When we finally got to the train station, Justin asked me a question.
"Did you study yet for the English test for Wednesday?"
"Nope," I replied.
"You know they are going to put you on probation if you don't start doing better, man."
I knew, but I broke it down for Justin: the problem wasn't what I knew or didn't know, the problem was that they didn't understand my situation. My long trip to and from school every day, my missing father, my overworked mother, the changing routes I took every day from the train just so no one with bad intentions could case my routine. I continued throwing excuses at Justin but started to wither under the heat of his glare. Justin had it worse than I did but was still one of the best-performing kids in the class. My litany of excuses trailed off.
After a moment I broke the awkward silence by telling him my mother had begun to threaten me with military school if I didn't get my grades and discipline together.
"For real?" he asked and laughed.
My mother had even gotten her hands on a brochure that she'd haul out as a visual aid to her threats. But I knew there was no way my mother would allow her only son to be shipped off to military school. Regardless of the grades. Regardless of the suspensions. It was too remote, too permanent. Maybe she'd shift me to a school closer to home, maybe a public or Catholic school, but not a military school.
My mother couldn't send me away. She needed a man in the house to look after Shani and Nikki, not to mention her, right? She had to be bluffing. Plus, in Caribbean households, boys were often indulged like little princes. Minor infractions were tolerated and "he's just being a boy" was an all-purpose excuse for anything short of a felony. And what was military school anyway? A bunch of countrified folks yelling and screaming, waving flags and chewing tobacco, forcing confused kids to crawl through mud, preparing them to get killed in a war? My mother wouldn't even let me have toy guns in the house. It was absurd.
"We'll see what happens," Justin said with a smirk.
"Yeah, we'll see," I replied.
The cloudless evening sky had gone dark. Justin ran up the metal staircase to the train entrance. The streetlights blinking on were a silent siren. Time was up. Justin laced up his sneakers and boarded the train, preparing for his run home.
Wes walked through his new neighborhood, the fourth he could remember living in so far in his short life. He'd called this place home for only the last four months. Despite its being only ten miles from his old home, the thick old-growth trees that lined streets with names like Biscayne Bay, March Point Park, and Whispering Woods were evidence of how far removed he was from the Baltimore City row houses he'd been accustomed to. They now lived in Baltimore County, which sits on the northern, eastern, and western borders of Baltimore City, a horseshoe that fits around its more well-known neighbor. Baltimore City residents increasingly bled into it, exchanging the city for the county's spacious neighborhoods, quality schools, and higher per capita income. Mary Moore was part of that flight.
Dundee Village, where Wes's new home was located, was a collection of connected, whitewashed homes. The houses were modest but well cared for--flowerpots were filled with geraniums or black-eyed Susans, and floral wreaths hung from each wooden door.
He hadn't lived there long, but the closeness of the homes allowed Wes to get to know the neighbors and their idiosyncrasies well. He stared thirty yards across the road and saw Mrs. Evers, a middle-aged black woman, standing in front of her house talking with Joyce, an older white woman from Brooklyn, Maryland, who worked at the Royal Farms up the street. Aside from the carbon-copy houses, there was nothing uniform about this working-class neighborhood; it was filled with people of all shapes, colors, and backgrounds. The only thing most of them had in common was that they came from somewhere else, and for most of them, Dundee was a better place to be.
Back in Baltimore, a new young mayor had just taken over. He ran on a platform of improving the school system, fighting illiteracy, and trying to find innovative solutions to the metastasizing drug trade that was poisoning life in major areas of the city. Mayor Kurt Schmoke was himself a proud product of Baltimore City who went from the city's public schools to Yale University, Oxford, Harvard Law School, and then, improbably, back to his beloved and deeply troubled city. He served as Baltimore's state's attorney for four years and at age thirty-eight was elected the first African-American mayor of Baltimore City, which at the time was over 60 percent black.
