After someone my age died right before my eyes, my internal compass went haywire, bouncing in all sorts of opposing directions. The push-pull between wondering if this was the type of life I was meant to live always contradicted the bible stories my mother taught us about love, patience, and fairness. Deep in my heart, I knew I was meant for more. The outside may not have reflected it, but I knew that just like an oak tree starts as a seed, I wanted to grow into the person my mother believed I was. The problem was that when I looked in the mirror, I did not see that person.
Despite my best intentions, I felt like I held court, every day, with an angel and a devil on each shoulder. I’d take a deep breath and center myself with my new resolve, and I’d turn around and my alter ego would say things like, “Douglas, listen. What you are doing is not so bad! Come on, man up. Enjoy it! This is all you have to look forward to, so get used to it.” In those moments, I’d have a clear picture of the two separate directions I was being torn between, but the sad, lonely, and broken up parts of me believed the darkness more than the light.
During this time, I found myself stuck between two distinct lives: many weeknights, you’d find me sitting on a street corner with the crew smoking weed, drinking forties, and appraising whom to rob next. The next morning I might be playing Tchaikovsky at a nursing home.
As a freshman in high school and at the height of the polar opposite lives, I felt the familiar ocean-rush of blood and nerves vibrating in my ears when I’d go to school, wearing my hand-me-down khakis and second or third-hand flannel shirts Mom bartered in exchange for cleaning homes. But when I went home, I also felt a similar zing—one that encouraged rebellion. I’d take the day-Doug uniform off and sneak into a different uniform of baggy jeans, hoodies, and hard-toed Adidas. Throughout the halls of my school, I walked around with a chip on my shoulder, an aggravating sense of discontent for a number of reasons—the primary ones being that I was struggling academically and unable to understand who I was or where I fit in the world.
The gangster danger I experienced evolved from the Charlotte Klein Breakers—in the club, at roller rinks, in filthy, dark alleys—and grew the more I dove into that world. I started breakdancing with the Charlotte Klein Breakers, which started as a nice wholesome crew, but from there we created Crazy Action Crew (CAC), which was the dark, gangster side of breaking. Even there, when I was with that crew, I never felt like I truly belonged. Every time we’d rally to drum up something fun to do (which was sometimes illegal or unconscionable), I’d get sidelong glances of concern . . . even they knew I should have been doing other things. But my butterfly knife and I were intimate, always linked to one another as a perfect match. And despite the angel and devil demands, after a while, I learned how to keep the angel quiet with the right amount of malt liquor.
Forty-ounce beers—the biggest bang for your buck—were our crew’s preference. Through the blur and fog of this period, I remember the beginnings of slamming back countless forties. Many of our friends’ single-parent households, just like mine, would offer to host us as we drank ourselves into oblivion. Their theory—and this was my mother’s as well—was that if we were going to do it, we might as well do it where there was someone around who could keep an eye on us.
One evening, I stayed out long past curfew at a friend’s house getting drunk on these infamous beers. Much of that night is completely lost in the black hole of my memory, but having only enough strength to crawl up the stairs to my house is firmly cemented in my mind. It was in early September of the tenth grade, and in the middle of the night. I drooled all over the doormat as I tried to gather the clarity of mind and strength of body to right myself and insert my house key. I sat there, on my hands and knees, moaning and banging my head against the door, which eventually woke my mother.
I heard the deadbolt unlock, then the knob turned, and the door creaked open for her to see who—or what—was moaning on the front porch.
“Douglas! Douglas what are you doing? Are you okay?” She rushed to my side in the middle of her sentence, but by the time she fully exhaled, she knew what was wrong—I reeked of stale beer, and I couldn’t hold myself up above my elbows. After dragging me inside into the entryway, she rolled me over and stood above me, examining the mess I’d made of myself. I heard her mumble something to Jesus, praying for his mercy, though the only other thing I remember like piercing lead was the phrase: “You’re just like your father.”
Unfortunately, even though I knew she was right on some level, those words drove a wedge between us that had been growing since I stopped playing baseball. Drinking forties and coming home plastered was the least of my issues—I now had confirmation of my previous anticipation: I was a disappointment to my mother . . . I had let down the only person in the world who really knew my name and truly loved me.
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