“You gotta be better than this.” Wiley— a drug dealer Brandon Scott didn’t know— pulled up at his uncle’s car wash in Park Heights, just days before Scott left for college. Scott was there washing cars for his uncle and earning a few extra dollars; Wiley was just a customer. Maybe he saw something in a young Scott, maybe himself. Whatever it was, something in that moment made Wiley share one last regret. He didn’t owe young Scott anything, but that’s Baltimore.
Wiley looked him dead in the eye and told him, “It’s too late for me, but you gotta be better than this.” If he could do it all over again, he’d take the football scholarship and forget the money. A month later, Wiley was gone. Brandon was no stranger to men like Wiley. Growing up in West Baltimore in the 1990s, during the crack era, meant seeing fast money, hard choices and far too many stories that ended early. Scott learned early what survival looked like when options felt limited.
Every city has its storytellers. In…