I was a young boy living in the streets of Chicago. My parents immigrated to the U.S, from a small town in Italy to discover their American dream. My parents worked several jobs to support the family, so I spent much of my childhood without my parents but with my friends in school. All of my close friends would always look up to Al Capone, the wealthiest person in Chicago, fat, white, a young man with a scar on his face, which is why they called him “Scarface”. My family was poor and I wanted to be as rich as Al Capone to help my family and friends. “Aye Frank, you wanna earn some easy money?” said Mike, his classmate. “Yeah, I’m down, let’s go”, I said anxiously. Mike takes me over to this small brick building, with the door slightly open and chattering among many men. I enter the door with Mike and see a man with a mustache, smelling like cigarettes, in a leather coat with slicked-back hair. “ Nice ta meetcha, my names Bill,” he said as he shook both of our hands. “ I got a job for you both, go steal some cigars from that gas station over there,” ordered Bill as he pointed towards the busy gas station.

     ”Hey, let's make a plan, you distract the cashier as I sneak behind and grab the cigars,” I said as we walked out the building. Mike walks up to the cashier asking him for his thoughts on the baseball game tonight and luckily the conversation began. Frank acts as if he’s reading the labels and slowly approaches the shelf of cigars and shoves a bunch them into both of his pockets. Mike signals him to leave knowing that the conversation was about to end and Frank goes back. They both leave with big smiles on their faces. “That was too easy,” Mike said as they walked back to Bill, outside the building. “Alright here, you both get 10 dollars each” Bill said handing them the cash. “We have more work for you, come by anytime and your reward will be bigger,”. “Wow, imagine how rich we would be if kept this up for a while,” Mike said as we walked back home. “We would be so rich, we could be like Al Capone!” I said looking down at the ten dollar bill.

      I woke up the next morning all hyped to get more money, It was the weekend too so I had plenty of time to do anything. I went over to Mikes house, where he waited for me and we both walked towards the same building as yesterday. We walked in and saw Bill counting a huge stack of money and collecting it all into a large bag. He handed me the bag and told us to meet up with a guy on the 4th street and hand him the bag after he says the code number *411*.”Hey, don’t give anyone else the bag and keep it out of site, Got it?” “Got it,” Frank and Mike said. Mike grabs the bag and we walk down the street, I walked in front of him to hide the bag and protect him from anyone who came too close to him. We are almost there, just one more street we had to pass. As we were walking I hear loud footsteps coming from behind, I quickly turn back and see a man with a bandana over his mouth. “ Give me the bag right now or else you will suffer,” said the man as he takes out his pistol and points it towards Mike. Mike quickly bolts away and the man pulls the trigger and runs away towards the alley. I ran over towards Mike laying on the ground and see bullet holes on each side of the bag. “Hey, you good?” I said, “Yeah he missed me by inches,” said Mike all shook up. “We should never do this again, I don’t wanna risk our lives over money that isn’t even ours,” I said as I picked him off the ground. “Yeah, man I can’t believe I survived that, damn.” We went back home promising to never affiliate with a mafia man ever again.