The Hallway

Franklin Ave was putting in work on Sekou and Changa, and by ‘79, the Ave had far more influence than my mother. She couldn’t control either of them. Her slaps and broomstick handles didn’t mean a thing. They’d outgrown the fear of her punishment. Her rules were more like polite requests. “Be home by midnight,” she’d say. Changa heard: “Try not to get arrested or shot tonight, ‘cause I ain’t bailing your dumb ass out no more!” And Sekou followed his big brother’s lead. They would run wild through the neighborhood on dirt bikes, robbing and hustling, chasing the next thrill—their usual.

But Changa began testing the limits of Ma’s tolerance more than usual. To him, he was a man in everything but age. He had his own money and even gave Ma money sometimes. He had his own vehicle (at times). He bought or boosted his own clothes, got more ass than most men, and was nobody’s fool. He would not be tamed. Never. Sekou was on his own path, too, following a similar flow, but Changa was bolder. Had his own thing, his own crew, and his actions screamed defiance at Ma the loudest. When Ma finally threw up her hands after yet another stealing incident, we all sensed some breaking point had been reached. Her threats to put him out on the streets for good would finally come to pass.

Many a night, in the wee hours, I’d hear a shout from the street beneath the window, or a tapping at the front door, and know before I swung the peephole cover aside who it was. It’d be Changa pleading for me to open the door because Ma had long since confiscated his keys. “Ma said nah, man,” I’d say. He’d be damn near in tears, his dramatic ass. “C’mon, Buck,” he always called me Buck. “Open up! Some motherfuckers looking for me!” He’d wheel around like they were coming up the stairs just then. I’d have my hand on the lock, about to give in, when Ma would emerge from her bedroom. “Don’t open my fucking door!” she’d holler. I’d back away, and she’d take up my place at the door. “I told yo’ ass this door gets locked at midnight. Thought I was bullshitting?? Think you can disrespect MY house and come and go as you please, nigga? Nah. It don’t work like that.”

By this time, the neighbors, I’m sure, had broken out the popcorn and were manning their peepholes.

“Ma! Open the door! Pleaseeeee—” Changa would cry.

“Take your ass back to bed and don’t touch my door!” she’d snap at me, and I’d obey.

Sometimes, Changa would throw a fit and act out in the hallway. Sometimes he’d sleep out there, right in the stairwell. Sometimes he’d leave and head back out into the streets. Sometimes there’d actually be mofos looking for him, and he’d have to flee up to the roof, race across it to the fire escape, and make his way down to the tunnels beneath and between the buildings, hoping the people chasing him weren’t hip to the byways of the Parkway. Sometimes he’d just sleep on the Franklin Avenue shuttle or something. Yeah, that’s what we expected. More of the usual. Maybe Changa did, too.

But in 1979, something no one expected happened. Something so disturbing that it damaged our family irreparably.

Ma, fed up after Changa got arrested again, had gone and called in his and Sekou’s father (a man I’d never met). All I knew was he’d sung some songs in the seventies with Millie Jackson and harmonized with Ma long enough to father my two older brothers…and not much longer. What showed up that night wasn’t some toothy, grinning doo-wopping crooner, though. It was pure peril. No, worse. Menace. Not merely a remorseless deadbeat father with a stunted music career. There was something dark and mercenary, cold and calculating, about his movements. He barely spoke to Ma before calling Changa into the little maid’s room and slamming the door shut behind them.

What came next sounded like something out of Roots. The first crack of the rubber hose cutting through the air sounded like an act of God. Then came Changa’s agonizing screams. At first, I thought he was faking; always the actor, always the joker. But that thought only survived a second. This was no comedy. This was torment.

I wanted to run in that room and stop this insanity, throw myself in front of Changa’s Pops, and beg him to have mercy, but I froze. I was petrified, a coward, I realized. I’d seen something startling in his eyes; a flash of actual…derangement, and I wanted no parts of it.

I didn’t have words for it, then, but I knew: this man could kill. Likely had killed before (in Korea? In the Jim Crow South? In the streets?) Somewhere. Sometime. I wasn’t sure, but in my heart I knew he was a killer. He could even kill Changa! And my mother knew it, too. She stood beside us, trembling, listening, doing nothing. I begged her with my teary eyes to make this stop, but I could see in hers that this was beyond her control, too. Maybe she’d seen that look in her baby daddy’s eyes before. Maybe that’s why she’d sent his do-wopping ass packing years before she met my pops.

We just stood there, crying, while Changa’s screams, raw, animal, piercing cries for forgiveness, for mercy, for deliverance from life, filled the apartment. Sounds no one should ever hear, sounds no human should ever make.

When it was finally over, Changa lay cowering on the floor, bleeding from welts and bruises all over his face, hands, and body. Open wounds, white flesh exposed. I was scared to touch him. I looked away, at the man who’d done this, with a rage that could kill. He marched out of our home without a word. He never came back. I never saw him again until I was an adult. If I had, I think I would have murdered him on the spot.

We rushed Changa to Brooklyn Jewish Hospital, where they did what they could, but the damage was done. I feel the shame of that day til this day.

