My Home Is a Noiseless Gun

List of things that go on at my home: Cruddy stuff. Sad stuff. The things-nobody-can-help stuff, and good stuff. My home is a noiseless gun: it fires, but there is no sonic boom of the bullet. After someone is hit, the silence confuses the minds of the victims and the bystanders, tricking them into believing that the previous traumatic event(s) “weren’t so bad.”

My home is a kiss. And sometimes when it puckers its lips, it electrifies. My home is warm, but when the temperature rises and the heat slithers from around the corner, we scatter. We run toward it. We’re from Baltimore, so we two-step in the fire. And boy oh boy, those flames cause us to look worn-out like burnt scriptures, while we are still wet behind the ears. It’s like we go from age ten to twenty-one in three to five business days. The children who grow up fast are clear-cut reflections of a troubled past, and a tip-off for an idiosyncratic future. My home loves, but it loves different. It loves us the only way it knows how.

Out front, local rap music hisses from foreign cars. Gold chains draped over naked pubescent torsos, the word “Loyalty” inscribed in ink and blood over the heart. Despite the fact that Granny said, “You better not get no tattoos on your arm if you want a good job in the future.” A tattoo is the least of your worries; “good jobs” won’t spot your ink because applicants who carry the names Tyrone and Darius are never interviewed.

Children landing double back somersaults on charred pissy mattresses that have steel coils and foam bursting through the fabric. Mattress + street = somebody got put out for not paying their rent. One man’s unpaid bills become another man’s playground. Kids from the hood are little alchemists, always turning lead into gold.

This brick-red row home is mine. That blue sticky spot cluttered with flies is where my little brother spilled his soda. Some bleach and hot water will get it out. That’s a flowerpot—it just ain’t got no flowers in it. Only dirt and piled-up trash that all of us disobedient kids slam-dunked into it. That old man with titties, propped out of that window across the street? That’s Mr. Luke. He’s nosy, and a gossip. He tells my grandmother every little thing. I remember I had thrown a marble at a speeding car on Orleans Street. I sprinted home, and by the time I stretched open the screen door, my grandmother was there holding a leather strap, with the face of a devil sick of sin. “Mr. Luke told me—” is all I remember before my grandmother went Lara Croft on my ass.

That banister is almost always broken, so don’t grab on it too hard, or at all. Everything that goes on the other side of this peephole is where I lay my head.

This house is a hub for outlaw lovemaking, which we call “doing it.” I be doing it, my lil brother be doing it, my cousin be doing it, and I have factual evidence that my mother always be doing it. She has the kids, the miscarriages, and the abortion receipts to prove it.

This house is a capital for drug abuse, which is always disguised as a “celebration.” I never knew what was there to celebrate. But then again, in life, what doesn’t kill you makes you go crazy. Nobody blasted themselves today. Let’s party!

Bent empty cans of Steele Reserve 211 overflow the grocery bags hanging on door knobs. You might find a clear capsule with heroin residue tucked under the baseboard. You may also find a “love rose,” which are roses in small glass tubes that are sold at corner stores in my neighborhood, intended as gifts for your sweetheart. But the love was gone once that rose was plucked out and replaced with a pregnant rock of crack, steel wool, and a lighter flame, hence the burn marks, which births a new romance more sacred than rice rain and cake cutting.

That’s my grandmother on the couch. Her only exercise is raising cigarettes and cups of coffee to her lips, cursing out her disorderly grandkids, chasing Facebook on her cell phone, and flipping through channels for the next NFL or NBA game.

If you walk down these steps, it leads you to the kitchen. Yes, our kitchen is in the basement. Watch your feet and make sure you don’t step on any sticky pads. There are two mice in here that we can’t catch for nothing. My grandmother says only dirty people have mice in their homes. Them mice in here come from the lady next door.

That’s my aunt at the sink committing a homicide on my lil cousin’s naps with a hot comb, sounding like sizzling chicken and shrimp from TGI Friday’s. You haven’t been to Hell until someone puts that “Just For Me” perm stuff in your head. I’ve seen my lil cousin cry just looking at that jar.

