Ace was the bomb.
Well, technically he was not a bomb. But from where we came from he was about as close to heaven as most of us were going to get.
We'd all grown up together on the sad side of town. We didn't call it the ghetto or the hood or any of those types of names. It was just there. Not much of a home but it was all we had.
When the rest of us were hanging out on street corners, getting high, Ace was studying and learning and working towards making a name for himself. I don't think any of us from the old gang were at all surprised when Ace announced he was headed to California to take college courses. What may have surprised some was Ace's chosen field of study...film.
I wasn't surprised at all. Ace was always creative and as long as I had known him he always had some type of camera in his hands. He said it was like looking out a window at forever. He was a deep thinker, our Ace.
He disappeared from our lives for a few years while he was out there. When he came back, he had a degree and a dream. He hadn't changed much from our old Ace except he had visions of what he could do with our neighborhood and our lives. He started first with short films featuring the people around the block. It wasn't some crazy thriller or espionage plot but it was interesting. He showed the completed works to a few industry insiders and got a spot at a local film festival.