Criminal Minded Read Online Free Page A

everybody. Most of these muthafuckas walk around here with their chests poked out, flexing their muscles and all that bullshit. They just got something to prove. I just go to the gym or play some ball. Half the time I be in my cell reading.”
    “Reading?” I thought I must have heard him wrong.
    “Yeah, nigga! Ain’t nothing else to do in here besides beat off and think about some shorty I used to mess with.”
    We shared a laugh, and I agreed to give Curtis’ address to this chick named Michelle who used to like him. Hopefully, she would write to him and help take his mind off of his situation. I hated leaving my cousin there. Walking out of that visiting room, seeing my cousin sitting there in his prison greens, realizing that this would be his reality for the next ten years … that shit made me hide my face and cry silently all the way back to Staten Island. I made sure nobody saw me, though. I had a reputation to uphold.
    After that day, we all went back to see Curtis on the first Sunday of every month. It became our routine, and I was smart enough to pack street clothes to wear for the visit. I didn’t want to be caught out there looking like a schoolboy in front of all those hard rocks that Curtis was incarcerated with. Soon, Papa began bringing a deck of cards on the visits and me, Papa, Curtis, and Olivia would play Spades, PittyPat, Crazy Eights, and all the other jailhouse card games Curtis taught us. I looked forward to those visits each month and I knew that Curtis must have anticipated them even more.
    One Sunday, as I sat in church listening to the sounds of Grandma’s Baptist church congregation getting happy, I found myself laughing. I wasn’t laughing at the Lord, but some of these big women looked hilarious when they were shoutin’! They called it catchin’ the Holy
Ghost. All I know is that the shit looked comical! Out of respect for Grandma, I tried not to let anyone see me laughing. I hid my face behind a hymnal, but Olivia knew I was laughing and she nudged me to cut it out. I tried, but that shit was funny. I started to feel bad, but then I noticed another young man about the same age as me sitting on the other side of the church. We caught each other’s eye and realized that we were both laughing. He pointed discreetly to a woman behind him whose wig had all but fallen off of her head and we both fell into hysterics at the sight of it.
    Eventually, the congregation calmed down, and the reverend got up and began his sermon. I kept glancing at the guy who I’d shared a laugh with because he didn’t look familiar. He also didn’t look like the church type.
    Besides myself, the only other teenaged boys in church every week were the ones who were raised in church. Their mothers, aunts, grandparents, etc., all attended that church. These boys were junior deacons and choir members—they were nothing like me. As soon as I got out of church I’d be thinking about which girl I would fuck that day, or how I could get my hands on some good weed. These boys were nothing like me.
    But this kid seemed like he had an edge to him. I couldn’t tell if he was black or Spanish because he had that “good hair” my mother always talked about. He was light-skinned and had sideburns and a little goatee. Probably a pretty boy! I told myself and I turned my attention back to the sermon.
    After service, as I was waiting for Grandma to finish talking to all the women in the church, the same kid came over to me.
    “What up?” he said. I replied and waited to see what he wanted.
    “It’s nice to see that there’s another person in here with a sense of humor,” he remarked with a smile.
    I laughed. “Yeah, I find humor in some fucked … some messed-up stuff,” I corrected myself and prayed that I wouldn’t go to hell for cussing in the Lord’s house.

    The kid extended his hand. “My name is Zion,” he said.
    “Lamin.” I shook his hand as I introduced myself. “How come you don’t look