Chapter 2: Morning Routine

7:30 am, my alarm goes off, but I was already awake because of the excitement. Usually Low calls me at around 8:30am to let me know he spilt our bus tickets in two and he’s going to the bus stop, but this morning I didn’t get a call. I didn’t think too much of it and continued with my morning routine. After 50 push-ups, I hop in the shower. I roll up my wake and bake, get dressed because I picked out my clothes from the night before (you gotta look fresh). I go into the basement and replace my grandpa’s bottle of vodka with a bit of water and head to the bus stop.

Again, no Low. Now I’m thinking, what the fuck is going on? Anyways, I had to sneak on the back of the bus because he has all our tickets. I better see this nigga at school. It was about a 15-minute bus ride to the mall where we change buses from the 2 to the 11, and head east on Metal Rd to Peru Ave. My school is Flower City High school. The other school in our area is St. Gloria, but it’s Catholic and I ain’t even ‘bout that shit. There were mad kids at the mall from all over. I felt like I wasn’t the most popular guy there for some reason, and that’s not something I’m used to. To be honest, I kind of felt lonely without my right-hand man, R-Low. I didn’t even spark my spliff or crack my juice because I usually share it with him, and I didn’t want to be fucked up that early in the morning.

Finally, the 11 arrives and all the kids are acting like strippers reaching for a thousand-dollar bill. I played it cool and jumped on the back of the bus as we usually do when we’re going from Flower City to the neighboring city just south of us, Hemming. Hemming was a much richer and nicer city and it’s were I did all my shopping for clothes. Now that we’re all stuffed in this can of a bus with less space than a black dick in a Chinese condom.

I see her, I don’t know her name, where she is from or who she knows, but I know I must know her. I went over to talk to her and that’s when I met Boogie. “Hey, what’s up man? You’re not going to pay for the bus like the rest of us?” he said. I replied, “Hell no nigga!” I flash my sign and said, “RLC bitch!”. He backed the fuck up and kept it quiet, but now I can see the same jub looking at me with a very unpleasant face, like she forgot to brush her teeth and was trying to smell her top lip for that morning funk. Basically, whoever that kid was, he tried to rat me out, or that’s the way I saw it.

The bus came to a grinding stop and all the kids flooded to the doors in a tidal wave of adolescence. I was going to approach the gorgeous mixed jubbie with curly red hair and perfectly placed freckles, but some other nigga pulled up, and they started walking together. It’s a good thing I didn’t, because Tasha got off the bus right behind me yelling “Ramone, let’s walk to school together”. Shit, without R-Low and feeling lonely, I was like why not. She caught up to me said, “Are you sad about Low?” Me: Sad about Low for what? That’s when she told me. “Well, Kristen and Low are both going to St. Gloria”. I was so shocked I spit out my first sip of Vodka and OJ like, “What the fuck are you talking about? Low and I did the orientation for FCHS together.” She laughed and replied, “He never told you this entire summer?” I said, “Fuck you Tasha”, and walked away as she laughed, not giving a fuck that I was upset.

I sparked my spliff so everybody could smell me walk on to school campus, but it was so busy, nobody gave a fuck. Not one person turned around or looked at me smoking weed; That’s new. This school was huge, I was high, so I forgot where to go for my first class. I ended up in the office and asking for help and smelling like a college dorm after a night-long rager.

My first class wasn’t a class at all, see, I was a behavioural student and I had to do a general population behavioural assessment with my guidance counsellor, Mr. Dacket. I was redirected to another office beside the office where I was told to wait because counsellor Dacket was with another student. “He should only be about 20–30 minutes”, the receptionist said. I took that chance to go for a walk and get to know the halls that will eventually be mine, the entire time thinking what the fuck happened with R-Low? Why didn’t he tell me he was going to St. Gloria? That’s when I saw her again, the same girl. She was the most gorgeous girl I had ever seen. I mean, she was way prettier than Tasha, and Tasha was easily the hottest 9th grader in the school till her. I wanted to approach her, but that guy was still with her. He must be her boyfriend.

CRASH! Wilco ran into me full speed from the right side, sending me flying into the lockers. “Wudddup up my nigga Night?”. “Wuddup up Mars man?” I replied, as we did The RLC handshake (we called it the gun finger salute). I inquired as to who else he’d seen, and he told me he just ran into Jet Black, real name, Jordan Parker, my uncle’s 3rd son. They called him Jet Black because he was black as fuck and ran track, but mostly, ran away from fights. I was like, “Oh yeah, I forgot that bitch ass nigga came here too.” Now I felt a bit better. I got one of my RLC niggas with me, and my cousin, who on the low was probably my actual best friend in the world, but people never seen us together, so they didn’t know. I started feeling excited again, so much so I forgot to go back to the counsellor’s, and I forgot to talk to Mars about him and Little Rock running up on Low at Decker’s. Instead, we grabbed some weed from Small Fry (he was BPG) in the café and went to the Smoker’s Hill to smoke a blunt.

