True Notebooks

by Mark Salzman

  “But it’s still wrong,” Benny said.

  Nathaniel looked at Benny as if he had just dropped in through the ceiling. “What is it with you, Wong? Why you always gotta do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Disagree with everything a nigga says! Just when I start to like you, you gotta turn into a disagreeable muthafucka all over again.”

  “I don’t disagree with everything. I’m just giving my opinion, that’s all. You don’t have to accept it.”

  All at once, everyone in the class needed to voice his opinion regarding whether Benny Wong was a disagreeable muthafucka. It seemed to take forever before I got them all to shut up—it was like trying to blow out trick candles on a birthday cake—and then I reminded them that the class was what they made of it. “I’m here to give you an opportunity to write what you want to write about, and say what’s on your mind, and be heard. You have a choice: you can use the opportunity to say things that really matter, or you can turn it into a cafeteria fight. It’s up to you. What do you want it to be?”

  Silence.

  Please, I thought, don’t let Benny Wong be the first to speak.

  Kevin came to the rescue. “Come on, guys, we gotta quit fucking around. Who reads next?”

  “One of the new guys,” Nathaniel suggested. “How about Martinez?”

  “I’ll go later.”

  Francisco gave him the look. “Naw, homes, you gotta go now. When your name’s called, you gotta step up.”

  Victor shrugged. “It’s not really about the topic, it’s just what was kinda goin’ through my mind as I was sittin’ here.”

  Something really beautiful that has always come in my path through life is the birds. They are so beautiful. Their beauty has taught me a lot, almost enough to find out how beautiful being alive is. For example, the birds people have as pets, they never give up on themselves because even though they are in cages they still sing. They have happiness. They are locked up just like us, but they still enjoy their lives just as if they were free.

  Birds are so beautiful, because most of the time they travel in bunches and they stick together, not like humans. They have a hidden beauty that most of us never pay attention to, because we are so blocked out of the wonders of nature and other very important things that might help us go through life easier.

  “I like that,” Francisco announced. “That part about the birds singin’ even though they in cages, that’s cool. OK, Martinez, you can stay in the class. Wong, let’s hear what you wrote.”

  Benny didn’t seem nervous at all. He held up his sheet of paper and read in a matter-of-fact voice:

  Who am I really? I am a seventeen-year-old Chinese male that came to the United States five years ago. My name is Benny Wong. That’s only a simple description of me. I want to tell you who I really am, but I don’t even know who I really am yet.

  The “me” before I got locked up wasn’t the real me. I just put on a mask so I could be accepted and also to stop people from picking on me.

  Now that I’m in jail, I can’t show the real me and I really don’t even know the real me. I guess I’ll just wait until I have freedom; freedom to explore myself—who I really am.

  “I can definitely relate to that,” Kevin said. He’d been subdued for most of the hour, but now he was rocking in his chair and drumming with his pencil on his thigh. “The part about not even knowing who the real me is. That’s my life, right there.”

  Kevin’s response to Benny’s essay set the tone for the rest of the group; they refrained from any teasing. Nathaniel looked impatient, however. He wanted to read, obviously, but appeared to be waiting for someone to ask him.

  “Who would like to go next?” I asked, watching Nathaniel out of the corner of my eye. He was trying to look disinterested, but the muscles in his jaw twitched.

  “How about you, Hall?” Kevin suggested, smiling. “Don’t be shy.”

  Nathaniel went through his usual ritual of checking to make sure he had enough room on either side of him.

  “I call this ‘That Life I Lived’—and this is the live version, uncut and uncensored.”

  “Kick it, Hall.”

  “I’ma kick it right now.”

  I was supposed to be in school that day but I chose to go to the hood anyway. I was there for a couple of hours getting blowed. I smoke two blunts and drank a forty-ounce to the neck. After a while I was hungry, since I didn’t have a dime to my name and it was close to noon. I decided to go to school. . . .

