The Awakening of Malcolm X

by Ilyasah Shabazz

  “You heard what happened at that last game, right?” another says.

  “Yup,” Walter says. “Couldn’t be me. Couldn’t have them yelling and throwing rocks and banana peels at me.”

  Chucky strolls into the kitchen, a smirk on his face. The room calms, cats acknowledging him with a nod. He’s made quite a name for himself over the last few weeks—scuffling with a few cats in his unit, acting out in his cell, skipping work duty … almost like he’s trying to be shipped down to the hole.

  He stands beside me, feigning calmness.

  “Heard about your little party.” He chuckles. “You still taking bets?”

  I nod toward the radio. “They still playing, aren’t they?”

  He mulls it over, then snaps his finger. “All right. Put me down for five.”

  “That’s a pretty big number.”

  “I’m good for it,” he says with a wink, extending his hand.

  Papa always said to never buy things on credit. Never owe a man anything, especially one you can’t trust. The pinching in my gut tells me I should leave Chucky alone but I ignore it. Instead, we slap skins. Not like he could hide or skip town on me. He got to square up.

  Mack watches from the corner and huffs, returning to his paper.

  In the brief moment Chucky distracts me, the group gasps, all on their feet, followed by a cheer that could be heard in Canada.

  “What! What happened?”

  “Did you just hear that?! That boy stole home plate,” Big Lee sings. “HOME plate! How about that Jackie! Whoo!”

  Cats go wild, hopping and carrying on. All except Norm.

  “Oh Lawd, they gonna string him up by his feet,” Norm mumbles, eyes wide and staring.

  “Relax!” Big Lee says, clapping him on the back. “Ain’t nothing gonna happen. He’s in God’s hands. This is history in the making!”

  Norm pales, his mouth gaping wide like he just saw a ghost. He drops the mop, mutters something at the floor, and storms out the kitchen.

  “What’s with him?” Chucky asks.

  “Don’t pay him no mind,” Walter says. “The man can’t stand to see a Negro win at nothing. It’s like he wants us to lose!”

  “Heh. Sounds like he’s playing for the wrong team.”

  I step back from the crowd, leaning against the counter. It’s not that I don’t want to celebrate with everyone, I’m just overwhelmed by the moment. Ebbets Field is not that far from Harlem. If I was free, I would’ve been there, seen Jackie with my own eyes. Maybe Shorty would’ve driven down Interstate 95 from Boston and gone with me. We could’ve been a part of history. Instead of trapped in this shithole.

  I turn left to find Mack watching me.

  “Can I help you with something, old man?” I ask, hard. Always got to make sure no one thinks I’m some soft little kid they can push around in here.

  “Your friend there,” he says, pointing in the direction Norm headed. “He’s got a point.”

  “Jackie stole that base fair and square. He’s worrying over nothing.”

  Mack sniffs and folds up his paper. Not sure if he was actually reading it, seem like he’d been stuck on the same page for a while. Mack has smooth dark skin like Jackie, with black hair peppered gray. Aside from his eye, he has two fingers missing on his left hand and I can’t help but stare at the scars around his temples. The deep, jagged lines like a road map.

  “Son, I’ve seen men killed for less. Some of us are in here for less.”

  I glance back at the fellas, still on a high from the score.

  “What you got to understand is that your friend there,” he says, nodding at the door once more. “He’s seen some things, shook him up nice and good. Got the look in his eye that he’s seen a few live bodies lose their lives. A mob of hate-filled crackers foaming at they mouths for a Negro lynching. That fear … it never leaves you. Never. He got every right to be scared.”

  * * *

  The next day, after we finish up in the shop, the guards let us out into the yard. Now that it’s summer, we’re allowed outside a little more often. Except it doesn’t keep the nightmares away. It doesn’t help me breathe any easier or cry any less. I average less than two hours sleep, if that, most nights. Wish I had something, anything, to take the edge off.

