Yeah. I was a stone mad militant. Didn’t know what I was saying half the time and wasn’t sure what I wanted, but I was out there screaming and hollering and waving my arms around and didn’t take no shit from nobody. Mommy and them got all upset cause I was in the middle of the school strike. I remember sitting down and arguing with them many a time. All they could talk about was me messing up in school. You know. Get them good grades and keep your mouth shut and mind your own business. Trying to tell me white folks ain’t all bad. Asking me where would niggers be if it wasn’t for good white folks. They be arguing that mess at me and they wasn’t about to hear nothing I had to say. What it all come down to was be a good nigger and the white folks take care of you. Now I really couldn’t believe they was saying that. Mommy and Geral got good sense. They ain’t nobody’s fools. How they talking that mess? Wasn’t no point in arguing really, cause I was set in my ways and they sure was set in theirs. It was the white man’s world and wasn’t no way round it or over it or under it. Got to get down and dance to the tune the man be playing. You know I didn’t want to hear nothing like that, so I kept on cutting classes and fucking up and doing my militant thing every chance I got.
I dug being a militant cause I was good. It was something I could do. Rap to people. Whip a righteous message on em. People knew my name. They’d listen. And I’d steady take care of business. This was when Rap Brown and Stokely and Bobby Seale and them on TV. I identified with those cats. Malcolm and Eldridge and George Jackson. I read their books. They was Gods. That’s who I thought I was when I got up on the stage and rapped at the people. It seemed like things was changing. Like no way they gon turn niggers round this time.
You could feel it everywhere. In the streets. On the corner. Even in jive Westinghouse High people wasn’t going for all that old, tired bullshit they be laying on you all the time. We got together a list of demands. Stuff about the lunchroom and a black history course. Stuff like that and getting rid of the principal. We wasn’t playing. I mean he was a mean nasty old dude. Hated niggers. No question about that. He wouldn’t listen to nobody. Didn’t care what was going on. Everybody hated him. We told them people from the school board his ass had to go first thing or we wasn’t coming back to school. It was a strike, see. Started in Westinghouse, but by the end of the week it was all over the city. Langley and Perry and Fifth Avenue and Schenley. Sent messengers to all the schools, and by the end of the week all the brothers and sisters on strike. Shut the schools down all cross the city, so they knew we meant business. Knew they had to listen. The whole Board of Education came to Westinghouse and we told the principal to his face he had to go. The nasty old motherfucker was sitting right there and we told the board, He has to go. The man hates us and we hate him and his ass got to go. Said it right to his face and you ought to seen him turning purple and flopping round in his chair. Yeah. We got on his case. And the thing was they gave us everything we asked for. Yes . . . Yes . . . Yes. Everything we had on the list. Sat there just as nice and lied like dogs. Yes. We agree. Yes. You’ll have a new principal. I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t even have to curse them out or nothing. Didn’t even raise my voice cause it was yes to this and yes to that before the words out my mouth good.
We’s so happy we left that room with the Board and ran over to the auditorium and in two minutes it was full and I’m up there screaming. We did it. We did it. People shouting back Right on and Work out and I gets that whole auditorium dancing in they seats. I could talk now. Yes, I could. And we all happy as could be, cause we thought we done something. We got the black history course and got us a new principal and, shit, wasn’t nothing we couldn’t do, wasn’t nothing could stop us that day. Somebody yelled, Party, and I yelled back, Party, and then I told them, Everybody come on up to Westinghouse Park. We gon stone party. Wasn’t no plan or nothing. It all just started in my head. Somebody shouted party and I yelled Party and the next thing I know we got this all-night jam going. We got bands and lights and we partied all night long. Ima tell you the truth now. Got more excited bout the party than anything else. Standing up there on the stage I could hear the music and see the niggers dancing and I’m thinking, Yeah. I’m thinking bout getting high and tipping round, checking out the babes and grooving on the sounds. Got me a little reefer and sipping out somebody’s jug of sweet wine and the park’s full of bloods and I’m in heaven. That’s the way it was too. We partied all night long in Westinghouse Park. Cops like to shit, but wasn’t nothing they could do. This was 1968. Wasn’t nothing they could do but surround the park and sit out there in they cars while we partied. It was something else. Bands and bongos and niggers singing. Oh bop she bop everywhere in the park. Cops sat out in them squad cars and Black Marias, but wasn’t nothing they could do. We was smoking and drinking and carrying on all night and they just watched us, just sat in the dark and didn’t do a thing. We broke into the park building to get us some lectricity for the bands and shit. And get us some light. Broke in the door and took what we wanted, but them cops ain’t moved an inch. It was our night and they knew it. Knew they better leave well enough alone. We owned Westinghouse Park that night. Thought we owned Homewood.
