It’s the summer of 2005. I’m sitting on the living room floor watching Unsolved Mysteries and nursing a gallon of Tampico juice when Mom, my 4-year-old brother Luke, and stepdad Jeff trudge inside the front door. Two strangers trail behind them: grown-looking kids wearing giant red T-shirts, creased khaki pants, red canvas belts, Nike Cortez sneakers with fat red laces, and dark Locs sunglasses. It’s nighttime. A black cat is rubbing against my leg. We get all kinds of randos at our house. Mom, a 50-year-old Bible thumper, invites Mormons in for decaf coffee and tries to convert them, and picks up homeless folks from the Target parking lot, but these guests are different: teenagers who dress and walk and breathe cool, like Tampico gushes through their veins. They’re half a foot shorter than Jeff but colossal compared to Mom. I’m Haley Joel Osment on a good day: five foot four, a buck twenty, 15 years old going on 10. Even a Pentecostal white boy can tell these dudes are gang-affiliated.…