  I reach my school with no problems. I got to the door and realized no one was there, only a few staff. I asked what was up. They told me there was no school today. I got mad because they called my house to tell me to come to school but they didn’t call my house to tell me I don’t have to come. I just told them to give me a bus token so I could get home which I didn’t need but I’d sell it to the homie and get something to eat.

  I come out of my school and started the short walk back to the hood. I only walked a block when the whole episode started. I was walking, not paying attention to my surroundings even though I knew I had to cross through Blood territory to get home. When I reached the end of the block I noticed a car pass. Not looking up but waiting for the car to pass so I could cross the street when I noticed the car had stopped. I looked up and saw the people in the car just looking at me. I noticed that each of the three people in the car had on at least some red.

  I suddenly realized what I had on. A blue sweater with a blue and gray Charlie Brown shirt on top of that. And if that didn’t convince them of where I was from, I also had on blue gloves.

  Realizing my situation, I say the only thing I could think of. “What’s up, brotha.” I didn’t see him open the door. I didn’t see him get out but I did feel him hit me. I made a motion as if to hit him and he stepped back surprised at my aggressiveness, but right before my hand would have reached his jaw I took off running towards my hood.

  Not even a half of a block away I turned around, hopped up in the air, and banged my hood. I also disrespected everything they stood for.

  The car followed me and ran up on the sidewalk where I was running. I hopped up on the hood of the car so I wouldn’t get run over. I took that time to throw up my hood to the people driving. The car almost ran into an electric pole but it stopped. The man who hit me was out chasing me. He was kinda tall so every eight steps I take was one of his. He caught me fairly quick and swung on me and I fell down. He tried to kick me but I was rolled up.

  I got up but I was too tired to swing. It seemed like I was done for but I heard a siren. The person who I was squared off with thought it was the police so he ran back to the car and was about to leave when the ambulance that was making the noise came into view. I thought he was going to come back after me but he just pointed at me as if to say, “You’re lucky,” and I pointed back at him as if to say, “You’re lucky too.”

  They drove off and I looked at myself. My clothes were torn and so were my gloves. I walked the rest of the way to the hood thinking, That’s just a part of that life I live.

  Nathaniel tossed his writing pad onto the table and waited for the ovation that usually followed his readings, but this time, none came. Perhaps they felt that since no guns were fired in the incident, it was nothing to brag about—or maybe, like me, they found it more annoying than dramatic. In any case, the room stayed quiet and Nathaniel fumed. I asked him if he felt differently about the gangster life now that he was incarcerated.

  “Nope! The day I get released, I’ll go right back to bangin’. Only I’ll be better at it, ’cause I’ll have had years of advanced study. Didn’t y’all hear? I’m goin’ to tha pen—that’s graduate school on full scholarship, for y’all who don’t know.”

  “But aren’t you tired of it by now, Nathaniel? Bad enough that you’re locked up now, and you’ve said yourself that it will only get worse—what’s the point of all that violence if it doesn’t lead to anything?”

  “He’s right, homes,” Franci
sco said. “We fightin’ over streets we don’t even own.”

  “Streets got nothing to do with it. If it was about streets, a nigga would fight for better streets, not those pot-holed, dirty-ass alleys in the ’hood. It’s about respect. You gotta get it somehow, and you ain’t gonna get it by gettin’ A’s in English or flippin’ burgers. In the ’hood, you only get respect one way: by bein’ fearless, bein’ aggressive, and makin’ more money than any other muthafucka out there.”

  “That’s three ways.”

  “Shut up, Wong.”

  The room fell silent again. Nathaniel yawned. “Hey, I never said bangin’ solved any problems. All I’m sayin’ is, it’s real for me. Until you walked in my shoes, I don’t believe you or anybody else can judge me.”

  “God can,” Francisco said.

  “That’s right, but God has the whole file, not just the police report. That’s a case I’ma win.”

  “We only got time for one more,” Kevin said, “they’re setting up for lunch already. Mine’s no good, so who’s it gonna be—Wu or Chumnikai?”

