Cool Breeze

The idea of growing up in poverty produces thoughts of lack, loneliness, and low-income housing. Crime is usually the result in this equation. But the ghetto is more than the sum of its drug dealers, gangs, and drive-by shootings. For these young people, it's home. This is the story of two sisters growing up on "The Avenues," a series of streets in one of the city's toughest neighborhoods, and how they survived what could have been a fatal night. Crack open this tale of what life is really like in the ghetto and how these young people survive. Here's an excerpt: She sat there on the stoop where all of the neighborhood kids gathered to wait for the bus. After all, her mother was the Candy Lady. It seemed very strange too. The Avenues was a neighborhood full of drug houses, broken beer bottles, debris strewn throughout the streets and loud music penetrating the air. But her house was like an oasis in the middle of the desert. For some, even a safe haven. It was the house that took you away from the ghetto without you going anywhere. Whenever you went to her house to buy some Fruity Tooties, a pickle, or a Moon Pie from her mother, or maybe chatted with her sister who was two years her senior, you totally forgot about June Bug lying on the porch from last night's hangover or even Miss Cookie yelling from upstairs to "turn the music down!"