[1 of 5] Buck: A Memoir, Chapters 1-9. by M. K. Asante (2013)

Author: M. K. Asante

Asante, M. K. (2013). Buck: A Memoir, Chapters 1-9. Spiegel & Grau.

"Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you."
—OVID

1
The Fall

The fall in Killadelphia. Outside is the color of corn bread and blood. Change hangs in the air like the sneaks on the live wires behind my crib. Me and my big brother, Uzi, in the kitchen. He's rolling a blunt on top of the Source, the one with Tyson on the cover rocking a kufi, ice-grilling through the gloss. Uzi can roll a blunt with his eyes closed.

Cracks, splits, busts.

"The rawest crews in Philly are all three letters," he tells me. I read the cover through the tobacco guts and weed flakes: "The Rebirth of Mike Tyson: 'I'm Not Good. I'm Not Bad. I'm Just Trying to Survive in this World.' "

Awaking crews in a rude fashion
On they ass like Mike Tyson at a beauty pageant
("Wreck Your Ears (Can Do)," The B.U.M.S. (Brothas Under Madness), 1995.)

I do this—spit lyrics to songs under my breath—all day, every day. The bars just jump out of me no matter where I am or what I'm doing. It's like hip-hop Tourette's.

Dumps, spreads, evens.

"JBM—Junior Black Mafia. Of course us, UPK-Uptown Killaz. PHD—Play Hero and Die."

Tears, licks, wraps.

"HRM—Hit Run Mob. EAM—Erie Ave. Mobsters. ABC—Another Bad Creation."

Folds, rolls, tucks. Another perfect blunt, jawn looks like a paintbrush.

Jawn can mean anything—person, place, or thing. Sometimes if we're telling a story and don't want people to know what we're talking about, we'll plug jawn in for everything. The other day I was at the jawn around the corner with the young jawn from down the street. We get to the jawn, right, and the ngh at the door is all on his jawn, not knowing I had that jawn on me. Man, it was about to be on in that jawn.

"Then you got all the songs: AFD-'Ass for Days,' CIA-'Crack in America,' FAG—'Fake Ass Gang-sta,' HAA-'Here's Another Asshole,' OPP—'Other People's Property,' PWA-'Pussy Weed Alcohol,' and Philly's own PSK-'Park Side Killas.' "

"Schoolly D . . ." I hear Schoolly D's voice in my head. "PSK, we makin that green . . . ," | start.

"People always say, 'What the hell does that mean?' " Uzi finishes.

"P is for the people who can't understand how one home-boy became a man . . ." Both bopping to the subs in our domes. Boom, bap bap, boom-bap.

"S is for the way we scream and shout . . ."

"One by one . . ." He lands a soft hook on my cheek.

"I knock 'em out!" we both rap, laughing as he follows his punch through. I try to tap his chin but can't reach.

"Your arms too short to box with God," he says like Big Daddy Kane in "Mortal Combat," Uzi's anthem.

Uzi is the color of walnuts and has a long, sharp face like the African masks my dad hangs up everywhere. His name is Daahoud, my parents call him Daudi, and the hood calls him Uzi. He's got a bunch of other names too, like some superhero: Oohwop, Daa-Ooh, Uzito, Wop da Culture, Cool D, Pinch P, Big Ooh, Barkalark, Droptimus Rhyme, Big Fly, and Stilt the Kilt.

A fast knock hits the window.

"Who dat?" Uzi says, running the flame across the blunt, drying it. I push the window open, cool air rushes in.

"Yo, what up, Malo?"

"It's Ted!" | yell back to Uzi. "What up, Ted?" Ted is Uzi's best friend. He's like yay high, albino light, and bulldog stocky. He's got a pug nose with freckles spread across it like crumbs. His nicknames are Ted Money, Reds the Ghost, Teddy Rux, and Thiefadore Burgalor.

"Where ya brother at?" Gold ropes dangle over his Tommy Hill hoodie, and the Beijing dye on his shape-up makes his hairline look airbrushed.

"Right here," I say, leaning out the window. Uzi puts the blunt behind his ear. Pushes me aside.

"Ted Money, waddup?"

Ted checks both coasts like a lookout boy. "We got a car," he says, hitchhiker thumb shooting backward. "A Johnny!"

"Who's we?"

"Me, D-Rock, and you . . . if you down to roll?"

"Hell yeah," Uzi says, no hesitation, then pivots toward the door. I follow him like his shadow.

And this is how it always goes: me following Uzi in everything, everywhere, like his little black Jansport, covered in Marks-A-Lot, strapped tight to his back-koala style. Anywhere, anyplace. He does it, I do it. He tries it, fuck it, I'm trying it. He can, shit, why can't I? Sometimes I even duck like him under doorways, even though he's way taller and I don't need to duck. I guess I just do it because Uzi's more than my big brother, he's my idol. I don't care that he's taller, and older, and smarter. I wouldn't even really know his age if old people weren't always bringing that shit up, talking 'bout "you can't do this, you can't do that"—why?

"Because he's sixteen and you're twelve," they say.

I follow him to sweaty Badlands house parties that always end in crazy, shirtless rumbles with everybody howling "Norf-side! Norf-side!" in the middle of the street. To Broad and Rockland to cop dime bags from one of the dusty bodegas with nothing but baking soda and expired Bisquick on the shelves. To freestyle cyphers on South Street that the nut-ass police always break up for no reason. To crack on jawns getting off the El at 69th Street, like, "Yo, shawty, let me holla at you for a minute." To scale the fence to watch Sad Eye, the Jordan of street ball, hoop at 16th and Susque-hanna. To skate the ledges and steps at Love Park until we get chased away by the cops. To bomb the Orange Line subway with Sharpies and Kiwi polish sticks.

And now, to joyride through Philly in a stolen wheel.

Being with Uzi makes me feel invincible, like nothing bad can happen to us, like nothing and nobody can hurt us. I feel unfuckwitable.

I can see us now, peeling off, sound system booming louder than bombs, rolling down 5th Street, turning heads as we catch the breeze. This is how freedom must taste.

"Chill," Uzi tells me, pushing me back. "Not this time." Turns his shoulder.

"I'm down, though," I say, inching forward.

"I know," he says. Grabs both my arms. "But not this time." He lets go. Palms the doorknob.

Now I'm picturing the car spin, all of us laughing, half hanging out the window, tires screaming as we bust victory donuts.

"I'm coming!" I shout loud enough for Ted to hear.

"Ma-lo!" Uzi shoves me into the radiator. His eyes tell me to chill. "I'll be back." Shuts the door.

Through the window, I watch them sprint toward a blue Chevy Celebrity. Jailbreak joyful, their stride says they'll never come back.

Ten minutes later—

Uzi and Ted explode back into the crib looking like they just saw a ghost. I'm still in the kitchen, still mad about not rolling.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" they gasp, jetting right by me.

"Get in your room, Malo!" Uzi yells. They bolt upstairs, doors slamming everywhere like a haunted house. Before I hit the stairs, I peek out the window—oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! There's a light show in front of the crib. Reds, blues, and a gang of whites. The most cops I've ever seen.

I hit the stairs, three at a time. I'm almost at the top when an earthquake hits the house. I spin around to see the front door fly off like back draft. It lifts, then slams hard against the wood floor.

Black boots trample it like a bridge. The whole house is heaving. The sound of everything crash-ing, breaking. A battering ram leads a tsunami of blue in. They flood the house. Clenched Glocks pointing every which way.

"Police! Get down! Down!" a flushed red face yells. My fingers freeze on the banister as the tide climbs the stairs.

"Down! Down!" I'm stuck. Can't move. Guns glaring at me, steely-eyed. Pee shoots down my leg.

"Fuck-ing down!" Dripping. They pry me from the banister. Drag me down the steps like a rag doll. Clothes ripping. My head hits every step like a mallet over a xylophone. When I get to the bottom, everything sounds gargled like I'm underwater, drowning.

Officer Red Face is six inches from my grill. "Where is he?" he screams through tight lips. Grabs me. "Where is he?" Shakes me. "Where?" Shaking the fuck out of me. Everything's getting pixelated.

Red Face lets go, charges up the steps.

My eyes clear, refocus. I make out Uzi kneeling at the top of the steps, elbows over face, night-sticks marching on his head, hands, ribs, neck, back, everywhere. I feel every blow like they're beating me too. I sprint up the stairs again, but they swallow me, holding me down, twisting my arms like a pretzel.

I hear my favorite voice-"Get the fuck off my little brother"—before I black out.

2
By the Time I Get to Arizona

Uzi tells me they tried to throw the book at him.

"You're lucky you're still a minor," my pops tells him. "If you were eighteen, you'd be in the penitentiary." He fills the doorway to Uzi's room like a prison guard. I'm sitting on the bed, long-faced, watching Uzi pack for a one-way trip to Arizona.

My dad's Afro is thick and flat at the back like how Muhammad Ali's jawn was back in the day. He's wearing a black and gold dashiki. He's got a dashiki for every day of the year.

"I'm African," he told Uzi and Ted the other day on the porch. Ted calls Pops "Dr. Africa." "That's why I wear African clothes."

"But you're from Georgia," Uzi said.

"Being born in Georgia doesn't make me an American any more than being born in an oven makes a cat a biscuit."

"Huh?"

"There's an African proverb that says, 'No matter how long a log sits in a river, it will never become a crocodile! That means that even in a foreign habitat, a snail never loses its shell. Even in America, I'm still African."

"Here he goes." Uzi shook his head. "Always in his Afrocentric bag."

The newspapers call our father "the father of Afrocentricity" because he created it.

My third eye is my rail, on this L of thought
With Afrocentric stamps I'm mailin thought
("All Night Long," Common, 1996.)

