Miseducated

by Brandon P. Fleming

  “Yeah, aight,” Peanut said grudgingly. “Yo lil ass better not get caught.”

  I understood Peanut’s concern. But he did not realize that I had a master plan. I concealed it, however, because I wanted to let my actions speak. Also because he would have beat my ass for making such an audacious and absurd proposition.

  Finally, my chance had come. Mom was driving us to South Carolina for a basketball camp hosted by Southern Wesleyan and Furman Universities. College coaches would be there hoping to find future recruits. The camp was held in a gymnasium located in West Greenville, one of the most drug-infested neighborhoods in upstate South Carolina. I saw this as an opportunity. We loaded luggage in the trunk as Mom waited patiently in the driver’s seat, sifting through her gospel CDs as usual. I waited for Barry, Sierra, and Ben to drop their bags at the foot of the trunk.

  “Y’all go ahead. I’ll get it,” I said.

  I watched everyone settle into our Dodge Caravan. When no one was watching, I slipped back inside to retrieve a black trash bag from the back corner of the garage. I buried it beneath the mountain of luggage, closed the trunk, climbed into the back seat, and braced myself for the eight-hour haul.

  Two hours down the highway, a not-so-gentle backhanded slap on the chest jerked me out of sleep.

  “Yo,” Barry hissed. “What the fuck is that?”

  I didn’t answer. His eyes flecked with fury. A pungent scent was spreading through the passenger compartment. Barry’s expression mixed anger with fear.

  I didn’t know what I was thinking. I had put us all in jeopardy. My entire body tensed with anxiety, frightened that the skunky smell of contraband would reach my mother in the driver’s seat. I was focused on what she’d do to me. But considering the circumstances—a sergeant first class and a criminal amount of weed in a minivan full of minors—I should have been frightened of something far worse. If the police stopped us for any reason—speeding, expired tags, or the smallest infraction—a whiff of the weed would put my mother, who was completely innocent, at grave risk. She would have taken the fall.

  My body tensed each time a cop drove past. I tried not to keep looking back when one followed closely behind us. I held my breath as if that somehow helped. Maybe I thought that if I did not inhale the trace of weed, I could pretend that it was not buried there beneath our luggage. I closed my eyes and promised God that if he got me out of this, I would never sell drugs again. He made good on our deal. I did not.

  The basketball camp made my hooper-versus-hustler conflict even worse. I excelled at both, but I only saw myself having a future at one. After a long day of training, I told some of the other players in the locker room, “Ayo, I got that if you need it.” I could tell a real nigga when I saw one. The real niggas are the ones who exchange banter in the locker room and randomly shout, “Where da hoes at?” Then everybody would start bragging about their body count as if women were units of wealth.

  During that week, I befriended a few players at the camp who lived nearby. “Give me a bag and I’ll give you some customers,” Jay said. “I know where they be at.” It sounded like an even exchange. But I knew enough to know that this was not the way Peanut wanted me to do business. So I struck a deal. “How ’bout I let you smoke one with me?” I proposed. I violated a street precept: you don’t get high on your own supply. But I justified it as a client courtship. And I sold about an ounce of weed by week’s end.

  The last day of camp flew by and it was time for the closing award ceremony. I was confident in my performance, but it seemed that everyone except me was being recognized. Coach Stevens from Furman University men’s basketball team was the final presenter. We all moved closer to the edge of our seats as he took the stage.

  “This final award goes to a young man who has displayed exceptional talent for his age,” the coach said. “He has been a human highlight film and joy to watch.” All of us looked around the room to wager on whom he might bestow such words upon.

  “The camp’s MVP trophy goes to…” He paused briefly for dramatic effect, then trumpeted, “Brandon Fleming!”

  After I accepted the award, Coach Stevens pulled me aside. “I know you’re only a freshman,” he said, “but I want you to make me a promise.” He told me that I was one hell of a player and that I had a promising future in the game. I wasn’t taking his words too seriously, because I knew he’d feel differently had he known about my other life. “When your senior year comes,” he continued, “I want you to call me.”