In a way the party was the end. School out pretty soon after that and nobody followed through. We come back to school in the fall and they got cops patrolling the halls and locks on every door. You couldn’t go in or out the place without passing by a cop. They had our ass then. Turned the school into a prison. Wasn’t no way to get in the auditorium. Wasn’t no meetings or hanging out in the halls. They broke up all that shit. That’s when having police in the schools really got started. When it got to be a regular everyday thing. They fixed us good. Yes, yes, yes, when we was sitting down with the Board, but when we come back to school in September everything got locks and chains on it.
We was just kids. Didn’t really know what we wanted. Like I said. The party was the biggest thing to me. I liked to get up and rap. I was a little Stokely, a little Malcolm in my head but I didn’t know shit. When I look back I got to admit it was mostly just fun and games. Looking for a way to get over. Nothing in my head. Nothing I could say I really wanted. Nothing I wanted to be. So they lied through their teeth. Gave us a party and we didn’t know no better, didn’t know we had to follow through, didn’t know how to keep our foot in they ass.
Well, you know the rest. Nothing changed. Business as usual when we got back in the fall. Hey, hold on. What’s this? Locks on the doors. Cops in the halls. Big cops with big guns. Hey, man, what’s going down? But it was too late. The party was over and they wasn’t about to give up nothing no more. We had a black history class, but wasn’t nobody eligible to take it. Had a new principal, but nobody knew him. Nobody could get to him. And he didn’t know us. Didn’t know what we was about except we was trouble. Troublemakers; and he had something for that. Boot your ass out in a minute. Give your name to the cops and you couldn’t get through the door cause everybody had to have an I.D. Yeah. That was a new one. Locks and I.D.’s and cops. Wasn’t never our school. They made it worse instead of better. Had our chance, then they made sure we wouldn’t have no more chances.
It was fun while it lasted. Some good times, but they was over in a minute and then things got worser and worser. Sixty-eight was when the dope came in real heavy too. I mean you could always get dope but in ’68 seems like they flooded Homewood. Easy as buying a quart of milk. Could cop your works in a drugstore. Dope was everywhere that summer. Cats ain’t never touched the stuff before got into dope and dope got into them. A bitch, man. It come in like a flood.
Me. I start to using heavy that summer. Just like everybody else I knew. The shit was out there and it was good and cheap, so why not? What else we supposed to be doing? It was part of the fun. The good times. The party.
We lost it over the summer, but I still believe we did something hip for a bunch of kids. The strike was citywide. We shut the schools down. All the black kids was with us. The smart ones. The dumb ones. It was hip to be on s
trike. To show our asses. We had them honkies scared. Got the whole Board of Education over to Westinghouse High. We lost it, but we had them going, Bruh. And I was in the middle of it. Mommy and them didn’t understand. They thought 1 was just in trouble again. The way I always was. Daddy said one his friends works Downtown told him they had my name down there. Had my name and the rest of the ringleaders’. He said they were watching me. They had my name Downtown and I better be cool. But I wasn’t scared. Always in trouble, always doing wrong. But the strike was different. I was proud of that. Proud of getting it started, proud of being one the ringleaders. The mad militant. Didn’t know exactly what I was doing, but I was steady doing it.
