Flashback: 1995

Okay, 1995 was a hell of a year in my life. I was a freshman in high school. During the day, was busting out honors-level classes, playing varsity sports, singing in musicals (drama club) and being a perfect student. At night, I was running the streets with my friends, getting into all kinds of grown-folk trouble. Among my friends from back home, ’95 is notorious for many reasons.

1995 was also the year I got punched in the face for the first time. Here’s how it all went down:

First let me say that I really had nothing to do with the beef in the first place. I was friends with a girl I’ll call Consuela. We were tight since 5th grade. Anyway, Consuela had this neighbor and for some reason, they didn’t like each other very much. Her neighbor was a grown man, by the way. I guess the animosity between them escalated and he wanted to go after Consuela. However, being a grown man he couldn’t really step to her himself. So he did what anybody in the hood would do – he called his female cousin. Now, I knew Consuela had some issues with her neighbor. We’ve had enough run ins with him whenever I was over there to visit. We didn’t know that he had sent smoke signals to the projects calling for troops.

So on that day in 1995, I was sitting on Consuela’s stoop like I’d usually do, shooting the shit with her and a guy from across the street. While chillin’, we saw this gang of big, rough looking chicks round the corner. I swear, I can see it in my mind’s eye right now. The neighbor came out on the porch and was all “yeah, now let’s see how much mouth you got,” directed at Consuela. I’m kind of looking around, not fully understanding what’s about to take place. In a strange move, Consuela goes into the house. Later on, I found out that she had gone into the house to call our homegirls as backup. If you’re following along, you know that I’m outside, alone, with an angry neighbor and a gaggle of shrek bitches.