A few months into his administration, Mayor Schmoke was lambasted for saying, "I started to think, maybe we ought to consider this drug problem a public health problem rather than a criminal justice problem." Most people heard this as a cry for drug legalization in Baltimore. But Schmoke was desperate. He knew that unless someone figured out some way of controlling it, the drug trade--and the epidemics of violent crime and untreated addiction it left in its wake--would stifle any hope for progress in the city.
Change couldn't come fast enough for Mary. Tony was now full-time in the streets, splitting his time between his father's and girlfriend's apartments in the Murphy Homes Projects. He was a veteran of the drug game at eighteen. He'd graduated from foot soldier and now had other people working for him. School was a distant memory; Tony hadn't seen the inside of a classroom on a regular basis since eighth grade.
Two incidents were decisive in Mary's decision to move. First, Tony got shot in the chest during a botched drug deal. It was the first of three times that he would feel the searing heat of a bullet enter his body. Second, Wes failed the sixth grade at "Chicken Pen" and had to repeat it. Baltimore City had a 70 percent dropout rate at the time. Tony had already joined that statistic; Mary wanted to keep Wes away from the same fate. And now here Wes was, walking around Dundee Village, hoping these bucolically named "avenues" and "circles" would lead him to a better place than the city streets had.
Wes finally turned from his neighbors. He was wearing his unlaced, beat-up Adidas, a T-shirt, and an orange Orioles hat with the bill facing the back. He'd pleaded with his mom earlier in the week for an upgrade to his wardrobe. Tony, he complained, was wearing all the newest clothes and was now sporting a thick gold rope chain on top of it. His mother came back at him hard. "And you see Tony just ended up in the hospital, right? Be thankful for what you got!"
It meant nothing to Wes. All he knew was that, when he got back to the city and walked its streets, breathing in the noise and bustle and craziness he was used to, he did it in secondhand gear.
Back in the county, he walked away from Dundee Village, trying to kill time on a lazy Saturday afternoon. A few blocks from his house he noticed something he had never seen before: a kid, maybe a couple years older than Wes, standing on a street corner. The boy was wearing a headset right out of the Janet Jackson "Control" video. A gold ring with a small diamond cut into the middle of its crown caught the light every time the boy moved his hand. The ring was not exactly flashy, but the shine coming off it told a short story: the kid had some money. The whole tableau--the ring, the headset--was the coolest thing Wes had ever seen. The boy's tall and muscularly broad frame made him look older than he probably was and he had a few people around him, all of them laughing and joking. But it was obvious, both by the size difference and by his cool gadgetry, that this kid was the leader of the pack. Wes wanted to know more and, never shy, he approached the boys.
"Hey, where can I get one of those headsets--"
"Who are you?" one of the boys snapped back, cocking his head and narrowing his eyes.
Wes knew to choose his next words carefully. "I just moved here. From the City. I live over on Bledsoe." He kept his tone level, non-confrontational, but not scared. Never scared.
The tall kid looked him over carefully before he responded. "You want one of these, it's pretty easy. All you have to do is wear one, and every time you see jakes roll by, you just push this button and say something. When your shift is over, you come by, and I'll give you your money," he said.
Mone
y? Wes just wanted to get his hands on one of the headsets. There was money involved too?
After hearing more details, Wes was sold. It seemed like a sweet setup. Simply wear a headset, hang out with new friends, notify people when you see police coming, and get paid at the end of the day. He knew what game this was, the same game that had consumed Tony and put a bullet or two in him. The same game Tony continually urged Wes to stay out of.
But Wes rationalized. I am not actually selling drugs. All I'm doing is talking into a headset. He wasn't exactly excelling in the classroom, and his disenchantment with school was beginning to wear on him. All he really wanted to do was either play football professionally or become a rapper. If he could earn some cash in the meantime--just a little pocket money to hold him over till he was running in the end zone of RFK Stadium or rocking a sold-out crowd in Madison Square Garden--why not? This game didn't require studying or exams. It didn't require a degree or vocational skills. All he needed was ambition. And guts. And, as Wes was soon to understand, an ability to live with constant fear. But Wes wasn't focused on that yet. He didn't bother thinking about Tony's warnings, that no matter what job or position you took within it, this was a game for keeps--you could be in jail or dead in a matter of months.