  I could never forget that conversation, because I had never considered college before. It was not a thing in our family. Hardly anyone on my mother’s side had gone to college. Lofty words like SATs and transcripts and admissions were not in our vocabulary. Mom talked about God more than she talked about grades. Her expectations for us were not too high. She was grateful to see Ds and Cs on our report cards. As long as we were on track for graduation as opposed to jail, that was enough for her.

  I could not imagine being a college student. The idea of suffering through more school sounded horrific. Success to me was becoming a playground legend like Skip to My Lou and the other AND1 superstars who played in Rucker Park. “Ball is life” was our philosophy. It meant playing streetball from sunup until sundown. Then we all sat on the blacktop watching night descend and someone said, “Spark that shit up” as we lit a blunt and shot the breeze. That was my idea of a perfect life. Not that lame-ass college boy shit.

  On our long trip back north to the DMV, I thought about Furman University and the idea of being a Division I college athlete. I thought about what I had seen on TV: the arena and the Jumbotron and the crazy college fans, yelling at the top of their lungs, bodies painted in Furman colors. I imagined hearing Dick Vitale’s iconic voice during March Madness as we competed in the Sweet Sixteen. It didn’t sound half bad. The Furman coach was one of the first to suggest that I could play at the next level. But I digressed from the thought, because real niggas don’t go to college.

  When I wasn’t smuggling weed across state lines in my mother’s car, I was smoking it at the park behind our house. Every evening after practice, the gang waited for me to arrive at our usual spot: a derelict playground in the middle of a vacant field. When the wind blew, the rusty chains of broken swings screeched. One arm of the seesaw was missing, the slide’s undergirding was obviously unhinged, and the monkey bars were the only intact feature of the playscape.

  The isolation of this place made it our headquarters for smoking and selling weed. It’s where Que, Keem, Deuce, and Ramel imparted wisdom to their fourteen-year-old apprentice.

  They taught me how to roll a joint in a matter of seconds, a speed drill I embraced as fervently as a soldier breaking down and reassembling a rifle. I surgically parted the body of a Dutch Masters cigar, emptying the tobacco on the ground, then sprinkled the weed in a delicate straight line and rolled the bundle like a pig in a blanket. After sealing it with saliva, I roasted it with the lighter and raised it triumphantly in the air.

  “You freaked that shit, lil nigga,” my tutors would say, laughing and admiring my work.

  Weed turned us all into pseudo-intellectuals. Each wheezy inhalation raised our discourse a notch; passing the joint awakened us spiritually and made us scientifically astute. One minute, we were theologians; the next, we were philosophers. At other times the smoke turned my companions into patriarchs, like a ghetto version of Don Vito Corleone.

  “When I was your age,” Keem said, “the streets was all I had. You feel me?” He spoke in short breaths. The smoke oozing from his mouth rose and was whisked away by a gust of wind. Keem handed the joint to Que, as if passing a microphone.

  “Yeah, lil nigga,” Que pontificated as he took a pull. “You got choices. You got time to do some shit we ain’t never done. You can get ya muhfuckin’ education, keep hoopin’, and go to college and do something with your life.” Que inhaled another smoke and looked lovingly at the joint pinched between his fingers. With each pull, the embers glowed l
ike the tail of a firefly.

  “Hell yeah,” Ramel said, joining in on the homily. “You got this basketball shit going for you. You need to get out these damn streets and get your shit together. Be better than us.”

  I simply looked at them and marveled at the irony of it all. They had spent years teaching me the skills of real niggas, and now they were urging me to take a different path? I ignored their grandiose, weed-driven advice, laughed to myself, and said, “Y’all gon’ pass that blunt or nah?”

  Suddenly the ground rocked beneath us as we spotted a flashlight beam, sweeping from side to side and heading straight for us.

  “Yo, who the fuck is that?” Ramel said, squinting to gain a better view. Two human figures and a large dog took shape in the distance.

