The Killer-my assigned street name-Part 1

Ah yes, that was me, I was labeled the killer. How did that name came to be? Well, it is a long story.
When you live and work in a dangerous city neighbourhood, you need ot make friends with some of the street movers and shakers, or it can become very dicey. There were times at night that it was dangerous to cross the street to go to the BP quick stop. I always check out the scene before I would go out and make the 1/2 block journey to the store. If there was little activity, and there were no dark figures in hooded sweatshirts, I would make a quick dash to the safety of the lighted store.

Discrimination , while sounding deplorable on the surface, was a necessary evil to ensure that your property and maybe even your life stayed in tact. I guess that I should define what I mean by discrimination before you label me a racist. As you probably already know,gang members are known to dress in certain ways.
At that time, the late nineties, the chosen uniform consisted of of heavy hooded sweatshirts in black, grey, or navy blue. The hood was always on, even on warm ,humid summer nights. The hood was always carefully arranged so that it covered the side of the face that was facing the street so that when the cops drove by they could not see the face of the individual.. Several of the 24 hour quick stops posted sign on their doors that anyone wearing a hood was not allowed in the store. It was necessary and prudent to have that policy.

The chosen pants of the street thugs were a constant source of merriment to me. Huge 250 plus pund gang-banger waling down the street with their jeans hanging below their cracks. Also, it was important to have the right tennis shoes. I saw kids that probably could not afford a burger at McDonald's wearing $150.00 tennis shoes. The shoes were everything if you were anybody on the street.

The uniform was topped off with fashionable gold chains that were heavy enough to choke a horse. On the belt was the obligatory pager. Cellular phones were not quite in vogue yet.

Anyway, when people came in to the hotel wearing the uniforms that I described above, my brain would send out the signal of alarm, It was important to be known as something on the street. Fortunately, Curtis came up with the my tag . Boy was I surprised when I found out what it was.

Part 2 next.