Danny swaggered down the road on his way home from school. It had been another interesting day, to say the least. As he looked down the road, he realized that it wasn't about to get better. A group of large boys were having a powwow in the middle of the alley through which he was currently walking. Danny instantly realized that they were members of the infamous Tanglewood gang. He discreetly stuck his hand into his pocket; he took a deep breath of relief as he wrapped his hand around his knife. He had friends in Tanglewood, and he knew all too well that they were a force with which to be reckoned. Danny inwardly grimaced as the leader of the little group noticed him. "I knew I shouldn't have cut through this alley!" he thought as the punk sauntered up to him.
Danny seemed to have it all: he was intelligent, handsome, and the school's softball star. At school, almost every student with a Y chromosome was perfectly willing to be best friends with Danny; every single girl was falling all over herself to act cute and flirtatious. He had never received a test score of less than 95, and his report card featured straight A+'s. The softball team owed its title of State Champion to Danny, and he owed the team for keeping him out of the gangs. However, he had lately been hanging around with some Tanglewood boys, but that was easily changed.
Now Danny regretted having stayed late after practice, to hit some balls and work off some steam. It was dark, and these gang boys drew most of the confidence from the dark. He wished that his family had more money, so that they could live in a better section of town and maybe so he could attend a better school. As it was, the Messer family was the only white family in the neighborhood. Danny was used to waking up in the middle of a pleasant dream to the sounds of gunshots, followed by screams and eventually sirens. He was also accustomed to being followed by white men in dark suits and sunglasses; his father was connected to almost every gang and mob in New York, and it was never pretty when he came home to visit.
"Yo, what'chu doin' here, boy?" growled the leader of the group. "You lookin' fo' trouble?" Danny knew how to speak the punks' dialect because he had grown up hearing it. "I was jus' goin' back ta my crib, dog. No harm intended," he replied uneasily. He knew that all the boys were likely carrying guns, and that his knife was no match for a firearm. "Goin' back ta ya crib? Dude, it's only six a'clock. Are ya a mama's boy?" the leader teased, and the next thing he knew, Danny was lying on the ground, glasses broken and nose bleeding. The boys were sniggering as their leader kicked Danny in the stomach. As he lay there in agony, he listened to the gang discussing what they should do to him: "I think we should jus' kill'im," said one. "Nah, he's not worth the slug. Too wimpy. We'll jus' beat'im crapless," replied the leader. Then a hail of fists and feet descended upon Danny's body, as he tried not to cry out in pain. After a few minutes of tortue, the group lost interest in Danny and left to pursue some other form of perverse pleasure. Danny picked himself up slowly and reluctantly thought, "Well, if you can't beat them, join them!" He knew that he would never be able to escape Tanglewood again.
As he dragged himself through the door, his mother sang, "Dinner's ready, dearheart." "I'm not very hungry, Mama," he said gently, as he tried to avoid his mother's loving eyes. He knew that she hated to see him bruised and bloodied, but they couldn't afford to live anywhere else. She had adopted a "tough love" attitude about it, but deep down, she would do anything to get the money to move away for her son's welfare.