It was a sort of group home I was living in, where the rent was only $250 a month for this basement room. We used to sit on the stoop, like anyone else, drinking our forties and sometimes smoking weed. Usually we smoked weed inside, but we weren't opposed to it--the police hardly ever came through our neighborhood.

One night, we were just sitting there smoking cigarettes, my friend Dameka and I. Dameka was standing up, actually, talking to me as I sat on the stoop.

A cop cruiser rolled up and stopped. The cop stepped out and told us to go inside. We told him we lived there. He got belligerent and said that by standing outside after 9PM we were under reasonable suspicion for solicitation. He started to put Dameka in handcuffs, but we pleaded with him and he changed his mind.

We didn't hang out on the stoop much after that.