I MADE A DEAL WITH MYSELF in tenth grade. Up to then, I’d been one of the best players on every sports team I’d joined. But soon after I enrolled in high school back in Oak Cliff, I, the kid who was always thinking ahead, began calculating my chances of going pro. Barry, a classmate who was a year behind me in school, was a phenomenal running back. As competitive as I was, I knew I didn’t have his magic. I could win games all day long around Oak Cliff, but I wasn’t going to make it to the NBA or the NFL. And yet athletics consumed me. When I wasn’t studying, I was preparing for a game or playing one. Is this the best use of my time? I began thinking. If I instead devote myself to academics, could I get into college, earn my degree, and go on to get a great job?
By sixteen, I’d become more aware of my mother’s financial struggles. I’d seen her even tearing up when she couldn’t give us some of the small things we wanted. For all her valiant effort, we still hadn’t been able to afford a home of our own or a car. Every mother wants her child to do better than she did, to build on the legacy she has put in place, and that is what my mother wanted for my brothers and me. She’d struggled every day to ensure our needs were met, and her example planted a seed in me. Following school, I wanted to become a strong provider for myself and, eventually, for my family.
So I decided to play the odds. I could make straight A’s; I’d already proven that over many semesters. And since a pro career was clearly a long shot, I made an agreement with myself: I would set sports aside and focus solely on academics. In that arena, I could compete. I could stand out as the best. I could do what Mom had always urged us to do: aim to be productive with our lives. At the start of my sophomore year, I didn’t go out for a single sports team.
Once I made that choice, everything shifted. Many of those who’d been my classmates back in second grade were no longer on the honors track; in our high school, you had to choose to take on the most challenging course work. In tenth and eleventh grades, I enrolled in every Advanced Placement class that was available. By twelfth grade, I’d completed all my AP courses and begun participating in a gifted and talented program my district offered. In it, those who’d finished all their AP course work could gain work experience by doing an apprenticeship in two career tracks. I was still planning to pursue law, so I spent my mornings in the office of attorney Larry W. Baraka and my afternoons at an engineering firm.
Larry was the first real-life lawyer I’d ever met. Then a newly minted attorney, he would go on to become the first black district judge in Dallas County. His presence alone was affirmation that someone who looked the way I did could be successful. While working for him, I could actually see myself completing law school and one day taking on court cases, the kinds of cases Perry Mason had once argued. I could visualize it.
In the office every day, Larry was as dapper as Perry had been: tailored suits, pressed white shirts and ties, creased pants. I, on the other hand, hadn’t yet learned how to dress the part. I had some church clothes, but Mom didn’t let me wear those to school. I didn’t own a suit and tie. So I wore the casual clothes that most kids wore in the 1970s—big collars, bell-bottoms, platform shoes, bright colors—with an Afro to complete the look.
One day when we were scheduled to go to court, I dressed up more than usual. I chose a blue-plaid leisure suit, a secondhand one I’d once begged Mom to buy for me. Not only did it have huge buttons down the middle; it came with a short-sleeved coat, under which I wore a long-sleeved shirt. The night before, I’d even plaited my hair back to prepare it for a nice Afro. I just knew I was sharp.
That morning Larry took one look at me and directed me toward the back of the courtroom, where I took a seat. After the hearing, as we were on our way out, he whispered to me, “David, don’t you ever wear anything like that again in court.” He didn’t elaborate. He just stated his admonition in a matter-of-fact way and moved on.
I thought, What is he talking about? Is he joking? Years later, I can see how I must have looked in that ridiculous getup, made worse by long sleeves under a short-sleeve suit and a giant Afro. But you could not have told me that I didn’t look good. And as an aside, any of us who’ve ever worn leisure suits should have very little to say about the fashion choices of later generations. We have no room to talk.
Larry was not only a mentor for me but also a true friend. I could sense that he, like the many teachers who nurtured me along the way, wanted me to be successful. One such person was Miss Battle, my twelfth-grade government teacher. Her last name fit her: She was 100 percent no-nonsense, just like my mother. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was just out of college and only twenty-two, only a few years older than her students. That year and for decades afterward, she stayed up to date on everything I did, saving every newspaper clipping. I know public schools get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. But the educators in my district really cared about me. Miss Battle. Coach Hulcy. My second-grade teacher. All were the Oak Cliff I knew.
WHEN I GRADUATED FROM South Oak Cliff High School in 1979, my classmates voted me Most Intellectual and Most Likely to Succeed. I voted myself most likely to move out of my mother’s place. Mom had always made it clear that whatever I did, it could not involve lying around her apartment without a job. College was to be my passport to a new existence, a life on my own two feet. Because I was near the top of my class, I was offered a combination of scholarships and financial aid to attend a selection of state schools. That was a relief and a blessing, since my mother couldn’t afford the cost of higher education. I was admitted to the University of Texas at Austin and enrolled there for the fall.
