CHAPTER 1

  S

  ometimes, I think that our lives are just journeys of fate more than intentions. Being happy is the goal that our moms and dads and fairy tales tell us. When you follow that unattainable bliss, you usually only find yourself on a path that turns your world to static, but ultimately, that static, it can expand your consciousness. It’s like when you meet someone who blows your mind, and you think, man, that fool is just nuts. But then later, you come to find out that what they were saying was absolutely true. It’s that truth that you find within the static that makes our stories.

  So, let me start my story by telling you a little some-thing about me:

  My name is Stevie Blanks, you know, blank, like a tab-ula rasa, ready to be filled in with all the most beautiful colors and shapes in the universe. I was born in Newark, New Jersey, on the wrong side of the tracks. and home—hardly a good start for filling in the blank spaces. Like Newark, I had some rough beginnings. After the riots in the sixties, my town hit a downward spiral. It was a dying city where the junkies roamed free like the wild buffalo out West.

  Hearing the fireworks of drive-bys was my favorite tune. Newark wasn’t a place for a young man to find his identity. It was a place for a young man to become a statis-tic. It was life in a crazy-ass hood.

  But putting all that pseudo-gangster bullshit aside, if truth really be told, when you think you got it rough, someone else always has it rougher than you do. Look at the slums of Mumbai, where children eat from garbage dumps, or the fabelas of Brazil, where kids are killing each other. Shit, there’s kids ain’t learned how to jerk off yet in Bangladesh breaking down metal ships and breathing all kinds of asbestos. Maybe you think it’s just a color thing. Wrong! Try growing up in war-torn Croatia, with bombs going off and your schoolmates’ body parts beside you as you dust off your tattered uniform.

  If you think this planet is rough, though, there are oth-er planets that are much worse.

  This story is not about being black, white, red, yellow, or even gray, as you will see. It’s beyond the spectrum of the rainbow. It’s real Dorothy-follow-the-yellow-brick-road bullshit. It’s more than what it means to be human. Because being human implies who we become on our own tiny little earth. I tell you this not so you can feel sorry for me or anyone else in a shitty predicament, but so that you can understand that my beginnings—humble or extraordi-nary—don’t make much difference. You, too, my friend, comrade, and fellow traveler, may have rough beginnings. But that don’t mean you can’t remold your life, shift your shape, or just sculpt away the bullshit to your essence.

  After all, we all have essence. We just have to find it.

  My story began when I was ten, in the north part of Newark known as Forest Hills. My mom died that year of pneumonia. Her coughs were the only sound that drowned out the bullets flying by in the neighborhood. I was partial-ly raised by my dad, who emotionally had checked out around the same time as my mom physically broke down. He wasn’t a bad person, except he took to the bottle as if it were Mom, and as if his love for it would somehow bring her back to health. So, at a young age, I had to become the man of the house, though I use that term—“man”—loosely. Now, remember, this is not just another sad story about another ghetto child. It’s more about the greatest gift you can give yourself, which is ____________. What? You think I’m gonna give you the answer already? The journey has just begun. At the end of the day, it’s the spir-itual experience of the journey that supplies the answers; not just one- or two-word solutions. This ain’t no bullshit multiple-choice exam.

  Now, where was I? Oh yeah! As a kid, I used to col-lect cans to help put food on the table. I would cook for my dad. My father and I would eat together, though, for us, eating together meant a ritualistic array of grunts and chewing sounds, a couple of uneventful belches, and a mu-tual washing of dishes—he washed; I dried. Routine aside, it was still very much the only time we were a real family. And I treasured it then, and especially do now.

  Afterward, he would go back to his room and listen to songs that he and my mother used to love. Only now, a clanking of bottles replaced the rustling of bed sheets where my mother used to sleep. Before that horrific trage-dy, my dad was always there for us, but after the big sick, he essentially slipped away alongside her. No one was home anymore, which was why the belches and grunts be-came so precious to me. They were reminders of exist-ence—a vague clue to the man and father who once was there. I had to accept, albeit slowly, that my father was gone. And though there ain’t no replacing a mother and father, if you prepare yourself right with all the tragedies and obstacles that smack you in the face, the right teacher will show up.

  I must have been eleven years old when I met Vincent.

  Vincent was an Italian American, a Vietnam vet who grew up in Newark. I remember this like I remember my birthday. I usually didn’t go through the Gambino side of town, but that day something told me to go that way. Maybe it was the smell of provolone, or maybe it was just my whim to take the road less traveled for once in my life.

