by Wes Moore
Wes looked to his right, saw a public phone booth, and began to move in that direction. As he approached the booth, he reached into his pocket and pulled out two dime bags of crack cocaine, twenty dollars' worth. He placed the small, clear, zipper-lock bags in the phone's metal-covered coin return bucket. He quickly scanned his surroundings, checking to see if anyone had seen his drop. When he felt sure that he'd been undetected, he moved toward the potential buyer.
It was a risk, and Wes knew it. But taking risks is at the heart of the drug enterprise, and scared money didn't make money.
"Hey, come here real quick," Wes yelled to the man, still wandering aimlessly around the block.
The man's head snapped up quickly. Wes looked him up and down again, desperate to recognize him and put his mind at ease. He couldn't. The man moved closer. Wes grabbed his right shoulder and pulled him in close. "I don't know who it was that told me, but if you give me twenty dollars, you can go over to that phone booth and they said you would be taken care of." The man nodded as his eyes met Wes's.
As Wes took the money, their hands touched briefly. The man's hands were smooth, and his nails were clean. Damn. It was time to get moving. Wes started walking, never looking back. He placed the twenty-dollar bill in his pants pocket and picked up the pace to the girl's house. He popped a breath mint in his mouth.
As he turned the corner, he heard a yell behind him. "Stop moving and get your hands up!" Wes kept walking. He looked forward, hoping they weren't speaking to him, hoping they'd just disappear. He maintained the same pace until he caught sight of two men running toward him.
Guns in hand and silver badges swinging from metal chains around their necks, the men pointed their weapons at Wes and ordered him to the ground. Wes saw another man, wearing a woodland camouflage shirt, crawling from beneath the bushes, reaching in his waist, and pulling out a weapon. In total, ten police officers moved toward Wes. He got down on his knees and laced his fingers behind his head.
"What did I do, man? I didn't do anything wrong," Wes pleaded with the cop who was reaching over to cuff him while the rest kept their weapons on him. Getting arrested was starting to feel routine. Wes wasn't shocked or afraid anymore, just annoyed. Why him? Why now? Why couldn't they just leave him alone? He had enough to worry about.
Wes continued to plead his case as the police read him his rights.
Ding, ding.
Two bells rang through the mess hall, signaling the corps of cadets to leave lunch and head back to barracks for their afternoon classes. At the sound of the bells, the corps moved en masse toward the cafeteria doors at the end of the building.
I stood up from my chair and ordered my platoon to "stand fast," or remain still, as I reminded them about the room inspection that was going to take place immediately after school. My platoon responded with a coordinated "Yes, Sergeant," and began to join the flood headed toward the door.
I was now a platoon sergeant, a cadet master sergeant, and the youngest senior noncommissioned officer in the entire corps. Three years ago I'd been one of the insubordinate kids first entering the gates of Valley Forge. In an ironic turn, I was now one of the ones in charge of them.
My mother had noticed the way I had changed since leaving for military school. My back stood straight, and my sentences now ended with "sir" or "ma'am." My military garrison cap was intentionally a size too big, forcing me to keep my head up, walking taller with every step. Our standard motto, "No excuses, no exceptions," and our honor code, "A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those that do," were not simply words we had to memorize but words to live by. With the support of people like Cadet Captain Hill and the others in my chain of command and on the faculty, I'd actually started to enjoy military school. They made it clear that they cared if I succeeded, and eventually so did I. The financial strain Valley Forge brought on my mother was lessened significantly after the first year, when the school gave me academic, and later athletic, scholarships.
On my way back to the barracks, I met up with my friend and "plebe brother" Sean. Sean, from a single-parent household in central New Jersey, had lost his father when he was young as well. We'd started Valley Forge at the same time and lived down the hall from each other. We were among the few still at the school from our plebe class. We were the "survivors," the "old men" who were on pace to go the long haul.