Changa’s Change

Changa changed after that. We all changed, but Changa’s was the most notable.

He was still the funniest person I’ve ever known. Even joked about the whipping sometimes, playing it off like it was no big deal for our benefit. Like he’d been faking the funk the whole time. But we knew. Something inside him had cracked wide open. His trust in Ma, his faith in home as a safe space, and even what little self-restraint he had…it all vanished that night. A kind of reckless instability took root in him in its place.

He never forgave Ma for letting that fucker in, and I honestly can’t blame him for feeling that way. I never got over that, either. Her inviting that maniac into our home, knowing he was certifiable, was almost as bad as what he did to Changa, almost as bad as standing there listening to him being mutilated, too frightened to do anything.

After that night, Changa bounced between jail, girlfriends’ apartments, and the streets. Around the way, they called him Chuck (his deranged father’s name, ironically), and he became infamous for not giving a good goddamn about anything or anyone, in or out of jail! He became that guy.

Who was that guy the cops were chasing down Eastern Parkway last night, racing into the alley between the tenements and vanishing into the labyrinth he knew all too well? Who was the guy who smashed a cat’s head through the liquor store’s window over a Cee-lo game on the corner of Lincoln and Franklin, leaving him with permanent brain damage? Who was that guy who got jumped on St. Johns and Underhill Ave by eight mofos looking to exact revenge for what had happened to one of their sister’s virtue? (Injuring several of them before they got the best of him… and lived to laugh about it with only cuts and bruises to show for it? “Virgin? Dat hooker be humming hymns when she suck the bozack! Dem niggas is buggin’…” he told me.) Who was that guy who staged an armored truck robbery in broad daylight as it delivered money to the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Bank on Franklin and Eastern Parkway…more than once? (Talk about shitting where you eat!)

That’s why I never really had any problems around the way. Nobody ever raised a hand to Changa, or me, or anyone in my family, for that matter—not without knowing this maniacal son of a maniac would be out to end them if they didn’t end him first. People said Changa was crazy. I knew better. That night in ‘79 just severely crippled his capacity to give a fuck. And all the King’s horses, and all the King’s men…

Faraha, Changa, and Sekou. These three were my shining examples of teenager-dom. Even at the brand-spanking-new age of thirteen, I knew Changa and Sekou weren’t exactly role-model material. More like living, breathing cautionary tales. But they were all I had. And Faraha, well…put it this way: I was a boy coming of age in a society that nurtured misogyny like it was God’s Plan. And God help you if your masculinity is shaky in the slightest. So it figures I didn’t identify with her overmuch. Girls were like another species to me.

Eventually, though, I’d borrow a page from all three!

From Faraha, I got my wanderlust, which would have me exploring every part of NYC and then some. Changa’s don’t give a fuck attitude would prove to be a valuable tool for navigating life in BK and beyond. And his fashion bravery would inspire me to become more conscious of how I dress and how it affects people in the years to come. And, most surprisingly, before I knew it, even Sekou’s God-like qualities would play a significant role in my intellectual development. Not to mention my mother’s quiet, persistent artistry, and my father’s affinity for Columbia’s finest cannabis.

All of it will get caught and mixed into my own magnificent mess.

Or, if subscribing ain’t your thing, feel free to hit me up with a bowl of ramen or a cup of Joe. Writing is hard work!

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The Parkway

The McNeils bounced around quite a bit in the early ‘70s, mostly in Brooklyn.

In the 60s, I’m told, we lived on Prospect Place off Franklin, a block away from Brooklyn Jewish Hospital. My mother actually walked us to the hospital when the time came for me to enter this world.

By the time the 70s rolled around, we’d moved to Decatur Street in Bed-Stuy. After a brief stint in Rego Park, Queens, we bounced back to Brooklyn, on St. James Place over in Fort Greene. Then we lamped on Washington Avenue by Myrtle in Clinton Hill for a hot second before, in 1975, we landed at 225 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights.

The Parkway soon became home… and would remain so until we got bounced in the late 80s. Eastern Parkway was actually like a tree and tenement-lined highway, eight lanes of traffic slicing their way through a park. 225 stood at the corner where Classon Avenue intersects the Parkway.

I remember the first day Ma brought all of us to see this palace…I mean, place. It kind of freaked me out. It was enormous, and something about it felt palatial! Seriously. It wasn’t modernized at all. It looked like rich people from the old days used to live there.

It had three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a living room, a dining room with (if I’m lying, I’m dying) a chandelier, and a separate servant’s entrance. It had a maid’s quarters, a goddamn dumbwaiter for god knows what, wall sconces painted gold, designs molded into the walls and ceilings, these glowing parquet wood floors that looked like the Boston Garden, large windows that filled the rooms with sunlight and the view of the Brooklyn Museum across the way, French doors and closets galore, marble floors in the halls, and in the lobby, an intercom and a doorman named Joe.

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I’m dead serious. Even at 9, I was like “Holy Shit!”

As I explored the new digs, mouth agape, lost in thought as I tended to get, trying to situate myself in that massive space, I forgot where I was and cried out, “Mommy!” in panic. It was like the apartment had swallowed me whole!

