Denn's Mobile Circus - 1. Introduction: My Life Before

Like any other person I was born into this world bound by statistics and stereotypes:

Most likely to be undereducated;

Most likely to be sexually active at a young age;

Most vulnerable to AIDS;

Most likely to drop out of high school and never see a GED, let alone college;

Most likely to be dead or in prison before the age of twenty-one.

You can probably tell what color I am already.

It should’ve been my father who taught me how to break those bonds and more. Unfortunately he’d walked out of my life when I was just a one year old and never came back. I asked my mother about him for the first and only time at age eight. I asked her why he’d left us. All she would tell me was:

“Things just didn’t work out between us, baby. So he went his way and we went ours.”

When I’d asked her if I could see him or talk to him, her answer had started with a sigh:

“We’ll talk about it again when you get older, okay?” she proposed.

I accepted and left it alone.

With Pops out of the picture, it was up to Mom to show me how to break the bonds and overcome the statistics and stereotypes.

The first eleven years of my life was spent living in the hood. The stigma on the place back in the 80s was completely different. Then it was just where the black people, a sprinkle of Mexicans, and maybe a bit of poor white trash lived. It wasn’t run down, raggedy, or full of crime. Most of the houses were kept up. The sense of community was strong. Most people knew everyone who lived on their block, as well as some who lived on others. That kept the crime rate low. Hard to commit one when you can be easily tracked down. Otherwise it was just as normal as the upper class areas.

Except for when it came to education. A stigma that’s still true today.

The schools in the hood are always the ones with the least amount of money and resources. Everything from the textbooks, to the lesson plans the teachers used to teach us with were outdated. That was why at the time, teaching at a 'hood school' came with a free social stigma. You were teaching at a school full of 'slow' children.

But us ‘slow’ children had an advantage. We were more privy to the reality around us than the average child. Learning about it and navigating through it gave us a sort of secondary education that couldn’t be found in any school. We’ll dub it: ‘Hooducation’.

Mine began when I was six.

Lesson one: government assistance, aka welfare, was different back in the 80s. There was no neat little piece of plastic that looked like a ‘debit card’ to swipe at the register. One got a small supply of food stamps, which looked like ‘Monopoly’ money due to its coloring, and a supply of government food. Guaranteed was a can of peanut butter, a box of butter, a box of cheese, a large box of powdered milk, and a large plastic bottle of honey. Sometimes there were grits, but they were yellow instead of white, an extra-large carton of eggs, a big sack of beans, and a big sack of rice.

After school, I would stay with my best friend, Myron, and his older brother, Kevin, at their house until our mothers got home from work. Although Kev knew how to cook, the only ration of food we were allowed to get into was the bottle of honey. While that might sound like a bad idea, honey is actually pretty nutritious. A spoonful of it here and there was normally enough to keep the hunger off our backs until our mothers made it home at around six o’clock.

One day the three of us finally reached our threshold for honey. We were tired of the way it looked, smelled, and tasted. So Kev cooked up a plan. Since we couldn’t touch the rest of the food in the house, we were going to steal some. We knew it was wrong. We knew our mothers would wear our asses out if we got caught. But we also knew we were hungry. We needed to eat some food.

Our target was the market on the corner four blocks left from where we lived. We could’ve hit the other market on the corner three blocks on the right from where we lived, but Mister Tommy owned that store. We knew him and he knew us. The people who’d opened the new store on the corner four blocks left did not know us, and we did not know them.

The plan: me and Myron would each take a package of meat and stick it down the front of our pants. Our untucked shirts would provide cover for whatever was left showing above the belt. Since we had to take our backpacks off at the front door, there was no other way to smuggle the bread out, Kev was going to actually buy it and a few pieces of candy.

“Why don’t you just shove it down your ‘draws?” Myron asked in honesty.

“‘Cuz I’ll squish the bread all up if I do that, dummy,” Kev responded like the answer should’ve been obvious.

After the plan came the orders. We were to make sure that we weren’t being watched when we took the meat and hid it. After it was hid, we were supposed to go to the aisle the candy was on, pick out a few five-cent pieces, then go to the register and pay for the un-stolen merchandise. Once that was done, we’d get our backpacks at the door and walk out.

“And don’t look at the cashier.” Kev emphasized. “Talk about ya’lls candy or somethin'.”

Convenience stores didn’t have the tight security they do now. This one had only two cameras, one that watched the register and another that watched the entrance/exit of the store. It was up to the clerk to keep an eye out. On that day, the clerk had been more interested in his magazine than he had the three of us. Me and Myron grabbed what we were supposed to and stowed. The coldness of the plastic against my bare skin was uncomfortable, not to mention one of the sides of the plastic package kept jabbing my leg when I walked.

With that done, we proceeded as planned all the way up to the register to pay. Me and Myron did as we’d been told and talked about which flavor of Jolly Rancher we liked. Kev was done paying a moment after we’d gotten started. We went to grab our backpacks, got them, and walked out of the store.

I’d been absolutely paranoid during that whole walk to Myron & Kev’s house. I kept thinking that a police officer was going to roll up on us and be able to tell exactly what we’d done just by looking at us. Four blocks never felt so long.

It wasn’t until the three of us made it back to Myron and Kev’s house that I relaxed, and let out a sigh of victory. None of us had opened our mouths for the entire walk. Suddenly we were all chatty.

“Ya’ll did good. Ya’ll did real good.” Kev gave his approval a while into the chatter.

He was only four years older than us, but to two six-year-olds…ten was seriously epic. Ten-year-olds actually had two numbers for their age. They weren’t little kids anymore. They were big kids.

Lesson two in hooducation: hierarchy in the area of child socialistic structure. At the time it went:

Baby: age 0-5;

Little kid: age 6-9;

Big kid: age 10-14;

Older kid: age 15-17.

