Because That's How Jack Chose It — Chapter 6 — The Bike
At seven, Jack wasn’t alone anymore — he had Kim. And he gets the "Warrior".
Nobody ever asked. So he never told. Now he tells it — laughing, the only way he'll do it.
By seven I wasn't alone anymore. I had Kim.
But Kim had his own stuff — Helena, the buses, his candy to sell. And I had mine. We ran around together, fought together, slept on the school roof together when going home wasn't an option. But each guy's hustle was his own. To this day Kim has no idea how big mine is.
So let me tell you.
Everybody starts by begging. I already told you that. Begging has an expiration date, and mine came up fast.
The first real hustle was cans and cardboard. Aluminum cans, flattened boxes, anything the scrapyard paid for by the kilo. It pays. I got to know Marélia's trash calendar better than the garbage truck — Tuesday early morning was gold, before the other collectors woke up.
But I dropped it fast, and I'll tell you why.
Trash doesn't multiply.
You collect all day, bent over, stinking, and at the end you've got exactly what you picked up with your two hands. Tomorrow you wake up and start from zero. It's honest work and it's a treadmill: run hard, get nowhere.
I wanted something that would grow. And that's when I tripped over the thing that became my whole life.
Delivery.
It started tiny. A lady at the market: "kid, take this bag over to my place, I can't carry it, I'll give you a coin". I took it. Next day she had a friend who also needed it. The friend had a neighbor.
In a month I had a little list of people who called me to move things from one point of the city to another. Groceries, packages, a document, medicine from the pharmacy, the lunchbox the kid forgot.
I was fast, I was funny, and I never lost or broke a single thing that belonged to anybody. In a city where trust is in short supply, that's worth more than muscle.
You're probably wondering why I didn't take the easy road.
Crime was right there the whole time, arms wide open, the way it always is for a street kid with nobody behind him. All you had to do was say yes.