Life Lesson

Dwayne Reece

Young people now a days think power and respect comes from hanging on the corner or participating in negative events, such as selling drugs, degrading people, or the most common street issue, possessing a gun. I had a case in which I was in the middle of a heated situation. This situation gave me a first hand experience of how it feels holding a gun. It also gave me a new attitude towards life.
During the summer time, at a local project apartment complex me and my boys would chill, and hang out. I was around the age of 18 or 21,when one day my friend Ty and his cousin, had an idea to rob someone. Ty’s cousin was from New York he was just visiting for a couple of days, so he really didn’t care. The thing that bothered us the most about Ty’s idea was that he and his cousin wanted to rob someone who lived in the same projects. This particular person they wanted to rob was friends with a well known highly ranked man of the streets, by the name of Jason. Jason had a reputation for being very violent and having a long rap sheet for committing crime, practically living in jail.
For hours me and my boys tried to convince Ty not to listen to his cousin. We gave him so many reason’s but, the one I remember was, telling Ty that his cousin could leave the projects and go back to New York, but he can’t. The words we spoke were wasted, his cousin was like the little devil on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. Although we knew Ty would do it, we could tell he really didn’t want to. He just wanted to impress his cousin and Ty was also known for having a few screws loose.
Days went bye and nothing happened. We came to find out Ty and his cousin were just plotting and waiting for the so called right moment. The robbery finally took place, they no one was injured and they got away. Later someone noticed that one of the robbers had on the same clothes as Ty. A blue high school track sweat suit and the same sneakers Ty always wear. The victim approached Ty and a few words were said. I remember the victim saying ‘’we will see, wait until tomorrow’’.
The next day I received a call from one of my boys .He lived in the projects longer than most and he knew a lot of people. During or conversation he mentioned someone was threatening Ty’s life. Without a thought I frantically ran five blocks to the projects. There I noticed a huge crowd without wasting time I saw Ty and my other boys. My boys were protecting Ty because Ty’s cousin left and went back to New York ,hours after the robbery. Now Ty was stuck looking stupid all by himself, everyone in the whole projects knew he had something to do with the robbery.
Since we all grew up together in the projects the victim and his friends just wanted the money and to have a one on one fight with Ty. The fight wasn’t an issue with Ty at all, but the money was. Ty and his partner in crime decided to split the money, and since his cousin returned to New York, half of the money was missing. You could feel things get tense and Ty’s emotion went from guilt to now having a to hell with it attitude. Thats when the chaos officially began, people started to see Ty’s mode change. All Ty kept
saying was ‘’ It wasn’t me …it was my cuzin ‘’ The victim and his crew started getting more irate. That’s when you heard Jason’s voice saying ‘’Listen man you have two options. Either get the money or deal with the consequences. I will be back in an hour’’. I and my crew including Ty knew what he meant by saying ‘’suffer the consequences’’ It could mean either one or two things. They were going to wait until Ty was solo and beat him up or shot him; it was easy for him. For one it was Jasons’ worker and friend they robbed. Second; it was some illegal money that belonged to Jason and the victim. Did I mention due to Jasons’ jail record, he has been working out. Plus he was locked up for attempted murder and armed robbery. Remember the highly ranked man named Jason I mentioned earlier . He was the voice of the person giving Ty those options.
. During that hour things felt so slow. No one ever mentioned anything to Ty about being wrong. We were too worried about his well being. We all knew we had jobs to do to protect our boy. The hour passed and we all were set .We had our negotiator my boy who lived in the projects all his life. He knew everyone, so he tried to peace things out. We had lookouts for cops, because we also had a crew called The Firemen. Firemen were the kids with guns, waiting to let one loose. I know because I was one, I was never nervous but for some reason I felt funny. I noticed the victim and his crew assembled around Jason, just a few feet away from us. We notice they had firemen too.
Our boy ‘’The Negotiator’’ walked over to Jason; they shared words that couldn’t be heard, but minutes passed. Our boy and Jason shook hands. While the firemen eyed each other and dared anyone to act uncaringly. For some odd reason my opposition looked like me. He was young and a product of our environment, just like me. If I shouted at him I’d be killing two lives; his and myself. Out the corner of my eye I see my boy coming back and saying things were cool. Ty would just have to get the money back.
For the first time it seemed as if I was seeing life. I thought about jail, death, things that made me realized; I should enjoy life. I didn’t want to be the guy with the gun, waiting to injure or kill someone. Later that night we all got drunk; and gave Ty the whipping of his life verbally. At the same time I was thanking him. Looking back on it me holding a gun in a situation of shoot or be shot is not my style.
That was the last time I ever held a gun or put myself in a similar situation. Sometimes you need to experience things in life, in order to realize how important life is. I believe that’s the only way to find out how a person feels about life. From my experience, I would tell anyone that holding a gun doesn’t make your brave. Using your mind like our ’’Negotiator‘’ did during a hectic situation is brave. Knowing there are guns on both sides and approaching the opposition to talk, that’s brave. He didn’t need any weapons his presence as a man was tough enough .A gun is an deadly object, and if you hold possession of that object you are not in power the gun is.