We Beat the Street: How A Friendship Pact Led to Success

Summer spells trouble for Sampson. Away from the positive company of George and Rameck, and back with neighborhood friends, he finds it hard to stay out of trouble. Sampson works a job at McDonalds but the low pay leaves him searching for more spending money. One day, a friend comes up with what seems like a harmless scheme—they will rob drug dealers, not experienced ones with guns but young kids, new to the trade, who can be easily intimidated into handing over their profits. Sampson isn’t sure it’s a good idea but rationalizes, telling himself that he is only stealing from dealers, so what’s the harm.

The harm shows up in the shape of a gun that one of the friends insists will be needed to make the teenaged dealers hand over their money. It works several times but one day, just as they are robbing a pair of kids on the corner, the cops drive by. Sampson manages to abscond, unnoticed, but later, when he goes looking for his car, he is told that the police have called him in for questioning. He is arrested shortly thereafter and placed in juvenile detention. After several weeks in detention, the lawyer his parents hire is finally able to get him a plea bargain, in which he pleads guilty in exchange for two years’ suspended sentence and two years’ probation. After this narrow escape, Sampson decides he needs to cut ties with his neighborhood friends permanently. This harrowing experience is the last run in he ever wants to have with the law, he decides.

Though the three friends apply to college together, it is unclear whether they will all get into college together. The waiting is nerve-wracking for them. George goes for an interview with Carla, the student development specialist at Seton Hall, and he tells her about the pact the three of them made to try to get into Pre-Med/Pre-Dentistry together. She is impressed and is even more impressed when he says that he hopes to bring whatever learning he achieves back to his own neighborhood and lift others up.

When the letters finally arrive, Sampson is too nervous to open it. He waits an entire day but after learning that George and Rameck were accepted, he feels ready to open the envelope. Sampson gets in, and all three friends are headed to Seton Hall.