  Cats are still talking about the game. Bembry replays it word for word for those who missed it, while some of the other fellas make up a small diamond field in the grass, playing stickball. Everyone’s in a good mood so I take my time collecting winnings, tingling from the nutmeg I had this morning.

  Mack is out in the yard today. He has a limp I never noticed before. He must have been forced out of the kitchen, the way he inches around the gate, squinting at the sun. His face stoic as if he’s itching to be back inside, which doesn’t make much sense to me.

  I stare out past the fence, out where I wish I could be. Some yards away on a wide-open field is another unit of cats. But they’re not laughing and joking like us. They’re lugging what looks like large, sharp, heavy rocks that must weigh a ton, while others are pulling up weeds and thick roots. In this hot sun, and their long uniforms, it looks like nothing but hell on top of hell.

  “They’re getting ready to build another penitentiary,” Mack says, standing beside me now. “Making prisoners build their own cage, like digging they own grave.”

  “Who told you they’re building another pen?”

  “Heard some of the guards talking about it. They’re expanding. Not enough room in here for all of us—they want to bring in more. Hell, they’d gather up all the Negroes in sight if they could pin something on them.”

  “Well, if nothing else,” I quip, “your hearing is sharp.”

  He chuckles, and it’s the first time I see something that resembles a real smile.

  “Got to be. Now,” Mack sighs, waving at his caved-in eye.

  “What happened to you? Some type of accident or something?”

  He tips his chin up. “Had me surrounded. Close to fifteen men. Came down on my head with baseball bats. Must have blacked out ’cause when I woke up, I was in a jail cell. Only reason they took me to the hospital was because I was bleeding all over the courtroom.”

  “Damn. What’d you do to deserve that beating?”

  Mack frowns. “I didn’t do a damn thing. Nothing I could ever do would deserve this.” He thinks awhile, then closes his one eye. “They say I bed a white woman.”

  I wait for him to finish the reason and realize he said all there was to say.

  “That’s it? That’s all you did?”

  “Boy, you think I’m crazy enough to do something stupid like that?” he barks, gripping the fence to steady himself. “I ain’t never slept with no white girl. Ain’t even looked at one. But she had to find some reason for that brown baby.”

  I swallow real hard, thinking of Sophia. How different it all could have been for me. I could’ve lost more than I already have. Stuck in some kind of prison cell? A rush of rage comes. She betrayed me. Not just in the courtroom, but for all those years we’d been together. I loved her. I loved her white skin. Her silky blond hair. Damn, I loved her blue eyes. Blue, my favorite color.

  I pretend she never existed in my world and say, “Man, you lucky to be alive.”

  “Lucky?” he huffs. “Yeah, that’s what they all say. You ask me, they ain’t no luck in prison.”

  “At least we alive though. Could still be picking cotton. Could be dead,” I say.

  Mack squints and points across the field. “Take a look around you. What do you see?”

  I shrug. “See a bunch of Negroes standing about.”

  “You ain’t looking close enough, son. To me, I see a bunch of Negroes, terrified on the cotton field, with an overseer barking orders. One wrong move and they’re either whipped or lynched. My granddaddy was a slave. He used to sit us all down and tell us what life was like back then. Wouldn’t wish that life on anyone, son.”

  Slave. The word pops through the air, reeking of rece
nt memories.

  Mack shakes his head. “They get slaves they don’t even need to buy. Just control. They do whatever they want and you can’t do nothing about it. Your whole life is in their hands like you ain’t got no feelings or dreams of your own. I’m still trying to figure out why they hate us so much. What we ever do to them?”

  Something deep in the pit of my stomach turns sideways. “Homeboy, you wild,” I say, laughing, trying not to sound frightened, but it comes out forced. “We ain’t slaves.”

  He sees right through me. “Ain’t the cotton field but might as well be. We a different kind of slave.”

  Shaking my head, I say, “No. Slavery ended over fifty years ago. It’s against the law. We’re free men, free Negroes.” But even as I utter the words, I know he’s right.

  Mack chuckles. “Brother, when have you ever been free? You ain’t been free a day in your life. You don’t even know what free is.”

