The other day I received a care package from Evan LeVine. Among some of the useless crap he sent me was a “Homies” figurine. Suddenly I was struck by a longing to be reunited with my “Lil’ Homies” t-shirt. I hadn’t seen the shirt in years, but after several hours of rummaging through the basement, we were reunited.
In 1994 I started my first year of teaching. All the kids wore “Lil’ Homies” shirts. What? You’ve never heard of “Lil’ Homies” shirts? That’s because you’re not a Mexican who grew up in Chicago and attended John C. Burroughs Elementary School in 1994. For whatever reason, I too wanted a shirt. I wasn’t all that older than those kids, ya know. Los niños told me that the discount mega-mall was the place to buy a shirt. The directions were easy enough. Take bus 60 to the jail, then walk a few blocks down 26th Street. Here’s what I found at the discount mega-mall: you could eat questionable food, have keys made, buy pots, pans, groceries, ghetto-fabulous clothing, bootleg tapes, bootleg purses, bootleg hats, bootleg jerseys, bootleg everything. It had a zillion different vendors housed in one enormous stank building. That was 14 years ago. Who knows if that beast is still alive and breathing, but if I close my eyes and remember back, I can still see and smell that crazy place. That’s one more reason I hate living in the suburbs. There are no discount mega-malls here, only mega malls.
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My best side? |