Miseducated

by Brandon P. Fleming

  When I wasn’t harassing my sister’s friends, I found other trouble to get into. I was a lover boy at first, with my dandelion-picking and D’Angelo-singing. Even not-so-romantic acts like flashing girls, I thought, was in the name of love. I equated love with sex because that was what Renae had showed me. And sex is what the R&B singers sang about. I wanted to be D’Angelo, Donell Jones, or Jaheim, because they were who my sister’s friends loved. So if I could be like them, then maybe they would love me, too. But that changed when I discovered that what women really wanted was a real nigga.

  I learned about real nigga shit as an impressionable twelve-year-old boy, visiting the Bronx, where my family is from, for weekends and holiday breaks. It all went down at my maternal grandmother’s house on 227th. It was a single-family home, but multiple families lived in it: my aunts, uncles, cousins, just about everybody at one time or another. The house was big but it was old. So old that the water pipes got confused when one person flushed the toilet while another was showering. This happened to me when I was three years old. My big cousin was bathing me when Barry came in to use the toilet and flushed it. Scorching-hot water gushed from the showerhead and I was rushed to the hospital with second-degree burns on my back.

  I attended school in the kitchen with my grown cousins. This was no ordinary classroom. This was the school of hard knocks where I learned about real nigga shit. Eating together was not a thing in our household. You ate if you were around when someone happened to be cooking. And when it’s gone, it’s gone. If we missed meals, we were told, “You better take yo ass to the corner store.” But I had to wait until someone felt like taking me, because walking alone to the end of our street was too dangerous for someone my age. The corner is where my other cousin was hit in a drive-by shooting and almost lost his life.

  I was always hungry and could not bear missing another meal. So I’d camp out in the kitchen until the men cousins came in to make hot wings, a house specialty. One cousin would pull out the saucepan and drop a full stick of butter in the pot. Then he’d take a big bottle of Tabasco and pour and pour and pour until the ancestors said stop. Then he’d slap the wings in there and let them bad boys soak and simmer for about fifteen minutes. Then we’d devour them like it was our last meal, because chances are it was for the day.

  Five of us would hold down the kitchen like a Union fort, the men talking about life while I listened to my portable CD player. One time, a cousin overheard the song and snatched the headphones off my head.

  “What the fuck you listening to, nigga?” he asked, his tone loud and aggressive. “Is that Ja Rule and fucking J.Lo?”

  He was obviously disgusted, and I had no idea how to respond. I didn’t see the problem. Girls loved this song. So I loved this song. Because I loved girls.

  “Man, if you don’t get that soft shit out of here,” he continued. The men guffawed, then sang the tune in high-pitched, mocking tones. I tried to defend the song but that only made it worse. I explained that I liked it because it made me think about a girl that I wanted to make love to named Selena. And that’s when they schooled me.

  “We don’t make love to these hoes,” he said, as if the idea was ridiculous. My cousins explained the difference between making love and fucking bitches. I then learned that we only care about two things: fucking bitches and getting money. There were no talks about being a man, only what it meant to be a real nigga. And if I wasn’t a real nigga, then I was nothing but a bitch nigga. I tossed the two terms around in my head. I sat pensively, like there was a real nigga on one shoulder spittin’ hardcore gangsta rap and a bitch nigga on the other singing softly.

  I felt like a bitch nigga at the moment, and I hated it. I wanted to run from the laughing and heckling, but I had nowhere to go. Outside the house, my life was at risk, but inside the house, my bitch ass pride was being flogged. So I decided that this would be the last time I’d feel like a bitch nigga. I was ready for the real nigga life course.

