This is a spiritual rags to riches adventure. I have been blessed to live a 'storybook life' but not in any glamorous way. Writing this book has allowed me to examine my role as a person of color-which I refer to as 'melanin-rich'-in a society which has proven itself to be hostile toward non-Caucasian people. Because this is part memoir, part historical treatise, and part survivor's guide, it is my intention to stretch the parameters of a conventional novel. Book 1 of this Trilogy is told through the eyes of a confused child. A stranger in my own home, like so many neglected children, I found a surrogate family in the street-mainly at our neighborhood basketball courts. After learning how to 'make a dollar out of fifteen cents, ' I was headed down a tried-and-true path for disaster until, ironically, a Beast and a Serpent came to my rescue.