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A Stone of Hope

Page 14

by Jim St. Germain


  “That’s you,” he said, pointing to the twin bed at the far wall. “Laundry is right here”—a white door beside the closet—“and the rec room is through there. Damon sets up his PlayStation in there sometimes. No Grand Theft Auto but he’s got Madden.”

  “Cool. Thanks.” I dropped my bag and sat on my bed, already feeling that it had more give, its mattress thicker. The closet had space to hang my few nice outfits. Though I didn’t have a lot of clothes—all my nice items came from Charles—I was fastidious, took extra care of my things, and took pride in how I dressed. Since I had so little, each item held more concentrated worth.

  “Yo,” he said, peeking at the doorway and dropping his voice a bit. “What gang you rep?”

  “None. I mean, my friends are all Crip. Not me.”

  “Yeah, me neither. The gang thing don’t fly in here anyway. What you listen to?”

  “Jay. 50. Nas.”

  “I feel that. I got Illmatic right here,” he said, pointing to his head.

  I smiled. Renaldo was funny and quick, reminding me of Kevin Hart.

  He gestured to the CD player. “I been using this but we can share it now.” It was a smooth black setup with a ten-part EQ and a five-disc changer, legit speakers, even a subwoofer.

  “Thanks.”

  Renaldo couldn’t have been there that long—he was in the Daily Room too—but he had a relaxed air in that space. Like it was his. At Dean, just about everyone but LaDanian acted like a visitor. I didn’t know if it was Renaldo or the house itself that accounted for his air.

  “You got a girl?” he asked, lying casually back on his bed. A few pictures of ballers and rappers were taped up behind him. A Slam cover with Allen Iverson in an old-school Sixers jersey—with his trademark scowl and his hair picked out.

  “Nah. You?”

  “A few. Some from St. John’s, the girls’ house.”

  “You see them a lot?”

  “We have trips, picnics and shit . . .” his voice drifted out. Then he started counting on his hand. “Felicia and Stephanie live in the same building, a few blocks over; Karla was at St. John’s, but she’s back in Brownsville now. Ashley’s still there. She’s in some of my classes. Once I get a home pass I can see some girls from my way.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Harlem.”

  I must’ve made a face. He must’ve seen it.

  “Harlem girls are fiiiine, dog,” he said. “What are you, Brooklyn?”

  I nodded. “You know it. Crown Heights.”

  “Psssshhh.”

  “What? You think Harlem’s got any rappers on BK’s level?”

  “Shit. Cam’ron, Dipset—”

  “Get the fuck outta here!” I said, laughing. “Those guys are broke compared to ours: Nas, Jay, Biggie—”

  “Nah, nah. But Harlem’s where the real hustlers are from, son. Frank Lucas, Alpo—”

  “But the real 50 Cent, the gangster, is from Brooklyn!”

  The playful back-and-forth had no real fire. Just two kids getting a sense of each other, volleying a rhythm.

  Damon knocked on the doorframe, filling the whole space. He was a sturdily built six feet, a thin beard along his chin and a pronounced bald head. “Good to see you settled, Jim,” he said. “Renaldo, show Jim where to wash up for dinner.” Then he was gone.

  “What’s he like?” I mouthed to Renaldo. He waited to answer while Damon climbed the stairs to the next floor.

  Renaldo walked to the bathroom outside our door and I followed him. “He’s cool. Fair but tough,” he said. Then he exhaled. “He expects a lot, yo. Iza’ll give you a little more slack. Damon’s a good dude, but—” He tucked his voice lower. “—he can get amped up, man.” He shook his head like he had dealt with it more than once. “He lets me battle though.”

  It turned out that Renaldo was a really talented rapper. He would carry a pen and paper around like it was his point card and constantly scribbled during chores, class, conversations. He’d pull out that little pad to write rhymes. I’d wake up in the middle of the night to hear him mumbling and drumming on his leg, a small flashlight piercing the dark.