Big boys under the age of thirteen were usually okay, but the thirteen- to fourteen-year-olds were a completely different story. One alone might not bother. Two or more could mean trouble. And big boys weren’t like little boys. Big boys were fast enough to catch up if a little boy tried to run and couldn’t shake them fast enough. Big boys were the ones that – if in the correct mood – wouldn’t just want to harass a little boy. They’d actually hurt him. And they’d do it just to make him cry. It happened to me and Myron just before we turned ten.

Kev knew who the boys responsible for jumping us were just from our descriptions. After making sure we were good, he told us to stay in the house until he came back. We never knew what it was he did, but the big boys who’d come after us would cross the street to avoid us whenever we crossed paths with them from that day forward.

When Kev came back to the house almost an hour later, he started teaching us how to fight.

“Don’t no sissies live in this house,” he said.

What he taught us over the next three days helped us prove it the next time another group of big boys came at us. That hadn’t been a total win, but it hadn’t been a total loss. Next time was the same. The time after that was more of a win than a loss. So was the next. And the next. Eventually the big boys in the neighborhood wouldn’t even bother with us unless they were feeling particularly adventurous.

Me and Myron always thought it was because we’d learned how to handle ourselves that Kev opened the doors of opportunity to us. A month past our tenth birthdates, we were shown how to get our hustle on.

Lesson three: the word ‘allowance’ did not exist in a hood kid’s vocabulary. Allowance came when one went out and found a way to get it for themselves. Big kids on the high-end of the age spectrum, and older kids, normally found themselves tackling this lesson. For Kev and his crew, they’d solved it by selling weed in the park that was near our area.

Even at ten, me and Myron were hooducated in the area of weed. Kev told us that it wasn’t his when we asked him about it. The supply came from a friend of his whose father grew it. Never did know if the father supported that, or was ignorant of it. What is known is that we profited from it.

Once upon a time people used to cruise around the park in their cars over and over like it was the thing to do, bumpin’ their music, stopping to talk to people they knew. It wasn’t unusual to find a park busy on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday afternoon.

Kev and his boys had their little business all set up. Buyers would come up and give the money to either Kev or one of his boys. They would then give the buyers one of three bags of candy to make it look like that’s what they were selling. Depending on the bag of candy the buyer got, me and Myron knew how much weed they’d bought and which one of us would give it to them.

Always the slick one, Kev had a way to make our end of the transaction look normal. Either me, or Myron, would run up to the buyer like they were somebody we knew so they could either tackle us or give us piggy back rides. It was during that time that the trade would be made. The police who would roll through the area on random occasion never caught on.

Of course me and Myron thought we were big shit getting to hang out with a group of older kids. But we learned that there were cons to this as well as pros.

Cons, there were rules:

Number one: we had to do what Kev or his boys said, when they said it;

Number two: no whining, crying, or pestering at any time for any reason;

Number three: no snitching about the business we did at the park or anywhere else.

“You break that rule, and all five of us will break your ass.” Kev warned us.

We never did.

The pros completely outweighed the cons for me and Myron. Hanging out with older boys was a status upgrade in the hierarchy. What little shit we got from the big boys ceased completely. We also had our own money. Kev was nice enough to give me and Myron each ten dollars for our work whenever we did it. Orders were to keep it hidden and to keep what we brought with it hidden too. Mothers were not to know.

Pros also included advanced hooducation on things me and Myron were months, to years, away from experiencing. A cluster of those advanced lessons came on a certain Friday. Kev was in charge of me and Myron over the weekend. My mother and their mother, Miss Trina, needed to go out of town unexpectedly to check on Myron and Kev’s grandmother. She’d gotten sick and wound up in the hospital that Friday morning.

That Friday was my tenth birthday. The next day, Saturday, would be Myron’s birthday.

Kev promised that he would do something to celebrate us reaching our first double digits. He knew how big a deal it was to us. It meant the end of being little kids forever.

The 'something' was presented to us that night after our mothers were on the road. Kev had gotten ahold of a six-pack of beer for me and Myron to share. He also let us have one cigarette each.

“Ya’ll havin’ a man’s birthday party tonight!” Kev declared.

Me and Myron were nothing but thanks and praise. And what was a better way to accent it than by looking at porn of the first time.

One of Kev’s boys, named Raynell, had a cousin who was nineteen. He let Raynell borrow from his stash every now and then. Me and Myron had never been allowed to look at the magazines when they were brought over. If we got caught trying to look, that meant two punches to the chest. And older boys hit much harder than big boys.

By the time Raynell came to join our little party, me and Myron were happily buzzed. We’d been watching one of the Freddy Krueger movies when Raynell broke out the two magazines he’d brought. When me and Myron continued to focus on the movie, Kev told us that we could look, but only that night.

“Told ya’ll, this is a man’s birthday party,” he reminded us.

With the porn magazine as our picture reference, me and Myron found out why boys had boy parts, girls had girl parts, and the difference between the two. We found out about body hair – both of us thought it was nasty that we'd grow up to get hair on our asses – breasts budding, balls dropping, dick’s getting bigger, sucking, eating, fucking, and last but not least, orgasms. It was the reason why boys jacked off, and why grown-ups had sex. The feeling of it was awesome.

Telling two ten year olds, who’ve had a few to drink and half of their cigarette smoked, the reason why they got boners, and that if they played with them it felt good, was not the right thing to do. Me and Myron wanted to try it immediately. Kev and Raynell tried to kill our hopes by telling us we had to reach puberty before we could have an orgasm, but it didn’t stop us from trying it anyway much later that night.

Me and Myron stood next to each other in the locked bathroom, in front of the toilet, in nothing but our pajama shirts and draws down by our ankles, going to work on ourselves. It didn’t bother us being that naked in front of each other. We’d been taking baths together since we were babies. We knew what the other had.

In our infinite wisdom, the two of thought masturbation was supposed to be some kind of time-release thing. Get it hard, play with it, have an orgasm. When ten minutes passed and our solo efforts hadn’t produced any results, we gave up.

