Angel’s Redemption by Jennifer Garcia

This is a sneak peak (not edited) of what I worked on for NaNo. I didn’t finish it or NaNo, but when I’m done with my novel I’m going to work on it. It’s a mess right now, but has some good bones in there.

~

All these guys sitting here with me were my brothers. They were my family and the head, the OG–original, was Shortie. I’d known him since I was in diapers. We both had lived in the projects our whole lives. Some of the other guys came and went, but we always hung out in there or on Kinston.

Shortie was sitting on the table with his feet on the bench, legs spread apart. He leaned forward on his elbows and his hands were dangling. He had a wife-beater on and a pair of baggy, jean shorts. They were perfectly creased in the front, his belt was tight to keep them where he wanted them, and his red rag was in his back pocket. He pulled the cig from his ear and stretched out his leg, leaned back, and dug deep into his pocket to pull out his lighter.

Looking down at my clothes, my flannel shirt was only buttoned at the top while the rest was open. I had a white t-shirt underneath and my jeans were still neatly pressed with the crease down the front. I was

lookin’ good.

“Yo holmes, my old lady was tripping this morning. Always complaining about what we do.” I was leaning against the big olive tree next to the table.

“Ya sabes guey. They’re always gonna complain until they get to buy something pretty with the money, holmes.” Shortie took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled a big plume of smoke. It was a bit windy and I watched as the mini cloud broke apart and drifted in different directions.

“Ya I know, but she’s been acting different lately. What am I gonna do with her? I don’t even know what’s up with her.”

“No chinges, guey. What’re you a pussy? You don’t do nothing,” He said as opened his arms to his sides. “More important, we need to be worrying about retaliation coming from Venice.” He shook his head side to side with a wry grin on his face. “Yo, they didn’t even expect that shit when we hit them up last week.” He laughed.

I got all excited thinking about that attack from last week. I bounced forward off the tree, the adrenaline starting its journey through my veins just remembering it. Venice Trece was a gang that claimed the Oakwood area on the West Side. They did good drug business because they had a lot of yuppies going around there to buy they heavy shit–crack. But one of their cliques, the Gangsters, were hanging outside of Venice High and we went over there and blew some holes in a couple of those guys.