The Foster care system through my eyes Pt. 6

I felt a sinking feeling in my gut the second they said Spanky was dead.  I just saw him in the store maybe two hours earlier.  Me and him played in the park all the time.  He was killed in front of the very park we always played in.  My mind was racing with every different scenario.  Could I have saved him?  Would I have been laying on the ground like him? Cold, alone and lifeless.  My mother told me to get away from the window and close it.  There was no use in me telling her my friend just died.  She would just use that as an excuse to say I couldn't go play in the park.  My time out of the house was restricted enough, so I just kept it in.  I cried myself to sleep that night and for the first time in my life I flinched at every gun shot I heard that night.  All I could think about was there must be some poor victim on the other end of that barrel.

The next day school was not easy to get through.  All I could think of was seeing Spanky laying there on the street.  I don't remember seeing his mother or anyone who knew him near his body.  I envisioned my mother laying over my own body screaming in pain.  I could never do that to her.  I guess that's why I really listened to everything she said.  I had plenty of friends who smoked weed and drank alcohol, but I never had the desire to taste any of those vices.  My mother had always told us that drugs were bad and made you look like a monster.  She said all addicts ended up homeless on the street begging for change.  I believed her because I always saw homeless people on the street laying in cardboard boxes.  I could never be that person,  I wanted more in life I just didn't know what.  

For the first time in my life I was fresh to death and I wasn't really enjoying it.  I had on brand new sneakers with some denim Nautica jeans.  Danny was pretty impressed with the clothes I had gotten for school.  My pride and joy was my North Face book bag.  Everyone wanted a North Face book bag and there was only two or three different types.  I had one that nobody in the entire school had.  Danny wanted to buy it off of me the first time he saw it.  I'm not gonna lie I felt like the MAN!  Crazy how much the material things meant to me at that young age.  

I passed the ninth grade with high grades, so when I started the tenth grade they put me in advanced math classes.  I guess you can say I was really good with math.   I was called into the guidance counselor's office and they outlined a rigorous plan to get me to graduate by the end of the year plus night school and summer school.  Just in time to to start college next fall. They doubled up on all my classes to give me the necessary credits to graduate (42 credits is what was needed to graduate High School in NYC at that time).  It was a lot to take in at the time and my mind was still in other places.  But just the thought of being able to start college at the age of 15 was overwhelming.  I couldn't wait to get home to tell my mother.  I knew she would be proud of me.  Just imagine I would surpass my sister's "world record".  I left school and walked straight home not stopping at the library like I usually do.

I walked in the house and didn't even take my book bag off before I started to tell my mother what happened at school.  She stopped me dead in my tracks and shut my whole little show down.  She asked me to show her my new schedule and my older sister inspected it.  My sister was just shaking her head saying "these people are crazy".  I didn't really understand why she said that but I began to tell them again about how I would be able to start college next year.  My mom simply shut it down.  You are not going to speed up your education to be in college with grown adults.  She said I was still a kid and wasn't ready for college.  I could not believe what I was hearing.  I thought they would be happy to know that I was smart enough to be in college at a young age.  I guess I was wrong.

The next day my mother took me to school and we walked straight to the principle's office and demanded that they take off all the extra classes.  I remember the principle looking a little puzzled at the fact that she didn't want me to graduate early.  After my mom was done yelling at him he called up my guidance counselor and told to fix my schedule immediately.  By the time my mother left the office I think she got offered a job to work at the school.  I got to class late and everyone was already working on their assignments.  I guess I won't be attending college early.  Now that Danny wasn't in any of my classes I stood to myself trying to stay out of trouble.  Things really didn't change much in school these days.  It was the same boring routine as always.  It almost seemed as if everyone was enjoying life more than I was at the moment.  
When I got home from school that day my sister was there talking with my mother.  She was already married with two little kids so she stopped by as often as she could to see all beeper store on Wycoff ave and he just fired his only other employee.  Since I was around the business she had in Jersey she suggested he offer me the job.  So he did.  She told me to go the the beeper store tomorrow after school at 4 o clock.  She wrote the address on a piece of paper and then she left.  I'm not sure if my mother was in a good mood or she just trusted my sister's judgement.  Now I was going to be able to have some money to buy myself things throughout the year.

The next day after school I rushed home to get ready for work.  I was pretty nervous because this was like my first official job.  I didn't want to mess up on the first day.  The Store wasn't far from my house and it only took ten minutes to get there walking.  When I got to the store it was not what I was expecting.  The place was very tiny, in fact if was just a little space in the front of a cab station.  No matter what the place looked like I didn't care.  I was about to start getting paid and that's all that matters.  I only had one other friend who had a job and that was my friend Raymond.  He worked in his uncle's bodega.  He always had a lot of money and the latest sneakers, plus he already had a dope ass car with rims and a sound system.  Now that I got a job I will be one of the few who had a little bit of money.  I walked in and my new boss just looked at me and started laughing.  We already knew each other from the past summer.  He was setting up a cellphone shop inside of my sister's store.  I didn't know this was who she was talking about.  After the first 15 minutes of my first official job I was eating Dominican Rice beans and roast pork (pernil my favorite).  I guess I was gonna do well at this job.  He agreed to pay me $200 dollars a week for five afternoons after school.  In those days $20 was a lot and he just offered me $200.  I was happy as hell!  He even gave me my first week in advance and told me to go buy a pair of Jordans.  He already knew my mother was real strict so he told me not to tell her he gave me the money and he would take me to the store to get the sneakers.  I couldn't believe me luck to get hired by him.  