Ten seconds after doing so, and us yanking up our draws, Myron trailed his finger quickly up the bottom of my 'pee tube'. He’d been trying to see what it felt like. We’d just discovered we could see them bulging out a short while before. When he’d done what he’d done, I discovered that his touch felt unexpectedly good.

It gave me an idea. Hadn’t most of the pictures we’d see that night been with two people instead of one? Maybe the other person had to do it in order for us to feel something.

Hurray for kid logic!

I told Myron about my idea. He thought it was worth trying out, but wanted to go first. And less than ten minutes after that, we found out Kev and Raynell were wrong that puberty had to be reached before one could have an orgasm. And a short while after that, I furthered the proof when I experienced my first as well.

We told Kev about it the next morning, leaving out the part that we’d done each other, and he didn’t believe us. Then, we told him how it felt.

“Did any sperm come out?” Kev asked.

“No,” both me and Myron answered.

“We looked for it, but we couldn’t find none,” I added.

A perplexed look came to Kev’s face. “Huh.” It was also in his voice.

It was rare that we could ever prove him wrong. So that was icing on top of our birthday cake.

Lessons by way of hooducation and hierarchy access would prepare to come to a close six months after my eleventh birthday. Mama managed to shatter the bond that was holding us back when she’d started a better job the year before. It was still blue-collar work, but the pay was equal to something white collar. She saved up enough to move us out of the hood and onto the opposite side of town, which was closer to her job. If I wanted to finish out my sixth grade year without switching schools, then I would be allowed to stay at Myron and Kev’s during the school week. I very happily chose to do that.

Not long after that, Mama began dating a man named Alvin. He was a consultant with a firm that worked on the computers at her job. That was where they’d met. Until that point in my life I did not know black people could make as much money as he did. I also didn’t know a black man could be as educated as he was. Didn’t know what a degree in something was until him.

Alvin was the only man I’d ever seen my mother fall into sync with: the yang to her yin. He was the first man I’d ever seen my mother fall head over heels in love with. He was the first man I’d ever seen fall head over heels in love with her.

Alvin was also the first man I ever came to respect and grow to love. I had not liked him intruding on my space as ‘man of the house’ when he finally moved in with us. But he’d known how I felt and how I’d react. He told me one day after a trip to the arcade that:

“I know you’re used to being the man of the house. I want you to know that I’m not tryin’ to step on your shoes or take your mama away from you. She loves you so much. Even if I was tryin’ to do that, it would never work. I think you’re a smart, funny, and neat young man. I care about you just like I care about your mother. I hope you’ll give me the chance to prove that.”

Hearing those words made me feel like he wasn’t just looking at me as an extra appendage that came along with being with my mother. He actually liked me. He actually respected me.

“I think you’re coolest man I’ve ever met,” I said.

Alvin gave what sounded like an embarrassed chuckle.

“I’m sure you’ve met cooler,” he said.

“No.” I shook my head. “Not as cool as you.”

I would find out just how nice it was having him around. There were jokes I could crack with him that I never would’ve thought about cracking with my mother. He would even take me to do ‘guy’s stuff’, like when he’d go to the park to play basketball with his friends. Some of his friends had sons close to my age, so I would ball with them. On occasion, all of us would ball together. Made us boys think we were the shit to be on the same team as grown men.

I could even go to him with problems more fit for a man to answer than a woman. He always gave the best advice.

When sixth graded ended, so did me being around Myron and Kev. Their grandmother had gotten worse. Miss Trina had to transfer her job and move the family to where she was. This was despite having brothers and sisters who’d lived in the same place as their mother, but just didn’t want to be burdened. The loss cut me so deep that I’d cried in my bed on the night they left. What was I going to do without my play-brothers around? Who would I talk to? Who would teach me? Who would watch out for me? Who would understand me?

Those were the ghosts that haunted my mind as I stepped into a new grade in a school on my new side of town. My seventh grade year was a complete and utter culture shock.

The learning curve came first.

I’d had no idea just how disadvantaged I’d been by going to school in the hood. Entering the seventh grade felt like I was stepping into the ninth grade. It was a long, four-week struggle just to catch up with my new peers. My mother and Alvin’s help was invaluable. We got me up to speed just in time to get the governing forces to lift their order, which had temporarily moved me out of real classes and into dummy classes.

Next was skin color.

In the hood, black skin had been the majority. In this new place, black skin was the minority. There had been a certain look in all of my teachers' eyes when I walked into their classes on the first day of school, and when I walked back into their classes the day after the reversal decision. And that look said volumes. They’d seen the cornrows in my hair, as I stood in line to enter their class on the first day. They’d heard the ghetto twang in my voice when they asked me to show them my schedule, and I responded and showed them. They’d seen how much trouble I had with the work. To them, I was every bit that six-letter word they couldn’t say. It was a given when I’d been taken out of their classes. So, how in the world had I managed to make my way back?

Over time, my teachers came to realize that I was just as good, and as smart, as my lighter-colored counterparts. All of them had been in shock. It was like I was showing them something they had never seen before. Most of my teachers took to this. Glad to have me as one of their good, smart kids. Those other few thought I was getting someone else to do my homework and cheating on the tests.

I told my mother and Alvin about it. It really got under my skin how little those teachers thought of me.

“Don’t let them get you down, little man. They’re just mad because you’re not some dumb lil’ nigga who can’t even spell pre-algebra, like they thought you were,” Alvin said.

“Why does that even matter, though?” I asked.

“Because sometimes that’s how white people can be when it comes to black people," my mother answered. "They don’t want us to be smart, to have good jobs, or live in nice houses. They want us to be nothin’, and they for damn sure don’t want us havin’ nothin’."

Although it was dumb to me that adults would feel that way about a child, I’d understood. Suddenly it became an honor to walk into each of those resistant teachers’ classes and do well every day. Until they found the non-existent evidence that I was cheating, or not doing my own work, them having to write down a good grade for me was sweet revenge.

Peer-wise, I was an outsider. I hadn’t known any of the handful of black kids. They’d been bussed in from a hood that wasn’t mine. The kids of other color seemed afraid to even approach me.