  Renaldo and one of the other residents, Kareem, would have rap battles that Damon supervised. He made sure it didn’t get physical and that the lyrics stayed appropriate: no drugs, no sex, no violence, no n-word or any other derogatory phrase. It made it more difficult—rap is about freedom of expression—but Renaldo and Kareem responded to the challenge. It actually forced them to be more creative. In the living room Damon would beatbox or drum as Kareem and Renaldo slapped their back and forth and the rest of us acted as judges.

  A day at the residence was similar to Dean Street, but compared to NSDs, the freedom was unparalleled. The trust was more pronounced, the staff wasn’t all over us, and we all felt more connected to the home. For breakfast, we could make eggs on our own if we woke early enough. We didn’t have to be escorted outside; we’d sweep the front steps, play in the backyard alone, go around the corner to buy a soda if we got permission. In Park Slope we were of the neighborhood, fixtures of the block, embedded into the scenery—to an extent.

  If we had our privs, we could walk the twenty minutes to the school on Willoughby Street, which we loved, especially on a nice day. We didn’t get out much so that trip down Sixth Avenue was a luxury. We’d laugh, holler at girls who passed, just let loose and be kids again in the open air. For someone living in a facility, that’s a big deal. After school we’d come home and do our assigned chores, laid out on a big color chart on a wall in the kitchen. Then we’d gather in the living room for Total Up, where we’d add our points and see who earned their privs that day. Our free time hinged on those numbers.

  Residents with the most privs could go to the YMCA a few blocks away or to the park to play ball. Until I got those privs, I’d be in the backyard playing basketball or down in the unfinished basement lifting weights. It was a dusty stone space with a chest press, pull-up bar, and a hefty punching bag dangling from a chain. I’d go down there sometimes to cool off, letting my anger and energy flow out of me through the weights.

  Afterward we’d all reconvene for family meeting. It was both a way to keep everyone unified and a forum for speaking our minds. If someone had issues, the Canadas would hear them out. If a conflict was spreading and infecting the house, Damon or Iza would hash it out. There were no cameras in the house, no one was checking up on us, so family meeting was a form of self-government. With ten of us living in that house, with shifting freedoms and contentious relationships, tensions could pile up. I’d seen it happen at my grandmother’s apartment: all of us bottling up our issues until the heat made them explode.

  Sometimes at family meetings a resident would apply to move up a level—from Daily to Weekly or Weekly to Achievement. He had to make a case for why he had earned the promotion. Damon and Iza would throw out hypotheticals for the resident to answer. “Okay how about this,” Damon would say, “you’re walking to school and you find a bag of weed on the sidewalk, what do you do?” Or Iza: “Let’s say you’re in the bathroom getting ready and Travis bumps you at the sink. What’s your reaction?” The habits we leaned on to survive back home didn’t serve us in public school or outside of our square blocks. They certainly wouldn’t serve us in the workplace. As adult members of society, they would be our ruin.

  Dinner was an event, something we prepared together: Kids would set the table; sit on stools around the marble island in the kitchen; someone chopping up vegetables for Iza, someone else at the sink cleaning the meat for Damon. It was a communal experience. Over the meal we’d talk about what happened in the school day or any residual issues left over from our family meeting. Damon and Iza would also lead a mandatory conversation about the day’s news. Damon challenged all of us to be critical thinkers on things like race, economics, and education. He got heavy into politics, current events, and the world at large. I couldn’t follow it all but my interest was piqued. Even the food itself was part of our g
rowth; salad was mandatory and we earned thousands of negative points if we didn’t eat it. I complied but always took out the black olives, little eyeball-looking things that I couldn’t imagine anyone eating.

  Walking to school gave me a sense of the neighborhood, which was its own teaching forum. I was immediately struck by the stable, upper-middle-class community. Residents got up in the morning, dressed professionally, took their children to school, went to work. It was a foreign routine to me, someone who grew up not three miles away. I’d notice books piled on the sidewalk, perfectly good furniture just sitting out on the curb.

  As someone who praised, pursued, and was brainwashed by materialistic things, I had a lot to ingest on those blocks. Studying the Benzes and Range Rovers I began to ask questions and piece things together: Oh, that woman next door drives the Jaguar because she’s a judge. She got that job by being a lawyer first, which she became after graduating law school, which you need a bachelor’s degree to get into. Boom, just like that, I was learning. I had scarcely been exposed to people like this, but in Park Slope, they were my neighbors.