Pops is always preaching Afrocentricity. He was a Church of Christ minister way back when, one of those child preachers, and he still sounds like he's in the pulpit when he talks about black people, white people, and the struggle. I remember this debate he took me to at East Stroudsburg University a few years back: him vs. Cornel West vs. Arthur Schlesinger. It was packed, standing room only. I remember how West, this cool black dude with a big Afro and a tight three-piece suit, talked with his hands flying fast like he was conducting an orchestra. And how Schlesinger, this old white guy with hair the color of milk and a red bow tie, sounded like a statue. I remember the cheers, the boos, the ad-libs. Most of all, though, I remember how dope my pops was: his passion, energy, confidence, intelligence. Half the time I didn't even know what he was talking about—hegemony . . . pedagogy . . . subverting the dominant paradigm—but I was proud.

Back then I didn't get it, but now I think I do. Afrocentricity basically means that black people should view the world through our own black eyes. It's like the poster my dad has framed in the hallway that says, "A people without knowledge of their past is like a tree with no roots."

Hit the Earth like a comet, invasion.
Nas is like the Afrocentric Asian, half-man, half-amazin
("It Ain't Hard to Tell," Nas, 1996.)

Our crib is mad Afrocentric: naked African statues standing everywhere, ritual masks ice-grill-ing down from the walls, portraits of Martin, Malcolm, Harriet. From the wallpaper to the plates, everything is stamped with Africa.

Even my favorite porn series, My Baby Got Back, is made by a company called Afro-Centrix Productions. "Beauties that give up the booty," the box under my bed says. Mr. Marcus, Lexington Steele, and loudmouthed Wesley Pipes nailing Nubian queens like Janet Jacme, Obsession, Midori, Monique, and Lacey Duvalle in doggy style, reverse cowgirl, and missionary.

I tell Pops about the other Afro-Centrix and he's disgusted. Say what? But he's the one who's always talking about how black people should have their own stores, own banks, own schools— shouldn't we have our own porn studios too? What's more Afrocentric than black pussy?

Uzi doesn't really get down with Afrocentricity. I think he's still mad about the whole Star Wars thing from when we were little. Uzi used to love Star Wars and he kept begging my parents for a Luke Skywalker action figure. Finally my dad took him to Toys R Us. They came back—Uzi was heated.

"He got me Lando Calrissian!" Uzi said.

"Who?"

"Exactly! Nobody knows who he is. Lando Calrissian!"

"Who that?"

"Fucking Billy Dee Williams! The corny black dude. He has no gun, no weapon, no special powers, and he talks like he's in a goddamn Colt 45 commercial, like" —he lowered his voice—" 'the power of Colt 45 . . . works every time.'"

"They didn't have Luke?"

"They had everybody-Luke, Obi-Wan, Han Solo-but Dad wouldn't get them because they're white."

So now Uzi's in his closet deciding what to take with him to Arizona.

"Make sure you leave this room better than you found it," my dad says, scoping the mess.

"Whateva," Uzi sighs, and tosses a shirt into his duffle.

"What'd you say?" My dad moves closer. I see his face clenching, like he wants to slap the shit out of Uzi. He won't, though, because Uzi's his stepson. Now if it were me, l'd be ducking hay-makers. Uzi steps out of the closet. They're a swing away from each other. My brother, at 6'6", Michael Jordan's height, towers over my pops, who might be 5'7"-Spud Webb. Pops ain't no slouch, though. He's southern stocky, used to chase chickens and wrestle swamp thangs and chop firewood back in the day.

"What"—Uzi tilts his head like one side weighs more—"eva."

Pops swallows hard. They eye each other down like the cowboys in the black-and-white Westerns my uncle John loves watching-toothpicks plugged into stone faces, beat-up brims, ashy steel toes.

I love a good fight, but I don't want to see this. One day when Uzi was real mad at my dad, he told me if it ever came down to it, he'd fight my pops like "a ngh on the street." I don't want to see that, and I know deep down Uzi doesn't want that either, but he's a cannon. He's got a Rasheed Wallace temper, so hot you can fry bacon on it.

"Finish packing. Be downstairs ready to go in thirty. You're not welcome in this house anymore."

"Man, I don't give a fuck!"

"Don't you use that language with me, boy," Pops says, pointing at Uzi, eyes on fire.

"You Malo dad, not mine." Uzi moves in closer. "Don't get it twisted." I can see the veins in Uzi's neck pulse like little lightning bolts, striking on every word.

"Pack. Your. Bags," my dad blows out. He turns to me. "Downstairs!"

"Why?"

"Because I—"

"Damn, I can't chill with my lil' brother before y'all kick me out?" Uzi jumps in. "You said I ain't coming back, right? Well, at least let me say bye to my lil' brother."

"Yea, c'mon," I add.

"Thirty minutes!" He storms out. Uzi kicks the door shut.

"Can't stand him," Uzi says, scrunching up his face. "Wish I lived with my real dad. That ngh right there, my real pops"—shakes his head into his fist in awe-"is cool as shit. Lets me do whatever the fuck I want."

Whenever Uzi gets into it with my dad, he starts talking about Bob, his dad.

"Bob is the truth," he says.

No he ain't, I think.

I've heard all this before, but I listen like it's new music. In my mind, though, this song is played out. He sings about how Bob runs shit in Harlem, from One-two-fifth to the Heights; how everybody calls him "the mayor of the ghetto"; how he's always rocking the fly shit before everyone else-fitteds, jerseys, fedoras; how he curses up a storm, all types of fucks and shits and bitches— hurricane slang.

But the other night, while Uzi was locked up, I heard the unofficial lyrics to the song. The ones hidden in Uzi's stomach, I guess. They said that Bob is a junky, all strung out on heroin; that he beat the everything out of my mom every day they were together, like Ike Turner did Tina; and that my mom's neighbor, a priest, put a gun in Bob's mouth and told him if he ever touched my mom again he'd be "summoned to appear before his maker." My mom told me this secret music from her chair, Egyptian pillow resting on her stomach. I was kneeling next to her, holding her soft hands, soaking up these blues.

"He would beat me and beat me until my eyes were purple and swollen shut." She cried as she told me. I hugged her with all I had: arms, heart, body, and soul. I want to protect her from every-thing, from all the evil in this cold world. I think about the man who beat her and bite my bottom lip so hard it bleeds. I think about using my dad's double-barreled shotgun on Bob-about taking it from his closet, loading it with buckshots just like Pops taught me last summer after our crib got robbed, and squeezing. Uzi doesn't know that I know this.

"Bob is that ngh," Uzi says.

Fuck Bob! is what I really want to say, but this is Uzi's last day in Philly and I don't want him to bounce on a bad note—so I press mute.

My parents are in the kitchen waiting to take Uzi to the airport. They're mad because Uzi keeps getting in trouble. They get him out, but he gets right back in. They keep saying he's playing with fire.

He gets expelled from all the schools: Ivy Leaf for telling some girl "Suck my dick, bitch" in the middle of math class; Piney Woods, this black military school in Mississippi, for breaking some kid's nose; and a bunch of other places. He even gets booted from the last-chance schools-the ones with names like Second Chance and Fresh Start—so now my parents don't know what the fuck to do.

The day after Uzi got locked up they called a family meeting. They sat us down and talked about the struggle, about the sacrifices our ancestors made, and about how they came up. They asked us all these questions about their upbringing, then answered before we could respond.

Do you know where we came from?

DAD: A one-room shack in Valdosta, Georgia. I was the oldest boy of sixteen children. Sixteen of us in a shack the size of a pigeon coop, on the banks of the Okefenokee Swamp and Withlacoochee River.

MOM: The projects in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. I was the oldest girl of three. We all slept in the same bed. Single mom.

Do you know what it was like back then for us?

DAD: I started working on the plantation when I was six. Picking cotton for white folks. I picked more than I weighed, working under the hot Georgia sun from can't see in the morning to can't see at night. The thorns around the bolls would leave my hands cracked and bloody. We were sharecroppers who never got a share. Separate restaurants, separate water fountains, separate toilets, separate schools, churches, neighborhoods. The only thing that blacks and whites shared in Valdosta were mosquitoes.

MOM: I started working when I was eight: scrubbing floors and toilets for white families in Long Island. It showed me just how poor we were. Dirt.

Do you know how hard it was?

DAD: I was eleven when I got my first job as a shoeshine boy at a white barbershop. I just took my wooden shoe box and went inside the shop and asked the owner if I could set up and shine shoes. He said, "Yeah, boy, just give me fifteen cents on every quarter you make." Shining white people's shoes was a guaranteed position; after all, it was nonthreatening and subservient. So I was not surprised that I got the job; other than working in the fields, it was probably the only job that I could have gotten at the time. My first customer, a young white man in his twenties with black shoes, sat in the chair near the window, and I took out my polish, my rag, and toothbrush. When I finished, instead of paying me, he spat in my face.

MOM: I saw my mother raped. We lived on the third floor of a rooming house on Vanderbilt Avenue. "Yell for help, yell for help," my mother told me as the man broke down the door to our room. I ran to the window and looked down on the dark street where nothing seemed like it was moving. I opened my mouth wide but nothing came out. No voice, no cry, no nothing.

The refrain: If we made it from all that-from projects and plantations-what's your problem? It's not just Uzi either. My cousin Kadir from the Bronx got knocked a week after Uzi did for robbing the subway platform.

"The subway platform?" I asked my aunt on the phone.

"Yes, he robbed everyone who was waiting for the A train at ten-thirty in the morning. I'm convinced he's lost his goddamn mind."

