I’ve Got to Make It to Heaven for Going Through Hell

For some reason I felt hyped.  I was ready to do whatever, whenever.  We headed down towards the park, then through the park into the PJ’s.  I never caught the name of the PJ’s but I know they were down the block from the Avenue.  We then went into another building and down into the basement.  It looked all dingy and dirty.  Suddenly I felt uneasy about where we were going.  We turned down a hallway that had no lights in it.  The only light that was shining through the hallway came from a crack underneath a door at the end of the hallway.  I was almost sure we were headed through that door.  Before we reached the door, we made a right down another hallway.  This one had one light that dimmed the walkway so we could see ahead of us.  I looked at the walls, and it was covered in graffiti.  All I could see was Eastside tag-ups and a whole bunch of R.I.P. signs with the persons name written underneath. 

After that hallway, we made one more right turn down another hallway.  This hallway was dim also, and there were puddles on the floor.  There was silence.  All you could hear was our sneakers splashing in the puddles as we all walked.  At the end of the hallway we came to this room.  The door was closed, but Sino pushed it open with ease.  Inside were chairs, a dresser used as a table with an ash tray sitting on it, and some candles that weren’t lit; I could feel something heavy in the atmosphere, something dark and shadowy.  I didn’t care though, this was what I needed; this was what I wanted.  There was a group of like 10 dudes waiting in a circle.  Sino was the first to speak.

“Yo Splash whas good? This is my cousin Toine, his brother, and my cousin Reemy.”

“Yo what’s good ya’ll. I was waitin for ya’ll.   Sino already told me about ya’ll, so its all good, we gonna do this easy,” Splash said.

I looked at his face and then at his arm.  I noticed he had two scars, one across his cheek, and the other down his arm.  He had on blue jeans and a black fire shirt, with a black fire hat.  He had these beads that were the same color around his neck.  He also had a black scarf hanging out of the pocket of his jeans.  I watched his every move.  So this was the Splash Sino spoke about.  I could tell you this though, I wasn’t scared.  I didn’t think twice about what I was about to do.  Matter of fact, Splash didn’t even scare me.  Neither did his boys.   I wasn’t moved at all.  They just looked grimy.  Real ugly dudes, dark skin, light skin.  But I had seen these types before.  Then I noticed one Spanish kid in the midst.  I was thinking, isn’t this a black thing?  What’s this fool doing here?

“Aight who’s goin first?” Splash said with a serious look. 

I didn’t know what he meant by going first, but Reem stepped forward.  Splash gave the signal for the start of the initiation and they started swinging at my cousin.  He was fighting back but three of them were too much.  Reem held his own though.  After fighting three of them for a little while, Splash gave them another signal and they stepped back.