I don’t know how much rent my mother paid for that apartment, but I know the taxpayers were footing the bill via social services. Food Stamps fed us, Medicaid and the CATCH clinic at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital maintained our health, and my mother’s various side hustles (including her artwork, hair braiding, and various off-the-books gigs) clothed, shod, and equipped us for a world growing less forgiving and more formidable with each passing day of President Jimmy Carter’s administration.

Times were hard…very hard! We might have lived in a palace, but we had the means of serfs. We seldom, if ever, went without the bare necessities, but we were always looking deprivation in the face. Sasa fed us kids daily, plus The East was a family. And it had its own food co-op and restaurant, and neither would let any East family member go hungry.

In the summer, there might have been a gasoline shortage — evidenced by the lines stretching for blocks around every gas station — but free breakfast and lunch were plentiful and available all over the place. You could bounce from school to church to community center and eat bologna sandwiches, fresh fruit, and drink milk by the pint till the growl in your tummy was silenced.

My new best friend, Todd, was basically middle-class with two working parents. Probably never ate a free lunch in his life, except perhaps to fit in. Hanging with him kept me off the streets. And it didn’t hurt that we were both, well, kinda nerdy.

Despite my street-wise, gangster-leaning older brothers, I was a baseball card, Marvel comic, rock collecting, book-devouring, poetry-writing geek who would sooner spend hours playing Coleco’s Head-to-Head football, air hockey, stickball in Prospect Heights park, or “Chinese” handball with Todd against the wall in front of the building than run the streets getting into mischief. Criminal enterprises weren’t even a consideration.

That’s the thing about Eastern Parkway, particularly the stretch Todd and I lived on. It was like another bubble, a tiny island a block or so long that straddled an equator between what we ought to be getting ourselves into and what we ought not even consider getting into. Walk out of the entrance of either of our buildings, and you are faced with a choice: go left or go right.

To the right was the good stuff that made The Parkway appealing to those turn-of-the-century WASPs (and the “new” Whites that followed post-WWI) in the first place: the Brooklyn Museum, the Botanic Garden, Prospect Park, and the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza, the largest library in the borough. There was also Park Slope, filled with affluent folk with upwardly mobile mindsets, private schools with uniformed kids, and other privileged pursuits.

Turn left, however, and you’re confronted with the polar opposite: The Ave.

The Ave

Franklin Avenue was our avenue, make no mistake about that!

That stretch of Franklin from Dean Street to Empire Boulevard was our home field. There wasn’t a nook or cranny on The Ave I didn’t know or hadn’t heard enough stories about to feel like I knew it well. Even my school, IS 320, sat right on Franklin. I knew people up and down it, and they knew me: preachers and pushers, teachers and number runners, shopkeepers and stick-up kids alike.

I could walk The Ave any time of day or night without hesitation or fear. I exaggerate, but only a little. (I mean, when I was a kid, I never really tested that “any time of night” boast. Fuck would I be doing out there on the Ave at night?)

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This wasn’t a privilege handed out just for living nearby, though. Most of my friends from the Parkway never got full Ave access — they only caught limited liberties when they were rolling with me. It wasn’t magic or divine intervention, either. That protective forcefield bubble that shielded me and anyone with me came straight from the reputations of two people: Changa and Sekou (AKA Chuck and Staykool).

Everybody knew my big brothers, and most either respected or feared one or the other. Or both. They were staples on the Ave, and I was their nerdy little brother. I even favored Sekou a little, and Changa made it his business to let everyone know I was his pride and joy.

So the Ave knew I was connected, but not too directly. Not me, not little Kunta, the bookworm. No way! So, I was rarely fucked with. (Of course, there was no accounting for high or drunk or crazy people —the Ave had plenty of those—or enemies my brothers made in their exploits. Because then, it wouldn’t matter if I were Mike Tyson’s grandmother.)

But for a few precious years there, it was like I was Michael Corleone, with two certifiable “Sonnys” and their reps looking out for me.

Still, the Ave was the Ave, and Aves are inherently hazardous. They don’t care how bold you are, or whose brother you are, or whether you’re a street kid or a nerd; Franklin Ave had something for everyone. You wanted fun, and it provided. You wanted trouble, and you came to the right place. You want confirmation that life ain’t fair, that the good die young, that bullets have no eyes? Don’t look any further.

That said, if you wanted comics, or to play pinball, or the new-fangled video games, or the number hole to play Grandma’s Bolita, Franklin was where you wound up. You wanted the best heroes in the hood, the best pizza in the borough, to cop your mother’s Kools or a tall can of Schaefer at that bodega that’d take food stamps for tobacco and alcohol, Franklin was the spot. It was the community center.

There was no avoiding it physically. The Ave was something you might protect your soul from, but your ass? It was always on the line in ‘79.

Especially on The Ave.

And you can take that to the bank!

Or, if subscribing ain’t your thing, feel free to hit me up with a bowl of ramen or a cup of Joe. Writing is hard work!

The Heights

Prospect Heights High School (aka The Heights) sat just a block away from our apartment building on Eastern Parkway, yet somehow felt a million miles from Uhuru Sasa.