A week before I left for Austin, I attended a church across the street from our apartment complex. The ministers there hosted a special Sunday service for the high school seniors going away to college. At the close of the gathering, they gave each of us a warm send-off, with hugs and congratulations. They also handed us a Bible, a medium-size King James Version. To this day, I still have that Bible.
THE MORNING OF MY DEPARTURE for UT Austin dawned bright and clear. My mother had, as usual, arisen at sunrise and helped me with last-minute packing. Both Mom and Mabel accompanied me to the Greyhound bus station. “You be good, son,” my mother said, hugging me. Mabel handed me a meal she’d prepared for me. I thanked her, and we embraced. As I boarded the bus, the two most important women in my childhood stood outside and waited for me to pull off.
Once on board, I scanned the faces of those seated and searched for an open spot. There were several possibilities next to other black passengers, but for some reason, my attention landed on a white guy who looked like he was around my age. Remembering my improbable connection with Mike Shillingburg, I sat next to him and balanced my lunch box on my lap. He glanced at me and smiled.
“I’m David,” I said.
“I’m Lance,” he said.
Our connection was immediate; we talked for the duration of the bus ride. Lance, who’d come from a poor family just as I had, was also en route to UT Austin. We talked nonstop, traded stories of our high school years and application to college, as well as our excitement about living on campus and experiencing college. A couple hours into our conversation, I got hungry. I reached down, opened the lunch box Mabel had given me, and began devouring my food. Lance looked on in silence. Even when the bus came to a halt at a rest area where food was available, Lance didn’t get off and purchase anything. I could tell he was hungry, and I figured he didn’t have the money to buy himself a meal. So as much I wanted to savor every last bite of my food, I finally looked over at him and asked, “Would you like some?” He nodded yes—and in that instant, a meal meant for one became an opportunity to do for Lance what Mike Shillingburg had once done for me.
When we arrived in Austin, Lance and I waved goodbye and went our separate ways. On our large campus, I never saw him again. So the first day we’d met had also been our last—until decades later, in the most unexpected way, when our paths would cross again.
COLLEGE WAS AN ENTIRELY new world for me. UT Austin had only a smattering of black students, many of whom, like me, had come from poor families. Race is the yardstick by which diversity is often measured, but class, its twin sister, is also a gauge. When it came to the latter, I stood out like the inner-city kid I was, in my cheap threads and generic sneakers. I was surrounded by students who drove BMWs and Mercedes to campus and sported designer clothing. By all outward appearances, it seemed we had little in common. Yet I knew better, in part because my earlier experiences had proven otherwise. My friendship with Mike and the year and a half I’d spent in San Francisco had taught me how to reach past race and class and any other superficiality and connect with others on a heart level. Though the early adjustment was challenging, I extended myself and eventually made friends with classmates, some of whom looked like me and many others who did not.
Where perceived dissimilarities exist, music can serve as a great equalizer. That was the case on our campus. As I entered my sophomore year in the fall of 1980, hip-hop was eclipsing R&B as the newest art form to capture the fascination of the young of all races. From the dorm rooms to the cafeteria to the parking lot, “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang played on a constant loop. Students of every background fell in love with the lyrics and beat. “Let’s rock, you don’t stop,” rapped Wonder Mike. “Rock the rhythm that’ll make your body rock!” By year’s end, I’d heard the record so much I was sick of it.
Unlike nearly everyone I knew on campus, I mostly stuck with R&B. Michael Jackson had come of age with Off the Wall, and Teddy Pendergrass was turning out the lights with his love songs. The Commodores and Lionel Richie were easy like Sunday morning, Frankie Beverly and Maze were giving me happy feelings, and Sly and the Family Stone wanted me to stay. Lenny Williams would later sum up why I couldn’t let go of R&B when he sang “ ’Cause I Love You.” And yet I couldn’t hate on rap. I’m just old-school. That year on campus, rap was both entertainment and common ground.
When I arrived in Austin, I didn’t declare a major right away. I still dreamed of becoming a criminal defense attorney, which meant I had my eye on law school—and I already knew I wouldn’t be able to afford it. So I concocted a plan to complete my bachelor’s degree, then take a job to put myself through law school. But there was a problem: Typical pre-law majors such as English, philosophy, and political science might not lead to a job that paid well enough to cover law school tuition. If I went down that road, I’d end up flat broke and in major debt. So rather than haphazardly choosing a course of study, I discussed my options with a college guidance counselor.
“How much does an English major earn right after college?” I asked, wanting to confirm my suspicions.
She stared at me as a grin spread across her face. “It depends on the job,” she said. “But not much initially.”
“What’s the highest-paying major?” I asked. She shuffled through some papers on her desk and fished out a list of majors. After studying the list for a moment, she mentioned a few, including engineering, marketing, and computer science. “And accounting,” she concluded. “That field tends to pay a good starting salary.”