We stopped in the mail room. In my box were three letters, two branded with the logos of colleges, and one from Justin, my best friend back in the Bronx.
I was a starter on the Valley Forge basketball team, the only sophomore on the starting squad that year and the first sophomore starter in over five years. I was making a name on the court, and colleges were taking notice, writing to me fairly frequently. These two letters, from Lafayette College and Georgetown, were just the most recent.
I spent my summers at prestigious basketball camps like 5-Star Basketball and Eastern Invitational, camps where college coaches prowl, looking for fresh prospects. I was almost six feet tall at the time, with a quick first step, a passion for defense, and an okay jump shot. But I was cocky as hell. I would sit in my room and practice the "grip and grin" that would take place the day the NBA commissioner announced my name as the Knicks' first-round pick in the NBA draft. I would pantomime putting the hat on my head and work on just the right bland lines for the press: "Our team works hard in practice, and it pays off in the games." "When the game was on the line, my team put its confidence in me, and I am just thankful things worked out." "I believe we can beat any team on any given day, as long as we play our game."
One day a few months earlier, my uncle Howard took me out to shoot hoops at a park in the Bronx. I was telling him about receiving the recruiting letters from colleges, talking about how I knew I could make it to the pros. My uncle was still much stronger than I was and would use his size to post me up down low and then execute a quick turnaround hook shot or layup, reminding me that I wasn't quite in the NBA yet.
After he finished beating me, we sat next to each other on the side of the court and he started to spin the ball on his finger. "You know, your game is getting pretty good, and I hope you do make it to the league, then we would all be living nice," he said with a smile on his face. "But it is important that you understand that the chances are not in your favor, and you have to have some backup plans." I took the ball out of his hands, wanting to practice my midrange jump shot instead of listening to a lecture about my future prospects. I stood up, dribbled the ball from side to side, but never took my eyes off him, probably more to practice keeping my head up than for any other reason.
"Think about it, man. It's simple math. Only 60 players are chosen in the NBA draft every year. There are 341 Division One schools, each with 13 players on the roster. This makes 4,433 college players who could declare eligibility for the NBA draft. These numbers don't even include Division Two or Three players. Or international players, for that matter." My uncle had obviously been practicing this speech.
The dose of reality hidden in the impressive math exhibition was beginning to bother me, so I cut him off and asked him if he wanted to get another game going. A small smile appeared on his face again, and he pulled himself up using the metal fence that surrounded the court as support. I thought about him now, as I stared at the college seal on the top left corner of the envelope I held.
Next, I slipped my finger into the opening of the letter from Justin. Justin and I exchanged dozens of letters after I left the Bronx for Pennsylvania. I was one of the few outlets Justin had, and my leaving wasn't easy on either of us. We'd always been best friends, despite the urging of one of the deans at Riverdale, who'd once pulled Justin to the side and given him a stern warning: "Justin, you are a good kid, you need to stay away from Wes or you will end up going nowhere just like he will." Justin simply shook his head and ignored him. It amazed Justin how easily they would write off a twelve-year-old.
The letter opened with the normal trivial catching-up jokes, but it soon
became more serious. Two pieces of news took the wind out of me.
First, Shea had been arrested on drug charges. These weren't simply running or possession charges either. Possession with the intent to distribute was a charge of a completely different magnitude--with serious mandatory sentences. Justin hadn't seen Shea around the neighborhood in a while and, from the sound of it, was not sure when he would again.
The even more devastating piece of news was that Justin's mother was dying. We had noticed changes in his mother for a few years. She moved more slowly than usual and seemed just a beat off. Justin's mother had Hodgkin's disease, a rare form of cancer. The survival rate is around 90 percent for those who discover it early. Unfortunately, his mother was in the other 10 percent. With Justin's older sister away in college, and his father living in Harlem, Justin's role in the family was changing.
Justin was now spending his mornings with her at the hospital, his afternoons at school, then running to basketball practice and back to the hospital. His grades fell dramatically as the burden began to wear him down.