They're sending Uzi to Arizona to live with my uncle Jabbar. Bar's cool. He's a former Golden Gloves champ who sparred with Muhammad Ali back in the day. He always rocks a gold chain, pinky nugget ring, and a hustla's grin. Cadillac slick, he looks just like Tubbs from Miami Vice.Last time I saw him, on Thanksgiving, he pulled me to the side.

"You getting any ass yet?" he asked, submarine voice. I just laughed. His thick hands pulled me close.

"Huh?" He studied me, tightening his grip. I nodded a lil' nod. "My boy!" He scrubbed the top of my head like a lotto scratch-off. "Life is all about ass . . . You're either covering it, laughing it off, kicking it, kissing it, busting it for some white man at the job, or getting some!" I cracked up.

"Just remember," he said. "Sex is like riding a bike: you gotta keep pumping if you want to go anywhere . . . Lemme ask you something else?"

"What's up, Unc?"

"You eating pussy yet?" He grabbed me.

"Come on, Unc," squiggling out of his grip.

"Let me smell your breath." He chased as I jetted out of the room.

He found me in my room.

"Put your shit up," he said, putting his hands, like boulders, in front of his grill. He threw a jab at me. "Fuck you gon' do, nephew?" Sizing me up like a fitted hat. I jumped out of my seat.

"Gotta be ready for anything." Touched my chin with another jab. "C'mon now, put your shit up." I threw my hands up. He caught me again-bang. "Keep 'em up, young buck. Up! Protect them pussy-eating lips."

I moved them up. His fist on my ribs. My hands fell like they were asleep. His fist on my chin. He picked me apart, then showed me how to hold my hands.

"Stand strong, feet shoulder width apart, like this." Planted his feet, fixed my stance. "And if you ever want to kiss a ngh good night," staring into his right fist, "swing it like this. Land it right there," landing it slo-mo on my face.

I pulled back and tried to throw the same punch. "Like that?"

"Yup, just like that," catching my punch. "That punch right there will make a ngh swallow and spit at the same damn time."

Unc can fight anybody, whoop anybody's ass . . . except for dynamite. Dynamite is crack and heroin mixed up-it's undefeated.

"You clean?" my mom asked him on the phone the other day. I was eavesdropping on the other phone.

"Seven months. Think about using every day, but I'm clean. Intend on staying that way too." Before they hung up, he said, "Send the boy. I'll get him in line."

Uzi's going through his dresser. It's got so much graffiti on it I can't tell the original color. It's bombed out like one of the subway cars in the train yard near my grandma's house on Grand Concourse in the Bronx.

Top drawer—

"Want these?" he asks, tossing nunchucks at me.

"Yeah!" I catch, swing. They're really just two wooden paper towel holders chained together.

"Take these too." He throws brass knuckles at me. I slide my fingers into the four holes that look like the Audi rings. Make a fist.

"And yo—don't get caught with none of this shit either," Uzi tells me. I nod like a bobblehead and throw a brass jab at the air. "I'm not tryna hear Mom's mouth."

Middle drawer—

Black and silver Krylon spray paint and a couple of fat cap nozzles.

Bottom drawer—

A Phillies Blunt box full of sticky photos. He hands me this pic of a naked jawn. "What you know about that, Malo?"

"Damn," I say. "Her titties look like two bald heads." Uzi laughs and hands me another photo.

" 'Member this?" It's a hazy pic of me and Uzi.

"Nah," I say. "When was this?"

"That's from when we moved here. Our first day in Philly. Mom took this," he says. I keep staring at the photo.

"I look shook."

"You were! You don't remember that day? You don't remember what you asked me when we

were watching the fire?"

I shake my head nah. "What fire?"

"That was the day they bombed MOVE."

"Who bombed who?"

"Mayor Goode had the police drop a bomb on this group called MOVE, right there on Osage Avenue. We could see the blaze from our building."

"Oh yeah," I say slow, remembering, seeing the smoke curl behind my eyes. "That was a bomb?"

"Yeah, they dropped C-4 with Tovex on the whole block. That's the shit NASA uses to blow up asteroids and whatnot. Mad people died-women, kids. Shit was crazy. Mom is friends with one of the survivors-Ramona Africa."

"So what did I ask?"

"We were watching it go down-the smoke, the helicopters, sirens—you asked me if it was the end of the world." We both laugh. "It was, though, in a way. It was the end of the world we knew. We moved into a burning city."

He pulls one last thing out of his dresser: a deck of cards. He shuffles them, then they disap-pear, and reappear in my pocket. I'm like, "What the . . . ?" and he's just flashing this crazy grin.

"See, Malo, every ngh knows magic—look how we disappear when five-o rolls up." | laugh, thinking, And reappear in jail? "For real, though, magic is all about misdirection. Large movements to cover small movements. And every magician needs a signature trick."

I wish I knew magic. My signature trick would be to make the cops-the ones that stormed through our door that day, then into my dreams most nights like a horrible movie playing over and over in my head-disappear. Poof. Be gone.

I hug Uzi tight and try not to let go. I feel like if I let him go, he'll be gone forever. I can't fight back the tears. If he comes back tomorrow, it'll be too long.

3
10 Gs

I wake up in Uzi's room. Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, the Fat Boys, Rob Base, Eric B and Rakim, Cool C, NWA, the Ultra-magnetic MCs, Crown Rulers, PE, Wu-Tang, and like three years' worth of Jet magazine Beauties of the Week watching over me. Dimes in bikinis and baby oil. Lashonda Harrington is from Abilene, TX. She enjoys scuba diving, reading, and cooking. Shanika Frazier is from Dayton, OH. The 5'5" model enjoys exercising, shopping, and dancing. Kia Dawson is from Trenton, NJ. She plans to study business administration and communications. Kimberly Jackson is an aspiring songwriter who resides in Texas. She enjoys playing dominoes and watching football. Malo enjoys them all.

Uzi's gone, but I can still hear him singing, "Wake up, wake up, wake up," over my bed in his Bone Thugs-N-Harmony voice. When he was here, we'd walk to Broad and Olney together to go to school, cracking jokes and laughing the whole way. He'd hop on the C or the 55, whichever came first, and I'd get on the sub, the Orange Line. Now it's just me, solo-dolo. I feel naked without him.

I walk up to the corner of 10th and Godfrey—we call it 10 Gs—where all of Uzi's boys chill. They stand where they always stand, between the liquor store and the corner store, next to the Fern Rock Apartments fence, under the train tracks, and across the street from Rock Steady, this bugged ngh who sits on a crate all day with a broken radio, rocking his head back and forth to a beat no one else can hear. My mom calls them the "corner boys" because they're always out there, posted like guards at a checkpoint. They hug the block, huddled in hustle, eyeing everything and everyone everywhere every day.

She says: "They're bringing down the neighborhood . . . They're looking for trouble . . . They're an eyesore."

I just say: "Waddup?"

All the usual suspects are here: Ted, Scoop, D-Rock, and AB-the squad.

"'Sup, young buck?" Scoop rumbles, shaking my hand like he's trying to prove a point, squeezing the red out. My hand feels like a Juicy Juice carton.

"Damn, man," I say, shaking the sting out.

"Yeah! You feel that shit, ngh?" He laughs his wicked laugh like he's possessed or something. "I break, not shake. I crush, not brush. Bruise, not cruise."

"Y'all up early?" I say, since I know none of them are in school. I think they'd be seniors like Uzi. They all dropped out around the same time. Ted always says he graduated valedictorian from the school of hard knocks.

9 6 the deal, we real about this cheddar, forever
Corner standing, in any weather
("Illegal Life," Capone-N-Noreaga, 1996.)

"Up early? Nah, you up early. We ain't been to sleep yet. We up late."

"Sleep is the cousin of death," D-Rock says.

"Speaking of cousins," Scoop says, his sharp face behind a Newport, "you talk to Kiki?" Scoop is skinny with a face the color of unfinished wood. Cartoon eyes sunk low in sleepy sockets. Long dangly arms. A meaty W. C. Fields nose that's always red at the tip like Rudolph's. He's got the kind of hair that can go to the Puerto Rican, black, or white-boy barbershops, the shape-up curly top with gel. He's wearing all Polo-his outfit looks like a horse stable.

"Nah."

Takes a drag. "She still mad?"

"She's always mad at ya black ass," Ted says.

"Fuck you, Theodore." Scoop and Ted are always talking shit to each other, it's how they show love.

Kianna—Kiki—is my older cousin and Scoop's girl. This time she's mad at him because he beat up these two guys her first day at college. She goes to Albright in Reading, up there with all the name-brand outlets and the Puerto Rican gangs.

We helped her move into her dorm, me and Scoop, carrying all her stuff up three flights of stairs. After that we found the gym on campus. It's nice, state-of-the-art everything. We were playing basketball against these two dudes-"college nghz," Scoop kept calling them, like it's a diss. I don't even know what homie said, but he said something, and Scoop just went off. Dropped dude with a right hook to the jaw. Then he rushed my guy like a gust of wind-strangled him. I was just standing there shell-shocked at the three-point line, like, What the fuck, Scoop?

We left right before the cops came. The school put Kianna on some kind of probation.

"I can't take him anywhere," she whines to me on the phone. "He's too niggerish. I'm getting too old for this shit." I remember when all that thug shit turned her on. "It's not cute anymore," she says. "I'm in college now."

I'll never forget the first day I met Scoop: "Why they call you Scoop?" I asked.

"Cuz I be scooping nghz' chins with uppercuts!" he said in his Badlands rasp. He's from the Badlands, 3rd and Cambria. His voice is ill because no one sounds like him. It's like he has a rattly muffler in his throat. His tone can flip from vicious to hilarious to straight cryptic in a blink.

I fucked with those beyond my age bracket
cuz they analyze and mack to get the papers and stack it
("Gimme Yours," AZ, 1995.)

