Bernard E. Harcourt University of Chicago April 5, 2006

“I had me two baby 9's. I fell in love with those. They look beautiful to me. They were chrome, like perfect size, they had some power to them. I was like damn, I really don’t use them because I don’t want to get them burned. Somebody’s body to it. I have them at home in a shelf, I don’t really use those. Those just like, I’m gonna keep those for a long time.... They’re like tight. They’re just all chrome” (CMS-10: 35).

“We used to get in robbing houses that have a lot of guns, and trade’em for pounds or ounces of cocaine or just sell them.... Living close to the border, guns are very valuable to the drug dealers. If you know the right people, you can get good deals for a gun...” (CMS-14:7)

When I was younger, I used to kick with those fools and I was looking, “There’s a bad mother fucker right there. Look at that shit. Nobody fucks with that fool.” And I just wanted to be a bad mother fucker... Like, nobody, nobody crosses him... Fools just always trying to start shit with you. Everybody always trying to like, I don’t know, kind’a like trying to like, punk you, or whatever... Like tell you, or just punk you, like, “Fool, you ain’t this, you ain’t that...” And then,... when you’re younger, that’s when you got to fight back the most, because... once you start a reputation, you got to keep it... If you start off as... getting punked and stuff, it’s not good. Cuz then everybody tries to punk you. (CMS-16: 35-36).