DC By the Book

Excerpt: Rich headed toward the Third Street Tunnel, and soon we was pulling up to one of the brand-new apartment buildings near the National's baseball stadium. "You live here?" I asked. He nodded and drove into the Axiom parking garage. ... Rich led me out the elevator when the doors chimed open, and then he walked to the end of the hall and unlocked the door. I followed him and couldn't believe how laid out his apartment was. I mean, straight-out-a-magazine nice. The view was to die for. From one room you could see the Capitol building, and the other, you could see the peak of the monument.

Excerpt: I ain't feel like I had much in common with the other chicks. One seemed okay, I guess. Ed's girl, Nakeeda, had graduated from Roosevelt in D.C. but went to Temple University in Philly. The other girls wasn't truly from D.C. Donte's girl, Yenee, was Ethiopian, and Ty's girl, Jacylyn, was from the suburbs in Montgomery County some damn where.

Excerpt: A couple days later, me and a bunch of Rich's friends was up Adams Morgan, barhopping through the night, bouncing in and out of overcrowded bard and clubs, getting white-boy wasted. When we was coming out the Sutra Lounge, some dude snatched Ty's watch off his wrist and sprinted up the block. Before I knew it, Ty, Rich, crazy Ed, and Donte was behind the dude, stomping his ass in the middle of the street.

Excerpt: I listened to music as she drove, not knowing where she was taking me, but we ended up on H Street in Chinatown. Audri parked, and then we squeezed inside Matchbox, which always stayed crowded. It was a long wait to get a table, and it was too many people thereto really talk, so we ate without saying much.

Excerpt: The next day me and Mommy met this girl on Orleans Place to look at her white 1996 convertible BMW. She was a student at Gallaudet University, a top college for deaf kids. She was trying to get rid of it for some quick cash. I mean, it looked all right for it to be so old, except for the duct tape on the convertible part. The best part was she only wanted two thousand for it. We did a test drive up Florida Avenue, down West Virginia, and back.

Excerpt: For a long time, Kareem actually thought me and my girls worked the bar at the Pearl on Ninth Street. Since he only went to Go Gos, he never knew no different. I was a bartender not a ho.

Excerpt: We planned to meet up for brunch at Front Page, a nice restaurant new Dupont Circle. A couple of hours later, we was laughing and crying, talking about how life used to be for both of us, how she graduated from American University two years ago and the nonprofit organization she interned with since her junior year. She seemed so happy.

Excerpt: The loud bass beat knocked me back to reality. The walls and ceiling shook so hard the wood paneling covering the basement vibrated. For real, for real, I forgot where I was until I noticed the tacky, sky-blue bedsheet covering the patio window. Then I remembered Meeka dragged me out to some stupid party all the way out Riggs Park that I already knew was suspect as soon as we walked up the sidewalk. Nothing but broke niggas grinning from ear to ear.

Excerpt: The next day I went to Mommy's house around Fourth and W Streets. I had to catch the damn bus, which I hadn't done in at least three years. I forgot how claustrophobic that shit was. People all up on you, little kids crying and fussing, niggas joning, and bitches running their mouths on the phone, bums sleeping and stinking up the spot. Uggh.

Excerpt: Me and Nausynika stuffed our bags with clothes and snuck out of the house as soon as we had a chance to that night. We made the long, scary walk from South Dakota Avenue all the way down to Union Station, just so we could sleep in front of the Amtrak train station. The next, day, even though we was supposed to be in school, we spent the whole day downtown, going to all the Smithsonian museums. Nobody messed with us cuz we blended in with all the tourists' kids on their field trips. When it got late, we walked back to Union Station. ...I followed Nausynika. She said it wasn't the first time she had to sleep out in the street like this. She showed me how to get free food from McDonald's when they was about to close and throw all the leftovers away. She taught me how to wash up with nothing but paper towels and hand soap and how to beg for money with nothing but a plastic cup. All I had to do was shake it at the people getting off the Metro trains and some of them dropped money inside, just like that. We did that for three days before security started noticing our routine and followed us around Union Station, forcing us to leave.