A hooptie skids in the middle of the street. Some lady I see around sometimes, older, always in scrubs, rolls down the window. Shakes her head.

"Damn, y'all still out here?" she jokes.

Ted jumps up, strikes a pose, and sings "Always and Forever" like Heatwave.

"Yo, Malo, why your peoples ship your big brother away like that?" Ted asks.

"I can't even call it." I step to school.

4
Friends or Foes?

My school colors are piss yellow and shit brown. The building is the color of shit too, like someone took a monster dump and smeared it all over.

This kid Fritz, my boy Ryan's cousin, actually did that last year on Mischief Night, the night before Halloween. Me and the squad went out mobbing around Olney, throwing eggs at cars, buses, people, whatever, it's a Philly tradition. We doused this abandoned U-Haul truck, Florida plates, with kerosene Ryan found in his uncle's basement. Nobody wanted to light it . . . fuck it, I'll do it. I swiped the match, stared long and hard into its glow until the flame crept down, pinching my fingertips, then threw it in. The fire jumped up like hibachi, scorching my leg. We ran up 7th Street as the truck blew up. After that, Fritz, who l've never liked and is known for taking shit a hundred miles too far, decided to literally take shit too far. We all told him not to do it but he was hell-bent. He took a shit in the bushes, scooped it up with the Philadelphia Daily News, and smeared it on somebody's front door-the wrong somebody. Nasty. That somebody, a stocky old head who was in the Gulf War, caught Fritz and it was lights out. Fritz gets what he deserves, what's coming to him. Dude beat his ass with a Louisville Slugger. Then he made Fritz eat it . . . his own shit.

That's what going to a Friends school is like—eating your own shit. And inside Principal Roach's office, where I am now, is even worse than eating your own shit—it's eating someone else's. Roach limps around all day yelling at me about rules. He's got that rare type of limp that, once you meet him, you feel like he deserves.

I don't even know why I'm here or what I did. My teacher just sent me here as soon as I walked in. Roach's office is small and messy. Greasy thumbprints smudge all his scattered papers like drunk watermarks. I'm sitting here, waiting for him, thinking how I'd rather scrape dry blood off the sidewalk than be here waiting for him.

I wonder what Uzi is up to. What he's doing right now? I wish I was in the desert with him. I got a letter from him the other day:

Malo,

Wassup kid? Damn it's been a minute since we spoke yo. Uncle Jabbar kicked me out. Fuck him, he's a hater . . . He's jealous or some shit. He's tryna b my pop but I don't have a pop. My journey = my pop. My mistakes = my beatings. My personal triumphs = my pat on the head.

I'm good though, I always got a chick or two or five to lay up wit for a day or so, then on to the next. I wish u could be out here man, u should see this shit, a Philly ngh in AZ, doin rap shows, smuttin these coke-snortin Beckys and Suzies in their $2000 a month trust fund baby condo flop houses—shit is wild, just stay there for like a week partying, binging, it's nuts.

I hit Moms up for money sometimes, she'll send a couple dollars Western Union. I don't even really need the shit, I think I do it out of spite, like fuck it, u want me to stay away Then pay!

My new crew is N.A.M. / New Age Militia / Nubian Apocalyptic Military / Niggaz Anglos and Mexicans / Nines and Macs / Narcotics and Money, u know! We just b partying, getting money, rumblin, gettin into all types of shit but overall just havin a good ass time in this short ass life we got dog.

Arizona is a gun state so u can buy ratchets at the pawn shop yo! Everybody's strapped! I like carrying my AP-9, it's like a newer version of the bum ass TEC-9, jawn is vicious . . . Get down or lay down! I'm not trying to hurt nobody, Malo, but these nghz out here b trippin, they gangbang and shit, I gotta protect my self cuz I'm all I got!

I'm still out here alone tho, I feel like an orphan, it seems like all my boys come from some kind of mysterious background . . . no family, no roots, I'm a Nomadic Addict Merchant (N.A.M.) . . . that's why we call ourselves a fam, a band of brothers.

And for real, Malo, I'm in no rush to come home. I want to see u, be around u, but other than that, I might not ever come back . . . I'm finally free yo! I don't have to live up to my parents, my potential, nothin . . . does that sound fucked up? It's not. Look at all the 1st-round draft picks in the NFL or NBA that turned into bust, u know why?

Expectation before acclimation . . . Tryin to live up to some shit they wasn't even comfortable wit yet . . . Yahmean?

Look, man, take care of Mom, I know she is probably going through it. She's a quiet screamer, she won't tell me what the real deal is, so just look out for her. Play all the leeches in her life close, make them uncomfortable. Make sure Dad treats u with respect, and if he don't, show him none, none! . . . N.A.M.! (New Asante Men!)

---

My parents send me to this school because it's supposed to be better than the neighborhood schools in Olney that most of my boys go to. Better how? All we do is memorize stuff and spit it back like robots. It's called Friends, but it should be called Foes. They act one way to your face, but behind closed doors it's another story. Like how someone wrote nigger inside my locker when I was suspended. I have no idea who did it because nobody acts the part. I write back in my locker: Say it to my face, bitch!

It's like my pops says about racists from the North vs. the South: "I like my racism the way I like my whiskey—straight up," even though he doesn't really drink. "Down South they just come right out and call you a nigger, tell you they don't want anything to do with you, and at least you know where you stand . . . and where they stand. But up North, hunh . . ." His blood boils when he talks about racism. "Up here they pretend to be liberal but are some of the most racist white folks you'll ever meet in your life."

Word is bond. I like how Pops is always standing up for black people, how he don't take no shit.

One day my basketball coach, Coach Z, pulls me to the side during practice.

"What's up with you and the principal?" he asks. I shrug. He doesn't fuck with me. I don't fuck with him. Nothing new. "Be careful." He lowers his tone. "I was getting some coffee in the teachers' lounge and I overheard him say he hates you."

"Hates me?"

I didn't see that coming. Not the hate. The pain. Hates me? It feels like a punch in the gut. Coach searches my eyes.

"Fuck him. I hate him too."

"Look, I know he's a jerk. But be careful, he's got it out for ya. I need you on my team come state tournament time. This is our year to win the division."

I'm in eighth grade but I play on the high school varsity team. Coach is always looking out for me. He gives me a key to the gym. Tells me I can play ball during class. He says I'm the best player in the league.

"If it weren't for me, you'd be long gone," he always says. He looks out for me, but I know it's only because I can dribble, dish, and dunk.

Roach's hate for me started a while ago at Meeting for Worship. MFW is when you sit in silence in a big hollow room on these cold wooden benches. It's like church but with no preacher, no Bibles, no music, no emotion, no nothing, just hard silence. You just sit there smelling stinkers and listening to yourself swallow.

The only break in silence is when someone feels moved enough to stand up and say something. No one ever does, except this one girl, Rachel, who just sucks up.

"I like this school because it's nice . . ."

"I like this school because the teachers are good . . ."

"I like this school because . . ."

Are you fucking serious?

So I responded one day. They say MFW is a time to let your voice be heard in the community, a time to share, a time to reflect on the school and what it means to you. I kept it real:

"I don't like this school because this school don't like me."

My friends-Avi, Naeemah, Crystal, and Jesse-shoved their knuckles in their mouth, trying to choke back the crack-up. They couldn't! Laughter gushed like fire hydrant water in the summer.

"Shushhh," the teachers sprayed like spitting insects.

After that Roach said I can't speak at MFW anymore. They want me to be silent. Silence is for dead people-l'm alive. Silence is betrayal to your thoughts-I'm thinking. I feel like screaming at the top of my lungs, so loud my ears pop like those little red M-80s from Chinatown that me and Uzi used to set off on July 4th.

My dad gets mad pissed at us for lighting fireworks on the Fourth. Not 'cause they can turn our fingers into knobs but because he doesn't fuck with July 4th or Christmas or Easter or Presidents' Day or any other holiday. Too white for Pops-white Christmas, all white on Easter, dead white presidents. He comes outside.

"Whose independence are you celebrating?" He pulls out a book and reads while the M-80 smoke swirls over our heads: " 'What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.' "

Roach tried to put me on meds: Ritalin, Adderall, Dexedrine, whatever.

"They are crazy if they think I'm going to let them give you Ritalin or whatever," Mom said.

"You're just a boy. Boys are boys and will be boys."

I asked my parents to send me to the public school.

"We make a lot of sacrifices to send you to a good school," my parents said. "We can't afford it but we find a way." My dad told me how their parents, my grandparents, never made it past second grade and how black people need school like fish need water. How him and my mom were the first ones in their families to ever graduate from high school.

So I'm at this school for everyone in my family and all the black people who never got a chance to sit here. I know who I'm here for, but I still don't know why I'm here in Roach's office.

Finally he huffs in, mumbling something. Pushes the door shut. I know he wants to slam it, but he's too puss.

"What's your problem with authority?" he asks, gasping for air like he just ran a marathon even though all he did was plop down. He's so fat he runs out of breath trying to catch his breath.

"What is it, huh?" His breath smells like burnt mayonnaise and spoiled scrapple on rotten rye. "What's your problem with authority?" He's got old food crumbs stuck in his red beard that look like little insect eggs in a crusty nest. I try not to look, try to look at something else. I see a poster of Elvis that says The King Lives On and keep looking.

"What's your problem with me?" I say.

"Well, let's see," he says, making a church steeple with his fingers, then looking me up and down. "For starters, look at you." I'm wearing jeans, Timbs, a red Phillies fitted hat, a white tee with a Tommy Hilfiger breakaway—fresh like Dougie. Him, on the other hand. . . He needs to dust-bust his face. He needs a redo. His clothes are filthy, so dirty I can see the dirt on the inside from the outside like dead bugs in a lamp shade.

