Walking Contradictions

"Be careful, alright?" Thomas's mother said as she hugged her middle child tight. "And take care of my babies."

"We'll be fine, mom." Thomas smiled before rolling his eyes at his brother, who just nodded before prying their mother's arms off of his brohter.

"Alright mom, the boy needs to breath." The brother's shared a look. "Be careful, alright? And take care of the little ones."

"Who you callin little?" Anna said as she came out of the house with her dog.

"Yeah not a problem, man." Thomas smirked as the brothers embraced. "I'll give you a call when we get to Lacy's." He sighed and closed the trunk of the Toyota. "Alright kids, let's go."

The trio loaded into the car with more hugs and goodbyes before leaving the driveway and Mount Shasta. It took several days of driving for hours and then pulling over under a bridge or in an empty lot to stop for the night, but the group finally made it to North Carolina.

"I would not be able to live here." Brad mumbled as they drove into the Greensboro city limits. "This is some country ass shit."

"Actually," Anna pipped up from the backseat, "Greensboro is the third largest city in the state. Population 269,666."

"Doesn't look like it."

"Well we're in the city limits, not the city itself."

Thomas rolled his eyes, listening to his kids go back and forth as he called his sister. "Come on, Lace."

"Hello?" Lacey finally answered.

"Hey, we're in town. You put a spare key out?"

"Alex and Jackie are at home, they'll let you in. Don't go draggin your shit in the house." Lacey replied, sighing in frustration. "God I can't believe I'm doing this."

"Thank you." Thomas said in a cheeky voice before hanging up. "Alright kiddos, look for the ghetto."

"Didn't we just leave the ghetto?" Brad asked, shaking his head slightly.

"In the ghetto!" Anna sang from the backseat. "Something something something something a mother cries in the ghetto!"

"Enough." Thomas sighed, getting off of the highway, following signs to Martin Luther King Street. The area was a run down ghetto full of older houses.

"Was that a hooker?" Brad asked, looking down a side street. "That's a hooker! In the middle of the day!"

"Don't go out at night." Anna mumbled, looking around and watching the neighborhood deteriorate as they got further into it and closer to downtown. Weeds grew out of every crack possible, yet the actual road itself had brick shoulders and mediums and didn't look half bad.

"Is that a log cabin?" Brad commented on one house on their left.

As they passed Randolph Ave. the houses got smaller and soon became one level apartment complexes. Two blocks later the houses got bigger once again.

"This ghetto is in denial of being ghetto." Anna sighed.

"No, they gotta make the main street look good so as not to scare off the white folks." Brad smirked. "Ooh a Churches Chicken!"

"Now I know we're in the ghetto." Anna laughed.

"Here we go." Thomas said as they turned onto Douglas street. They passed a park where a drug deal was going on.

Brad grinned and snickered. He looked at his sister before singing a song from The Boondocks. "Don't trust them new nig-"

"No!" Thomas yelled before his son could finish the word.

"What? Not like they can hear me!"

"We're in the south, dumbass! Tryna get me killed?"

"Don't trust them big nostrils over yonda! They'll suck up so much air it'll make you wonda!" Brad sang at the top of his lungs as Anna laughed in the back seat, trying not to pee on herself or injure her dog as she flailed about.

"I love Uncle Rukus!" She wheezed, holding her ribs as she shook with laughter.

"No relation." Brad smiled.

"You two are fucking stupid." Thomas sighed, pulling into the driveway of his sister's home. The house was small, a little bit bigger than their mother's house. The front door opened and his niece and nephew came out, looking annoyed.

"Jesus was black, Ronald Reagan was the devil, and the government is lying about 9/11!" Brad quoted.

"Don't you know you can't tell white folks the truth? Shoot, making white people riot. You better learn to lie like me. I'm gonna find a white man and lie to him right now." Anna quoted back, a broad smirk on her face. "I love that damn show."

"Who doesn't love that show?" Brad replied.

Thomas shook his head and got out of the car. "Hey guys." He smiled.

"Re-vitiligo!" Brad and Anna yelled from inside the car.

"Shut up!" Thomas barked. He rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to his niece and nephew. "So, how you guys been."

"Ok." They said at once, looking at the ground, feeling awkward. They didn't know their uncle very well or their cousins. "When are you guys leaving?" Alex pipped up.

"Well this is productive." Brad smiled from inside the car.

"Zip it boy." Thomas replied, thinking of what to say to his sister's kids. "Um....when does your mom get off?"

