I'll always remember that story.
After that time in court when the judge gave us that same
chance all over again, I went home and stayed in the streets for a while, but I always had a feeling that something was going to happen. I knew that it was just going to be a little while till something happened and I wouldn't be here any longer.
One day. Mama came in the house. She'd had one of her feelings; she was always having them. She came running into the house when she came home from work this day, and she was hollering, "Sonny Boy, Sonny Boy!"
I came out of my room and said, "Yeah, Mama, what?"
She was breathing hard. She said, "Oh, I had one-a those feelin's. My eye was jumpin'."
I said, "Yeah, Mama you always havin' some kinda feel-m s.
She said, "I'm glad you here. Everything must be all right. Where's the other children?"
She always figured that if anything had happened to anybody, it would be me. Since I was in the house, everything must have been all right. After a while, she settled down, and we stopped talking about her feelings, then somebody came upstairs and told her she had hit the number.
We just forgot all about her feelings. I forgot about her feelings. Mama forgot about her feelings. Everybody did. She started concentrating on the number. This was the first time she'd had a hit in a long time. They bought some liquor. Mama and Dad started drinking; everybody started making a lot of noise and playing records.
I was just tired. I didn't want to be around it. I didn't feel as though it was really happening to me. I didn't feel like I really belonged there, so I just jumped up and ran out of the house.
First I went up to Trixie's house, but none of my fellows was there. Jackie was there, and she wanted to play, but I couldn't stand to be around her sometimes, and this was one of those times. I could have seen her all that day, because I didn't go to school, but instead of seeing her, I just stayed home and masturbated. I didn't want to be bothered with her. After not finding any of the cats up there, I decided to go up to Bucky's house to see if anybody was up there.
When I got up there, I saw Bucky and Turk sitting around the table playing cards. Earl was playing with them. Mac, Bucky's brother, had come in right after me. Turk asked Mac if he could play some records. Mac said the record player was broken and was in the shop. Mac's younger brother. Phew,
came out ancf said, "No, it ain't. It ain't in the shop. My Mama pawned it." ^We all had a little laugh and went on talking.
I kept walking around the room, and Earl said, "Why don't you sit down, Sonny?"
I said, "Like, fuck you," and this sort of thing, and we started arguing.
After a while. Earl wanted to show us how to play a card game called Strip Me. Nobody was interested in it, mainly because we knew that Earl liked guys. I wasn't interested in it, and Turk wasn't interested in it. I guess he didn't want to play with his brothers, so that was that.
After a while I said, "Come on, Turk, let's go git some sheets, git some money, and buy some reefers."
Turk said, "All right." He was always ready to pull any score.
Bucky got up then and said, "Can't I come, man?"
I said, "Sure, of course you can come, man. Why you wanna act like that?" He'd been acting kind of funny lately, as if I didn't want him coming around any more. I guess he was feeling that me and Turk were getting tight, that Turk was taking his place with me as being my best friend. Turk, Bucky, and I went down to the backyard to steal some sheets and some bedspreads. We could sell them for about three or four dollars and buy a bag of reefer. We'd roll up and get high and then go do something crazy—probably go spend the night up at Trixie's house playing with her and her sister.
Then we went in the backyard and got some spreads, and we sent Bucky to sell them to one of our customers. Turk and I went to get some more spreads. Turk tied a rock to the end of a rope and threw the rock up over the spreads to pull them down. Sometimes you could pull the whole line down that way. We were standing in a Ughted alleyway; it was like being under a spotlight. Turk had already thrown the rock up about six times, and the rock kept coming down and hitting the ground. Somebody had to hear it sooner or later.
I said, "Turk, look, let me throw it, man, 'cause I know how to do this. I'm good." I told him that I had done some shot-putting up at Wiltwyck.
But he kept saying, "One more time. Sonny. Just let me git one more chance. I know I'll make it this time."
I said, "Okay, man, this is the last time. 'Cause if you
don't make it this time, Vm gon take it and I'm gon show you how to git the spread down."
