Bucking the Sarge

Luther's mother is determined to make it by milking the system. She's a tough, angry woman, and wants Luther to follow in her footsteps. She owns a string of slum properties, including halfway houses for mentally ill men, and a thriving loan sharking business. She has a couple of hired goons. And she has Luther, who has to do the scut work: taking care of old men in diapers, and cleaning out rat-ridden apartments after the tenants have been evicted.

But somehow, despite all that, Luther has turned out to be a decent kid, and at 15 he's chafing under her ironfisted rule. He wants to focus on doing well in school, winning his third science fair medal in a row, and eventually going to a good college, not running his mother's shady operations. He's trying to be a kid, not the wicked old man his mother's trying to turn him into.