A Deeper Love In Him

Prologue

Look, lil nigga stand your ground! If you fall this time I'm not training you anymore... "

Grabbing me off of the wet concrete by my shoulders. It was drizzling some light rain but he didn't care. And neither did I. He was determined to help me build a stamina so strong that later on in life will never weaken, in or out of the ring. By now my face was drenched, the rain mixed in well with my sweat and a little bit of my tears. God must have been rooting for me in the clouds because if it wasn't for the rain Marlo would have saw me cry and he would've left me right were I stood that day. Rain drops sat heavily on my eyelashes, clouding my vision so I could hardly see Marlo standing over me. Starring at me as if he didn't want to give up on me just yet. He slapped his everlasts mitts together one last time.

"If you don't shape up. Ima take ya' lil ass down to Santiago, see how much you learn from that old head, now let's go!"

A thin stream of blood was leaking from my eyebrow, so I guess he re-opened the cut I had stitches for last week. I looked him square in his inky black eyes, at such a young age I was willing to die for a dream I wasn't even sure would come true...
"Let's do it..." I pounded the worn out gloves together.

That day was my seventh day of training with Lo. The rawest dude on the ave when it came down to boxing, when it came down to anything really. They called him him 'Lo' for a reason. He blended in with the crowd. He made a lot of money doing a bunch of illegal shit but he never spent it on material things. His humbleness is what kept him bumbling around Harlem for the time being. A real lowkey dude but not to be messed with. Everything I wanted to be and more, one day I'd move the whole block like he did and still keep my good rep in the boxing ring because I knew that boxing was going to be my way out of the hood...
I really didn't care if my mom -or anyone else for that matter- thought I was "crooked boxer" In case you haven't heard, a crooked boxer is a person who does dirt outside of the ring as well as other illegal shit. Maybe It's true, I may have been a little crooked for a boxer but I was gonna get mine regardless.... 

Back when I was a youngin'  I prayed My mom wouldn't find out that I was letting giant ass Marlo Stanford -aka Lo- train me in his backyard.  I knew that she was going find out sooner or later because I would eventually run out of excuses about the many bumps and bruises I came home with. On top of that, I got tired of shelling out most of my allowance to Bria. I used to make it my business to spot my 8 year old sister $10 or $20 to keep her from running her mouth to my mother. My little snitchster - that's what I use to call her - People always told my mother that it was easy to tell that Bria was her daughter, not only because Bria reflected the same toffe colored skin, chinky eyes and curly hair but because like my mom, she was so nosey. Bria was the only eight year old girl I knew that would question you on your whereabouts, like she just knew it was her god given right as a girl to do so.

"Joel, where were you? You said you were going to bring me back a strawberry shake hours ago. Did it melt or did you drink it?"
Her hands on her hips like she's waiting for a testimony or something, I always told her I felt sorry for her future husband...

I didn't know Marlo's name at the time but I followed him for a month straight without talking to him. I would just watch this cat, his moves was swift and effortless and his eyes zoomed right in on niggas like a cannon lens. He was sharp, you know? When he caught me watching or following him around it was always "Go the fuck home lil nigga." It was the way he said it that always made me come back for more.