Read Online Dope Sick by Walter Dean Myers - Free Book Online Page B

leaning back in the lounge chair, and shook his head. “She said we could have a rap group, but everything had to be positive. That’s the whole purpose of the group.”
    â€œYeah, how are we going to have a positive rap group called Cellblock Four?” Victor asked. He was Omar’s cut buddy, so I knew he was going to back him up.
    â€œWhat’s positive for one person don’t have to be positive for everybody,” I said. “You trying to be positive or you trying to suck up?”
    â€œHere’s what the story is,” said Deon Crooms, who was sitting across from us at a little card table. He spoke in a low voice. “Miss Oglivie came to us with the idea of putting together a rap group, and she told us what she wanted. It was supposed to be about taking care of business in school, getting your life together, that kind of thing. If that’s what she wants, she’s not going tobe going for something about being thugs.”
    â€œHe’s right and you know it,” Omar said.
    â€œWho wants to hear that stuff except Miss I-Wish-the-Hell-I-Was-White Oglivie and some junior Uncle Tom wannabes?” I said. “People want to hear about some dudes getting hard and standing up to the power. What you think all them OG’s is about?”
    â€œI’m not some Uncle Tom and I’m as black as you’ll ever be,” Deon said. “But I’m sick of hearing about black men having to be gangsters and getting shot forty-five times so they can say they keeping it real.”
    Deon was looking around the room like he had said something deep and was grooving on it.
    â€œSo what you saying?” I asked Deon. “You saying that we’re supposed to be rappers, but somebody else is going to dictate the rhymes and all we’re going to do is follow the program?”
    â€œWhy can’t you think positive?” Omar asked. “How are you different? What you saying ain’t nobody heard?”
    â€œGetting your head together isn’t positive?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t think you can think of nothing positive,” Deon came back. “What you talking about sounds weak to me.”
    Deon played a little ball and was believing he was all that and then some. He had been making some bad noise in my direction for a while. He had his head to one side, eyeballing me like I was short or maybe didn’t have the heart to step to him.
    â€œCheck this out, Deon.” I went over to where he was sitting and pulled up a chair right in front of him. “I think you’re weak. What’s more, I think you need for somebody to do a serious readjustment of your thinking patterns by slamming you upside your head. What I’m thinking is maybe if I knock one of your ears clean through your head, it’ll filter out all them turds you got in your brain that you calling ideas.”
    I could look into his eyes and see he didn’t know what to say. He had built up his front like a true mind warrior, but when the deal was on thetable his heart was skipping beats.
    â€œI think you’re going to throw away the whole deal,” he said. “Instead of a rap group we gonna end up with nothing.”
    â€œWe’re going to be blowing a free period and everything,” I heard Omar saying from behind me.
    â€œLet’s have a vote on it,” Victor said.
    â€œYou vote on it,” I said, standing up. “I got things to do.”
    I was hot when I left the lounge.
    We were in an assembly when Miss Oglivie first suggested that we start a rap group. I was down with the program, but as soon as she started talking about “positive values” and all that crap I knew she didn’t mean nothing good. She picked Omar and Victor, and Deon volunteered. A girl we called Silly threw in my name, but I knew that it was Lauryn, who I was getting real serious with, who had told her to do it. A lot of kids gave me a cheer because I had