  There was no kids’ stuff at Grandma’s house; no books, no games. Spending an entire summer there, I had all the time needed to ponder this real nigga shit. I watched closely with my pen and pad as my cousins went about their daily real nigga lives. I watched what they said and how they said it, what they did and how they did it. I learned that real niggas don’t smile when they greet people; they act unenthused even if they are internally excited. I learned that real niggas don’t wear tighty-whities; they wear boxer briefs. I learned that real niggas don’t wear their pants on their waist; they let them sag so the boxer briefs will show and everybody can see that you’re not a tighty-whitey-wearing bitch. I learned that real niggas don’t listen to R&B; they listen to Ruff Ryders and Wu-Tang and Dipset. I learned that real niggas don’t wear collared shirts and off-brand sneakers; they wear long white tees and Timberland boots with their baggy jeans double-cuffed at the bottom. I learned that real niggas don’t take no shit; they stay strapped and never walk away from a fight. I learned that real niggas don’t snitch. I learned that real niggas smoke and sling dope. I learned the way of the streets: the codes, the culture, the mentality. I studied. And I was ready to be a real nigga connoisseur. I was ready to graduate summa cum laude in real nigga shit. By the end of that summer, I was ready to go back home—not as a new man, but as a real nigga.

  We lived in Richmond, Virginia, at the time. I never hung out with kids my age because I was always with Sierra’s friends. She was popular in high school. She was tall and beautiful and physically developed. She wore big hoop earrings with her nickname, “Sie Byrd,” inscribed across the middle. She was loud and chewed gum and popped bubbles all the time. She had attitude, and she was not afraid to fight girls or boys. The girls wanted to be her friend because she was cool, charismatic, and slightly intimidating, which made her a great ally. She attracted the roughest boys in school and several boys who had already graduated. They wanted to be her friend because they either liked her or thought she was the homie. Barry and I became affectionately known as “Sie’s lil brothers,” a moniker that we wore with pride. Like us, most of Sierra’s friends were transplants from places up north like Jersey, Philly, and New York. They reminded me a lot of our cousins back home. They, too, were real niggas.

  Sierra’s boyfriend at the time was equally popular. His best friend, Rell, was a leader of a well-known gang. They ran our side of town, and everyone knew that if you dared to cross them, they would make an example of you. Like the time a brawl broke out at our bus stop. The high school bus always dropped Sierra off first, then the junior high bus dropped Barry off, and the elementary school bus dropped me off last. I was in the sixth grade. As my bus pulled up, a full-blown gang fight had already erupted in the street. Rell and his crew were jumping some boys from a rival gang.

  “Everybody, get down!” the bus driver yelled, trying to shield us from the violence and worried that somebody would start shooting. Kids screamed and the bus driver kept the door shut as the bus stood still. The hard seats had lacerations in the brown leather and bits of yellow cushion seeping out. All the kids ducked down between them. But not me. That’s not what real niggas do. I stood atop my seat and pinched the levers on either side of the window, lowered it, and stuck my head out, yelling, “Fuck them niggas up!” with utmost pride.

  My first thought was that this was like a real-life version of Power Rangers, but that was a bitch nigga reference. Barry and I used to love playing Power Rangers; I liked the white ranger because he seemed super elite, and Barry liked the black ranger because it was played by the only Black guy—which all seems quite questionable in retrospect. That aside, I had to ditch the bitch nigga reference and come up with some real nigga shit to compare this street brawl to. When Rell’s men caught the last opponent standing, they ganged up and stomped his body and face until the guy stopped moving. It was like watching Caine and O-Dog stomping out that one nigga in Menace II Society.

  The gang gathered at our house after their victory. They wore wifebeaters and colors representi
ng their set, bandanas wrapped around their heads or hanging out of their pockets, durags on their heads or draping from the neck, and wheat Timberlands or icy-white Forces.

  Mom was never home, so on any given day our house might look like a block party. After watching the beatdown in the street, I realized that this was the real nigga shit that I had been waiting for. So I decided to approach Rell.

  “Ayo,” I said to him. “I’m tryna be down.” It seemed like the ideal time. Three 6 Mafia blared from the boom box in my mother’s garage where fifteen to twenty of our friends gathered, brown-bagging bottles of beer and liquor and rolling and passing joints. This was my village. My family. I had people who would protect me and a place where I belonged. I wanted to fight with them.

  Rell didn’t respond the way I had hoped. “Get yo lil ass outta here, nigga,” he said and turned away with a condescending chuckle. I was tired of everyone dismissing me and treating me like I was a little kid: Sierra’s girlfriends, my cousins, and now Rell. I let a few minutes pass as I tried to keep control of my feelings. I felt like he had just called me a bitch nigga, and I wasn’t going to stand for that. I confronted him again.

