So I took control. I stopped letting Dad cut my hair and instead took seven bones to the barbershop over at Mondawmin, avoiding old men and women, and came back with a tight fade. I stood out in the alley, called next, chose up, snatched boards and kicked it back out, put a hand up, and moved with my man. I talked less and watched more. I assessed the mood of every area I walked through, then altered my bearing to the action which seemed most likely to unfold. I got down with the local clique. Leroy, who saved me from the Hilton-Beys, was the nominal head. There was Bo, who lived further up Liberty, close to Community College of Baltimore. Brock and Dante, the lucky ones, whose parents sent them off to private school. There were two other half brothers, whose names I will not mention, because we thought their mother was on crack. They lived in a large, crumbling house. Rats creeped out the back. Mostly they all were the products of single parents, and in the most tragic category — black boys, with no particular criminal inclinations but whose very lack of direction put them in the crosshairs of the world.
But from them I acquired large portions of the Knowledge. We set out into Baltimore. We’d catch the bus up to Reisterstown for the movies, and bust out the No Home Training, laughing and talking louder than normal, in that stupid teenage manner. We’d catch the subway downtown to yell rude things at honeys near the harbor. I became secure in the numbers, and noticed that if I walked like the boys around me, smiled only when essential, it all became a little easier. Over at Mondawmin, soldiers caught solo would see our numbers, and though we were still a nameless crew without a rep, they turned and headed the other way. Still, I was a stepchild here. I never pulled tool and went Larry Davis. I had no ill visions of Nino Brown. But now I knew that this was not chaos, that the streets were a country and like all others, the streets had anthems, culture, and law. I was not bred a patriot. But that summer I became a soldier. In September, I stepped off the porch with a new swing and bop. Lemmel, fed up with brawls and stickup kids, mandated uniforms and transparent knapsacks. I bought a blue net bag, which was a statement of cool among us, placed a thin canvas binder inside, then slung it over my shoulder. The declaration of uniforms made all gear equal, except for kicks. I turned to my mother, who was never adverse to the style of the day, and emerged in Travel Fox and Rockports.
Plus I was not alone. We would start off only five or six deep, trooping down Tioga, down Gwynns Falls, and then up the grass hill. But all of us had boys from other districts, and as we traveled you would see a homeboy from summer camp or elementary, whose clique would be assimilated, and in this way we would expand until, atop Dukeland hill, dap was exchanged, and we were many deep. We’d front at the top of the concrete steps, talking shit, cultivating rage until we were ice grilled, until our movements were warning flares and bared teeth.
Then I was alone again, because initially none of my crew was gifted and talented. I soloed into the next level of the Marshall Team—8-16, fewer boys this time, and that meant trouble. Our army was smaller now and could not tolerate pacifists. I remembered who I’d been just a year earlier, spaced out and ready to run, and wanted no part of it. I thought of walking in, smacking the first fool I saw, and taking a suspension like a badge. But that was just the voice of my intelligent armor. I was still a dreamer, if now repressed, was still cupcakes and comic books at the core.
My teachers were more intense, because this was the first big year of our lives, the year that decided which high school we’d get into. In English class, we sat in rows five deep. My counselor Mr. Webster — white, bespectacled, and kind — handed out booklets filled with all our possibilities. Inside were the descriptions of all of Baltimore’s magnet schools, their profiles, requirements, and varying spheres of specialty, running the gamut from music to English to ROTC to engineering and math. I was, still am, a scientist at heart, and aimed for Baltimore Polytech, best school in the city and home to all our future Garrett Morgans and Charles Drews. But there were bigger reasons — in all things, our first concern was security and what we saw in the citywide schools was not great academics but cessation of gun law, a place of reprieve if only because everyone there had come by choice. The classroom came second.
In the new year we shared our gym period with our inverse, 8-07. They walked in with a mean slouch and sat on the other side of the gym bleachers. There was not one girl among them — they were thirty deep, bigger, seemed that they had failed many grades many times. I just sat back silent, Nobody Smiling, told myself I was not afraid. We shared lockers and so as soon as I saw them, I knew 8-07 would try to test us in the locker room. My buddy Jermaine pulled me off to the side and gave me the briefing — Tana, you better not go out like no punk.
I was one of the tallest boys in my class by now, and had acquired enough Knowledge to know that 8-07 would step to me first. My height made me the symbolic head of our squad, even if I had sought no such title. After class, while I got dressed in the locker room, I was awaiting one of the big kids, one of the ones who seemed that he should be off enlisting or driving a truck. Instead, they sent a bizarro, a tall awkward freak with thick glasses and an unfortunate head. He was not a natural, and loped around the locker room like he’d spent the previous year dusting off his jeans and taping his glasses. I understood his bearing, how feeling like you’d do anything to avoid a repeat makes you snarl a little quicker than what, even by the standards of the streets, is reasonable.
But this kid had gotten it worse.
They gathered and he advanced my way. I’d been preparing for this all summer. In my mind I heard the 808 kick and did not speak but raised my dukes. This was my first scrap, the first time I’d felt anger as lighter fluid. This kid was disrespect, an attempt to show that the weakest among them could dominate the biggest among us. And, too, there was the fact that in his weakness I saw a self that I wanted to erase. I swung.
What followed was not glorious and triumphant but a blind rolling around, many badly aimed blows striking steel lockers. It ended in mutual choke holds. Our camps pulled us apart. 8-07 grabbed their net bags and filed out before us.
It wasn’t long before Big Bill was duly deposited back to Tioga. That was the pattern of things. He would steady his ship for a while, earn a reprieve, then return to his earlier self and be condemned to Dad’s care. Linda, Dad, and Ma were all trying to drag him toward the promised land. He was still caught in between, juggling the new Consciousness with everything the streets had told him since he first stood on a corner. Either way, he was about the girls, the mic, and the need to be loved by immediate people, places, and things.
Love was how he got caught up. All boys were judged by arm strength, our varying ability to turn chance encounters into digits and then belt notches. Bill was tall, stylish, and kept a fresh fade. But most important, he did not half step, mumble, or stare at the ground. That certitude was in demand among the girls we knew, in fact, was a prerequisite to any exchange. And so Bill became profligate with the jennys and then, later, sloppy. The girl showed up at Linda’s house in need of some recognition, a sliver of respect. Bill answered the door. He did not usher her in. Linda sat in the back.
She had come up pregnant weeks earlier. Bill had agreed to cover half, and she’d agreed to not bring in any adults. But the child in my brother still caged him. Half of him hoped the whole deal would just vanish. The other half was just dead wrong. Bill played her to the left, did not answer her calls, and went off in pursuit of other pleasures. All she wanted was for him to honor his word. They argued. She yelled and banged on the door. He ordered her to adjust her tone. She didn’t and now he became angry, grabbed all, maybe, hundred pounds of her, and slammed her to the ground.