Did I know The Heights was one of the worst schools in the city? You don’t live across the street from a school for years without knowing its rep. Plus, this was New York City in the ’70s, in the same city that President Ford had reportedly told to “Drop Dead” when it cried broke a few years earlier.

There was no escaping underfunded, barely functional schools in Brooklyn. So, I didn’t see Prospect Heights as particularly shitty. I saw it as the norm.

But, coming from Sasa, the norm was a whole new world to me.

I’d never known normal, never even gone to a school in a normal building designed for that purpose before. With Sasa, everything was abnormal and makeshift. My first schoolhouse was basically a converted, damn near decrepit, apartment building with leaks and creaks, warped, leaning floors, and sometimes-y heating and plumbing.

By comparison, Prospect Heights looked like a damn cathedral, a monument to higher education. It climbed several stories into the sky, and you could probably squeeze the entire Sasa student body and faculty into one of its restrooms. It had real facilities, like a baseball field, a swimming pool, a couple of libraries, and cafeterias.

And it had thousands of students, more than half of whom wore skirts and blouses (and bras, if you know what I mean).

My older brothers, Changa and Sekou (or as they were known in the streets, Chuck and Stay-Kool), were already established at The Heights. People knew them McNeil boys were no easy wins. Their reputations would precede me, so I wasn’t worried about any rough stuff, either.

People could talk shit about the Heights all they liked. To me, it was a great adventure waiting to happen, and I looked forward to the experience. The day my mom took me there to register, I was as giddy as a toddler in a walker.

The school was cavernous, with high ceilings you’d need a ladder to touch, high windows of reinforced glass, high doorways that Kareem Abdul Jabbar could pass through without stooping, a real high school! It even favored Cooley High. The auditorium, where the registration was being held, was larger than The Regents movie theater on Fulton Street and Bedford Avenue. It had a balcony, a stage, and everything.

I envisioned myself being there, belonging there, making a name for myself there…and kept right on imagining that shit, right up until the moment the staff informed my mother that they couldn’t enroll me because I was only thirteen. You had to be at least fourteen to attend Prospect Heights. No exceptions. I’d have to attend Jackie Robinson Intermediate School—IS 320, for short— over in Ebbets Field, the Heights told us.

I felt so humiliated. Like the powers that be had patted me on the head and said, “Nice try, little man, but you gotta be this big to get on this ride.”

As we left the building, I felt like everyone knew I hadn’t made the cut. I wanted to run and hide…and cry. But there was no time for that shit, cuz we marched directly to IS 320.

Maybe all those Sifas for breakfast at Sasa were putting in work, because attending 320 turned out to be the biggest break of my young life! Because it was there that I learned of alternatives to the Heights. Specialized, prestigious schools like Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, and Bronx High School of Science. Schools that require students to take an entrance exam.

I remember the day I took the exam for Brooklyn Tech in downtown Brooklyn. The test asked these peculiar questions that confused the hell out of me. Stuff like:

Which sentence best explains the meaning of the phrase “burning the midnight oil”?

A. Working late into the night to complete a task

B. Accidentally starting a fire while cooking

C. Conserving fuel during an energy shortage

D. Reading by candlelight during a power outage

Burning what?? What the hell, right? None of this had anything to do with what we learned at Sasa. The only midnight oil I ever burned was when we made incense sticks at Baba Kuballah’s house. That was education to me. Making incense made sense. Made money, too! Burning midnight oil made no sense (nonsense). Whatever this exam was measuring, it wasn’t measuring my intelligence, that’s for damn sure. So, I wasn’t surprised to learn that I didn’t measure up.

Fortunately, there were also educational option schools that offered career paths in computing, medicine, and even flight. These schools didn’t require tests, just good grades. I was accepted to several of them, but chose August Martin High School, out in Jamaica, Queens, because it offered computer programming.

Getting rejected by The Heights and attending 320 probably saved my life. Judging from the harrowing tales I’d later hear from friends who’d attended that school, at the very least, Jackie Robinson spared me an ordeal.

My older brothers, however, were not spared.

Changa, Sekou, and Faraha

The two of them, along with my older sister, Faraha, were years ahead of me, already out of Sasa and deep in the clutches of the system.

Faraha

Nothing could stand in Faraha’s way. She was smart, beautiful, driven, and always on the ball. And by ‘79, she’d packed her bags and was headed as far away as possible without leaving the country: California. And when she left, she never looked back. Though she came home for a visit now and then, her heart had switched time zones. Losing her firstborn was not fun for Ma, and the entire clan felt unsettled for a while, but life in Brooklyn had a way of demanding your attention. Prolonged distraction was strongly not recommended.

In my youth, Faraha ruled the house. Whenever Ma stepped out, Faraha took over. She had a firm hand but fair, unless you tested her. She had a flip mode, though, that discouraged challenges to her authority. And she was trained in karate by her father, a world-renowned martial artist, so she was not to be fucked with. Do, and you might find yourself floored by a roundhouse kick.

But, by ’79, she was deep into her own late-teen life (meaning guys). She was a looker, so there was no shortage of suitors vying for her attention. I couldn’t walk down the street without some random guy asking after Faraha. And I’m sure more than a few of them had to get scrotum replacement therapy after making unwelcome advances.