The week the strike started, think it was Tuesday, could have been Monday but I think it was Tuesday, cause the week before was when some the students went to the principal’s office and said the student council or some damn committee or something wanted to talk to him about the lunchroom and he said he’d listen but he was busy till next week, so it could have been Monday, but I think it was Tuesday cause knowing him he’d put it off long as he could. Anyway, Mr. Lindsay sitting in the auditorium. Him and vice-principal Meers and the counselor, Miss Kwalik. They in the second or third row sitting back and the speakers is up on stage behind the mike but they ain’t using it. Just talking to the air really, cause I slipped in one the side doors and I’m peeping what’s going on. And ain’t nothing going on. Most the time the principal whispering to Miss Kwalik and Mr. Meers. Lindsay got a tablet propped up on his knee and writes something down every now and then but he ain’t really listening to the kids on stage. Probably just taking names cause he don’t know nobody’s name. Taking names and figuring how he’s gon fuck over the ones doing the talking. You. You in the blue shirt, Come over here. Don’t none them know your name less you always down in the office cause you in trouble or you one the kiss-ass, nicey-nice niggers they keep for flunkies and spies. So he’s taking names or whatever, and every once in a while he says something like, Yes. That’s enough now. Who’s next? Waving the speakers on and off and the committee, or whatever the fuck they calling theyselves, they ain’t got no better sense than to jump when he say jump. Half of them so scared they stuttering and shit. I know they glad when he wave them off the stage cause they done probably forgot what they up there for.
Well, I get sick of this jive real quick. Before I know it I’m up on the stage and I’m tapping the mike and can’t get it turned on so I goes to shouting. Talking trash loud as I can. Damn this and damn that and Black Power and I’m somebody. Tell em ain’t no masters and slaves no more and we want freedom and we want it now. I’m stone preaching. I’m chirping. Get on the teachers, get on the principal and everybody else I can think of. Called em zookeepers. Said they ran a zoo and wagged my finger at the chief zookeeper and his buddies sitting down there in the auditorium. Told the kids on the stage to go and get the students. You go here. You go there. Like I been giving orders all my life. Cleared the stage in a minute. Them chairs scraped and kids run off and it’s just me up there all by my ownself. 1 runs out of breath. I’m shaking, but I’m not scared. Then it gets real quiet. Mr. Lindsay stands up. He’s purple and shaking worse than me. Got his finger stabbing at me now. Shoe’s on the other foot now. Up there all by myself now and he’s doing the talking.
Are you finished? I hope you’re finished cause your ass is grass. Come down from there this instant. You’ve gone too far this time, Wideman. Get down from there. I want you in my office immediately.
They’s all three up now, Mr. Lindsay and Miss Kwalik and Meers, up and staring up at me like I’m stone crazy. Like I just pulled out my dick and peed on the stage or something. Like they don’t believe it. And to tell the truth I don’t hardly believe it myself. One minute I’m watching them kids making fools of theyselves, next minute I’m bad-mouthing everything about the school and giving orders and telling Mr. Lindsay to his face he ain’t worth shit. Now the whiteys is up and staring at me like I’m a disease, like I’m Bad Breath or Okey Doke the damn fool and I’m looking round and it’s just me up there. Don’t know if the other kids is gone for the students like I told them or just run away cause they scared.
Ain’t many times in life I felt so lonely. I’m thinking bout home. What they gon say when Mr. Lindsay calls and tells them he kicked my ass out for good. Cause I had talked myself in a real deep hole. Like, Burn, baby burn. We was gon run the school our way or burn the motherfucker down. Be our school or wasn’t gon be no school. Yeah, I was yelling stuff like that and I was remembering it all. Cause it was real quiet in there. Could of heard a pin drop in the balcony. Remembering everything I said and then starting to figure how I was gon talk myself out this one. Steady scheming and just about ready to cop a plea. I’s sorry boss. Didn’t mean it, Boss. I was just kidding. Making a joke. Ha. Ha. I loves this school and loves you Mr. Lindsay. My head’s spinning and I’m moving away from the mike but just at that very minute I hears the kids busting into the balcony. It’s my people. It’s sure nuff them. They bust in the balcony and I ain’t by myself no more. I’m hollering again and shaking a power fist and I tells Mr. Lindsay:
You get out. You leave.
I’m king again. He don’t say a word. Just splits with his flunkies. The mike starts working and that’s when the strike begins.
Your brother was out there in the middle of it. I was good, too. Lot of the time I be thinking bout the party afterward, my heart skipping forward to the party, but I was willing to work. Be out front. Take the weight. Had the whole city watching us, Bruh.
II
Dark when we got to Detroit. Sammy is Marcus’s nephew and he sorta knowed the way. He’s giving directions till we get to this phone booth across from the projects where we supposed to call Marcus. Marcus is the Twinkies’ brother. A half brother or something, cause he don’t look nothing like the Twinkies. That’s what everybody call William and his brother Charles. The Twinkies. They bring in most the dope in Homewood. Stone Little Caesar gangsters with cigars. Call them Twinkies. You know. Cause they black and look alike. That’s their street name. Marcus is the Twinkies’ brother in Detroit and we supposed to call him to get the dope.
