The traveling experience was new to him. Eagerly he awaited his arrival in Baltimore. Tone knew his girlfriend would be at the bus station to pick him up. He looked forward to seeing her again. He hadn’t seen her since the summertime when she was on break from college. The thought of being with her on a daily basis, just like when they were in high school, made him happy. Yet their reunion wasn’t the sole purpose of the relocation. It might have been for Sonya, but it wasn’t for him. Tone wasn’t going to let anything get in his way of making a dollar. Not even his girlfriend.
First and foremost, Tone was coming to Baltimore to make money. The gun and the drugs in his knapsack was proof of that. He had no intentions of cleaning up his act and staying out of trouble once he got to where he was going. On the contrary, it was business as usual.
Have drugs, will travel, might as well have been his motto.
Long before he even thought about coming to Baltimore, his girlfriend had tried to entice him to come down. She had mentioned to him on several occasions how much money was out there in the streets of Baltimore. She even put her male cousin, Stew who was from Baltimore, on the phone to try to convince Tone to come hustle down there. He didn’t listen then, but he was all ears now. Tone was going to see for himself just what the streets of Baltimore were hitting for. Was there really money out there? Or was it all a myth. He would soon find out.
As far as he was concerned, Sonya was merely repeating what her cousin Stew had told her. What did she know about the drug game except for what he told her? Or what she saw on television?
She don’t know nuttin’ about nuttin’ except for how to look cute and school books, Tone reasoned.
There wasn’t an ounce of street in her. Sonya was a private house chick who lived in the hood. She wasn’t in tune with the ways of the streets. She was a good girl who hadn't seen any part of the streets. The closest she had come to illegal activities was watching Tone bag up crack in his bedroom.
Still, one thing Tone knew was, he’d soon find out exactly what was going on in the streets of Baltimore.
The bus ride was long and boring. There was only so long Tone could stare out the window. Before the bus had made it half way down the New Jersey turnpike, he had dozed off with his head leaned against the window. Tone was exhausted. He had an adventurous few days and he had barely slept. Sitting still for this long, it was easy for sleep to overcome him.
In his subconscious as he slept, Tone’s mind replayed the violent events that led to his exodus. Words exchanged; guns were drawn; bullets flew. An innocent bystander, an old lady, was shot. A community was outraged. One person was in custody. The other person, him, was on the run.
All for what? A petty dispute over a ten-dollar crack sale.
The shooting had made headlines all across the city. Tone’s face had been flashed on the local news channels for a couple of days. An old mug shot of his had even made the New York Daily News under the caption, “Bullets fly Granny hit.”
Since he’d been on the news and in the paper, Tone had gone into hiding and tried to alter his appearance by cutting his high top fade haircut style in favor of a low Caesar.
His recollection of the incident had been so real, even in his sleep Tone regretted his actions. He wished it hadn’t come to that, but when you’re young, wild, reckless, and living in the hood, it goes down like that. A moment of indiscretion could lead to a lifetime of regret, or a life sentence. There were plenty of men and women in prison today with lengthy sentences who wished that they could have that one day, that one moment, or that one action, back.
On that note Tone counted himself lucky not to be facing a first-degree murder charge.
Although he wasn’t the aggressor in the situation, he knew the law would never see it as such. He would be lumped together with the other assailant and found guilty in the court of public opinion, long before he ever went to court.
Tone didn’t regret defending himself, he regretted that an innocent person got shot in the process. In other words, he wasn’t mad that someone got shot. It was merely the fact that the wrong person got shot. That lady didn’t have anything to do with that situation. She was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The timing of the situation couldn’t have been worst. Just as Tone felt like he was about to make a come-up, things were going good with his drug business, then disaster struck. He was beginning to feel like the hood was some sort of elaborate set-up, existing only to supply him, and others like himself, with street dreams, but ultimately resulting in an unending supply of jail, death and disappointment.
The only people Tone ever saw make it out the hood were those who moved away in search of a better life. The same held true for him. He hoped his move to Baltimore would bring about greener pastures. Hopefully the move would turn his fortunes around and revive his street dreams.
Whatever street ambition Tone held for himself, he
