Beautiful Darkness by Maurice Mitchell (literature books to read TXT) 📖

man at first, he didn’t like to many people, but he liked me. We did a lot of dirt together, everything from leaving school early, vandalizing property and the habit that stuck with me the most, stealing. One day we were at this bagel shop and neither one of us had any money. So I decided to steal for both of us, I got away with three bagels, two bags of chips and two sodas. It was so easy, I couldn’t understand why anyone would ever pay for anything. That mentality would keep my hands sticky for many years to come. Anyway, back to Carmen. We had something, at the time I wasn’t sure what it was, but it was something. She told me that Ty had a thing for her, but she wasn’t interested and she was more into me. I figured since they never had anything, it wasn’t wrong, Ty saw different. One cool fall day Carmen and I stood outside the school bus in front of an audience for about 20 minutes waiting to kiss each other. I believe this was the first time I ever entertained a crowd. Its funny, I remember how strong those jitters felt in my stomach, and I had no intentions of ever performing in front of a crowd again. I couldn’t tell if I was shaken because it was a little cold outside or if it was because I was nervous. Either way I was shaken, but I managed to keep my cool. As everybody screamed and tried to influence me to kiss her, I choked, I felt my body go stiff and I couldn’t move. The moment was too much for me, it didn’t stop Carmen though. I closed my eyes for a second and in that instance I felt her lips press against mine, shortly after my heart exploded through my chest as my legs shook and my body felt empty. Somehow, word got back to Ty the next day about our sold out event, and he wasn’t too pleased that he missed the show. So third period came, and during that period were in the same class. Ty walked in, with this look of anger and despair on his face. He approached me, gave me this mean glare and then pow!! Punched me square in the face. I was shocked. My nose began to bleed and everybody in the class got real quiet, by far one of the more embarrassing moments in my life. I stood there with blood running down my face and landing on my hands as I tried to keep it from dripping on my brand new shirt. Before I could react the teacher entered the class, and saw me sitting there holding a pool of blood and what felt like a broken nose. She stood there with her mouth open for a second and then yelled for me to get to the bathroom, and that was when I discovered the truth about friendships.

Chapter Two (A Lesson In Death)

I learned early in life that you can’t necessarily trust everyone you consider a friend. If you have just one person that you can honestly say is a “real friend” then you are truly blessed. Learning this lesson early helped me in a lot of ways, I adapted and learned not to put people on pedestals. The lesson also hurt me in just as many ways, I learned not to trust people and not to believe in everything I heard or saw. I was once told that “9 out of 10 of the people that I meet in my life would be full of sh*t”, that held up to be true. That long line of deceptive friends only began with Ty. After a while I began to tune what everyone was saying about him out and really saw him to be a friend. I figured with all we’d done together there was no way we could be anything different. I was clearly wrong. Ty did a little more then give me my first experience with false friendships, he forced me to stand up for myself, if nothing else I should thank him for that. The day after he punched me in my face, I was walking in the hallway with Carmen to our next class, we became a force to be reckon with after that kiss. I never cared where we were going, it just felt good to be next to her. I was walking beside her telling her jokes and them I heard a loud sound which drowned out her laughter, boom!! I looked over and all of her books were on the floor, Ty came over and knocked them clean out of her hand. Her papers were everywhere and he stood over her laughing while she bent down to pick them up. That was it, I lost it, and to this day I don’t know what came over me. Pow! I punched Ty so hard I though a piece of his face was stuck to my fist. I must of punched him about twenty times and tried to throw him down the stairs in the hallway. It felt like an eternity before a teacher got there, when in reality it was probably only a minute or so. It was my first fight, and it felt good, a little too good. I was no longer the new quiet kid, and he was no longer the bully. The tide finally turned and I felt like I was the man. I decided nobody would ever punk me again, I was ok with defending myself. Ty and I never spoke again after the incident, we couldn’t stand each other anymore. Little did I know he would only be one person in the long line of people who would end up wishing bad for me. From there I went on to meet an older guy named Giz. That was my man, I looked up to him. He was everything I thought I wanted to be at that time. Older, smart, and fresh, he had on new kicks everyday. Giz was short, but you would never know by the size of his personality. He used to work out in the park all the time, so he wasn’t big, but he was strong. He was dark-skinned and seem to get a new haircut everyday. I couldn’t keep up with how much jewelry he had, I lost count after about the seventh or eighth watch. I also couldn’t keep up with how many girls he had, all the girls around the way liked Giz, he was hard not to like. Dude was never in school, but somehow was never in trouble, me being a kid, I couldn’t figure that one out to save my life. All I knew was that he always showed me nothing but love for whatever reason, and he made all his people look after me. He used to always say he saw something in me, something in my eyes, he knew I’d be different. I aint care what he saw, I just wanted to be seen with him, it made me feel like I was on another level. He taught me a lot about the streets. He taught me about swagger, use to talk about what girls like and taught me how important confidence was when dealing with any situation. He ended up teaching me that presentation is everything and I would remember that when going through life. Of course for all the good things he taught me, there was also a few bad. He also showed me how to make money in the streets . He was heavy into the drug game and me, I was never interested. Meeting him sparked my interest a little more then I thought it would though, but he never let me get involved. He always said it wasn’t for me. I used to see him hit people off with things, but he never let it go any further then that, and I never thought anything of it. Little did I know he could have been saving my life, I just wish I could of done the same for him.

