“I’on know. I just feel stuck here. Like I’m not going nowhere. You got yo’ life together. You in college. You gone be somebody. What I’mma be? I’m eva gon’ leave dis’ neighborhood? Like befo’ I die? How I’ma get da money ta do dat? I jus’ don’t see no way forward.”

“I tole you I was gon’ help you get out when I graduate. I’on got no money right now either, but as soon as I get a real job, I’a help you and Dre too.”

My lies wash over me, bathe me in my own sin. Darth by my side, I allow them. I do not resist, but feel increasingly terrible. I can’t help either of them now. I’m a failure too. A knot grows in my stomach. Inner turmoil bubbles like stew in a cauldron. I’m overwhelmed with disappointment. Maybe I could go back, I think to myself. Maybe it’s not too late. I remember what happened with Bryce and shake the thoughts from my mind. Even if I have to get a regular job, I’ll still help my brothers. I can help them with a regular job too. Calm. Self-assurance. There is always a way, I tell myself, even though I don’t fully believe it.

“Well, I’m happy wit my life,” Dre says. “I may not have nothing. I may not ever leave dis’ neighborhood, but I got people dat love me, food in my belly, and Colt.” He picks up the bottle of Colt 45 sitting next to him and swallows a big gulp before releasing a deeply satisfied, “Ahhh.”

“What else do you need in life?”

“Are you supposed to be drinking on that medication?” I ask sharply, referring to his schizophrenia meds.

“What it’s like up dere at dat white college?” Dre asks, changing the subject. “Is er’ybody rich like on TV?”

“Yep,” I say definitively. “They got more money den I ever seen in my life. It make me so mad. Here we is livin’ like dis and it’s people in the world dat have so much, dey’on even know what to do wit it all. Da world is so crazy and unequal.”

“You got a boyfriend?” Dre asks abruptly. “Wait a minute! You got a white boyfriend?! Do he talk like dis?” Dre starts talking and motioning like he is a robot. “My name is… What’s white boys’ names? Like Drew Carey from dat TV show about Cleveland? Like Zack from Saved by the Bell?” He continues his robotic impersonation. “My name is Zack. I cannot dance, but I am rich and white. Mew. Mew. Mew.”

“What kind of sound effects are those? They definitely don’t talk like that. No, I don’t got a boyfriend.”