Retracing the steps of Tre’ Kelley’s childhood is a sobering, sometimes harrowing, task.

To start, you must visit the areas of Washington, D.C., that aren’t in any travel brochures. You must go into the neighborhoods of the Northeast where vice is readily available — where the sounds of “Pop! Pop! Pop!” and the ensuing drone of police sirens, like banshees wailing in the night, are a familiar dirge. Only a short drive from the city’s majestic monuments and stately halls of legislature, it is worlds apart. No one goes sightseeing in this part of town.