One Man Army

The tattoo on John's neck reads “One Man Army.”

And when he was at Strawberry Mansion high school he was, one of the best players in the city, so good that he was named all-star and MVP, which earned him a free ride to college. But basketball came easy to John. So did rapping, which he now does under the name Wall Street. But the streets were his true love, and where he lost his leg over drug money.

“I can’t forget that I got shot,” says John, 19, standing tall and lanky, with a slight beard. He speaks in a thoughtful, self-assured tone that can only be described as charismatic. “I can’t forget that I lost a leg. I have regrets, but I don’t get mad. I’m really supposed to be gone for real for real.”

John tells how he was in the drug game “kinda heavy” before he got shot last November. “I had birds in the street," he says of the bricks of cocaine he flipped for fast money. "I had it all before I got shot."

His life is now severed into moments of before and after.

“I can talk stuff in my music ‘cause I lived that,” he says. “I walked around with my glock off safety ‘cause out here you ain’t got time to click. I walked around with five gees in my pocket. That ain’t about nothing,” he says waving his hand dismissively. “All that glitz and glamour, ain’t nothing, ‘cause what can make you happy can also make you cry.”

***
When John got out of jail, the drug money he had stashed away was gone.

“After I found out who it was," he says of the thief, "I suited up and sat and waited,” as the guy finished up a dice game, “and I got my money back how I could get it back.”

Later that night, while John was sitting in the passenger side of a car in the city’s Huntingdon Park section, he sees the guy running out of an alley. He grabs for his gun in the backseat, but it’s gone. He imagines that the other passenger back there who got out of the car earlier took it in a set-up, as he sees another guy run toward the car wearing a dark hoodie.

“And that’s when it went down,” he says.

The two men opened fire. John runs out of the car, and soon his legs start to burn. He is shot five times in his left leg and two in his right.

Lying on the ground, he laughs at the two people standing over him, saying, “You might as well finish now." "Nah," says one of the passerby. “You bleeding, Wall Street.”

Someone calls 911, and John, laying on the ground sweaty and tired, folds his hands over his chest and prays to God.

“If that was gonna be my last breath, I said something to God,” he says.

****
John laid in the hospital for about a month. He suffered severe vascular damage. When he woke up one day, his right leg was gone.

“I was just looking, and I just laid back down,” he says. “I wasn’t really mad. I was mad, but I wasn’t. I was like 'Dang, they took my jawn', and I was like, 'Oh well'.”

Three days later he cried. He says it was the only time.

When we met in May, John had been walking again for about a month. His new leg leaves him a crude limp that requires a cane or crutches. It also brings him constant pain. The scar tissue from his stump digs into his prosthetic leg for which he pops muscle relaxers daily. His doctor wants to amputate further, but John refuses.

“I’m just gonna have to walk with those crutches for the rest of my life,” he says flatly.

***
John started selling drugs when he was about 14. His customers loved him so much, he remembers, that some even called him their son.

His mother was an addict. His father was a dealer. “What does that mean?” he says. “My family is a good family. I was raised in the church. It doesn’t mean nothing.”

Life is about choices.

“I love the streets,” he says. “I ain’t gonna lie, I am the streets. I speak for the people in the streets. I don’t miss killing my community. But you get a lot of love, and sometimes you get a lot of hate. It’s funny that way.”

When talking about today’s rising gun violence, John blames a perverted mentality.

“There’s no respect, there’s no loyalty,” he says. “People will sell their soul. People will turn on their mother for $2. I don’t know. It’s so crazy.”

For John getting shot was a turning point. The bullet matured him.

“It wasn’t my downfall it was my upbringing,” he says of the shooting. “I don’t feel invincible, but I’m here. What they planned to do failed. I’m still walking, baby. It just makes me look at things differently and talk to people differently. People talk to me about the grind all day, and I say ‘Look man, it ain’t worth it'.”

The moments after he was shot are filled with daily physical therapy, and music. John, a sharp lyricist, boasts of an upcoming tour with heavyweight rapper 50 Cent. He also volunteers at prevention and intervention programs throughout the city, telling young people his story.

But the past keeps him leery.

“I don’t wanna get caught slippin',” he says one afternoon, standing on a North Philadelphia corner. “I’d rather be in the cut.” One of his shooters is in jail, John says, but he doesn’t know why. “I just know he’s not having a good time in there,” he says. “It’s like I’m in there, but I’m not. I got people who love me in every jail. I’m not glorifying that. It’s the truth.”

The other shooter is still on the street. “I always think about it.” he says about getting shot again. “If I get shot one more time, and I survive, it’s gonna be a problem. People ain’t gonna keep shooting me.”

John also has an upcoming court date, which he shrugs off. “I ain’t looking at nothing but freedom,” he says.

But like that night last November, he miscalculated, learning once again that you can’t outrun the past.

One year later, he’s locked up on State Road, for a drug case he caught prior to his shooting, contemplating his choices for the next two to four years.

(photo credit: Jeff Fusco)