My name is Marquese Davis, I'm eighteen years old and currently a senior at North Queens Community High School. My whole life I grew up loving sports but only seemed to fall in love with basketball. I have received scholarships from colleges everywhere such as Duke University, Kentucky University, Savannah State and plenty more but you get the picture.
Where I'm from, you get so use to being around gang violence, drugs and alcohol. It wasn't long until I lost my own ma and some of my friends to these things. I grew up in the streets of Queens, New York with my pops, John Davis.
When I was 10 years old I came home from school calling for my ma but she never seemed to answer. I thought nothing of it, she's known for just slipping away without anyone knowing, drugs really had her messed up. I head for the bathroom but something just didn't feel right. I start messing with knob on the door I notice it was locked. "MA!" I yell, banging on the door. "Ma you straight? Ma let me in!" I sprint into the street, tears burning my eyes. I see my pops heading towards me. "Marquese what's wrong?" my pops keeps asking as I'm choking on my words, trying to hold my tears back. All I could get out was "...it's ma"
The last time I saw my ma was when she was being carried out in a body bag.
Ever since that day my pops and I formed a bond that we never thought we'd have and now we're like best friends. My pop pushes me to be great in life and also basketball, he tends to tell me that the crowd of friends I hang with could get me in lots of trouble. James, Darius and Juwan are all brothers and my best friends. I've been knowing them since I was five, we basically grew up together.
My friends aren't exactly what you would call "great leaders". Their known in our neighborhood for selling weed, being quick to start fights all because they're trying to put on for their gang, 'the Bloods'. Bloods is the lifestyle in these streets. Either you know a blood, you are a blood or you're just one of the lucky ones.. like me. Which is why everyone is so shocked that we're friends. I usually could talk them out of things but this night, I couldn't...
