All my life, I’ve been a hustler. Where I come from, that’s what you did when you wanted that fresh pair of sneakers, or the gold necklace that spelled your name out in bubble-letter script, or that pack of cherry Now and Later candy your mother didn’t want to blow good money on, because every penny she wasted on crap you didn’t need meant not having the cash for the things that mattered: the light bill, gas for the car, food for the refrigerator, rent so you had a place to lay your head at night. Of course, there were plenty of kids around my way who hustled in the traditional sense of the word to get what their families couldn’t afford; there are back alleys and dark shadows all throughout southeast DC that tell that story. But my hustle wasn’t nearly as sinister or desperate. I was just really good at relieving the people around me of their cash so I could have a few dollars for my pocket—a skill I was practicing as early as eight years old back in 1978. If the lady down the hallway with all the kids had to run to the Safeway to pick up some eggs, cereal, and milk, I’d step right in. “Go ahead, I’ll watch the kids . . . for five dollars.” Somebody needed help getting bags up the stairs? I’d chip in for a dollar or two. Nobody had to worry about sweeping a porch, folding laundry, or cornrowing their daughter’s full head of hair while I was around: for a fee, I’d handle all that and toss in a smile, free of charge.
I brought that “get money” spirit with me everywhere I went because there was little money to spare in my house. I saw my single mother struggling to make ends meet on her salary from Woodward & Lothrop department store (back then, it was known as Woodies); she may have risen from the stockroom as a price tag attacher to her own office as divisional manager of distribution and logistics over the course of my childhood, but she was still raising a kid on her own in one of the most expensive cities in America, without any financial help from my father.
With a baby on her hip and not so much as a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of once she left my dad, my mother moved herself first into my father’s sisters’ house in northeast Washington, DC—the home my aunts Norma and Brenda inherited from my father’s parents after they moved to North Carolina—and then, later, into the nearby basement of my mom’s oldest brother, Buck, until she could save up enough money to get on her feet. Her family, firmly planted in the upper-middle class, was generous like that—always stepping in to help support us. Buck lived in a two-bedroom row-house duplex with his wife, Joyce, and their four children. The two boys shared one room, I shared a second bedroom with the oldest daughter, and the baby girl slept with her parents, while my mom made a home in the basement, sleeping on my twin-sized bed, the only furniture my dad would allow my mom to take from our apartment when she left him. My uncle didn’t charge my mom rent; all he wanted was for her to help with the utilities. That’s how close, loving, and caring my mom’s family was and still is, even more so today.
Still, becoming self-sufficient enough to find her own place was an uphill climb for my mother; securing a deposit, first and last month’s rent, and moving fees on a not-so-generous department store salary was no easy feat. And just when she thought she was getting somewhere, a pipe burst and flooded my uncle’s basement, water seeping into all of my mother’s treasured possessions; her furniture and clothes, which she always kept so pristine, now soggy and reeking of mildew, were completely ruined. She ended up moving upstairs and sleeping on the sofa, with the eight of us cooped up in that duplex for months. I know this much, though—I was so happy to be there because spending that much time with my cousins was like having siblings. Later, more havoc rained down on her belongings: my uncle’s damn dog chewed through her business shirts. At one point, she was so broke she couldn’t afford even to buy herself a pair of dress shoes; she wore the one pair she had to her job every day for an entire year.
Eventually, we moved into a garden-style apartment on Livingston Road, in southeast DC, right on the border of Oxon Hill, Maryland. My mom scratched and saved every penny she could and cashed in some savings bonds she’d been keeping for me to pay the first and second months’ rent plus the security deposit. When we moved in, we had nothing but that twin bedroom set my father let my mom take and the few clothes we had left after the flood. Both by mom and I slept on that twin bed until she woke up one too many times to find me lying on the floor. My Aunt Pat and her husband, Uncle Casper, gave my mom an extra full-size bed frame they had stored away, and my mom got herself credit approval for a mattress set that cost her $188. I don’t know how she can still remember that exact amount, but I’m guessing when you live through hard times and make it out, those things are forever embedded in your memory. Gradually, mom was able to purchase a used kitchen table and two chairs from Salvation Army and a living room set from a used furniture store nearby.