  “I was free before I walked into this prison!”

  He gives me a look that turns my blood cold.

  “That wasn’t free neither. When have we ever been able to walk where we want? Sit where we want? Drink where we want and take care of our families like we want? Emancipation just off the plantation, but we’re still living on someone else’s terms, even outside this prison.”

  I open my mouth to argue, but nothing comes out. Don’t have one answer for him.

  “Got one eye and to me, it don’t look much different.” Mack nods his head. “My granddaddy lived out his life on the chain gang, building that damn railroad west. His whole entire life!”

  I’ve heard of the chain gangs. West Indian Archie once told me about them. They line prisoners up like an army, tie shackles around their ankles, then send them out to do hard labor, like building walls or roads. Said it’s the type of hard labor that shaves years off your life. It’s so hard some people die from it, right on the spot.

  What if that’s the type of work they have Shorty doing … wherever he is.

  “No,” I mumble, my eyes frantically searching for Shorty in the crowd over there. But even if I find him, there’s nothing I could do. I can’t even save myself.

  And I made Shorty the one thing he never wanted to be: a different kind of slave.

  CHAPTER 5

  Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.

  —MALCOLM X

  The tomato vines in Mom’s garden grew tall, some taller than me. I’d stand between them, and they gave a good shade when the sun was high and the breeze low. Mom grew lots of vegetables. So much so, folks in town thought we were rich. Mom knew how to grow food rather than buy it. And she was good with nutrition. She’d give us dandelion root tea with our chicken soup on a cold night. We always ate good. Hilda would make apple and peach cobbler, and we would have homemade ice cream that Mom would make with the fresh cinnamon Papa would find from her native island of Grenada.

  The sun was shining rays of light on our home as birds sang from the hickory trees. I plopped down between the rows of crops and lay back in the soft soil to stare up at a crystal-clear, shimmering blue sky. Puffy white clouds—giant horses, elephants, sheep, even bunnies—all floated by. Did people in other cities see the same clouds I did? In other states? I even wondered what it would be like to go to other countries. To travel back to Africa, like Papa always talked about. To fly to—

  “Malcolm? Malcolm?”

  I sat up quick, shielding my eyes from the glare. “Yes, Mom?”

  The sun bounced off the pearls around her neck, her hair twisted up in one of those styles; I think Hilda called it a French twist.

  “Young man, what are you doing lying in the dirt like that?” She laughed, adjusting the basket on her hip. “Are you trying to grow, too?”

  “I finished all my chores, ma’am,” I said eagerly. “See?”

  I pointed to the cabbage patch, tilled and weeded.

  “Yes, I see. Come, help your mother,” she said, shaking a fist like she was about to roll some dice. “Papa will be home soon and we must be ready for dinner.”

  I sprang to my feet and followed her, passing the back screen door of the house. Inside, Philbert and Wilfred were at the table, their noses in Papa’s books. In the living room, Hilda danced with baby Yvonne in her arms. The rosemary chicken roasting in the oven was calling my name.

  Mom stopped at a small patch of soil she’d cleared in the herb garden, placing a basket of tools by her feet.

  “Look. Come see what I have here.”

  She kneeled down and opened her hand. In her palm was a pile of small black seeds, gold stripes down the middle.

  “What is it?”

  She shrugged. “Not sure yet. A kind woman at work gave them to me.”

  “Mom! You’re going to plant seeds and you don’t even know what kind of seeds they are?”

  She giggled. “Well, we have to find out now, don’t we? First, we have to plant the seeds. Then, we must be patient and allow them to grow. Pass me that shovel.”

  I grabbed the small hand shovel and watched her dig seven deep holes.

  “What if they’re trees?” I said. “You’re just gonna plant them anywhere?”

  She shook her head, a whisper of a smile on her lips. “Well, we’ll just have to keep nurturing them with water and see what sprouts. Whatever they’re going to be will be, my love. But nothing will grow if you don’t plant it and allow it a fighting chance at life.”

