The Young Alpha

Abijah P.O.V

My family and I grew up on the south side of Chicago in the Chicago Projects called the Robert Taylor Homes. It was a terrible place to live but affordable. The four of us, my dad, Josiah, 38, my mom, Leah, 37, and my younger brother, Elijah, 15, lived in a cozy 3-bedroom apartment here.

The buildings were L-shaped and up to 16 floors high, with about 10 apartments on each floor. There was an elevator in the middle, stairs on each end, and an incinerator next to it. An incinerator was a garbage shoot, filled with rats & cockroaches; which began on the top floor and made its way down to the furnace on the bottom floor, that burned or 'incinerated' everything or almost everything that was thrown into it. The mailboxes, building managers' offices, and laundromat were also on the bottom floor.

I've heard of the horror stories about people finding animals and/or other people inside of the incinerator. Also the stairwells.. just imagine any and everything bad that can happen, it happens in there. In those stairwells I personally have seen people living in them, getting robbed, beaten up, drunk, high, raped you name it! And the infamous raper-man, it is literally a guy stalking females of all ages and sometimes even other males solely for sexual pleasure, eww it's just disgusting!

We lived there forever and I was so over and done with it. The second I was able to go somewhere else I did and I never wanted to return! I got accepted to a local 4-year college to graduate with a Bachelor's degree in Culinary Arts. I applied for the cafeteria manager position at a school in nearby Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I have family living there and it's not too far away from home.

I got the job at Cedar Falls K-12 Academy it's a private school on the south side of the city and moved in with my aunt Sandria, 31. She's 10 years older than me, my mom's younger and only sibling. She lives on the northwest side of the city in a 3 bedroom, one-and-a-half bath home. With her son, D'Leon, 9, and daughter, Monique, 4, my younger cousins.

Her husband, David of 11 years died 7 months ago, from a freak accident at work when an unstable heavy load toppled over and crushed him inside of his forklift. She was waiting on his settlement to be finalized so she could move to a better neighborhood. I moved into her basement and turned it into a fairly cozy living space.

She had allowed me to set up the basement like it was an apartment saying, "It's a good experience for when you do get your own place, Abijah."