I believed in the intellect of all of us, that mine was the legacy that aligned pyraminds and spotted the rings of distant planets with only the naked eye. That was my great inheritance. But I turned this good news to bad ends, and ran with the sort of crew that surveyed all these new teachers, and picked out the ones who would never understand. The ones who should have been out at Bryn Mawr or Calvert Hall. They did not know where we were from. And this was my out. We would sit in the back of the class talking during lectures and throwing paper balls at girls. I asked for bathroom breaks every ten minutes, and then walked the halls making dumb faces at friends in other classes. I prayed for substitutes, would walk in, stare them down like, you know what this is, and then it was on — paper footballs flying, the end of assigned seating, rubber bands armed with paper clips plucked across the room.
And I laughed through it all, had a rag of a time, until Dad showed up. After PTA meetings where I was held to account, Dad started popping up at school and sitting in on random classes. He never caught me mid-act, just sat in the back in his Clarks and slacks, looking on and embarrassing the fuck out of me. But it was not enough. I required more than I deserved. I had made it through Lemmel because my teachers blocked all other doors. They met, organized, double-and triple-teamed us, held us after school, pushed, prodded, until they obliterated job descriptions and fell somewhere between pastor, parent, and counselor. I could match passion with passion. But at Poly teaching was a job. Teachers did what was expected, and thought they could get the same. I demanded more of them, and virtually nothing of myself.
So this is how my first year in the royal city ended — handcuffed in the office of the school police. My second semester English teacher was a small man with a small voice. He was my last period, and talked with the sort of dead voice that bore down on my eyelids. I accorded him all the esteem of an anthill, and expected great deference in return. It was one of those spring afternoons at the end of the year, when all your hormones are fighting to break loose. But still, we had to stomach some boring zero prattling on about adverbs, clauses, and conjunctions. Who gives a fuck when you spent the whole day watching Tamara Garrett in tight jeans, and you know she’s gonna be on the 44 bus, after school, her lush brown eyes dazzling all comers.
I walked into class in this state of mine, half looking for any way out. I stood at the front joking with a buddy, while all the other students took their seats. I was asked many times to sit down, until the teacher just lost his cool and sunned me in front of the whole class. I don’t even remember what he said, but he’d raised his voice, and in front of a crowd, I could not back down.
I raised my hand and mushed him in the face. “Don’t you ever yell at me again in your life.”
He quietly ordered me outside, and then summoned the school police. And so hyped on ego and image was I that I mouthed so much to the officer that I was put in cuffs and escorted to his office where he prepared a report. I was suspended immediately, potentially expelled, and told not to return without a parent. I caught the 33 home by myself and that was when it all began to set in. All my life, I played my position. I was tired. Here was my declaration of borders and respect. But of course there was a price. And the merchant was my father.
He was waiting in the foyer at the door, again magically off work at the worst possible time. He was there with Ma and Jovett, half smiling through an awkward mix of shock and anger. Jovett walked out of the room and then it came. He threw an open hand and I hit the floor.
My mother stepped in.
Paul, Paul.
He shoved her away.
Woman, get off me.
And then he was swinging away, channeling a chi ancient as Equiano. The power was passed down from mothers guarding their sons from the lash, and later from the pyre, rope, and fat sheriff. My father swung with the power of an army of slaves in revolt. He swung like he was afraid, like the world was closing in and cornering him, like he was trying to save my life. I was upstairs crying myself to sleep, when they held a brief conference. The conference consisted of only one sentence that mattered — Cheryl, who would you rather do this: me or the police?
I saw my mother some hours later in our small kitchen. She tried to explain what she felt, but began to cry instead. She knew that I had no idea how close I was, would always be, to the edge, how easily boys like me were erased in absurd, impractical ways. One minute we were tossing snowballs at taxis, firing up in front the 7-Eleven, speeding down side streets and the next we’re surrounded by unholstered guns, a false move away from going down. I would always be a false move away. I would always have the dagger at my throat.
This was the first time my parents pleaded me back into school. That night, we walked over to Mondawmin and ate at Long John Silver’s. Our talk was regular. They held no debt. They met with the school principal to testify to my character. They met with my English teacher to assure him I was no threat. They met with the school police officer so that he knew there was no history of drug use. They met with a local magistrate to assure him there was no need for the State.
I returned a week later, and a few weeks later I was off to summer school. My mother took me over to archrival City College and wrote a check. After class, I’d come home — and a fresh box of books would greet me. I spent my weekends with the neighborhood boys. Every weekend night someone’s mother — except mine — was off working the night shift. We’d gather at that unchaperoned house, dial up the jennys, throw on some club tapes, and sip from bottles until we were five steps beyond nice.
There I am outside Mondawmin Mall, bribing alcoholics into copping cheap fortified wine. I walk back to the anointed crib, bid my slaps of five, and pass out brown paper bags. An hour in, and I am floating, freaking some girl completely off beat. I wake up with bells ringing outside each of my temples and birds of pain circling overhead. I continue like this for months, until on a dare I down a forty of Red Bull solo, and spend a morning massaging the toilet bowl.
My parents never caught me like that, but they could see me running off the rails. Dad looked south to D.C., and called in old alliances formed years ago selling books at the Mecca. He contacted NationHouse, a coalition of brothers and sisters who, like my father, believed that the revolution could not be blustered into existence but must be built. Their group had purchased a building in the heart of the ravaged northwest of Washington, a command center from which they plotted the creation of a state within a state.
As in the Akan tradition, all their children were named according to days of their birth — Kofi for born on Friday, Kwaku for Wednesday. NationHouse flowered with Knowledge and culture — jazz recitals, spoken word, and regular lectures on our regal past and methods of return. They organized a school to educate their kids, sent them off for college credits at fourteen, and then for a bachelor’s two years later. Everyone wore dashikis and lappas, kufis and head wraps. There were no perms.
Then, deep in the heart of Jeff Davis, in old Virginal, they purchased hallowed ground. The acres consecrated a century earlier through the toil of our mothers were the site of a great spiritual renewal. There was an unmarked slave graveyard, noticeable only by depressions in the land. There was a path where Gabriel Prosser, all glory to him, had walked while planning his great slave rebellion, before the deceivers dropped dime.