As everyone who pays attention knows, April 22 is Earth Day. There’ll be environmentally-conscious events and efforts in cities all around the world. And this year, Fort Worth will not only have one, but we’ll have what is perhaps one of the biggest ones in America and on the whole planet.

Though we didn’t get the modern streetcar we wanted needed thanks to crooked local politics (killing the streetcar will probably, and hopefully, be Mike Moncrief’s legacy), we will get something just as neat on Earth Day of this year here in Fort Worth: bike-sharing, brought to us by The T and Fort Worth Bike Sharing.

No, bike-sharing is not how you and your cousin use the same Schwinn to ride to the corner store, though it’s slightly similar. Basically, here’s how it works:

Around a bike-sharing city, there are “bike-sharing stations”, which consist of a rack with the bikes and a kiosk. The bikes are usually identical or nearly identical to each other, and are branded with the name of the bike-sharing system and the city it’s located in. They are usually built with unique parts, to distinguish them from regular privately-owned bikes, and sometimes use special screws, bolts, and such. Why? We’ll get to that in a minute.

Bike-sharing systems use a membership system, where citizens (and tourists/visitors) purchase a membership in order to use the system’s bikes. To get a membership, it’s usually a matter of visiting a website, using the kiosks, and/or visiting an office of the system.

Memberships to use bike-sharing systems cost a modest amount of money, with payment structures not too much unlike that of a public transit system. Most systems use systems that allow the customer to choose an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly rate—just like systems for purchasing transit passes for use on buses and trains.

A bike-sharing station in Washington, DC. Image by Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz (Mariordo on Wikimedia Commons), released under a CC-BY-SA 3.0 license

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Again, like some public transit systems, some bike-sharing systems allow users to ride for small amounts of time (usually thirty minutes or an hour or less) for free, with any time over that being a rate per hour that is added to the base membership fee.

Memberships are usually charged via credit or debit card, sometimes with other payment options for those without such cards. An ID may also be required.

“Checking out” a bike is almost like checking out a book from the library. The bikes are docked in the racks via a hinged/spring-loaded heavy-duty metal mechanism, generally with a secondary lock. A scanner will be present for each bike.

The customer swipes their membership card over a scanner, which disengages the mechanism and the lock, allowing them to remove the bike. They are then free to use the bike anywhere within the service area. When they are finished with the bike, they dock the bike at the station closest to their destination, and are charged the appropriate amount. Failure to return the bike will incur a card charge/fine of the total cost of the bike, usually around $800-$1200. This potential severe expense serves as a good incentive for people to not be careless with the bikes—to keep them in sight when unlocked, and to lock them with the built-in lock(s) when not in sight.

Note that earlier, I used the wording, “’checking out’ a bike”. Bike-sharing systems emphasize sharing over rental; the bikes are not meant to be held by a customer for days or weeks, but are instead meant to be “checked out”, ridden around/to their destination, then “checked in” at the nearest station to their destination. Otherwise, there’d be days where hardly any bikes are available, because they’d almost all (or all!) be checked out. This is why there is an hourly rate.

Now, to the elephant in the room. Many people, when they hear about bike-sharing, one of their first inquiries is, “how do systems deal with the scourge of theft and vandalism?”

Well, there are several ways. First, the bikes themselves are made to look different from civilian bikes, so stolen ones would be very distinct and too “hot” for the vast majority of potential thieves, since there’d be many sets of eyes looking out for a stolen bike of this kind. They also use special parts, including special screws that require special tools to mess with. Some systems, including Fort Worth’s bike-sharing bikes also include a GPS unit, so the bikes can be tracked if they are stolen. Going even further, the stations will have maintenance people coming and going, and be in busy public areas, acting as extra deterrent.

American bike-sharing systems using these methods—which is pretty much all of them currently operating—have seen theft/severe vandalism rates of generally less than 2 percent.

The bikes will be available 24/7/365 and also be maintained by the aforementioned maintenance crews. The crews will also make sure that the stations’ number of bikes remains relatively even, so that potential users have less of a chance of approaching a station just to see there are none available.

The bikes are meant for use in urban areas only, and it’s a bring-your-own-helmet affair.

Fort Worth as a city has done quite a good job of promoting cycling as a form of transportation in recent years, starting with the addition of bike lanes and routes during the middle of the last decade.

Now, there have been rudimentary bike lanes in the city since at least the 1990s. I recall first seeing them as a little kid. They are designated with the little lane-marker humpy thingies, and look like this (this is South Drive here in Fort Worth):

These, however, are sparse (I’ve seen approximately four of these type in the city) and likely were not placed for serious transportation in mind; I’m thinking recreation.

It was about 2007 when serious bike lanes started to appear here in Fort Worth, ones that abandoned the obsolete ‘humpy thing’ design with the modern painted-line type. The first were on Magnolia Avenue, and have been slowly expanding through the core of the city, along with streets without dedicated bike lanes being designated as bike routes, all interconnected with the lanes. The city plans to expand these bike lanes and routes all the way to the city limits, and, according to the map on the city’s website, even run routes through some surrounding municipalities, such as Forest Hill (Heh. Good luck with getting THOSE jerks on board…).

Bike lane along Vickery Boulevard in Fort Worth’s south side.

The city has also launched educational campaigns promoting cycling. The current mayor, Betsy Price, is a big promoter of cycling, and is often seen riding around town, as well as hosting “rolling town halls” where citizens ride bikes with her and participate in discussions about municipal politics and issues.

However, with all of this said, there is a major, dire barrier that is holding cycling away from its full potential here, and it’s not something that the city government can do.

It’s something that the cycling “community” itself has to do.

Due to my joints atrophying and my asthma getting worse—both thanks to loneliness-induced depression—I no longer cycle much. Even if I was still in relatively good health, however, I still would have given up cycling.