  “What I gotta do?” I asked. My face was stone. “I’ll do whatever to prove to y’all niggas that I’m down.”

  “Fight me, then, nigga, if you really ’bout this life.” His challenge caught me off guard. Never would I have even considered such a thing. He was twice my size and his chest protruded through his ripped wifebeater. His biceps looked like he did curls with dumbbells and then ate them for lunch. He looked mean and tough and fierce and hardcore. With half of his hair cornrowed and the other half picked out, he looked exactly like the real nigga I aspired to be.

  “I’m not gon’ fight you, Rell,” I responded as confidently as I could.

  “That’s what I thought, nigga,” he said, sizing me up. “Now sit yo lil ass down somewhere.” He turned back toward the crew and said, “Puff, puff, pass, nigga” as he laughed and took another smoke.

  I faced a life-defining quandary. I could man up and bark back or I could walk away. It was like choosing which type of dog I was going to be: a pit bull or a baby Yorkie. So I made my choice.

  I stepped toward Rell and yelled, “Nigga, I ain’t no bitch!” with all the bass my untuned vocal cords could muster. Before I could process his response, Rell turned his body with all of his momentum wound into a right jab that landed directly in the center of my chest. I stopped breathing. My barely hundred-pound body went tumbling to the ground as I gasped for air. Before I could get up to fight back, the rest of our friends rushed toward me. I was grateful that they were coming to restrain Rell, so I thought. But instead they began kicking and stomping me while I lay curled on the ground. I guarded my face and chest and stomach as best I could for what felt like an hour but was probably one minute. Then they stopped and stepped away. “Yeah, bitch!” Rell yelled as he towered over me. Everyone stared to see if I would get up.

  I stayed down for a couple of seconds as I caught my breath. I uncovered my face just enough to see them all scowl in my direction. I slowly stood to my feet, ignoring the sharp pain shooting through my rib cage, and I stared back at them. Then I lifted my chin.

  “Lil nigga got heart,” Rell said and chuckled. This time, his tone was not condescending.

  “All right, lil nigga,” he continued. “You’re in.” I sighed in relief. Those words were music to my ears. “But there’s one more thing you have to do first.”

  My initiation was only halfway complete. The gang walked me over to our nearby park. It was clear that I was being hazed like a fraternity pledge. The basketball courts were to our right and the community center and pool were to our left. I hated walking near this pool. One of my close friends had nearly drowned there a few weeks earlier. We were horseplaying and he’d hit his head on the diving board and went under. I’d screamed for help, but it took the lifeguard nearly five minutes to realize that we were not playing. My friend narrowly survived.

  “Him. Right there,” Rell said, pointing at a kid walking away from the pool. He was my age. The kid wasn’t bothering anybody, just as innocent as a twelve-year-old kid could be. I knew what they wanted me to do. I did not want to do it. But I had no other choice. I was in real nigga training. And I was willing to pay the price to see it through.

  Walking toward my target, I realized that I recognized him from the bus. His was the last stop on our side of town before the bus took us to school. He was one of the good kids who made good grades and tried to act and dress hip to fit in, but it didn’t quite work for him. He wore off-brand shoes and his use of slang was laughable. He looked like T.J. Henderson from Smart Guy, except with baggy jeans and a durag on his head with the strings hanging down and a headband like Nelly. He looked exactly like the type of bitch nigga I didn’t want to be. So I shoved my moral compass back into my pocket and did what needed to be done.

  “Aye, nigga,” I said. He greeted me by name, and with a smile. His kindness threw me off for a moment. He looked at me as if I were a friend. Remorse started to creep into my conscience, until I glanced back at my squad. I saw their gang colors and their stares holding me to task.

  “I heard you was talkin’ shit,” I growled, stepping closer to confront him. To my knowledge, he had never said a bad word about me, or anyone else. He was just a corny-looking kid minding his own business. “What do you mean?” he said. His concern was genuine as he assured me that he had no idea why anyone would accuse him of such a thing.