That was all I needed to hear. I knew nothing about accounting, but I was confident in my math skills. I can do that, I thought. It’s adding and subtracting and balance sheets. It’s far more than that, of course, but I had my gaze firmly affixed on the goal of a decent income. When you grow up in poverty, the practical takes precedence over the philosophical. I didn’t have the luxury of traveling the world to “find myself” during my late teens and twenties. I just had to get through school and get on with a career. That same week I declared myself an accounting major and enrolled in the required courses.
One of my former high school buddies, David Lewis, the one who’d eventually work for Microsoft, made the same choice. He and I were roommates during our freshman year, and we’d both researched the starting salary of an accountant. It was approximately $21,000. That may not sound like a lot to some, but it was more than my mother had ever earned, except perhaps for those few years when she’d worked at Texas Instruments. Even with all her hours of overtime, her average annual income hovered around $17,000—enough to cover our basic expenses, but too little to purchase a home or a car, and certainly not enough to pay for a vacation. So $21,000 sounded like a jackpot to me.
As I sank into my studies—and began dating the woman I’d marry in 1982—from the outside looking in, the dramatic shift in my situation probably looked like an overwhelming flurry of events. In the space of a year and a half, I left home, transitioned to college, and stepped into family life—all while still a student. And yet I experienced the change not as an unsettling series of events but as an exciting new chapter filled with hope and anticipation. In my view, this is what it meant to grow into full manhood. My mother had done all the working in order to provide for my brothers and me. I’d never even worked a fast-food job while I was under her roof. Now, for the first time, it was my turn to take care of my family the way that she’d taken care of us.
Not long after I married, I landed a part-time job as a pizza deliveryman. My scholarships and financial aid were enough to cover my tuition, but I needed extra for rent and groceries. I worked as many hours as my supervisors would give me. The summer before, I’d scrounged up $750 in cash to buy a used ’71 Buick Skylark. It was a gorgeous hunter green and didn’t have many miles on it. Every evening at the start of my delivery route, I’d crank it up and make my rounds. Surprisingly, even while balancing thirty hours of work with a full-time course load, I didn’t feel overwhelmed; that is youth’s invaluable gift to each of us. It helped that my studies came fairly easily. I earned the same good grades I’d been earning since second grade. All seemed to be going well—and then I came home to Oak Cliff during the summer that changed everything.
THE EYES ARE WHAT I remember: dazed and empty, crimson and dilated, filled with a quiet rage. While I was home in Oak Cliff on that summer break in 1982, just after my sophomore year at UT Austin, the eyes I noticed belonged to an old high school classmate of mine, one known for his gregarious laugh and cheerful disposition. When he and I ran into each other near my mother’s apartment, I almost didn’t know him. He was nearly comatose.
“Hey, man, what’s going on?” I asked him. He didn’t speak. He didn’t nod or smile. He didn’t acknowledge my question. He just stared, as if he were looking through me rather than at me. There was no light in his eyes. He appeared, simultaneously, to be half-dead and capable of lunging forward to strangle me.
During my first week back in the neighborhood, I’d spotted that gaze all over town. Among the kids I’d once shot hoops with on the courts. Among those who’d gone through school with me. On street corners, in restaurants, in grocery stores.
“What’s going on around here?” I finally asked a couple of my buddies who still seemed like themselves.
“These kids are trying crack cocaine,” one friend explained. “It’s all over the place.”
“What does it do to you?”
“You try one hit, and you’re hooked,” he told me.
“You mean, like, totally addicted?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “After a single smoke.”
All I could think was, But for the grace of God, that could have been me—one hit and hooked.
I was stunned and horrified. A drug I’d never heard of had made Oak Cliff totally unrecognizable to me. Evidence of crack was everywhere: The lots where we’d played pickup basketball games sat empty, and the recreation centers had fallen strangely silent. In place of children playing tag and hopscotch until just before dusk, sellers lurked about, trading clear Baggies with small rocks of white powder. Gunshots rang out overnight, and on the news, drug-related shootings were reported frequently. While I’d been away, crack had transformed my neighborhood into a war zone. It looked as if a bomb had been dropped there. Oak Cliff was completely ravaged.
I stayed indoors for most of that summer. That’s how utterly depressed and frightened I felt. By this time, Rickey had moved into his own apartment in Dallas and was putting himself through junior college. Kelvin, who’d graduated from high school and was working odd jobs while he figured out his next move, was still living at home. On one of the many long afternoons when I sat around Mom’s apartment, heavy-hearted and trying to forget what was happening in Oak Cliff, I spotted it again. That look. Those eyes. That unsettling gaze. Right there in our living room, my own little brother was high on crack. I didn’t say anything to Kelvin, because frankly I didn’t know what to say. In our family, uncomfortable issues were seldom addressed head-on; it’s just not the way we dealt with things. A wave of helplessness and anger swept over me. I had never felt so shaken.
While I’d return to college for one more year, my thoughts were never far from home—and soon I’d be back in Dallas for good.