The Get Over by Walter Dean Myers

The Get Over
    So it’s me, Bobo, Slice, and Little Willie sitting on the stoop talking. Mostly it’s Bobo, Slice, and Little Willie doing the talking and me just listening. The talk was stupid, about what girls they would mess with and what they would make them do if the girls were stupid enough to fall in love with them.
    â€œIf a girl falls in love with you, it means she’s weak,” Bobo, who was the oldest guy on the stoop, said. “If she’s strong, she ain’t going to fall in love with nobody unless they rich. That’s why all those girls chasing football players and rap stars. You got the paper, you got the girl.”
    â€œIf I make it big-time, I’m just going to buy what I need straight out,” Little Willie said. “Some girl run up on me talking about some love and I’m going to slap her upside her head, slap on her ass, and then pull out my checkbook and tell her exactly what I want and what I’m willing to pay for it.”
    â€œLove doesn’t sound that bad to me,” I said.
    â€œThat’s ’cause you’re a punk to begin with,” Bobo said. “Ain’t that right, Slice?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œSteve Harmon, well-known punk with a camera, believes in love.” Bobo was on a roll. “What a girl need you for except a damned payday?”
    â€œEspecially Steve,” Little Willie said. “Look at the way your ears stick out, man. You get caught in a strong wind and she ain’t going to see you no more.”
    â€œAnd what you doing outside your house, anyway?” Bobo asked. “You got diaper rash or something, and you out here trying to cool it off?”
    â€œSteve needs to sell that fancy camera he got and invest the money in strawberry blunts.” Little Willie turned his hat to the side of his head. “That way he could be a banker. Did you know those guys down on Wall Street sniff their money when they take a break? You pile a bunch of money up like they got, and you can actually get high on it!”
    â€œYou can’t get high sniffing no money,” Bobo said.
    â€œThat ’cause you’ve never had enough money to make a difference,” Little Willie shot back. “You trying to rub two quarters together and get some altitude. You got to have millions and billions the way those suckers downtown got. They don’t sell no Viagra down there, either. Now tell me what that’s about!”
    â€œYo, man, check out who’s coming down the street,” Slice said. “Arnold and JT.”
    â€œArnold just came off a six-month bid for aggravated assault,” Bobo said. “He was going to be his own lawyer. The woman assistant D.A. had him so confused, he was speaking in tongues and saying Hail Marys. My boy Owen was on trial with him, and he said the jury was cracking on him.”
    â€œHey, what’s going on?” Arnold is six three, almost six four, and lean.
    â€œWhat you doing running the streets?” Bobo said. “I heard you had a steady three, and a cot over at Rikers.”
    â€œThat’s yesterday’s news and last week’s blues,” Arnold said. “I’m back on the street, back on my feet, steady sliding and riding hard!”
    â€œGo on with your bad self!” Bobo said. I saw him nudging Slice. “What you got going on, player?”
    â€œMe and my boy here peeped a bank delivery yesterday,” Arnold said. “It was definitely wrong. They got to be new on the gig. It’s a stone get over and we’re thinking of making a play, but we got to get some backup.”
    â€œWhat you mean?” Slice asked.
    â€œCan I run with it?” Arnold asked, looking at all the dudes on the stoop.
    â€œGo on, man.”
    â€œWho’s youngblood?”
    â€œSteve’s okay,” Bobo said. “What you got?”
    I felt my balls tighten up a little. Was he actually going to run his get over to