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Once she broke out, though, she became a legend. People asked me about her all the time. Every cat in the neighborhood wanted to know where she’d gone, whether she was coming back, and whether they still had a shot. Eventually, they got the message, though: Faraha was gone for good.

Sekou

As for Sekou, after he escaped Sasa and The Heights got its claws in him, he apparently lost his natural mind, ran out, and joined a gang of Malcolm X wannabes that called themselves Five Percenters. These characters professed to anyone who’d listen that they—and indeed all Black men, and dudes only— were “true and living Gods” (completely unbelievable to most), that Whites were devils and pure evil incarnate (completely conceivable to most), and that Black women were weak and wicked (which left the brothers scratching their heads and the sisters hmphing). They meant ALL White people, by the way, including Jackie Gleason, Johnny Carson, and Jack Klugman, who were the funniest White men alive to me, then. And Jimmy Carter, too. The man who funded the Free Lunch that fed a lot of these self-styled Gods. They also meant ALL Black women, including Maya Angelou, Aretha Franklin, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Lola Falana, and even fine-ass Jayne Kennedy.

Oh, and Ma, too. Ma got a big kick out of that, I gotta tell ya. And this nuttiness, no less, from one of the six (count ‘em, six!) mouths she fed, and backs she clothed, with no help but from the grace of her God, despite her supposed “weakness” and “wickedness.” Sekou got a kick out of it, too—right in his ass every time he even hinted that anyone under her roof refer to him as God, much less “Raliek Understanding God,” his new Five Percenter moniker.

Sekou (I mean Raliek, because his bullying ass didn’t tolerate any “Sekou-ing” from me, regardless of Ma’s reprimands) was obsessed with Joe Weider, pumping iron, and all that stuff. He was diesel, so even a punch in the chest from him would leave me gasping for breath. So, yeah, I called him Raliek whenever Ma wasn’t around. He was a slick talker, too. Had the gift of gab. Could hustle his ass off. Would’ve made a great lawyer or preacher, because he was as quick-witted as Mork from Ork. The right words just gushed out of him like water from a busted water main. He loved to fight and was gifted at that, as well.

One of his hobbies was biking. Not pedals. Motors. He and Changa kept bikes. Sekou liked the big, powerful dirt bikes, like Honda XL250s. Changa? You might spot him on a noisy, slow-ass XL-80, a minibike, a moped, or anything to get around. Mostly because he stole the bikes, for fun, and his bike du jour depended on whatever was available at the time. Opportunistic bikejackers can’t be choosy, after all. If the bikes weren’t in tiptop shape or got broken during their acquisition, Changa would fix them up, slap some fake plates on them, and ride them around for a week or two before trashing them for another one. But Raliek? He was a true aficionado. He’d acquire the money and buy the bikes. They were different that way.

So, if you ever saw God doing 90 and popping wheelies down Eastern Parkway, weaving recklessly through traffic with a weak and wicked, and helmetless honey on the back, fulani braids flapping in the jetstream, clinging on for dear life, that was probably Raliek.

Oh, yeah, and all the girls loved him…thought that went without saying.

By ‘79, though, he was wrapping up his Five Percenter phase and launching into his Vaughn Bode urban artistry period. He went from bombing Gods with Mathematics to bombing every bare surface in the city—handball courts, subway cars, even the walls of our bedroom—with Rust-Oleum and Krylon. Sekou would hit the streets every day with markers bulging in his pockets, spray paint rattling in his backpack, and a tall can of Colt 45 tucked in the small of his back. To finance his new lifestyle, he used his high intellect and cunning tongue to hustle people, women, drugs, anything, anyone. He even hustled me sometimes. Whatever it took to make art, he did, and did it well. He made a name for himself as a member of NSA (Non-Stop Action), a renowned graffiti crew. The name Staykool 3, aka SMIZ, began to be seen and heard all over the NYC underground.

Now that I think about it (without resentment for his bullying ass), Sekou was pretty great at everything he did.

Changa

So was Changa, for that matter. He was a year older than Sekou, two years younger than Faraha, but he was the man of the house (as far as he was concerned) and did as he pleased. He stayed out all night, brought girls home, drank brews, smoked cigarettes, weed, whatever. He was as funny as Richard Pryor and a natural actor and storyteller. Emotions exploded on his face, pantomiming and impersonations were second nature, and he loved making people laugh, filling a room with joy.

He worshipped Bruce Lee and Jim Kelly. I can’t tell you how many times he took Sekou and me to see Enter the Dragon, The Chinese Connection, Fists of Fury, Black Belt Jones, and Three the Hard Way, keeping us in the theater all damn day. I’d fall asleep in there. And if you’ve ever been to The Regents or The Banco theaters on Fulton Street, you know that was not wise. You could wake up with cockroaches in your cuffs or a rodent in your pocket. I remember we went to see Ben there (that movie about the vermin leader of an army of rats that Michael Jackson sang about), and the goddamn real Ben was there! Made a public appearance, scurrying across the stage beneath the screen.

After the movies, we’d go home, and Changa would act out every fight scene in the movie. He’d memorize the entire script and choreography perfectly.