  I was outside Vincent’s auto repair shop, collecting cans. My bag was bigger than my undernourished body. I could’ve easily fit inside the bag myself.

  “Ay boy, whacchu doin’? Why you ain’t in school?” He spoke as much with his hands as with his mouth. I froze. You have to understand, Vincent was very intimidating. Five foot ten, 220 pounds, and balding, with grayish-blond hair and huge hands waving in my face. He looked like something out of a Scorsese movie. His clothes and hair were full of grease in equal measure. He had a pinky ring bigger than my pinky, and a little chain around his neck with the letter V dangling at the end. It could have stood for “Vigilante” as much as for “Vincent.” He had deep-set olive eyes, and he had his reading glasses in his shirt pock-et. This last accessory lent him an air of being civilized.

  When I tried to answer, I just stuttered, “Ah, ah, ah.” He pointed to the ground, urging me to come closer. I was so frightened of him that I couldn’t move, despite knowing perfectly well that freezing was more unadvisable than get-ting closer to this behemoth.

  Then he pointed again. My paralysis broke, and I walked over slowly. “I asked you a question.” His eyes locked onto mine like Superman’s laser vision. I could have died right there. I instantly looked at the ground. “Look at me when I talk to you,” he said, lifting my chin to stare into my eyes. My face was a mushy meatball in his mammoth hands.

  “I’m collecting cans.” From my meager appearance, he could tell that I wasn’t about extra pocket change, but about putting food on our table. What surprised me most was that he didn’t even have to ask me about my parents. He turned around and walked right back in the shop, where he opened the closet. I thought he was getting a shotgun or something to eliminate me from his presence. I counted my moments left on this earth— think I even peed my pants just a little. Even though I wanted to run, I couldn’t.

  To my relief, he came back with a broom in his hand. He handed it to me and said, “You know how to sweep, paisan?”

  I nodded.

  “All right then, get to sweepin’.”

  Without daring to question him, I got right to sweep-ing. When I was done, he had me clean some tools and wash the floor of the garage.

  “I’m finished, sir,” I said nervously. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of money wrapped in a shiny silver clip, and handed me twenty-five dollars. “Thank you, sir,” I said. A big smile betrayed my fear, and a sense of satisfaction overwhelmed me. Here I thought I was go-ing to get whacked, but in reality, he was, well, my savior?

  I know what you are thinking, the white savior complex, but it transcends color, race, and all that ethnic bullshit, as you will see. Kindness can be as much as about serving yourself as serving others.

  He looked at me and said very seriously, “I expec’ ya here at three thirty tomorrow, and I better not hear nuthin’ about you skippin’ no school. I have eyes and ears on the street. Ya hear me?” he said, those eyes and ears pointing right at me.

  “Yes, sir,” I said as I swallowed hard.

  “And stop with the sir! My mutha’ gave me a name, and the names Vincent. Now, what’s yours?” He pulled out an engraved silk handkerchief and wiped his hand be-fore reaching out to shake mine.

  “My name is Stevie.” I reached out my hand. His grip was as commanding as you’d expect. But instead of fear and intimidation, I felt a sense of control and safety.

  “Then it’s a deal, Stevie. I will see you tomorrow,” he said with a smile.

  “Yes, sir—I mean Vincent,” I said as I ran off, very excited about the prospects of going shopping, like a kid on Christmas Eve.

  Despite going home with an extra bag full of groceries, it was a normal-enough night. I cooked, and my father was half there. After dinner, he went back to his room and lis-tened to music. That was how it had been for years. Me, on the other hand—my habits changed. I had become so responsible that I would clean the house, wash the dishes, and do the laundry. Then I would stare at my mother’s pic-ture and fall sleep. I guess it’s easier to evolve when you’re still a kid. Routine and predictability are for adults.

  I made sure I went directly to school that day. I didn’t even pay any mind to the garbage cans along the sidewalk on my way. Afterward, I headed over to Vincent’s shop as scheduled. The big man made me do my homework, and then he put me straight to work—always some menial, yet productive and necessary task.

  After a few months, our relationship began to grow deeper. It was closer to a father/son relationship than I could remember of late. Sometimes, I wondered what it was that Vincent actually did for a living. Then, I felt as if I was Vincent’s vocation.

  On Saturdays and holidays, I would spend the whole day at Vincent’s shop. Being busy gave me purpose. Idle hands, right? I loved my father, but being around him was just too depressing. Life was for the living, and my father just wasn’t interested in any of it.

