Chapter One
Mike Black
It was a beautiful Caribbean night. The moon was full and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I sat by the pool at my house in Nassau with my daughter Michelle asleep with her head on my lap. She’s a beautiful girl that looks just like her mother. I sat looking at her, and I wondered what her life gonna be like?
How would I protect her? How would I keep her safe from my world? How would her life be different from mine? For one thing, Michelle would grow up having her father in her life. I never knew my father growin’ up. I was born in St. Vincent. My mother, Emily Black met my father one night at a dancehall.
“Michael, back then, I was a different person,” Emily told me one night. “I was eighteen and I was so fast.”
“You? Fast? I have a hard time believing that,” I said.
“It’s true. Having you changed my life.” Emily smiled. “I was so drunk. That’s why I stopped drinking. I never saw him again after that night, never even tried.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I asked her.
“Pride. You were too young when you used to ask. Besides, it wasn’t your business. When you got older, you stopped asking. I didn’t think it mattered to you anymore. I didn’t know that man. Only thing I do remember about him is that he was kind of arrogant.”
I was four years old when my mother left St. Vincent and came to New York. We had no family or friends when we got there. We didn’t have much money either. We moved into a small, one-room flat in the South Bronx. After Emily completed nursing school, she got a job at Lebanon Hospital working the evening shift when I was six. With a new job, she was able to move us out of the South Bronx into the basement of a two family house, in a section of the Bronx with a large West Indian population.
I met my best friend, Bobby Ray when we were in the third grade together. He lived down the block and we’ve been best friends ever since. Bobby is more like a brother to me now. When we were in the fifth grade, Wanda Moore and her older brother moved on the block and that same summer, Perry Dukes parents bought the house next door and Vickie Payne moved down the block near Bobby. We were in junior high school when Jamaica moved to the block. His real name is Clyde Walker, but since he had just got off the boat from Jamaica, and he talked with an accent, we just started calling him Jamaica. Now our crew was almost set. The only one left was Nick.
Nick Simmons lost his parents when he was eleven. He never really knew what happened to them. One day they just didn’t come home. So his brother and sister went Mississippi to live with his father’s brother and his wife. But they didn’t want Nick. He told me that he heard his uncle talkin’ about it one night.
“They were just babies. We could raise them in the church. They will be all right. But not Nick, that boy is into too much trouble and I not havin’ it. Not in my house! He probably the reason they didn’t come home,” his uncle said. He didn’t know Nick was listening.
It was decided that Nick would go live with his grandmother. She lived on the block. And after I kicked his ass on his first day on the block, the crew was set and we ran the block. We protected everybody who lived there. It started when we were young. Emily would make us carry packages for the ladies on the block. When we got older, we would walk them places at night. We wouldn’t let anybody who didn’t live there hang out there.
One day when I was fifteen and some guys tried to sell drugs to some kids on the block. Me and Bobby chased them off the block. A drug dealer named André Harmon, who ran most of the illegal activity in the area, saw the whole thing. He calls me over to his car. “ You done good chasin’ them fuckas off your block.”
“Really,” I said, excited that André was even talkin’ to me like that. At the time, I really looked up to André and believed everything he
Mike Black
It was a beautiful Caribbean night. The moon was full and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I sat by the pool at my house in Nassau with my daughter Michelle asleep with her head on my lap. She’s a beautiful girl that looks just like her mother. I sat looking at her, and I wondered what her life gonna be like?
How would I protect her? How would I keep her safe from my world? How would her life be different from mine? For one thing, Michelle would grow up having her father in her life. I never knew my father growin’ up. I was born in St. Vincent. My mother, Emily Black met my father one night at a dancehall.
“Michael, back then, I was a different person,” Emily told me one night. “I was eighteen and I was so fast.”
“You? Fast? I have a hard time believing that,” I said.
“It’s true. Having you changed my life.” Emily smiled. “I was so drunk. That’s why I stopped drinking. I never saw him again after that night, never even tried.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I asked her.
“Pride. You were too young when you used to ask. Besides, it wasn’t your business. When you got older, you stopped asking. I didn’t think it mattered to you anymore. I didn’t know that man. Only thing I do remember about him is that he was kind of arrogant.”
I was four years old when my mother left St. Vincent and came to New York. We had no family or friends when we got there. We didn’t have much money either. We moved into a small, one-room flat in the South Bronx. After Emily completed nursing school, she got a job at Lebanon Hospital working the evening shift when I was six. With a new job, she was able to move us out of the South Bronx into the basement of a two family house, in a section of the Bronx with a large West Indian population.
I met my best friend, Bobby Ray when we were in the third grade together. He lived down the block and we’ve been best friends ever since. Bobby is more like a brother to me now. When we were in the fifth grade, Wanda Moore and her older brother moved on the block and that same summer, Perry Dukes parents bought the house next door and Vickie Payne moved down the block near Bobby. We were in junior high school when Jamaica moved to the block. His real name is Clyde Walker, but since he had just got off the boat from Jamaica, and he talked with an accent, we just started calling him Jamaica. Now our crew was almost set. The only one left was Nick.
Nick Simmons lost his parents when he was eleven. He never really knew what happened to them. One day they just didn’t come home. So his brother and sister went Mississippi to live with his father’s brother and his wife. But they didn’t want Nick. He told me that he heard his uncle talkin’ about it one night.
“They were just babies. We could raise them in the church. They will be all right. But not Nick, that boy is into too much trouble and I not havin’ it. Not in my house! He probably the reason they didn’t come home,” his uncle said. He didn’t know Nick was listening.
It was decided that Nick would go live with his grandmother. She lived on the block. And after I kicked his ass on his first day on the block, the crew was set and we ran the block. We protected everybody who lived there. It started when we were young. Emily would make us carry packages for the ladies on the block. When we got older, we would walk them places at night. We wouldn’t let anybody who didn’t live there hang out there.
One day when I was fifteen and some guys tried to sell drugs to some kids on the block. Me and Bobby chased them off the block. A drug dealer named André Harmon, who ran most of the illegal activity in the area, saw the whole thing. He calls me over to his car. “ You done good chasin’ them fuckas off your block.”
“Really,” I said, excited that André was even talkin’ to me like that. At the time, I really looked up to André and believed everything he
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