CHAPTER 1-part 2-Birth of Criminal & Thief

It was a hot summer night. My best friend Chris and I were sitting outside of my apartment building laughing and talking, we had been playing basketball since sunrise and were trying to cool off. When I moved to the block, he was the only boy my age that was funny. He would play crazy tricks and jokes on the big kids, piss’em off and then run away laughing. Most of the time they couldn’t catch him. “I’m gonna get you Fatboy!” they yelled as he got away. That was his nickname, he was a fat fast muthafucka, but the times they caught him that shit was HILARIOUS!!! “OoOoW!!!!” Chris cried. The big kids beat his legs up giving him frogs with every blow. Chris would get to yelling causing a scene and acting like they were killing him. Hoping that some adults would come to his rescue, sometimes they did “Leave that boy alone” they’d yell. But most of the time they didn’t say a thing. They knew he was what the old folks liked to call a “bad seed”. Meaning he wasn’t just an innocent; he did shit.

Now we’re 15 yrs. old, all grown up, and Chris no longer has baby fat. In fact he’s turned it into muscle. And we’re known for being the athletes and practical jokers of the hood. The dream we both shared up until this time was to play Professional basketball for the L.A. Lakers. We got up everyday at the crack of dawn and played Ball from Sun up to Sun down; until we couldn’t see the rim.

Our sense of humor and family circumstances were almost identical. We both had angry, mean, oppressive Mothers. Chris, at least had his Pops living with him though. But he could barely leave the front yard of his Apartment building. My “moms” on the other hand let me do about as much as Chris’ mom let him, which would be nothing. I was a good kid though. I never disrespected my mother, I didn’t talk back not even when I was being unfairly treated. Whatever she said do, I did. But
anytime ‘moms” would ask my older brother, Kelsey, to clean up his room. He’d get mad sock a whole in the wall, bust a window out or some shit and she’d leave him alone. My lil brother on the other hand, since an embryo, could talk back to my “mother” like white kids get to talk to their parents; with attitude. I’d watch this and remember how that woman would publicly beat me in the mouthif I just asked a question and embarrass me.

So we’re outside in the night air chopping it up and like all teenaged boys the conversation turns to girls. Except in L.A. you couldn’t talk about the girls without talking about the Gangstas. Because every chic you wanted to get with was already with a