"Look at me," I say.

"Where do you think you are? This is Friends—"

"Foes!"

"—not North Philly," he says. I laugh. "Your personality and attitude are unacceptable."

In the South, blacks can get close as long as they don't get uppity. I remember my dad's words. In the North, blacks can get uppity as long as they don't get close.

"My personality is who I am. My attitude depends on who you are."

"What is your problem with the rules?" Roach asks.

"What rules? I don't even know why I'm here, man."

"Well, let's see." He laughs. "Which ones did you break today?" He writes something down. He's always jotting notes on me.

"Your paper trail is growing." He raises his notebook to his beady eyes.

"Take off your hat," he says.

A few months ago my grandfather died. I didn't know him that well, but I spent time with him in Valdosta, Georgia, before he passed. He was paralyzed from the waist down from an accident he had working on the Georgia Pacific Railway. Loved sports, told me about Joe Louis whupping Max Schmeling's ass, about Jesse Owens winning four medals in front of Hitler.

He tells me, "Don't take yo hat off fo nobody . . . 'less you want to."

"No," | tell Roach, looking him right in the eyes.

"Off!"

"Why?"

"Because it's against the rules," he screams. That line right there—because it's against the rules

-is the number one sign of a bullshit rule. I pull my hat down even tighter, crank it hard to the side.

"Do you know what happens to people who can't follow rules?"

I'm over this. "There should be a rule against your breath . . ."

"You're skating on thin ice," he shouts like we're in the army.

"You shouldn't be allowed to—"

"Thin ice!" He flashes his fangs. His teeth, like little rusty corkscrews, threatening. "I'm calling your parents!"

My face says every curse word to him.

"Stay put," he says, and huffs out.

When he's gone, I stand up and gaze out of the tall, thin window in his office. From here I can see Love Park. I can see the Valentine-red letters-thick and stacked like building blocks—that spell LOVE in the center of the action. Love is the mecca for street skateboarding. Skaters from all over the world come to Philly just to skate the marble ledges, fountains, and stairs of Love. Being down the street from it is the best thing about my school.

Some days after school, or even during, me and my best friend, Amir, grab our boards and hit Love. Amir is tall and skinny with skin the color of my mom's coffee-black, one cream, no sugar—and big, bright eyes shaped like sideways teardrops. We met playing ball at Fisher Park a couple of years ago and have been tight ever since. We chill even more these days because Uzi's in Arizona. We eat together, share gear, and even holla at the same girls. We tell them we're cousins. On the weekends we steal my mom's car and hit up one of the under-twenty-one clubs like Dancers or Gotham. We always make it back uptown right before the sun comes up and my mom wakes up.

At Love, we skate and chill and joke and watch lil' Stevie-this young buck with big lips and electric Ol' Dirty Bastard hair-push through Love, riding, cruising, ollieing over trash cans clean, kick-flipping into ledges, grinding, spinning, catching wreck, arms dangling like empty shirt-sleeves, landing sick trick after sick trick like it ain't shit. Stevie's so good he makes the suits cutting through the park on their lunch breaks stand speechless while their food gets cold. So good he makes the bums who sleep the days away on the benches wake up and clap.

The cops who patrol the park remind me of Roach. Every day they storm Love-scuffed nightsticks clenched above their heads like flagpoles—chasing us into 15th Street traffic. They say we can't skate Love even though it's public.

Fuck tha police comin straight from the underground
Young ngh got it bad cuz I'm brown'
("Fuck tha Police," N.W.A, 1988.)

"This is the Philadelphia Police . . . leave the park immediately, leave the area immediately," they yell over the bullhorn. If they catch somebody, they'll break their board and take them to the station. Me and Amir never get caught, though. We see the paddy wagons as soon as they roll up and yell, "Jakes!"

Roach comes back with an index card with my last name on it and a whole bunch of notes and cross-outs. He lifts the horn and starts dialing . . .

"I'm having a difficult time trying to reach your parents." His ear is to the phone and he's shaking his head.

Join the club.

"Where's your dad?"

"I don't know." I never know where my dad is these days, just that he's always gone. When he's

not gone, he's getting gone.

"He's a busy man," I tell Roach. But no matter how mad I get at Pops for being gone all the time, as soon as I see him, l'm happy again, whole, like he never left.

"So I hear," Roach says. "I saw his interview on 60 Minutes." I think about it-that was probably the last time I saw my pops too, on TV. I remember watching him tell the interviewer: "I can honestly say that I have never found a school in the United States run by whites that adequately prepares black children to enter the world as sane human beings." So what the hell am I doing here in this white-ass school then? Roach is glaring at me, probably wondering the same thing.

"What about your older sister?" he says.

I shrug. My sister is in a mental hospital. She sees and hears things we can't.

She came to stay a weekend with us a while back.

"Be nice to your sister," my dad told me before she arrived, not knowing what else to say. She lives with her mom in Anaheim, California. She's a pretty girl with dark, glass-smooth skin. Her favorite hobby is family genealogy.

"We have a direct lineage from a king of Wales and a direct lineage to the Earl of Sunderland. We're related to some other famous celebrities like actresses Lucille Ball and Carole Lombard; actor Vincent Leonard Price; first president of the American Red Cross, Clara Barton; forties sex symbol Rita Hayworth; actress Raquel Welch; and also the first president of Harvard, Henry Dunster."

I was sitting with her on the bed in my room, smiling at her imagination. She kept going: "We're Irish, Welsh, Hawaiian, Native American, German, French Canadian, Scottish, Spanish, Seminole Indian, Creole, Cherokee, Sioux Indian, Shaw-nee Indian, and Flamenco Gypsy from Madrid Spain."

Later on she told my pops about her genealogy research. He got heated: "Anika, we are African. African American. Black."

She whispered to me, "Dad's African royalty is adopted African royalty because he went to Africa and became a king and that's how he got his African royalty." This whole scene is wild to me—how the daughter of the father of Afrocentricity claims to be whiter than snow. Every day Anika sees these people she calls the "neighbors."

"What they look like?"

"They're white . . . they called me a 'black bitch.' They said, 'Kill that black bitch,' and pointed at me. 'Let's hang blackie from the tree. She doesn't belong here. We're gonna kill you. We're coming to get you, black bitch.' " The meds make her eyes sandstorm hazy, slur her speech.

I said, "Tell them to kiss the darkest part of your black ass." She chuckled through the pill fog. My sis makes me think seeing isn't always believing and believing isn't always seeing.

She went back to Cali and sent me a letter a couple of months later:

Hi Malo,

How are you? Anaheim is okay but I still want to move out of California. The people in California are very mean to me and the police are everywhere and the KKK and the racists are all harassing me and threatening me and they want to take me to jail and kill me . . . and I'm mixed! So this is going to be a very depressing and not good summer! But when it's not summer I feel happy, not scared and depressed! But what's really hurtful is that Mom and Dad don't believe me about the police and racists are after me in California trying to kill me and put me in jail or a mental institution or hospital!! :-( And I didn't do anything. I'm innocent! I definitely don't want to go to jail because jail is the end of the world! And they would keep me there till the end of time. So pray for me! Nobody believes me. Mom and Dad don't believe me. Well just wait until they see what I do to them! Ha-ha.

Tomorrow I'll call a place I saw on TV for my inventions. I invent things or just think of inventions. Anyway pray that they go well.

I've still been doing our genealogy! I found out on my mom's side not only do I have English and Welsh royalty, I have French royalty too! Told Dad too! I'm related to the Earl of Sydney (1055-1088). His name was William de Wanenne. And we're from the Wanenne family who settled in New England in the early 1600s. As well as being related to Eli Whit-ney, inventor of the cotton gin, and President Ulysses S. Grant. Isn't that cool? I think it's way cool!

On Dad's side we're Spanish and Irish, from the Wilkins family, and we're related to Hernando de Soto. We're also related to the Kennedys from Boston. What a shocker! But I'm happy that I'm Irish.

Well, gotta go, bye!

P.S. The KKK bring their dogs down my street so that they can bite me on purpose. I gotta get out of the USA and move to another country, and I gotta get out before I get bitten and die. They don't want to see me rich either.

P.S.S. The reason why my mom doesn't believe me is because her mom didn't believe her!

"My sister's not around," is all I tell Roach. That's the most he deserves.

"And what about your mom?" He already knows where she is. The other day my dad got in touch with my school and told them what's going on. Now he's playing dumb, trying to embarrass me.

"Where is she, huh? Where's your mom?"

"Fuck you," I say, looking forward to suspension.

5
Open Secrets

They steal my mom away on the same day Tupac dies. It's the middle of the night when I hear the back door slam hard. I look out the window. I can't believe he's dead. The greatest rapper ever, dead at twenty-five. Midnight downpour. I watch the lines of rain streak across the angelic glow of street lights. Flecks of rain dot the window.

My mom is wearing the flowy cream nightgown she sleeps in. My dad eases her into the passenger seat of his two-door Nissan and sprints around to the driver's side. The headlights pop up like goggles and the coupe skids off into the wet night.

I heard a rumor I died, murdered in cold blood dramatized
Pictures of me in my final stages, you know mama cried
("Ain't Hard to Find," 2Pac, 1996.)

The next morning, I see my dad on my way to school. He's got bags in both hands, on his way somewhere, someplace.

"Your mother's in the hospital."

"What's wrong with her?"

"She's . . . sick."

"Well, can I see her?"

"Not yet."

"How long is she going to be there for?"

"I don't know. Until she gets better."

"But what's wrong with her? Like exactly?"

"It's up here," he says, fingering his temple, "and right here," touching his heart.

"What hospital?"

"One you've never heard of," he says. He tells me that he has to bounce for a few days and that my cousin Kianna is coming to stay with me. Then he gives me the phone number to the hospital.

