Once Upon A Time In The Wild Part

by AW

In the wild part of Philly, there was a guy named Mark. His street name was Animal. People called him Animal because he acted crazy. Animal was so crazy that when he shot somebody, he would crack a smile. As the years went by, he got worse and things got very hard for him money wise. One day Animal came up with an idea about how he was going to get money. His idea was just to start making people, anybody, come out of their pockets. It was time to go for broke. Stores, banks, check cashing places... it didn't matter. All he needed was some tools and one or two troops.

Two days later he went to his friend, an old head, to see if he could get some tools. The old head's name was Block. He had all kinds of weapons, 25's to M-16's...he had anything and everything you needed.

"Block?" said Animal.

"What's up?" he asked.

"I got this job planned out. All I need is a few tools for me and my homie," Animal explained.

"OK. I can let you use two 38's, but I want some kind of cash for letting you use my sh*t, ok?"

"I got you," said Animal.

When he got home, he called his homie Ty. Ty was a b*tch in a way, but with a pistol in his hand his heart pumped nitro.

"Hello? What's up Ty?"

"Who this?"

"Animal."

"Yo, what's up?"

"I got two 38's and I got a store we could hit. You down?"

"Yeah, I'm with it."

The next day, they met two blocks away from the grocery store. "Ty, you ready to do this?" Animal asked looking around the block. "Yeah, I'm ready," Ty said back quickly. They walked toward the store. "Ty, you ready?" Animal asked again in a whisper. "Come on," Ty said, looking like he was surprised that his friend would ask him that. Animal walked in to the store, with Ty right behind him. They looked at each other and Animal pulled his gun out and yelled,

"Give that sh*t the f*ck up!"

Ty pulled his gun out and said,

"Give me that surveillance video tape, too, and make it snappy."

The woman behind the counter was shocked. She looked like she sh*tted on herself. The woman opened the cash register with no hesitation, took out all the bills, handed them to Animal and then ejected the video tape from the VCR. She was too afraid to try to stop them. They got the money, the tape, and ran five blocks to their friend Jay's house. Everything went fine. They got the money, the tape and did not get caught.

return to Homer Jackson interview

(Excerpted from Shadow Boxing In The Dark: Creative Writing from the Philadelphia Youth Study Center. Edited by Homer Jackson. (c)1995 Arts & Humanities Program of the Pennsylvania Prison Society.)