  Jimmy shook his head. “I couldn’t think today.”

  “I guess it’s me,” Patrick said. “Mine’s about the first time I got busted. Do you—”

  “Damn!” Nathaniel interrupted, giving Francisco the highfive sign. “I can’t even remember the first time I got busted! I musta been like eight.”

  “Shhh!”

  “Same here, homes. The cops threatened to suspend me from school! I was like, ‘Go ahead!’ So they hauled my ass in here.”

  Patrick cleared his throat, but Nathaniel pretended not to hear it.

  “When I came to the halls, they put me in with the older homies, man, and I was like—‘Hey, what the fuck you doin’? I’ma get killed in here. ’ ”

  “A little respect, please,” Patrick said.

  “Nathaniel, Francisco—quiet down please.”

  “Not me, I liked bein’ in with the big homies. They made me their little messenger and shit. I was so happy! The older homies were like, ‘Don’t end up like us.’ And I was like, ‘Hell yeah, I’ma come back here first chance I get, this is fun.’ ”

  “That’s ’cause you—”

  “SHUT . . . THE FUCK . . . UP!” Patrick yelled.

  “Damn, Chumnikai! The staff gonna hear you! Don’t burn the spot!”

  “Uh-oh . . . here comes Sills.”

  Mr. Sills crossed the dayroom, shoved open the door to the library, then said . . . nothing. The look on his face did the talking for him. He stared at each of the boys one at a time, then asked, “What’s going on in here?”

  The boys kept their eyes on the table.

  “I asked a question and I expect an answer. What is going on in here?”

  “It’s my fault,” I said. “I’m not keeping things on track today.”

  Mr. Sills wouldn’t even look at me. “I didn’t ask you. I’m asking them. These writers.”

  Kevin was the only one who dared to speak. “Things got a little outta hand.”

  Mr. Sills nodded. He finally turned to me, and his expression did not soften. “If you can’t control your class, we can’t let you continue.”

  “I understand.”

  “Are you finished for today?”

  “We have one more person who’s supposed to read.”

  “Well, let that person read, and that’s it.” He looked at the boys again. “You think just because I let you meet in this library means you can do whatever you want? Think again. This is a privilege, and if you can’t handle it, I’ll take it away from you in a second.”

  He stared everyone down some more for emphasis, then returned to his office.

  Part of me was crushed that the good impression I had made on the staff was now ruined, but another part of me was ecstatic: Hooray for Mr. Sills! How I wished I had that kind of presence. The boys were all subdued now, hanging their heads, eager to display their best behavior.

  “Should I read now?” Patrick asked.

  He was asking my permission! Nathaniel’s mouth was still shut! Hooray for Mr. Sills!

  “Go ahead.”

  Patrick had written about the first time he was arrested, when he was fifteen years old. His father had left the family by then and his mother never came home that evening, so he spent the night at the police station.

  . . . I stayed from 11:00 p.m. until 8:30 a.m. They said they would put me in juvenile hall, but my uncle came and picked me up just in time. I got a long lecture from my cousin, but my mom didn’t care. She’s cool! I vowed that the “first time” I got locked up would be the last . . . but it wasn’t.

  As soon as Patrick finished, the group rose and filed out silently for lunch. Nathaniel lingered, pretending to search the bookshelves while I gathered the pencils and pads of paper. When only the two of us were left, he muttered, “I gotta find a good book. There’s gotta be something good in here.”

  I paid no attention to him. When I had cleared the table, he waved dismissively toward the collection of books and leaned against the shelves. “So what you gonna do now? Go home for lunch?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You ain’t mad at us, are ya? ’Cause of all that talking?”

  “I didn’t enjoy today, Nathaniel.”

  “We just restless, that’s all. It’s not ’cause we don’ like you, you know that.”

  I knew he was only flattering me, but I appreciated the fact that he was trying to make amends. “How you feel about me isn’t the issue. I don’t like sitting there while you guys screw around like that, it’s a waste of everybody’s time.”