He started winding up the rope to throw it, but then he stopped all of a sudden and said, "Foot it, Sonny! Foot it!"
I said, "Like, what's wrong, man?"
He said, "Run!"
I wasn't the kind of guy who ran from just anything; I was going to know who or what I was running from. So I stood there for a while. Turk started running. Then I heard a shot, one shot. Blam! Then I saw some fire from a gun, and I started running. When I got about midway on the stairs leading up from the backyard, it seemed to just dawn on me. I said, "Oh, shit, somebody's shootin' at us." I kept on running. Then, after I had gotten out of the backyard, I don't know what happened but suddenly I knew I was shot. I didn't feel any blood right away; I didn't feel any pain; I didn't feel anything. All I felt was that I was slowing down. It was like something had a hold of me, and I knew it was a bullet.
I was scared. Turk started yelling, "Don't run! Don't run in there!" I didn't pay any attention to him. My mind was gone. I ran into this fish-and-chips joint, and I told Walsh I was going to die. I said, "Fuck it; like, this is it." This was the only way I was going to get out of Harlem. I just lay down there on the floor when Walsh pushed me off the counter. I said, "Well, this is it." I almost felt good until Mama came and started all that jumping. When Pimp came in and stood there in the doorway with tears in his eyes, I wanted to cry. I wanted to say, "O Lord, give me one more year; just give me one more year to git Pimp ready, 'cause he still needs me."
After I had copped out on the nut and the court sent me back to Youth House, Mr. Moore, my social worker from Wiltwyck, came to see me. He said he was sorry Wiltwyck couldn't take me back. The judge had asked them if I could go back to Wiltwyck, and Mr. Moore asked him if it would be all right for me to step outside. They put me outside while he answered, and I had a feeling thaf he'd said that they didn't want me up at Wiltwyck or that I'd raise too much hell there, so I was really mad at this cat.
He sat and talked about how he had really expected me to stay on the street for a long time. I wanted to say, "Look man, you can't let me go up to Warwick. Like, I'm scared. I
ain't got no business up there. I been messin' up on the street. I been messm' with people, and I been bullyin' cats. Like, I did some pretty mean things in those gang fights. I'd rather die now than go up there, because those cats will kill me."
But Mr. Moore just wasn't the kind of cat you could tell anything Uke that to. He was a real nice guy, the meaningless sort of nice guy—a nice guy who couldn't do anything for anybody.
So I said, "Yeah, well, that's all right, because I didn't want to go back to Wiltwyck anyway."
He looked down when I said that, and we both didn't say anything for a while, because we both knew it was a lie. It seemed like a long time before he said, "Well, do you want me to say anything to anybody up at Wiltwyck for you?"
I said, "Yeah, just tell 'em all I said good-bye."
I went back up to my room, and I thought. Oh, Lord, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do up at Warwick? There was no way out. I'd already gone to the nutbox and back, and all I could do now was go and face whatever was waiting for me up at Warwick.
That night, I couldn't go to sleep. I just kept thinking about it. The day before. Mama had been there and told me that Sugar had been around the house and was sorry that she couldn't see me. She'd given Mama a note to give me, but I didn't even want t
o read the thing. I said, "Mama, don't give me no note! Don't you understand I'm goin' to Warwick! Don't you know that niggers are waitin' for me up there to kill me!"
She kept saying, "Ain't nobody gon hurt you, 'cause they got guards up there."
And I looked at her and said, "Oh, Lord, this dumb-assed woman! Why do I have to be bothered wit her today!" I wanted to say, "Mama, look, go home. That's all I want you to do. Just leave. All I want you to do is just leave me alone. And don't cry for me and don't start prayin' for me and don't git no feelin's about me or nothin'. Just leave me alone!"
Mama just sat there quietly for a while. Then she said, "Jackie wanted to see you too, that little black nappy-headed girl down Eighth Avenue there."