  * * *

  Some days, I imagine it’s not me in this place. I’m not really here. I’m outside these walls—in a plush seat, snacking on goobers, sipping pop, watching a picture show. Watching myself play this character I don’t recognize: screaming through the night, dreaming of Mom gardening, mopping up filth, walking through this rodent-infested place in a haze. Helps me forget, black out and just float through the motions.

  This jumpsuit, these shoes, and this jacket—they are not mine. Yes, they are in my possession. Yes, they have a number inscribed on them. But they are not mine. They were handed to me, branding me a commodity, property. These items once belonged to another Negro. And another before him. And they will be passed on to another after me. They are not my brother’s hand-me-downs, and they were never worn with love. They were worn with desperation, fear … anger. The recycled rage seeps into my skin, settling like dust I can’t wipe clean.

  Mack was right: Negroes are trapped, one way or another.

  Up, up, you mighty race!

  Seven more years in this dump, maybe six, depending on parole. I count each day and think how it would feel to melt into the ground. I’m heavy. Not in weight but in mind, like a fog that’s surrounding my head, impossible to escape. At night, I write a letter to each of my sisters and brothers. I write so much now that my fountain pen is starting to run out of ink. I try to sound like myself, the Malcolm they know. Upbeat, funny, down for a good laugh, so they won’t worry. Ladies used to call me charming. Men used to call me smooth. In here, not sure who I am or what’s left of me and if it even matters.

  Nothing eases my craving for reefer, powder, drink, or women, despite all the ways I try to distract myself. Time is passing way too slow. Routines and the nutmeg can only take me so far. When will I see outside these walls again?

  I think about Mom, stuck in that institution because she refused pork and bad cheese from the government, refused their handouts, wanting better for her children. With Papa gone, there was no one to help her. She was easy prey.

  I’m pacing in my cell. A cell? Would I be in a cell if Papa were alive? Would I be here if the KKK didn’t kill him? Would I have ever left my family in Lansing? Would I have ever gone to Boston or Harlem?

  These are the questions I ask myself over and over, a record on repeat. When you’re so used to running from everything that haunts you and then forced to keep still with yourself, the thoughts start eating away at you from the inside out.
>
  * * *

  “I’m doing everything I can, Malcolm,” Ella says from across the table, her hands folded. “Everything. I’m writing letters every day to your parole board, the Department of Corrections, that Norfolk place you were telling me about. I’m trying to get this transfer but they are just slow as molasses.”

  Reminds me of what Mom said about our father. Papa petitioned President Coolidge to have Mr. Garvey released from prison after he was charged with federal mail fraud. Papa said it was all a ploy to have Mr. Garvey deported out of the country so he could no longer spread his teachings to uplift Negroes.

  Up, up, you mighty race!

  Ella looks over her shoulder. There are more people in the room with us today. Some cats I don’t recognize. Maybe from other units. I wonder if Shorty gets visitors where he is. His mother maybe. She came and saw me right before our sentencing. She forgave me, even if I still can’t forgive myself.

  “I may have another way,” Ella whispers. “A friend of mine, Thomas, he owns the drugstore not too far from the house. He’s also on the parole board. I’m gonna see … what he can do for us if I … give him a few dollars for his troubles.”

  For a moment, I’m too stunned to respond. My straightlaced big sister has a hustle … just like everyone else in Roxbury.

  “You really think he’ll help us?”

  “Can’t hurt to try.” Ella takes a deep breath, then frowns. “Malcolm, did you know a fella named Clay Jenkins? Went by ‘Lightning’?”

  “How’d you … how’d you know Lightning?”

  Ella leans forward to whisper. “There’s a very young woman out there, in the lobby. Been coming here every week looking for answers about what happened to her husband. Last week, they tossed her out on her knees, she was asking so many questions. I’m afraid she’s going to do something silly.”

  I don’t want Ella getting mixed up with these ruthless devils. I press my hands together, shaking my head. “No, don’t know him.”

  “Okay, I need you to stay safe, Malcolm. You hear me? Stay safe and I’ll get you transferred out of here.”