Shots Rang out

It's funny how something you can that's easy to look at can become scary from a different perspective.


Lot's have people have had some sort of incident involving a gun. Having never been robbed and blessed to I owe thanks to a stickup boy.

Summertime, 1996. I had graduated from High School and was about to go to Morgan. I can't remember what did it but I had started hanging around my way again. Derrick (who many a sister from Baltimore still thinks is my brother) was my wingman during this time. His cousins were infamous hustlers, killers and any other crime you would associate with the hood. Derrick, because of their rep, was left alone. He was more artisitic anyway. To this day he is one of the best DJ's I ever met and one of the dopest grafitti artists as well. One day we are about the way doing the block thing. Him, Gary, Steven, and myself had been kickin' it all day. The evening was just falling and somehow we got seperated from Steven. After about 15 minutes we get bored and decide to go find him. I'm not sure what the motivation was but someone suggested we run up to the main street, Harford Rd. When we get there it looks like Steven is in an heated debate with someone. Around this time there was a (piss-poor) Pictureman who had taken residence on Harford and Broadway. Words are going back and forth. Apparently Steven was messing around with this girl from the way who was always up there. The dude with him (playing along) jumped in the middle and was holding him back. It seems like the picture man's brother thought that Steven was trying to get out on him. So Steven, the third dude and the picture man are basically going over the situation. Steven is saying it was a misunderstanding and the picture man is coming from the "my brother don't play". I don't remember why but Derrick had a stick in his hand when we came on the scene. As we are figuring out what the deal is, the Pictureman's brother walks by with his boy and ask Derrick what he's going to do with that stick. I guess he figured that we were coming to back Steven up. Honestly, we knew nothing of what was going down until it was explained to us. So here we all are standing on the corner thinking everything is cool now and it was a misunderstanding that has been resolved. People are still talking about what went down when I notice dude and is man are standing on the cusp of the alley doing...something. I let it go. We all start trying to come up with something to do for the rest of the night as the two assholes in question begin back up the block. Derrick always had a sixth sense and his astute nature is one reason I have never been robbed. I can count the times that something was going to go down and he peeped it out beforehand and put us in a position to do something about it. Derrick just can't take his eyes of these dudes and that is making me look. For some reason we didn't notice the two dudes crossing the street on an intersect course with asshole A and B. Suddenly one of the latter two grabs the picture man's brother by his shirt, throws it over his head (on some Happy Gilmore) and snatches his chain. To further date this his chain was a Rolex, this is right before they became popular and his was the first I ever saw. Next thing I know dude pulls down his shirt and starts letting off at these cats. We break out across the street and head up into Wendy's. Everyone is like WTF!?!?! So we start breaking down what happened and I realize, dude went into that alley to load his joint. The bullets in that gun had most likely been intended for Steven and the rest of us. The messed up part about this was dude was a grown man. If we had all started fighting they would have had the upper hand. Instead dude grabs his tool. I don't know about the rest of you, but as a fan of westerns I believe two things about guns; you never pull it out unless you intend to use it and you never give another person you're loaded gun. The realization came over us that the bullets that were humming past that stickup boy would have come in our direction if not for that Rolex chain. I still to this day have never been shot at. That is as close as I have come to it. I know I was being looked out for. From this experience I took a few lessons. 1)Be mindful of stupid people (dude who pumped up the situation by playing around). 2)People are ignorant and will resort to gun play for nothing. 3) Alway pay attention to what Derrick is seeing. Needless to say the Pictureman got no more business and his brother was not seen in the area after that. Good for him cause Derrick's cousins wouldn't take to kindly to something of that nature.