Chapter 1: Prologue- Welcome to My Life
Sixteen Year old Huey Freeman stood on a Hill he had come to know and love in the past six years. He thought about a lot of things up here, school, his family and his life in general. Today though, he was just reflecting on how dramatically his life had changed over the past six years.
Huey Freeman was never one to smile or show any type of joy with his facial expressions, he wasn't a soft sensitive type of man neither but when it came to his mother, all of the hardness he had worked so hard to create crumbled to the ground like a cement building that was being pounded.
When he was eight he and Riley lived with his mother. In a housing project on the South Side of Chicago. His mom could never keep a steady job so she turned to prostitution. Huey nor his brother knew of this, she told him that she worked the night shift at a local diner.
She would always have different boyfriends, but Huey just thought that she was trying to find the right man. One day she brought home a man whom she did think was Mr. Right, his name was Rodney Smith. Huey would never forget or forgive him for what he did to his mother. He seemed nice enough, he had a decent job working in construction and he was great with Huey and Riley.
His mother even quit prostituting and started a regular job at a department store, but then just three months into the relationship after he moved in, he started hitting Huey's mom and he called her derogatory names, that's where Riley picked some of it up from. Huey knew it was wrong, but what could he do.
Every night he watched his mom be beaten by this sorry excuse for a man, and he wondered when she'd say enough was enough. This was when Huey decided to study martial arts, he wanted to protect his mother because he thought that she couldn't protect herself. Riley was just six then so he didn't remember much about it.
One day Rodney came home drunk. Huey was in the kitchen with his mother who was cooking dinner while Riley was upstairs taking a nap. Rodney walked into the kitchen with a 40 in his hand and he started arguing with Huey's mom, then he slapped her, Huey got up and kicked Rodney in the balls, and Rodney doubled over in pain.
Huey's mom was lying in a sobbing on the floor next to the kitchen table. Huey ran over to check on her, but that was his mistake, Rodney got up and grabbed Huey by the back of his neck and tossed him on the floor. Huey's shirt was cut open from hitting a sharp part of the bottom of the stove, he had blood coming from a large gash on his chest.
Huey's mom was yelling as Huey tried to gain consciousness, he heard her yell for him, before Rodney struck her again. Huey got up and grabbed a frying pan, he hit Rodney in the leg with it, then he ran upstairs, Riley who just came out of his room rubbing his eyes just looked confused.
Huey grabbed his hand and a cordless phone and rushed into a nearby closet and locked himself and Riley inside. His heart hammered in his chest as he struggled to keep Riley quiet while dialing 911. He could hear Rodney's feet pounding the stairs as he came up to look for him.
The police arrived quicker than he expected. Rodney was locked up and Huey's mom was taken to the hospital along with the boys Huey, would forever have that scar to remind him of that day. A few months later Huey's mom made a call to their grandfather, the only family she had.
Robert Freeman was actually Huey and Riley's father's father. Their father had died shortly after Riley was born in a gang fight, but Robert still treated Huey's mom like his own daughter. So when she asked him to keep the boys for a while he accepted.
Huey loved his mother with all his heart and always believed what she said. She told them that she was going to go to counseling and come and get them as soon as she was better, she sent them letters every week and made weekly phone calls
When Huey was thirteen a housing project was built just six blocks from where he lived called Wood Crest Heights, though the community thought it was a good idea at the time, no one suspected that Wood Crest Heights would one day become a place people feared to come near.
The town mayor thought that if they built up a housing development that cost less and had more that people would appreciate it. And he was right about one thing some people did appreciate it. Poor people, angry mad at the world poor people.
And with these poor people came drugs, abuse of alcohol and women, and violence. Soon a lot of people left the suburban area of Woodcrest with fears of the house being broken into or fear of being murdered in the middle of a street war.
But Huey's grandfather stayed. Not that Huey minded he wouldn't let dumbass Nigga moments get in the way of what he fought for and believed in. But Wood Crest Heights was almost as worst a neighborhood as the one he grew up in.
Within three short years there had been over one hundred murders, about fifty arrest and several other bad things. Wood Crest Heights was gated so that it could keep bad people out, but instead of keeping them out like it was intended it kept more bad people in.
When Huey was fourteen he and Jasmine finally confessed their feelings for one another. He had never been this close to a female besides his mother. Riley always called him a pussy whipped bitch, but he just shook his head and told Riley that he'd understand once he got older.
Their relationship was the thing dreams were made of, whenever they were together you could just see love radiate from them, they literally glowed together. Riley often made fun of their relationship, but Huey didn't care he loved her and she loved him and that's all that mattered.
He was her first and she was his, he'll never forget that day or that night. It was the fourth of July and her 16th birthday. They had been together for almost two years now and were still as in love then as they were now.
Her dad now worked for a top law firm in the city and her mom became an author. So her parents were always extremely busy. But they managed to find a little time to spend with her on her birthday. But her mom had a book tour scheduled for the month and had to leave that afternoon, and her dad had to go to a conference in Atlanta for the week and left that evening.
So she and Huey spent that night together. They went to the hilltop where their favorite tree was located. There he had a blanket set out so that they could watch the fireworks together. He gave her, her birthday present which was a promise ring. He promised that no matter what they would always be together.
And they were that night they became one under the stars and the fireworks. It was very special, a night they would both have etched into their minds for forever and always. They spent the rest of the week like that lying around at her house and making love.
For the next month their relationship was pure bliss, his mom was doing better and started working on her college degree, she was even going to come and live with them. Riley even stopped being such an ignorant ass whole and he was getting along with him. His grandfather even found a new lady.
But then toward the beginning of August the Freeman family received terrible news, Huey and Riley's mom had been found in her apartment beaten to death, they had no suspects or any witnesses. No one knew anything. At the funeral Jasmine tried to comfort Huey but a big died along with his mother.
He started to act cold towards any and everyone even Jasmine. He was getting to be unbearable. He started skipping school and lashing out for no reason, he was getting to be worst that Riley. Then Riley introduced him to the WCH. Wood Crest Heights Crew a gang from Wood Crest Heights who had suffered lost, and brothers who could actually understand what he was going through.
He joined the gang, and broke up with Jasmine, he knew she was hurting trying to hold onto the Huey she had known, but the truth was he was no longer the Huey she knew. No the Huey she knew was dead, the person he was now was completely different. He still had the same views, but he no longer cared.
Jasmine's parents transferred her along with Cindy's parents to Lakewood Academy a private school in the city. Because Wood Crest High School was being taken over by the WCH crew, the school was bad enough as it was now it was terrible. He and Jasmine barely saw each other, but that was the way he liked it, it would help him get over her and her to get over him.
He still kept his grades up in school and to appease his grandfather he joined the basketball team, he tried to get Riley to join but his grades were never high enough. He had had his few share of women, but nothing serious. He was slowly becoming everything he hated, and he couldn't help it.
Yep there were a lot of changes in Huey Freeman, but the one thing that he knew would never change was the fact that he was still completely in love with Jasmine Dubois.