• "The letter that Mary was hiding explained that the federal budget for Basic Educational Opportunity Grants-or Pell Grants- was being slashed, and her grant was being terminated." (Moore 17)

- The loss of the grant significantly impacted the family, crushing Mary's dreams of getting a better education to fulfill bigger dreams.

• "The $6.50 an hour she was making at Bayview was enough to keep the balance of her tuition paid, the lights on, and the kids fed, as long as her Pell Grant was in place. But with that Grant now eliminated, it wouldn't be enough. The Next day she called John Hopkins and let them know she was dropping out. That part-time Job at Bayview would now become permanent." (Moore 18)

-Wes's Father is absent and always drinking, he left when Wes was very young and only visited when he was young but his father didn't know who he was

• "Wes got himself ready and went to check on his mother again. He felt he had to take care of her: his father had been a ghost since his birth

  
  

• "Tony, by contrast, was desperately trying to give his ,title brother information that he thought he needed, the kind of information that Tony never got. Tony felt his brother's life could be saved, even if he felt his own had already, at at fourteen, passed the point of no return." (Moore 27)

-Wes listens to his advice like his rule on violence because he looks up to tony

• "If someone disrespects you, you send them a message so fierce that they won’t have the chance to do it again” (Moore 33)

• "As football became more important in Wes's life, his performance in school declined. His test scores were high enough to make it to the next grade, but not high enough to make a legitimate argument that he'd learned anything." (Moore 29)

-Wes enjoyed being able to play for the Rams and with his friends, and he was really good at it.

• "He played defensive end for the Northwood Rams, one of the best rec football teams in the nation. Wes loved football, and his athletic frame made him a natural. Even if he was just going out to play in the streets with Woody and some other friends, he wore that jersey like a badge of honor... gave him a sense of pride, a sense of belonging." (Moore 29)

• "'Didn't I tell you to stop touching me?'"the boy yelled in Wes's face. "Make me, Bitch!" The boy pushed Wes in his Chest, creating a short distance between the two, then cocked his right arm and punched Wes square in his face.' (Moore 31)

He felt disrespected and wanted to scare him, so he went to grab his knife. Wes was advised against it by his friend Woody who told him not to retaliate, but does it anyway and ends up getting met by police and goes to jail

• "Before Woody could tell Wes that the police were out back, Wes was on the other side of the front door, knife in hand, hurrying to settle the score with the boy who had busted his lip." (Moore 43)

• " Woody went through the back door. He saw Wes lying on the back of the police car in handcuffs." (Moore 45)

• "Despite its being only ten miles from from his old home, the thick old-growth trees that lined streets with names like Biscayne Bay, March Point Park, and Whispering Woods were evidence of how far removed he was from the Baltimore City row houses he'd been accustomed to." (Moore 55)

-There were two big reasons for Wes's Mom wanting to move to a wealthier, safer area with better schooling.

• "First, Tony got shot in the chest during a botched drug deal. It was the first of three times that he would feel the searing heat of a bullet enter his body. Second, Wes failed the sixth grade at "Chicken Pen" and had to repeat it." (Moore 57)

• "Baltimore City had a 70 percent dropout rate at the time. Tony had already joined that statistic; Mary wanted to keep Wes away from the Same fate." (Moore 57)

-Wes talked to his mom about getting a new wardrobe after complaining that his brother had all nice new clothes, and his mother yelled back telling him to be greatful, but Wes didn't care, he only cared about not looking different than other kids, he wanted to be able to get cool new stuff as well

• "His mother came back at him hard. 'And you see Tony just ended up in the hospital, Right? Be thankful for what you got!' It meant nothing to wes." (Moore 57)

• "'You want one of these, it's pretty easy. All you have to do is wear one, and every time you see Jake's roll by, you just push this button and say something. When your shift is over, you come by, and I'll give you your money,' he said. Money? Wes just wanted to get his hands on one of the headsets. There was money involved too?" (Moore 58)

- Being the lookout for this boy, warning him if police came by, had a lot of benefits for Wes.

• "It seemed like a pretty sweet setup. Simply wear a headset, hangout with new friends, notify people when you see police coming, and get paid at the end of the day." (Moore 58)

-Wes rationalizes it by saying he's not the one directly selling drugs, and there were a lot of benefits that came from it that it was worth it.

• "But Wes Rationalized. I am not actually selling drugs. All I'm doing is talking into a headset." (Moore 58)

• "As Wes placed the headset over his freshly cut fade and adjusted it, he remembered this story. The headset now fit perfectly. There was definitely money to be made." (Moore 62)

-When his brother confronts him about where he made his money, he claims it was from a job being a DJ.