  Then I yelled, “Shut the fuck up, bitch nigga!” and punched him in the face. He stumbled backward and I grappled his legs and scooped him off his feet and slammed him to the ground. “Get that nigga!” my team chanted in the distance. I kicked and kicked and kicked as he cried and covered his face and begged me to stop. After I gave him a few good stomps, Rell yelled, “Aight, nigga, let’s go,” and we all took off.

  As I ran away, I felt conflicted. I couldn’t get the image out of my head of him lying on the ground, fetal and helpless. I had been there before, in that same position. My mind flashed back to Lucas and the times I lay feebly after enduring beatings that I did not deserve. I’d curled up the same way he did. I’d pleaded the same way he did. When I saw him lying there, I saw myself. I never thought I would become the monster inflicting such pain on another person. I wish I had listened to those inner doubts. I wish I could have kept my heart from turning cold. But it was too late. I was officially down. The only caveat was that I could not tell my sister. But I think she knew, because she repeatedly asked, “Why you wearing that bandana on your head like you in somebody’s gang?” I had a crew of real niggas. This meant that it was time for me to move up to the next level of real nigga shit. It was time for me to do drugs.

  In the early 2000s, weed was not as accessible as it is today. Getting caught was a serious offense, so you had to know somebody who knew somebody that could get it. But I did not have that kind of patience, so I decided to act on my own impulse.

  I was looking for salt one day when I opened the kitchen cabinet. There were rows of herbs and spices. One caught my eye because it looked exactly like the weed I saw the guys pouring out of a little baggie. I examined the bottle, labeled PARSLEY, and I figured it could not be much different. I was excited by the idea of smoking my first joint, but I needed something to roll it in. I could not recall what the guys were using to twist their blunts, but I remembered overhearing, “Yo, pass me the rolling paper.” So I figured paper was what I needed, but I did not know which type. That’s when Big Pun’s lyrics came to mind from his song “How We Roll.” He mentioned “rolling ganja in Bible paper,” so I shot upstairs to Mom’s room and dug through her belongings to find one of her Bibles. I ripped out a page and ran back downstairs to finish the mission. I dashed parsley in a straight line, like I had seen others do. I wrapped it like a fruit roll-up, but I did not know how to keep it from falling apart. I had to keep starting over because my first attempts were too loos
e and the contents spilled. I finally decided to secure it in the middle with a piece of Scotch tape. It looked more like a flimsy bow tie than a blunt. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.

  I went into the garage and closed the doors for privacy. I’d learned from observance that smoking required the right tunes to complement the weed. I flipped through my sister’s leather CD book filled with gangsta rap. It had everything from northern rappers like Biggie, Nas, and Mobb Deep to southern rappers like Mystikal, Project Pat, and Gangsta Boo. This was before mix CDs, so it was important to pick the right album that you could play all the way through. Otherwise, you’d be swapping discs like old-school records to find the right songs. I popped in Eternal by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and got ready to smoke counterfeit weed for the first time. I held one end to my lips, used a lighter to spark the other side, and took an overly ambitious inhale. I thought I was going to die. It did not work for me the way I’d seen it work for others. The entire roll of paper caught fire. I coughed and wheezed and threw it to the ground and stomped to put it out. I ran inside to the kitchen holding my throat and reaching for a glass of water. I decided that smoking was not for me.

  My real nigga evolution took a toll on my relationship with my upright, storybook father and his ultra-conservative family. I became a hoodlum in their eyes and his love for me seemed to fade like a siren in the distance. Reputation, to him, was everything. Reports of my transgressions and school suspensions had reached his parents and other law-abiding relatives, and he saw my new image and identity as the enemy of his own. He needed to distance himself from me to save face and avoid disgracing his family’s name.

  “This is your mother’s fault,” he said to me. “You would’ve never turned out this way if I’d had custody of you.” And that might have been true. With his family, I once colored and read books like Clifford the Big Red Dog and watched Barney, The Magic School Bus, and Reading Rainbow on TV. But at home, I was edutained by BET, Jerry Springer, and hood films. On my visits with his family, we ate breakfast and dinner around a table and talked to one another. But in my mother’s home, we ate meals on an uncertain schedule and spent half the month with her gone and us getting up to no good.