  “Five-O. Put that shit out. Put that shit out,” Que hissed anxiously. I threw the joint to the ground, snuffed it with my foot, and scooped up the remains. “Let’s walk,” he said. But the moment I pivoted to walk away from our visitors, the powerful beam hit me like a spotlight.

  “Stop right there,” one of the cops commanded. They’d be on us in thirty seconds or less and I had a blunt in my hand and nowhere to discard it.

  Dusk had settled and the air was thick. Perspiration gathered in my armpits and my heart was hammering. The hourglass that measured my freedom had been turned on its head, and the sand was running with each step the officers took. I had been in similar situations, but there had always been an obvious escape route. Not this time.

  “What the fuck should I do?” I asked Que, desperate as the cops closed in on the playground. Everyone discreetly patted their bodies to ensure they were clean. Fortunately for them, we had smoked up all the weed. Except for the incriminating evidence nestled in my hand. If I ran, the cops would surely catch me. If I tossed the blunt, the dog would find it immediately. My brain fast-forwarded through the coming attractions: I would go to juvie for drug possession, the cops would get a search warrant for my home, they would find the stashes under my mattress, Mom would be charged with possession and kicked out of the army. Life as we knew it would be over. And it would all be my fault.

  I turned to Que with a look of complete panic.

  “I’ma tell you what to do,” he said, “but you ain’t gon’ like it.”

  “I don’t give a fuck, nigga,” I responded. “Just tell me.”

  Que eyed the cops approaching, then swung his gaze from side to side, like someone about to deliver bad news.

  “Listen,” he said, “you gotta put that shit in your ass.”

  “Nigga, what?” I was appalled by the idea.

  “Nigga, we ain’t got that much fuckin’ time. Either you do that shit, or we’re all fucked.” Everyone stood wide-eyed, nodding in agreement. I couldn’t believe this shit.

  I had seconds left to choose between my life and my pride. My first impulse was toward pride. But I changed my mind when the cops were only a stone’s throw away. I reached one arm behind my back and into my pants—the worst possible posture for a Black boy—when the cop yelled, “Put your hands where I can see them!” But I hadn’t quite secured it yet. I knew I had to get it in there, pull my hand out, and raise both hands in the air—or else the cop could perceive that I was reaching for a weapon.

  “I said get your hands where I can see them!” the cop shouted once more. And both of my hands shot to the sky.

  The officers seized our playground. They were both white. They were wearing army fatigues and black bulletproof vests with MILITARY POLICE stitched across the chest. The panting K-9 had already started sniffing around the vicinity. The officers knew what was going on. The dog wasn’t the only one who could smell the skunk in the air.

  Que looked the cop up and down. “How can we help you, officer?” he said in what could be heard as a defiant tone, squaring his body with his hands still raised. I had the most to lose. Now wasn’t the time for Que to be acting hardcore. I tried to make eye contact to beg him to relax. But he ignored my silent plea.

  Then it all escalated so quickly. The officer stepped closer to Que until they were facing off like two UFC fighters weighing in. Their toes were barely touching. Their noses were nearly kissing. And Que dropped his arms in defiance.

  “I didn’t tell you to put your hands down, boy,” the officer said, his vehement glare burning a hole into Que’s eyes. But Que chuckled at the officer’s words. My face, once again, pleaded for him to chill. The faces of our friends also said that Que was taking it too far. It seemed that Que knew there was nothing the cops could do—they’d witnessed no illegal activity, they had no cause to search us, and even though marijuana perfumed the air, there were no remains to be found. Que took for granted that the officers would be law abiding. And his rebellious chuckle had sparked a firestorm.

  “You think you’re funny, boy?” the officer yelled, his spit misting Que’s face. He pressed the brim of his hat into Que’s forehead, causing Que to stumble backward.

  Que regained his balance and squared off with the officer again. Showing no fear, Que scowled at the man and asked, “What you gon’ do?”

  In a rage, the officer pressed forward with his fists clenched and shouted, “You think you’re tough? I’ll put your dick in the dirt, boy! You hear me?”