  Vincent, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have a fam-ily to speak of, but I had become something close. My dad was collecting welfare, so I would take the check from him to pay the rent and bills. Luckily, that was just enough to pay for everything. Vincent told me to put away my money and not to spend it. So I did just that. I knew I should, but it felt good to be told. It felt good to be looked after.

  After a few months, I would go upstairs to where Vin-cent lived. He and I would cook, and he would teach me all the secrets of Italian spices. We always cooked extra for my father, not that he noticed. Still, it felt good to share something of my new life with him.

  I began to spend holidays at Vincent’s house. We made each other happy. He took me fishing, camping, and hiking during the summer. It’s not that I didn’t love my dad, but Vincent was there. I know my mom’s death was tough. I missed her all the time—there wasn’t a day I didn’t. But living a normal life was the best way I knew how to respect and love her. I was living the life she could not. It was my way of sharing it with her. As for my father, he gave up, and for that, my resentment toward him grew. The more I lived, the more I could see his weakness. It was a hard lesson for me to learn, but I had to grow up a little faster than most kids anyway.

  As a Wu-Tang Clan song says, “Life as a shorty shouldn’t be so rough.”

  Life is like a samurai sword—you have to temper it, place it in the fire, hammering it and cooling it down, re-peating the process again and again, polishing it, sharpen-ing it, and in the end, you have a beautiful sword. The same can be said for a life well lived.

  In any case, Vincent gave me as close to a childhood as I’d had when Mom was alive. He made me read even if I didn’t want to. He sparked my curiosity, advising me to not fear my intuition and to question everything. He al-ways said, “Don’t believe something just because someone says it, or you saw it on TV.”

  For example, one day we were watching a program on the pyramids of Peru. The archeologist said that the an-cient people of Peru dragged the stones up the mountain to build those structures. Then someone else said there was no way we could do it with modern technology. Of course, I was confused, so I asked him which one was true. He laughed. “This is what I mean. If we can’t do it with modern technologies, then how could ancient people have dragged it up? And did ya know, those stones fit per-fect together. You can’t even stick the sharpest razah be-tween them.” So, he made me research it myself, and then, to test me, he made me do a presentation on it.

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  If we were fixing a car, he wouldn’t tell me the answer. He would ask me questions. “Why’d you put that there?”

  I would say, “Because I saw you do it.”

  Oh! That was the wrong answer. He would frown. “Why would ya copy someone? Think fah yourself.” He would then ask, “What does that do?”

  I would answer.

  He would say, “Okay, so why would you put that there then?” I would explain the reason why. Vincent was never mean about it. He was always patient and nurturing. This was the key to my growth—he never let me accept some-thing just because it was there. I had to look deeper, re-move the surface and see through the bullshit.

  A bullshit detective—that’s what Vincent used to say I had to aspire to be.

  As I became older, he gave me more responsibility in the shop. I would fix cars all by myself. Soon, we became busy enough that he could afford to pay me a full salary. That helped me take care of my father and the house. I was even able to keep up at school. Most of my clients were young punks who wanted me to pimp their cars.

  We decided to close the shop for the summer, so Vincent and I could build an extension. Business was good, and we needed to fit more cars. It took us two months to finish. When we were done, he turned to me. “See whatcha can do when you putcha mind to it? Here you are, a teenager, making more money than ya teachers. And it’s all legit.”

  He paused to laugh. “You can’t even drive yet.” The words barely slipped out when he snorted a huge loogey as proof of his good feeling.

  When it came to school, he always checked my home-work, despite his lack of command of the English lan-guage. I had to finish all of my homework before I could work on any car. We had made a deal. If my school grades dropped, he would suspend me from work until I turned a C into a B and a B into an A. So, I made sure to always get everything done. This job meant a lot more to me than the money. It gave me a sense of responsibility. I was becom-ing a man. I could take care of my pops.

  As Vincent and I worked on cars, my love for mechan-ical things grew. But you know what was weird? Vincent had a secret past, and I knew it, but I never dared to ask him about it. I felt he would tell me when he was ready.

  I was becoming more sensitive. I could feel things from him as much as learn them. Even though he was happy, there was a pain that dwelled inside him, in his memories. I assumed it had something to do with Vi-etnam. So, I headed to the library and did some research on that war. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust me. After all, I would go to the bank for him, pay his bills, and even do his taxes.

  But I found out what the war was about and some of the things the soldiers did. My imagination went wild. I could sense that something ugly had happened.

  By now, I was fourteen and entering high school. Most of my peers were scared about the transition, but I wasn’t. I knew all the seniors already. Hey, I had worked on most of their cars. No one said it, but there was a hands-off kind of policy. Lucky me.