I said, "Yeah, I'rn gonna miss Jackie.'*
She said, "I always knew you didn't have no sense. I just
can't understand why you like those old nasty-behind girls who don't wear no drawers and don't like a nice sweet girl like Sugar."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, Mama, you don't know as much about Sugar and her sweetness as I know. So don't tell me anything. You don't know that much about Jackie either. I guess you figure because she's real dark-skin and her hair's nappy, she don't wear drawers."
She said, "No, I don't figure that. I ain't got nothin' against dark-skin girls. I ain't never been color struck, and I never try to let none-a my chillun be color struck."
"Now, look, Mama, how can you go talkin' about the girl . . ."
She said, "Yeah, that's one-a the reasons you're here . . . because you won't listen to nobody. Boy, I don't know why your head's so hard."
"No, I ain't gon listen to nobody who don't know what they talkin' about, and you don't know nothin' about that girl. So how you gon be sayin' all that stuff you talkin'?"
Mama said, "Look, I know the girl don't wear no drawers!"
"Mama, how you know she don't wear no drawers? Just because she dark-skin and her hair's nappy?"
She said, "No, that's not the reason. I know she don't wear no drawers, 'cause if she ever wore drawers her dress wouldn't be stuck up in her behind all the time."
I said, "Oh, Mama, please, please, why you always talkin* about somebody and always goin' on crazy like this? Why did you have to come here anyway?"
When I said that, things got real quiet. After a while, I said, "I'm sorry, Mama, I'm sorry."
When you went to Warwick, you had to spend time in a reception center. They didn't put you with the other cats right away. They gave you all kinds of tests. You saw a psychologist. You got shots for smallpox, diphtheria, and anything else that you might catch. Then they showed you the procedures.
You learned how to get your clothes. Yqu learned how to clean up the cottage that they were going to assign you. You learned most of the ropes that you could learn before you got into a cottage. But you never really learned the ropes until you got with the cats who were up there and really knew the whole thing. The people who trained you tried to show you how to get along in the cottage and get out in a
hurry. But nobody ^ver made it. I never heard of anybody coming out the way, they showed you to at Warwick.
The reception center was a different setup altogether. You were kind of isolated. Usually there were only about twenty-eight boys in a reception center at the same time. While I was there for my two weeks, any time they took us out they would have some runners with us, some of the older cats from the D section. The cottages were divided into alphabetical sections—Al, A2, and on down to Dl, D2, D3, D4—and in the D section they had the older and the bigger cats.
One of the runners was a guy who lived in Brooklyn, but who used to live in Harlem. We were in the Youth House together before I went to Wiltwyck. It was good to see a familiar face. I remembered his name was Bishop. I knew he didn't remember me, so I didn't try to make him recall.
Bishop came in and said, "Man, who is Claude Brown?'* Everybody stood aside. We were outside doing our exercises, and there was nobody there but him and another cat from the D group to watch us. I guess they all figured he was going to job me. Nobody said anything, but cats started moving away from me. I got kind of scared too. Bishop was a big cat. He wasn't so tall, not much taller than I was, but he was stocky, and I remembered him from the Youth House. People didn't mess with him. He was real good with his hands. They said he had knocked a few cats out.
I stepped forward. He said, "Man, you Claude Brown?"
"Yeah, man, like, I'm the one."
He said, "A whole lotta cats up here have got it in for you, man."
"Yeah, I guess so."
He said, "It looks like I know you from somewhere."
"Yeah, man, we were in the Youth House together, about four years ago."
"Are you the Uttle cat who I told to punch Bullock in his mouth that time and you did?"
I said, "Yeah, man, like, I'm the one."
He said, "Damn, man, like, if you got the heart that you had back in the Youth House in those days, like, you gotta make it. You just, go out there when those niggers start comin' down on you—you just run out there as soon as somebody call your name and say, 'Who is Claude Brown?'
Like, you say, 'I am,' and run up and hit the biggest nigger first. Hit him first, and hit him as hard as you can."
I said, "Yeah," and I was listening. I was Hstening hard, but Bishop didn't know that I wasn't sure I could fight. I didn't know what would happen if I got punched in the stomach. I didn't know if I should hit anybody first or just try to stay away.
