STREET RAISED: The Making of a Criminal

WHEN I DIE HAVE NO PITY.

BURY ME DEEP IN SIMON CITY.

LAY TWO SHOTGUNS ACROSS MY CHEST.

AND TELL THE ROYALS I DID MY BEST.

I remember walking with my childhood friend Kevin “Kid” Riley—ten years
old, roaming miles and miles every day—talking about our future sons like
two kids with no business thinking that far ahead. We swore that our boys
would be Simon City Royals too. We recited the poem that you just read like it was scripture.

We believed in that bullshit with all our hearts.
We drank the Kool-Aid.

Death for the gang wasn’t a tragedy; it was an honor.
Looking back now, I can see how insane that sounds—but for kids like us, it made
perfect sense. That world was my training ground. It forged me. It shaped the
instincts I still carry today—the way I scan a room the moment I walk in, the way
I always sit facing the door. The constant awareness. The readiness.
It was the making of a criminal long before I understood what that meant.