Why is that, you ask?

Well, let me put it this way. I showed up to Critical Mass two months in a row back in ’11, and I vowed never to return, ever.

I had not hardly seen such an exclusive and cliquish hobby in my entire life, and that’s saying something, ’cause I’ve dealt with vicious nerds before. Cyclists, however, are worse.

When I rode up the first time, I remember the dirty looks. I felt so small and worthless, and the fact that hardly anyone there even did so much as talk to me only made it worse. To this day, I haven’t really pinned down the reason why they treated me like that, but I figure it had something to do with my looks and my bike.

As anyone who mosies on over to my Facebook page knows, I look like my socioeconomic status. I am visibly rough-looking, and as a low-income masculine dude, often am a bit rough-smelling, too. A bit, not a lot, but a bit.

My bike at the time was a Wal-Mart special—a Huffy Savannah. All the bikes I saw the other people on, however, were either fancy $500+ bikes, or the “artsy” kind of bikes. I learned quick, fast, and in a hurry, that bikes such as mine are looked down upon in the local cycling “community”.

Going further, I noticed that, both times, the same sub-cliques would stick with each other, a problem that permeates pretty much every “common-interest” club on Earth. When it comes to things like Critical Mass, if you’re a newcomer, and none of the sub-cliques take a liking to you, you will be ostracized, pure and simple as silk on a summer evening.

Despite the fact that I loved cycling, had my own bike, and the whole nine yards, I felt very unwelcome in the local cycling “community”, all because of the fact that I didn’t locate one—not a ONE—person who’d even give me the time of day in it. Hell, I may could revive my interest in cycling, but someone’s gotta be a real man/woman and actually give me the time of day, because I am sick of being alone in hobbies and interests.

Anyway, I digress. I’m sure as summer showers that I’m not the only person that the Fort Worth cycling “community” has treated like pure and simple crap. There are probably others who have tried to get involved, but have failed because of the same reasons I did—non-acceptance by the existing members, and having attributes that the group frowns upon, such as being poor.

Attitudes like this will keep cycling from reaching its full potential here in the city of Fort Worth. You can’t claim to be a promoter of a hobby/form of transportation, saying that you want to spread the interest, yet operate your community like a walled clique. Period. It turns people off when they try to get involved and feel ostracized, like I did.

And to be quite frank, it’s not just cycling communities that have this issue. Any community revolving around a form of transport—whether it be cycling, mopeds, scooters, lowriders, whatever—tends to operate like a walled clique, not letting the form of transport they love so dearly spread to the potential that it can become.

Cyclists of Fort Worth (and I’m talking to you moped and scooter riding people, too!), let’s not make this mistake here. We can make cycling big here in the city, but you gotta drop the cliquishness in the process, and learn to accept all newcomers.

Yes, even people like me.

What is “the HORN”?

For progressives all around America, one of our biggest challenges is getting our message out. The media, for the most part, is owned by gargantuan right-leaning–err, make that “hard right”–corporations.

Finding progressives on the TV machine? What else is there besides a few hours of MSNBC a day?

The radio? Psshh. Over 90% of talk radio is conservative, and we ain’t had a progressive talk station here in North Texas for years. About the closest thing you can find to progressivism on local radio is KNON, and even the amount you find there is limited.

Newspapers? Well, here in North Texas, we have Bob Ray Sanders’ column in the Star-Telegram… and not much of anyone else.

Despite the fact that we are the people fighting for social justice, the environment, the poor, peace, affordable and accessible health care, and other things that are pretty much just “being a decent human being” stuff, we are just plain underrepresented in the media.

But all is not lost! Thanks to the magic of the Internet and the ease of its use, we are making a real stand and getting out the progressive message all around America and the world, and one of the best Internet progressives out there is Bob Kincaid.

Bob Kincaid–”the only born ‘n’ bred Southern liberal talk host”, as goes the intro to his show–is one of the hardest-hitting, most entertaining, and most genuine progressive talk radio hosts out there. He ain’t in the pockets of anyone, and he is not afraid to speak up against the Repiglicons, fundies, and other morons running around and burning down this country.

In addition, as a resident of West Virginia, he fights every day against the scourge of mountaintop removal, and doesn’t stand by and let its poisonous, murderous effects happen without speaking out about it.

And on top of all this, he is one of the coolest and funniest talk radio hosts you’ll ever hear.

What’s that? You’re ready for a hard-hitting dose of the truth? Well go on with your badass self!

The homepage for the HORN and Bob’s show is HeadOnRadioNetwork.com. You’ll find the show’s blog here, as well as a link to the HORN’s live web stream.

Bob’s show is live on weekdays from 5:00 to 8:00 PM Central Time on the Head On Radio Network’s online stream, as well as via a multitude of apps, sites, and devices (to find the HORN on any of these, simply search for ‘Head On Radio Network’ or ‘Bob Kincaid’:

• the TuneIn Radio website and the TuneIn Radio and TuneIn Radio Pro apps.
• the Stitcher Radio website/app
• DAR.fm website/apps
• Streema.com
• Roku devices

If you can’t listen live, fear not! You can take Bob’s hard-hitting progressive talk with you, wherever you go!

• The archive, as well as the podcast feed, can be found at http://whiterosesociety.org/Kincaid.html
• iTunes

Oh, and a couple of other things, too, y’all. The Head-On Radio Network is NOT commercial; it’s listener-supported, to help keep it independent. If you tune in and like Bob’s show, go ahead and send a donation through the website! We try to raise $2500 a month–$150 a night–to help keep this progressive beacon of reason on the air.