That would all change one day when I joined a basketball game during recess.

The junior high I attended started at the sixth grade instead of the seventh, so reputations had already been established for most students. One of those students was a boy named Jakeab York. He was a white boy, with naturally good looks, who happened to have a natural talent for almost anything he did. His basketball skills rivaled even the eighth graders when he was in the sixth. He had also been faster than the seventh graders when it came to track. Now that he was in the seventh grade he was the fastest kid in school and the best baller.

I was on the team opposite of Jakeab. Once the other kids saw how well I could juke his defense and storm his offense, it was like I’d walked on water to them. It was the first time anybody in the same grade had been able to rival and defeat Jakeab’s skill on the court. It was also the first time during his seventh grade year that another team had been able to beat his.

The next day I was informed that Jakeab wanted to race me. That led to some races on the track during lunch recess, where I beat him all six times we raced.

To have someone come along and take away both of his titles like that meant Jakeab hated me. Notice about his hatred of me trickled down to my ears from the other boys who played basketball at recess. I honestly didn't cared if I was better than him at those two things, and hadn’t been looking to take over his domination. Still, the damage had been done.

Despite his hatred, Jakeab never came at me. There was never a dirty look if we passed each other on our way to class, if we saw each other on the courts at recess, or during the single class we had together. Boy treated me like I simply did not exist. And I was good with that.

Three weeks after the races, Jakeab and me were put into a group together. Aside from that single class we had with each other, I hadn’t seen or talked to him since that day. I figured this would be a good opportunity to bury the hatchet between us and move on. Jakeab had other ideas.

For the first thirty minutes of the assignment we’d argued over everything: how to do the assignment; how to answer the assignment; and all the other things that fell in between. The argument ended when he said “Why should I listen to some stupid nigger anyway?”

I responded by showing him how hard I could punch. Hooducation had taught me if they call you 'that,' and they ain't black, drop 'em.

I expected to lay his ass out with the first punch. I’d hit him so hard that it knocked him over far enough to tip his desk and send him, plus it, to the floor. But when he pulled himself out of that fallen desk and stood back up to face me, it was the first time I’d seen another big boy ready to battle in quite a while. We broke into a full-on fistfight right there in the classroom, fell all into other desks, other students. Teachers from other classes had to be called in to help break us up.

Ten minutes after that, while we were reflecting in the school office waiting to see the principal, Jakeab broke the silence.

“Sorry I called you that,” he said.

I'd been thinking less about how much I wanted to whoop his ass, and more about if my mother was going to whoop my ass when she got me home. For a second, my mind lapsed.

“Called me what?” I snapped.

“…nigger…” he answered in a lowered voice.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, sorry now that we’re about to see the principal.”

“That’s not why.” He shook his head. “It’s just…I know what that word means. And as much as I don’t like you…I never should’ve taken it there.”

I wanted to ignore the sincerity I heard in his voice, but it was hard to do. It's not every day one has their main hater turn around and apologize to them, and mean it.

“Yeah, well, too late to take it back now. But at least you have the balls to admit you were wrong. So as long as you don’t do it again, I accept.”

“I won’t. And thanks.” He sounded sincere again.

“You’re welcome."

A few minutes after we’d fallen back into silence, Jakeab’s parents arrived for the conference with the principal. They must’ve thought people couldn’t hear them while they were in the office because Jakeab’s father called me all sorts of names. He’d wanted me expelled.

“Your daddy doesn’t like me, does he?” I asked Jakeab.

“No,” Jakeab answered, shaking his head.

“Why? He don’t even know me.”

“Dunno.” Jakeab shrugged. “He just doesn’t like black people.”

“Guess I can see where you get it from,” I remarked a little harshly.

“I don’t have a problem with black people…” Jakeab pointed at himself. “I just had a problem with you…” He pointed at me.

“Cuz I can ball better and run faster than you?”

“Yeah.”

I chuckled and shook my head. Even as a kid that seemed so petty to me.

“Man, there's somebody out there right now who can ball better and run faster than me. Should I be mad at them just because of that?”

“No…I guess not,” Jakeab answered.

“It’s not like I did that mess on purpose. I mean…I don’t even know you.”

“I know. It’s just…”

He took a few seconds to think, before he chuckled himself.

“Really does sound stupid when you think about it, huh?” he admitted.

“Yeah, it does.” I nodded.

Mama walked into the office right at that moment. Immediately, I shut up and straightened up. She glared over at us, at me, with a look that said ‘Your ass is grass when we get home.’

Despite his dislike of black people, Jakeab’s father turned his name-calling and venom off once my mother joined the conference. I always thought it was a good thing he did. The man didn’t know my mother; she would’ve gone to the car to get her bat out the trunk on him.

Me or Jakeab didn’t say anything else until the parental conference was over and we’d been invited to join in. As soon as the principal closed the door, Jakeab took the floor. He told his parents, my mother, and the principal that the fight was his fault for calling me a stupid nigger. Expelling me would be getting rid of the wrong one. I was asked if what Jakeab said was true. I acknowledged it, and luckily, the principal listened. Jakeab was suspended for three days for starting the fight and using a racial slur. I was suspended for one day for fighting. And that was the end of it.

I never would’ve guessed that that would be the thing that put me and Jakeab on mild speaking terms. He started it by acknowledging me when we passed each other on campus. I would accept the gesture and acknowledge it back. We were even able to work together when we were accidentally put into a group again. Eventually it got to the point to where he asked me if I wanted to join him and his friends playing basketball at recess. It came with a catch, though. I had to be on his team.

It wouldn’t be until basketball season of our seventh grade year that an actual friendship would start to develop between the two of us. Jakeab suggested I come with him to school team tryouts so that – in his words – we could “Combine our powers and use them for good”. It sounded like a fine idea to me, so I had. By the end of the basketball season, he would become the first white kid I ever had as a friend.

