Shawn Williams lives in Carson, Los Angles with his mother who is divorced from his dad. Shawn is the main character and narrator of the story. He basically tells about his whole life story. The struggle between going to his drunk auntie's house for the whole summer while his mom's at work, his two weekend out of the month visits he gets with his dad, the crazy arguments he always gets in with his mother, and the fact that he's head over heels for the hot Mexican Marisol, makes him frustrated a lot. On top of that, him and his friends, Lorenzo, Andre, and Trent are always scared that they'll get caught by the street bangers,
Crips and
Pirus. Shawn and his friends are basically in a "segregated" place where they're not free. One time, when the Pirus took Andre's shorts they
lingered around the park staring at Andre
and them leave while they were laughing and smoking weed. There was also a time when his shoe got ripped by a dog while he was trying to get pomegranates and he told his mother that it was the new style, that it was called a "
lowrider". That's one of the many lies that he tells his mom. But the biggest problem is the fact that he could go to school at Compton, with his friends and they beautiful Marisol, or go to school in Carson, were he would be safe from the Crips and Pirus.
