scouts at some random (or
maybe not so) game. I have
to play brilliantly every time.
Andre Marcus Kane III
Bomb
Give most girls a way
to describe me, that’s what
they’d say—that Andre
Marcus Kane the third is
bomb.
I struggle daily to maintain
the pretense. Why must it be
expected—no, demanded—of
me
to surpass my ancestors’
achievements? Why
can’t I just be a regular
seventeen-year-old, trying to
make
sense of life? But my path
has been preordained,
without anyone even asking
me
what I want. Nobody seems
to care that with every push
to live up to their expectations,
my own dreams
vaporize.
Don’t Get Me Wrong
I do understand my parents wanting only
the best for me.
Am one hundred percent tuned to the concept
that life is a hell of a lot more enjoyable
fun with a fast-
flowing stream of money carrying you
along. I like driving a pricey car, wearing
clothes that feel
like they want to be next to my skin.
I love not having to be a living, breathing
stereotype because
of my color. Anytime I happen to think
about it, I am grateful to my grandparents
for their vision.
Grateful to my mom for her smarts,
to my father for his bald ambition,
and, yes, greed.
Not to mention unreal intuition.
My Grandfather
Andre Marcus Kane Sr. embraced
the color of his skin,
refused to let it straitjacket
him. He grew up in the urban
California nightmare
called Oakland, with its rutted
asphalt and crumbling cement
and frozen dreams,
all within sight of hillside mansions.
I’d look up at those houses, he told
me more than once,
and think to myself, no reason why
that can’t be me, living up there.
No reason at all,
except getting sucked down into
the swamp. Meaning welfare or the drug
trade or even the cliché
idea that sports were the only way out.
Identical Page 33