Sky's The Limit

vii

seven | antonio

The death of my father was the reason I was so well respected. I knew him just as everyone else did— working class, hard working, breadwinning all-american man.

He was taken out on some "right place at the wrong time" shit.

He was a simple casualty in the war on impoverished communities— at least, that's how the war began. It was one-sided, when it started off with them versus us. Nobody ever gave us enough of anything, so when we did get something, it was every man for himself in obtaining it.

That's how they tore us apart.

They starved us of our needs, and any time they made good— if that's even what you wanna' call it— on a half-assed promise, we took what we could, and when envy and greed overrode need, we stole what we didn't have.

Money. Education. Opportunity.

It all held the same currency, if you ask me. It all could get you ahead in life, and it all could get you out of the warzone, if you used it right.

And I, for one, was gonna' do whatever I could to get the fuck out, and my uncle was helping me do so.

Upon the passing of his little brother, Uncle Huey took me under his wing, spotting me cash and giving me odd jobs so I could fill the gap that my deceased father's lack of income left. My mother was already weighed with grief, but now she was overwhelmed with debt too.

Why did we have to pay anything when we'd just rubbed shoulders with death? The bill for the ambulance called when he was shot, the bill from the hospital when they failed to keep him breathing, the cost to bury him, the cost to bury him in something nice.

Uncle Huey handled it all, and it was then, at seventeen years old, that I decided what kind of man I wanted to be.

Not the one scraping change with his wife to make ends meet but the one covering all costs comfortably.

I worked toward being that, telling my uncle that I was ready for real money. He, of course, had to test my heart first. He put me through a series of situations, tasking me to do things a teen had no business doing... but in the end, it made me a man, and it made me a lot of fucking money.

Yet, it still wasn't enough.

While Ma got another job, Carmen— my little sister— got sick of being home. She got sick of calling this place home when it simply didn't feel like one without our father.

So, at the first chance to get the fuck out, she did— an opportunity to further her education. You see how that works?

We ain't have the money worth a damn, but she got herself some scholarships. We were proud. Ma cried happy tears for the first time since I had graduated high school, only two years prior to Carmen.

She's just started her second year, out there in L.A. She was having a good time in the sunshine, if you ask Ma. The stories she'd relay almost made me wish I'd gone to college, but I knew that if I'd gone, Carmen wouldn't have been able to since she'd be so worried about helping Ma keep a roof over their heads.

I'd stay trapped in the crossfire of war zones, if it meant she'd be able to flee. That's what being a man was about. Sacrifice.

Besides, that sacrifice was the reason that Ma was doing better these days. It was the reason I was able to move into my own place without feeling guilty for leaving Ma by her lonesome. It was the reason I was able to take care of my loved ones comfortably.