  I couldn’t tell whether he was military police or a drill sergeant. The rest of us stood, helpless, with our hands still in the air. It felt like I was watching a tragic movie unfold. It was a scene we’d seen many times before, and the outcome was never good.

  “Search them,” the officer instructed his partner. One by one, the K-9 frisked us with its nose. Nobody seemed concerned—except for me, because I knew the truth. And the truth was: I hadn’t quite followed Que’s instructions for stashing the blunt. Instead of actually putting it in my ass, I clinched it with my cheeks. I was scared to talk, scared to move, scared to breathe.

  When the dog reached me, I closed my eyes and stood breathless—wondering if God would still hear my prayers and promises while I was high. The dog started barking, alerting the officers, who came at me aggressively.

  “Empty your pockets,” one officer commanded.

  I explained that they were empty. Then he demanded a second time, “I said empty your pockets, dammit!”

  I followed his instructions and withdrew my wallet and a lighter, which cranked up their suspicions. If I had a lighter, we must have been doing drugs. I fumbled to explain its presence.

  “It’s for Newports,” I said as he looked at me incredulously.

  The officers could see at a glance that I was likely underage. Fortunately for me, the cigarettes were not in my possession. I explained that I had brought the lighter for my friends.

  The dog never stopped barking during the search, and he circled me repeatedly. The animal sniffed around the front of my pants, then he sniffed my behind, where the blunt was nestled tightly in my crack. I stood as still as humanly possible, tensing my rear like I was holding on to life itself. My feet were tight together to keep my legs from trembling. I spoke as little as possible so that breathing wouldn’t cause my cheeks to part. I knew that if I coughed or had to take a single step it would all be over, because the slightest movement would let the remains of the blunt fall down my pant leg and onto the ground. I was still high and getting light-headed from not breathing. I tried not to contort my face.

  After patting me down, the officer looked at his partner and said, “We’re done here.” They walked away, and I exhaled the most gratifying sigh of relief. Then I bent to retrieve the joint that fell to my feet.

  I went off the rails fast with drugs. All I cared about was getting high. So much so that I stole product I was supposed to sell for Peanut. If he hadn’t been my sister’s boyfriend, he would have had my head in a swift medieval-style execution. Cannabis was a gateway drug, and my pursuit of higher highs reached levels that frightened even those who’d introduced me to drugs.

  Lacing was an especially dangerous discovery. Friends recall me hallucinating
that I could fly, then jumping from the top of a jungle gym while flapping my arms and squawking like a bird. I don’t recall the event. But I do remember waking up with a battered, throbbing face that looked like I had gone a round with Mike Tyson.

  People who had been my accomplices became concerned and stopped supplying me with drugs. It reached a point where I was willing to do anything to get my fix, even if it meant stealing from my own mother. I stashed the $2.50 she gave me each day for school lunch and used it to buy drugs. I embezzled from a coin jar that Mom kept in her bedroom. While she was at work, I emptied the jar and spread the change across her bed, plucking quarters from the mass of pennies, dimes, and nickels and taking them to the Coinstar converter up the street at Food Lion for enough cash to pay my drug debts or reup. When there was nothing left but pennies, I went after Mom’s jewelry box and pawned her least favorite pieces in exchange for a few dollars. It was not long before she noticed that her jar was in the wrong place and several gems had mysteriously disappeared. All she could do was cry, thinking about two marriages destroyed by drugs. Now the same curse had befallen her son.

  Each morning I went to school with the stench of weed hanging on to my tail. I sold the drugs at school lockers and took bathroom breaks to replenish my own high. As hard as I had worked to build my athletic career, my hoop dreams took second place. My coaches caught on to my scarlet eyes and my unusual wheezing while running laps. I was losing myself and risking my future. I was stumbling into the locker room late. Coach eventually discovered that I was getting high and having sex with girls right before our games. In a desperate attempt to protect both me and the team, Coach threatened the girls who were ruining his key player, and he lectured me about ruining myself. He demanded that I change my ways and benched me to prove a point. But nothing worked.