One day we were out sitting at the park on Nixon Avenue. That day my 84, blue, four door, Malibu Classic was the only car there. I called it “tha lac” for Cadillac. My grandmother gave me the car-spoiled I guess. I had Jensen six by nines in the window, usually bumpin Computer Love or the Menace to Society Soundtrack….not the gangsta songs, but the R and B. We were chillin! A few minutes later out of nowhere we hear shots fired. Nobody ducked, ran, or thought much of it initially because we’d groan accustomed to hearing gunshots. One of the guys noticed that it was a car from East Rome (at the time they were feuding). So the guy said out loud “we need a car to go and bust back.” There was only one car there, but I was not interested in living out what I’d seen in movies. I thought about all of the friends that I had on the East Side, cousins, relatives, church members, and decided to dap everyone up and go home.
At some point it is valuable to see a few steps into the future. What I saw was prison. It wasn’t just this time, but every time I was asked to do something illegal I could weigh the options in an instant. The grace of God kept me from being apart of a senseless shooting.
