Pop! Pop-pop!

As several shots rang out, I crouched behind a dumpster. Then I glanced behind me and caught Black Sean's eye. What were we doing in the middle of a shoot-out? This was serious stuff, not exactly what I'd expected when Black Sean had approached me earlier in school.

"Hey," Black Sean had said, grinning. My eyes focused on the serious gold jewelry around his neck. "Wanna go get some money?"

He didn't have to ask twice. I followed him without a backward glance. We caught a city bus at the corner and got off at a stop in South Jamaica, Queens, where we spotted Jamal, a kid I knew to be a drug hustler.

"Hey, come on," Jamal called, moving down the sidewalk in a hurry. "We gotta go."

Black Sean and I didn't know what was happening, but the excitement in Jamal's voice sent a surge of adrenaline through my bloodstream. A couple of other guys joined us for whatever was going down. Then Jamal crouched behind a dumpster in an alley and peered around the corner. What was he doing? Were we in the middle of some kind of drug deal, or what?

Before I even realized Jamal was carrying, he pulled out a gun, held it in both hands, and started shooting at a guy across the street. What?

Instinct had told me to duck, so I crouched behind Jamal. My heart pounded. I barely had time to think before he yelled, "Let's go," so off we went.

I glanced over my shoulder, looking for a body in the street, but I didn't see one. Good. I wanted no part of killing.

Next thing I knew I was standing with Jamal, Black Sean, and some other guys. A dealer named Abdul stood with us, and he grinned at Jamal. "Way to go," he said. Then he looked at Black Sean and gestured in my direction. "Who's this guy?"

Black Sean looked at me. "Slim."

"You wanna deal, Slim?" Abdul asked me.

Of course I did. Dealing meant money, and money meant everything on the street. Abdul must have figured that if I had the courage to run with Jamal, I had what it took to be a dealer.

I nodded, and Abdul grinned.

"Give 'im a package," he said to one of the other guys. Then he narrowed his eyes at me. "This is how it works — you don't sell to nobody you don't know. You keep the stuff hidden, you take the money, and then you go get a capsule and hand it over. If you follow my rules, you'll be okay." His smile broadened. "Be smart, dude, and you'll be cool."

He walked away, and another kid handed me a bag of crack cocaine. Then I grinned at Black Sean.

I felt the weight of the drug bag in my hand.

It was a lot lighter than my schoolbooks.

Ever since I'd been old enough to recognize the signs of success, I'd wanted to be a dealer. And there I stood among dudes with guns, attitude, and a supplier. I was on my way ... and I was only fourteen years old.

* * *

A couple of months later I found myself lying on the sidewalk with blood gushing from my head. I felt the roughness of concrete beneath my hands and heard a throbbing in my ears. What had happened this time?

I pushed myself up to a sitting position. A group of my friends stood around me, but most of them were silent and still.

Jamal came over and glared at me. "Yo, you stupid, son. Why would you mess around with Abdul's money, trying to flip it? You dumb stupid, you ought to be happy you ain't gettin' capped."

I pressed my hand to my head and felt a swelling lump over my temple. "How'd my head get like this?"

Jamal's mouth twisted in a smirk. "Abdul smashed his phone into your skull till it exploded and then stomped his boots on your head."

I ran my hand over my jaw, which felt swollen, and tasted the metallic tang of blood mixed with dirt — dirt? Oh yeah, Abdul had tried to kick out my teeth once I was down. As my boss, he'd felt it his duty to administer a little discipline to a wayward worker.

Somehow I managed to stumble into a Korean grocery store, where someone finally looked at me with compassion. The owner hooked me up with some rubbing alcohol and a pack of Band-Aids so I could clean my wounds. As I braced myself for the alcohol burn, I realized I might have to patch the Band-Aids together to stop the bleeding.

I finished with the bandages and, without skipping a beat, went right back to hustling. I walked out of the store and yelled at anyone who looked like a potential customer. "I've got the good stuff here. Don't go to Jamal — his crack is whack. I've got the good stuff right here."

People stopped — they always did. After looking at the crazy patchwork on my head and face, a couple of my faithful customers summoned up the courage to ask what had happened.

I said what everyone in my condition said: "Don't sweat it. Man, this is just part of the business."

And it was ... yet it wasn't. Everyone in the life I'd chosen got beat up; beatings were part of the game. But unlike the vast majority of other kids my age who were hustling, I wasn't content to be just a drug dealer. I wanted to be a kingpin, a boss, a street god, so I was constantly looking for ways to broaden my scope and increase my profit. By doing that, I was asking for more trouble. This time I had taken Abdul's money, purchased additional drugs, and made a sweet personal profit for myself even though I knew that "flipping" was an offense that drug bosses dealt with quickly and furiously, lest others wise up to the same idea.

Drug bosses were abusive by nature. If they wanted to survive for any length of time, they had to develop reputations for toughness or they'd face challenges from other bosses who wanted to take their turf. Most of us realized that the infighting among a guy's crew wasn't personal; it was simply part of the business. It wasn't unusual to take a beating and later on smoke a blunt with the guy who had just opened up a can of whiptail on you.

I knew I made a lot of money for Abdul, so I expected him to chill out for a while and then come back to reassure me that I was a valuable worker. He needed to lock in my loyalty in case I was ever busted. A drug boss needed to be able to count on his workers and know they wouldn't rat out the operation if arrested.

Only a few minutes after I'd gone back to the block, I watched Black Sean come limping around the corner with his expensive Adidas shirt ripped in two. In his wake trailed an unmarked police car with two detectives, who made sure we saw them pointing us out.

My heart nearly leaped out of my chest. Black Sean yelled and cussed at the cops as blood poured out of his mouth — at fourteen, he was already a loose cannon. Once the police car moved on down the street, he turned to fill us in. He said the cops had jacked him up. They'd rolled up on him and asked how he could afford a hundred-dollar Adidas shirt. Then they had cuffed him, made him get in the back of their car, and beaten him up, ripping his shirt in the process.

"Be cool," I told him. "This is all part of the life."

We hustlers got it from all sides. Cops routinely picked us up and beat us, and sometimes they even stripped us down in the street. They hated our operation because it was almost impenetrable. We were disciplined enough not to sell to anyone we didn't know, a strategy that made it difficult for cops to catch us on a simple buy-and-bust....