Webster defined nostalgia as a "melancholy or overly sentimental, sometimes abnormal, longing for a return to a past period or an irrecoverable condition." Nostalgia is a psychological time machine that transports adults to the good old days of another era. Once there, they will discover that it is a state of mind, unaware of real or imagined barriers. For some it is a pleasant walk into the past, a simple and less turbulent past. Benjie Johnson is thirteen years old, black, and on his way to a full-blown heroin addiction. Benjie's wry humor and courage, his hard exterior and vulnerability make it impossible not to care about him. This book tackles a difficult topic and offers no easy solutions. The inner-city students I currently teach can relate to much of what Benjie talks about. The Black English used is a variation but a continuation of the school vernacular we have seen in the previously mentioned novels. and my school is a tough school. I'm not trying to run away from what I do or don't do because man is man and Chile is Chile, but I'm no longer a Chile. Nobody wants to be no Chile because, for some reason, it holds you back in many ways; unless you're a rich Chile like in some movie or like on TV, where everyone's having fun and their room is perfect and their pool and their block and their house and they even ride around in a rolling Cads with a tape recorder is playing great music and the air conditioning is on.”21 The block where Benjie lives is not a quiet place. People are attacked and robbed regularly. After the age of three, when relatives hold your hand, you are alone in the dimly lit corridors of the building. “Walking down dark, smelly hallways can be tough on anyone, man or Chile, but a Chile can be kidnapped in the dark and have his rear end messed up by some weirdo I'm talking about them sexual. Soon you'll be up at twelve, twelve and so—they might calm down because they're afraid you know where to throw a good punch, dig?