I call . . . "Philadelphia Psychiatric Center." I hang up—fuck.

Kianna tells me that my mom tried to kill herself.

And through all the motherfuckin pain
They done drove my moms in-sane
("Streiht Up Menace," MC Eiht, 1993.)

When my dad is gone, I snoop through their room. I pull out his double-barreled shotgun. Load it. Feels way heavier loaded. In the mirror hanging on the closest door, I point the 12-gauge right at my face. I wonder what would happen if I pulled the trigger? If I killed my reflection?

I move to my mom's stuff, find her journal.

I think about how much I love her, but how we don't really speak. I come in when I come in. She's in her chair with the TV on, watching Cops or Murder, She Wrote, with her pills and her water and empty ice cream containers and folded newspapers. She reads four newspapers every day: Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Tribune, and New York Times.

The journal is heavy to be so little. Does ink weigh that much? Can ink weigh that much?

"Letters to Carole" is written on the cover. Carole was her name before Amina.

I open it and see names everywhere: mine, my dad's, Uzi's. My heart speeds and sinks. I close it fast, scared of what it might say.

I want to open it again. I know it's wrong, I know I shouldn't, but I have to. She never tells me what's up with her, so now the matter's in my hands. Maybe this is our chance, my chance . . . I open it and hear my mom's voice for the first time in a long time: My first attempt at suicide was a twelve. I tried to overdose . . . My scars are symbols of a terrible beauty that speaks to life . . . Malo will leave soon, like I did, and never come back . . .

These are her private thoughts. Close it. I miss her voice, though. Miss her.

Open . . .

Dear Carole,

I never took drugs even though they were all around me. I don't really count smoking weed as a drug but Bob was a heroin addict and my brother, Jabbar, has been a crack addict on and off, so I know drugs. But the drugs prescribed for my depression are a different story. They serve the same purpose as crack or heroin, a way of escaping, of turning away from the pain and an excuse to leave the planet momentarily. My drugs are legal but the result, the high, feels the same. It doesn't make much sense to me that a doctor could know what medicine to give someone for depression anyway. Depression is so specific, so historical and so particular, how could a pill deal with all that? The pills don't deal with any of that.

All they do is make the time go by dulling my senses and making me sleep. Taking my meds is like putting a sign on my door that says Unavailable. It works. The only person to ignore the sign is Malo. At least when he was younger, he ignored the sign, but now, as a teenager, he keeps his distance and tells other people, "Mom don't feel well." Malo is staring at a woman who doesn't seem herself. It's not that I'm not myself, but I have buried myself so that I don't feel any pain. Daudi doesn't get it and it makes him angry. Malo accepts it even if he doesn't get it. I'm in my bedroom, either in bed or in my chair, but always out of commission. I'm in a fog and I prefer it that way.

There are moments when I can function but the point is I don't want to function. I want no part of this life. The pills aid my escape. Sometimes I take more than I'm supposed to.

No one knows what I'm taking, just the doctor. I keep stockpiles, always making allowances for that day when I might need to permanently "leave." "Leaving" has been on my mind most of my life. My first attempt at suicide was at twelve. I tried to overdose on aspir-ins. I was eighteen when I tried again. I took an overdose of pills. I was hospitalized. I didn't tell my family. So now I have my stash just in case I need to permanently check out.

Chaka believes that medicine can cure anything, I know better. He's always so encouraged every time the doctor prescribes a new medicine. "This will work" is his mantra, and so off I go into another world until I tire of the charade and stop taking the medication. It isn't that the medication doesn't work, but it doesn't work the way that Chaka wants it to work. It doesn't work the way that I want it to work. He wants magic, a pill that can make me new again. But just like me, that pill doesn't exist.

Sitting in my chair in my bedroom, the world comes and goes. Malo comes and goes, often without stopping by my bedroom or saying a word. Chaka comes and goes, making sure he leaves in the morning when I'm asleep and comes home so late at night when I'm sure to be asleep. What he doesn't know is that I'm not asleep. Knowing that he wants me to be asleep, I pretend to be asleep. It makes things easier for both of us.

If my family knows that I'm on medication, they don't say anything. The only thing that they know is that I don't come up to the Bronx anymore or talk to anyone. There is no intervention, nor does anyone say, "What the hell is going on?" That would be comforting. It would mean that someone is looking out for me, willing to stand up for me and perhaps even go to bat for me. Who do I go to when I'm tired or needy? I can nuzzle my face in Malo's chest, and that always makes me feel a little better, but I can't talk to him. I can't talk to Chaka unless it's about Afrocentricity or The Movement or telling him I'm getting better.

What does "better" mean, anyway? Does it mean healed? Does it mean changed? Better doesn't mean anything, and if better came through the door, no one would recognize it— and worse, it would be unwelcome.

The escape I yearn for is real. I want to escape the harsh upbringing of my childhood and a mother who blamed me for our poverty. I want to escape a husband who promised to take care of me and instead I was taking care of him. I want to escape a world that seemed to have broken every promise made in my dreams.

God, give me strength.

Amina

6
Ginga

I'm at Broad and Olney, the station where I catch the bus and the sub, after school with Amir and my two other boys, Kam and Ryan. We're posted up in front of Mickey D's, thumbs in backpack straps, inhaling the scene. I'm cracking up because Amir and Ryan are busting on each other, tit for tat.

"Ya mom so stupid it took her five hours to watch 60 Minutes."

"Ya mom so short she poses for trophies."

We bust on each other because we fucks with each other, 'cause we love each other. It's just like how Joey Merlino and the Italian mob in South Philly slap each other's faces—La Cosa Nostra, crew love. Amir is the reigning bust champion, he's slap-your-thighs-tilt-ya-head-back-make-ya-stom-ach-hurt funny.

Kam puts his hands up to me and we slap-box. I catch him, he catches me, our hands flicking out fast at each other like snake tongues.

Broad and Olney has everything and everybody happening at the same time.

"Ya mom so dumb she thought a quarterback was a refund."

"Ya mom so dumb she thought St. Ides was a church."

You got the Hebrew Israelites on soapboxes with bullhorns, dressed like low-budget pharaohs, Bibles flapping in the wind like flags, screaming about how the original Jews are blacks and disciples and prophets and whatever.

"Ya mom feet so big her sneaks need license plates."

"Ya mom so stupid I told her it was chilly outside . . . she grabbed a spoon."

The hack cab guys—old heads with windbreakers and Kangols and canes and chew sticks—posted up, saying "Hack cab, hack cab, hack cab" to everyone that walks by. The people at the top of the escalator passing out flyers and pamphlets to anybody who'll take one.

"Ya mom so fat she sweat gravy."

"Ya mom so fat she got baptized at Sea World."

The tired sighs of Septa buses, here, there, all around, braking and letting people out—pshhh-hhh. Music floating from the cars stopped at the light, from the urban wear spots with their iron-bar doors opening and closing, from this lady with the headphones who just got off work humming to Keith Sweat, and from the music already in my head.

"Ya mom so black she sweat Pepsi . . . She fart smoke . . . She go to funerals naked . . . Lightning bugs follow her during the day."

"Ya mom so black she sweat Yoo-hoo . . . She pee coffee . . . She bleed oil . . . She goes to night school and gets marked absent."

The hustlemans trying to sell everything, anything: black soap, white tees, incense, bootleg movies, weed, kufis, socks, watches and sunglasses from China, noni juice, Omar Tyree paper-backs, bean pies, pretzels, body oils, whatever moves, whatever flips. Dirty fat pigeons flapping above us all.

And B & O is full of girls, jawns. Our game is to see who can pull the most numbers. Girls gloss by. I love them all. Each girl, like her own planet, with her own orbit, moon, sun, rotation. Sometimes they throw me a little rhythm. Gravitational pull.

"Would you hit it?" Amir asks, pointing with his head. She's got on skintight Guess jeans and a leather bomber. From the side, her ass looks like a capital C.

"Dayum," Ryan says as she walks by, "I'd tear it up."

"Excuse me? Tear what up?" She stops, spins. Ryan just stands there, shook. "You wouldn't know what to do with this, little boy," she cracks, sizing him up, laughing as she swishes away. We all bust out laughing.

"Little boy? I got your little boy, all right. Got your little boy right here," he yells, grabbing his sack. But he knows she can't hear him or see him.

"She played you," I say.

"Man, I'd have that jawn screaming my name, calling me daddy and everything."

"Oh yeah?"

"Fucking real." He faces the wall and acts like he's fucking her against it. He folds his arms and lets his fingers crawl up his back as if they were hers. "Have her like, 'Oooh, ah, oooh, papi chulo, give me that big dick, this is your pussy, daddy!'"

"Look, look, look," Kam says under his breath, pointing where l'm already looking.

I spot her getting off the bus. Her skin glitters in the after-school sun. Gentle eyes—| catch them.

"Holla at her." He nudges me.

"Who, her?" I say like I can't see her. But she's all I see.

"Yeah . . . with the uniform."

Her face is soft, round and golden like my grandma's pancakes. I glance down at my sneaks. Jawns always peep your footwear first; Kianna taught me that. A few scuffs on my Timbs ain't stopping this train.

Feel the good vibrations
So many females, so much inspiration
("93 'Til Infinity," Souls of Mischief, 1993.)

I'm learning how to talk to girls. There's an art to it. It's not about spitting some recycled lines. Philly girls hear the same lines all day like the chorus from a radio single:

Shawty, let me holla at you for a minute . . .

How you doin', baby? . . .

What's up with me and you, sweetheart? . . .

Let me get them digits, yo. . .

What's good, ma? . . . What's really good, ma? . . . What's really really good? . . .

I'm saying, though, I'm tryna see you like that . . .

