the boy cried to be saved

It was almost like he was forgotten shortly after birth. He has lived his short life in fear, without guidance and treated as an adult, but never as a child. His father gave him his first joint to smoke when he was 11 years old. They smoked it together. It made him feel sick, but he sat and laughed with his dad and tried to enjoy this small amount of attention that his father was so graciously affording him. 

Two weeks later the boy bought a joint off the street and brought it home for his dad. The boy figured he could buy the joint in order to buy time with his father. His father took the joint from the boys hand, said thank you and walked away. The boy looked sadly at the ground and wondered what he could try next to get his fathers attention.

A few days later the boy met some other boys while he was hanging out in the streets. The other boys seemed to like him. They asked him to do things and he would. They congratulated him and this made the boy feel good. They called him and asked him to meet them places. The boy was pleased that they wanted to spend time with him even if he had to do things, like steal, for them. He became one of their members. 

At the age of 13 the other boys gave him his first gun. He was proud and he took it to school everyday. He used it only a few times. Only once did he hit another person. It was only in the leg.

The boy often got into fights at school and the other boys rewarded him with joints and alcohol. They patted him on the back and told him he was doing a good job. They were proud of him. He liked the feeling of someone being proud of him. 

At the age of 14, the boy found a small bag of cocaine in his fathers room. He took the bag, knowing what it was, and showed it to the other boys. Together they cut up lines and snorted the cocaine. The boys asked if he liked the cocaine and he said he did. They told him that they could get plenty of it to give to him if they did what they told him to do. He did. 

At the age of 15 the boy skipped school one day to hang out with one of the other boys, his best friend of three years. They went to the corner store. Across the street from where they stood was another group of boys. That side of the street was that groups territory. The boy knew not to cross the street. Then a girl that he and his best friend knew started talking to them from across the street. She lured them to her. The boy and his friend began to walk across the street. They made it almost to the curb when one of the other boys from that side of the street walked up to the boys best friend, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. The 15 year old best friend dropped to the warm concrete with a hole in his head and never took another breath. The boys white t-shirt was splattered red with blood, his face dripping with particles of his friends brain and took his last look at his friend and then ran quickly back to his side of the street corner. He stopped for only a second to draw his gun, shoot it three times and then he ran and ran. He ran all the way to his other friends who then ran back to the street corner. The boy did not follow. He ran home and took off his bloody shirt. He held it in his hands and cried. He placed it in a plastic bag, closed it up tight and hid it in the back of his closet where it still remains today.

A week later the boy began completing more errands for his friends. He never went anywhere without his gun. The more errands he ran, the more cocaine they gave him. He rarely went to school. He sometimes smoked pot with his father. He held up two women for their money. He beat up a young boy for his iphone. He tried not to sleep because the nightmares were so loud in his head.

The boy went to school one day and his teacher told him to take off the giant necklace that he was wearing. The boy said no. The teacher reached to grab the necklace and the boy swung and hit her with the book in his hand. She had to have fifteen staples put in her head to keep it closed from the wound. She wears the scar daily.

At age 16 the boy continued to try and get his fathers attention. He showed his dad his gun. His dad told him that the gun was for pussies and he needed a better gun, so he gave him one.  The boy brought his dad joints and they smoked together. His father had taken to drinking in the last few years so the boy stole alcohol from the corner stores and drank with his father into the wee hours of the mornings. The boy liked the taste of whiskey.

At age 17 the boy was snorting four lines of cocaine every morning and fifteen to twenty lines throughout the day. In order to afford his habit he had to continue to produce merchandise that he stole, money that took, electronics that he robbed people for or run errands that were asked of him. He went to school high one day. The principal had him in his office. He asked the boy to take off his hat. The boy refused. The principal asked again and the boy stood up with intense fervor grabbing the edge of the desk and flipping it onto the principal. The cops came and they called his dad. His father didn't answer.

At age 18 the boy was snorting eight lines of cocaine every morning and twenty to thirty lines throughout the day and night. His friend offered him some heroine. The boy figured he had nothing to lose by trying it. He didn't like it. Another friend gave him some crystal meth. The boy liked it. 

A few weeks later the school counselor spoke with the boy and his mother and found a rehab for him to attend. The boy agreed. His mother was sad. She cried. A week later the boys father arrived at the school. Nobody on the staff knew who he was. He had never set foot in the school before that moment. He spoke to the counselor and said that his son was not going to rehab. The boy didn't go.

Four days later, at the age of 18 years, 2 months and 3 days, the boy sat on the stoop of his friends house. He was snorting cocaine out of a little canister that he bought the day before. He figured it was easier than having to cut up lines every time he wanted to get high. He put the canister up to his nose and snorted the pure white powder. An hour later the boy lay dead on the steps with a small amount of blood that dripped out of his nose and onto his upper lip. His hands were clenched on his shirt over the left side of his upper chest. His eyes were wide open.