In addition, Bob’s show is open. He reads emails on the air frequently; this is not one of those shows where emails disappear into the ether. In addition, the phone lines are open every night for calling in and joining the discussion. Jump in, even if you’re a conservative!

Even more of Bob’s hard-hitting commentary can be found at his Facebook page.

Finally, if you see this ad and start listening to the show, shoot Bob an email, or call in, saying that Sergey sent ya!

“Oh, come on, Tray… you don’t need me to take you to school. It won’t be that bad!”

“Bro—James—you know how the other kids treated me in day care! The other kids on that bus are going to tear me apart!”

“Li’l bro, there’s a driver, a guard… you’ll be fine. I have to stay here and get ready to go to school, myself. High school. It starts later, but if I take you to school on my scooter, I’ll be late, myself, since I have to take time to install the sidecar. Mom and Dad are already at work.”

I knew that I’d have to take that bus from the get-go, but I was in denial. I recalled how the kids in day care had beaten me up, made fun of me, stolen my food, and even tried to sexually assault me. How on Earth kids in daycare even knew how to sexually assault anyone, I just chalked up to the fucked up parenting that exists in a fucked up city like San Paro.

I trudged to the front door, backpack on my back, and exited the house.

The mild air of late summer greeted my face. I stepped down the steps and walked onto the sidewalk.

The corner of Dubner and Franklin Streets was a mere three doors down from my house, yet that walk felt like an eternity. The wait did, too. Looking back, though, it was probably a matter of ten minutes, at most.

The big yellow snack cake—I mean, the school bus—pulled up to the corner and stopped with the ‘whoosh!’ typical of buses. The doors opened. I didn’t even need to look towards the back; I could already feel the glare from some of the kids already on board… that same glare you see in a vulture’s eyes when it’s staking out a wounded moose, just waiting for that thing to collapse so it can go in for the final kill…

I took the three steps up to the driver—a big, burly white guy in a plain blue uniform with balding hair and liver spots—and showed him my ID card. He checked a book, nodded, and gestured toward the back of the bus with his head.

I shuffled to the very back of the bus with the quickness of a bicyclist with a diarrhea problem, not taking any chances of making eye contact with any of the other kids. I plopped my stuff on the seat to my left and looked out of the window at the scenes passing by as we moved. I saw the beauty of the city’s buildings and architecture, as well as the ugliness of the city’s many foul citizens. I saw a teenage punk mugging an old lady, for Pete’s sake. Yes, I’m a thug nowadays, but that’s just fucked up.

I unzipped my backpack and pulled out my book for that day—Organic Chemistry: An Intermediate Approach. The fifteen minutes left of the bus ride would be plenty of time to learn more. I was looking forward to it.

“Hey there, fresh meat!”

My heart jumped up into my throat, then sank back down into my body proper with the grace and subtlety of a boulder rolling off of a cliff on a quiet morning and landing in someone’s living room.

My first thought was to go right back to my chemistry book. Which I did… for about six seconds.

“Hey, Poindexter, that means you!”

That was some voice. It was definitely a girl, and she sounded quite tough for a kindergartner. Yet at the same time, it sounded eerily dainty, kind of like a beautiful yellow daisy with a thorny stem like a rose and a middle that looks like blood and smells like death.

I slowly looked up and over my book, and to my left, and… holy shit!

I had trouble believing they were kindergartners! They looked at least seven, and looked like they were the products of families that were so rich they’d never allow their kids to ride the bus to school. They were much taller and bulkier than me or any other average kindergarten kid, and all pale as snow.

The girl was wearing a low-cut top, loud pink, with “Princess” written all glittery across the front, and jeans that were way too tight for a kindergartner to be wearing. Hell, I didn’t even know they made Peach Bottoms in that small a size! Looking back at that moment, it really seems sick to me that the trend of making girls into dumb sluts at younger and younger ages reached the kindergarten level. Today, if I walked into a daycare, I’d probably see the girls there in such outfits. I say “if” because, for some mysterious reason, daycare staff and kids all hide and cower in fear when Tray Taylor walks in.

Oh well, the life’s the life.

The two boys both had on T-shirts with jeans. One boy was rail-thin, wearing a green shirt. The other boy looked like he worshipped the Donut King, and was wearing a red shirt that I’m sure could have been used to cover my big bro’s scooter in case of rain. Their jeans were the kind I once saw in a store in a rich part of town. I knew for a fact the cheapest Stone & Sultanate jeans were eighty bucks.

Keep in mind, these are kindergartners, people.

“So, what’s your name, coonie?”

Wow. Classless and racist. Lovely. An icing of frozen piss on top of a pile of shit.

I didn’t even have a chance to answer—the boy in the green shirt yanked my backpack over to where they were seated and rummaged through it.

“Damn nig, you going campin’ or somethin’?” the kid said without looking up from my pack.

“Or maybe he’s preparing to walk back to his homeland over in Africa!” the girl said. The three all chuckled and exchanged fancy handshakes.

“Walking to Africa”? From the American West Coast? Okay… make that classless, racist, and stupid.

The kid pulled out my notebook. “Trayvon, eh?”

“Heh heh.” the girl chuckled. “Tray-Tray!”

“Tray-Tray is cray-cray if he thinks he’s gonna have it easy here at San Paro East!” the green shirt boy said. He continued rummaging through my pack and pulled out my lunch money.

“Heh heh…” he chuckled as he pocketed my money. This was during a time when the right-wing party took power and canceled the free school lunch program, so the only thing going through my mind immediately after that moment was the thought of not eating one bite all the way until dinnertime.

The green shirt boy kept on rummaging through and pulled out a dull silver and gray object.

My heart sank so deeply, I swear I felt it in my feet. My brand new multiband radio. So brand new, I had only put about ten hours of usage on it.

“Hmm,” the kid said inquisitively. “Fancy.”

