Back in the days: Personal Essay

Back in the Days

“Stop or I shoot!” that’s what the cop said, if I wasn’t running already, man, I was running then, for real. I knew they can’t just shoot you just like that, but just in case I zig-zaged like I was running around cones or something. But then I got to an edge of the building, so I breaked for a second and saw that it was just a parking lot down below, about 1 or 2 levels down, but I had to jump. So I jumped on one of them cars, landed on the top of a red car like the movies; but then I fell to the ground, then I was running again, not even looking back at the cop. I was gone, out of there, peace out. The homeys all dipped out also. Tyrone made the jump right behind me, and that’s why you see him limping now, you know he is smaller than me maybe he fell wrong, what is he? 12 or something? I’m 15, you are what, 18? Tyrone’s young buck, but he was up there in the mix. So anyways, let me tell you what happened, right as I was about to cross the street I saw more cops, everywhere, coming from both sides of the street, you know how its 2 way? They were coming fast as shit going around cars and everything. Man, I just kept running man, I figured I just cross the street, get away from the building cause they can spot me easy, had my Cypress Hill shirt, bandana on the jeans, you know. Soon as I did that, I had to go into the trees, like a small forest kind of, you know what I’m talking about? right across the street from the stores? I figured I would cut across to the other side and go inside a 7-11 or something. But it was to dark, way way too dark in that mother. So I just got behind a tree and chilled out for a minute. That’s when I saw tall ass Jordan, oh my God that boy can run! He flew around a parked cop car with cops right there! Crossed the street coming my way right, and kept going on the sidewalk. He was headed for more cop cars I thought he was gonna get caught, but he didn’t he told me yesterday he ran all the way home, I don’t believe him though. But that’s it; I didn’t see anyone else- Johnny, Renato, Tareek, Smiley, gone. Stevey and Romeo, gone, they were the first to bounce. And then guess what? Soon as I catch my breath, no more than a minute and I hear dogs! Dogs! They had dogs, I could heard them barking, maybe 2 or 3 dogs right there, on my side of the road. They were maybe about 1 minute walking distance from me. Man, I was thinking for a minute that I was gonna get chewed out by this bastards man, I don’t think I been this scared before no bullshit. But you know what I did? I saw this in a movie right, dogs can’t smell you if you are by the water, and I heard there was a creek somewhere behind me so I walked slowly, slowly till I got to the water… next thing you know, I’m right in there in a ditch, laying down flat on the mud, for real. It was cold as hell, that’s when I thought about my hoddie, I know I dropped it somewhere by the apartments. Man, I waited like almost 2 hours, until I couldn’t hear the dogs no more, the cops were gone but there was one or two left. So I got up slowly, washed the mud out from my arms, my face too with the water, I put my shirt inside out, left the bandana, and I got back into the sidewalk and walked slowly right pass one of them police cars. I didn’t even look at them though, and I walked slowly cause if you start walking fast then they think something is up. I crossed to the 7-11 but just went home after that. Man, that was just this Friday.
And you know how it all happened, because of a stupid party man, check this out, Johnny knows Jesica, you know which Jesica I’m talking about? Right, she’s a senior, she’s Leslie’s friend, that Jesica. So she told him to come to this party where she lives, in the apartments. I was chilling out with Romeo at the playground, Renato, Stevey, Salo, Jose, Nick, they were rolling a J, skinny ass J, I had my Blue Bull so I was straight, you know I don’t smoke that shit then comes Johnny and Jordan to see if we wanna roll up to this party he said it was going to be a bunch for freaks so we said for sure, right. Then we met up with the other fools and started walking. Went to 7-11 real quick to get some brew but no one wanted to hook us up, so we just kept going to the party right. But as soon as we got to the building, these preppy boys started blocking, yes, saying if we knew whose party it was and everything. Right, that’s what I said, what the hell did he care? It was a tall preppie boy doing most the talking, his girl and his other homey just staring. We were all in the elevator ready to go up when he started asking 1000 questions, then the girl told us to leave, but she was being nice and all. Man, you know I’m cool, I was ready to bounce Smiley too but Johnny man, you know Johnny, he tells the boy to push the botton and stop asking questions. But he doesn’t push the stupid button, he says it’s the wrong party… can you believe this guy? Man, that’s when Johnny got closer and clocked the kid right on the chest, pow! Man! That boy fell to the side, the girl started screaming, oh, and the other boy turned pale man… funny as shit, never seen someone more scared in my life. So we leave the elevator right, and we are outside just figuring out if we gonna get a hold of Jesica or what, when we see about 7 boys run out of the building right after us, man. I was like, for real? You know I’m cool and all but guess they wanted beef. So everybody is bussy just talking shit, I had this other preppy boy in front of me in my face, everybody is yelling, I saw Stevey, Stevey was pulling this boy to the floor, then a neighbor comes out from his window, some old guy and says: ‘I’m calling the man’, and guess what Johnny says? Man, you know Johnny is gonna say something. He says; ‘man, you wanna get shoot?’ For real, I know he was just talking shit, but that’s why all those cops came out, cause they though we had a piece or something. No man, I don’t got one- my pops find it, then I’m in real trouble.