For Every Decision I Make There is a Consequence

He had the loudest voice in the whole school; he must have. Every time he walked down the hall everybody knew it, whether he was just walking to class like a good boy, or cutting class to shoot dice in the bathroom. He said it was important to make himself known, make sure people knew who he was and what he was about. Because he wasn’t scared of anything, and he wasn’t going to hide nothing about who he was. He was cool with everybody; even the teachers all liked him. While he might have had an agenda most of the time, and while it was known that his head was always either in a new rap he’d just wrote or in making money one way or another, unlike other kids, he was always respectful to the adults. In class one time a student was badly disrespecting an older teacher, and he said, “Ya’ll, better be good to her. She’s somebody’s grandmama.” That’s how he saw things and wasn’t scared to voice his opinion about it. The cool thing is that when he made that comment, the kid sat down and got back to work. The thing about Ricky isn’t that everybody knew him because by the time you’re in the ninth grade, pretty much everybody knows everybody. The thing about Ricky is that everybody liked him. Now he had his group of homeboys that were closer than the rest of the school. He and his crew were always together, walking down the hallway, shooting dice in the corner of math class, shooting hoops in the gym, running the streets in the evenings, rapping in the trap house til well after midnight. Whatever it was they always had each other’s back. Brooklyn (call him Brooks), Quae, Dominique (call him Dom), and Lil’ Curt. Brooks was the leader of the crew. Now in stark contrast to Ricky the other four boys wreaked havoc all over the school constantly. At least one of them was suspended all of the time. Dozens of parent conferences had been conducted since they were in grade school together, but nothing ever seemed to get the four under control. Many wondered why they were allowed to still attend school since they only came to make it impossible for others to learn. Every teacher always reached and tried to be the one to make the difference for one of the trouble makers, but no one could. And no one understood what went through their heads, why not just do right? So every year staff and students turned to Ricky to ask why he wasted his time with these people. He always said the same thing, “Mane, ya’ll better lay off my homeboys like that.”