Country Born, City Raised

growing up

Sometimes Niecey and some of our other neighbors would come over to chill with Mama. Trina, Shay from down the block and Nell would sit at the table and make all this noise laughing and joking while smoking weed and cigarettes. Sometimes they would kill like two 40 oz of Malt liquor usually Colt 45 or OE. They wouldn't go home til 12 or 1 in the morning. That meant we had to stay in our room. No TV. No radio! Surely we couldn't sit in the living room and watch TV, that was against grown folks rules. Even if you thought about looking in that direction you could get your whole face redirected. Mama didn't play that kids in the room with the adults while they "talking". She felt like you were trying to be grown and would quickly put you back in your place. Needless to say bedtime was inevitable. Even if it was the weekend, we were in bed by 9.

We knew alot of people.in our neighborhood because we had been there so long. We used to live three blocks over from our old block, so Mamas' friends would walk over to the house and sometimes we would walk with Mama to her friends house on the old block. Even though we didn't have a car we still got around. Sometimes we would walk miles and miles through many neighborhoods to see old friends. One day Mama and her friend Flo wanted to go see some old friends. They lives about an hour and a half away walking. Mama asked us if we wanted to take a walk. Of course we wanted to go, anything beats being at home. So we walked over to Flo's house and picked up her and her son Tyler. We began to walk and walk and walk. We finally made it to her friend Zo's house. While we were outside sitting on the porch wishing for somebody to play with, Mama and Flo sat in the house laughing and drinking with Zo and his friend. About two hours later, Mama comes out the house and says let's go. We began our long hike back home. We past several stores on the way home but with no money or food stamps left...It made the walk even longer. Thirsty as hell, Tip and I held hands and walked home. A few minutes into the walk a car pulled up to Mama. She leaned in the window and began to talk to the driver. A few seconds later she was waving us to come and get in his car. I had never seen this guy, ever. I didn't even recognize his car, a black Ford Fairmont. I was hesitant but I went because I didn't want Mama to knocked my teeth out. As we climbed in the backseat and began to ride, he turned down the next block and pulled over to the curb. He said he'd be right back and got out to go into this house.  Not even a minute later, a guy ran towards to front of the car and threw a brick right threw the windshield of the car. Mama quickly shielded her face. Tip and I grabbed each other. The man quickly ran away as the driver came running and cursing out of the house. Mama opened the door and quickly got us out the car. She made sure we were OK and began to scurry back up the block in the opposite direction. After cutting two or three corners we finally slowed down so Mama could gather herself. I was in total disbelief. Even though I was only six years old, I understood very well what was going on. We should have just walked. We would have been home by now.

The summer of '85 was a scorcher. Everyday the temp was at least 90 degrees. Every chance we got we rode our bikes through somebody's sprinkler system. That's is when we were allowed to go outside. Mama felt like it was too hot to go out during the day so we didn't get to go outside until around 8 or nine at night, when everybody was in the house. We weren't allowed to get " wet" at somebody's house. That's when they hook up the water hose and the kids play in the water for hours. Filling up water balloons and making a after rainbow for everybody to run under...And we couldn't enjoy none of it. Mama would beat our ass if we even got wet let alone be at somebody else's house. The swim mobile came by at least once a week. I know you didn't think she was going let us get in a pool with other kids that she don't know where they've been. That would be a big fat NO! Mama wasn't too keen on us getting in the "community pool". So we had to stand on the side walk and watch our friends have so much fun. The neighbors begged Mama to let us get in but Mama stood her ground. She went in the house to roll her a joint and closed the door; leaving our long faces on the sidewalk.