I never would’ve guessed that the two of us would get each other the way we did. We were into a lot of the same things. We laughed at a lot of the same things. He was even a smartass, but in a fun way unless provoked, like me. His ego was the only thing we didn’t share. It was never a problem. It just made him very sure of himself and his abilities. He never had the holier-than-thou glower.

Originally, Mama was not havin’ it. She hadn’t liked Jakeab’s mother, father, or him, and initially forbade me from hanging out with him. The only reason she eased up was because she got to know his mother and his aunts. They were always in attendance at the basketball games. All of them had seen the friendship that had grown between me and Jakeab. Guess they figured if we could get over our issues we had with one another, so could they.

“But if they ever treat you wrong, or say something to you, I want to know,” were my mother’s final instructions.

Having Jakeab as a friend introduced me to a whole other world. It started with music. I introduced him to old school, R&B, rap, and hip-hop. He introduced me to rock, grunge, and metal. Some of my music wasn’t for him, just like some of his music wasn’t for me, but we didn’t have a problem getting into the rest of it.

Another part of his world was the richness of his parents. His father owned one of the most popular and well-established restaurants in town. His mother was head chef at the restaurant. Their house was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Jakeab’s room was so big that it made mine, which was average sized, look like a closet. He had his own TV, computer, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and his own stereo. To me, it was the ultimate fantasy bedroom.

Jakeab was also into the skater scene, which was the 90s version of white boy rebellion and anti-authority. It’d been something brand new to me, but I found a certain coolness in it. Over the summer leading into eighth grade, I would become fully immersed in it. Jakeab and his friends were all skaters. Skateboarding was one of the things they all did together.

At first, I wouldn’t get on a real skateboard. I’d fallen flat on my ass when I tried to ride one at age nine. I was too used to riding a fat skateboard, where I could put my feet next to each other instead of behind each other, and ride facing forward. The only reason I got back onto a real skateboard was because Jakeab wouldn’t leave me alone about it.

“Stop being a pussy and just try it,” he said on that day.

“Do you plan on payin’ my hospital bill if I do?” I asked.

“If you just do what we tell you you’ll be cool.”

“And what if I’m not?”

“Then I guess I’ll be paying your fucking hospital bill.” Jakeab smiled at me in mock sweetness.

He turned out to be right.

My first and second day of learning was about how to stand on the skateboard. By the third day I was mobile when it came to going straight. Fifth day, I was able to do turns. It went on from there until I was able to ride and navigate a real skateboard a month and a half later.

By the time the eighth grade school year rolled around, I walked in as the first black skaterboy at my school. At first, I was mistaken for a ‘houser’, which was different group of people that shared the same dress style of baggy, not saggy, fitting pants, and oversized T-shirts as skaters. But housers didn’t carry a skateboard strategically placed across the lower part of their backpack straps.

I didn’t know I’d broken all sorts of rules with just that one move.

Hooducation had seen some drastic updates in my short absence.

Gangsta rap was the music of anti-authority and rebellion for black boys in the 90s. Films like Boyz ‘n the Hood and Higher Learning helped paint the picture of what we were supposed to look like and how we were supposed to act. Both music and film were emphasizing a term called ‘sell-out’. A sell-out was a black dude who had denounced his blackness and was trying to fit in with the white people.

At that time, black boys didn’t skateboard. That was something the white boys did. Black boys also didn’t hang out with a group of white boys. What would a white boy, who gets everything handed to him, and a black boy, who has to fight for everything he wants, have in common?

The black boys, as well as some of the girls, from the hood I didn’t know were the first to let me know my hooducation was behind. They started by talking shit to me. Started with calling me oreo, before escalating to uncle tom, then eclipsing with sell-out.

What none of them knew was that I was from the hood too. I knew how to deal with their tactics. That was proven one day, while leaving P.E., when one of them tried to snatch my backpack. Boy had already been talking shit. In the locker room he’d said:

“Thought you was gon’ be white-chested when you took yo’ shirt off.”

Quick on my provoked-smartass, I’d responded:

“I thought you was gon’ have some titties when you took yours off.”

He hadn’t responded verbally at the time. Not after my diss made his boys chuckle. It was how I’d known it wasn’t the end.

The objective of snatching a backpack from someone was to get if off them, take it, and put it in a place where they couldn’t get it. I’d long since known how to defend myself from that attack. Did it like it was second nature. So when the backpack snatch ended in failure for my attacker, he decided to take a swing at me. And that was when I whooped his ass solo in front of all his little hood-rat friends.

That got me another trip to the principal’s office. There hadn’t been a parental meeting. The principal didn’t even suspend me. He’d seen what I’d done as self-defense. My attacker? He was suspended for three days. Kid never came back after his suspension was over.

Jakeab missed my fight. He’d been in woodshop. All of our other friends had been in other classes too and missed out. But once we were all together and I told them about it, they were nothing but high-fives.

“Dude should’ve never messed with an Asshole if he didn’t want to get his own kicked.” Jakeab remarked.

That was what we called our crew of six. The Assholes.

After that, I got nothing but respect from the ‘other hood’ black boys. They’d nod in the hallways when our eyes met. Some even spoke to me. Even the black girls started talking and trying to get to know me. It shocked them to find out that I came from the hood just like them. Suddenly, they thought I was cool because I wasn’t like all the other niggas. I was myself. Even at that age, girls liked a boy with a little substance to him.

Substance was one of the things Jakeab liked about me. He’d been in love with the fact that I was everything his father said I wasn’t supposed to be. According to his father, I was ‘an illiterate little curse on society who would never be anything more than a burden on him and other honest, hardworking, tax payers’.

“If my old man knew how wrong he was about you, he’d probably have a cow and the farm to go with it.” Jakeab would always say.

Jakeab’s ‘old man’ was the reason we couldn’t go to his house and hang out sometimes. When he was home, he didn’t want a house full of kids – of any color – running in and out and keeping up noise.

