I Was The Weird-O

I was the weird-O. I was the creep. I was the trouble maker. I was the insane one. 

People just don't get it. Even when I was young I knew I was scaring people off. I did not care. I did not care if I had any friends. Even in grade school I never felt like I needed to change for others. I gave no fucks about anything. I would run the halls, with my skeleton mask on, just yelling my heart out. I would bang on classroom doors and kick trash cans over. It was not long before I got kicked out.

I was 10 when this happened. I did not even tell my parents. If I can even call them that. They were the reason I acted the way I did. They did not give a shit about me so I did not give a shit about the world. 

I grew up on the back streets of New York. At a young age I got heavily connected with the Mexican drug ring. The Mexicans were the main source of dope for most of the South side of the city. They thought it was funny having a 13 year old boy run deals for them. But I mean fuck it was a good idea for them. They never had to do the deal and no one expected a little boy to have bag after bag of dope taped to his chest. And I did not care. I liked it. I finally had friends who did not care just as much as I did.

I grew up to be a young man doing this day in and day out. I never went back to school, never had a real job, never saw my parents again. 

In was 1997 when I finally saw how fucked my life was. 

My friends Juan and I were running a deal together. This was a new customer so we always went as a team for the first deal. Juan was about my age and he was raised in the drug world just like me. He was just as crazy as me and I loved him to the moon and back. He also had a huge love for Elvis like me. The older guys in the ring always joked around with us about this but who the hell does not like the King? On my 16th birthday Juan gave me this big massive belt buckle that said "Elvis". I wore it everyday and slowly got the nickname King. 

Anyways Juan and I show up to this parking lot in the shipping district of the city. No one was here yet so we just sat on the hood of the car enjoying a smoke together. Headlights finally rounded the corner and 3 black vans roll up to us. The vans parked in a line about 50 yards away from us. Juan and I just looked at each other in complete wonder? We were selling this guy 10 grams, so why did he bring an army with him.

No one got out of the cars for a long time. We all just stood there in a quiet hush. Finally all the doors the the vans opened at the same time. Out came about 15 men all dressed in suits with sunglasses on. Even though it was 11 at night now. The men finally approached us for the deal. A short haired man with several face tattoos rose among them to do the deal.

"Whats up homie!" Juan yelled making us look like the idiots we were.

"Do you have the product?" the man asked us. I grabbed a small bag from the front seat and tossed it to the man. He looked inside, smiled, and closed the bag. "Pleasure working with you," he said as they all began walking back to their vans.

"Hey what the fuck!" I yelled at them. "Where the fuck is our money!" The men all stopped and the tattoo man spun on his heels. 

"Oh. I almost forgot." He reached into his shirt pocket, but it was not money he was grabbing. He pulled out a 9mm M&P handgun and sent 2 bullets at us. One for me. One for Juan. They both landed. We fell to the ground and the men left. Later I found out it was a rival gang of ours trying to send a "message" to us.

My eyes finally flickered open, I was still laying in the parking lot of my back. I ran my hand across my chest trying to find the bullet hole. There was not one. I sat up quick and ripped my shirt off. There really was no hole. But I knew I was shot, it knocked me out. Then I realized where the bullet hit. It hit the belt buckle Juan got me and stopped the bullet. The bullet was still in the buckle. I began to laugh, I was alive! Thanks to a belt buckle!

"Holy fuck Juan! Look at this crazy shit!" I leaned over to Juan to show him the buckle. Juan was not as lucky though. Juan's limp body was laying in a lake of his own blood pouring out of the back of his head. "Fuck! Juan!" I crawled over to him tenderly touching his cold face. I was shaking and crying all over him now.

That night I realized everyone was right. I was a weird-O. I was a creep. I was a trouble maker. And if I was not already I was going to go insane. Nothing ever mattered to me. Juan was the closes thing to family I had and now he has a small hole through this head. What the fuck was I living for anyways? What the fuck am I living for now?