by Carl Hart
Indeed, smoking freebase cocaine made at home from powder had already become popular years before it started being brilliantly marketed as crack—often, unintentionally, through media scare stories that hyped the intensity of the high—as an entirely new drug. Only a few years earlier, Richard Pryor’s infamous 1980 freebasing accident had drawn national attention to the practice of converting powder cocaine into smokable form. On June 9 of that year, the comedian was severely burned across half his body.
Initial reports claimed that he’d been set afire when a batch of freebase he was processing with the anesthetic gas ether exploded. That’s quite plausible: ether is highly flammable and this manner of making cocaine base has great risk if people try to smoke near the ether. Then nearing the peak of his popularity, Pryor and his injuries became the subject of intensive media coverage.
As a result, freebasing instantly moved from being a fringe practice that few people in mainstream America had heard of to one that was seen as extremely dangerous. That helped prompt many freebasers to stop using ether and switch to the far less dangerous “baking soda” technique for making freebase. In this method, cocaine and baking soda are simply dissolved in water and heated until cocaine crystals form, making a distinctive cracking sound. No potentially explosive chemicals are involved. In fact, many believe that the “crack” made when cocaine crystallizes is the source of the name for the drug that is produced.
And so, crack cocaine began being sold as a ready-made product when dealers realized they could industrialize the freebase production process using this safe and easy baking soda method. The cheaper prices caused by the cocaine glut probably led to experimentation with new products and marketing ideas; the Pryor incident conveniently also raised awareness of the danger of the ether method. Crack may have been the ultimate result. My four years in the air force—from 1984 to 1988—coincided with the introduction and rapid spread of crack cocaine across the country. My home leaves during those years gave me snapshots of how the drug affected my neighborhood, although I first seriously misinterpreted what I saw.
During my first leave in 1984, I started to hear more and more about freebase. The first time I’d ever heard people talk about it had probably been when I was in high school. There was a set of twins who lived in the projects near me; I didn’t know them well but I’d occasionally smoke reefer with them. Getting high one time, they told me to steer clear of freebase. “It’s too good, man,” one said. “Yeah, you can snort it but don’t smoke it,” his brother concurred. “That shit’s not for rookies; it’s just too powerful.”
At that time, in line with my desire to always be in control, I had no interest. I didn’t like the idea of not being able to stop doing something. The notion of an experience that overwhelming didn’t sound at all attractive to someone who placed the emphasis I did on self-control. I wasn’t even slightly curious. Back then, though—other than what I’d heard about Richard Pryor—I didn’t see anyone I knew suffering serious negative consequences from cocaine. The guns and the risk of violence related to having a beef with someone were the same as they’d always been. That wasn’t new.
So, cocaine use was definitely becoming popular by the time of my 1984 Christmas visit, and I heard some talk about it that year. There were rumors about a guy named Ronnie, who had always been known in the neighborhood for having the nicest ride. It was a Monte Carlo, sky blue, with a crystalized paint job that reflected the light just right. He had Trues and Vogues, which were the most coveted rims and tires. Ronnie put everything he had into that car; to say he loved it would be an understatement. Everyone who knew Ronnie knew about his car.
But the story was now that his ride was gone: “in the pipe,” they said. The ride went in the pipe. Ronnie’d started smoking base and he’d stopped caring: that was the narrative. The Monte Carlo had gone up in smoke, along with his job and virtually everything else that had once defined him. “That shit’s too good, man,” was the way people phrased it. Ronnie’s story supported the idea that smoking cocaine took you down, an idea I took on board with little critical thought.
Indeed, even though I smoked reefer myself, it never even occurred to me to question the military’s drug-testing policy. Sure, I worried about being caught and I tried to minimize the potential consequences I’d face if it happened to me, but I accepted the idea that illegal drugs were bad and thought that expelling people from the service for using them was appropriate.
I alternately got high with Keith and his homeboys and discoursed with Mark about black consciousness. I took classes and began taking them seriously—but also stole movies from Gate 2 Street every week. My behavior was in transition: I was not quite yet a serious student, nor was I a complete fuckup. The balance could still shift in either direction.
In early 1986, I received word that Big Mama had suffered a stroke. She’d survived but wasn’t expected to live long. The air force allowed compassionate leave in such situations. But at first I refused to take one: for some reason, I think, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that her death was really imminent. I didn’t want to even consider the idea.
I also had just six months left in my tour of duty in Japan, and I didn’t want to fly twenty-four hours straight home only to have to do it again a few days later to return to a country that I hated. My first sergeant told me, “You’re going to regret this.” He insisted that I’d be really unhappy if I didn’t visit the woman who played such a big part in raising me, to say good-bye to her.
To ensure that I complied, he promised to arrange for me to be sent to my next assignment rather than back to Okinawa if I agreed to go home. And he kept his word. I flew back to Miami, wondering all the way if I was actually going to be able to see my grandmother alive. When I got there, Big Mama was barely holding on in the hospital. She couldn’t speak and her face was all twisted up. She was in a terrible state.