  But school bored the heck out of me, and I got in trouble many times for answering back to the teacher, es-pecially when it came to social studies. One day, it got to the point where the teacher pulled me to the side and said, “Listen, you keep interrupting my class and I will make you sorry.”

  I answered back, saying, “Who wrote history? The winners, right?” He nodded his head. “Then you know that this is a false history. For example, the book says Colum-bus discovered America. But how can someone discover a place that has already been settled by thousands of tribes of Native Americans? It’s all colonialist bullshit!” There was my detective work for my teacher to see.

  He just looked at me with the kind of face that tells you he’s gonna smack you upside the head. “Listen, I can’t go against the established Board of Education curriculum. You can believe what you want, but do not contradict me in front of the students. It undermines my authority.”

  I became so pissed, I just walked away from him. At that moment, I knew for sure school was teaching fallacies and that if I wanted any education I had to give it to my-self. He screamed at me to come back, but I walked away. I went to my next class, which was auto mechanics. In this class, the teacher loved me, and many times he would let me teach because I knew the most up-to-date information on cars.

  As soon as I walked into class, the history teacher was right behind me. He was a little taller than I was, but frail. Mr. Sutter grabbed me by my left arm, and to my surprise, without looking at him, I kicked him in the shin and rolled my arm over and twisted his. When I realized it was a teacher, I instantly let go. Vincent had been teaching me martial arts for years.

  Mr. Swanson was the auto mechanic teacher. His eyes opened, and he rushed toward the history teacher and pushed him outside. I knew I was in big trouble then, but I wasn’t worried, because I had a witness to what had hap-pened. The two teachers were arguing outside. I could hear Mr. Swanson say, “Why did you grab him like that? He’s not your child.”

  “I want him in the principal’s office, now,” Mr. Sutter retorted.

  Mr. Swanson told him that he would go there with me after his class. “Now, I suggest you leave.” He walked back in and gave me a worried smile. Then he put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. I got your back. I saw eve-rything. Let’s get to work—this car won’t fix itself!”

  After class, he took me to the principal’s office. My palms were sweaty, but I felt safe because Mr. Swanson was right there with me. He reminded me a lot of Vincent. He told me to sit down in the office while he went in to the principal, and that was when the yelling began again. I chuckled to myself, and the secretary gave me a stern look. I could hear Mr. Swanson say, “Mr. Sutter grabbed his arm from behind, and the boy just reacted. He didn’t even know it was you. Why do you think he let you go when he realized it was you?”

  All Mr. Sutter kept saying was, “I want him expelled.”

  Then the principal started to talk. “Okay, okay. Gen-tlemen, sit down! Mr. Sutter, what were you thinking, grabbing the child? Have you lost your mind? Do you know what kind of lawsuit mess we can find ourselves in?” The room was quiet for a moment. My stomach started to hurt. That quietness felt heavy, like something terrible was going to happen. The secretary would dart her eyes at me. That made me even more nervous. Then I heard my name. Time to face the guillotine, I thought to myself. “Mr. Blanks, can you please come into my office?” Mr. Swanson opened the door and gave me a grim look. I walked into the room. I felt as if I were walking into the gas chamber or some-thing like that. Mr. Swanson pointed to a chair in front of Principal Johnson’s desk. He was holding his forehead.

  “To be honest, gentlemen, this matter is giving me a headache. Stevie, in the two years you’ve been here, I have never had a problem with you. But this is extremely serious. What do you have to say about the matter?”

  I looked him in his eyes like Vincent had taught me. I knew I had done nothing wrong. “May I speak freely, sir?”

  “Yes, of course,” he answered.

  “The reason why we had the argument was because I was using critical thinking. When any of the teachers teaches me something, I go home and research it.” Mr. Swanson nodded his head in approval. The principal glared at him.

  “Then, I come back the next day and tell them what I found. Mr. Swanson tells me okay, prove it. Then I show him on the cars. On the other hand, Mr. Sutter just ignores the facts and continues with the lesson.” I thought careful-ly about the next few words I would say. “Are you educat-ing a bunch of sheeple or critical thinkers and doers?”

  Mr. Swanson chuckled under his breath, and the principal gave him another glare.

  “See, these are the kinds of outrageous things I have to put up with,” Mr. Sutter said, growing aggravated.

  “Calm down,” the principal said.

  “That proves my point,” I chimed in.

  The principal folded his arms. “That’s not the problem, Mr. Blanks. You still struck a teacher.”

  “If I may say my piece, sir?” I asked. He gestured for me to continue. “I had no idea that it was him. He grabbed my arm, and I reacted. As soon as I knew who it was, I let him go. This is Newark, for krissakes—people get robbed all the time.”

