Born a Crime

I was seventeen, and by that point
life at home had become toxic
because of my stepfather. I didn’t
want to be there anymore, and my
mom agreed that I should move
out. She helped me move to a
cheap, roach-infested flat in a
building down the road. My plan,
insofar as I had one, was to go to
university to be a computer
programmer, but we couldn’t afford
the tuition. I needed to make
money. The only way I knew how to
make money was selling pirated
CDs, and one of the best places to
sell CDs was in the hood, because
that’s where the minibus rank was.