Excuse me, miss. Let me whisper in your ear.

All that shit is dead. Getting girls is really about Ginga.

Ginga is what separates the Brazilians from the rest of the world in soccer. Uzi broke it down for me one day when we were watching SportsCenter. They were showing highlights of Brazil's team.

"Peep the way they play, peep their rhythm. That's Ginga! It's an attitude, a way of life, like soul, style, and swag all rolled into one. It's not just how you move, it's when you move, where you move, and why you move. Ging-ga! Nig-ga!"

When it comes to girls, you gotta have Ginga. Ginga gives you that bop in your step. Uzi told me: "Approach everything—the way you walk, talk, dance—with the right combination of toes, heels, and hips and you'll be in there like swimwear."

She floats down into the subway tunnel.

"Ging-ga," I say to myself as I jog down the stairs after her. As I approach, we catch eyes and suddenly I'm nervous.

"Hey, what's up," | say, my voice cracking like a piano. I can feel my homies peering from above, waiting to see if I'll be shot down.

"Hi . . . and bye," she says as the southbound Orange Line rumbles in. "This is my train." She swipes her TransPass and keeps moving.

I look up and see my boys laughing, pointing at me. I see the girl getting away, boarding the sub. What if I never see her again? I flash my homies the peace sign and hop the turnstile . . .

"This is my train too," I say, sitting next to her. "What's your name?"

"Nia. You?"

"Malo," I tell her as the train kicks, bucks, and clacks over the tracks.

"Malo?" she says, surprised. "I'm taking Spanish . . . You know what your name means in Spanish?"

"Nah, what?"

"Erie Avenue," the conductor's voice crackles through the speakers. "Erie Avenue."

My full name—Khumalo—means "prince" in Zulu. My parents changed their names back in the day.

"We didn't want slave names anymore," is how my dad explains it. "When black people came to America, we didn't have names like John and Bill and all that. They sold us like beasts, counting our teeth, feeling our testicles, testing the luster or dullness of our skin, changing our names, our religions, customs. Carrying the names of those who enslaved your ancestors is a constant reminder of a lack of self-determination, a badge of conquest. Having an English name and not looking like an English person plagued me most of my early life. I resented it since I can remem-ber. Mature people give themselves names from their history and culture; others are like pets that are given names. We can name ourselves." So they went from Arthur Lee Smith and Carole Ann Welsh to Chaka and Amina Asante. And just like they chose their name, I choose mine-Malo.

"It means 'bad,' " she says. "Are you bad?" She laughs. I just look at her.

"Girard Avenue. Girard Avenue."

"Can I get your number?" I ask as the train screeches.

"Nope." My heart nose-dives into my stomach.

"Damn, it's like that?"

"I can't have boys call my house." A smile curls. "So give me yours."

"Paper?"

"Write it here," she says, and holds out her hand. I take her hand and kiss it with the Paper Mate. The ink doesn't show. Her hand feels soft and warm, like clothes fresh out of the dryer.

"It's not writing," I say, trying to form an M as the train slows.

"Press a little harder," she says. "It works. And you gotta hurry, this is my stop coming." I finish writing but don't want to let her hand go. She pulls away.

"Okay, I'll call you sometime."

"Spring Garden Street. Spring Garden Street."

"When?"

"Tonight," she says, running off the train.

Dear Carole,

Chaka's abandoning me and I've given up hope that he'll reflect on his role in abandoning the family even as he preaches about the black family. What is that? Why is that? The whole black community loves Chaka and they don't know the internal rhythms of pain and destruction that are happening in the family. I don't know either.

The house is quiet, expecting, and waiting. I can hear Chaka coming up the street and pulling into the driveway. He will come in and I will pretend to be asleep. He used to stop in Malo's room when he was little but he no longer does that. Just as well-Malo is not in his room. The quiet of the street belies the anxious stirring of teenage boys who are deep into their mischief. Malo is acting out in a secretive way.

I hear and see my car pull out of the driveway. Malo is on the prowl. He thinks that I don't know. I don't use my car every day but when I get into my car, I notice that things are different. Is this a rite of passage? I wouldn't know, as I didn't grow up with access to a car or even thought of driving. Maybe I'll say something to him in the morning. Malo may or may not admit to it but he won't apologize. This is a child who doesn't know how to say "1 am sorry." What is that about? It's so interesting. He is an old soul in a young body. It is as if he has the right to do whatever is necessary and I am supposed to understand that. He loves to say, "Don't worry, Mom."

Where is he going? Is he seeing some girl? Is he hanging out with his friends? Is he drink-ing, drugging, or what? He will be home with the sunrise. I won't be awake when he drives back into the driveway. Is he running away from me? Did I run away from my mom? Well, I did, but in a different way. I was a difficult teenager, and like Malo, I felt as if my destiny was entirely in my hands. I "outgrew" my mother before I reached my teens. Malo will leave soon, like I did, and never come back.

My sister already caught Malo in his room with some girl that she called a "wench." | found nude photos of some girl in his room. Different girls call for him, LaTasha, Toya, Sh-anika, Alisha, too many to remember, at all hours of the night.

Everything is a secret. I am sure that he does this because he doesn't want to hurt me. It does hurt, but worse, it further divides Chaka and me. Chaka thinks that both boys' behavior points directly to me. He says I'm not strict enough and I give them too much. True, I am not strict and I probably have given them too much. But if it takes two to tango, then I am a solo dancer trying to raise two sons alone!

This is a house of secrets. Malo's nightly forays into the streets, Chaka's nightly forays at the office or out of town, and my nightly forays forgetting, escaping, and wishing pain away.

The house is quiet. My heart is racing. I want to touch Chaka and wake him. How is he doing, what is he thinking, what does he want? Can simple questions be that difficult? I am silent too; quiet! The night is still and I can hear Chaka's breathing (snoring). Daudi is away but I can hear his cry too. "Mom!" I can hear Malo's unspoken voice. He looks at me and pro-claims; "I am a man. You won't have to worry about me like you worry about Uzi." Not true.

Malo is my love child in more ways than one, but we don't talk.

My soul and heart are in flight. I am looking for me. I am looking for the "me" that I lost somewhere along the way. Morning has come. Malo is home, Chaka is up and I am pretending to be asleep. My oldest son is away and my home has become the house of secrets.

God, give me strength.

Amina

7
Phone Tap

The phone rings. Maybe it's Nia? My heart beats, rings with fear.

But as soon as I hear—

You have a collect call . . .

—already know.

. . . from . . . "Uzi" . . . an inmate at the Arizona State Prison Complex . . . To accept this call press the star key—

* * * * * *

Your call is being connected.

"Hello?"

"Malo!"

"Uzi! What's up?"

"I fucked up, bro."

"What happened?"

"I got knocked. I'm in jail."

"For what?"

"Can't really talk about it right now, man, shit is crazy . . . put Mom on the phone."

"She's not here."

"Damn, where she at?" Uzi doesn't even know she's in the psych ward. Should I tell him?

"When you getting out?"

"I can't even call it, Malo."

"But you're a minor. Last time—"

"This ain't like last time. They tryna charge me as an adult."

A hollow silence.

You have ten seconds left for this call.

"I love you, man."

"Love you too."

"And yo, Malo?"

"Yeah?"

"Get me outta here!"

Dear Carole,

I took Daudi to the airport this morning. It was difficult. After all of the drama and situations, this tall skinny boy pleaded with me not to send him to Arizona. He is a baby inside and I had to be resolute. Only I wasn't. Was I doing the right thing? Daudi has been through his share of troubles with schools and run-ins with police, but why can't Chaka and I get a grip on things? Daudi is bright but seems to be unable to do well in school. Perhaps there was some kind of attention disorder. Now he is totally swept up in what his friends are doing, and unfortunately they're also up to no good.

Didn't black people always send their children to the South to give them some training or to get them straightened out? I'm following a tradition, or am I? Arizona isn't the South and my brother has problems of his own. This is a Hail Mary pass and even as I put Daudi on the plane I had my doubts. My brother has problems of his own. Right now he is sober but l don't know how long that will last.

Daudi looked so small in his long lanky body and his eyes glistened big and wet. What am I doing? Am I doing this to please Chaka? Truth be told, Daudi and Chaka never bonded. In the beginning it never occurred to me that he wouldn't love my son. He loved me and promised to take care of my son. I took him at his word. But it wouldn't be so easy. Chaka is not a child's person. He barks orders and expects little people to obey. He doesn't play or get down and dirty with children, so I guess that there was very little bonding for Daudi and him to do.

But I am Daudi's mother and I am responsible for him. He came into this world fighting and had an uphill battle healthwise. I remember saying to the doctor when I had to have surgery while he was still in my womb, "Please save my baby." He was so tiny when he arrived but he was fighting and I just knew that he would be this incredible child. I was right, but something happened.

I leave the airport feeling so sad. It is not a good day for me. In my heart, I know that I have let my son down. Am I doing this to lessen the stress in a house that is already filled with quiet tension? Am I doing this instead of doing something else, something more radical, like . . . what?

Malo will miss his brother. Will this make it better for Malo?

I am so full of doubt today when I should be more positive, but looking at Daudi walk down the hall to the plane reminded me when I put him in nursery school when he was three years old. It was in Buffalo and it was his first day. I dropped him off and he stood at the gate crying for me as I walked away. At least then, despite my aching heart, I knew that I would return to get him that evening. He isn't so sure now as I leave him; what is he thinking?

What am I thinking? I wish I could really talk to Chaka. But it is all pronouncements and sermons. He doesn't have time to really think about Daudi and doesn't give Malo any time either.

