"I hate you!" she said. I'll never forget the sound of her voice nor the look in her eyes. The rage still shakes me to the core of my being. I died emotionally that day. If momma doesn't love me, who will? If momma doesn't care what happens to me, why should I?

What do I do? I turn onto a dark road called Self Destruction. I am the walking dead. In search of love, I look for it in all the wrong places. I allowed people to misuse my mind, use my body, and abuse my soul. As I got older, I found out that I had a crippling disability called Don't Know God Itis. Finding out was bittersweet. Bitter, because I didn't know God.

Sweet because I didn't know God, therefore I couldn't possibly know or love myself. I want help. I need help, so I go to rehab.

I hadn't seen Dee or Dakim in about two weeks even though Dee had said to me that he was going out of town for only a few days. I got into the routine of going to college and it was nice. The thousand dollars I'd gotten from Dee came in handy, too. I bought some fresh gear, took a few chicks to some nice restaurants and such. I was still unclear exactly what the money was for or where it really came from or even about that day. I vaguely remembered throwing a gun over the bridge after Dee had given me the money after he and Dakim had gone into the building in Harlem.

 

"Yo, Jamel! Lemme holla at you a sec," Ice G called to me as I sat on a park bench by the basketball courts in my projects talking to Lisa. Lisa was Dee's little sister but she really wasn't so little anymore. Lisa was fourteen when I went upstate and a regular cute little

We took the Verrazano Bridge to the FDR drive on our way to Harlem. The angel dust that Dee and Dakim had introduced me to earlier was having a weird effect on my mind. It was like a new universe had been opened. A strange new reality that I kind of liked.  Of course I didn't know then how dangerous angel dust, PCP, was and how so many people had and would die because of it, but I knew I felt a sense of power surging through my veins, and a new consciousness before unknown to me.  If Dee was smoking dust, I figured it was cool. It wasn't like we was using regular dope, like coke or heroin, I told myself.  (continued from Street Persuasions, Part One).

"Yo, Jamel. I had Dakim dying laughing when I told him about Arty, upstate. Tell him, Jamel, Dee said excitedly. Dee and I shared the retelling of the story: Arty was this dude upstate with us at El Mira and Otisville, when we first got sent up. We were all cool with each other. But one day Arty decided to test me while he, Dee and myself were on the line for chow. I don't remember what it was about, but Arty and I had a few words with each other when he said, "Man, I'll bust your skinny a*#!"  Arty had a little weight on him from lifting weights and his arms were kinda swole. So, I guess he thought that it meant something.