by Claude Brown
The bad nigger thing really had me going. I remember Johnny saying that the only thing in life a bad nigger was scared of was living too long. This just meant that if you were going to be respected in Harlem, you had to be a bad nigger; and if you were going to be a bad nigger, you had to be ready to die. I wasn’t ready to do any of that stuff. But I had to. I had to act crazy.
I had to stay straight with the cats I knew because I didn’t have anybody else, and I didn’t have anyplace else to go, unless I hung out over in Brooklyn, and in Brooklyn it was the same thing. You had to get into this thing with the whores, and sooner or later you had to use drugs, and sooner or later you had to shoot somebody or do something crazy like that. And I didn’t want to. I used to carry a knife, but I knew I couldn’t kill anybody with a knife. I couldn’t cut … the sight of blood used to do something to me. Dad used to carry a knife. Maybe that was why I was so scared of him. Every time I looked at that big scar on his neck where somebody had tried to cut his throat, it scared me. I never wanted a scar like that. But there was no place to go, and it seemed like all life was just closing in on me and squashing me to death.
Sometimes I used to get headaches thinking about it. I used to get sick. I couldn’t get up. And sometimes I’d just jump up out of the bed and run out and say, “C’mon, man, let’s go steal somethin’!” I’d get Turk, I’d get Tito, I’d get anybody who was around. I’d say, “C’mon, man, let’s go pull a score.” It seemed like the only way I could get away.
Sometimes I’d just play hookey from school and go down to the Wiltwyck office and see Papanek. And when he saw that I was feeling kind of bad about something, he used to tell me little stories.
Once I told him, “I don’t think I’m gonna stay on the street, Papanek, not for much longer. I don’t think I’ll see Christmas on the streets.”
I knew he really believed me, but he was trying to act like he didn’t. He said, acting jovial, “Claude, oh, you’re just being too pessimistic about it. If any boy from Wiltwyck can stay on the streets, if any boy is ready to come home and to get along in New York City in the school system and in the society of New York, it’s Claude Brown.”
He kept looking at me, and I got the feeling all the while that he was trying to see if I believed it and was going to gauge his belief by just how much of it I seemed to be believing. It made me smile at him, and I felt self-conscious about smiling at him, because at one time I’d thought he was funny or crazy, but I didn’t feel that way about him any more. I couldn’t afford to; he was all I had then.
He was the first person I ever wanted to do anything for. I wanted to stay out there so that Papanek would be right. I wanted to do this for him. I wanted to stay in the streets.
He would tell me things like, “Claude, you’re being pessimistic, and this is one way to lose out on anything. Did I ever tell you about two frogs who were sitting up on a milk vat and fell in?”
I said, “No, you never told me.”
He went on looking jovial and said, “Well, there were two frogs sitting on a milk vat one time. The frogs fell into the milk vat. It was very deep. They kept swimming and swimming around, and they couldn’t get out. They couldn’t climb out because they were too far down. One frog said, ‘Oh, I can’t make it, and I’m going to give up.’ And the other frog kept swimming and swimming. His arms became more and more tired, and it was harder and harder and harder for him to swim. Then he couldn’t do another stroke. He couldn’t throw one more arm into the milk. He kept trying and trying; it seemed as if the milk was getting hard and heavy. He kept trying; he knows that he’s going to die, but as long as he’s got this little bit of life in him, he’s going to keep on swimming. On his last stroke, it seemed as though he had to pull a whole ocean back, but he did it and found himself sitting on top of a vat of butter. “
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 feelin’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 and 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.
When 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 lighted alleyway; it was like being under a spotlight. Turk had already thrown the rock up about six times, an
d 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, I’m 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 on 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 that 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 messin’ 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 like 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 to 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’m 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 rights 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. You 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 ever 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—A1, A2, and on down to D1, 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 little 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 listening 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.