He examined it for a few more seconds, then thought out loud. “Should I take it, or break it?”

After a few seconds, he raised his hand, as if to smash it down on the floor of the bus. I closed my eyes and scrunched up my face, imagining my brand new radio in pieces.

“HEY! FUCKERS!”

Surprised at what sounded like a gruff twenty-something gangster, I opened my eyes. Two boys—a pale, hairy, tall, and lanky teenager with long black hair, dressed in black jeans and a black shirt, and a paler redheaded, freckled kid wearing a white t-shirt and blue jean shorts that was about my age stood at the row of seats in front of the very back. The teenager was glaring at the bullies, and had a small knife in his hand.

The bullies looked like organic statues. They sat there, completely still and silent; their eyes fixed on the teenager. The green shirt boy was still clutching my backpack on the floor.

“Leave this kid alone, or face the consequences,” the teenager said in a dark, matter-of-fact tone, brandishing the knife. “And don’t even think about breaking the radio.”

The bullies, the color drained from their bodies (well, the little bit of color that was there in the first place), replaced my radio and slid my backpack back toward my side of the bus. They got up and shuffled towards a seat in the front.

The teenager sat where the bullies were, facing me. The smaller kid sat down next to me, with a lunch cooler and backpack.

I know what you’re all wondering—what the fuck is a teenager doing pulling a knife on kindergartners? Well, it’s San Paro. Of course, back then, it wasn’t quite as crimey as it is nowadays, but it was still a giant ghetto. And when it came to dangerous people, you couldn’t even trust kindergartners. Sometimes, you even had to pull guns on kids that little, simply because they posed that much of a threat.

“Heh. Those bullies ran off like little kids,” the teenager gloated.

The younger kid piped in. “Umm… they ARE little kids, Jacob.”

“I knew that…” Jacob said, knowing that he’d been corrected by a kid eleven years his junior.

They then both turned towards me.

“Thanks, guys!” I said with a big smile.

“Ha, no problem,” Jacob said, flinging his hair. “But you should really be thanking my little bro Liam here. If he’d not noticed what was going on back here, and alerted me at the front, I’d have been none the wiser.”

He turned towards Liam. “Guess I should have remembered not to stay up late gaming since I volunteered to be a bus monitor, huh, Liam?”

“You’re correct, Jacob.” Liam said matter-of-factly.

I looked at Liam. He smiled at me and offered his hand. I reached back and shook it.

“Nice to meet you… um…”

“Trayvon.”

“…Trayvon. I’m Liam and this is my big bro Jacob. We live on Sandra Street, where the bus route starts.”

“Really?” I asked. Sandra Street was only about eleven blocks away. “I haven’t seen you guys before around here.”

“Well, we just moved in, actually.”

“Well, welcome to San Paro… for what it’s worth.” I said.

“So where did you guys move here from?”

“San Antonio,” said Jacob, who had pulled an apple from his pocket and bit into it. He was talking with quite a mouthful.

“Yeah,” agreed Liam, “San Antonio.”

“Heh, what a move…” I said sarcastically.

“What are you insinuating?”

“Do you guys know what a hellhole San Paro is?”

“Well, yeah. But we lived in the ghetto back in San Antone, and let me tell you one thing—San Paro is an improvement. At least here, the street lights actually come ON at night…”

I shuddered at the thought of the street lights in San Paro being faulty. On the streets in the morning, police tape and chalk outlines of bodies on the sidewalk spattered in blood were a common sight. But if the street lights on any thoroughfare failed to turn on at night, the following morning the street would appear as if were originally paved with blood.

“So, how long you lived here?” Jacob asked, after swallowing a mouthful.

“My family’s lived in San Paro since it was still a small town,” I said.

“Damn man, so y’all got a history here and shit.”

“Yeah, we do. We’re fortunate, though, to have not been touched by the murder menace in this town.”

“I hear you on that,” Jacob said. His face slumped a bit, as what I presumed were bad thoughts passed through his head. “We lost several people back in San Antone…”

By this time, we were almost right up at the front of the school.

Jacob perked up slightly. “Well, boys, we’re here. Y’all have fun now!”

Chuckling at the little bit of Texas twang that came out of Jacob then, I put my backpack on.

“Bye, Jacob!” Liam and I said in unison as we walked off the bus. I continued with a “nice to meet you”.

Liam and I walked silently up to the school. The school was a grand, three-story historic brick and stone structure, with a marble entrance at the top of two small sets of stairs, and of course, a wheelchair ramp to comply with federal law. It hardly ever got used, though, as most wheelchair-bound San Paroans got ushered in discreet entrances with the escort of private security guards. After all, in this city, a wheelchair might as well have be a big sign saying “TARGET!”

I noticed an unmarked door off to the side. I had heard—and later confirmed—this was the entrance to the school’s bike locker, which was basically a big armored room with guards. Yes, in San Paro, the crims would have no issue with jacking bikes from kids. Even me, being the thug I am today, never knowingly victimizes children under twelve or the elderly over 60, with a few extreme exceptions for extreme assholery.

Lovely city, ain’t it?

If you have prosperity–financial, social, romantic, and/or otherwise–and refuse to share any of it with people who are poor and/or lonely, you are a major league jerk and sociopath.

That is all. :)

Hey there. I’d tell you my name, but it wouldn’t matter much anyway, as to the world I live in, I’m so insignificant, so subhuman, that I may as well just have no name at all…

…actually, never mind that part. I’m Sergey.

