In My Hood Read Online Free

train’s fumes mixed with humidity were suffocating. She merged in with the train’s crowd and left the platform. The escalator wasn’t working so she had to walk down the heavy steel steps. Once in the station, she looked around at all the people hustling to their destinations. She walked past the various newsstands and eateries. The aroma of food and bad air filled her nostrils.
    Home sweet home,
she said to herself.
    She walked past a hotdog stand. “I ain’t had one of them in years,” she said aloud.
    She purchased a foot-long hotdog and a Pepsi. She gobbled down the hotdog and sipped on her soda as she walked through the station, taking in the scenery. Once outside, lines and lines of taxicabs hugged the curb. Rows of cars pulled up and away after either dropping off or picking up passengers. She didn’t know which way to go. She had no destination. She had been dreading this day although she longed for her freedom. Without Bilal she didn’t know where to begin again. What family she had left had disowned her. The friends she had before she started using were afraid of her, so the only people she knew as family were the addicts with whom she had surrounded herself.
    People, places, and things,
she thought.
I cannot associate myself with people, places, and things of my drug-used past.
    She didn’t know what to do. She came back to Newark because that’s where she was from. She didn’t have enough money to stay in a motel. She needed a place to stay and food to eat. As she leaned against a wall, it hit her. She would visit an old friend of hers who didn’t use. Unfortunately she would have to go back to the old neighborhood, but what other choice did she have?
    She went into her bag, pulled out her pack of cigarettes, and lit one. As she smoked it a derelict man walked up to her.
    “You got one you can spare, miss?” he asked in his inebriated state.
    His odor lit the hairs in her nose. She reached into her pack and gave the man a cigarette.
    “Thank you, ma’am. Got a light?” he asked, holding the cigarette between his filthy fingers.
    Desiree lit the man’s cigarette with her matches and shook the fire out, throwing the dead match to the ground.
    “Thank you, ma’am. Do you have any change you can spare to get me something to eat?” the man asked.
    She reached into her pocket and gave him the few coins she had. She walked away from the homeless man, thinking back on how she used to beg for spare change just to get high.
    She headed toward a cab. She opened the door and got in.
    “Where to lady?” the driver asked.
    “Fifteenth Avenue.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
What the hell am I doing? Where else am I supposed to go? I just gotta be strong. I gotta stay strong. God, give me strength.
    ***************
On the other side of town
    “Yo, son, you musta forgot who I am. I’m dat nigga. You heard me?” a young boy named Rich boasted.
    “Man, that’s bullshit. Ain’t no way in hell you twisted that niggaz spleen. You full of shit man,” a kid named Dale proclaimed.
    “Word up, man. I’m tryna tell you. I bodied dat nigga and left his ass leaking,” Rich continued to brag.
    “Y’all on a break?” a deep voice boomed from behind.
    The two boys jumped and turned around.
    “Oh, what’s up, Ish? Naw, man, we was just shootin’ the shit,” Rich stuttered.
    “I don’t pay y’all mafuckas to shoot the shit. Is my paper right? Y’all outta work? What’s up?” he continued to question.
    “Naw, man, we still got work,” Rich stammered.
    “Explain something to me. Y’all tryna tell me y’all still got work, y’all ain’t got my ends ready, and y’all standing around holding ya dicks? Am I missing something?” Ishmael asked, folding his arms across his well-proportioned chest.
    Technically Ishmael was
dat nigga
. He was caked up and well respected in the streets and getting money in South Carolina, D.C., and Virginia.
    The boys looked at each other with their