If you look past my cousin, you’ll see a khaki-colored dinted door. If you turn the knob, it’ll take you outside.

This is our backyard. A concrete square of endless amusement and scattered rat poop. No matter how much we sweep, it always returns. This is where me and my homeboys have amateur crap games where we shoot the five and bet the ten. Crooked smiles crowded with gold teeth blowing on dice, wishing for new tennis shoes. Whenever me and my friends got into arguments, this becomes a boxing arena where egos get mangled. That crate hanging by old strings from the balcony is what we used for a basketball rim.

Cookouts? Oh, we don’t throw cookouts back here. The cookouts throw us. The cookouts throw us into contemplation about punching the clock or calling out of our night shift. The cookouts throw us into bottles of Advil and Budweiser. The next morning, attempting to hang the hangover. The cookouts are the puppeteers—we are on the strings. We forgive them for the stabbing pain in our kidneys, the vomiting, and the headaches, then allow them to throw us, again.

If you look up from here, you’ll see our metal gray balcony where at times I loom over and watch the sun sink. When the darkness barged in, this alleyway is where uncanny accidents occurred. People getting robbed at fist-point. Naked women running with urine dribbling down their thighs. Junkies spitting out blood through their last two incisors. I heard this one lady yell at this guy, “You never do shit for the damn kids.” That’s what she said right before she landed hawk spit directly into his eye. Neither me nor him saw that coming.

If there are people delighted after visiting my home, then I am glad. If they are not, then it doesn’t matter. Some would argue that there is more love in the dead arms of an enemy than what’s at my home. But, angels don’t always sing. The sun doesn’t shine in Heaven, all the time. Paradise wouldn’t be who she truly is if she never experienced a little pain. My home loves, but it loves different. It loves us the only way it knows how.

* * *

Our crown has already been bought and paid for. All we have to do is wear it.
—James Baldwin

For the women in my neighborhood who wore pink and blue hair when the whole world called it “ghetto.” For the young men who got face tattoos and gift-wrapped their teeth with gold and diamonds before it was trendy, when people pinned it as “unprofessional,” “gang-related,” and “ghetto.” For the ones who wheelie’d pedal bikes through traffic and were called “reckless,” instead of being hailed for their talent. For all of the young Black pioneers who were brave enough to wear their hoods on their back and rep their cities like gangs, despite the world’s criticism. For the ones who have been the leading scorers on setting pop culture trends but don’t get the credit from mainstream media— not that they want it, nor seek it, but it should be known. This for y’all. This is for us.

Majority of my childhood, and well into my teenage years, my grandmother, along with other friends and family who belonged to my community, often told me, “I don’t want you end up like them niggas.” “Them niggas” who pocket pistols in preparation for civil wars amongst their neighbors. Who fail math in school but know numbers when a brick of coke is involved, “them niggas.” “Them niggas” with hunchbacks who stand as if the world were glued to their shoulder blades. Whose mean mugs be two-ton, who have deep stories of anger loaded in their laugh lines. “Them niggas” with mile-long mouths who scream “fuck the police” as they bend corners in squad cars. “Them niggas” who stay within a three-mile radius of where they live, until they die. Who only attend church for funeral services but inscribe bible scriptures in ink and blood on their bodies, “them niggas.” “Them niggas” who collect baby mamas like tennis shoes. Who stand on the block for hours and crack: crack jokes, crack open liquor bottles, slang crack, crack jaws when somebody cracks slick, “them niggas.” “Them niggas” who rock cruddy fades tall enough for five heads. “Them niggas,” who say “Baldamore,” instead of “Baltimore.” If you ain’t none of “them niggas,” then you’re guilty by association, my grandmother strongly believed. My grandmother wanted to make sure that I would be as little of “them niggas,” and as much “American” as possible. Because the more “American” I was, the more I’d be ready for “the real world,” meaning, I believe, the “White world,” because obviously I wouldn’t be successful at life if I was one of “them niggas.”

