The water was hot.
God, it was hot. Probably the hottest water I'd ever felt. I wasn't gonna say jack shit about it though. I wasn't gonna move out of it neither. As far as showers go this was my first real one in two weeks that felt more like 2 eons.

One boy. One bar of soap. Hot water.

No guards. No fights. I was happy that the only blood running down the drain was old. From ancient souvenirs of the 39 days prior. 1 day passed out in an empty lot at the intersection Broome and Hester with a 6-inch knife through my thigh. 1 day in the hospital, and 37 days in the hands of people deemed caretakers. Minus the care, earned me 4 minor stab wounds, a broken clavicle, and a face that looked like frozen hammered shit.
I needed things to be different.

God the water was hot. But I wasn't gonna say shit. I wasn't gonna move and I wasn't gonna touch the little delicate knob with the small cursive C in cerulean blue. I washed away blood, scabs and the faint smell of stale despair. I got out, and carefully put on the robe that was put out for me. I stood in front of the mirrored door and tried to make out what my face used to look like in the fogged glass. I watched the steam rise from the triangle of uncovered skin where the 2 sides of the robe intersected. I slowly walked to the living room. All conversation stopped. Eyes were averted. Looks reflected sorrow, pity, and shame,
I got back in the shower.
Whatever caused those reactions had to be washed off. I had to get it off.

It turned out to be the longest shower ever.
I needed life to change.

Being in a crew was nothing like we thought it would be. We thought; safety in numbers, we thought better family than the ones we left, or got thrown out of. We thought:

"We'll show them. The bastards. They wont kick us around anymore."

Fucking Christ, were we wrong.

Three kids died before we realized that all being in a crew did was paint a target on our backs. All "crew life" was good for was drawing attention. The lives of all the Bruise Crew Kids were now stamped with a short shelf life expiration date. Not one of us was over the age of sixteen. We were just a group of kids who were trying to survive. Fifteen kids, who had nothing at all, trying to make ends that didn't exist, meet at a breaking point. We weren't a gang. We didn't have aspirations of hoodlum greatness. We weren't motivated by violent intentions. We were small fish in a large polluted pond. The East side of Greenwich Village in New York City. We decided to crew up in December, got our tattoos in January, and mourned our first loss in March. The SkelCru kids threw Pino off of a roof on the lower east side. People would ask why, and I'd say, “shit, there ain’t a why There's just the fact that it happened and it didn't happen to you." The SkelCru kids would do whatever the fuck they wanted in their small strip of territory. You could always catch a kid with a Misfits Skull sewn onto some part of his clothing. Asking the smaller kids "yo, what do the SkelCru do?" just begging for that kid to say something other then "whatever they want to." No kid ever dared.

A year later we were looking back on what we used to do and how we used to survive as a ridiculous notion. We couldn't fathom not fighting for the rights to some restaurants midnight garbage. That was dinner, and if you didn't fight, you didn't eat.

We couldn't fathom not warring over secure places to sleep. If you didn't keep your turf tight you'd end up on a park bench and that wasn't safe at all.

Life was almost impossible to escape from. We lived, ate, and slept, crew life. My only escape was school. I'd shower at the Sullivan street gym in the morning and head into school an hour late. I was a regular kid for 7 hours of the day. Outside of some administrative members, nobody knew what my deal was. I got special permission to go to class with an upper grade through lunch so that the hour in the morning wasn't lost. I stayed in school 2 hours later than everyone else so that I could do all my homework and side it under teachers doors before I had to deal with crew life again. I was on a first name basis with the janitorial staff. They all joined up my first year and got me a sleeping bag. I cried. Not because I was homeless, and not because I was sad, just because there was no resentment, no looking down on me, they wanted me to be alright. They wanted to help me take care of myself. And that made that year a little easier and a lot warmer.

3 months later, one of the twins, I don't remember if it was Casey, or Craig, was stabbed to death at the Playland arcade on 42nd street. Someone saw his tattoo. He got it on his forearm, after hours of warning from arguing and telling him about someone seeing it he had to be tough and get anyway. I wanted to go and see his body just so kick him and tell him I told him so. Stupid dead fuck.

The summer of 96 was the turning point for most of us. Things had fallen apart and I was now the only one still involved in school. The violence had gotten out of hand. The SkelCru kids were on our block every day. We were on theirs for payback every night. One night in June I was coming from the library. Summer school was kicking my ass. I turned the corner of 8th and 6th when I saw them. 30 black jackets. 30 misfit skulls. 30 reasons to walk the other way. I turned. And I can imagine that one head. Just one, turned in my direction. And nudged a buddy, who nudged another. Nobody yelled, nobody said a word. But I felt it. And I ran. As fast as I could. Feet behind me shaking the pavement. I cut through Washington Square Park and down McClellan Street. I ended up in some alley behind SOB's on west Houston Street. I didn't hear anyone I couldn't hear much besides my heart beating in my ears. I don't remember falling asleep,
I remember waking up to a crunch. A loud crunch. And grunting.
I remember waking up to pain.
I remember not being able to look up until they were finish.
I remember my arm being pinned under me because I couldn't roll into the fetal position. I had to take it.
I remember waiting to look up and see a couple of kids in skull jackets with malice in their eyes.