I’m twenty years old, but have become so world-weary, my body feels like it’s eighty-five. I reside in a district of Fort Worth called Morningside, one of the many places that had the life sucked out of it by the specter of suburban sprawl, which is ironic considering it’s a suburban neighborhood, itself. But it doesn’t have 5,000 square foot McMansions, streets that wind and twist like the person who planned the neighborhood was trashed-ass drunk when they did it, nor the shiny new schools, and a few too many poor people for the sprawl lovers out there, so it isn’t “good enough” for them, I suppose.

But I digress.

Anyone who tries to say that there isn’t a permanent underclass in this so-called “land of opportunity”, quite obviously, isn’t paying attention. I’m part of it, and there are millions of people in this country that are just like me. We struggle just to make enough money to sustain ourselves and get by. We are found under bridges, in urban forests, in downtowns and in suburbs. The luckier of us live with family or friends–if we have any.

We are born into poverty. Sure, we can go to school for ‘free’, but oftentimes, our schools are subpar compared to schools in richer neighborhoods, because of unequal, unfair funding. Schools should be equal in quality across all areas in America–urban, suburban, and rural. Yet, apparently, the wealthier kids deserve a higher quality education. And that’s not even getting into the fact that schools in poor neighborhoods tend to be much, much more dangerous, thanks to the crime issues that plague poor, underpriviliged societies or parts of societies. Then there’s college. In this lovely society we have here in America, the notion of a free college education if you show at least decent academic acuity in high school is considered a bad thing. Lovely, right?

You see, apparently, you get a free ride in college if you’re good at one caveman game or another, but if you’re just smart, or close to it, yet not ultra-smart? You have to piece together small-time scholarships and that puny-ass Pell grant that the Feds provide. And chances are, you still have to take out loans and all that crap, ensuring that your financial future is rough and tumble as hell. But the upper classes, their mommies and daddies can just cover the rest of the cost, no problem.

“So, just find a job,” you might be saying. “You could still earn some kind of living then.”

Well, I’d love to. So would many of my fellow underclass members. But there’s a problem.

You see, most of us live in inner cities. Thanks to the specter of suburban sprawl, jobs of all kinds–from industry to retail to skilled trades and beyond–have largely moved out to the far-flung suburbs, leaving urban areas and older suburban areas in the dust. Yes, there are still jobs around here, but most of them have gone, gone, gone.

“Well, just go commute to the suburbs!”

Well, we would. But the problem is, part of the attitude that powers sprawl, is the racist/classist/sociopathic attitude of “separating” from the “dirty, huddled masses” of the lower classes that remain in the city.

It’s a simple fact that many people in the underclass cannot afford to drive, or even to do something like ride a moped (that is, the ‘motorized bicycle’ type mopeds, not scooters, though scooters kind of apply to this, too). So, it’s all about the walking, the bicycling, and the bus and train. The sprawl freaks know this, and intentionally make walking dangerous (by not building sidewalks much at all, with many rough spots and gaps), make cycling dangerous (by building in such a way that you can’t get around their municipalities without using high-speed, bike-intimidating arterial roads), and make transit use impossible by making bus/train service abysmally horrid (or just not having transit service at all). Worst of all, it doesn’t even have to be separate municipalities: many areas of Fort Worth (both enclaves of the rich and middle-class suburban areas) are made similarly difficult for members of the underclass to traverse. Even for the underclass that do have cars, oftentimes the gas expenses of having to commute to distant suburbs is too much for the pocketbook, even with the job. As for the moped and scooter-riding underclass, well… oftentimes the high-speed arterial problem rises again, as mopeds and scooters tend not to exceed 30 and 40 miles per hour, respectively. This kind of assorted crap goes for areas all around the country.

As a result, they “separate” themselves from the “dirty, huddled masses” in the city. And since they’ve taken wealth and jobs to the suburbs with them, it’s caused jobs to become scarce in the city. There’s simply not enough to go around for the lower-class population here. So, as a result, urban unemployment’s sky-high (the nationwide average of 7.7 percent is small potatoes compared to the urban unemployment average), and it’s near impossible to find work, even for those of us that WANT to work. And despite what the conservajerks say, the vast, vast majority of unemployed urban poor WANT to work. It’s just the sprawl freaks, and several other groups, who have put roadblocks in our path to doing so.
When you combine subpar education and a deficit of good job opportunities, and a host of other things, you get the main causes of the underclass that currently exists in American society.

It really is sad when someone that *wants* to work can’t find work because of silly stuff like what I mentioned, and they end up struggling, starving, and begging. It really is. But that’s the way it is all across our country. I, myself, am in that very position. Now tell me: since there are millions of people with little to no opportunity in inner cities across the nation, why in the holy mother of fried catfish do we call America the “land of opportunity”? Because of the selfishness and sociopathy of the upper classes, the underclass in America lack much opportunity at all. And I feel no qualms, nor any regrets, about calling that kind of thing nothing short of criminal. Feloniously criminal.

Speaking of sociopathy, let’s talk about social sociopathy for a little bit here. Being a crappy, irresponsible citizen doesn’t just have an economic side. When you hang with your “buds”/”homies”/”bros”/”girls”/”sisters”/et cetera, so on and so forth, and you disregard those on the outside of your little group, you are straight up failing to fulfill several of your duties of good citizenship, period.
“Why is that?” you may be asking of ol’ me at the moment.

Well, you see, there are people like me out there, who are on the bottom of the social ladder. In fact, I’m a bit higher up on the economic ladder than I am on the social one. When it comes to the social side of things, I’m so low on the ladder, I’m pretty much just laying flat on the ground below it.

All my life, I’ve done everything by “the book”. In school, I talked to the other kids and tried to join in. I’ve done the hobby club thing, I’ve tried the church thing. To this day, I still “put myself out there” and every buzzword and slogan put out by the inflated-ego advicemongers out there.

