Surviving the Times...

I woke up early on my born day/I'm twenty years of blessing/
the essence of adolescent leaves my body now I'm fresh
in my physical frame is celebrated cause I made it
one quarter through life some God-ly like thing created
– NaS

I sat on my bunk lost in the irony of half ass painted semi white walls
while voices mumbled through the hallways and trackers clanged in the distance.
Smoke’s smooth Carolina drawl pulled me back from bong memories,
“Donte, I know you feelin’ some kinda way ‘bout being cooped up in here on your twenty-first. You just startin’, baby boy. AND you gettin’ a clean shot at a do over, I’m gonna be thirty on my next birthday I wish I had twenty-one over, boy.”

Smoke was right, I should have been grateful to be alive. But it was hard to locate gratitude while the smell of cow shit marinated the air. I stared at the floor and kicked my chanklas. My twenty-first also included an exam in, Pop Rainbow’s Biblical Interpretation class, which left my soul numb. Some of these guys seriously came to class with Bible verses written on their hands for a quiz but fronted on their GED.

Most kids from St’ Luke’s followed in the traditions of their parent’s Universities. I followed the family rehab legacy. Pop Rainbow had a different, Tony Baxter story for each class. He described in great detail my Father’s bad attitude and violent tendencies as he battled to kick his heroin habit. Last class story was my Dad’s attempt to recreate the Juan Marichal/Johnny Roseboro incident on some dude from, Bayamon. Tony’s legend was a natural fit with the firecracker persona I crafted with the staff.

Four months down and I’d been on discipline at least once a month.

I had about a week left on pots and pans with, Fat John’s crew, every dude in there was fresh off the boat from, Aguadeya. I didn’t speak a lick of Spanish they didn’t speak a bit of English and everyone just talked around me. I felt like a dick. The rumor buzz had the farm as my next job with fresh mounds of cow shit and a shovel.

A mass room reassignment moved me into a five-man with Smoke, Boo, Sharrod, and Mikey. Because it was the oldest set of rooms on the mountain and built right up the hill from the actual original farm our section was refereed to as the Projects. Our room came with a closet scoreboard of previous champion mice catchers but nothing was worst than the swarms of flies so bold they’d shower with you.

Smoke was the oldest and the voice of reason. He never got involved in our petty beefs though he could’ve handled any of us, no problem. Dude was chocolate black with a bald milk-dud head and looked like he still played linebacker, he was about six-two, two thirty-five easy. He cautioned us daily not to get his name caught up in the bullshit. He was up here for a fresh start then back home with his lady and baby son.

Sharrod, on the other hand was regularly on the prowl for confrontation, twenty-three, stipulated by a gun charge and free with it. He rocked rope-chains, rings, and a fly ass watch everyday like he was back in Wyandanch. His street corner steez drove the counselors insane and his belief in Islam made him a consistent debate for old heads that needed to get their Bible game tight. He wasn’t up there for conversion.

Mikey was his main road dog, maybe because they both had the chipped tooth smile or their wild stories about missions to the Crazy Eddie spot or just because they came up to the mountain at the same time.

“Good morning, bitches! And a happy birthday to you, bitch boy,”
Allen shouted in our doorway with a stupid half grin. Smoke didn’t even look at homeboy,
“Why does this white boy think he can come barging in here?”

Allen was a pain in the ass. Normally, I wouldn’t speak ill of the dead but there’s no other way. Originally from Washington State he said he popped his first pill back in the sixth grade around the time his children’s pastor first touched him.
Now, to be fair a lot things out of Allen’s mouth were hard to believe and the bring-it-to-the-cross atmosphere up there made grown men say strange things but you never shit on a dude who says somebody touched him. By sixteen he started to shoot up between his toes. Now that’s some dope-fiend shit for real. He bounced to Seattle after he won the civil case and binged for seven months, which turned him into a superstar drug addict.

He ended up under a bridge by the time his parents caught back up with him. His plan was to get at the fifty G’s put aside for college instead they sent him cross-country to Redemptive Living. A few years after graduation I saw Barry, one of his roommates from the Mountain, he told me they found Allen overdosed in a Turkish bath. Half naked, alone with a needle in his arm like a movie scene. That’s a fucked up way to go out.

M