  And I’d see the children, and picture their futures, all laid out in front of me. I could envision who was going to be the lawyer, the doctor, the Ivy League graduate, the business executive. The tracks were all set down for them, and I started wondering what it would be like to be on one of those paths myself. Those walks were an expansion for me, an opening of possibilities.

  But I had to undo a lot of things. The reward system I’d learned on the street was inverted and destructive: the worse you behaved—the more conflict you caused—the more people feared you, the more respect you commanded. Boys Town had to flip those incentives for me, re-create mine from the root. It was an arduous, push-pull process.

  Damon was a big proponent of discipline and he signed all the residents up for karate. He and Iza also both understood that aggression, properly channeled, can be lifesaving in our world. The karate place was run by a tough black woman with dreads named Tessa. We’d change into starched all-white karate suits, wrap around belts, and line up on the mats. We’d learn proper punching and roundhouse kicks, hitting the pads while a sparring partner held them. It was a productive release of my anger for a change, a healthy outlet to air out pain. The class was filled with well-to-do Park Slope residents who didn’t seem to know or care what world we had come from. They’d ask what positions our parents held, what Broadway plays we’d seen, what books we were reading. They didn’t know I couldn’t even read a full sentence. The depth of their wealth, knowledge, and culture was a flood we had to swim in.

  When Tessa scolded us in front of the rest of the class, things got tense. I became self-conscious, a young black male in a predominately white space. With the exception of Yi, a Chinese resident, we were always late to her class, and a few times showed up high, which makes karate exponentially more difficult.

  I didn’t let on but I enjoyed the transformation: getting out of my worn street clothes and dressing up in my crisp white uniform. As a child, I adored karate movies. I’d catch fifteen minutes of a Bruce Lee or Van Damme film at a neighbor’s house and then we’d all rush outside to re-create the moves on one another. Ten years later karate classes let me relive those fantasies for real. Sometimes Tessa would break out thin pieces of wood for us to chop and I’d pretend I was breaking concrete, yelling like the guys from Mortal Kombat.

  One class, after repeated instruction to perform a specific kick I couldn’t land, Tessa did a quick kick on my arm. That kind of contact was her style and business, but I responded poorly. Travis and Renaldo rushed over to walk me away before I went Hulk on her. I wanted to drive her through the glass entranceway and if they hadn’t intervened, I might have.

  But like water seeking an opening, my rebellion found its way in. As we changed in the locker room, I couldn’t help noticing something else about Park Slope. One time, I elbowed one of my housemates. “Yo, stay back.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it,” I said, under my breath. Once the room cleared, I gestured to all the pants lying around, the unclosed lockers. “Shit, these white folks just leaving their money out!”

  I started to lead a few of the other residents on regular raids: we’d stay back and take any money left lying around in wallets, pockets, and bags. Partly strategically and partly out of guilt, I never took all of someone’s money. That felt like poking the beast and it didn’t sit well with me. Even at my worst, I had an inkling of fairness and an aversion to greed.

  Once people started to complain about missing items and money we were easily fingered and the owner kicked us out. Word got back to the Canadas and the whole house lost our privs. Tessa was so livid that Damon had to convince her not to press charges.

  Park Slope had become gentrified but it still had elements of its low-income past on certain blocks—the Puerto Ricans who ran the barbershop, the Hispanics on the corner who sold weed. When we found someone we could relate to, it was like being on another planet and finding someone else from Earth: You breathe oxygen? I breathe oxygen!

  That wasn’t all we breathed. A few of us got high on a regular basis; one of the veteran residents, Dawkins, was always magically pulling blunts out of his pockets. Because of Damon’s random room checks, I had to hide mine: under the carpet, inside video game boxes, wrapped inside the toilet tank, in the back of a radio. The brownstone’s roof was always open because of the fire escape, so at night, I’d sneak to the roof to smoke weed and sometimes drink if someone had snuck a pocket-size bottle. I’d come down and put my headphones on and escape, completely zoned out. I’d let the music rain down on me like a torrent, washing the pain away.