And yet, I’ve remained extremely lonely to this very day I type this. I have hardly any close friends in my local area, and hardly any general friends in my area, either. Hanging out with me is treated like a chore by the people I know, as if they have to rebuild the Pyramid of Giza just to so much as grab a taco with me. Me having a group of friends? Ha. Yeah, right. And it’s all because hardly anyone gives me and mine any kindness.

Why? Well, there’s many reasons, from my urbanity in a VERY suburban region, to my looks, to my hobbies… but mainly, it all boils down to people just being jerks, plain and simple. People are still stuck in the caveman’s mentality: that their own tribe (clique) are the only ones to trust and care about, and any other tribes (cliques), along with any random people with no group, warrant no attention whatsoever. We may have needed that attitude in the days of the caveman, what with the chaotic, anarchic world of hunter-gatherers, but most people live in cities, suburbs, and towns now. It’s time to throw that old hat in the trash, y’all! It’s overdue for outcasts like me–present and future–to be shown some kindness and permanent friendship.

And don’t give me that BS about “bonds take time”. That is a classic example of the fallacy of having a tradition, and not questioning it simply because, well, it’s tradition. It’s perfectly possible for someone with a truly kind heart to reach out to someone that’s lonely, and become their best friend within mere weeks. It just takes kindness and a willingness to question tradition. The problem is, most people aren’t willing to question tradition, and as anyone knows, that tendency that people have goes far above and beyond failing to show real kindness and forming bonds with outcasts. After all, the reason we were stuck with slavery so long in this country is because people weren’t willing to question tradition.

I sit here, a forgotten person. A person who’s been relegated to utterly crappy economic and social classes by a dystopian world of sociopaths. This blog here, The Stormy Grove, represents my little bit of the Internet and society, and a tool for broadcasting my story and my knowledge and views to the world. It’s had many false starts in the past, but no more. I’m cooking with gas now, y’all, and I ain’t gonna sit here and be quiet about my story any more, as I’m fed up. I’m fed up with how the world is today, I’m fed up with human excess and its effect on the planet, I’m fed up with peoples’ sociopathy (and not just because I, myself, am a victim of it)…

I’m just fed up in general. This crap, I know, has shortened my years substantially. So, in case they have been shortened so damn much that I am already at Death’s door, I wrote this little “letter”. Let this be known as a good, in-a-nutshell summary of Sergey’s story. Thank you for reading, and I hope this inspires you to reach out to those less fortunate–financially and socially.

NOTE: This story is the backstory to a character I created in the online RPG/shooter game APB: Reloaded, under the handle ‘BronyHomie’. A picture of him is below this paragraph. Although he is an ‘alter ego’ of mine, I do not condone the violent behavior presented in this story. The base morals of the main character and his crew, however, are morals I condone. For more information on the context this story takes place in, read about the plot of and/or play the game, linked to above.

CRACK! SLAM!

“HEY! WHAT’RE YOU DO—mmmphmmmph!”

The sounds of a struggle. A one-sided struggle.

Yeah, he was a little bit of trouble at first, but I took care of him. He had no chance of overpowering the Homie. I’ve been a man of the streets for too damn long to be overpowered by a spoiled suburban kid, especially one this thin.

He looked so vulnerable, because, well… he was. The skinny white boy of nineteen years and five-feet-ten was now bound at the hands, arms, thighs, and feet, and anchored to his own bed via a pair of handcuffs I picked up off a dead security guard after the Jerry Road Incident. Another cloth covered his mouth so he couldn’t speak. He squirmed a bit, but gave up the fruitless effort after just a few seconds.

I turned to him, sweat running down my back, and snatched his necklace clean off his neck, leaving a cut that started bleeding.

“MMMMMPH!” he attempted to scream.

“Can it, Richie Rich, or else I’ll put a cap in you.”

Despite the assault rifle strapped to my back, I unholstered my pistol and pressed it up against his nose for a few seconds, then reholstered it. I paused for a bit to think, rubbing my chin.

“So, here’s the deal. I’m here to jack you, plain and simple. I’m not here to kill you, unless you act up too much. In that case, I won’t hesitate to kill you. Or maybe…”

I reached down and turned him over to take a look at his backside, hearing a faint whimper from him since I was twisting his arms in the process. I smiled devilishly.

“Or maybe…” I slapped his ass with a loud ‘SMACK!’

“…maybe if you act up I’ll tear that ASS up!”

“MMMMMMMMMPHHHHH!!!”

“…but barring that, you are to stay still and quiet while I’m doing my work.”

I turned him back over and looked around the room. This kid had some pretty nice shit. But then again, I just happened to be burglarizing a fucking seven bedroom house. Damn place was a mansion. Big red bricks, grand arches, pillars, big-ass property… and most importantly, lots and lots of sweet, stealable shit.

I smiled to myself, expressing happiness that I enlisted the help of Rusty and his unmarked white extra-roomy van with even roomier touring trailer on the back, the kind that lawn-care companies use for their equipment. He, and a few others, were enlisted to help with this operation.

I got down to business. After finding some trash bags in his room, I emptied his drawers and closets (yes, he had more than one closet) of all of his shirts, jeans, jackets, suits, anything of even remote value… even his underwear, since they were the ten-dollars-a-pop kind at specialty stores, which happened to be the only place to get them new. The shallow citizens of San Paro are so damn eager to get their hands on designer shit they’ll fork out five bucks a pop for used underwear being sold by a crim, all because of the brand name on them.

And people wonder why this city is so fucked up.

All of his gadgets in his room, from his cell phones to his game systems to his fancy clock radio, all that shit went in my bags, too.

His room was so packed with fancy stuff that it took me a full ten minutes to clean it all out and load it in my van that Rusty’d backed up to the garage. I started to become a bit concerned that we’d not be able to complete this job.