I can't dwell on this now but I want to go home and sleep for seven days and seven nights. I don't know how to deal with yet another pain. I want to scream while I dance and dance while I scream. I want to forget that pain can be so intimate. I want to travel beside Daudi on his collar, whispering in his ear, soothing his shoulders, kissing his cheeks, and telling him, "I love you."

If nothing else, I am a warrior. I must get stronger so I can be there for my sons. I have to resist going into a black hole and never seeing light. My strength is my light and both of my sons need me.

I can't say what the weather is like today or how the sky is tinged. All I can say is that I took Daudi to the airport to put him on a plane to Arizona. He cried, and as I walked away, the tears that were raining inside of me began to fill up the spaces in my eyes and then envelop my face until I couldn't see. I can't say how the weather is today but I know that inside me, it is raining.

God, give me strength.

Amina

8
Relapse

My mom's back from the hospital in the same nightgown she left in. She's in her chair, on the horn with my uncle, all the way reclined like she's at the dentist getting teeth pulled.

Outside is gusty, wind whirling through trees, leaves clapping. The wind slaps the house like it stole something. Slams the screen door into the jamb over and over again. Howls through the halls, haunting.

"He relapsed," she whispers to me, palming the mouthpiece. I sit on her bed and study her face: the winces, grimaces, and slow blinks. It's all a blur of bad news. The latest is that Uzi's in solitary confinement, so she can't speak to him. She hasn't talked to him yet. Uncle Jabbar has updates.

"Twenty-five years!" she cries out.

What the fuck? Twenty-five years of what?

I hear Uzi's voice over the prison static: Get me outta here!

"Oh God," Mom says. "What?" She can't stop shaking her head. Weary lids. She tries to say something to me but can't get it out. She's melting right in front of me.

My mom's crying 'cause her insides are dyin
her son tryin her patience, keep her heart racin
("Regrets," Jay-Z, 1996.)

Later, I hear snatches of the story:

Uzi and his boy Antwan, they call him Shotgun, a Crip from St. Louis . . .

They fuck these girls from a group home, runaways . . .

She tells Uzi she's sixteen . . . she's thirteen . . .

And she's white.

9
Neveruary

"I don't want you hanging on the corner," my mom says. "Those guys are too old for you anyway." I don't think they're too old, they're Uzi's age, but I don't argue with her about it. She's already mad stressed about Uzi, plus she just got back from the psych ward a few days ago. She's as delicate as eyelashes.

"'K, Ma . . . but I gotta walk past there to get home."

"You can go the other way."

"What other way?"

"The back way?"

"Up Star Trek?"

"Yes," she laughs, "and why do you call it that?"

"'Cause the baseheads, before they light up, say, 'Beam me up, Scotty.' They smoke crack out of car antennas."

"I just don't want you hanging on the corner. Just say hi and keep going. You don't have to stop for them."

"I got you."

"No, really," she says, sucking her teeth. "They are out there looking for young black boys to put in the system. I don't want you to become a statistic . . . like your brother."

"I got you."

"And what do you mean, you got me? I'm not your homie." She laughs.

"I won't hang down there."

But of course I do. What, I'm supposed to stay in the crib? The corner is popping, electric, buzzing. Anything can happen and does. Different people are always coming through and they all know Uzi and that I'm his little brother. And if they don't, once they find out—oh, you Uzi's little bro?-—they show me mad love.

And momma told me, don't hang with the homies
But they got me if they need me, den it's on G
("Out on Bail," 2pac, 1994.)

Everybody calls me "young buck" when they see me. The cops ride by all slow. Grit on everybody. We grit right back. Sometimes they jump out and search everybody.

"What's wrong?" they ask as soon as they see my long face. I tell 10 Gs the deal.

"A white bitch?" Ted blurts out like he's asking the whole city. "She's white?" I just nod-yeah, man. "Come on, man, don't tell me that. Tell me something else, anything. Tell me he shot some-body, tell me he robbed a bank, tell me whatever. Just don't tell me this—white!"

"In Arizona too? Damn Oohwop," D-Rock says. D-Rock looks like he lives on a bench in Fisher Park. He's wearing what he always wears: greasy army fatigues and a military hat on some Black Moon shit. He calls it BDU—basic dress uniform. Cargos. Camos. Velcro. Gore-Tex. Kevlar. That's his bag. "'cause I'm a mothafuckin soldier," he told me one day when I asked why he wears the same shit every day.

D-Rock calls himself the hood scientist. He hates the white man but loves white pussy. He's always got a white jawn with him.

"Fuckin Arizona!" Ted shakes his head. "Of all places!"

Population none in the desert and sun
With a gun cracker running things under his thumb
(By the Time I Get to Arizona," Public Enemy, 1991.)

"It's racist as shit out there, man," Scoop says.

"I know," Ted says, "they don't even take off for Dr. King's birthday."

"Vicious. What?"

"Yeah man, you ain't know that?"

"Crazy."

"It ain't like you gotta recite 'I Have a Dream' or some shit."

"It's just a day off work," Ted says. "But they'd rather go to work than take a day off for a black man."

"They straight-up hate us out there. Fuckin hot-ass desert," D-Rock says.

"And a straight-up Philly ngh like Uzi?" Scoop says. "They don't want him comin home till Neveruary!"

"The judge might try to roof him. The white man don't like you messing with his little Suzie."

"They can't give him no wheel of death for that."

"What's the wheel of death?"

"Life."

This all feels like broken glass in my mind.

"Did you talk to him?" Ted asks. "What did he say?"

I hear Uzi: Get me outta here!

Dear Carole,

Malo ran away. Not like the time he ran away when he was five years old, when he just went to the end of the block and looked to see if I was looking. No, this time he really ran away. He's fourteen.

The thing is—he took my car. What kind of running away is that? Not only is my child gone, but my ride too. Initially I think he'll return in the evening. I'm upset but not worried. But when nighttime comes and he doesn't return, I get worried. I think about calling the police. Chaka says that we should wait. I call everyone I know but no one has seen or heard from Malo and I don't know his friends' phone numbers.

Morning comes and Malo still hasn't come home. I decide to call the police. The police seem uninterested in finding a runaway black boy but they take down the information. I don't want to report the car stolen because that will criminalize Malo.

Malo ran away but there wasn't an argument and he wasn't on punishment, so I'm baffled. Where is he and why did he leave? Of course this means he isn't going to school, but I'm not even thinking about school, I just want to make sure that he is safe. Chaka doesn't seem worried but I'm sure he is. We are both amazed that he took my car but I had information that Chaka didn't. I know that Malo had taken my car many times while I was asleep and his father was away. So while it was definitely outrageous that Malo took my car, since he's only fourteen and doesn't have a license or even a permit, I wasn't that shocked.

Then after a week, he strolls in. I ask Malo, what was he thinking? He simply says that he was ready to live on his own. If I wasn't so angry, I would have laughed. Actually, I did laugh. What chutzpah! Where did he get the nerve? Well, I really don't have to look too far.

I ran away when I was thirteen too. I not only ran away but I left a note for my mother saying that I was running away to get married and that she shouldn't look for me. I left in the middle of the night and took the subway to the 34th Street bus terminal and took a bus to Reading, PA! I arrived in Reading with nothing but the clothes on my back and called my aunt Patrice from the bus station and asked her to come get me.

There was an incident that made me run away. My mother wouldn't let me go to a beach party that a lot of my friends were going to and I was very angry about it. My mother and I didn't have a good relationship and I wanted to get away. My aunt Jaime had taken me to Reading when I was six years old and I had fond memories of Reading. For one thing, my aunt Patrice had a house and that seemed like the ultimate luxury to me. Little did I know at the time that Heller's Court was called "Hell's Court" for a reason.

I took money out of my aunt Jaime's purse. I am sure that my mother caught grief about that but I wasn't thinking about that at the time. My mother finally called my aunt Patrice and my aunt admitted that I was there. My mother didn't come get me. I don't even think that she talked to me. She was angry with my aunt Patrice for not calling her but at least she knew where I was.

Reading was wild, and even though I wanted more freedom, this was a life that was full of chaos and violence. My cousin Junie was the only child and he was wild. I saw him pick up a butcher knife and chase his mother with it. He was my age and he already had a baby. My uncle Franky and aunt Patrice ran a speakeasy on the weekend so there were lots of people coming in and out from Friday night to Sunday. They sold liquor, drank, argued, and fought a lot. This was all new to me, as my mother didn't drink. The only fights that I saw in my home were my aunt Jaime and my mother arguing. The worst that they said to each other was to call each other a bitch. My aunt called my mother a "yellow bitch" and my mom retaliated by called my aunt a "black bitch."

But this was on a different level. Knives and alcohol and cussing were an everyday thing, and on the weekend, it was all day. I enrolled in school and that was a culture shock. It was mainly white. My high school in Brooklyn was mixed but this school was basically white. But I think that I could have handled the school if the home situation wasn't so volatile.

Two things happened that brought my stay in Reading to an end. My aunt took me with her one afternoon to a "friend's" house. She told me to stay in an outer room while she went into a bedroom with a young man. I was her alibi. She would tell my uncle Franky that she was with me, and that would be the end of that. I had seen a lot but this was something that she chose to do. Then my aunt accused me of trying to be with Uncle Franky. Reading, PA, made cream sodas that were red, and this absolutely delighted me as I loved cream soda and the idea of red cream soda was wonderful. Uncle Franky would bring me cream soda when he came home from work and I loved it. My aunt took this as a flirtation with my uncle Franky. There was no such thing going on in my mind. And mind you, this was the woman who took me to a house where she had a rendezvous with a lover.

So after three months in Reading, I called my mother and asked to come home. I don't think that my mother said a word to me all the way home.

Malo and I don't speak either.

God, give me strength.

Amina

DMU Timestamp: January 15, 2026 22:30