FCYU-Feature Story

My Street Brothers
Running wild with my friends helped me forget my pain

By Derrick B.

I think I was born to travel, cause I have been doing so my whole life. No one ever had the time to think about what I wanted or how I was feeling. I’m 18 now and I grew up without a father, a real family or a real mother in my life. If it were not for all the other family members I grew up with, I would never have made it.

When I talk about other family members, I don’t mean blood relatives. I’m talking about the unrelated family everyone has that they go to for help with a problem or to learn something new in life. I’m talking about the family that’s always there when you need to share a secret, or always has a joke to tell when your day is going rough. I’m talking about friends.

It was not until I was 13 that my mind and body got tired of being mistreated in life. I wanted better for myself and I realized being good at home or school would not make my family proud of me cause they never had time to notice. So I decided to find a new family and forget about everybody else.

A True Hustler

Back then, I was very, very shy and I only had one friend, CJ. He was like a brother to me. The only difference between us was that I was a good boy and he was bad.

CJ was a true hustler. This kid was only one year older than me but he had something I would die for—he was happy with his life. Not only did he have bricks of money in his pocket, he had a cell phone, good clothes and a fine-looking girlfriend.

I met CJ one day when I was walking through the park and noticed his girl. Of course I did not know she had a man at the time so my instinct told me to smile and wave. The first thing he did was argue with his girl and quickly walk towards me. I’m thinking I’m about to get beat up for looking at a girl. He came close and looked me in the eyes

“You need something?” he asked.

Finding a Friend

“Oh no, no, I was just smiling at your beautiful girlfriend. I thought she was alone,” I said. I was trying to talk like I was tough enough to be a gangster, so he wouldn’t think about fighting. CJ smiled.

“Yeah I know man, you ain’t got to explain yourself. I mean she do look good, otherwise I would not be with her. But I was asking if you need something else.” Right then I knew he was not only cool but a hustler as well.

“Nah, I don’t use drugs,” I said, trying to speak soft so I would not blow his cover. He smiled when I spoke low and asked if I still wanted to chill and meet his girl.

We spent the rest of the day in the park, and as time went by CJ and I hung out all over New York. We would go to the movies, eat at restaurants, even fight someone who tried to disrespect one of us or his girlfriend, Jasmine.

CJ would pull out hundreds of dollars and spend it like water. I knew he got the money from the drugs he sold and I did not want to ask him about it. My life was bad but I was taught drugs could kill you. But in time, CJ taught me that keeping pain bottled up inside could kill me quicker.

I had never opened up to anyone about how my mother beat me. Not since I told my teachers one day and got another beating for telling. But one day, a few months after I met him, CJ just made me feel like I could trust him with anything.

It was after a particularly loud fight with my mom. I stormed out of the house trying to escape the fury in my heart. I could never understand her ways and running was the only way I could win war with her. I ran all the way to the park and I sat down on a bench and cried. That’s when CJ spotted me.

“Yo, Derrick, what happened?” he said, standing with his girl beside him. I wasn’t going to explain until I saw his fist ball up. Right there I felt I could trust him. He was already on my side, ready to defend my back. I told him everything that happened and he and Jasmine just listened as they started to put some green stuff inside a split cigar.

Taking the Green Stuff

After I finished my story, I noticed a tear in Jasmine’s eye. I looked down and finally asked about the cigar. “What’s that?” I asked.

CJ looked at me and smiled. “This is going to help you forget your problems at home and make you happy again,” he said.

“Man, you know I don’t smoke cigarettes,” I said, shaking my head no as he tried to pass it to me. He laughed. “Listen, it’s not a cigarette, it’s the best medicine you need right now.”

I decided to take the rolled-up green stuff. “So what is it?” I asked again before I took a pull.

“It’s called weed,” Jasmine said, and smiled.

Blunting the Pain

After that first pull off my first blunt, I became a different child in my mother’s house. Instead of getting in trouble at home I chilled on the streets with CJ and got in bigger trouble.

I started smoking a lot and opening myself up to people instead of being the quiet kid. CJ would invite me to his house and he would introduce me to his friends. What’s funny is I realized every time I met a new friend, I’d be smoking with them. It was like the popular kids would never notice you unless one, you did drugs and shared it with everybody, or two, you were a wild kid who knew how to hustle and stay with money to spend on everybody. I did both.

