Black Boy Joy

Prologue

Summer 2005
Philadelphia, Penn.
West Wood Projects
413 West Wood Avenue

•••

"It's the ice cream man!" a boy yelled out from the middle of the street, sending every child on the block into a frenzy to scrape up some change.

It was rare for the ice cream truck to stop by this side of town because of how terrible our neighborhood was.

I began to hear the jolly music blasting from the truck clearer now as I sat on my apartment building's porch steps.

My friend, Scotty, tugged on my arm.

"C'mon Keith. Grab your wheeler so we can go to the corner and get some of those Ninja Turtle ice cream pops."

I shook my head," Nah, I'm good."

"C'mon now Keith. It's hotter than Michael Davis' breath out here. I need something to cool me down."

I let out a light chuckle,"...but my mama told me not to take my yellow behind off these stairs or else. I'm not trying to find out what "else" is. Plus, I don't have any money."

Scotty snarled," Man, what she don't know won't hurt her. We're just going down the street and back. She'll never know you left. That's if we hurry and go before he runs out of all the good shit, bro."

I sighed as I grabbed the metal handle bars to my red bike.

I decided to let Scotty have his way because if I didn't I'd never hear the end of it.

I knew better than to leave the porch steps, but still I decided to risk it all.

The last person my mother wanted me hanging or going anywhere with was Scotty.

She always felt as if he was a possible bad influence over me.

Scotty was only twelve, a year older than me, but he was already cursing like a sailor.

He even hung around some of the OG gang members that always stood on the corner of our avenue.

Probably because his older brother, Antonio aka Anto, was one of them.

Scotty told me once that he's seen and held a pistol that belonged to Anto before.

I believe it, too.

Scotty's experienced more in his short life than many adults I know.

When he was 3, he found his father murdered on the sidewalk in front of their house.

Then when he was 8, a week before his 9th birthday, his mom committed suicide in the bathtub.

My mother told me she was a very depressed woman who wasn't strong enough to seek help when it came to battling her demons.

After that, Scotty was gone for a year in foster care.

When Antonio turned 20, he came and got Scotty out of the foster system.