L Trains

Control System (Prologue)

                                                                                                       *

  My momma was a crackhead; the smartest crackhead I've ever known. She taught me well. I was about seven years old when she gave me her most valuable piece of advice.

  It was a dull spring day in '98 when my mother and I watched the news on our TV. I had never been fond of the news until that day. It was a story about two New Jersey officers firing eleven shots at four minorities.

  "Momma," I said as she shaped up my miniature flat top. It was normal for her to do my hair since my father was in and out of my life. "Why did those police officers do that to those men?"

  "They're racist." Momma told me. She removed the cigarette hanging out of her mouth and held it in between her red fingernails. "Those people don't like us."

  I knitted my eyebrows confusedly. "Why? Aren't they supposed to protect everybody?"

  Momma chortled at my pre-pubescent ignorance; either that, or she was still high off of the coke her boyfriend slipped her. "The government isn't for us. They're for the white people." She replied. "Tristen, when you get older, don't trust the police-or any white man for that matter."

  "Does that mean that I can't hang out with James anymore?" I inquired. "He's white."

  "You can hang out with him, but be weary of him." Momma said. "Always remember this, Tristen; the system will fail you before you fail yourself."

  I didn't know it then, but her words lived--and still live--on for many generations more.

 

  I got my first taste of racism on my fourteenth birthday. I had just moved to Far Rockaway, Queens with my aunt Keisha a few months before. I was excited to be out of the same four walls of the Connecticut studio apartment Momma and I shared. It felt so good to have a fresh new start; new friends, new sights, and possibility new love interests.

  It was cloudy and hazy the night of my fourteenth birthday. My aunt had given me a curfew to get home at eight o' clock on the dot. I didn't really pay her no mind; it was my day, and I was going to hang out for however long I pleased. I was in a stage where I wanted to be in with the crew; I couldn't look like a punk in front of my boys.

  My boys and I looked fresh to death that night. Nobody could touch us with a broke hand. We all had our own swagger about ourselves. My homies were on point, but I was definitely the man of the night. I was so confident in myself; swore up and down my shit didn't stink.

  "Ten, where yo aunt copped that watch?" My homie Quah asked me as our three-man clique loitered around Times Square.

  I lifted up my wrist, showing off my new G-Shock. I grinned proudly. "She caught me a hook-up from her friend's man. Poppin', ain't it?"

  "Hell yeah." Tyrone replied, examining the watch. I could almost see pools of drool falling from his mouth.

  Quah shook his head at his little brother, scoffing. He smacked Tyrone in the back of his head. "Quit actin' like you ain't ever see a fucking watch, nigga."

  Tyrone kissed his teeth, glaring at Quah. Like a typical little brother, he listened. I chuckled under my breath. Sometimes I felt bad for Tyrone. He was the one who was always left in the cut by himself. Quah didn't care and I knew why. Quah was supposed to be the only child, and he was used to having the attention. When Tyrone was born, shit changed drastically in terms of him getting attention. Tyrone was only eleven at the time, but he was the main one getting girls. Tyrone was way better looking than Quah, and I believed that was why Quah envied him.