Jake Brennan

You're born in Harlem in 1969.

You don't know it, but the world is on fire.

In the ghetto, where you live, is on America's pay no mind list.

Your father, he takes work as a driver for the notorious gangster, Frank Lucas.

Yes, that Frank Lucas.

The one Denzel Washington would later portray an American gangster.

For a minute there, or so the story goes,

Your family's doing okay.

And then the heat comes down, and your father is forced to snitch.

That doesn't go so well.

Your dad is gunned down.

The streets know where the bullet came from, and the streets know why.

Gangster drivers who get all loose-lipped with the feds don't last long in Harlem.

Neither do you and your mom.

She moves you both 10 miles north to Mount Vernon, far enough from the city to have some sort of normalcy, but close enough to feel its pull when the suburban boredom sets in.

Boyhood is tough, but not as tough as it would have been in Harlem.

Your mom gets by as a single mother, and you get by on your mom's hustle and your daddy's charm.

But whatever this life is, as you hit adolescence, it's clear to you that it's not enough.

You aspire to more.

You put your mother's hustle and your father's charm to work.