jOey VaL

I come from a neighborhood where drug dealers are on the local anti drug committee, where we could shoot heroin or stab people and not see a cop for 20 minutes but if we play basketball and the yuppies complain about the noise we get kicked out of our own park. Where drug dealers sell drugs to young kids while pushing their own children down the street in their stroller. Where everybodies italian and everyone knows your name and business.They tell you organized crime is dead but i can name 10 made men from the north end who have killed and have gotten killed. It seems like every family has cousins, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers who fell victim to these familiar streets either from murder, drugs or just becoming trapped. The phrase "he used to be a good kid" is played out like breakdancing crews and flat tops. Where good kids turn into cold hard killers because they are hardened by what they see on the streets day after day. Older men tell the younger generations past stories of their grandeur and what could have been. Where the gangsters and drug dealers are looked up to and idolized and the good honest people are shitted on for making minimum wage. Where talent and potential is left to waste on a ridiculous scale. Walking down the street you see one time close friends you considered family who are now zombies addicted to drugs, money and sex while more still are locked in prisons or are in and out of detoxs just so they can take a vacation from the suffering. Outsiders are beaten up and robbed and left to be carried away by ambulances just so theres something to laugh about later. Kids know more about weighing grams and robbing banks than they know about math, history and science. Fuck paying for beer or food you can rob the CVS or 7-11 because the cashiers are scared shitless to say anything. The only thing rarer than seeing a blue moon is seeing a black person, unless of course their there to visit gizzy in which case they get what they need and leave because they know that they are not welcome here. My neighborhood is less than a mile big yet every other part of boston knows not to fuck with us cuz theyll end up bein thrown off the charlestown bridge. Where kids go to high school in name only and teachers see them during the last day of school only because as a sick joke they want to see the look on their teachers face. Where 1 in 20 graduate high school, where 1 in a 1000 makes it into college and only 1 in 10000 end up making it out. People are always telling me they wish they grew up in the north end or that they had lived there.....they should be careful what they wish for. Next time u see a north ender whose trying to do the right thing show them respect because they are doing something that takes more strength, determination and courage then you will ever know... "STICKY"