs willy-nilly like that. The counselor continued to dig through my bag. He brought out my cigarettes. “How old are you?” The vice principal asked knowing full well I wasn’t old enough to have bought them. The counselor set the pack on the table and kept digging.

“What do we have here?” As soon as the words left his mouth, he pulled out a slightly used corn cob pipe, within its bowl, lay a slightly burnt nugget of grass. “Fuck,” I said out loud. When they finally finished fishing through the bag, they laid all the evidence on the table in front of me. The room fell so quiet you could hear a mouse fart. The principal then nodded to the others as they both left the room, leaving the two of us alone.

I was suspended for ninety days. A sentence that would surely send me into the realm of highschool dropout. The principle had an ultimatum however. He always had an ultimatum. If I attended a weekly drug counseling course, I would be saved from suspension. Of course they wrapped my poor mother into it. So I didn’t have a choice. From that day, my marijuana slinging days were done. The next day I returned everything to my forty drinking friends in the trailer park. The risk was too high now. Fortunately for me they understood.

None of this stopped me from continuing my journey in teenage rebellion. It only added fuel to it. Everytime I lit up was a ‘fuck you’ to the man. My friends shared the sentiment. We would often spend our time outside of school riding around in each other's second hand cars, hotboxing the interiors. We would discretely park our cars outside Cherry’s or Cyndi’s and light up, until there was so much smoke built up inside that we couldn’t see our hands even if we held them up in front of our faces.

We did this while driving as well. We would all pile into one of our friends' tinted windowed two door sedan. Five of us. Three in the back, two up front, as we passed the bowl around, and drove aimlessly around town. How we were never caught, I do not know.

Like clockwork, we all met at Crystal’s with our favorite glass pipes, and bags full of purple sticky punch, and loaded into the car. Paul, Brittany and I took the back, while Dylan took shotgun. As soon as Crystal popped the car into reverse, we lit up. One, two, three pipes of different shapes and sizes circled around the car, as the interior began to grow dimmer from the smoke. We drove up and down the streets to the rhythm of some blunt rap songs, as we all steadily grew higher and higher.

Nobody saw it coming. We had done this so many times, that none of us would ever expect what was about to happen to us. But unfortunately it did happen. And it would shake us all to our very core.

We drove down the main road, down the hill into the valley of our town. I wasn’t paying much attention to the road, but why would I? I was too busy making silly gestures to Paul who sat squished next to me, pressing his face against a lit pipe. When BAM! Crystal ran a red light. Sending a Jeep directly into the passenger side of the car. The car bent and the window smashed, as Dylan’s head made its way through the window and onto the hood, cracking open his face and skull.

Crystal managed to pull the car over to the side of the road. We all piled out, dazed and confused. Dylan stepped out of the car holding both of his hands over his face, as blood dripped and spurt from the injury to his head. We heard sirens in the distance, as I laid him down, removed my t-shirt and covered the right side of his face.

As my shirt turned from white to crimson, Dylan began to whisper. I couldn’t quite hear what he was saying so I leaned in closer. I waited patiently as I placed my earlobe within an inch of his lips when I finally heard him say, “Hide the weed!”

Winning pieces are published as received.

Fiction Potluck

April 2024

Third Place Winner:

J. C. Cole

Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, J. C. Cole spent most of his young adult life dearly holding on to the dying art and music scenes of Seattle, Washington. After finishing his degrees, he became a school teacher, focusing primarily on helping kids become better people. He met his beautiful wife and mother to their future two sons in the most unlikely of circumstances. They quickly married, and with nothing but two suitcases and the clothes on his back, flew to Amsterdam to be with her. It was there where he took on the project to write his first book "Beginnings." He has recently completed a short story anthology, an interactive children's book and an award winning novel. He is currently working on a historical fiction novel and a Science Fiction piece. Cole's writing has been published in several literary magazines to include, Vine Leaves Press, La Piccoletta Barca, Metaworker, the 50 Years of Hip-Hop Anthology, and Instant Noodles.