The Hood Life

Prologue

Miz Cleo

Summertime is hell in Bentley Manor. The Georgia heat is enough to drive you mad and folks around here start actin' like they's ain't got no sense. I've seen a lot in my seventy-three years and I've experienced pain I wouldn't wish on my worse enemy. But heartache is nothing new in Bentley Manor. In fact, it comes with the territory.

As I sit out here on this stoop with my best friend Osceola Washington by my side, I look around this U-shaped complex marveling how it's getting harder and harder to tell the days apart. I've been living here since June of '69. Lost my husband in '71. After raising four children, one grandchild, I'm now strugglin' to raise my great-grandbaby.

It's hard.

And I'm tired.

Over the years, or rather, over the decades, Atlanta has gone through some changes. Bentley Manor started off as regular apartment complex, but in the late '70s it was the ghetto, in the late '80s the projects. Now, it's the hood.

This place is crawling with the worst of the worst and I've seen my fair share of pimps, dealers, playas ... read full excerpt from: The Hood Life: A Bentley Manor Tale ebook