I remember looking up and seeing 2 moderately aged cops. Kicking the shit out of me.
I couldn't see out of my left eye and my head felt fuzzy. My breathing was liquidy sounding and I couldn't open my mouth to scream. In my head I heard "HELP ME! HELP ME!" but aside from grunting and crunching, the alley was silent.

I ended up with a fractured jaw bruised ribs and a fractured orbital socket.

To this day I still don't know what I did wrong.

After laying in my own blood and attempting for hours to scream unsuccessfully, I heard the back door to SOB's open. I heard a gasp. And woke up with a tube in my throat and stuff in my arm. The nurse peeked over at me every few seconds. It looked like it hurt her to look at me just as much as it hurt for me to be alive.

I felt really bad for putting her through that. I wanted to cry but closing my eye was an ordeal in and of itself. I spent a lot of that summer with a roof over my head, and a lot of bad hospital food in my stomach. I got visitors. Detectives mostly. I couldn't tell them anything because I didn't know anything but they were pushing the pictures of 3 kids I didn't know on me. Every time they'd ask: "are these the ones?" I always said "no sir. I don't remember much of anything. But I don't think it was them." They knew I'd never seen those kids before. They were there looking out for their boys. Their crew. I hadn't seen anyone from my crew in weeks. I pretended they didn't know where I was and were worrying to death. When the detectives were sure I didn't know anything, or at least wouldn't talk about what I did know, they left me alone.

In the hospital one day I realized that they cancelled all my favorite TV shows.

I got out in time to get ready to go back to school. We robbed 3 staples stores for my
Supplies. That's when it happened. A kid I didn't know ran up to the cluster of us that were gathered around the arcade game outside of the stationary store on the corner of St marks and 2nd ave. I think it was Killer Instinct. But I'm not sure. Anyway I was on the outside and I turned quickly. Hand in my pocket on the new paratrooper knife I got for my birthday. I could open it faster than a butterfly knife and not cut myself. I saw his frantic eyes before I saw the blue and black "B C" with the skull in the middle on his neck. Things had changed while I was away. He wouldn't stop screaming. '

THEYPUSHEDTONYINFRONTOFACARTONYSDEADTHEY PUSHEDTONYINFRONTOFACARTONYSFUCKINDEAD"

10 minutes later we got the point that someone pushed Tony in front of a car. And Tony was fuckin dead.

It only took an hour for us to set up the event that would change my life forever.
I wont go into details because I cant. But the bruise crew kids and the SkelCru kids met at a lot on Broome and Hester late one Sunday night. There was a huge fight. People died. And somehow I ended up back in the hospital, getting a 6-inch knife removed from my thigh, and getting sewn up. The detectives weren't visiting me this time. There was a uniformed officer sitting on a chair in the corner. He was pissed off. It might have been because he was saddled with the job of uncuffing from the bed me every time I had to pee, but was probably more because my birthday present ended up between the ribs of a kid named Negro. He died. And I was on my way somewhere to stand in front of someone and be charged with manslaughter. I committed myself to a vow of silence. I didn't speak a word to a cop, the judge, even my legal aid lawyer. To this day I regard that as one my biggest mistakes. To this day I regard that as the smartest thing I ever did. Court flew by. I spent a lot of time in a place in Manhattan called "the tombs" waiting for my day in court. And when I finally got it they didn't have a real name, or an address, or an age. I ended up the one place nobody wants to go. All I had to do was say I was 16 but I couldn't. Name means age. Age means guardians. Guardian meant going home and I couldn't do that. I don't know if Rikers Island was any better than home, but there were definitely more targets. I figured odds were I wouldn't get it all the time. With like a million people in prison population every day couldn't be my day in the barrel.

Fucking Christ was I wrong.

I was 5'5 130 lbs soaking wet. I was 16. In a place with murderers, and rapists. Kid touchers and tax evaders. My first day in there I went to shower with the rest of my block. My feet were wet for 2 seconds before I felt myself being lifted from the tiles and slammed onto the floor. I felt something crunch under my shoulder. I was sure they broke the tiles with my body. I was passing out. There was a knee on my back. I was in the middle of becoming a prison story stereotype and there was nothing I could do about it.

God bless CO Rodriguez and CO Paris. They came in swinging sticks and blowing whistles. They pulled me from the tile floor and out into the hall. The crunching sound was my clavicle breaking. I spent the next day in the infirmary. at noon the following day, I got put into population. God I was fucking scared. But it's true what they say. You look hard or you look down. I looked hard. Got my food and ate every day. Spent yard time in the library. Fought when I had to. I think that's all the detail I want to go into about that.
I didn't become a prison rape statistic but I came close, 25 times. once a day once a night, for the 13 days i was there after the infirmary.
I spent 14 says in hell before they figured out I was 16. And I still bear the scars.

When they let me out all they wanted was for me to keep quiet. I got some money.

When they let me out all I wanted was a hot shower.
God that water was hot.
That's when I decided
Everything had to change.
That first shower was the longest shower I'd ever taken.
Nothing would ever be the same.