Besides watching Tony, Wes's first real interaction with drugs had taken place a few months earlier, just before the move out to Baltimore County. It was late November, early in the morning. Wes was already up and showered, finishing some cold breakfast cereal with his book bag next to his leg, when Mary left to go to work. The moment he heard the door slam, Wes rushed to the window and watched as his mother slowly pulled out of her parking spot and joined the flow of city-bound traffic.
Wes had no intention of going to school. He was supposed to meet Woody later--they were going to skip school with some friends, stay at Wes's house, and have a cookout. Woody was bringing the hot dogs and burgers, Wes would be responsible for firing up the grill. Just the thought of hanging out with his boys and imagining the smell of barbecued hot dogs made Wes happy. He moved toward his mother's bedroom. Wes began his ritual search for change in her closet, but the jar was not in its usual place. Wes paused. Had she caught on?
As Wes rummaged through the closet, moving clothes and boxes from one side to the other, he came across a small see-through bag packed with a green substance. It looked like a collection of moss held together by some small sticks. But Wes knew exactly what he had stumbled on. He had just found his mother's weed stash. After a moment to think about whether he should take it, he came to the obvious conclusion: he was going to turn this barbecue into a real party.
Wes put the bag in his pocket and went outside to wait for Woody. As soon as he saw his friend turn the corner, he yelled in excitement, "Wait till you see what I've got!" Woody hustled over, and after they exchanged dap, Wes pulled out the bag. Woody instantly knew what they were working with. His eyes lit up, and he snatched the bag from Wes, opened the top a crack, and took a deep whiff like an old pro. Then he smiled. "Where did you get this, man?" Woody asked.
Wes told the story, and they exchanged a conspiratorial look. Their plans for the day had changed.
Within minutes, Wes and Woody had hooked up with some older kids who were also skipping class that day. The boys all hopped on their bikes and rode to the corner store, where they picked up some Mad Dog 20/20 and rolling papers and, within a half hour, the party was getting started.
The boys found a spot under a bridge near the Morgan State University campus. Since Wes had been the one to discover the smoke, he was granted the privilege of the first hit. Wes knew all about weed but had never actually tried it. He cautiously put the rolled-up joint to his mouth and inhaled. He broke out into a spastic fit of coughing almost as soon as the joint passed his lips. The older boys laughed. But Wes kept at it. With each inhalation, the smoke passed more easily, and by the third toke, he was taking deep puffs and holding them in his lungs for several seconds before blowing a white cloud back out through his nose and mouth.
But after a few hits, Wes was disappointed. "I don't see what the big deal is, man."
"Just wait a little while. You'll feel it," Woody said.
The boys sat under the bridge drinking malt liquor and smoking as the morning quickly turned to afternoon. After a while they got hungry and decided to head to ABC, the fast-food Chinese food restaurant up the hill from their neighborhood. As soon as Wes stood up, he stumbled back to the ground.
"Told you he would feel it soon," Woody said, laughing. Wes slowly rose again, this time making it to his feet, and shuffled along, trying to get his bearings.
The bike ride to ABC usually took around five minutes, but this time it took the boys almost twenty because of Wes's slow pace. Wes joked about it, putting on a charade around his friends, but it was the most uncomfortable and vulnerable he had ever felt. Once they entered the restaurant, Wes quickly sat down to avoid collapsing. The rest of his boys got in line to order their food.
"You see that girl over there!" Wes shouted to Woody, as Woody stood in line to order a carton of fried rice.
"What girl?" Woody responded, looking puzzled.
"The one right there, with the red dress." Wes pointed to the other side of the restaurant. "Honey is thick!"
Woody looked at Wes and then turned to look at the other guys. Once they caught one another's eyes, they started cracking up.