As we were cutting the Century, I seen my other cousin Quade, Jet’s older brother. Quade was a pastor in practice and always had some “white Jesus loves you” shit to talk, so I tried to act like I didn’t see him, but Mars’ loud dumb-ass yelled, “Pastor mother fuckin’ Quade! Wuddup my worship?”. Quade walked by us, never said hi, which was a good thing, but gave me the feeling my mom was going to know about this later. For the rest of the morning, Mars and I kind of just walked around the area. We did break into an unlocked car and got a radio, a book bag, 80 bucks cash and baseball bat.

It was like 11:30 am, when Mars said, “Let’s go over to St. Gloria and check Rock”. I was ‘bout it even though it’s like an hour bus ride, cause I wanted to see Low. I didn’t understand why he lied to me the entire summer. He is supposed to be my boy and homies don’t lie to homies like that. Mars and I walked to the bus stop and jumped back on a much less-crowded 11 bus going south this time. We got off at Metal Rd and Ching Ave, then walked for about 20 minutes to St. Gloria.

This school was hype. There were so many niggas we grew up with there, because it’s on the south side and it looked brand new compared to FCHS, but that’s whatever. The train tracks behind the school was where all the man dem were at. We pretty much walked into a Crip meeting, BPG and BTMF were back there. Not a good place for Mars, but it was too late- BTMF already seen me and was calling me over. It’s not my click, but we good, so I went.

BTMF:

· Brick City is the leader, but he is in jail.

· R-Low is well-respected because his brother and I kept the younger guys I’m about to introduce to, from joining and becoming Junior BPG.

· Ice is cold as fuck and is down for any fuckery.

· Spully was straight from Jamaica.

· Wild One aka One was the dopest beat boxer ever.

· Billy Born (that’s his real name) was some sort of soccer superstar and spent most his time playing soccer with his dad and brother, Mike Born.

· Michael Born aka Born brother one was also called “Boo” because the nigga was as quiet as a fucking ghost.

· Magnet was their version of Jimmy Codes- he could steal anything not tied down.

· Roll was the fucking man; his dad played for the Flower City Lightening NHL team when he was young. Roll was pretty much the next big thing compared to my rap.

I approached them saying, “C C C C”, that’s how they hailed each other up and me not being a Blood or a Crip, just a nigga that hung out with both, always hailed up people the way they wanted. Roll asked me why I wasn’t going to St. Gloria. I told him R-Low and I decided it would be easier to take over FCHS because all the mans were going to be here. Wild One laughed and said, “Yeah but now you’re going to the north east side and all the Sick Town mans are there”.

Sick Town was like brothers to BPG but much less friendly, especially if you didn’t grow up in their complex. Sick Town got its’ name from the chicken factory in the area that made the entire block smell like nuclear waste. In 1982 a bunch of people got sick from that place and two people died. They shut down the chicken factory, but if you smell closely, you can still smell that sickening stench rottening chicken flesh. I literally don’t know a single person from Sick Town, but I know if they know I’m the Skells little nigga, I’ll be okay.

Just as I turned around to walk back over to Mars who was chopping some catholic school jub, Low popped up like a jack in the box and straight punched two of Mars teeth right out his mouth. I have never seen Low hit anyone before, but remember, this guy is the size of a small car, so it looked like Mars was in a hit and run. I ran over to them as fast as I could, but Low already got two, maybe 3 punches in. This was bad. Really, really, bad and not how I expected to the first day of school to go at all. I grab Low’s arms as fast as I could and said, “Low chill, chill, you straight knocked him out my nigga! He’s helpless.” All the BTMF niggas were behind us laughing and cheering him on.

That’s when I realized, they saw me from the tracks walking with Mars and knew it was on, so they got this jub (who didn’t look shocked to see Mars get fucked up) to get his attention. Meanwhile they got mine, giving Low enough time to get from class down to the tracks so he could catch up with Mars.

I’m glad I’m not the one that suggested we come here looking for Little Rock who, oddly enough, went to Flower City Central and not St. Gloria. I had to call a dollar cab to get Mars the fuck out of there before the rest of BTMF jumped on his dumb ass. As I was leaving, I couldn’t even say anything to Low, but the look in his eyes was like a different nigga. A completely different nigga.