Just How Things Be
by
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When everyone else had left, me and Jimmy sat around drinking. I stood and went to the window, and after a couple of minutes, I signaled for him to come over.
The window faced
“What do you think about dude?” I asked.
“Who?”
I just looked at him, not answering.
“You mean
I still didn’t say a word.
“What you mean?” Jimmy asked, still peering out the window.
“I mean, what you think about him? Is he straight or what?”
“Yeah…I mean, Mooney vouched for him. Plus—”
“So what you sayin’? You don’t even know him?” I said.
“Let me finish,” Jimmy said, taking another swallow from his drink. “From what I can tell about dude, he seem to be on the ball. He ain’t come up short in the few days he been with us, and from what I can see, he got Mooney’s back big-time.”
“All right, that shit’s good and all, right? But I don’t want nobody with us who’s only down for one nigga in the crew; they gotta be down for everybody and all. You feel me?” I asked, staring at Jimmy.
“I feel you, man. But I think this nigga’s cool, though. Y’know what I’m sayin’? I mean, I know you got to be keeping your eyes open and shit, but man, Chucky, do you trust anybody in 7-Knuckles?”
I looked back down at Mooney and Paris, and then turned back to Jimmy and stared at him for a moment before nodding.
Both of us looked out the window and watched as Mooney and
“Honestly, Chucky,
“All right. But I’m sayin’, man—it’s a lotta new faces keep popping up, and shit gets weird like that, you know?”
“Oh, no doubt,” Jimmy said. “But remember, this 7-Knuckles, baby. We all got each other’s backs, right?”
“I hope so, man. I really do hope so.”
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About the Book
The violence that was expressed during the ’80s—when the crack and heroin game was spreading through the inner cities—was like something out of the Mob Era. Saturday Night Specials became a thing of the past. Uzi’s, 9mm’s, sawed-offs had become the weapons of choice to settle many arguments. The kids getting a hold of these weapons of mass destruction were getting younger, not by the generations, but from year to year. Worse, along with the age decrease, the maturity levels declined as well, and that was not a good thing when a life or death choice presented itself.
Walk in the footsteps of 7-Knuckles, a drug crew entrenched deep in the urban game, as they struggle to deal with life and all it has to offer—the good, and especially, the bad.
Set in a housing project, Ida B. Wells, a development on the Southside of Chicago, this tale depicts, in an honest voice, that violence, and all those issues connected: the aggression, the sex, the dealings with one’s family—both biological and simulated—and above all, the trust.
About the Author
Born and raised in the Ida B. Wells housing project on the Southside of Chicago,