  “See, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Mr. Swanson blurted out.

  “Okay, okay, I think I heard enough. As of this mo-ment, Mr. Sutter, you are suspended for two weeks with-out pay.”

  “What? You can’t do that,” Mr. Sutter said. He stood up and slammed his hands on the desk.

  “Yes, I can,” said the principal, standing as well, matching the teacher’s futile gestures of machismo hand for hand.

  Mr. Sutter stormed out the door. “I will take this to the Board of Ed!” He slammed it behind him.

  The principal sat down and rubbed his face. “Stevie, as of today, I’m afraid that you are also expelled from school.” The horror on my face revealed my shock. The principal could barely look me in the eye. He knew deep down he was wrong. “I have no choice. Please, just go home.”

  I got up, walked out, and closed the door.

  I could overhear Mr. Swanson yelling, “If you expel him, I will quit!”

  “Don’t overreact,” Principal Johnson said.

  “What do you mean, don’t overreact? That stuffy old man is to blame. How is kicking that child out of school going to help him? I can’t be a part of such a broken sys-tem.”

  “Mr. Swanson, I don’t have a choice. He struck a teacher.”

  “In self-defense.”

  “Jack—I don’t have a choice. Rules are rules,” he said.

  “Well, then we are done here. You can find someone else to teach shop.”

  I waited for him. He walked out, his face purple, veins popping from his forehead. “Let’s go,” he said. “There is nothing left for us here.”

  The principal came out. “Mr. Swanson, come back in here!”

  Mr. Swanson just kept walking. We were like William Holden and Warren Oates at the end of The Wild Bunch—a couple of bad-ass outlaws breaking rules for the greater good.

  When we got outside, I turned to him. “You can’t quit. I appreciate what you did and all, but you have a family to take care of.”

  “Don’t worry, Stevie, I will find something else. I can’t be a part of that bullshit any longer. What kind of role model for my kids would I be if I swallowed my values for a paycheck?”

  I was surprised, because it was the first time I’d heard him curse. I didn’t even hear the part about values.

  When we arrived at the shop, Vincent glanced at us from the corner of his eye. He cleaned his hands with an old rag and walked out. The first thing out of his mouth was, “You old son of a bitch. I haven’t seen you in years.” He smiled and went over to Mr. Swanson, embracing him with brotherly love and kissing him on the cheek.

  “You’re a sexy guy, Vin, but you’re not my type,” Mr. Swanson said, laughing and slapping Vincent on his chest.

  “You wish, ya, fuck ya.” They laughed together. Then Vincent looked at his watch. “Shouldn’t both of you be in school? Are you guys going to a hooky party, or what?” he said sarcastically.

  Then Mr. Swanson’s face got serious.

  “You’ve made the boy a free thinker instead of a sheeple, the type they don’t like in schools,” he said.

  “Oh shit, what happened?” Vincent asked.

  Staring at me, Mr. Swanson said, “He challenged the bullshit they were teaching him in school. When Stevie walked away from the teacher, the teacher went behind him and grabbed Stevie by the arm.” He started laughing.

  Vincent understood what was coming next. After all, he would have done the same thing, and he was my men-tor.

  “Oh, shit!” Vincent said, smirking.

  Then Mr. Swanson became more serious. “He was ex-pelled from school.”

  “What?” Vincent interjected.

  “Yeah,” he said, as they both looked down briefly. “I argued with the principal to let him stay.”

  “I appreciate you coming here with him, but you need to get back to work,” Vincent said.

  “No, I don’t. I quit that shit,” Mr. Swanson said, wav-ing his hand.

  Vincent’s mouth dropped. “What are you going to do now, Jack?”

  “No clue.” He rubbed his head, stress marks revealing themselves like lines on paper.

  Vincent’s eyes widened as if a light bulb had gone on. “You still remember how to fix a car?”

  “Yeah. I won’t fuck them up the way you do.” Both of them smiled knowingly—two brothers needing each other when all else falls apart around them.

  “We made the place bigger. We could certainly use the extra help, and Stevie will need a tutor—a real one, not a greasy philosopher off the streets.”

  I smiled at that because I knew Vincent was a fair man and would pay him well. Plus, I thought he was really cool and, truth be told, I liked having him around. I actually dug learning book stuff deep down.

  “Yes, when Stevie turns sixteen, he could take the GED. “What do you think, Stevie?” Mr. Swanson said, putting his hand on my shoulder.

  “Sounds great to me!” I said.