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stairs.
    â€œReuben!” Mom put herself over me. “I’ll call Mabel and tell her I can’t come.”
    â€œGo on! Go on! What do I care?” He was shouting. “You said you was going to take her to the doctor, so go on! I’m finished working. Me and David are going to have some donuts and milk, and then he can go see his friend.”
    â€œReuben, please be careful.” She moved toward me, and Reuben pushed her away.
    â€œI’m okay, Mom,” I said. “I’m okay.”
    Reuben was helping me up, and I was trying hard not to cry. I knew that would just make him madder.
    â€œGo on, woman!” he said to Mom. “We’ll be okay.”
    I started up the stairs as Mom started down. I didn’t look back at her.
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    â€œI was born one year, almost to the day, that Malcolm X died,” Reuben said. There was sugar on his chin from the donut he was eating. “They had to kill Malcolm because they couldn’t control him. You know they can control most people. Did you know that?” “How?”
    â€œThey do it by making you think in circles,” Reuben said. “See, if they tell you to do something you don’t want to do, right away you’re going to think they’re stupid and you won’t do it. Say a man walks up to you and tells you to give him your money. What are you going to say?”
    â€œProbably no,” I said.
    â€œThat’s just what you’re going to say,” Reuben said. “But if he told you there were germs on your money,you’d give him a look and wonder what his game is. Then you’d wonder why he’s coming up to you. So your thinking went to the money, then to him, and then circled right back to you. See what I mean?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œThat’s how they control you,” Reuben said. “They talk about you giving up your money, then they talk about the money having germs on it, and before you know it, your money’s gone.”
    â€œNobody said my money had germs on it,” I said.
    â€œNo, but they’re telling you that it’s better to use a credit card instead of carrying money around, don’t they?”
    â€œThat’s so nobody will rob you,” I said.
    â€œNo, that’s so you won’t think your money’s going,” Reuben said. “You buy something with a credit card and you take it out of your pocket. The man zips it through his machine, and then you put it back in your pocket. You got your TV, your CD, whatever, and you still got your credit card in your pocket. You think you got everything, but your money’s gone. See what I mean?”
    â€œYes.” I didn’t know what he meant, but I didn’t want to say that.
    The telephone rang and Reuben answered it. It was Aunt Mabel wanting to know if Mom was on her way. Reuben told her yes. Then he hung up and sat back down.
    There had been six donuts in the bag. Reuben hadeaten one and I had eaten one. Now he pushed another one to me across the table.
    â€œAnother way they control you is through your dreaming. When you go to sleep at night, you got to dream or you go crazy. Even dogs dream. You ever see a dog dream?”
    â€œYeah, my friend Ralph had a dog,” I said. “And you could tell he was dreaming about running because his legs would go like he was running and so would his tail.”
    â€œThey put things on TV, real pretty things, and get you to dreaming about them,” Reuben said. “You see them on television when they come on, but you just push them on out of your mind because they ain’t real to you. You know what I mean?”
    â€œI think so.”
    â€œThey put a house on TV, all spotless and shiny. The wife, she’s smiling, the children are smiling, everything is pretty and nice. Maybe they even give them a little problem so they look like a real family. Looking for a new car—something like that. Then they go back to