After the easy shit was all gone (and after watching him squirm, cringe, and even cry while he watched), I returned to his room. His eyes were wet with tears.

“Aww, is the widdle snobby-wobby upset that I took his toys? Apparently Mr. Richie-Rich didn’t realize the consequences of being a selfish asshole!”

I smiled flirtatiously and ran my finger from his neck to his chin seductively.

“Now watch this, my little bitch…”

I turned around and faced the 42-inch television on the wall. Everything that had been connected to it was already in the van, so there was just one thing left for me to do.

I put one hand on each side of the television and pulled backwards with great force, wrenching it clean off the wall and kicking up a cloud of sheet rock.

“MMPH! MMMPHHHHH!”

I set the TV down on the floor and kicked the kid as hard as I could right in his ribs several times, street-beating style. After yowling in pain through his gag, he shut up and silently wept.

I spotted something and had a light bulb moment.

“Oh, I’ll give you something to cry for, bitch!”

I turned to a glass statue on his dresser. It was a two-foot-tall colored glass replica of him as a football player in high school. How on Earth that little skinny bitch became a football star in the first place puzzled me. Anyway, I started to reach for it.

“MMMMMMPPPPPPPPPPHHHHH!”

I whirled around and stomped the kid until he was bleeding in several places.

“Watch it, kid, ’cause you’ll wind up dead if you keep this up.”

I turned back to the statue and grabbed it. In the next motion, I hurled it as hard as I could at the wall opposite where the TV was, causing it to shatter into countless tiny pieces.

Shit, that felt good. Wish I had another one to break.

I spent the next hour cleaning out the rest of the house. Anything of value, or anything that I just wanted, I bagged it and put it in the van.

Whatever I couldn’t or didn’t want to steal, I destroyed. Every dish in the kitchen, I hurled out of the cabinets and let shatter against the floor and the walls. I pigged out on his food and took the stuff I didn’t have room for. I closed and kicked down every door, and broke every window. I smashed figurines and statues, pulled down chandeliers, and smashed light fixtures and light bulbs. I also turned over his fish tank, but only after I removed all the fish and put them in another tank I brought in the van; it wasn’t the fault of the fish their owner was selfish, after all. As a bonus, I also flooded his game room in the process of turning over the tank.

I knocked random holes in floors, walls, and ceilings, and demolished every porcelain fixture in every one of his bathrooms, causing even more flooding. I turned on his garden hose and put it inside the kitchen window, poured all manner of chemicals all over his carpets, and ripped out every inner component of any appliance that was too big for me to move—ensuring that they’d never work again without expensive repairs. In the garage, after I loaded his quads, tools, motorcycles, dune buggies, bikes, et cetera, into the van’s trailer, I turned to his sports trophies in the living room and went nuts on them with a sledgehammer I found in his utility closet.

If you’re wondering why I’ve been able to be in this place so long, it was because he lived in the country, a half-mile from his nearest neighbor. Even more, there was lots of forest around here, so it was well-concealed. And finally, through spying on his social network profiles, I found out that this place is totally his, and he lived alone. His ‘bro pad’, he called it. Where he and his little spoiled rich buddies ‘chill’. But no permanent residents other than he, and none of his ‘bros’ planned on being here today.

Yeah. A word of caution for anyone who’s listening to me tell this story. Crims may be watching you post all your activities and locations on the Internet. So yeah… go ahead, ‘check in’, and sleep tight, bitches.

Anyway, I was pretty much done here. I stripped the place of everything I wanted to steal from it, and trashed what was left. Shit, I even knocked down some support beams. This place’s very structural integrity was now tenuous at best. And damn, I’m glad we brought the big touring trailer, too. This bitch had ten televisions. I mean, shit, you think that’s enough?!

I went back to his room. He was still bound to the bed, with tear and blood stains all over his face and shirt.

“Heh. Little rich bitch.”

I unbound his legs, and while holding them down to make sure he didn’t try anything, I took his jeans off. They were designer, so I’d be able to sell these for a good amount. Once the blood stains are cleaned, that is. I’d keep them for myself, but his size was too small for me. Fortunately, though, his ‘bro’ Ron was just my size, and had stored a lot of his clothes in one of the other bedrooms for when he stays over. I was thanking Ron at that time for my new wardrobe.

After I removed his jeans, I removed his underwear, leaving him with nothing but his stained shirt on, and re-bound his legs.

“You’re lucky I’m not gonna violate your ass. Well, literally anyway. I’ve done a pretty damn good job of the ‘figurative’ side of the equation.”

I hacked up and spat right onto his face.

“Don’t snitch, or I’ll make damn sure you end up six feet under. Peace, bitch. Oh, and this here…”

I hacked up and spat on his face again, then kicked and stomped his scrotum repeatedly until his junk was bloody and bruised beyond recognition.

“…that’s for rejecting that Myra girl because she’s black. ‘Just not my preference’, my foot. Say goodbye to your little racist ass getting to reproduce… ever.”

I then looked around the house and admired my work, almost like an artist appreciating a painting he just finished. The once grand country mansion now looked like a tornado hit it, and I was very proud to have been that tornado.

I left the room and the house, and approached the fully loaded van parked in the driveway. Rusty was sitting in the driver’s seat, reading a book and munching on an apple.

“Shit, Rusty, can you go ten minutes without eating something?”

“Actually,” Rusty said, “I went eleven minutes before I ate this.”

I just chuckled at his remark and continued. “Are the others ready?”

“Yeah, they’re driving up now.”

A white sedan with five more of our guys in it drove up. This was Jay, Kara, Sara, Bret, and Will. They all got out and approached us.