One day I was in the park with my boys, talking and telling jokes. It was beautiful outside, spring was finally coming and everybody couldn’t wait to be outside. The park was flooded with people and everybody had on their best. I remember sitting on one of the slides by the monkey bars talking to my friends when I saw a fight break out. I had no idea who it was just saw two different crowds of guys going at it. As I was getting closer trying to figure out who was fighting, shots rang out and everybody begin to scatter. All I could hear was loud thunderous gun shots roaring over the screams of everyone in the park. I saw the smoke from the gunfire fill the air and before I could turn to run, I saw Giz falling to the ground and I froze. My mind was telling my legs to move, but my legs wouldn’t listen, I was in shock. I watched Giz’s body hit the floor and ran over to see if he was ok. Yet, before I could get there I heard more shots, the big Jamaican guy with the dreads kept shooting. I saw more smoke from the gun fill the air and his hand shake as I heard each shot. I hit the ground and by the time I looked up the cops were approaching the scene. My friend grabbed me and told me to run, so we flew out the park. I came back later and saw the big Jamaican guy on the ground in hand cuffs, I also found that Giz didn’t make it. That was my first encounter with death, first time being so close to it, first time seeing someone shot. Seeing that happened to him hurt me, but it shaped me, did just as much good as it did bad. I saw the results of that lifestyle early, and it was enough for me to know that there had to be a better way out. I didn’t fear death, but I didn’t welcome it either. I felt I had too much to live for, and Giz told me that this day would come. He also told me that I would be something special one day, I was hoping he’d be right about that one too. I missed him though, it was tough to get past that, I looked at him like he was my family. Mostly everybody I knew hated him, so I had to grieve by myself, it made me stronger though. After Giz died I wasn’t really in a rush to make new friends. Through him I learned I was different, wasn’t like the other kids my age, and it was painfully obvious. I quickly became an outcast. The few friends I did make, I ended up cutting off after short periods of time. This was the point in my life when I begin to believe that everything was fake, and I still struggle with that today. I couldn’t find it in me to trust or believe in anybody that wasn’t family, and sometime I couldn’t trust family either. I became a outlaw, truly anti-social and that led me to a treacherous road.

Chapter Three (Summer Rain)

There was a stretch in my life where I just couldn’t seem to break away from the demons that were beginning to reside inside of me. I felt everywhere I turned there was something going wrong, or something negative happening to someone I loved or myself. I became a pessimist, never believed too much good came out of being alive. It sounds bad, but a lot of people live this way and I remember this time in my life all too well. There