High School years: Graffiti, Ganja and Gratuitous Violence

Some Junior event...before locks...before the madness...before facial hair.

Like most my last 4 years of public education were very interesting...however I don't think many had experiences like me.

My first year was normal (for a chubby smart kid). 10th grade, after a summer of weightlifting and spending my summer-job money on school clothes I blew up some more. Junior year I became popular but Senior year it all went downhill....

Gratuitous Violence


We begin with the fact that I am one of 5 people that has locks (two others hang with me). I thought I was one of the few who was into camoflauge and I was wrong, wrong, wrong. I had just became a pothead over the summer while developing a viscious freestyle and honing my tagging skills. Then the adventure starts. Keep in mind that this is a series so let me start with...

The Fight...Since I no longer desire popularity I'm rolling in my close knit unit. Aswad, Trey, Yasin, Warren and E (scola). One day as we are in the bathroom, making plans for our impending state of elevation, Warren comes into the bathroom mad and explains that Broderick just stole (punched him on the sly for the uninitiated) him in the Gym. Since he is on the basketball team and the coach runs phys. ed., there is no retribution just efforts to see that a fight does not happen. Broderick is 6'6" and over 220 pound...Warren is a strong dude but not 6'6" and under 200 pounds. We say what you wanna do and proceed to have his back on the way to the other side of the building. Any school people recognize the opening stages of a fight especially since we were cutting through the middle of hallway traffic in very long strides. By this time we had a rep anyway. Warren, is mad as hell and in the front so we all were caught off guard when he runs up steals (active form of stole) Broderick and stands there staring at him. Shit kicks off and the crowd presses in leaving me stranded in the middle. Broderick is basically whopping Warrens ass. I mean lifting him up against the wall, slamming him to the floor and dragging him across it. Swad said he thought we were going to bank (jump) Broderick from the onset but Warren wasn't planning things out. In the midst of the chaos a dude named Warehouse from B's click and the football team decides to get some steals in on Warren, wrong. Trey who was at the time the skinny one (he bulked up after high school) appears from out of nowhere three piecing Warehouse and dropping his ass. He swung like his father had taught him how to fight. Warehouse tries to get up and Trey starts stomping his ass in the face. Eventually shit is broken up and Broderick, Warehouse, Warren and Trey all go to the office to be suspended. Upon there return we expect beef. Broderick and Warren are from the Alameda, a street known for beating people down in unfair circumstances. A street about three blocks from school. Time passes and there is no beef. I am struck by this. No retaliation? Here I am just waiting to serve someone. So on comes graduation practices. My man Trey was a junior but went to our prom with a class mate of mine. She is sitting next to me while Warehouse and his lackey "Feet" sit behind us. I start hearing conversation about getting some dude and what not, only to look back and discover these assholes pointing at Trey in picture from Prom. This along with the fact that his date and like 4 other girls are on my row piss me off. I start digging into them about how they aren't going to do anything and watch them and their words shrivel like George Costanza getting out of a pool. After the practice I track down my peoples and tell them it's on and we are going to whop these dudes asses TODAY. The most excited person I know (Aswad) is telling me to chill out and they don't want to beef. He goes to speak to them and they back down. Meanwhile I just want to beat this dudes head in which is out of character as I'm usually the calm voice of reason. Then through various source we find out there will be no return fire. Why you ask? Basically someone believes that we are attached to the Jamaican Mafia. WTF!?!?!??!?! Well a couple years ago some dude beat up Swads' sister (one of the 5 people with locks) and his father and a friend caught the dude and whopped his ass not far from the school. People saw this and thought it was like an organized gang thing as oppossed to what happens when girls have fathers. The funniest part is during graduation, myself, Aswad and Warren are the last 3 people to cross the stage and the assholes tried to boo us. We were so popular that they were over-ridden by the cheers of the rest of the class. (Warren lost but he did earn props for stepping to Broderick like he did.) Post graduation we are having a small *ahem* celebration and we notice Warehouse across the street. Swad starts to cross to see what the deal will be and if it's over. Warehouse crosses the entire width of this 6 lane main street with his hand outstretched. No beef. Without trying to or knowing it we became part of the lore of Lake Clifton Eastern High's class of '96. Thanks to a pissed off father, dreadlocks and the steal heard round the school.