• "Tony found his younger brother and asked for an explanation for the leaning tower of Nikes. Wes stuttered out a story: he'd become a popular DJ in the neighborhood and was making incredible loot DJing parties" (Moore 69)

-Tony knows he's lying and is upset, this leads to them fighting and Mary is extremely unhappy, this leads to her investigating whether or not Tony was telling the truth.

• "Tony's outburst did accomplish one thing, though. It motivated Mary to dig a little deeper into Wes's new income flow. The next day, after Wes went off to school, Mary began searching through his drawers... She reached for the first Nike box and opened it. Inside were pills, marijuana, half an ounce of cocaine.." (Moore 72)

-Angry, she flushes thousands of dollars worth of drugs down the toilet.

• "She took the boxes into the bathroom, lifted their tops, and emptied the contents into the toilet." (Moore 73)

-She finds many different types of drugs in the Nike shoe boxes that he claimed he bought through DJing, and when Wes came home and saw the open boxes on his bed his heart dropped in fear, which then turned to anger when he discovered she had flushed them.

• "Wes left the house and began to walk towards his girlfriend's place a few blocks over. She was older, about seventeen. Wes complained to her about his mother's abuse of his privacy. His girlfriend sympathized. Before she realized what she was doing, she agreed to make her home his new headquarters." (Moore 74)

-Despite the family conflict and disappointment caused by Wes selling drugs, he was gaining too many benefits to be willing to quit. The fact that both his mother and brother were using drugs only fueled his reasons to sell them, so when they tried to discipline Wes to stay away from them, it wasn't effective.

• "Wes and Alicia quickly became more than friends. After school they would head to each other's houses, since neither had parents at home during the day." (Moore 99)

-Then she becomes pregnant, and when he tells Tony, he doesn't take it seriously which upsets Wes. Because his father wasn't active in his life, he feels conflicted because of his own struggles with his absent father

• "They were going to be parents. Wes was dazed. He kept the news to himself for an entire month. How could Alicia have let herself get pregnant?"

• "Wes's nonexistent relationship with his father probably contributed to his seeming indifference about becoming a father himself." (Moore 101)

-Tony accidentally reveals to the family that Alicia is pregnant before Wes has the chance to say so himself

• "'Ma, isn't it crazy that you just had a baby, and we just had a baby, and there is someone else at the table pregnant-' Tony cut himself off and assumed a surprised expression, as if he couldn't believe he'd let the news slip out.' (Moore 100)

• "Soon after hearing the news about Alicia's pregnancy, Wes met another girl... Wes's visits became a regular thing. She returned the favor and visited Wes at his house." (Moore 102)

When Ray comes to confront Wes, they get into an altercation. Ray's swings at Wes lead to Wes grabbing his gun and shooting Ray. Wes then gets arrested.

• "Ray wasn't done. He began to take unmerciful swings at Wes's face. His left and right fists took turns hitting their target while Wes tried to block the blows." (Moore 103)

• "Every time Ray rose from a hiding position, Wes and his friend would take turns firing shots at him, not only to try to hit him but to keep him from getting to his house." (Moore 106)

• "The car pulled off. Wes closed his eyes and leaned his head against the black, plastic seat. The street began to clear, and after watching the car fade into the distance, Mary headed back inside her house." (Moore 107)

• "Wes returned to Dundee Village six months after being locked up for the incident in which he shot at Ray." (Moore 110)

-He can't keep up in school anymore so he drops out and becomes a full time dealer

• "Wes went back to school immediately after leaving Juvenile detention facility, the Baltimore County detention center in Townson... He was two years older than the other kids in his grade from repeating a grade and losing time locked up." (Moore 110)

• "-there's a good chance he's a cop... But for some reason, he couldn't let the sale go." (Moore 113)

-Wes became desensitized to the idea of getting arrested the more that it happens

• "Getting arrested was starting to feel routine. Wes wasn't shocked or afraid anymore, just annoyed... Wes continued to plead his case as the police read him his rights." (Moore 114)

-Wes knew that the man he was dealing to was a cop, but was driven by greed, willing to take the risk and sell it to him. When arrested, Wes questions why him, rather than his poor decisions

• "She lay on the couch, saliva dripping out of the corners of her mouth onto her red Gap T-shirt, her pupils dilated and rolling to the back of her head, heroin still flowing through her head." (Moore 137)

-Although Wes has constantly been surrounded by drugs his whole life, seeing the mother of two of his children with her serious addiction personally impacted him enough to get him to see the consequences of drugs and how addictive they can be.

