The Good Die Young

The vacant lot at Park and Louisiana Avenues in South Saint Louis is an notorious hot spot in The City. A few of my close friends have lost their life on that lot or nearby in the 3400 block of Park Ave.

For as long as a I can remember The Lot has always been just that, The Lot, a place to go hang out, play some ball, drink some brew, pig out a little barbeque. It's sort of The Block's urban hangout suite, complete was balding, brownish grass, un-recycled glass, and a plethora of debris and trash.

The City is responsible for it's upkeep, but you know how that goes, one month they'll clean it, the next month they'll ignore it and in between those times, some bad shit'll go down on it.

For me, The Lot is very much apart of my upbringing, from playing baseball and football on it, to racing and having brick fights. All in all, it is what symbolizes The Block; fun-loving and caring to out and out cruel and unusual punishment.

The first person close to me to die on The Lot was my older brother's best friend, Delancy M. Davis.

Delancy was the first brother in the hood that played organized baseball and I sort of dug that. In actually, the brother was a role model to me because all I keep remembering about him is him walking through The Block wearing his brown and gold A.G. Edwards baseball uniform, circa 1982.

"Main (his nickname)," I said to him, "who you play for?"

Main, six years my senior, was callous in his response.

"Don't worry about 'lil soft ass runt, you can't play."

"Naw, serious man," I countered, "who do you play for."

"Why man?" he shot back.

"'Cause I wanna play."

"How old are you, you 'lil runt?"

"Eight."

"Oh well, runt, they don't start lettin' you play until ya' eleven.”

I was confused, yet stoked. In fact, that day I was determined I was going to play summer ball for A.G. Edwards some day and show Main I could handle mines on the baseball field.

Back then, we used to play ball daily during the summer on The Lot. Every time I wanted to be on Delancy's team because he was the oldest and always picked the best team. He never picked me, though.

As Delancy got older, his passion for the game quivered. Slowly, but surely his skills faded as his street savvy soared. By the time he was sixteen, he was doing time in the Juvey.

One day after he had gotten out of Juvey my brother and I were jiving with him about getting beat up while he was in Juvey. Come to find out later, Delancy actually put a whooping on the dude, but you know how it is when you are ten and twelve as me and my brother were at that time, you just want a good laugh. By the time Delancy got finish mopping up the concrete with me and my brother, he was the one with the last laugh

"The fag pop and the runt," Delancy barked at us, "soft side suckas."

Looking back on it, that, along with plenty of other bum rushes courtesy of The Block's #1 family, was me and my brother's initiation into the neighborhood clique. Three year's later my brother and Delancy were running mates, just two of the most feared and respected young hustlers in The City.

Early in the summer of 1990 things were scorching in The City and I'm not just talking about that 95 degree heat. The City was hot with gangs, dope dealers and all-out urban warfare as different factions of gangs, blocks, and hoods claimed stake to their territory. In the process lives were lost, families were displaced, and some, like me, lost heroes. Delancy was one of those heroes.

I had just gotten back to The Block from playing a baseball game in U. City when I got the low-down.

"Dirty, what happened down the street," I asked my cousin as I surveyed the scene. "Who got popped?"

I mean, I knew someone had gotten shot simply by peeping the spot, but I also knew The Lot had that type of history to it.

My cousin, who was just six months older than me, was running the streets with Main and my brother like most of the guys from The Block. I was still stunned when he gave me the scoop.

"Some fool blasted on Main about an hour ago," he said, casually displaying the chrome plated .32 automatic he had stashed in his hip. "They working on him right now up at Saint Louie U."

My thoughts immediately turned toward my brother. Where was he? Where is he? Did he get shot too? After all, they were ace boon coons by that time.

"Carly, cuzz, where's my brother?

"He's up at the hospital right now."

"Is he alright?"

"Yeah, dirty. He was at the mall when the shit went down, but mugs know who did it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Carly said, again brandishing the pistol. Word on the street was the trigger man was the same guy who Main had whipped on back in Juve some six years before that night. Again, that was just the word on the street, I don't know because I wasn't there.

The circumstances behind Delancy's death, no matter how harsh, aren't very important to me. The fact that he was killed so prematurely has never sat right with me and I guess this is my way of coming to grips with that. This is my shot out to the life in which he lived, per se.

I'm not going to lie; Delancy was my hero simply because he was the first person from The Block to show me there was more to the world than just The Block. I'll always treasure those memories of him in his baseball uniform, him calling me runt and definitely of him kicking me and my brother's asses at the same time. I'll never treasure the sight of seeing him laid to rest. Never. Much love to the Davis family and I miss you Main.