"Dude is tripping! No more bud for you, yo!" one of the boys said. It didn't hit Wes until a few seconds later as he cleared his eyes. The "girl" he was admiring on the other side of the room was actually a trash can. Wes was a lot higher than he thought.
After the Chinese food stop, Wes decided it was time to head home. He began the slow, painful journey back down the hill, his stomach still empty after he'd tried unsuccessfully to eat at the restaurant, his head aching from the THC now swimming through his body. Each revolution of the bike pedals was more painful than the last, and all Wes wanted to do was lie down and forget the morning. The barbecue was canceled. Lying in bed was the only thing on the agenda.
When Wes got to the house, his mother's boyfriend, who was living with them when he wasn't back home with his wife, was sitting in the living room, directly next to the front door.
"What's up, Wes, you're home early," Wes heard as he stumbled through the door. The television blasting in the background made Wes's head throb even more. He closed his arms around his head and rushed past his mother's boyfriend with a quick "hey," beelining it to his room. He was in bed with all of his clothes on and his pillow over his head when he heard a knock at the door. It was his mother's boyfriend checking on him.
"Please leave me alone. I'm fine, just a little sick," Wes yelled out, but his voice was barely audible through the pillow pressed tightly against his face.
The boyfriend knew exactly what was bothering Wes. He'd smelled the liquor as soon as Wes staggered through the door.
Hours later, when Mary walked into Wes's room, the high had begun to wear off, but Wes was still in bed, thinking about the day's events.
"How do you feel?" Mary asked, intentionally speaking loudly. She gave her son a sarcastic yet toothy smile.
"Please hold it down, Ma! I hear you just fine," Wes pleaded, feeling his head begin to pound again.
Mary laughed, watching him squirm. "Well, at least now you know how bad it feels and you will stay away from drinking," she said.
Wes now knew for sure how powerful drugs could be. He felt a strange sense of having passed a test, graduated to a new level of maturity. It was exhilarating. As he lay in bed, he realized how time seemed to stop when he was high, how the drug--smoking it, feeling its effects, recovering from it--made him forget everything else. And he understood, faintly, how addictive that feeling could be, and how easy it would be to make some money off selling that feeling to people who needed it.
As Wes placed the headset over his freshly cut fade and adjusted it, he remembered this story. The headset now fit perfec
tly. There was definitely money to be made.
Part II
Choices and Second Chances
"Happy birthday!"
Wes gave me a half smile. "Thanks, man, I almost totally forgot."
As the rest of the country celebrated independence, Wes spent his thirty-second birthday in prison. He's allowed to have visitors only on odd days of the year, so he was prohibited from seeing people on the Fourth of July. I visited a couple of days after his actual birthday.
When I arrived at Jessup that morning, my eyes flickered up to the sign mounted above the institution's steel front doors, the name of the prison--Jessup Correctional Institution--inked in bloody crimson. I stopped walking for a moment and stood in silence. It was midday. Over the towers of the prison the summer sun was high in the center of a cloudless sky. I looked up at the vast canopy of blue above, then took a deep breath, feeling the fresh air race through me. For the first time in a long time I was reminded of the daily miracle of my freedom, the ability to move, explore, meet new people, or simply enjoy the sun beating down on my face.
After going through the requisite security checks, I waited for Wes to walk into the waiting area. I studied the reunions taking place around me. One inmate, a young man seemingly in his early twenties, sat across from a woman with a baby squirming in her arms--he was apparently meeting his own child for the first time. His girlfriend complained that since the kid hadn't slept through the whole night since he was born, neither had she. Another inmate listened wide-eyed as his grandmother ran down a list of his friends from the neighborhood, updating him on what they'd been up to since he'd gone away. He hung on her every word.
When my conversations with Wes had begun years earlier, we'd said only what we thought the other wanted to hear. What the other needed to hear. But over time it was hard to keep up the act, and our conversations drifted toward an almost therapeutic honesty.