After I thought about it, it sounded like some damn good advice, because I knew they were going to kick my ass anyway. I knew it. I'd heard about the copper knives that the cats made in the sheet-metal shop. I could almost feel it. I knew somebody was going to try to knife me. I wouldn't mind getting shot again so much, but I was scared of knives. I didn't mind getting stomped. That shit was nothing new. I'd had my ass kicked good a lot of times, and I'd been hit in the head by just about everything. I'd even been thrown out of a window. Just about everything had been done to me but stabbing. I guess it was always that scar on Dad's neck that made me fear getting stabbed so much.
I made up my mind. When they came down on me, I was just going to hit the biggest cat and pray.
Warwick seemed to be a real nice place. April had something to do with it. It was a nice time of the year to be in the country. The place looked like it was maybe a farm or a summer resort.
I didn't get tight with anybody in the reception center. Mumbles and Charlie Tucker and the cats I had known in the nutbox started pulling away after they heard that a whole lot of bad cats were waiting to get me. They'd talk. They'd say, "Hi, man," and, "How you doin'?" but they wouldn't hang out.
The funny thing was that this Italian cat, Minetti, seemed determined to get tight with me. Every time smoking session came around after the meals, he'd come and sit down and want to talk to me. He would tell me about his girl. He would tell me about "that no-good, fuckin' Joe." Just about everything that came out of Minettl's mouth was "fuckin' " or "mother-fucker." He was a funny sort of guy. It was almost like watching somebody out of a comic book, and he used to talk with that funny kind of talk, like Louie, the iceman.
I couldn't seem to stop this guy from getting tight. A lot
of times I would catch myself and try to pull away from this cat. I thought, I know I can't be tight with this paddy boy when I get outta here; I'm gon have to find me some strong cats to get tight with, cats with reps. I knew that Minetti wasn't going to be any help. But if it hadn't been for him, I wouldn't have had anybody to talk to. Out of all the cats I knew at the reception center, he was the only one who wasn't scared that there were a whole lot of niggers waiting to get next to my head when I came out. So it just had to be that way. Everybody threw us together.
Sometimes this cat used to make me forget that I'd been shot only three or four months before. We'd start messing around, just joking and clowning. But somebody was always coming up and screaming on him. Minetti was good w
ith his hands, so cats would say, "Man, why don' you stop messin' with so-and-so?" They'd try to talk up a whole lot of ill feeling against him, I usually stayed out of it, I wasn't in too good fighting shape, at least I didn't think so. I just didn't know.
But one day Minetti started arguing with a boy named Freddie Bemar, Freddie was a loudmouthed guy. He was harmless, but he was a loudmouth. He was always messing with people, but everybody knew he couldn't do anything with his hands, so most people paid no attention to him. But this day, Minetti and I were sitting and talking at a table in the recreation room at the reception center. Freddie came in and started screaming at Minetti and saying, "Man, you took my cigarettes off the table."
Minetti just joked it off and started screaming at him playfully. Freddie came over and snatched a cigarette out of Minetti's mouth. When he did that, Minetti was kind of frozen. He didn't know what to do. He said, "Like, Freddie, what you doin', man? What's it all about? What's the matter?" This is the way he used to talk, with just a tiny bit of an Italian accent. When he got excited, he used to go real fast, and you couldn't understand whether he was saying "What's the matter?" or "What's-a what's-a what's-a?" Nobody understood Minetti as well as I did. It seemed as though he was going to cry in a minute, as though he wanted to say, "Well, Freddie, I don't bother you, and I wouldn't want to bother you; so, like, why, why would you come over here and snatch my cigarette outta my mouth like that and make me look bad?"
I started rising and I started feeling scared. I could al-
most feel a punch in the stomach already. But I saw all these cats crowding around Minetti, and I didn't dig it, because there were no other paddy boys in there with any heart, and this cat was all right with me. I wasn't going to see him stand alone, so I got up.
Manchild in the promised land Page 16