It’s me, Cecil, Michael, Sowell, and Sammy in Mike’s deuce and a quarter. This is our big chance. Making our play for the big time like Garth said we should. Everything seems right. Back in Pittsburgh ain’t nobody on top. No big-time dealers on the scene. I got me a good rep. Everybody knows me. I been selling for the few main cats that’s out there. But ain’t none of them worth shit when you got down to it. This one guy, Billy Sims. He used to be bad but all his brothers got killed so he ain’t got no backup, and people taking off his dealers. Sims ain’t respected no more. He gorillas people. You know. Coming down hard on dudes and shooting people and that’s bad business. Everybody knows it’s just a matter of time cause you got to have that respect. So I’m out there on the set, you dig. I’m a young guy coming up and the Twinkies like me. I’m almost family cause I’m going out with Tanya and she’s the Twinkies’ niece. They know me as a together dude. They know I can take care of business and stay cool, so one day I hit on William Twinky, “Hey, man, can you hook me up?”
Like I say, he’s digging me. He been watching me more than I know. I guess he talked to Tanya about me. Whatever he been hearing or seeing he likes it cause he says yeah. Says his nephews been begging him to hook them up but them niggers ain’t worth nothing. Dopeheads, he calls them. Says he could have made them rich but they too foolish. He tells me he likes my style. Right away he calls up Marcus in Detroit and Marcus says yeah. Come on up and get it tomorrow. That quick. Tomorrow.
I talk to Mike and Cecil. That’s our little crew. Them two and Sowell and Chunky who’s gon deal for us when we get the dope. We all been working and saving up our cash. We put our money together and it’s enough to make the buy. Talk about some happy dudes. We know our time is come. We just know we gon get our foot in the door and won’t be no stopping us. We’re on o
ur way to the top just like Garth said.
Couldn’t help but think of Gar while we riding up to Detroit. Wishing he was with us. Wishing he could make the trip. We had to bring Sammy cause he knew the way. Sammy’s a funny cat. I mean like comical funny. Fun to be with cause he keeps you laughing but nobody really liked the dude cause he’s a stone junkie. Sammy had one them dope-fiend faces. All sunken in and bleary-eyed. The cat was way out. You be on the corner you hear somebody say, “Sammy, get the fuck out the middle of the street, man.” Sammy be on another planet. Nodding off in the middle of Homewood Avenue like it’s his living room. He was what you call a classic dope fiend. Skinny. Running around frantic and jittery, always looking for a fix. Hey, man . . . Hey, man . . . Where’s it at, man? But he knew what he was and played the part. That’s what make him so funny. Nobody else really dug him but he was my man. Yeah. He was cool by me. He was Sammy the dope fiend and he could crack me up acting the part. Anyway, he was the one knew how to get to the restaurant in Detroit where we supposed to call Marcus. We got there and Marcus said go down the street and turn here and turn there and go two blocks and turn right you see a phone booth. A bunch of foreign-intrigue mysterious shit like that so we did and come to this phone booth across from the projects.
I’m trying to remember, but nothing special about the projects. It was dark. They looked like projects look anywhere. They was high rises. Nighttime so the lights was on. Must have been late October. Trees beside the highway was bare. Wasn’t no trees around the project. Just this phone booth in the middle of nowhere and these tall black buildings across the street.
Yeah, it was cold. Not wintertime cold but the wind was whipping. I had on a jacket. My tan leather jacket but I could feel the wind. Hear it beating on the phone booth when I was inside. This guy on the line tells me get rid of my crew. They should go back to the restaurant and wait. He wants me to stay by myself in the booth. Now shit. I ain’t crazy. Here I am in the middle of nowhere, in a strange city and it’s dark and I got two thousand dollars in my pocket and he’s telling me to send my people away. He says it’s cool. He says we got to trust each other to do business. Well, I come back and say Sammy wants to come. He wants to see his uncle. Sammy ain’t no whole lotta help but I figure two is better than me standing out there alone, but the cat says, No good. You got to come by yourself. And no guns.
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