He taught me how to connect the beepers using solder machines and all that.  I learned how to change the frequencies on them to work with different carriers.  I even learned how to change the case.  In those times cell phones weren't too popular and they were really expensive.  But everyone owned a beeper and he made a killing charging people a monthly charge for the service.  I was an expert in less than a week, and my salesman career began.  Over the next few months I did good selling lots of beeper subscriptions.  I wonder if any of those people still have any of those beepers connected today.  Now a days mostly doctors and law enforcement use beepers.  Gone are the days of pay phones on every corner, now everything is in the cloud wireless and bluetooth.  I look back on those days and now I realize that I was part of a communications revolution and didn't even know it.  There was no Facebook there was block parties and everyone tried to put on there best.  Back in those days you had to to walk for blocks to find someone.  

Christmas vacation was coming up and this was my favorite time of year.  Not only for the presents but for the feeling that spread throughout the air during the holidays. People put up lights everywhere and I remember every year they dressed up Myrtle Ave. with lights hanging across the streets.  

Plus we had the best Christmas tree in the world.  The one they put up in Rockefeller center every year drew thousands of tourists to see the thousands of lights hanging on the tree.  

Our family always got together for the holidays and we had a great big feast.  My boss said I didn't have to work during my vacation I only had two shifts left before I went on break.

On my last shift before I started the Christmas break I was having a blast.  Danny came by and we chilled listened to music and ordered pizza.  I laughed in my head if my mom could see me now she would probably freak out and make me quit my job.  It was bad enough my mother called everytime I stood ten minutes late.  It was embarrassing.  For some reason tonight was dragging.  It had been snowing all day long and I was not looking forward to shoveling when I got home.  My dad usually did those things but he was still in Pennsylvania fixing up the house.  Danny was showing me the car he was saving up for when all of a sudden we heard loud shouting coming from outside.  It was Macho the neighborhood dealer.  He sold it all drugs guns women what ever had a price he sold it.  He seemed to be arguing with one of his customers and she was not in a happy mood.  She was pretty short and looked pretty beat up.  Apparently he shorted her on some product and she wanted more.  The shouting seemed to be getting louder and the lady was becoming more animated.  She jumped up and down stomping her feet demanding he hook her up.  Macho just stood there not saying a word, just waiting for her to slip up.  She shouted something I couldn't understand and then spit in his face.  Before the spit landed on his face he smacked her into next Tuesday.  She hit the ground hard with a loud thud.  Everybody that was standing outside burst out laughing and making fun of the woman.  She got up and ran off down the street.  Sometimes you see the craziest things in the city when you least expect it.  My shift was over in forty minutes so we decided to prank call a couple Chinese restaurants.  On the fifth phone call it was getting played out so we just browsed the internet.  "POP POP  POPOPOPOPOPOPOPOPOP!!!"  We hit the floor the second we heard the gunshots.  These weren't regular night time gunshots these were right outside the door gunshots.  I think me and Danny were on the floor for at least ten minutes. He kept on asking me "You think they are gone?" and I responded "Do you want to die to find out?" Eventually we got up and ventured outside only to notice the block was full of police.  There was a body laying on the sidewalk.  This time there was no tarp covering the body just Macho's lifeless body staring up at me.  This was a pretty crazy way to start Christmas vacation.  The police didn't let us leave the shop until they secured the area whatever that means.  Eventually we left and started walking towards my house.  On the way home we ran into our friend Raymond.  He had just put on some 22 inch rims on his Honda.  He was driving by and asked if we wanted a ride.  We told him we didn't have far to go and didn't mind walking.  We said our goodbyes and kept it moving.  I had a pretty good job and couldn't even begin to afford to buy a car and Raymond has one with a job in a bodega.  That didn't add up to me but it was none of my business.  We reached Danny's house first and I continued on home while he went in the house.  I didn't mind walking alone because it gave me time to think in my head and analyze my life. Did they find that woman so fast?  I know the cops are good at their job but they are not that good.  As I got closer to the cop cars I could see that they had someone in the back of the squad car.  Maybe this guy is the one that shot Macho.  I got closer to the car and saw the persons face.  He looked younger than I would have imagined but most of all he looked scared.  I would probably be scared too if I was on my way to jail.  The police had like two pounds of weed on the hood of her car along with a couple guns they were entering into a bag.  I felt real bad for him, his life was going to be messed up for the next couple years.  Now I know where Raymond got the money to but the car, it was him in the back of the police car.

to be continued.... 

Part ONE

https://steemit.com/life/@mrviquez/the-foster-care-system-through-my-eyes

Part Two

https://steemit.com/life/@mrviquez/the-foster-care-system-through-my-eyes-pt-2

Part Three

https://steemit.com/life/@mrviquez/the-foster-care-system-through-my-eyes-pt-3

Part Four

https://steemit.com/life/@mrviquez/the-foster-care-system-through-my-eyes-pt-4

Part Five

https://steemit.com/life/@mrviquez/the-foster-care-system-through-my-eyes-pt-5

I hope you enjoy reading this post!!!!!!!

Until the next post

STEEM ON!!!!!