At one point, he started his own dojo in the bedroom we three shared, and trained us (and anyone else from the neighborhood) himself in a hybrid of Lee and Kelly’s styles and some of his own ideas—a martial art he invented himself. Had a belt system and everything! The man was serious with this shit, and he stayed on that shit for years! His workouts kept him cut, sinewy, more gymnast than bodybuilder. He could hold himself up in planches like gravity owed him rent, which made him look all the more peerless in his deepest, truest passion: fashion.

Changa was the consummate clotheshorse, arrayed in the flyest gear every day without fail. Somehow, he managed to keep every stitch of it sparkling clean, wrinkleless, lint-less, and creased to geometric perfection, endeavoring to keep every item in his ever-growing collection in fresh-out-the-box condition for its entire lifespan.

He was the kind of guy who regularly cleaned his Stan Smith Adidas and the laces, with soap, bleach, and a toothbrush he kept specifically for the task, and would punch a close friend in the face for stepping on his British Walkers or scuffing up his Wallabees. He looked prosperous, head to toe. Even his hair was rich, a faded Caesar artistically etched around 360-degree waves so tight and immaculate they looked chiseled on his scalp.

He was the cleanest cat around. No one challenged him. No one even came close. Fuhgeddaboudit.

Changa loved the streets. A little too much. I can’t blame The Heights for that, though. They expelled him as soon as possible. He was too much for even that shithole to handle. Even as far back as Sasa, people tried to put a leash on Changa, tried to save him from himself, as the saying goes.

The teachers at Sasa were constantly hooking him up with jobs and job training. And he wasn’t ungrateful. He just wasn’t suitable. He’d put in the work for a while. He was far from lazy. You don’t keep an eight-pack by being lazy. But sooner or later, “something” would happen. Something would go missing. Or something would get broken into. Or the count of something would come up short. Then Changa would don his patented “I dunno. Wasn’t me!” face that still makes me smile.

I wouldn’t call him a kleptomaniac, but a pattern had emerged, one as conspicuous as the half-moon part in his hair. If you followed that familiar funk of Nu Nile and Brut by Fabergé, it’d lead you straight to the culprit: Changa.

His approach to employment had evolved into a science: you worked until you figured out how to rob the place blind. Could take a couple of hours. Could take a couple of weeks. “They’re gonna fire your black ass sooner or later, anyway,” he’d say. “Every job is a temp job.”

Just like Sekou excelled at everything he set his mind to, so did Changa. But by ‘79, he’d set his mind on crime full-time. I can’t say he excelled at it, though. I have to believe that the ratio of successes to failures must’ve been pretty good judging from his lifestyle. But he got busted way too often for my liking. Changa had no overwhelming fear of the cops or jail, though. Not after his first few run-ins with the law. Even Rikers Island couldn’t scare him straight. He knew people everywhere. Even knew COs.

His spirit was wild, magnetic, and disruptive, and everybody loved him. And if you haven’t guessed, Changa was my hero, as much a father figure as a big brother.

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Or, show your appreciation by hitting me up with a cup of coffee or a bowl of tonkotsu ramen. It’s all good!

SASA!

It would be impossible to talk about the 80s without giving its predecessor, good ole 1979, its props. I mean, the 80s were ruthless, no question, but, mannnn, ’79 was no slouch! Up until that point, I flourished within a safe but far from impenetrable bubble. But ‘79 was the year that bubble did what bubbles do. Mine didn’t just burst, though. It detonated spectacularly, launching a decade that was taking no shorts nor prisoners.

First, a little about that bubble…

If you’ve read my first book— Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist — then you’ve already gotten a taste of the ’70s as I experienced it. But no, you don’t need to run out and buy that book before diving into this (though I wouldn’t be mad at you if you did). I’ve got you covered. Here’s the quick and dirty:

From ’72 to ’79, I attended Uhuru Sasa Shule (Swahili for “Freedom Now School”). Sasa was the educational heart of an organization called The East. I could write a whole doorstopper about The East and fail to give it the props it’s due, but this ain’t that book. You can look up The East if you’re curious. There’s even a solid documentary about it on YouTube. What I will say is this: It wasn’t your everyday setup, not by a damn sight.

Picture this: a Black Nationalist, Pan-African front dedicated to the reclamation of Black humanity by retooling young Black minds to embrace what was stolen from us — our names, our tongues, our gods and heroes. I don’t mean that perverted Eurocentric version of history, but history from a Black perspective, our own stories from our own lips. I’m the result of this retooling.

At Sasa, Black History wasn’t taught merely in February, complete with Harriet Tubman Happy Meals, Frederick Douglass discount coupons at Supercuts, and Marcus Garvey Royal Caribbean Back-to-Africa cruise packages.

We honored Black history all the livelong day, every doggone day. We marched to it, danced and sang to it, and invited the entire community to partake of it. And we did all of this right in the middle of Bedford-Stuyvesant, popping eyes and dropping jaws everywhere we went.

Try to imagine first and second graders in dungaree suits and combat boots, or dashikis and kufis, marching through the streets of Brooklyn — receiving drill commands from our Mwalimu (teachers) in Swahili, singing songs about revolution so catchy that people lining the streets sometimes joined in or clapped along. This community-bolstered chorus reverberated off brownstones and tenements, announcing our presence with authority for blocks around.