  “Raggin’ on each other is how we keep from goin’ crazy in here, that’s all. It’s a way of releasin’ tension.”

  “You weren’t releasing any tension, you were creating it. Why did you have to do that today, of all days? When we had two new guys in the class?”

  He looked aggrieved. “Why you puttin’ it all on me? Everybody was doin’ the same shit.”

  “Give me a break.”

  He used his forearm to even out a row of book spines. “OK, I’m immature, I admit it. Why you think I’m in this place?” He brushed the dust off his sleeve. “Anything else you wanna bust on me for? Now’s the time, while I got remorse. You think I never been kicked out of something before? Didn’t I write about it last week? You think I fuck everything up on purpose?”

  My resolve to suspend him from the class weakened. “You’ve got a lot of talent, Nathaniel, but you’re wasting it with all of that screwing around. What can I say to convince you to take yourself seriously?”

  Nathaniel looked miserable. He stared at the floor as if fighting back tears. “I need encouragement, not criticism,” he said.

  “All right, then. I’ll do my best, I promise. All I ask is that you make an effort, too.”

  He looked up from the floor, and I saw right away that he had not been fighting back tears at all. He was concealing a grin. “I gotta tell you, man—you’re way too nice for a place like this! You gonna get played here, over and over. Only it won’t be by somebody like me, who tells you you bein’ played. It’ll be somebody who really plays you, for somethin’ that matters, and then nobody’ll respect you. You need me, man. You need the practice.”

  14 / A Day of Creation

  After Mr. Sills’ memorable visit to the library, the class ran smoothly for weeks. Nathaniel didn’t provoke anyone, Francisco didn’t talk out of turn, and no one picked on Benny Wong. Meanwhile, our upcoming retreat gave the boys something to look forward to: a whole day spent outside their cells, the chance to present their work to a wider audience, and the opportunity to be around girls. Preparing for it became a common goal to work toward, and the boys responded with a flood of essays and poems.

  At our last class before the big event, I gave them a pep talk. I emphasized the significance of the retreat, and told them to be proud of what they had achieved so far. They received my speech with enthusiasm, but indicated that I had left something
important out.

  “We’ll be the best group, though, right?”

  “We won’t let you down, Mark!”

  “K/L rules! We’ll kick everybody else’s ass!”

  “The hinas are gonna want to sit at our table, not with those other fools!”

  I reminded them that the retreat was not a competition. It was to be a gathering of fellow artists, a celebration of creative aspiration, a festival of unity, and so on—but they wouldn’t have any of it.

  “Hey Wu—you gotta cut my hair on Friday, homes.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “Listen up! I figured out a way to crease our pants using the hot plate.”

  “Jackson, you gotta get some Scotch tape from the pantry. That way we can make cuffs.”

  “Mark, you got any tricks about what to do if you get, like, nervous up there? I don’ wanna get stage fright or nothin’.”

  “You better not, homes, or you’ll make the rest of us look bad.”

  “That’s why I’m askin’, fool!”

  “Hold on—we ain’t even thought about the females. What if they got some, you know, romantic poems and shit? How we gonna deal with that?”

  “Wu got his poem about the wet dream, that’ll do it.”

  “It wasn’t a wet dream, fool. You’re the one who has those.”

  I suggested we conduct a “dress rehearsal.” I had each of the boys stand up at the head of the room and read while imagining a gymnasium full of people staring at him. This gave me the opportunity to offer some advice about how to present themselves to an adult audience:

  “Slow down, Nathaniel, it’s not a race to get to the end.”

  “I ain’t readin’ fast! It’s my normal pace!”

  “That’s how it sounds to you because you know the material so well. You have to remember—everybody on Saturday will be hearing it for the first time, and they need time to let the meaning sink in.”

  He nodded and looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “I hear you. We wanna make sure everybody can appreciate my philosophy on every possible level.”