by Claude Brown
He said, “Yeah, Sonny, I can dig that, man. I learned a whole lot of shit out here. The hippest cats I’ve met, man, were the cats who just came up in the streets. But we still don’t make it to college. I’m kind of puzzled at that stuff you did. I still don’t know what’s behind it, but knowing that it’s you, baby, it’s got to be all right. It’s got to be somethin’ to it.”
“I wish I could throw some light on it, Reno, but I’m not sure what it’s all about myself. I just looked up one day and found me in this groove. That’s how it’s been with me all the time, Reno. I have admired you from way back, man, because of all the stuff you showed me, not only the stuff you knew, but the way you just made decisions, man, on a snap, and said, ‘If I hit, I’ll make it. And if I miss, fuck it.’
“Reno, I remember the first time you took me downtown to cut me into the Murphy. I asked you, I said, ‘Look here, man, tell me just what happens.’ Then you started runnin’ it down to me. You said, ‘It’s simple, Sonny, really. If everything goes off like we plan, we’ll each have a good two hundred dollars in our pockets by the time we come back uptown. And if it doesn’t go off like we plan, we’ll probably be in jail. It’s as simple as that.’ Reno, that was one of the first times in my life that I didn’t mind goin’ to jail, that I felt I was ready to go to jail. I admired you for bein’ able to assume that attitude, man. I was certain that the things you’d done in street life had given it to you. I saw it as a maturity, man, that I strived for a long time after that.”
He said, “Oh, man, come on. Don’t bullshit me, Sonny.”
“No, man, I’m not stuffin’.”
“That’s funny, but, believe it or not, Sonny, I’ve been to college, man; I’ve been there too. Only, I’ve been to a different college.”
“I’m not readin’ you yet, baby.”
“Yeah, Sonny. The time I did in Woodburn, the times I did on the Rock, that was college, man. Believe me, it was college. I did four years in Woodburn. And I guess I’ve done a total of about two years on the Rock in about the last six years. Every time I went there, I learned a little more. When I go to jail now, Sonny, I live, man. I’m right at home. That’s the good part about it. If you look at it, Sonny, a cat like me is just cut out to be in jail.
“It never could hurt me, ‘cause I never had what the good folks call a home and all that kind of shit to begin with. So when I went to jail, the first time I went away, when I went to Warwick, I made my own home. It was all right. Shit, I learned how to live. Now when I go back to the joint, anywhere I go, I know some people. If I go to any of the jails in New York, or if I go to a slam in Jersey, even, I still run into a lot of cats I know. It’s almost like a family.”
I said, “Yeah, Reno, it’s good that a cat can be so happy in jail. I guess all it takes to be happy in anything is knowin’ how to walk with your lot, whatever it is, in life.”
Reno put out his hand for me to give him five, and I slapped it. “Sonny, you want another drink?”
“No, man, I’m movin’, Reno. I’ve got to be someplace.”
“Yeah, well, me too. I got to get ready for somethin’, get ready to get me some money, or either get ready to do some time.”
I tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Good luck, Reno.”
“Later, baby. I’ll see you around.”
I had the feeling that Reno had managed to become one of the happiest people in Harlem. I felt very close to Reno. People used to say that friends were “as thick as thieves.” Maybe I had a thief’s affinity for him. He had taught me a lot.
Reno was somebody right from the streets. I think he took to me because he saw me as somebody from the streets, somebody who hated to see the sun go down on Eighth Avenue, who would run up on Amsterdam Avenue, follow the sun down the hill, across Broadway, to the Drive and the Hudson River, and then would wait for the sun to come back. I guess Reno thought he’d found somebody who was destined to be in the streets of Harlem for the rest of his life.
I felt as though I had let him down. I was saying, “Look, man, we aren’t destined. You just bullshitted yourself and messed all up.” But I guess he hadn’t, really. He’d just made his choice, and I’d made mine.
As a child, I remember being morbidly afraid. It was a fear that was like a fever that never let up. Sometimes it became so intense that it would just swallow you. At other times, it just kept you shaking. But it was always there. I suppose, in Harlem, even now, the fear is still there.
When I first moved away from the folks, it seemed as though I was moving deeper into the Harlem life that I had wanted to become a part of and farther away from what Mama and Dad wanted me to become a part of. I think, as time went on, they both became aware that the down-home life had kind of had its day. But they didn’t know just what was to follow, so how could they tell me?