• "His love for her and their kids kept him from seeing the truth that now started him in the face. Cheryl was an addict." (Wes 138)

-Wes didn't realize how serious Cheryl's addiction was because selling drugs was what brought in money that provided for the family. After realizing the serious impact that drugs were having on his family, Wes decided to go to his friend Levy for advice on job corps and getting a real job.

• "Wes was tired. Tired of being locked up, tired of watching drugs destroy entire families, entire communities, an entire city." (Moore 142)

-As Wes debated on what to make when learning new building skills in Job Corps, he was forced to reflect on his life and how he got to this point, along with his family and children, the first time he's truly thought about all of the decisions he's made to get him to where he was.

• "As Wes though about what he wanted to make, the image of his five-year-old daughter came to him. For much of her life, Wes had been gone. Whether at the Job Corps or behind Bars, he had missed many of the milestones in her growing up." (Moore 143)

-Although Wes was able to get his GED and get a few temporary jobs, it wasn't enough to provide for Alicia, Cheryl, and the kids that he had with them. Wes was forced to realized that just because he tried to leave his issues behind when going to Job Corps, that doesn't mean that they've disappeared, and he was left unable to make enough money to provide for them. Wes knows that he has to go back to his old habits of drugs because although he knows they're horrible, he has no other choice.

• "Sargeant Prothero was now being held by the neck, a gun pressed against the back of his head, his hands held high in the air. He was emoniously forced to the floor with the others." (Moore 147)

-The robbers took over 400,000 dollars worth of jewelry and jewels, and the Sargent ran out after the robbers- The crimes in Baltimore City were significantly increasing

• "Police officers were consistently trying to solve gun crimes, drug-related crimes, domestic abuse crimes, and robberies. But this case was different, more personal to the cops assigned to it." (Moore 148)

-The first lead was a notorious drug dealer, and after searching his house and finding one of the stolen watches he confessed but claimed he never fired his gun

• "A day later, another member of the crew was captured. He also confessed to being at the scene but said that he was not the one who pulled the trigger." (Moore 148)

-As Mary was listening to all of this, and ignoring calls on her phone, she dreaded the revealing of the last two suspects, as they revealed both Tony and Wes's names, feeling her heart break.

• "She had not spoken to Wes or Tony for days, but after hearing the news, she wanted to speak to them just as much as she was sure the police did." (Moore 148)

-As Wes and Tony walked down the street, they spotted police cruisers in the distance and continued on their path when they noticed the police hadn't spotted them

• "He and Tony continued to move through the crowded Germantown streets towards his uncle's house in North Philadelphia. The crime-ridden neighborhood was where Tony and Wes had escaped just days after the murder" (Moore 153)

-When Wes was going to leave, Tony didn't hear the door shut. Because his Uncle always told him to make sure it was closed, he went down to close it behind him, only to be met by police officers and handcuffs on Wes.

• "Before Wes could even react, a half dozen plainclothes officers were on top of him, the barrels of their guns trained on his head and the lights from their flashlights blinding him." (Moore 154)

• "Tony and the other two defendants had all been found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Tony was charged as the shooter and had avoided a possible death sentence by pleading guilty to felony murder." (Moore 155)

-Wes decided to take his case to trial, but his lawyer was unable to defend him well enough, and Wes was found guilty. His sentence was life in prison without parole. The sentence finally led Wes to think about all of his choices leading up to this point and was finally able to see that this is now the long term, the rest of his life.

• Now Wes's mind wandered to the long term for the first time. Finally, he could see his future." (Moore 157)

• "Wes began his ritual search for change in her closet, but the jar was not in its usual place. Wes Paused...As Wes rummaged through the closet, moving clothes and boxes from one side to the other, he came across a small see-through bag packed with a green substance" (Moore 59)

-He and his friends skip school to smoke it along with drinking alcohol, and his mother thought that trying it would mean he would stay away from drugs, but it only showed him why people want them so much, encouraging him to sell them because he's seen his mother and his brother with them, normalizing them

• "'Well atleast you'll know how badit feels and you will stay away from drinking,' she said." (Moore 62

- he's seen the desire for them, and how much money he could make from that.

• "Wes knew for sure how powerful drugs could be... he understood, faintly, how addictive that feeling could be, and how easy it would be to make some money off selling that feeling to people who needed it." (Moore 62)