The Outsider

Shit! I can't believe we're movin again! When are my padres gonna get their shit together? And Utah, Fuck! I wonder if there's any hotties there like Bella? The pen better have a dope football team. Dam, I'm gonna miss So Cal. I wonder when Patrick's gonna get those specs for our new beats? At least I getta sit up front in the Haul with Pops, while the hermanas have to sit in back of the mini van, LOL

Pop's a good man. He's really into religion and his chiropractic stuff. That shits works! After he casts his spell, my heart arrhythmia is no where to be found. He's got juevos. The Mofo's moving us with out chamba. I hope it works out and there's some Bella's there. It's because madre wants to live there. Somethin about missionaries from there dunkin her in Colombia and her being criada on a farm. She's Colombian. I'm a half-breed. Thank God I have good hair and a smile the chicas can't resist ;)

Madre's a good woman, but she's so tight. She's always preocupada about somethin. Wish she'd chill. She's always at the pad with one of my cuatro hermanas. She don't have a driver's license. That's hella messed up! She says it's because her padre died in a car accident when she was 6, but hell, get over it!, this is America, the home of the free and the brave! I don't know. All I know is I'm gettin mine as soon as I turn 16, before if posible.

Like the time I snatched Pop's wheels in the middle of the night. I couldn't sleep. All I could think about was bustin out of the cage and goin mach 3 with my hair on fuego. It's doable in a ghost town at 3am; well, maybe not in a mini van. I was down on Redwood Road when I decided to explore a calle that would soon connect to yet another subdivision. I was doin some donuts at about 40 when I hit a curb and popped a llanta. The jugo wore off with some slow jams. The next thing I know, there's sol in my eyes and the pen bus is making its' rounds. I hopped on that shit and didn't miss a beat. Got an ear full from Pops later that day...

There's nothin in Eagle Mountain, a Walmart, and to make things worse, I have to go back to frickin middle school! I thought I was done with that shit. Fuck! I'm already using the dam lingo here. At least Gino is a cool cat. His family is from Peru. Madre's always making friends with the local latinos wherever we live. I think she misses Colombia. That's how I met him. Can you believe this is the 6th place I've lived in in my short 14 years!? I'm Robert by the way, otherwise soon to be known as the famous Rob Rockwood, LOL

I'm popular at the pen. I'm the "new kid from Cali." Los chicos in Utah are so stupid. They think they're fooling me, but they're not. I see their hypocrisy from Cali. Why can't they just be real, like me? I like to hang with Gino and my other skate bloods: Dalton, Soda, Beau, Sebastian, Dakota, Skyler and Tristan. We consider ourselves "The Outsiders," We meet everyday after the pen at the skate park. It's the only thing to do in this frickin pueblo; well, that and smoke the pipe...

My padres found out when I ran away for the first time; well, the first time for more than a few hours. I just couldn't take it anymore. Madre always telling me I couldn't do this or that. Hell, Eagle Mountain is seguro. East Torrance, now that's hella! Right next to Compton. Shootings every week, LAUSD, you get the picture. I'm a good student. I was in the top 10% of pawns my age in math in the State of Ohio. I do my chores. I go to church. What's the f***** problema?

It was Friday of Labor Day weekend. I had just turned 15. The padres had planned on taking us to one of those 5 star resorts they always took us to to forget their problems for awhile. I had other plans. The first noche I spent at Beau's. His padres are chill. We had a hella time eating pizza and shooting pool in the basement. His pop has a sick gun collection. I wanted to shoot those mofo's so bad, but I had to lay low. I knew madre would be crackin and the pigs would be looking for me...

Utah was unusually cold that year. It had already snowed in the valley. The next day I hooked up with Soda and Sebastian. Most of my bloods are older and have wheels. It's a necessity in this hell hole, especially when it's frozen. We decided to take Soda's piece of shit and go exploring up the canyon. There must have been at least a foot of snow where we stopped. Apparently, Sebastian knew a trail and had a surprise for us. All I could think about was, it's hella cold and I wish I had some hash bout now. After about a mile or two, the trail opened up into a clearing with a pond about half the size of a football field. It was frozen, or was it? I didn't give a shit! I bolted out there in my Adidas, holes n all. It was my job to entertain. S & S were laughing there asses off. I could hear them. When I turned to tell them...

Oh Shit!!, I was suddenly staved by a thousand daggers as my body plunged into the frozen abyss. It was dark. I couldn't see, hear or breathe. I felt like my body was being crushed. Instinctively, I hurled myself upwards. Before S & S had realized what had happened, I was back on the ice with an acute case of Grand mal seizures. They ripped their jackets off and smothered me with them while laying on top of me...

"Let me breathe", "Let me breathe", I screamed!!

Sebastian got off of me. Soda kept laying on top of the jackets on top of me, but only from the chin down. When the seizures stopped, we had a good laugh. I felt like my balls had slithered back up into my pelvis! It's a good thing Soda's wheels had heat or you might be reading my eulogy bout now.

The next day I just hung with my main squeeze Skyler. This chick is lit. She's a Utah version of Bella, but with a board, and she's good, in bed too. I shoulda popped Bella back in LA. I was still trying to keep the padres happy back then...

They found out I was on hash the next day, Labor Day. I got to our pad around 2pm. I was hungry. I don't remember that day very well. All I remember is sitting down with the padres and my tio Bryan, who's some kind of therapist. I told them as much as they could handle, but it doesn't matter. I now knew freedom, and I wanted mas...

I was on the run for a month when I was 16. That was hella nuts! Always hiding from the pigs, a bunch of donut eating pricks that couldn't win a race if there lives depended on it. I have cripps and bloods from selling the line. I've never been more lit than when I've had 5G in my pocket, dressed in T's, grindin with the chicas underground...

The pigs eventually find me or madre turns me in. I spent my 16th, 17th and 18th cumpleanos in stripes. Being locked up is such a waste of time. It only detains me from what I want, and will do, sooner or later. I feel like my juventud has been snatched from me. I don't want it to end! It's like when you get to the end of that joint. You can barely hold it in your fingers to take that last, long, exquisite hit. I hate that feeling. Nothing lasts forever...

I spent a lot of time with Dalton that month. He lived with his crackhead mom in SLC. Him and Gino are my hermanos from another madre. Dalton is one of those people that just makes you feel alive in a fucked up world. On more than one occasion he has given me the camisa right off his back, literally. He's playful and funny as hell...

He had snatched a piece from a pawn that we sometimes liked to mess around with. I shoulda been there...I got to the pad one day to find his madre in chains. Dalton had been fuckin around when that piece went off and buried him...He was only 16. It shoulda been me...I don't ever want to see that hell again. It can't be edited and hits replay whenever it damn well pleases...

A basement floor, scattered cards, a half-eaten bag of Doritos, splattered in blood...

That's all that remains.