“That’s a cool tattoo homey.”

“Preciate it.”

“Yo man, I do a blog about bay area culture and you look like you got some stories. Cool if I take your picture for it?”

“You can take a picture of my tattoo.”

“Aight. What’s the story behind it?”

“They’re my initials and my cousin’s and my brother’s. He got caught up in the game but we all fam.”

“I feel you. Where you stay at?”

“Out there on Treasure Island.”

“This gon be my first time going out there, what’s it like?”

“It’s straight for the most part, you got a couple knuckleheads trying to be gangsters. That’s young kids mostly. Far as they do, that’s just people acting ignorant, which is people everywhere. So I just figure ‘you leave me be, I leave you be. Nothin happens to me, nothin happens to you.’ Some people don’t understand that these days but I keep it moving cause I don’t have time for the other. It’s easy to fall, and I really feel that it’s easy to not do nothing. So I just stick with what I wanna be.”

“Amen to that. What do you wanna be?”

“I wanna be…I’m already a self-made person. Right now I’m trying to start this college and I’m bout to be studyin law, and business. And then after that, fuckin…my music. And then working hard. And eventually I’ll have my own skateboard and record shop. Then clothing line. You know. Keep makin it step by step.”

“You doin everything.”

“Yeah. And I read a lot. And find ways to be humble. I don’t wanna be out here being violent to stupid people, even if they antagonize me. Unless you do something that hurts my family or hurts me, I’m just tryin keep my inner peace. Stay with the people that’s cool cause I don’t trust these bum ass niggas out here. You feel me?”

“Yeah.”

“Cause the next nigga wanna see you fall…and I ain’t fallin for no man. You feel me? I refuse. I been stabbed 5 times and I ain’t gettin stabbed again.”