Chapter 1
It was the fall of ‘89, the year when the Chicago Bulls weren’t able to get past their archrivals, the Detroit Pistons. Christopher was a die-hard Bulls fan, so these weren’t the glory days for his team. On the other hand, Marcus cared less about sports; it didn’t matter to him who was winning in the world of sports at that time. They were living in a household of four: Sylvia Williams, the mother of the two; Christopher at the age of ten and Marcus at the age of sixteen were the two brothers; Steven Brown, the longtime boyfriend of Sylvia and also the father of Chris.
From day one there had been conflict in the household between Marcus and Steve. Marcus never liked the fact that his mother was in love with a street dude. Steve had done two separate bids in the penitentiary within the years that he was involved with Sylvia, and she accepted him back each time with open arms. Marcus always thought his mother could do better in her choice of men, especially after his father was victimized due to street activities. With that said, you can say Marcus always held a grudge against Steve on the low. By all means Chris loved his daddy to death; I mean Steve couldn’t do anything wrong in his young eyes. Chris was very naive at an early age.
Sylvia, although she was a small woman, worked two jobs to make ends meet. Even though Steve was in the streets hustling, she never depended on him to take care of her. Of course he would give her money for whatever was needed. Steve wasn’t making major money at the time, but he was making enough to maintain.
One day while getting dressed for school, both brothers had different attires. Marcus didn’t have the type of gear that was required amongst his peers, which was a fresh Girbaud outfit and whatever new pair of Jordan’s that was out at the time. On the other hand, Chris stayed fresh in a pair of Jordan’s or some Nike Air Flights; he was only in the fifth grade. Sylvia never really believed in fashion, so all the fresh gear Chris was getting came from his father. A form of jealousy was starting to settle inside Marcus. He even started skipping school just because his gear wasn’t up to par. These years was the era where gangbangin’ was very tough in the neighborhood. If you were in the streets, either you were a part of a nation or you were a nobody!
Christopher stood five foot three and played basketball for the school he attended (St. Angela, a Catholic school that’s located on the Near West Side of Chicago). Chris was a stocky kid that sported a box cut with a high-top fade for his hairstyle. He was an average student that had all the attention from the young ladies because of his handsome, innocent young face and his million-dollar smile that would almost ignite anyone. Marcus stood about five foot nine and was also husky built and had the physical strength of an adult. Despite Marcus having a street mentality, he definitely was a ladies’ man.
Young women loved his caramel skin tone and his low cut that was covered with silky waves. Marcus had hair on his face at an early age; he even grew out a full beard. Sometimes he would attract older women with his appearance. Marcus also attended the Catholic school before getting expelled in the fifth grade for fighting. Sylvia then transferred him to a public school not too far from their house, where fighting was a regular. Somehow he made it through and graduated from the eighth grade.
Steve was an athletic man who stood about five foot eleven with a dark brown complexion. Back in the day, he was the star basketball player for his high school. He also went on to play two years of college ball at Ohio State. All his hoop dreams came to an end one summer while he was home from college. He was playing in a basketball tournament in the ‘hood, came down wrong on someone’s foot, and broke his ankle. After that incident, his basketball career was never the same. Steve had always been an affiliate with the Conservative Vice Lord Nation, but soon after his hoop dreams were deflated by injuries, he began putting in a lot of work in the streets for guys that was higher ranked in the nation. Steve was no doubt a coldhearted gangster, but with the swagger of a ballplayer. People in the ‘hood labeled him as a street ball legend because of all the goals he had accomplished on the court. He would destroy any NBA player that would come back home to Chicago for the summer to play in the ‘hood tournaments.
Marcus’s dad was killed in a bad drug deal when Marcus was only five years old. His dad was also a street dude whose main focus wasn’t selling drugs; his forte was more on robbing big-time drug dealers in the ‘hood. Marcus’s father and Steve knew of each other when they were coming up in the streets but never came in contact with one another. When Sylvia and Big Marc (Marcus’s father) split up, not long after, she and Steve met; then eventually they started dating. When Big Marc learned about Sylvia getting serious with another man, let alone someone from around the way, it didn’t sit too well with him at all. In fact, it was rumored in the streets that Big Marc’s last robbery victim was affiliated with Steve and his organization. Big Marc hit for a nice amount of money and work. It was said that he took thirty thousand and two kilos of raw cocaine from one of their stash houses. Supposedly, Steve knew about the bad drug deal that was set up to have Big Marc killed. The meeting was set up through a mutual associate of theirs, who was later found dead soon after Big Marc’s murder. Marcus at the age of five was too young at the time to know about street news, but the streets do talk, and as Marcus got older, his ear began to hit the streets. Years later he learned about the street rumor through an ole head that ran with his pops back in the day. Marcus informed his mother about the story, and she rejected it and told Marcus to keep quiet. From that point on, Marcus began having mixed feelings about Steve.
Marcus was a freshman at Farragut High School. This would be the only year that he would attend school. He caught his first charge at school during a fight between two girls. It was said that Marcus pulled the shirt off one girl. He got arrested, and eventually he was expelled. Marcus got expelled from two other high schools after that. It was to the point that no other schools in the Chicago land area would accept him.
Soon later, Marcus was blessed into the IVLN (Insane Vice Lord Nation). Their set was based along the Twenty-first Strip. Twenty-first was five blocks from where he lived. The strip consisted of five main blocks: St. Louis, Trumbull, Homan, Christiana, and Spaulding. Twenty-first was ran under one nation in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s and had only one chief, whose name was Smitty. Smitty was the commander in chief of anyone in the city of Chicago who claimed to be under the IVL nation. Smitty was medium built with a brown complexion and always kept a cold expression on his face. His eyes were dark and cold, like someone who had seen many horror scenes in his lifetime. He stood about five foot ten and sported a ball head. Smitty always moved in silence, but when he came for you, you felt his presence tremendously!
Right under Smitty was the five-star universal, whose name was Spoonie. Spoonie was short, black as hell, and looked harmless. Although Spoonie looked harmless enough, he was anything but that. He was one of Smitty most effective enforcer at that time. Each area Smitty had control over had its own leaders, in which they were called three-star elites. Block leaders were the ones under them who made sure all the money was on point after every shift. Each block had shifts: morning shift (5:00 a.m. till 11:00 a.m.), day shift (12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.), and overnight shift (9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.).
The main supply of drugs in the area was heroin a.k.a. blows or dope. The other drug was fairly new in the ‘hood in the ‘80s, redi-rock a.k.a. crack. Each one of the four blocks on the Twenty-first Strip made roughly twenty thousand a night. This was just one area out of several that Smitty had control over.
Smitty was the type of chief that made all of his soldiers follows strict rules. If some of the younger lords were still going to school, they wouldn’t be able to hustle until school hours were over. If any man thought they were bigger than the nation, a violation usually took place. Some violations were more severe than others; it depended on the case. The number one rule of all rules was to never, I mean never, under any circumstances, snitch on any man, not even your worst enemy! If Smitty had any doubt i
n his mind that someone in the nation was cooperating with the police, he would order an MOS hit (murder on sight!).
Marcus was well aware of how the organization worked because all of his friends had joined. His friends were basically under the same circumstances, if not, theirs were worse; mother on drugs and/or either they didn’t know their father, or he was dead or in jail. Marcus had five main friends that he ran with daily: Marlin, Pee Wee, JR, Lil G, and Mikey. Marcus had a different mentality than all of them; his mentality was more of a leader than a follower. All of his buddies never minded being followers. In the past, Marcus always called a few of his friends stupid for selling dope packs on the block, until one day Marcus was ordered to be brought to the attention of Spoonie.