As time flew by, I became known to a lot of people on the streets. I was not really a popular kid but the people I hung out with had grown a lot of respect for me. I still had problems at home with my mom and she would still hit me for reasons I never understood. But a few months of meeting new friends, stealing from stores and smoking weed everyday made me not care what she did to me.

One time she was beating me while I was high and instead of crying and crawling for safety under my bed or inside my closet I ran around the house laughing at her cause she could not catch me. I was happy about the way my life was starting to change, now that I had plenty of friends to chill with whenever I didn’t want to be at home.

I Wasn’t Alone

Then my mom put me in care, and I was sent to a group home. At first I could not get over the fact that my mother just abandoned me. I was upset not only with her but the world. Now I had to start my life over with no family or a true best friend to talk to. I began to worry about how I would be treated in a group home.

I was placed in a house with guys who were older than me, but to my surprise they took me in. The guys made me feel like I wasn’t alone. On my 14th birthday, I got drunk for the first time with one of my new friends, a guy named Manny. Manny made me forget about my mom and my problems. He gave me one thing I’d always wanted from my mom: attention.

Now, Manny was a real smart hustler. He taught me how to make money selling the weed I always smoked. I never knew I could do that. I even learned that there are different kinds of weed, and different prices too.

Two months later I had to move to another group home. Even though I was again upset to build a bond with someone and have it snatched away from me, I would never forget all the things we did together that helped me learn how to adapt. I learned while I was around him to not worry about all the bad things that I’d been through. When you’ve got money and your own way of making yourself happy, why should anything else bother you?

How to Forget

I made friends like Manny in each of the seven group homes I lived in. If it were not for all those friends, I don’t think I would have made it. They all taught me that bad things happen to everyone. It’s just up to me how I deal with the problem until I can finally let it go.

One way my friends would forget their problems was by causing new ones. At first I did not understand this because I thought more problems would build more stress. No, the type of problems my friends got into led to trouble, and for some strange reason trouble was kind of helpful when I thought about my life too much.

Whenever I did dumb things that my friends put me up to, I always had to get myself out of the problem alone. I always felt uncomfortable doing each stunt. But I wanted to fit in with my friends and enjoy the excitement of not getting caught.

I robbed people in the parks, stole phones from stores...I did it all and I never got caught. I think that’s why I didn’t mind when I was left alone to get out of trouble. It was the excitement of running from the law that freed me from all my problems. I felt like I was on a natural high that only went away if I calmed down. I did not want to calm down because I felt so good inside.

When I did get away with crimes on my own, the guys would praise me and give me pats on the back. Next thing I knew, people I’d never seen before knew my name. I was famous and I had a few girls who also liked the wild side of me.

Waking Up

But I didn’t realize the negative effects of what I was doing until recently, when I met my first real girlfriend. Kyanni is the first girl I actually fell in love with. She helped me wake up to the fact that I’ve only got three more years until I age out.

At that time, I will be old enough to have a place of my own and not worry about moving unless I want to. But for the past five years, I have not been legally working and I don’t have any money or a bank account. All I did every day was smoke my brains away, drop out of school and get in trouble with the people I called friends.

When those guys were around and telling me their life stories, they helped me feel better, like I wasn’t alone. But as I think about it, they never gave me any advice that helped me move my life in a safe direction, the way Kyanni did. They just helped me be safe by learning how to look after myself on the streets. They taught me that, instead of worrying about the past, I should focus on the excitement of the day I woke up to.

What Are Friends For?

Lately I’ve realized I want the type of friends who give you advice and encouragement on being successful in life.

When the people I thought were my friends heard I only had a short time to get my life together before I’d be forced to live on the streets, they did not even act concerned. They only cared about when I was going to support their next high.

Still, I can’t say I regret anything I’ve done since the day I took that first smoke from CJ. If I hadn’t met all those new people and got in all the trouble I got in, I would not have a clue how to survive the world on my own.

My friends were the ones who first taught me the tricks of the games and the rules in the street. They were my partners in crime, my street brothers and sisters, and they helped me get by. But now it’s time to move on.