In contrast, Jakeab’s mother didn’t mind us hanging out at the house. She also didn’t have a problem with the color of my skin and treated me the same way she treated the rest of our crew. But she knew her husband, which meant sometimes she’d have to come in and crash the party when she knew he was on his way home ahead of schedule.

Once a month, rarely twice, Jakeab’s father would have to go out of town for the weekend on business meetings. When those weekends came, Jakeab was allowed to have two guests spend the night. I always looked forward to those nights. The entire evening would be an experience.

It would start with us cooking our own dinner. Jakeab’s mother would have us in the kitchen preparing ingredients. We’d be measuring out stuff, adding this, adding that: pots, pans, strainers, juicers. We’d set the table. Then we would eat. And the food would taste so good I couldn’t believe I helped make it.

After we cleaned the kitchen, we were allowed to do whatever we wanted. One particular night I was over, Jakeab had also invited Dizzy. Thomas was his actual name, but because his mother had been a teacher at his elementary school, the homemade nickname eventually became the name he went by in public.

Out of all the ‘Assholes’, Dizzy was my favorite one to spend the night with. Boy was peppy and funny. And he was absolutely awesome at video games.

Jakeab’s mother would usually go to bed at eleven o’clock. She’d come and announce it. We were allowed to stay up as long as we wanted, but we had to keep it down. Not doing that meant the party was over and we had to go to bed.

An hour after she would clock out was when the party would start. One of the many things I liked about spending the night at Jakeab’s was that we got to drink beer. He would pilfer one a week from his father’s cooler in the basement and hide them under his bed. He had a mini-fridge in his room and would load them up once we had notice his mother was clocking out. There was always enough for two beers per person.

When Dizzy was there, he would bring over clove cigarettes he pilfered from his older brother. It was always only two. We’d smoke those out the window, the three of us lined up side by side, passing it along until it was smoked.

It was somewhere between our first clove and beer that we started up a game of truth or dare. It carried on at random intervals while we were gaming, watching television, or doing other activities.

After a second beer, but before the second clove, we’d done a lot of ‘other activities’. We’d prank called a bunch of places and pissed them off, gave full moons – via window – to the neighbors, told some truths. Eventually it came down to Dizzy asking me:

“Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” I answered, having already done three dares in a row.

“Is it true that black dudes have bigger dicks than everybody else?”

“Yep!” I answered proudly.

I didn’t know if it was actually true or not, just that it was a popular rumor.

“Yeah. Right.” Dizzy rolled his eyes at me. “I bet you mine is bigger than yours.”

“Dizzy?” Jakeab interjected.

“What?”

“You do realize you’re short.”

“So?” Dizzy shrugged.

“So short dudes don’t have big dicks, just like fat dudes don’t have big dicks.”

Without words, without warning, Dizzy pulled down the front of his gym shorts and underwear, and presented his business for me and Jakeab to see.

“Tell me that’s not big,” he challenged us.

Up until that point I’d never seen an uncut penis.

“Your dick looks like an elephant trunk,” Jakeab said.

Dizzy gently gripped his dick and slid the foreskin back to reveal the head. I noticed how pink it was.

“Now it looks like yours, just bigger,” Dizzy retorted.

“We’ll see. I’ll be right back with a ruler.” Jakeab went over to his desk to get one.

Meanwhile, Dizzy looked at me with a challenging glare.

“Well?” he invited.

“Well what?” I smiled.

“Prove me wrong –”

I cut his sentence short by pulling down the front of my gym shorts and underwear. For a moment, he just stared.

“I always wondered what a black kid’s dick looked like,” he remarked.

“What did you think it would look like?” I asked. “An elephant trunk?”

Dizzy shot me a ‘fuck you’ look.

“Ha-ha,” he scoffed.

“Chill, fuckin’ sensitive. I think it’s cool you got that skin,” I admitted.

“Got what skin?” Jakeab asked, returned with the ruler.

He looked down and realized I was presenting. Like Dizzy, he just stared for a moment.

“Huh. Always wondered what a black kid’s dick looked like,” he said.

Me and Dizzy looked at each other and cracked up laughing.

“What?” Jakeab asked.

“That’s the same thing I said,” Dizzy answered.

“Oh.” Jakeab nodded.

Dizzy took another look at me.

“Check out his hair. It’s super curly,” he said.

Jakeab checked me out.

“Wow, it is,” he said, before he took the ruler in one hand and pulled down the front of his gym shorts and underwear with the other just enough to reveal his pubes. “But mine and yours are straight.”

They were indeed. The only difference between Jakeab and Dizzy was color. Jakeab’s were brown, Dizzy’s were black.

“That is true.” I remarked, having observed myself.

“All right, boner up so we can measure,” said Jakeab.

“Why do we need boners?” Dizzy inquired, making a face.

Jakeab looked at him like he’d just asked the dumbest question in the world.

“Because that’s how you measure full penis length, dumbass. Did you think we were going to measure them soft?” he responded.

“Eh, shut up.” Dizzy shooed him off.

Measuring took place. I came in at 5.8 inches. Jakeab came in at 5.6 inches. Dizzy came in right between us at 5.7 inches. Mine was the longest, Jakeab’s was the fattest, Dizzy’s was the skinniest. Me and Jakeab had equal sack size. Dizzy was just a short way behind us.

Measuring done, dicks and ruler away, the game continued.

“Truth or dare?” It was my turn as ask.

“Truth.” Jakeab chose.

“Do you jack off?”

I was introduced to the stigma attached to that upon entering junior high. Apparently masturbation wasn’t something normal, healthy boys did. It was something dirty little perverted boys did. Any boy who dared to admit that he did it was to be looked down upon and ridiculed. It was often used as a diss between boys, or as one aimed at our older male teachers.

Jakeab shrugged.

“Uh…yeah. A little,” he answered. “Do you?”

“It’s not your turn,” I answered.

“But it is mine.” Dizzy chimed in. “Truth or dare?”

I thought about taking a ‘dare’ just to be a dick, but chose:

“Truth.”