I was halfway through reading the letter when Sean's voice broke my concentration. "You ready, man? I got nothing." I took one final glance at the letter, then carefully folded it back into its envelope and put it in the cargo pocket of my camouflage battle dress uniform. Sean noticed the look on my face and said, "You all right, man? Everything okay?" I told him everything was fine, but a few seconds later I spoke up again. "Hey, Sean, do you ever think about what life would be like if we never came here?"
He looked at me quizzically. "I don't know. About the same, I guess."
"Yeah, I guess."
Even though I'd grown to love military school, I still had mixed feelings about being there, and they were eating at me. I wanted to be home, to talk to Justin after he left the hospital. I didn't know what I'd say, but at least I'd be there. I wanted to be there as my mother and Shani moved back to Maryland and Shani began high school. I remembered what Baltimore could be like, and I wanted to be there to protect Shani and help my mother through the move. I felt like being at military school was keeping me in a bubble, ignorant of what was going on with my people on the outside. There was a comfortable distance between my life now and the levels of confusion that had engulfed me just a few years ago. This uniform had become a force field that kept the craziness of the world outside from getting too close to me, but I wondered if it was just an illusion.
H Company was broken up into two platoons. I was the platoon sergeant for one of them, and a cadet named Dalio was the platoon sergeant for the other. In the Army, there is an old expression that the officers make the orders and the sergeants do all the work; this year, as a cadet platoon sergeant, I was learning how true that was. From the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed, my day was consumed with thinking about my platoon, taking care of them, making sure they were doing well in class, making sure things were fine at home, making sure the building was clean, and on and on, an exhausting litany. Saturday evening, after "Taps," Dalio and I put our guys down to sleep but still had a few hours of leave before we had to be back on campus.
"Want to go grab a stromboli?" Dalio asked. The stromboli is a staple in Pennsylvania cuisine, essentially consisting of a pizza folded on itself, a bread, dairy, and meat concoction held together with copious amounts of grease, classic adolescent comfort food. I was in.
We threw on our dress gray uniforms, including the gray wool pants that scraped every blade of hair off our legs and dark blue cotton shirts. I tightened the navy tie that accompanied the uniform--the tie was wrapped in the same knot I'd used as a freshman.
When you know how to get there, downtown Wayne is only fifteen minutes away from campus. We strolled down the barely lit street, gossiping about the antics of our platoons. About ten minutes into the walk, a red Toyota slowly drove up to us. Thinking the driver just needed directions or help navigating the dark, signless streets, we stopped and peered in. As the driver's window rolled halfway down, the sound of loud rock music and the smell of alcohol met us.
"What are you guys doing?" a slightly overweight teenager with unkempt black hair and a distinctive scar across the top of his forehead asked us.
"Nothing," I replied. Who is this guy? I wondered.
"Don't you mean 'Nothing, sir'?" A voice rang out from the backseat, but with the tinted windows, we couldn't see its source.
"Nothing, sir," I reflexively corrected myself, even without knowing who made the order. I was so accustomed to the rules and protocol on campus that it took me a second to realize I might be responding to the orders of some random drunk kids from town.
"I am Colonel Bose's son, and not only are you rude but your uniforms are in disarray. I am going to report you both." Dalio and I looked at each other, confused about whether this was a legitimate complaint or simply a prank.
Dalio realized the pizza shop would be closing soon, so he tried to end the conversation. "Well, you have our names, so do what you have to do," he said. The car sped away, leaving a trail of blaring music behind it. Dalio and I continued walking down the middle of the street, but our conversation now turned to the odd interaction we'd just had.
"What do you think?" Dalio asked me.
"Probably nothing. Just a bunch of idiots."