Trying to protect me, my mother and sisters didn’t let me get close to her: in my family, death was the business of women and they thought it would be too much for me to spend real time with her. I was at least able to pay my respects before she died. Moreover, the fact that she’d spared me another six months in Japan left me feeling pretty grateful. I was also happy to be back home.
Soon after she died, I heard from my commanding officer. He had good news: if I wanted, I could continue my service at home, in Miami at Homestead Air Force Base. Alternatively, I could go to England and start fresh in another foreign country. I felt inclined to stay.
Home was feeling comfortable to me again after a couple weeks; my girlfriends and friend-girls were welcoming and warm. After the lack of female companionship I’d suffered through in Japan, that was a relief and a joy. I felt nurtured and needed; I’d missed this so much. Why take the risk that another duty station might be as dissatisfying as Japan had been?
Since I hadn’t spent any alone time with my father in a while, I went to find him. I wasn’t looking for any particular guidance; I just hadn’t visited with him yet. He’d always spent weekends drinking on the corner with his friends, so I went down to Seventy-Ninth Street and Twenty-Second Avenue and asked one of the guys if he had seen Carl Hart.
“Dunno, man,” he said, coldly.
After having spent damn near twenty minutes asking several other people, I went back to the first one and said, “Yo, I’m his son Carl Jr.”
Now his eyes lit up. Because of my military bearing and haircut, he hadn’t recognized me. He’d thought I was Five-O, the police looking to harass my father. He directed me to Carl. After catching up a bit, I told him about my situation and my choice of assignments. I said I was leaning toward staying in Miami.
I talked about being there for my family and some other bullshit.
But my father wasn’t having it. He looked me right in the eye, knowing well the real reason for my choice. I continued my story about responsibility and helping out after Big Mama’s death. He stopped me. Carl didn’t often give me advice, but he felt that he ha
d to speak up now.
“Junior,” he said, “pussy is everywhere.”
He had instantly discerned my reason for wanting to stay. I was getting way too comfortable back home, possibly setting myself up to fail by being sucked back into the life I already knew, rather than moving on and at least trying something different. He knew all too well how easy it was to lose sight of your goals and drift aimlessly.
“You don’t have to get it here,” he said.
I just nodded. I didn’t want him to know that he’d precisely pinpointed my motives. But over the next few days I thought about what he’d said and realized that he was right. The balance was back in favor of my success in college, which would truly begin in England.
CHAPTER 9
“Home Is Where the Hatred Is”
I came to the place of my birth, and cried, “The friends of my youth, where are they?” And an echo answered, “Where are they?”
—ANONYMOUS ARAB SAYING
Sir, we pulled you over because your taillight isn’t working properly,” the police officer said. He added, cordially, “We just wanted to let you know.”
I had been driving into one of England’s ubiquitous “roundabouts,” which are similar to American traffic circles. I was on my second overseas assignment at Royal Air Force Base Fairford, in Gloucestershire, England. I was in my light green 1980 BMW 320; I’d purchased the car shortly after I arrived in the United Kingdom because I needed my own transportation to live off-base. It was around midnight on a summer or autumn evening in 1986 and I was on my way home from hanging out with friends to change into my uniform and work a night shift in the base computer room, where I was responsible for disseminating base supply reports. As always, it was drizzling.
The cops asked to see my license. While I was handing them the appropriate documents, one of them smelled alcohol on my breath.
“Have you been drinking, sir?” he asked, still respectful.
I admitted that I had had a pint, and complied as he administered a Breathalyzer test. I wasn’t too worried that I’d fail: I knew that I wasn’t intoxicated. Indeed, I blew well below the level that indicates any sort of impairment and the officers simply thanked me and let me go.
As I drove away, though, I suddenly realized that something was missing. I felt okay; my heart rate was pretty much normal. There was no dry mouth or sigh of relief. I’d just had an encounter with police that had involved very little tension or fear. It was peculiar.
The police hadn’t flashed their lights at me; they hadn’t stiffened or puffed themselves up when they saw that I was black. They’d been kind and respectful, not assuming that a black man in a nice car must be a drug dealer or some other sort of criminal. Even when they smelled alcohol on my breath, they did not become confrontational or judgmental and assume I was drunk. While my military ID might have helped, I’d still been treated like an ordinary person, not a second-class citizen or sketchy foreigner. I’d never had such an experience.
I thought back on a traffic incident I’d had with Florida police, which had also occurred late at night, in this case when I’d first returned home after boot camp in 1984. That had been completely different. Alex, my high school friend, had been driving his hideous brownish orange Pinto. I was in the front seat. The car—yes, it was the type that had been recalled for the minor problem of being at risk for exploding if rear-ended—was at least ten years old and probably looked twice that.