"Five." Alex responded bitterly. "Is that when you're gonna leave?"

"We'll leave when you get less ugly!" Anna yelled.

"Shut up," Thomas said, closing the open car door. "No, we're staying here for a few days. We don't like this either, but we're gonna have to live with it for now."

Anna and Brad cranked down the manual window and stuck their heads out. They shared a look and a grin and started clapping out a beat that made Thomas cringe. Not this show again.

"Take our black asses outta here." They sang together. "Won't you take our black asses outta here? Won't you come save us Catcher, and kill all these crackers? Won't you take our black asses outta here?"

"I'm going to drown you both if you don't shut up!" Thomas growled.

"Sing this mother fucker now!" Anna belted out as the two started over again. "Masta Colonel you a bitch!"

Thomas sighed, relieved that his daughter hadn't said the next word. He heard laughter and looked across the street at a group of guys sitting on the front porch smoking, who were getting a kick out of watching this. And not only were they laughing, hard, but they were laughing hard and pointing at his children as they sang this ridiculous song from this ridiculous cartoon.

Lacey sighed as she and her brother sat around the small kitchen table late that night. A single light hung overhead and smoke from their cigarettes swirled around it. "So what are you going to do?" She asked in a hushed voice so as not to wake Anna and Brad, who were asleep in the living room.

"I really don't know." Thomas admitted, running a hand through his hair as he took a long drag off of his cigarette. He blew the smoke out in a sharp pencil shape. "What's the smallest town in this state where they'd never find us?"

Lacey put her cigarette out in the ashtray and sighed. "I really couldn't tell ya." She thought about it for a few minutes, the siblings sitting in silence. "Chowan county." Lacey finally spat out.

"What?"

"Chowan county!" A smile spread across her lips. "It's full of old people and religion in the north east corner of the state!" She gasped and jumped up, loosing all control over the volume of her voice. "Edenton! They'd never look there!"

"Where the fuck is that?" Thomas asked, taking a hold of her wrist and pulling her back into her chair.

"Exactly." She whispered with a smile. "Unless you're in the 8th grade, you've never heard of it. It's a retirement spot full of religion and old people with some money. And it's historical and right on the sound. They'd never find you."

"But would there be any places to live?"

"What part of old people didn't you understand?"

The next morning Lacey and Thomas left to check out the potential hiding spot, leaving the set of cousins standing in the living room by their siblings, staring at each other.

Alex was 19 and stood at 5"5'. His hair was dark, his eyes emerald green. Jackie was 10. Her eyes were brown and her hair was lighter than her brothers and pulled back.

"We might as well try and get along." Brad suggested, the tallest one in the room, looming over everyone at 5"10'.

"Fuck that shit." Alex spat back. "Just get the fuck outta here quick. I'm tired of you breathing my air."

"Look you little shit-" Anna started.

"Says the midget!"

Anna's heart burned with her cousin's acidy words. "Fuck you, cum bucket whore!" She shrieked, lunging forward.

Brad grabbed her and held her back. "Look asshole, the fuck did we do to you?"

"You show up at my damn house with this pathetic story about getting shot at. Doesn't that happen every damn day?"

"Look, we're fucking stuck with each other for now. No use in tearing each other apart." Jackie said, not wanting to see her brother start a fight.

"Callin me a god damn midget! Mother fucker you lost yo god damn mind!" Anna seethed as her brother tightened his grip on her.

"Relax."

"Ooh this bitch wants it!"

"Not worth it, sis. Just cool ya damn jets."

"Punk ass n*gga." Anna mumbled. (I refuse to type that word out, but it fits and will help this next part. God forgive me.)

"Fuckin raciest bitch." Alex scoffed as Jackie gasped, covering her mouth.

"Oh hell nah!" Anna got free from her brother's grip and charged at a now shocked Alex, knocking him to the ground and hit him in the face multiple times before anyone could stop her.

"Not again." Brad breathed, peeling his enraged sister off of their cousin and hurling her out the front door, quickly closing it behind him. "Have you lost your mind?"

"That bitch is lucky you stopped me." Anna panted, hunching over and trying to calm down.

"Did that make anything better or solve anything?"

There was the sound of yelling inside, followed by things being thrown at the door and another door being slammed shut. When they heard music blasting from another part of the house, they knew it was safe.

"Nope, but it made me feel better."

"Well we can't go back inside, so we might as well go explore this place." Brad suggested. The pair made their way off the front porch and down the cracked street, off on another adventure.