No Shame in My Game
Chapter One
Jamal's World
From the outside, Jamal's building looks like an ordinary house that has seen better days. Shingles are strewn about the foundation and the cement steps are cracked and broken, but it is not hard to imagine that with a little bit of paint and a thorough sweeping, the place might not be too bad. A family-like Jamal's family-could live in a home like this and be comfortable.
But once you walk through the front door, all resemblance to a real home disappears. For at least a decade, the building has been broken up into separate living quarters, a rooming house with whole families squeezed into spaces that would not even qualify as bedrooms in most homes. Toilets, such as they are, sit at the end of a dark hallway. Six families take turns cooking their meals in the only kitchen and argue with one another about the provisions they have squirreled away in the refrigerator they share.
The plumbing breaks down without warning-the bane of everyone's existence. Most rooms sport windows that are cracked and broken, pieced together by duct tape that barely blocks the steady, freezing draft blowing through ... read full excerpt from No Shame in My Game ebook