I tell you, we were something to see! A beautiful promise, and a legitimate threat!

But by ’79, my days in the nurturing embrace of The East had come to an abrupt end. And I wasn’t alone. It was a mass exodus of all my classmates who had reached the higher grades that were no longer being offered. It was like Sasa had shoved us all out of the nest together, determined to see us fly or flail, soar or settle. And we did just that, according to our strengths, weaknesses, and the prevailing winds.

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That was the year I encountered the “system” and got my first glimpse of the machinery my pan-African alma mater spent years preparing me to defy— a machine they’d warned me was designed to convert Black Americans into Africa-denigrating negroes or, worse, White-worshipping house niggers, devoid of their own history, and dependent on Whiteness for context and everything else.

The East sugarcoated nothing. I was schooled by some very serious, very woke people, who taught me all they knew about the system. And by the time they were done with me, I was ready—you hear me? No way would that machine trip me up. Not a chance in hell.

Besides, I had a plan…

But you know what Brooklyn’s own Mike Tyson said about plans, right? “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

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Here’s the essence of my plan: You see, having spent my entire childhood in a Blacker than Blackity-Black militant African boot camp — AKA Sasa— and the butt of enough Kunta Kinte, African booty scratcher and spearchucker jokes to drive your average Black kid to bathe in bleach and change his name to Chet, I believed I’d gotten just about as much out of extreme Africanism as I was likely to get.

It was time to shake things up.

So, my plan wasn’t so much to act out as it was to step out. You know? Try something new and perhaps uncover the person buried beneath all of that excessive Blackness. Go undercover, so to speak, to gain a kind of knowledge of self that Sasa couldn’t offer.

I even considered going by my government name, Kirk.

Seriously. I did.

KIRK

I’d been a student at Sasa since Wonderama, Watergate, Zoom, and ‘Nam were must-see TV. I was six years old and in my first week at Sasa when, with the school’s strong encouragement, I underwent a name change. They told me it was to be my choice, so I chose Baye from a book of African names that was being passed around.

It meant “straight ahead,” but I don’t think that even registered. Nor was my mother’s favorite slogan — “Straight ahead with your day” — consciously a factor. It wasn’t exactly random or divine intervention, either. I just liked the way it rolled off my tongue.

“Bah-yea!”

To me, it sounded slick as Crisco. And it had the distinction of being the first consequential thing I ever got to determine for myself. Still wet behind the ears, yet choosing my own name? You couldn’t tell me shit! Ma had to sign off on it, of course, and she did, but the name itself was my call.

Pretty soon, it was almost like Kirk never existed.

I mean, Sasa was my life, all day, every day, and none of my classmates or teachers called me by my “slave” name. In fact, since I’d only been Kirk for that first week at Sasa— and during that time, teachers would only call me Ndugu or Little Brother— no one ever used Kirk. Most thought Baye was my given name.

And it wasn’t just me. All the McNeil kids had adopted African names at the same time. Even my mother changed her name to Waridi. So, at home, that’s all we used, these African monikers. When I made new acquaintances, around the way, or wherever, I introduced myself as Baye. With each passing year, Kirk became more and more an echo from an increasingly distant past life.

Well, mostly.

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I mean, of course, my pops knew my given name. He was the one who gave it to me.

He told me this one day over a supposedly friendly game of pool. While mercilessly whipping my amateur ass as if rent was due, the cupboards were bare, and the baby needed new shoes, he informed me that I was named for Kirk Douglas. (Kirk Douglas?? I was named after a White actor?? See, that’s that psychic sickness that made Sasa a necessity!) He told me this without even breaking eye contact with the table.

So, my pops wasn’t about to let “Baye” ever cross his lips. Ever. I was his progeny, his legacy, and his only son (that I knew of…at the time). So even when he didn’t need to say Kirk, he’d say it anyway. Visiting him (and his new missis) meant an exhausting barrage of Kirk this, Kirk that, and Kirk the third. A relentless, tag-team effort to remind me exactly who I was…to them.

“Kirk, turn that idiot box off!” he’d holler when I spent the entire visit watching, in color, TV shows I’d only seen in black & white at home. (Who knew I Dream of Jeannie and The Odd Couple were in color?? OMG! You had to drag me away!) Or, “Kirk, bring me a ‘J’ from the jar on the table,” he’d snap (once he stopped pretending he was uncomfortable having a ten-year-old fetch his cheeba).

I never told him how much every time he Kirk’d me irked me. I valued the skin on my ass far too much to let that slip.

And then there was my Aunt Julia and Uncle Jimmy (and their kids, my cousins). They called me Kirk relentlessly, too, as a, no doubt, reminder to Ma that they weren’t (and would never be) supportive of her Black Power trip. Ma’s determination to live as an African while we lived in America made absolutely no sense to them.

When Pop and my extended fam called me Kirk (aside from it being irritating), I always felt an odd combination of nostalgia and an ill-defined feeling. Like they were talking about an alter ego, or an estranged identical twin they confused me for, a smart, fun-loving, normal kid I should regret not knowing better.

