The alarm never went off. Didn’t need to. Jarvis was already up, already dressed, already outside sitting in his ‘19 Chevy truck with the seat leaned back just enough.
6:15 in the morning and the neighborhood was quiet porch lights still on, somebody’s dog barking at nothing down the block, the sky that ugly gray-purple color that made it look like it was still night time.
Jarvis cracked the window and sparked the blunt.
First pull always hit different. He held it, let it settle in his chest, exhaled slow through his nose and then his mouth while the smoke drifted out the cracked window into the cool morning air.
This was his time. Fifteen minutes before his phone started going off. Before work. Before all the bullshit.
He took another pull and grabbed his phone.
Hey come let me out baby.
Three dots appeared. He watched them, leaning back, blunt between his two fingers.
Then.
🖕🏾🫵🏾
Jarvis stared at the screen for a solid five seconds.
He hit the blunt again longer this time and replied.
I know you do…. Let’s go.
He tossed the phone on the passenger seat face-down. Didn’t even want to see if she responded.
Tay had been in her feelings since Tuesday over something he still couldn’t fully explain, and on any other morning he might’ve gone back inside, sat on the edge of the bed, and tried to talk it out.
But not today. He had a 7:30 shift and a supervisor who had been looking for him to clock in early for inspection.
He killed the blunt, rolled the windows down half way, and pulled off.
The city was just waking up. A few buses running early routes. A corner store with the gate half-raised, owner hosing down the sidewalk.
Jarvis had his music low J. Stalin playing in the background, something from The Real World 5 album and his mind was already running through the day.
Parts delivery by eight, inventory check by ten, and somehow lunch in between if the dock didn’t back up again.
He turned off Claiborne onto a side street to beat the light.
That’s when he noticed it.
Black faded SUV. Two cars back.
He didn’t think anything of it at first. Just people going to work or wherever.
But when he turned again cutting through the neighborhood shortcut only people in the neighborhood knew about the SUV turned too.
And when he doubled back toward the main road taking the long loop, a route nobody took unless they knew the area or they were following somebody who did—
The SUV turned again.
Jarvis felt his jaw tighten.
He came up on the light. Yellow. Almost red.
He hit the gas.
Blew clean through it no flash, no sirens, nobody watching and flew down three blocks before jerking the Chevy truck hard to the curb and killing the headlights.
He sat low in the seat, engine idling, and watching his side mirror.
Waited.
The light turned green.
The black faded SUV rolled turned down the street and slowly riding toward Jarvis too slow like it was looking for something or looking for him.
Jarvis’s right hand found the grip of his Glock without him even thinking about it.
His eyes stayed on the mirror. If that truck stopped beside or in front of him,if a door opened, and if anything moved wrong.
The SUV accelerated by.
Blew right through the stop sign at the end of the block and kept going.
Jarvis watched it pass. Dark tint. Couldn’t see the driver. Couldn’t see anything. Just taillights getting smaller.
He sat there two seconds. Three.
Then he threw his Chevy truck in drive and pulled out behind it.
He didn’t know what he was doing exactly. He’d tell you that himself. But something in him needed to know and where this truck was going, and he needed to know who was behind this.
He also needed to confirm whether he was being paranoid or whether he had a gut feeling, which had saved him more than once in his twenty-nine years, was telling him something real.
The SUV hit the interstate on-ramp doing over sixty.
Jarvis followed.
And that’s when his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He let it go to voicemail. Kept his eyes on the SUV two lanes over, weaving through the light morning traffic.
It rang again.
Same number.
He grabbed it off the seat, answered with one hand, other hand on the wheel.
“Yeah, who this?”
It’s ya boy Carlton.
Jarvis blinked. Took a half second to register the voice because he hadn’t heard it in days.
“Man, what the—” He caught himself, exhaled hard. “I been trying to call you for three days, my ninja. Three days. Where the hell you been?”
The voice on the other end came back low. Tight. Not Carlton’s usual energy — not the laugh-first-talk-later Carlton who he had known since ninth grade. This was something else. This was a man choosing his words carefully, talking in hood terminology.
They trying to kill me, bitch.
Jarvis almost choked and he couldn’t help but laugh.
“Wait, You serious, bro?”
Yeah, ninja.
He looked back at the interstate. The black faded SUV had moved into the far left lane, still doing high speed, a quarter mile ahead now and pulling further.
Jarvis eased off the gas.
His mind went somewhere else entirely.
“Aight,” he said quietly into the phone. “Talk to me.”
Outside, the sun was finally starting to break. It almost looked peaceful.
Almost.
To be continued… — Slippin’ Before 9 AM Part 2 coming soon
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