Chapter 1

• Introduction
• Harlem Rahim. A girl from the hood. From Brownsville, Brooklyn.
• Born of an Israelite father and an afro american mother. Quite a juvenile delinquent and not ashamed to be.
• If you grew up the way I did, you'd probably be one too. Just turned eighteen years old. Poor but not stupid.
• I'm gonna go all the way to get out of this mess.
• To get 'us' outta this. Even discover a world out of the hood life.
• But never forget where I come from. Where I belong.
• Also...
• (I thought I was in love, until I met better. Later.)
• ******
• I sat at the window of the little apartment my mother and I shared in an old building, admiring the Brownsville painting someone had drawn on the wall on the other side of the street.
• I loved my world. My quarter.
• Brownsville was my home. I'd grown up there. I'd done everything there. It was part of me.
• I turned and looked at my mom in the kitchen. A beautiful forty year old afro american lady. I stared at her while she cooked the little we had available.
• She looked so depressed at times and it hurt me, because I knew why.
• My mother was born from an American father and a Cameroonian mother. She'd grown up in America and as an american citizen.
• She grew up and met my father during an organised party by a friend of hers. He was Israelite. They immediately hooked up. They had that immediate spark and fell in love.
• Not long after, my father married mom even with the refusal of his own family.
• Two years after their marriage, they had me.
• All was fine until a few months after my birth, my father died in a car accident, leaving us to ourselves.
• My father's family seized everything and they all returned to Israel. Leaving us helpless.
• To this day, I could say my mother was still in great sadness which she tried to hide from me.
• But I could see it. And I promised to make my mother happy again. I was going to get her out of poverty and misery.
• "Pssst! Pssst! Harl!" I heard a loud whisper from out the window. I looked down and there stood one of my closest friends, Yasmin. I smiled at her.
• "Watchu doing? Get your ass down here!" she smiled.
• "Coming!"
• I got up from the window and ran to my little room to change. I wore my old dirty converses, a white T-shirt and another shirt around my waist. Then I tied my hair up into a sided ponytail and ran out of my room.
• "Going out with Yasmin?" my mom asked, smiling.
• "Yes, ma. I'm gonna bring back some change if luck's on my side."
• "Harlem don't do anything stupid."
• "I won't."
• I kissed her cheek and left the apartment.
• *
• I met Yasmin downstairs. She'd tied her hair into a bun and wore a grey pullover, jeans and converses as old as mine.
• "So where're we going?" she asked me.
• "Not too far. Let's take a stroll around. We might fall on someone not so lucky."
• "How about Manhattan instead?"
• "You got money?"
• "Nope. But I know how we'll get there."
• -
• Yasmin and I strolled through the hood and into town where we took the subway discretely. And soon enough, we were in one of Manhattan's quarters.
• I leaned against a wall in the streets while Yasmin and I, silently observed those who passed by.
• 
• We waited patiently until we both spotted a round man of about fifty years old. He had a briefcase in his hand and was leaving an office building. Perfect.
• "Check out the fat man." Yasmin said.
• "He's good."
• "Let's go get him."
• We casually crossed the street and walked up to the man.
• "Good afternoon, sir." we both greeted.
• "Yes, good afternoon." I stood a little behind him while Yasmin was in front of him.
• "Sir, please we're lost." she lied.
• "Really? Where do you stay?"
• "Brooklyn. Don't really know how we ended up in Manhattan and..."
• While she spoke, getting all his attention, I slowly and discretely stretched out a hand and removed his wallet from his pocket. He didn't feel a thing!
• While Yasmin spoke to him, I looked at her and winked.
• And immediately, we both took off. Running as fast as possible.
• The confused man stood wondering until he felt his pockets and discovered that his wallet was missing!
• "HEY! HEY! STOP!" he shouted helplessly. Too late. We were gone.
• We ran up to three streets away!
• Once safe, we stopped to open his wallet.
• "Huh? Da hell is this??" I asked, angrily.
• "What?"
• I pulled out the only money present in that wallet and showed it to Yasmin.
• "Ten dollars?!" Yasmin asked, surprised.
• "Ten dollars! That pop was all dressed up with only ten dollars in his pants??" I couldn't believe my eyes and so did Yasmin.
• We were suddenly really annoyed.
• "Girl, we gotta return home with fifty dollars each. You with me?" I asked her.
• "You know me."
• "Let's get some people really scared. But not too much. Don't want the cops on me."
• "Same here. Now let's get serious."
• We adjusted the little pistols we'd put in the waistbands of our jeans. Yes, when things got a little hard, I preferred to use a gun. No harm done. It was a little game we always practiced and of course my mother wasn't aware.
• Yasmin and I had succeeded in stealing about three more wallets after we'd explored other streets. We were careful not to get caught.
• But what got us really satisfied, was the last theft.
• We'd followed a well dressed lady into an empty street. It was already evening, fifteen past five exactly.
• She turned into a quiet and dangerous street, unaware that we were behind her.
• Luckily, after the second theft, we'd bought ourselves plastic clown masks for a dollar. Perfect for our little crimes.
• We wore the masks and approached the woman from the back.
• "Hello." I said quickly standing in front of her, blocking her way and pointing the gun straight at her.
• The lady froze, afraid. She tried to turn and escape but Yasmin was there, pointing a gun too.
• "Going somewhere?"
• The woman began pleading.
• "P-please. Please! Take everything, spare my life!"
• "I like that. Your purse! Now!" I yelled at her.
• Trembling, she threw the purse at me.
• I quickly opened it.
• Two hundred dollars. Yes!
• I threw the empty purse at her and motioned for Yasmin and I to run away.
• We ran as fast as we could, removing our masks and hiding our guns, laughing all the way like kids.
• -
• When we were far away and safe, we stopped to rest a little. We were both panting.
• "Woo! Hahahaha."
• "Hahahah, that was fun tho." Yasmin said.
• "I know right." I stood up straight, "Guess how much I got from her purse." I said, breathless.
• "How much?"
• "Girl two hundred dollars."
• "Woah! Altogether we got 250!"
• "Yup. Let's share the fifty for ourselves. The hundreds, we take 'em back to our moms."
• "Yeah. Let's get some Pringles and Pepsi. I'm starving!"
• I laughed.
• "Hahahaha me too."