Suddenly a speeding car came roaring up behind us. We turned around with just enough time to jump out of the way as the red Toyota from before came within feet of running us both over. We lay there in complete bewilderment, unsure what to do next. The car slowed to a creep after missing us, like a confused predator who'd overrun his prey. Finally, the brake lights appeared. Dalio and I got off the ground, looked at each other, and broke into a sprint, running away from the car now sitting ominously a few yards from us. Just then, another car came down the street. Our drunk attackers were forced to keep moving.
Dalio looked at me and said, "What the hell are we supposed to do?"
That's when the kid from the Bronx started to elbow the cadet sergeant aside. "We keep going to get our pizza. They're done for the night, and if they aren't, we'll see them when they get out of the car," I told him. Dalio was not as convinced, but after kneeling behind a parked car for a few minutes and not hearing or seeing any sign of the red Toyota, he decided that I might be right. Besides, he was still hungry.
We picked up our pace as we walked in the shadows of the tree-lined sidewalks, now avoiding the center of the street. I felt like I was doing my speed-walk to the subway in the Bronx again. Every car that passed made our hearts stop. This was military school, I thought to myself. We were supposed to be protected from this kind of stuff.
We came to an intersection, one of the few lighted paths on our entire journey. Only two hundred yards away from our final destination. The quiet streets and passing minutes without incident had returned our focus to the oozing stromboli and not the Toyota. We were crossing the intersection when I heard a voice yelling.
"Go home, nigger!"
As I turned my head to see where the yell came from, a rock or bottle--something hard--slammed against my mouth.
"I just got hit," I yelled to Dalio, spitting out blood and pieces of tooth into my hand. My tongue searched my top row of teeth, scratching against my now sharp and jagged front tooth, while my mouth filled with blood. We realized the car had been sitting with its headlights off, waiting for us.
After their direct hit, they put on their lights and screeched off. Inside they were still screaming with laughter.
Going to the pizza shop was now off the table. We realized who the target was. I reached into my mouth and wiggled my loose tooth. We moved to a completely dark area behind a collection of bushes to regroup. Dalio, not panicking, said, "Bro, we have got to get back to campus, now."
My mouth was aching. I was beside myself with anger--and still confused. And embarrassed. Embarrassed to be called a nigger in front of my comrade. And embarrassed by my reaction. Because after being called a nigger and having my tooth broken, I'd
decided to flee back to campus. Should I have stayed there in the middle of the street, waiting for the boys to come back, somehow gotten them out of their car, and tested them blow for blow? Part of me was aghast when I decided that the answer was no.
I'd only waded into street life in the Bronx; I never got into its deepest, darkest waters. But I'd been around enough street cats to know the code: they hit you with a knife, you find a gun. And I didn't have to be a Black Panther to know that nigger was the ultimate fighting word. This was the kind of knowledge we understood, the kind of code that was so deeply fundamental it never had to be fully articulated. But I had to let this one go. I had to look at the bigger picture. My assailant was unknown, unnamed, and in a car. This was not a fair fight, and the best-case scenario was nowhere near as probable as the worst-case scenario.
If I was successful, who knew how the fight would've ended? If I failed, who knew how the fight would've ended?
I thought about my mother and how she would feel if this escalated any further. I thought about my father and the name he chose for me.
We sat silent for a moment, waiting for any movement or lights, but as we'd just learned, darkness and silence did not translate to safety. I told Dalio we had to get back to campus by a different route, one where there were no lights and no streets. I told him to follow me and began to run through a series of front yards to a dark, empty field about a quarter mile from where we started. Dalio was trying to ask me where we were going, but I never slowed or turned around to explain. We did not have time. Hiding behind trees and cars along the way, we systematically moved closer to our goal. The veil of security I thought the uniform provided had been lifted, and now we hustled in our black dress shoes and stained wool pants through dirty fields and grassy yards. Our hearts pounded under our navy blue shirts.
"Where are we?" Dalio asked again when we stopped behind a large rock, staring at the wooded landscape in front of us.