East 4

Now that I was mobile, Can took me to buy food with him instead of just bringing me back leftovers. We didn't have much money to split between the two of us, so I settled for a protein bar while he got himself a bag of tortillas.
"Why can't I jus' have cereal?" I asked him when he made me put back the Corn Pops.
"'Cus it don't do nothing to nourish ya," he explained. He flipped the box over to show me the black and white ingredients that I thought at first was a short breakfast-time story for a kid to enjoy while they ate. "Lookit all dese ingredients, half this stuff don't do nothin' but stunt ya growth. 'Dis, howevuh," now he produced the protein bar, "'dis the good stuff. Good ingredients, lotta energy and whatnot, do bettuh by ya body."
"But the cereal's cheaper," I offered. Can looked at me, then the box, then somewhere between me and the box.
"You don't havetuh worry bout money, kid," his throat said very low while he himself appeared to leave behind his vocal cords. "Lemme worry bout dat mess." We headed to the checkout, but before we got there he gave me our two groceries and told me to wait while he disappeared into a room that looked like and smelled like but wasn't a bathroom. When he came out, his hands were deep in his pockets, eyes deep in the floor.
We paid for the two items and began our trek home. I ate the protein bar as soon as we left while Can pushed me, and when I was finished I rolled myself while he ate all of the tortillas, not saving the rest for later. We both understood that our next meal wasn't guaranteed, so eating what we had when we had it, even if it was meager, was our strategy. We stopped in the middle of a bridge that ran over a canal to let the food settle. The stench that crawled up the rusted fence and into my nose was one of urban swamp, a steamy brew of earth, sweat, dead animal, and gas. Can and I paid no mind to the cacophony in our nostrils; we were used to such odors. Still, the smell lingered, but it was more of a pedestrian across the street than one right beside us.
That scent was so indifferent to my memory at the time. It was shy in my mind while we sat and rested and squinted at the flashy, fast cars. Not that I spent much time in that spot soaking up that smell, but I just simply and indescribably didn't care about it during the day.
After about ten minutes of city-noise-filled silence, Can began wheeling me back to the house. The Sun was in a sitting position and wore a bright golden dress that made everything an older and hollow yellow. It got deeper as we neared our destination, and it was just starting to turn into a gray-blue fog that stuck to the walls when we were greeting the others behind the threshold. The sky was a dying purple when the men in black hoodies came.
Can must've known what this meant, and he must've been anticipating their arrival, because as soon as they stepped out of their vehicle that was extremely loud, he dropped his peephole between the blinds and muttered a curse word.
"C'moan," he steered me to the back door. I was half asleep, and I remember not remembering the span of time between his swear and us moving away from the house and down a street that was connected to a back patio. The building was big and black against the ugly violet sky. If I had gone back at all after that, maybe I could remember what it looked like better.
Can was pushing me, and I could see the canal coming up on us.