Notes The Other Wes Moore p. 63-123 PDF

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Notes from The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore pages 63-123 for Professor Clark-Addison's class....

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The Other Wes Moore p. 63-123 ● Wes and Other Wes agree that becoming a man/adult is about being accountable to people other than yourself ○ Being responsible for others can be difficult and unforgiving ○ They both made mistakes as kids, and both got second chances ○ Sometimes it’s hard to tell difference between second and last chances ● Other Wes is heavily involved in dealing drugs, and his older brother Tony knows based on the amount of money he suddenly has ○ OW claims he made money DJing; his mother believed, but Tony knows the truth ○ Tony beats him in attempts to get him to stop being involved in drugs ○ Mary finds out the truth by discovering OW’s boxes of drugs under his bed ■ She flushes them down the toilet and OW panics and yells at her because he now owes the dealers a lot of money ○ Mary is deeply disappointed in her sons ● Wes is doing badly in school and his mother is worried about him ○ He nearly gets arrested tagging with his friend, but the cops give him a warning and let him go, but he doesn’t stop doing it ○ After his mother learns about his academic/disciplinary probation at school and she learns that he hit his sister during a fight, she decides he should go to military school ○ Sergeants wake him up and take him to Valley Forge Military Academy ■ Very strict and disciplinary, treating “plebes” as less than nothing ○ Wes tries to run away four times in first four days ○ Sergeant gives him a map to escape as a prank ■ Wes attempts to follow the map and gets lost before realizing it was a trick and going back to campus with the sergeant ○ Wes calls his mom and begs her to let him come home ■ She tells him that his family made a lot of financial sacrifices for him to be there, and that she wants him to really take it seriously and stop running ■ He later learns his grandparents used up their entire retirement savings to send him there ● Other Wes has many girlfriends, mostly due to his money and flashy clothes ○ He gets one of them pregnant, but doesn’t stop seeing other girls ○ He tells Tony, who later tells their mother, and she is unphased ○ OW’s pregnant girlfriend thinks they will raise the baby in a happy family, but later realizes that probably won’t happen ○ One of OW’s girlfriends attempts to leave his house late at night, but an angry teenager named Ray catches her leaving and beats OW ■ OW, covered in blood, gets his gun from his room and chases Ray down and shoots him ■ Bystanders witnessed the whole scene and the police were called ■ Mary calls Tony for help because Wes won’t tell her what happened ■ OW cleans himself up and hides the gun in a fishtank ○ When police arrive, they arrest OW and Tony is too late to say goodbye to OW

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He stops going to school two years before graduation He was lucky that night for two reasons ■ Ray was only shot in the shoulder and was released from the hospital the next day ■ OW was tried in a juvenile case and only got six months in JDC ○ OW can’t get a job and continues dealing drugs, desperate for money ○ He is dealing one day when a stranger asks to buy drugs, but OW thinks he might be working for the cops so he turns him away ■ Desperate for the money he could get from a potential customer, he changes his mind and tells him where to pick up the drugs ■ OW is too late in realizing that the stranger was working for the cops and he is arrested immediately Wes has been in military school for three years and is now a sergeant leading his own platoon ○ He has received many scholarships and is hoping to play for the NBA, even though his uncle reminds him that the odds are against him ○ His friend Justin’s mother is dying from cancer and he wishes to be there for Justin, but he is stuck at military school and misses the real world even if he likes it at Valley Forge ○ One evening he goes with another sergeant to a pizza shop, but is stopped by some aggressive teenagers ■ The teenagers nearly run the sergeants over and then drive away ■ The teenagers come back and yell a racial slur at Wes, throwing a hard object at his mouth and breaking his teeth ■ Wes is embarrassed and angry, so they run back to campus and he realizes that he is happy to be going back to campus rather than running away from it like he once tried to do...