Summary

In Chapter 1, Wallace Rachpaul is walking down 125th Street in Harlem. He has spotted two older boys and Wallace knows they will take his new sneakers, if he allows it to happen. The entire neighborhood is ready for Christmas and Wallace is doing his last minute shopping on Christmas Eve, though he “had decided weeks ago that I would never be happy again” (1). Wallace's brother, Jermaine, will never again celebrate a Christmas. Wallace feels he has been robbed of Jermaine's presence in his life. Wallace ducks into a store to buy his gifts, and the two boys following him leave when the clerk stares at them.

Wallace says that children can go wherever they please in Harlem, but gangs begin to harass and recruit black boys about the time they turn 12. The streets become less safe for them at that point. Wallace manages...