The next morning, I brought boxes and suitcases to the front door. Jovett and my parents were seated at the dining room table. On the table were various gifts from Jovett — a set of screwdrivers, a fire extinguisher, a flashlight, several packs of rubbers. Dad would not have loaded up that car without a lecture, but what he said, I can’t even remember. I was caught between competing things — the bliss of leaving the dominion of my father and the sorrow of the impending loss of my brothers.
We pulled off, drove down Campfield hill, up Liberty Road, to the Beltway, and down 95, until we reached the new world. We found Big Bill right off Georgia Avenue, sitting on the shallow wall in front the Howard Plaza Towers — where he had once let off, sprayed the night sky with a gun — which was now my home. He was sitting with two of his friends, in a fisherman’s cap, khaki shorts, white tee shirt, Timbs. He had never looked so at ease. He was sitting there talking when we pulled up, loose with the sort of casual humanity that Baltimore never allowed. The old anger, which guarded him and maybe saved him during the days of Murphy Homes, was drained and what was left was all my father, all my people, ever wanted. Was a man.
When I took hajj at the Mecca, my parents didn’t open an ancient bottle of wine. They didn’t take any vacations. I was not the last child but the last of that perilous bunch, the sixth in seven years, born into lust, a frenzy of variables, and many futures tossed in the air. Now, for the first time in almost twenty years, there was space to reflect. Who would they be now that the great labors lay behind them? Now that they’d shielded the kids from the era of crack?
There was still my young brother, Menelik. But the air and water just weren’t the same. He had a Sega Genesis. He went to Fallstaff. His only vice was Gundam Wing. He was not a wanderer or insurgent but was balanced, had a sort of everyday aesthetic that I’d always wanted. He was mostly quiet, and on the weekends would go see foreign flicks with my father. He barely remembered Tioga; and Campfield, the sort of Avalon I prayed for back at Lemmel, was his formative home.
For him, for everyone, the old rules were falling away. A month before I left, Sankofa had a cookout in a small park in Woodlawn, to celebrate the Fourth of July. It was my father’s birthday, but we’d never celebrated the date. Babas and mamas brought out potato salad, grilled turkey burgers, and veggie dogs. That was the summer, when Super Soakers were wild. I had never owned so much as a water gun, because in our time, so many kids were falling that such toys were a mark of the enslaved 85. But that whole afternoon gunfights broke out. Some fool strapped two tanks to his back and started spraying like Blowtorch. I grabbed someone else’s double barrel and went to work. Amid the crossfire, the whole cookout laughing and wet, I saw my brother, small and shirtless, clutching a baby water pistol with a orange neon tank on the top. Menelik ran through the streams of water, until he found himself in the clear. Then he raised the iron at an oblivious target, smiled, and fired.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The acknowledgments begin with the love of my life, Kenyatta Matthews, without whom this book simply could not have been. There is no other way to say that. I thank my mother (Ma, you’re only second cause you got the dedication), who used to make me write essays whenever I got into trouble, explaining exactly what I’d done and why I’d done it. This book begins with her, to whom I am, obviously, immeasurably indebted. Love to my grandmother Anna Waters. Love to my aunt Ava and my aunt JoAnn. Love to my cousins Jeff, Kevin, and Jo-Jo.
A shout-out to my father, Paul Coates, who, when I was thirteen, handed me a copy of Greg Tate’s Flyboy in the Buttermilk. I didn’t know what the hell Greg was talking about. But I knew that somewhere in the world there were people whose life work it was to play with language and unpack the diction of Chuck D. That was all I needed to know. Peace to Greg Tate, for that initial spark.
Peace to my brother Damani, who introduced me to hip-hop and poetry, thus seeding the initial thoughts for this book. Peace to my brother John, who helped subsidize this endeavor in the last months. Peace to Malik, who guided me through Keep on the Borderlands, Against the Giants, and Castle Amber. Those days still walk with me, all the way through this book. Peace to my sisters, Kris and Kelly, for constant encouragement. Peace to Menelik, and congratulations on doing me one better and actually making it out of Mecca. Peace to those coming up next to bat — Tye, N’namdi, Christian, Samori, Christopher, Oronde, Marley. Love to you all.
Peace to anyone who ever, at any point, worked for Washington City Paper, an institution that changed my life. Thanks to David Carr, who hired me off of some middling college newspaper columns. Thanks to Bradford Mckee, one of the greatest editors I’ve ever worked with. Thanks to the great friends I met there: Amanda Ripley, Michael Schaffer, Stephanie Mencimer (who shepherded me through the Washington Monthly in lean times), Eric Wemple, Caroline Schweiter, Sean Daly, John Cloud, Jason Cherkis, Amy Austin. Please forgive me if I missed anyone. I’m getting old. Love to all of you. Those were some of the best times of my life.
Thanks to my agent Gloria Loomis. Thanks to Walter Mosley for the opportunity. Thanks to my editor Christopher Jackson, who cultivated this idea from small-talk over lunch to an actual book. Thanks to everyone at Spiegel & Grau — Mya Spalter, Meghan Walker, Lucy Silag, Cindy Spiegel, and Julie Grau. Thanks to any editor who ever took a chance on me. Thanks to Bill Saporito, Nathan Thorn-burgh, and Lisa Cullen, without whom my stay at Time would likely have been shorter. Thanks to Paul Tough and Ilena Silverman, both of whom gave me huge breaks.
Props to Jelani Cobb, Joel Dias-Porter, Brian Gilmore, Natalie Hopkinson, Natalie Moore, Kenneth Carroll, and Bridget Warren. Every one of you is/was instrumental in my education. Props to my man Ben Talton, who always believed, and his wife, Janai Nelson, still my favorite debating partner. Props to my good friends Neil Drumming, Dawnie Walton, and Ricardo Gutierrez, who’ve listened to me drone on about this book for too long. Props to Brendan Koerner and Eyal Press, perhaps the two biggest reasons I haven’t tossed out my laptop and enrolled in culinary school. Props to Colby Poulson and GS. I shall see you all in the battlegrounds again, one way or another.