Hood Ornaments Chapter 1

I should feel safe around my brothers. So whenever I walked through the crowds of Crips that barricaded the corner of my apartment building, I acted like I wasn't scared. Even though they had robbed me once before. If you can take candy from a baby, I guess you can take an iPhone from a woman. They would have to catch me a hundred times before they could get me to even think about moving back in with my parents. Once just meant the games had begun.

I've always had to choose between work and school. Either go to school from a homeless shelter, if I was lucky enough to get a bed, or go to work with food in my stomach and delay school for another semester. Life was "Pay-to-Play". I had dreams of being a lawyer or a Chemist in a world where things like becoming a rapper or a scammer seemed to be more attainable. Most of the kids I had gone to school with were on their second or third child by 23 and were all looking for a quick come up. Time was of the essence and suddenly, becoming an astronaut seemed impossible and standards started to drop. Selling drugs, stealing credit card information or finding a "sugar daddy" were prioritized. Murder if things went south and inevitable jail time. I couldn't let that happen to me, but we all looked the same to whoever interviewed us for the opportunities we applied to. I picked my friends carefully, although, these people were created by their circumstances.

Nobel was a good fucking kid. A little cocky, but he definitely meant well and dreamed of being President one day. He moved away in the 10th grade because his landlord raised his family's rent in the apartment he had lived in his entire life. The neighborhood was changing. They had been saving up for a long time to buy a house because they couldn't get a loan and their credit score was anything but reliable. His mother worked full time and took care of his other siblings while his dad worked two jobs, so they made too much to qualify for public assistance, but barely enough to get by. Nobel's family emptied their savings to find a new apartment on the cheaper side of town and quickly learned the hard way that "cheaper" wasn't always synonymous with "better", or even "similar". This also meant a new school for Noble.

The neighborhood wasn't safe but it was affordable. Not even a year later, Noble's older brother was shot during a street fight. His family couldn't afford the cost of the funeral so Noble sold weed to try and scrape up some extra money. He started cutting class and sneaking out late to keep up with demand. After giving his parents money to cover a significant portion of his brother's funeral, he was able to buy a used car, but was pulled over on his way to an inspection with marijuana in his car. He was arrested and suddenly, those dreams of being President one day were behind him.

I ended up in the dumps of Brooklyn after fleeing from a home in Long Island by the water. Turns out, there are actually people that stand on the corner and offer you drugs. Some of them I knew by name and would shake hands with on my way back from the nail salon or laundromat. I was never ashamed of that. The only thing I feared back home was my father, an ex-Muslim, ex-Marine, Atheist that I presumed to be Satan. He had kicked me out 3 times before eventually giving me up. I wasn't allowed to raise my voice and sometimes was forced to strip naked. But as I grew older, I learned to thank him. If I had stayed, he would have tried to kill me before I killed myself. He found out that I was cutting myself in the 9th grade and mocked me. They didn't want me to live, so in the words of DJ Khaled, I was gonna do more than live. I was gonna be smarter than him and wealthy and more importantly, happy. The first step in finding that happiness was taking control and getting out. Then, I had to forgive him.

Forgiving him meant letting go of the past and accepting responsibility for whatever happened to myself afterwards. I could no longer blame him for feeling sad, for being hungry, or for my mistakes. But on the bright side, he no longer had any control over me. My circumstances were shifting, but not necessarily for the better. I had no idea what a W-2 was at 15. I was a young, natural-haired black woman that was denied jobs because I needed to "do something with my hair". My friends and I grew apart because our priorities changed. I started hanging out with older crowds. I tried LSD and Molly. Real life was coming at me really fast. I was just trying to give it meaning.

Bills other than phone bills started coming to my mailbox with my name on it in college. I checked my account balance and sighed. Even with overtime, I had only made $600. I owed my school about $2,000, rent was $450, and I also like to have food and clean clothes. I was forced to pick between the two as most of us often do too. My heart broke a little everytime someone asked when I was going back to school because there was nothing I wanted more than to finish. I tried not to fall in love. I was afraid of ending up pregnant and alone like so many of my peers, or wasting my time. The only way I could afford to go back to school would be to move back in with my family. I had to work harder to find a job not only because of the color of my skin but because of how thick my hair grew. So basically, for no fucking reason at all. These were my circumstances.

"Phone, keys, wallet, check." I whispered to myself before running out for work. I got to the train station and tried to buy a Metro Card at the machine, but my card declined. The train was 3 minutes away. I called my mom and to my surprise, she answered.

"Hey Mom, are you busy?" I asked.

"What's going on?" My mom responded. She knew something was up.

"It's just that I.. I'm running a little late for work and I don't have enough for a metro card. I was wondering if you c-"

"I don't have it." She interrupted.

"No, No. I just need you to send me like $5 and I'll send it right back on Friday. Plea-" I started to beg before she cut me off again.

"I. DON'T. HAVE. IT. She said rudely. That'll teach you to not spend all your money" before hanging up.

The train was now 1 minute away. I looked around.

"I'll figure it out, I whispered to myself. I always do."