home.
We were all enclosed by the same fence, bumping into one another, fighting, celebrating. Showing one another our best and worst, revealing ourselves--even our cruelty and crimes--as if that fence had created a circle of trust. A brotherhood.
We played that first night until I saw the streetlights come on, my cue to head to the house. I asked them when they would be back out playing, and they said tomorrow, same time, same place. So would I.
THREE
Foreign Ground
1987
"Just stand next to the white people. They'll get off by a Hundred and Tenth Street."
Justin broke down his strategy for securing a seat as we shoved ourselves onto the crowded Number 2 train heading uptown. We had spent the day in Manhattan, taking a break from the Bronx, prowling the city's sneaker stores, checking for the new Nikes we couldn't afford. Now on the subway back home, we stood in a crush of executives, construction workers, accountants, and maids--a multicolored totem of hands clinging to the metal pole in the middle of the car for dear life.
Six stops later, Justin's prediction proved out. A business-suited exodus emptied the train when we hit 110th Street, the last outpost of affluent Manhattan, and we were finally able to sit down. A subway car full of blacks and Latinos would continue the bumpy ride back up to Harlem and the Bronx. Justin smiled at me just as the train's last yuppie scurried out ahead of the closing doors.
Justin and I bonded from the first time I met him. We wore the same haircut, a towering box cut made popular by rappers like Big Daddy Kane, whose elegantly chiseled high-top was the gold standard. Justin loomed over me, standing at almost five foot six in fifth grade, and his skinny frame made him appear even taller. His voice was deep, an excursion into puberty that had left the rest of us behind. He lived in the Soundview Projects, just minutes away from our house in the Bronx. We knew each other's neighborhoods, each other's friends, and each other's families. There was one other thing that helped us bond quickly: he was one of the few other black kids at my new school.
My mother decided soon after our move to the Bronx that I was not going to public school. She wasn't a snob, she was scared. My mother was a graduate of the public school system in New York herself, and the daughter of a public school teacher in the same system. She knew the public schools in the area. The schools she'd gone to were still there--same names, same buildings--but they were not the same institutions. The buildings themselves were dilapidated--crumbling walls and faded paint--and even if you were one of the lucky 50 percent who made it out in four years, it was not at all clear that you'd be prepared for college or a job. Just as the street corners of the Bronx had changed, so had the public schools. Things were falling apart, and the halls of school were no exception or refuge from the chaos outside.
But no matter how much the world around us seemed ready to crumble, my mother was determined to see us through it. When we moved to New York, she worked multiple jobs, from a freelance writer for magazines and television to a furrier's assistant--whatever she could do to help cover her growing expenses. She had to provide for us, and she was helping out her parents, who were living off two small pensions and their small monthly Social Security check. My mother would wake us up in the morning for school, and before we had even finished getting dressed, she was off to work, leaving my grandparents to get us there. My grandparents would pick us up after school, prepare dinner for the family, and get us to bed. Late into the night, my mother would come in from her last job and walk straight to our bedroom, pull the covers tight around us, and give my sister and me our kiss good night. The smell of her perfume would wake me as soon as she walked in, and then comfort me back to sleep.
My mother first heard about Riverdale Country School
We were all enclosed by the same fence, bumping into one another, fighting, celebrating. Showing one another our best and worst, revealing ourselves--even our cruelty and crimes--as if that fence had created a circle of trust. A brotherhood.
We played that first night until I saw the streetlights come on, my cue to head to the house. I asked them when they would be back out playing, and they said tomorrow, same time, same place. So would I.
THREE
Foreign Ground
1987
"Just stand next to the white people. They'll get off by a Hundred and Tenth Street."
Justin broke down his strategy for securing a seat as we shoved ourselves onto the crowded Number 2 train heading uptown. We had spent the day in Manhattan, taking a break from the Bronx, prowling the city's sneaker stores, checking for the new Nikes we couldn't afford. Now on the subway back home, we stood in a crush of executives, construction workers, accountants, and maids--a multicolored totem of hands clinging to the metal pole in the middle of the car for dear life.
Six stops later, Justin's prediction proved out. A business-suited exodus emptied the train when we hit 110th Street, the last outpost of affluent Manhattan, and we were finally able to sit down. A subway car full of blacks and Latinos would continue the bumpy ride back up to Harlem and the Bronx. Justin smiled at me just as the train's last yuppie scurried out ahead of the closing doors.
Justin and I bonded from the first time I met him. We wore the same haircut, a towering box cut made popular by rappers like Big Daddy Kane, whose elegantly chiseled high-top was the gold standard. Justin loomed over me, standing at almost five foot six in fifth grade, and his skinny frame made him appear even taller. His voice was deep, an excursion into puberty that had left the rest of us behind. He lived in the Soundview Projects, just minutes away from our house in the Bronx. We knew each other's neighborhoods, each other's friends, and each other's families. There was one other thing that helped us bond quickly: he was one of the few other black kids at my new school.
My mother decided soon after our move to the Bronx that I was not going to public school. She wasn't a snob, she was scared. My mother was a graduate of the public school system in New York herself, and the daughter of a public school teacher in the same system. She knew the public schools in the area. The schools she'd gone to were still there--same names, same buildings--but they were not the same institutions. The buildings themselves were dilapidated--crumbling walls and faded paint--and even if you were one of the lucky 50 percent who made it out in four years, it was not at all clear that you'd be prepared for college or a job. Just as the street corners of the Bronx had changed, so had the public schools. Things were falling apart, and the halls of school were no exception or refuge from the chaos outside.
But no matter how much the world around us seemed ready to crumble, my mother was determined to see us through it. When we moved to New York, she worked multiple jobs, from a freelance writer for magazines and television to a furrier's assistant--whatever she could do to help cover her growing expenses. She had to provide for us, and she was helping out her parents, who were living off two small pensions and their small monthly Social Security check. My mother would wake us up in the morning for school, and before we had even finished getting dressed, she was off to work, leaving my grandparents to get us there. My grandparents would pick us up after school, prepare dinner for the family, and get us to bed. Late into the night, my mother would come in from her last job and walk straight to our bedroom, pull the covers tight around us, and give my sister and me our kiss good night. The smell of her perfume would wake me as soon as she walked in, and then comfort me back to sleep.
My mother first heard about Riverdale Country School
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