JUICE!

We all know right from wrong. But some of us have difficulty knowing right
from very wrong. This is the moment in my life where this question would
be posed to me.

Walnut Terrace, "The TERRACE" what many would refer to as the 'hood
nowadays, was often a playground for myself and some other friends.
It had a bad reputation but it was not that way for me. My experiences
never reflected the evils that I heard happens there. Never lived there,
but had a few acquaintances who did. My best friend, Thurston, had some
cousins who stayed in the Terrace, Tiffany and Anton. They lived with their
mother, who was a surrogate aunt like Thurston's mother. Sometimes I
would end up in the Terrace from spending the weekend with Thurston,
and his sister Von, who were more like family. Our fathers once were
drinking buddies while we were only 3 or 4. It was rare that I was at Anton's
house without Thurston, but this was one of those times.

It was a hot summer night in about '85 or '86, I was about 13 or 14.
There was a group of us, around 5 maybe, including Anton. "Sir Nose" was
another name I remember, as an obvious description. The Terrace was
literally two blocks from downtown Raleigh and we decided to walk downtown
to on of those parking-lot carnival at the civic center. We were joking, clowning,
talking about girls, as we made our war across the yard, through the park
and in front of the elementary school that I attended a few years before then.
About halfway to the carnival under a dimlit street light, Anton reveals a
snub-nose .38! "Anton's got a gun!" I said to myself is disbelief.
My voice crackled even in my head. I was caught off guard. I never knew
Anton to be this gangsta! Straight 'A' student? I don't know, but certainly had
the intelligence to be if he chose to do so. Never before seen or heard of any
thug shit he was on. Maybe this was HIS opportunity to prove himself in
some way to the rest of theses clowns? And I'm going down with them if the
shit jumps off. That much I did know. He didn't brandish it pointing it at
anyone, bragging or anything, but more or less to letevryone know he was
'strapped'. throwing hands is one this blowin' somebody''s head off is some
no turnin' back shit.

Frozen momentarily, the rest of the group was in awe, as I was also, but for
different reasons. More concerned with what kinda shit was I about to
be apart of, I don't remember what was said, the reasons for strapping up,
probably because I didn't hear anyone over the constant conversation going
on in my head. Was I to be an unknowing soldier falsely recruited to help
fight someone's beef? A rag-tag group, with a half-baked scheme, and to be
part of this spontaneous robbing crew? Or was this planned all week? Or was this
some sort of right of passage where I was going to be asked to get buck-wild,
rob some lady or pistol-whip some old man for soda money? Didn't know.
My eyes glazed over as I searched for someone's eyes who shared my
sentement of conceding. Their pupils were cold-blooded like Rick's. Oblivious
to the potential disaster this may turn out to be. Tears would not fall, afraid
that even they could possibly get they ass shot too if they weren't down
with the program! My heart pumped radically like a crack addict's. Anton
played the part of Bishop, so who would be the one to show they got JUICE?
Gotta man-up without punking out.

Suddenly at a crossroad. Lemme make up some excuse to turn back? Naw!
I,...I can't do that. I might be asked why I suddenly didn't want to go to the
carnival? Consequences might even be worse. And if I trekked back through
the hood alone without a pass? That shit ain't smart neither. There was some
REAL, bully-type niggas in the shadows, always plotting on some unsuspecting
fool. DAMN! Definitely a fucked-up situation. I knew that I had to ditch these
fools soon, but how?.

Cut to years later, and glad to say, that at 33 years of age, I've made the right
decisions in those type of situations and especially that one. I've done things
that I could have possibly gone to jail for, if I was caught, but there was always
that line that I knew NEVER to cross. "Sir Nose" was killed in early '96 I believe.
Something to do with an altercation over some damn sneakers. Never heard
wether or not he was the vistim or the perpetrator.

I haven't seen Anton since around '96 at Thurston's wedding. He had been out
of the Army a short while after that. He was part of the famed 82nd Airborne
Division at Fort Bragg. He jumped out of planes in his underwear regularly, drove
tanks and fired ammunition that could blow planes out the sky. A real black
Rambo type mufucka! He did the shit you see in the commercials. I was at Bragg
also, and existed more subtly, but those 82nd niggas were a little crazy. Guess it
kinda fit him in some way.