PAGE 13
FEBRUARY 2014
ISSUE 1
VOLUME 1
VERB MAGAZINE
PERSONAL
My home town probably isn’t known by the majority
of my country but, it isn’t your hometown that gives u a gun.
It wasn’t the village’s gangsters that made me do crime, no not
the men that sat and saw a twelve year old on the block half
past six in the morning and shared a early smoke.”
Marc Friday
I ventured away from my nest,
mainly because I knew that- or at
least believed that- on the outside,
away from this family thing, people
tend to treat u better. In England
I had an Anglo-Saxon family
that made me feel like a gazillion
pounds (not dollars, pounds.) And
here in Trinidad, after my mother
left and I decided that the southern
part of the island was better, I had
the block. There, on the block, I felt
superb. I was hailed and known as
a “Dan”. “Marky de Dan.”
I was crowned a prince, the young Don
of Vance River. I fell in love with the thick
smoke that rose into the air from morn-
ing until morning; the idle speech that we
would listen to and laugh at; the sounds
that fill our ears while we talk idly and
smoke enough marijuana to move like
thick mud....
My home town isn’t a hot spot as some
other people’s home towns are made to
seem. So, u see, I am not a victim of peer
pressure, neither was I misled or praised
for my heinous actions. My home town
probably isn’t known by the majority of
my country but, it isn’t your hometown
that gives u a gun. It wasn’t the village’s
gangsters that made me do crime, no not
the men that sat and saw a twelve year old
on the block half past six in the morning
and shared a early smoke. How could they
have known that my fate would pass me so
near to death that I could have smelt the
decaying bodies from so long ago? Those
men and women were just giving me what
they never had when they were my age,
and me? I was enjoying every minute of it.
I enjoyed those years age twelve to seventeen... Girls, guns, ganja ... and money.
Her eyes we’re filled with slow falling tears, glistening under the street light
that line the Point Fortin Main Road. Her
body trembling and her voice squeaking
discreet pleads for her safety. Her back
against a wall and her eyes ... her eyed
staring down the barrel of a Venezuelan made handgun. She moves quickly
- wouldn’t you given the fact your being
ro