“Do you jack off?” he asked.

“…Maybe.”

“So then, yes,” Jakeab interjected.

“Yo, only when I get so horny that I can’t help it,” I admitted.

“Me too, dude. Me too,” Dizzy confessed too, nodding.

“Same here.” Jakeab nodded.

“And speaking of boners, check it out!” Dizzy pointed at the television.

With the exception of the pay-per-view channels, Jakeab had every channel in his room. We’d been watching Child’s Play 3 on Cinemax, before conversation distracted us. That’d gone off and something new had come on. Something that had our attention immediately.

We watched as a woman finished taking off her shirt to reveal her breasts to the man she was with. He then began to take down her panties. He stopped just after her bush, but before her pussy was revealed. The woman turned around to show her ass and allowed the man to continue his action.

“You get porno on here?” Dizzy asked excitedly.

“…I guess I do,” Jakeab answered.

All three of us quickly took seats to watch events unfold. For each of us, it was the first time we’d seen actual porn in video format, so it didn’t matter that it was soft-core. It was more than enough to hold our attention from beginning to end.

Two more soft-core movies came on after that one, before Cinemax returned to non-porn programming. Once we realized the porn was over, each of us took a turn in the bathroom to express our feelings about what we’d seen.

That night turned out to be a cornerstone for me, Jakeab, and Dizzy. The next time we spent the night together, we were a bit more open about our horniness, but we still expressed ourselves afterwards solo. By the third time, we were comfortable enough to play with ourselves in the same room, just underneath our clothes, and then hit the bathroom after the programming was over. When accidents happened during the fifth and sixth times, we said ‘screw it’ and started doing the entire show of expression with each other in the same room. By the time the summer leading into our first year of high school rolled around, we were competing to see who could shoot the most out.

By the end of that summer, the ‘Assholes’ saw a separation when it came to school and members. Two of us moved to different parts of town, while the third moved out of state. Me, Jakeab, and Dizzy were the only ones to attend the same school.

Freshman year also brought a new concern to the table. I’d had two girlfriends my eighth grade year. Both of them had been black girls and both of them had been completely different with the things they’d let me do. My first girlfriend would only hold my hand and kiss me on the lips. My second girlfriend eventually let me go as far as fingering her one time. I’d been just as into it as she had. Made the poor girl cum for the first time ever and pee on herself.

Coming off that, I knew I should’ve been chasin’ pussy around like it was going to dry up and blow away forever the next day. To hell with fingering. I should’ve wanted to get my dick wet. But that wasn’t what was happening. Instead, I’d starting having feelings that were supposed to be reserved for girls in the direction of boys.

I tried to ignore them in the beginning. Tried to ignore that I’d been checking out boys more and more instead of girls. Tried to ignore that I’d started to find boys more attractive not just physically, but emotionally. Didn’t make it go away. Shit just kept eating away until it swallowed up all the land that girls used to own in my world. And when it finally swallowed up the very last piece of land, it left me with a sobering conclusion. I was gay.

Back then, that was the worst thing a boy could ever find out about himself. The burden it came with was much heavier, as were the stereotypes. According to them, a gay boy couldn’t be masculine. As the matter of fact, gay boys didn’t even want to be boys at all. They wanted to be girls. That was why they all had limp wrists, a lisp, and were effeminate.

People were also stronger in their belief that being gay was a sin. Everybody knew God made people who they were, but drew some crazy logic that he somehow did not create gay people. A person decided to be gay. And those same ‘Christian’ people didn’t care too much for someone who made the choice to be normal and happy about it.

So it would become my secret. I would guard it with every bit of my strength.

When summer leading into sophomore year rolled around, Jakeab’s parents both went out of town together on business. In their absence, Jakeab was allowed to have one guest over to spend the night. He chose Dizzy to spend Friday night and me to spend Saturday night.

Having the entire house all to ourselves meant we could do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. One of the things we wanted to do was check out the hard liquor. I was concerned his parents would notice we’d been in it, but Jakeab assured me that they had so much of it; they never kept track of the amounts left in the bottles. So for that evening, we left the beer behind and stepped into the major leagues.

We got started at around eight o’clock. We didn’t hit it hard, we took our time and let ourselves enjoy it. By ten o’clock the two of us were so tipsy that we couldn’t even pass the first area in ‘Super Mario World’.

“You’d think we never played this game before,” Jakeab growled, tossing his controller aside, having suffered yet another death.

“I know. But some of the ways we’ve been dying tonight have been hilarious,” I agreed, sitting my controller down.

“Yours was still the best when you threw that turtle shell and it rebounded off that pipe and slapped you in the brain.”

We both busted up laughing.

I was usually able to shoot the shell over the top of the pipe, not into it, with no problem.

“Yeah. That was pretty good,” I agreed. “Let’s see if I can do better.”

I picked up my controller and went into action. I was halfway through the level, without death in sight, when,

“Micah…if I tell you something you gotta promise not to hate me or to say anything to anyone,” Jakeab said.

“Okay,” I invited, trying to hold my concentration on the game.

“No.” His hand had landed a little roughly on my shoulder. “I’m talkin’ for real.”

I paused my run.

“So am I. Now what?” I realized he had something to say.

“I…” His hand had left my shoulder and he’d looked away from me. “I think I might like you.”

I laughed.

“We’ve been best friends for how long and you’re just now starting to like me?”

“I don’t mean like that. I mean…like…in a boyfriend/girlfriend sorta way,” he clarified.

His saying that made my buzz pause.

“All right man, stop playin’.” I chuckled.

“…I’m not.” Jakeab hesitated.

“Yeah, right.” I swatted at the air in his general direction.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Right.”

I pulled back.

The look that was on his face, and in his eyes, didn’t look like Jakeab when he was trying to pull a prank on me.

Then, the truth hit me.

“Are you sayin’ you’re…gay?” I asked.

It was only for a couple of seconds that Jakeab did something I’d never seen him do before. He lowered his head in embarrassment. When it came back up, I could see anger rising.