We’d pulled into a convenience store parking lot: in fact, it was that same old U’Tote’M that we’d frequented growing up. The shop was garishly lit, which usually meant it was open. Just after we’d stopped, Alex came around to my side of the car. He was carrying a large screwdriver, which was required to pry the dented door open so that I could get out. But we soon discovered that there was no reason to get out: the store was actually closed.
Just then, two cop cars pulled up and whooped their sirens at us, blinding us with their lights.
“What you boys doing here?” one of the officers drawled, full of undisguised contempt.
I produced my military ID, figuring that this might turn the situation around. After all, I was now part of the American security team, just like them, as I saw it. Alex simultaneously tried to explain about the problem with the car door. However, rather than placating the officers, this seemed only to antagonize them. Although I knew we’d committed no crime, I was flooded with apprehension. Everyone knew the many ways this situation could go terribly wrong. Images of police brutality flashed through my mind.
One cop said, “Where’s your state ID; you know you’re supposed to carry state ID.” I wanted to say that military ID was a federally recognized form of identification and should be respected, but I could tell by this point that the best thing to do was to keep my mouth shut.
Meanwhile, the officers remained fixated on Alex’s screwdriver. “What y’all doing around here?” they asked again. “You gettin’ ready to open that door?” The implication was that we’d stopped at a store that we knew was closed in order to break in.
Fortunately, because they had nothing on us, they let us go after only a few minutes of disrespectful, condescending treatment. Then Alex laughed at my naïveté. He said, “You thought that military shit was going to help, air force boy. That shit don’t work.”
That same humiliating scene, which I and countless other brothers had been through before, would be poignantly described a few years later in Ice Cube’s verses on N.W.A.’s 1988 “Fuck Tha Police.” Cube’s angry but brilliant analysis describes how the police routinely harass young black men mainly because of their race and gear, which may fit some stereotypical view of how drug dealers and criminals dress.
Driving home that night in England, I thought about how different things were there. My second foreign post had been an eye-opening experience, in more ways than one. Although I’d begun my college career in Japan—and had also had my first real exposure there to ideas about black consciousness and politics—it was in Great Britain that I really began to become knowledgeable about the profound effects of race in the United States and what it meant to be a black man from my background. I’d always known that shit was fucked-up, of course. But I hadn’t had clear, precise language to describe it or to understand how best to fight back.
Having been schooled by Mark in Japan, I now schooled the younger brothers in England. And, as any good educator will tell you, convincing others of the superiority of your arguments is often the best way to master them and to fully convince yourself, too. In Great Britain, I used the social skills and leadership potential I’d developed during my youth to turn other guys on to Gil Scott-Heron and Bob Marley. I immersed myself in their music and studied their lyrics hermeneutically. They became my holy texts.
On the BBC, I watched documentaries like the PBS series Eyes on the Prize, learning more about the history of the civil rights movement and the real stories of the people behind the fight against segregation and other forms of discrimination. I also saw Cry Freedom and participated in actions opposing financial investments in South Africa, to help bring down apartheid. I began to regret having missed the activism and consciousness-raising of the 1960s and early ’70s.
Ironically, as I began lamenting having been born too late to join the Black Panthers or protest the Vietnam War, I was unaware that a new assault on black people was being launched back home. That was Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs.
Getting ready to go out and party in England while in the air force.
In 1986, in the United States there were isolated protests against Reagan—and in the United Kingdom, a much more visible revolt against Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher—but it all seemed pale in comparison with what I’d missed during the black power years. I didn’t realize what was going wrong at the time in the States.
But being in England did give me a vital distance from which to analyze America. Though Britain was no prejudice-free paradise, its obsession with class and its early ab
olition of the slave trade made its racial politics different from ours. I wasn’t constantly facing people who dismissed me before they’d even talked to me there. And English white women certainly didn’t view black men the way American whites did in Miami. In fact, American military personnel—including blacks—were seen as having good jobs and greater opportunities than were available to the British working class. Our economic prospects were viewed positively, which was far from the case in South Florida.
Back home, one of the most conspicuous forms of racism I’d observed was related to interracial romance, particularly between blacks and whites. So when I started to date Anne, a tall, soft-featured brunette whom I met about three months after I arrived in England, I was especially aware of our respective races. As a boy, I’d always had to hide the brief encounters I’d had with white girls in high school and junior high. It was clear to me that seeing them publicly would bring nothing but trouble, so I stayed away. If I’d been on the street or in a store with a white girl in Miami, we would have run a gauntlet of stares and muttered remarks or worse. However, in London and even in smaller British towns, no one seemed to care. I moved in with Anne not long after we met.
And although she felt she had to diligently work to prepare me before she thought I’d be ready to meet her parents, her concerns about how they’d see me were about class markers, not race. Anne came from the British upper middle class. She was seen to some extent as the family fuckup because she didn’t go to university. Her father was an aviator for the sultan of Oman and her parents spent most of their time in that country.