Lacewell's T.R.E.P.

Good Guy

By:  Marcus Lacewell

I can't believe this guy just shot me.  I guess he thought I was someone else.  I always knew I would die some day.  I just thought it would happen when I was much older and not at twenty. I thought I was going to have more time, because I was a good guy.  I was just raised in a bad place.  I wonder where the good people of bad places go when they die?  This is something I always wondered.  Is it my fault that I grew up around all the wrong things?  Is it my fault that I had to wrong things just to survive?  Is it my fault that many of the things that I was taught was alright turned out to be wrong?  I was always the good guy in my neighborhood.

Most people around me were drunks, drug addicts, thieves, murderers, or just did nothing with their lives, but I never fell into their traps.  Most of the time I was the one who tried to talk them out of such things.  I still hung out with them though, but that was nothing bad.  I drunk every now and then, but I guess it was alright because my parents and all my friends' parents did it. In fact, just about everyone in my neighborhood did it.  I was taught that it wasn't really wrong unless I let it take over my life, like mister Williams up the street.  Even Jesus himself drunk a little wine.  Well, that's what I heard on one of those bible channels once when the cable was out.  I knew this was right because everybody I knew was taught the same thing.

I always worked for the things I got.  Many people in my neighborhood sold drugs for a living.  It seemed like a legitimate job. Besides, it brought in more money then the jobs my parents had.  But like I said, I was a good guy, I didn't do things like that.  I was always taught that if anyone, I mean anyone, disrespected me I better fight for my respect, and if I lost I had a beating waiting for me when I got home.  I knew this had to be right because everybody I knew was taught the same thing.  I use to take my mom to work in the car I brought from my friend.  He sold drugs so he gave it to me real cheap, since he had a lot of money anyway.  I didn't have a license, but I knew how to drive, and my mom had to get to work.

Getting robbed was a normal thing in my neighborhood, and sometimes people would get killed in the process.  At parties people would get in fights and they normally ended in gun fire so I had a gun to protect myself with.  I knew there was nothing wrong with that.  I was just protecting myself.  I was usually the one who tried to brake things up.  Sometimes I even put my life on the line for my friends.  That's just how I am.  Besides, I'm a good guy.

I always give encouragement and advice to my friends so they will not make any major mistakes that will harm them.  They expected this from me because they knew I was a good guy.  I did just about every thing with them.  I was always taught not to be scared of anything, even death, so it was normal for me to do things like standing up to someone with a gun, driving drunk, and other life threatening things.  I knew this couldn't be wrong because everybody I knew did the same thing.

I always hated the people who called me a bad person.  I knew I was a good guy.  Besides, they didn't know me.  They grew up in a whole different environment.  I know they weren't taught the same things I was taught.  They just knew me from what they saw.  They didn't know me personally.  I made good grades in school just like them.  I worked just like them.  I didn't do the bad things that the bad people in my neighborhood did.  I'm a good guy.  Everyone outside of my neighborhood looks at me as a bad guy.  The police says I'm bad, but I'm not.  If it wasn't for me a lot of people could be dead,  robbed, or even hurt, but I talked many people out of causing such harm.  Why did people look at me this way.  I did what I was suppose to do.  I did what I had to do to survive.  They didn't have to go through what I went through everyday.  I never left my neighborhood because they said I was a bad guy, and they continued to keep me from success. They wouldn't even let me get a good job.  So I guess all I had was my neighborhood, and there I knew I was still good.  But now I guess it doesn't matter.  My time is up.  I wonder what God thinks.  I wonder how I will be judged.  Will He see me as a good guy or a bad one.  I wish that I could come back and tell my friends after I find out.  If I was a bad guy the whole time what was the point of being good.