  Iza eventually tracked down the guy who was selling to us and got up in his face. “With all due respect,” she said, “I know you have your business and you got that going on but I got my business and can’t have you interfering. And I need you to stop.” And he listened. He wouldn’t sell to us anymore. I was moody anyway but when I couldn’t get high, I’d be in a funk for long stretches.

  “I didn’t do nothing to you, fam,” Damon once said to me. “Lighten up. For real.” It was a late night and he, Kareem, and Travis were playing spades, which Iza had taught the whole house. Damon was getting silly with Kareem, who was a chronic giggler. They were cracking each other up, doing imitations of people around the house. Kareem was rolling around, not breathing from laughing so hard. Damon noticed me on the couch all stoic. I might’ve been bracing for them to imitate me.

  “Yo, real talk, J. I don’t get you,” Damon said. “You too cool for us? Why don’t you loosen up?” I couldn’t answer. Any ease or playfulness inside me was just inaccessible, a shackled prisoner I refused to release.

  And I was still the consummate aggressor, full tilt if I felt cheated, and ballistic if somebody fought back. We spent a lot of our free time playing Damon’s PlayStation in the rec room. Once I was playing Madden NFL against Kareem and we were getting animated in front of the TV, elbows up, thumbs clicking away like madmen.

  “You bumping me, man!” he said. “Knocking my controller! Fuck out of my face, man!”

  “Now y’all know there’s no cursing in this house. I’m issuing you—” Damon said from the other room.

  “Get outta my house,” I said. “I just broke your wack defense.”

  “D, he’s bumping me!” Kareem yelled out.

  “Don’t be going to Damon, you pussy!”

  “Jim! Kareem! No cursing in this house! Now both of you—”

  “Fuck you, pussy!” Kareem said, turning his body to me. Kareem was a true giant, about six feet five, 260 pounds. Linebacker size. I cocked back and punched him hard on the side of his face. He quickly threw one back at me that grazed my head.

  I was tunneled in tight on Kareem, on hitting him again, on going after whoever got in my way.

  “Jim, Jim! I’m giving you an instruction,” Damon said, suddenly appearing and filling up the space in front of me. “What are the
four steps to following instructions?”

  I wouldn’t make eye contact with Damon, but my answer was automatic.

  “You look at the person. You say okay. You do the task. You check back.”

  “Real talk. You asked me why you can’t go to the Y?” he said. “If you can’t control yourself here, how do I know you won’t bust someone up there? That comes back on all of us, fam. For real.”

  Damon was appealing to my sense of community and justice. He took a breath, remaining his even self. “I appreciate you’re frustrated right now. But you punched Kareem in the face. That’s a negative two thousand points. Get out your card.”

  “Two thousand, man? Fuck out of here. He fucking came at me first! Why you giving me negative points?”

  “I didn’t give you anything. You earned it,” Damon said calmly. “I see you’re frustrated but instead of looking at me saying ‘okay,’ you argued.”

  All the kids hovered nearby, ready to see the fireworks.

  “You have a chance to turn this around,” Damon said. “If you can stop right now, take a deep breath, you can earn half those points back.”

  Working against all the rage bubbling, I sat down on the couch, stared at the floor, and tried to breathe it out.

  “Do you accept your consequences?”

  Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

  “Jim. Look at me. Do you accept the—”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Good choice. Okay, take out your point card,” he said. “Fighting is automatic subsystem.” I knew better than to keep protesting.

  A conflict like that, if left to fester, infected the whole house. The relationship had to be rebuilt so Damon made Kareem and me clean up the whole kitchen together.

  Damon could be fun but he was highly principled, with reserves of self-discipline. He was a Black Muslim, socially conscious, and an avid reader, not just of the Koran but history, politics, and social issues. I admired him but clashes were inevitable. My hostility toward males was second nature. This was common in a community with a high percentage of absent fathers. Even though my mom was the one who left, I shared that sentiment: you don’t allow certain things from men. Every heated interaction was like a test of your manhood, even if it wasn’t. I read Damon’s high standards and expectations as a wall to punch, rather than a ladder to climb.

 

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