Jay is a short, chubby, pale guy of twenty years, who I invited to run with us four years ago, after seeing him get beaten to a bloody mess five times in three weeks by preppies from Central High School and talking to him about his life situation. He needed a close friend, so I stepped up and became that for him. He’s cool, though he has an unhealthy obsession with chocolate cake. I could get him to do anything—and I do mean anything—for a few slices of chocolate cake. He ain’t even gay or bi, but he jumped in the sack with Bret and I and did the threesome thing in a heartbeat once he learned I brought home some Duncan Hines. Come to think of it, perhaps he’d have stood a better chance against those preps if they tried to steal his cake or something…

Will is one of my cousins, who came to San Paro to help launch the crew about eight years ago. Along with about five other people, we were the founders. He is black, about six feet tall, and a semi-muscular man of about 220 pounds. He is actually pretty close to my build and age (I am twenty-six, he is twenty-four), to the point we are occasionally mistaken for twins.

Speaking of twins, Kara and Sara are identical twin sisters, and two more of our founders. Even at the age of twenty-one, they always dress alike day to day, usually in very tight jeans and low-cut tops. My guess is that it helps them with the boys, especially considering they both are kind of pale. Despite their appearance, they are quite geeky. Because of that fact, they’re in charge of most of our technology-related stuff.

Bret… well, there wasn’t really much to say about Bret, because he’s a man of few words. He’s a thin, semi-tall, fragile eighteen year old white dude, who was bullied, beaten, and raped for being gay so severely in grade school that he hardly speaks today, even with us. That’s really saying something, too, considering that we’re like his family now, since his biological family rejected him after he came out of the closet. He’d had no friends, either. I view him as my homie, though he is very open about being in love with me (the ‘Bret + Tray’ drawing of us making out he left in my bed once kinda gave that away). I gave him refuge here after seeing him crying quietly in an alleyway close to my place two years ago, finding out he had no place to go, and hearing his story.

Yeah, I got a big soft side for a thug, taking in people like that. But I viewed it as my job to stand up for, stand with, and offer aid to the downtrodden, poor and outcast, and to only target the rich, arrogant and selfish classes of people.

In fact, that was the whole purpose of our crew—the Tempest Boys—existing. We were a very unique crew, allied with the G-Kings. Our motto was “Screw the Rich to Feed the Poor”. It was our view that the rich—not just the financially rich, but the socially rich as well—should share their riches with the financially and socially poor, and if they didn’t, to use force to make them share and teach them a lesson in the process. If they end up so damaged they can’t recover their wealth, and end up dirt poor, that’s a bonus. Of course, some of them aren’t even that lucky when we’re done with them. A guy who ran a high-end boutique downtown got targeted by us once; his skull now has a permanent spot on top of my dresser back at home.

I know what some of you are wondering: whether I am running this crew, and whether I’m requiring outcasts that want to join and finally have a family, to join in on the ‘wild’ side of stuff we do. Well, yes, I do run this thing, though I do it (semi-)democratically. Second, I actually give them a choice: they can join in on our more ‘wild’ activities, or they can choose not to. Either way, they are allowed to join as full members of the Tempests. After all, we’re a social organization that hangs out and throws events, too—we don’t just wild around. Every one of the aforementioned Tempests—including Bret—voluntarily decided to join in on our wild stuff, most likely to vent rage against and get back at a society that cared nothing about them.

Hell, some of this shit I jacked from this kid, I ain’t even going to sell or split with the crew—it’s going to be donated to give some poor kids and adults a Christmas this year. I wasn’t just some hoodlum, I got class and that Robin Hood thing going on, and I’m proud of it.

Sara walked up to me and hugged me quickly, then asked, “You got the keys to his cars?”

I pulled five sets of car keys from a bag in the back of the van and gave them to each of my accomplices except Bret, whose job was to drive our sedan back home. The kid had five vehicles—a blue Patriot T-25, a pickup truck; a red Charge Cisco, a high-end sports car; a purple Charge Mikro, a high-end compact; a yellow Nulander Kurai and a green Charge Sentinel, both of which were quite fancy SUVs.

The crew started walking towards their respective cars, but I stopped Jay for a moment.

“Now, Jay…” I said in a calm, almost sarcastic voice, “you won’t get chocolate all over the seats this time, now will you?”

“Ha, Tray, you’re funny.”

“Oh, no, Jay, I’m actually serious this time. This car is gonna be disguised, painted, and given to Mr. Potts over on Main Street, because he needs a ride after his last one’s transmission blew up… and he has a dog. Dogs and chocolate don’t mix, you know.”

“Okay, Tray. No chocolate this time.”

Jay and I smiled at each other and exchanged a handshake.

Each of my accomplices used their set of keys to steal one of the cars each, driving off with them into the night. I remembered to grab his credit and debit cards, too. I had emptied and trashed his house, and later, his bank accounts would be empty and credit trashed, too. This kid had too much and refused to share the excess; therefore, he deserved to know what life with nothing is like.

I got in the van’s driver’s seat and turned it on. I did a reverse loop and went back out onto the road.

I basked in the afterglow as I drove down the narrow, unlit country road, bound for the city of San Paro, the bright skyline of which was growing on the horizon as I approached. It felt good to ransack that place, and even better to jack with that kid.

Now, you may be wondering who I am, and what kind of fucked up story I must have, to be jacking, gagging, and almost raping and killing rich boys, running a wild crew, and thugging. Well, you’re about to hear all of it.

Before I tell you, though, I haven’t yet introduced myself. My name is Trayvon Taylor, but I’m known as ‘Brony-Homie’ on the streets. Yeah, I’m gay, and I like cartoon ponies, but I’ll still put a cap in you faster than you can say ‘fag’. Try me; I’ve done it before.

Why am I a thug? The start of all this can be traced back to that one fateful day, back in kindergarten, twenty-one years ago…