A kid who cheerfully celebrated Christmas, with trees and lights and toys, not Kwanzaa, with candles and songs (and not a goddamn toy to speak of). A kid who waved flags and sparklers on the Fourth of July and tried to sing the national anthem with pride for the country that birthed him, the same country his father fought for and nearly died for during the Korean Conflict. Not the boy who pledged allegiance to the Black Liberation Flag every morning, committed as much as a pre-adolescent can be “to the fruition of Black Power.” Kirk was the kid who went to church in his Sunday best and Buster Browns, not the one who said Sifas (prayers in Swahili) daily, praising the sun, the ancestors, and the parents who made his life possible.

By ‘79, I could scarcely remember that Kirk guy. But my father, aunt, and uncle never acknowledged anyone but that Kirk guy. When they looked at me, they saw him. So, I decided that, once I was in a public school, I’d finally get to know him, this stranger that grinned and cried on the pages of a big red family album, and whose name was engraved on my birth certificate.

Iron Mike was right, though. This Kirk guy never stood a chance!

Update: Here’s a link to Part 2

Or, if subscribing ain’t your thing, hit me up with a bowl of ramen or a cup of Joe. Writing is hard work!

Hey Y’all! These are my B-Sides. The stuff that didn’t make it into the chapters but couldn’t stay in my head, either. The behind-the-scenes, the context, the stories behind the words.

The serious joi…

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I’ve been living with this story for two years. Writing it, rewriting it, living it all over again, laughing, wincing, getting it right. And I can say without a shadow of a doubt that this …

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What is Baye’s B-Sides:

A little background:

February 1985. Fort Gordon, Augusta, Georgia. Enlisted Men’s Club. I’m on the dance floor with this girl named Johnnie Mae — who, as it happens, will show u…

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You Couldn’t Tell Me Shit! Coming of Age in the County of Kings, 1980-1985

Starting Monday, May 18th, 2026, I’ll be serializing my latest memoir right here on Substack.

This is my fourth book, but the first to cover my years before coming to Japan, specifically during the 1980s. I’ve been living with this story for decades and have spent the last two years finding and fine-tuning the words to bring to life a story and time period so eventful and complex that it can only be told well by those of us who lived it.

Well, it took some doing, but goddammit, I nailed it! Y’all be sure to let me know if I’m trippin’ or not.

This memoir takes readers on a ride back to the Brooklyn that raised and braised me — a vital, complicated community — long before they came along, revitalizing shit with their hipsters, Starbucks, Whole Foods, and whatnot.

These stories are creative nonfiction. Y’all know my style. If not, you’re about to get a crash course. In short, I do my utmost to take you, the reader, back there with me so you can see the 80s through my eyes and feel those years through my heart.

I plan to cover the entire 80s, which would take me from teenager into manhood, years 14 through 24. So consider this book — which covers 1980-1985 (with a 1979 introduction serving as a launchpad) — as Volume 1 of a two-volume set.

Shit, I’m forgetting something…

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OH YEAH! I’m not telling this story alone...not by a damn sight! I have the ULTIMATE visuals!

The dynamic, inimitable photographs of Jamel Shabazz run through this project like a pulse. Together, we’re rebuilding a community long gone but far from forgotten! The people, the music, the joy, and the gravity of coming of age in a New York City that now survives mostly in recollection— and in Jamel’s photographs.

Yes—that Jamel Shabazz! The man who captured the essence of the era.

Sent the man a few chapters on a hunch, and his response told me all I needed to know:

“I was drawn in immediately and could not stop reading… I can tell, this book will be a masterpiece!”
— Jamel Shabazz

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As I mentioned, You Couldn’t Tell Me Shit is Volume 1. Volume 2 (titled: Love in the Time of Crack, 1986–1990) is almost done and will follow in the days to come.

Paid subscribers will also get the behind‑the‑scenes stories: the wild, unbelievable moments behind the moments that made it into these books.

If you’re already subscribed, brace yourself. If you aren’t, the door’s open.

How This Serial Works

Free readers get to read occasional installments.

Paid subscribers ($8/month or $80/year) get ALL installments, the audio versions as well, read by me, the era glossary, curated and written by me, the chapter-by-chapter Q&A, and the soundtrack with liner notes written by me.

The Fam ($240/year) gets everything above, plus the extended playlist with commentary, behind‑the‑scenes material, early chapter access, monthly live conversations and Q&As, your name in the acknowledgments, a handwritten postcard, and a signed book when it’s published.

One‑time supporters (Ko‑Fi / Buy Me a Coffee) get a shout‑out in a memoir post and the good karma that comes with keeping independent work alive.

You can still support this project if you ain’t got the ends right now!

There are easy ways to support this independently produced project that’ll only cost you a few minutes and clicks. Please take a minute to leave a review, a comment, or share a referral on social media. Help From BK to TK reach new readers by telling people about the work I’m doing here.

So, once again, welcome to my new project. You’re gonna love it! You can take that to the bank!

Peace & Love,

Baye

PS: Ready to dive in? This will take you straight to the Prologue. Enjoy!