Hood Roots

Hood Roots (The Freshman) Part 8

Near North high school.
This school was located in the worst neighborhood in Chicago, the notorious Cabrini-Green housing project. To give you a better understanding of the area they made T.V shows and films based on this area.
It is best known for the movie Candyman, the T.V show Good Times and the base on real-life Movie Cooley High.
We even had Cooley's old textbooks.
Cabrini was known for its gun violence. Even the Chicago police dare set foot there because the gang would have sniper-like behavior. It's hard to tell where bullets are coming from in a building 16 stories high and 12 apartments across. The gangs owned it and the city accepted that fact for years.
Cabrini was the perfect place for the Niggas though. Cabrini was located on an island in the middle of Chicago.
Most people in Chicago don't even know Chicago has an island. An Island is a body of land surrounded by water by definition. You can't get to Cabrini-Green without going over a bridge. It is surrounded by the Chicago River. Since you can't excess it unless you cross over a bridge it was the perfect place to build the projects. If the niggas got out of control all they had to do is raise the bridges.
At one time Cabrini-Green was the most violent place in the city of Chicago.
We once had a white female Mayor that wanted to show support for the people living there so she was supposed to temporarily move into one of the buildings.
I don't know what that bitch was smoking but after 24 hours she was on the next thing smoking out of that area.
Anyway, this was where I had to attend my first year of high school.
The school itself was not so bad. It was almost new. They tore down Cooley and built my school to replace it.
I was so happy that some of my homeboys came with me. My boy from the school bus field trip Alfred, my boy and partner in Crime Larry and my homeboy Pete. Larry was 50 Cent before 50 cent was 50 cent. He was a self-proclaimed thug and gangster. Always had on the baseball cap and du-rag combo.
He swore he was a pimp too. I never saw any hoes but he was not a virgin like me.
I and Larry use to pillaged together. He was a criminal 😆 and very good at it too. It was because of him that we never got caught.
Pete was a strong, athletic nerd. He could dominate any sport. He had athletic gifts that he couldn't use because of his religion. He could have played 3 sports easily. In fact he could have been the first 3 sport athlete in school history.
Alfred, well you know him. I met him on the school bus that day. It was so hard to focus on school at Near North because you always had the gangs to deal with. Just getting on the bus to go home was a challenge. One day me, Pete, Alfred, and Larry went to the auto shop because we heard the gangs were waiting to hit people with froze eggs for Halloween. The auto shop had a garage door that faced the bus stop a block away. We could see the bus coming from two blocks away so we waited there. The plan was to run as fast as we could to the bus stop and don't look back.
We waited and scanned the path to the bus stop for the enemy.
"Larry says there is the bus and takes off like a jackrabbit with his ass on fire.
We looked at our path one last time and took off. Larry was halfway across the field. We struggled to gain ground. Our hesitation was our downfall.
The gang bangers just came out of nowhere. I put my feet in overdrive as the gangs threw frozen eggs. Pete turned around to look and caught an egg to the head for his troubles. I thought I was in the clear till it happened. An egg caught me right in the back of my head. My knees buckled but I knew if I fell the consequences who be much worse so I ran harder.
We all arrived at the bus stop at the same time and right as the bus got to our stop. The bus driver scooped us up and hit the gas as the gang bangers riddled the bus with eggs.
There was always a day with those pesky gangs. One day I just got tired of the fucking bullying.
I was in the lunchroom and I had some rare cash and bought myself some of those delicious lunchroom butter cookies. I sat down to eat my food and here comes one of the damn gang bangers.
" Hey, you gone eat dat"? Eat what I replied. He licked his finger and put it on my cookie. "Hell yeah, I want my cookie"! I stood up so he could put slob on any more of my cookies.
Lamont, Pete whispers as I voiced my anger towards the bully. I continued my rant, feeling more confident about the results. "Ummmm Lamont"! What Pete!
Pete points behind me. I look back and a large section of kids in the room are standing up to.
I see people climbing under the table.
Oh, shit is all I could get out.
I got beat like a pinata by all the food that hit my body. Grabbed my cookies and got under the table.
The school police came and it was over as fast as it started and you best to believe I got my damn cookies.