“You better not put none of them damn fronts in your mouth, I paid too much money for them braces,” my grandmother yelled from the kitchen, located in the basement. Me and my friend had both just gotten summer jobs and were discussing what we are going to spend our first checks on, and my grandmother was eavesdropping. Little did she know that no power in this universe was gonna stop me from getting six of my teeth covered in gold. She was also a few days late, because I had already been fitted and was scheduled to pick them up from Golden Brothers, a jewelry store in downtown Baltimore the following week.

Getting your first pair of fronts is a rite of passage to Baltimoreans located on the Eastside, a.k.a. “Down Da Hill.” Getting your first tattoo was a rite of passage, as well; I had gotten mine a year prior. I was told tattoos make people look “ignorant,” and that if I got any, I wouldn’t get a “good job” in the “future.” At this point in my life, there wasn’t an adult, not even my grandmother, whose words held sway over my decision making. Back around the time when I was thirteen, I knew what I wanted: I got my first ink in the basement of a guy named Rell, who didn’t require parental supervision while tattooing minors. On my right arm was a cross, with “R.I.P.” above it and “Fidel” below. That was my little brother, who died in a house fire at seven years old. Inscribing a loved one’s name in your flesh is ritual, one of the many ways we honor our fallen.

“You need to stop wearing all them damn tennis shoes and big-ass shirts. You need some real clothes,” my grandmother would say. Real clothes were dress shoes and button-up shirts, as if I were attending Bible study every day. Imagine being the only kid on the block dressed in loafers, slacks, and Oxford shirts. In Baltimore City? Yeah, right. I would’ve spent the majority of my childhood fighting off jokesters. Then imagine how upset my grandmother would’ve been at me, scuffling on the streets every day, getting those fancy clothes she paid for dirty.

“If you don’t listen to me you’re gonna end up like your mother and father.” My grandmother made it known that my parents’ heroin habits and their frequent stays in prison happened because they didn’t listen to my grandmother or their elders. My grandmother, on the other hand, was the backbone of our family because she had listened to her guardians and had gotten herself educated. And no less than that is what she wanted for and from me.

Neither my grandmother nor I was a scholar when it came to understanding the influence environments have on physical, mental, and moral development. We didn’t know that we were brainwashed to accept White value systems and White standards of beauty, which made us trade in our eyes for a new pair that only sees a monster when we look in the mirror. And new sets of lips that might not ever utter the words “Black is beautiful.” We didn’t know that “good education” in schools did not teach Black people to deal with life how we must face it. My grandmother always stayed on top of me and my “education,” and I maintained good grades. I could pass a math exam. I was great at spelling. I was trained my entire life on how to do well in school on paper, but not in life. My family and friends didn’t create this culture, it was handed over to us like hand-me-down coats. Even if they were too big, we still wore them on our shoulder blades.

Just like every other group in this country, we are on a journey to find success. We are on a journey to learn, and grow, and to see what this country has in store for us, and to find ways that we can pass down the heirlooms we’ve attained to our loved ones, with the hopes of making their journey less difficult than it was for those who came before them. A part of being antiracist is that we have to first acknowledge our racist ideas and stereotypes that we have about other groups, throw them away, and our newfound antiracist ideas should be reflected in our actions—through the policies we support, the literature we teach our children, the way we treat people on the street, etc. This is not the be-all and end-all, but it is a means that will point us in the right direction.

There is nothing wrong with Black people, or with any other racial group. And if you insist that one racial group has to be “more American” (code for White American) in order to live a life with freedom, happiness, and dignity, then a first step is to understand that that is a racist idea. Racist ideas undermine and devalue our shared humanity, whereas antiracist ideas, perspectives, and resulting actions value and respect cultural and physical differences among and within all racial groups. These differences should not threaten anyone’s freedoms in this country or anywhere.