Just then, Spek’s younger brother Jermell happens to walk by. He, too, is reluctant to talk. “Ain’t nothin’ much to say about it,” Jermell says while flexing a thug’s half-smile. A fully-pledged member of the Crips, he’s familiar with the boomerang system of justice that heads on corners subscribe to. “Shit like that happens. But what goes around comes around, you know?” His boss is the streets, and he’s currently on the block and on the clock. Meanwhile, the Falzone clan is more scattered than ever: Momma Sarena Falzone fell victim to a brain aneurysm a few months before Spek’s murder and, in the days since the passing of his mother and older brother, Jermell says that he doesn’t stay in touch with his father, Timmy Sr.
“Timmy was a good nigga,” he says of his brother, “but I always thought graffiti was bullshit. I used to tell him that. I was like, ‘How could you be fighting over writing on the walls?’ I can see if he’s fighting for money and shit.” Fighting for money, and his life, is what Jermell Falzone does every day. “I don’t really got nothing to lose, tell you the truth. I’ve felt that way since my mom died —when both of them left,” he says. “There ain’t really nothin’ to live for. I was trying to get me a record deal. That’s the only thing that I’m trying to do right now. With that, “Mel,” as his friends call him, steps back into the street.