“If you tell anyone at school, or any of the other ‘Assholes’, me and you are gonna have a second round.” The anger spread across his voice.

“Like you could beat me,” I responded on instinct.

“Let’s not find out.”

Silence fell between the two of us.

“You’re not kidding…are you?” I asked, wanting to be sure.

“Does it look like it?” Jakeab held his expression, before he rolled his eyes and looked away from me.

I sighed.

“Then…I guess that’s somethin’ else me and you got in common.” I unvaulted my closest guarded secret.

“Please, don’t try and humor…” Jakeab started, turning to look at me.

Just like I knew him and his looks, he knew me and mine. It sent his jaw to the ground.

“…No shit?” he said after recovery.

I shrugged.

“Does it look like it?” I sent his own comment at him.

My revelation made Jakeab do something else I’d never seen him do. Be at a loss for words.

“Um…” he finally spoke up, cleared his throat, and continued, “Wow. Wasn’t expecting that.”

I chuckled.

“Yeah. Neither was I,” I said.

“So…is there any chance you might like me the same way I like you?”

I’d never told Jakeab that he’d been the star of my wettest dreams. In them we hadn’t been just two best friends who sometimes blew off steam in front of one another. We’d been two lovers getting downright passionate. I’d never told him that while I was making the discovery about my sexuality that I’d discovered I liked him the same way he’d just revealed he liked me.

“Maybe,” I answered.

Jakeab smiled.

“Whew!” He swept his brow. “Glad that’s over with.”

We’d both cracked up laughing.

Then, after we’d settled,

“So…can I kiss you?” Jakeab asked.

“Only if I can kiss you back,” I answered.

Jakeab nodded.

“You sure can,” he invited.

Until that night neither of us had ever kissed another boy. Neither of us had held another boy intimately. Neither of us had gotten so sexual with another boy. That was the night when me and Jakeab experienced our first blowjobs.

From beginning, to climactic end, the scene felt so right. And when we woke up the next morning, butt-naked in Jakeab’s bed together, it still felt right. But it did freak us out at first. Both of us thought the previous night had been a dream.

We never told anybody that we were boyfriends. Thought of it as a sort of inside joke. To our fellow ‘Assholes’, mine and Jakeab’s relationship was the same. But we’d find ways to make time for it to be just us. When that happened, pretending went straight out the window.

Our whole façade almost came down when Jakeab’s father decided it would be a good move financially to take his business out of town. It was the end of the summer of our junior year when that decision was made. Jakeab would be gone before senior year got started.

Both of us cried on our last night together. We were so pissed off that we couldn’t say anything. Why? Because boys didn’t admit to their fathers, or mothers, that they didn’t want to leave a town because of their boyfriend.

Until that point, I’d never known what a broken heart felt like. It was hard to act normal at school, at home, and in front of my boys. My mother, and even Alvin, kept asking me if something was wrong. I had to lie to them, even though I wanted to tell them both the truth so badly. But I knew my mother would flip. She wouldn’t be down with her son not only being a ‘sissy’, but having caught jungle fever to go along with it.

Me and Jakeab promised to keep in contact, but he never did call me to let me know what his new phone number and address were. It hurt me when he didn’t. Cut pretty deep. But as days turned into weeks, before becoming months, I got myself to accept that maybe it was too much for him to deal with and he’d just let it go.

That’s when the first downward spiral began.

I got hit with the first blow shortly after high school graduation when my mother got diagnosed with cancer. That was very hard for her. She hadn’t liked the chemotherapy, which not only made her sick, but gave her a haircut she didn’t ask for. I hadn’t liked any of that either. But my mother’s friends at her job had given her a nickname. ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’. And like a true warrior princess, she trucked on.

I was nineteen when ‘Xena’ struck a critical blow and her cancer went into remission. We were all so happy. So thankful. It’d been one hell of a scare, but we’d endured.

I was twenty-one when my ‘Xena’ fell. The cancer decided it hadn’t given up and came back to claim her life. All treatments had been done. All ways to stop it had been carried out. All of them had failed.

The pain I felt over her death made my heartbreak over Jakeab look like a walk in the park. To not be able to see my mama. Talk to her. Hear her laugh. That, plus a billion other things, put me into a nasty bout with depression. If it hadn’t been for Alvin and Miss Trina, I probably would’ve found a way to kill myself.

The final blow would come eight months after my mother’s death when Alvin’s own mother fell seriously ill. While Alvin did have other siblings, who lived in the same city as his mother, none of them were willing to be bothered. So in shades of Miss Trina, Alvin had to move out of state to take care of his mother. We stayed in touch with each other in the beginning. As time went on, though, touch would be lost completely.

Despite my circumstances, I made a way for myself. I went to tech school and earned a degree in computer science. I hooked up a job at my local city organization as a computer tech. I got my own place, things, and money. Things couldn’t have looked further toward the up.

Then the damn economy went straight passed the gutter and into hell.

This began the second downward spiral.

The amount of cutbacks and their severity was like nothing I’d ever seen. One day my job was stable and not going anywhere anytime soon. The next, that shit was on the chopping block and the butcher was about to swing. Apparently, after almost two years, they didn’t need four computer techs. They only needed two. The two senior techs got to stay. Me and my co-worker were let go.

That fast I went from stunnin’ to stunned. Employed and with money to unemployed, on food stamps, and collecting an unemployment check.

I was eventually able to hook up with a good temp agency, but things were still on shaky ground. It’d forced me to pick up a job at a fast food restaurant as a crutch. It became full time, instead of weekend, work when temping gave me a break that lasted two weeks at the least, six months at the most.

Wondering when the next temp position would come up was what I was thinking about, as I cleaned the front counters at my fast food job for the fifth time in an hour. Funny how that was the biggest thing on my mind at the time. It was a thing that wouldn’t be a blip on my mental radar thirty minutes later.

Because that was the day Denn’s Mobile Circus came to town.

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