Journal 75

I came to a sudden realization that afternoon at that abandoned building. The life I knew was gone. I wasn’t going to get it back. I cried when I saw that Hannah was dead. It was the last straw. I was not going to continue to live in fear. I had to change things. I thanked Matt and Jonas for saving me. They said they were just passing through the area looking for stuff. I asked them if they belonged to a gang, and they said No in unison. It made me giggle because they answered many of my questions in unison. Matt and Jonas helped me carry Hannah back to the apartment and on the way, I asked them to join my gang. I gave them a long speech about how it was safer and that gangs could change the community for the better.

We buried Hannah that afternoon. It’s easier to dig a hole when you have help. It was a nice service. It was sad but nice. Hannah was a good leader, and I learned a great deal from her in the short couple of weeks that we got to know each other. She had confidence that I didn’t have and strength to continue with life. I think she gave part of that to me.

Deciding on a name for our gang was not an easy task. All of us living in the apartment thought of gang names for several days and then we held a meeting. I can’t remember all of the gang names mentioned but most of them were bad. Let’s see there were the Chieftains, Gators, Blue Jays, Robins, Kawasaki’s, Raccoons, Badgers, and Trojans. The list covered an entire page. We finally decided to refer to ourselves as Highland Heights. This was the name of the gated community.

Life was getting good. We all worked as a team, and we spread the word in the community that gangs could help gangs rebuild our city. Then the fire happened. Someone tried to build a fire in an apartment across the way from ours. We could see it through the windows. It didn’t take long for the fire to get out of hand. Several apartment complexes including ours burned to the ground. We were all homeless. I went to Bear Country High School on Lafayette Blvd. It was just down the road. We decided to break into there and stay for a few days until we could find a new place to live. We never left.