I didn’t realize it until after I had gotten out, but there were other cats in Harlem who were afraid too. They were afraid of getting out of Harlem; they were afraid to go away from their parents. There were some cats who would stay at home; they wouldn’t work; they wouldn’t do anything. I didn’t see how they could do it, but they seemed to manage. They just didn’t feel anything about it, but it was pretty evident that they were afraid of not being able to turn to their parents when things got rough. And they were afraid of getting out there and not being able to make it.
When I moved up on Hamilton Terrace, I suppose I still had my fears, but it was something. It was a move away from fear, toward challenges, toward the positive anger that I think every young man should have. All the time before, I thought I was angry. I guess I was, but the anger was stifled. It was an impotent anger because it was stifled by fear. I was more afraid than I was angry. There were many times when I wondered if Rock would have hurt anybody if he hadn’t been in Harlem … or if Johnny Wilkes would have been so mean if he hadn’t been in Harlem. I was afraid of what Harlem could bring out in a person. When I decided to move, I was trying to get away from the fear.
Everybody I knew in Harlem seemed to have some kind of dream. I didn’t have any dreams, not really. I didn’t have any dreams for hitting the number. I didn’t have any dreams for getting a big car or a fine wardrobe. I bought expensive clothes because it was a fad. It was the thing to do, just to show that you had money. I wanted to be a part of what was going on, and this was what was going on.
I didn’t have any dreams of becoming anything. All I knew for certain was that I had my fears. I suppose just about everybody else knew the same thing. They had their dreams, though, and I guess that’s what they had over me. As time went by, I was sorry for the people whose dreams were never realized.
When Butch was alive, sometimes I would go uptown to see him. He’d be sick. He’d be really messed up. I’d give him some drugs, and then he’d be more messed up than before. He wouldn’t be sick, but I couldn’t talk to him, I couldn’t reach him. He’d be just sitting on a stoop nodding. Sometimes he’d be slobbering over himself.
I used to remember Butch’s dream. Around 1950, he used to dream of becoming the best thief in Harlem. It wasn’t a big dream. To him, it was a big dream, but I don’t suppose too many people would have seen it as that. Still, I felt sorry for him because it was his dream. I suppose the first time he put the spike in his arm every dream he’d ever had was thrown out the window. Sometimes I wanted to shout at him or snatch him by the throat and say, “Butch, what about your dream?” But there were so many dreams that were lost for a little bit of duji.
I remember Reno used to say that all he wanted was two bars in Harlem and two Cadillacs. It sounded like something that was all right to me. I used to envy Reno for his dream.
When he first told me, I thought to myself, Wow, if I could just want two bars and two Cadillacs. I was hoping all the time that he’d make it. Once I asked him, “Reno, what’s the two Cadillacs for, man? You can only drive one at a time.”
He said, “One I’m gon get for my woman.”
I said, “Oh, th
en the other one’ll be hers.”
“No, man, you can’t expect but so much out of a bitch, not any bitch, I don’t care how good she is.”
“Uh-huh. So what?”
Reno said, “Every time a bitch fucks up, I’m gonna just cut her loose and get another one. Every time I get a new bitch, the other Cadillac’s gon be hers. You dig it?”
“Yeah, I dig it. It sounds like a pretty hip life.”
“I don’t know, man, but that’s what I want to do, Sonny.”
“Yeah, Reno, I guess that’s all that matters, that a cat does what he wants to do.”
I used to feel that I belonged on the Harlem streets and that, regardless of what I did, nobody had any business to take me off the streets.
I remember when I ran away from shelters, places that they sent me to, here in the city. I never ran away with the thought in mind of coming home. I always ran away to get back to the streets. I always thought of Harlem as home, but I never thought of Harlem as being in the house. To me, home was the streets. I suppose there were many people who felt that. If home was so miserable, the street was the place to be. I wonder if mine was really so miserable, or if it was that there was so much happening out in the street that it made home seem such a dull and dismal place.
When I was very young—about five years old, maybe younger—I would always be sitting out on the stoop. I remember Mama telling me and Carole to sit on the stoop and not to move away from in front of the door. Even when it was time to go up and Carole would be pulling on me to come upstairs and eat, I never wanted to go, because there was so much out there in that street.
You might see somebody get cut or killed. I could go out in the street for an afternoon, and I would see so much that, when I came in the house, I’d be talking and talking for what seemed like hours. Dad would say, “Boy, why don’t you stop that lyin’? You know you didn’t see all that. You know you didn’t see nobody do that.” But I knew I had.
