"It had been a year since my mother sent me to Corleone Junior High for a better education." "Jerk." "Oh, I was getting a better education, all right." "An education in misery." "I was tired of my classes." "Inga, binga, binga, bunga." "Chris, what tribe are you from?" "I don't know!" "I still struggled to get sleep." " Night, Ma." " Night, baby." "Chris, get your butt up!" "It's time to go to school." "And worst of all, everybody hated me." "The kids hated me." "The teachers hated me." "Even the lunch ladies hated me." "The only good thing that happened to me at Corleone was meeting Greg." "Hey, you want to go over to the arcade?" " They've got Ms. Pacman." " I don't like it over there." "Hi." "You're Chris, right?" "Yeah, why?" "I just wanted to let you know I think it's pretty lame how everybody's been treating you." "Sorry I didn't say anything before now." "That's all right." "Thanks." "Hey, I'm meeting some friends over at the arcade to play some Ms. Pacman." "You want to come?" " Nah, he doesn't want to." " I didn't say that." "Come on." "You can come, too." "Finally someone was being nice to me." "I'm going to beat your butt in Ms. Pacman." "Oh, we'll see about that." "Surprise, Donkey Kong." "I knew it was too good to be true." " Greg!" " Run away, you little idiot." "Get him!" "Take that, you little punk." "Oh, I hate him." "Silly Negro." "You know what?" "I think it's time for this silly Negro to get out of this school." "Oh, my God." "What happened to you?" "Mom, I am not going back to that school." "All right, now, wait a minute." "What's going on?" "I hate Corleone." "I don't fit in." "Nobody likes me." "I'm always tired, and almost every day somebody is picking on me." "Chris, you cannot let that stop you from getting a good education." "We didn't send you over there to be liked, baby." "Got that right." "Mom, the only thing I'm learning over there is how to get jumped on." "How come I can't go to Lamont Sanford Junior High?" " It's only a few blocks away." " Mm-mm, no." "You are not going to school in this neighborhood." "You remember that girl that got stabbed last year at Marla Gibbs High School?" "Chris, Sanford has nothing but juvenile delinquents and future convicts." "A man just got ten years because he sold me to an undercover cop." "What am I?" "Weed, cocaine, heroin or crack?" " Rachel." " Crack." " But Mom..." " But nothing, Chris." "And how did you get paint all over you, anyway?" "I went to the store to go play Ms. Pacman." "Aha!" "Ah!" "See there?" "See, now, had you not been there in the first place, you wouldn't be in this mess." "I keep telling you, come straight home from school." "Maybe now you'll listen to me." "Look, I know you don't like going to Corleone." "But everything is not supposed to be easy." "You understand me?" "Now, go upstairs and get out of those clothes." "Yes, ma'am." "What happened to him?" "He looks like a wet mime." "Nothing, he got in an accident at school." "My mother never liked to bother my father with bad news." "Like the time Tonya got hit by a bus." "What happened to Tonya?" "Nothing." "Or the time Drew got his legs cut off." " What happened to Drew?" " Nothing." "What are you so happy about?" "You know that job I applied for down at the fish market?" " Yeah." " I got it!" "Oh, baby, that's great!" "Congratulations." "Yeah." "It pays more than my other two jobs combined." "That's great!" "I get to shop!" "Man, for the first time in years I only have to work one job." "And I'll be working during the day." "It's going to feel like retirement." "So does this mean we don't have to be quiet every day when we come home from school?" "You can make all the noise you want, until 6:00." "Hey, Dad, can we start buying name brands at the store now?" " Just Oreos." " That's cool." "We need to celebrate." "Do something we've never done before." "That can mean anything from going to the movies to holding hands in the living room." "Hey, Dad." "Can we go to Great Escape?" "The amusement park?" "Yeah, can we go?" "Please?" "Sure, baby." "Yes!" "I got to tell Chris." "Since my mother wouldn't let me leave Corleone," "I had to take drastic measures." "You're going to get yourself kicked out?" "I have to get out of here." "What other choice do I have?" "I don't know." "I guess I just don't want you to go." "You leave me here by myself..." "I'm toast." "You'll be all right." "The only reason why they mess with you is 'cause you hang out with me." "You'll find new friends." "But we're a team, man." "We're like Starsky and Hutch." "Hall and Oates." "Like Itchy and Blacky." "We'll still be friends." "I'll just be at a different school." "So you think it's going to be different at the other school?" "Yeah." "Real different." "Hey, what's your name, kid?" " Chris." " What's your sign?" "Gemini." "All right." "This cool cat sailed around the world on the Niña, Pinta and the Santa Maria." "I will give you a year's supply of Black Fro Sheen if you can unscramble his name." "So you're serious about this?" "Hey, pygmy." "What?" "I'm serious." "I got to get out of here." "Mama, when we go to the Great Escape, can we get on the Neck Snapper?" "No, and if you get on the Neck Snapper, the next ride you'll be on will be the Butt Whupper." "Besides, Tonya, you're too little." "Chris and I are riding it twice." "After just one day on the job, my father was bringing home more than just a bigger paycheck." "God, what is that?" "Hey, everybody." "Oh, my God." "Julius!" "What?" "Are you selling the fish or sleeping with a mermaid?" "What's wrong?" "Oh, Drew, go open up the windows." "Hurry up, Tonya, go get the fans." "I'll bring y'all dinner up to y'all later." "Since when do they get to eat in their room?" "Since you turn people's stomachs." "You smell like... pierced ears and cheese." "Are you going to come home smelling like this every day?" "My God!" "I don't know, but I if I do, y'all just going to have to get used to it." "This job has too many perks." "What am I going to do with that?" "No, you need to take your little friend upstairs and put him in the shower." "'Cause if he smells anything like you, I ain't cooking him, and I damn sure ain't eating him." " Baby." " Go!" "Just go!" "You smell like curried tube socks." "Just go!" "The next day I set my plan to get kicked out of school into action." "Chris, it's "H-E-R-E."" "Study!" "I never could spell." "Come hell or high water," "I was getting kicked out of school." "Oh!" "Thank you." "Thank you." "Another 30 seconds in there we would have been blacker than you." "I pledge allegiance to the flag..." "This has got to work, right?" "...and to the republic for which it stands." " Wrong!" " One nation..." "I couldn't believe that didn't work." "After a few days of being a full-time juvenile delinquent," "I was out of ideas and still in school." "I give up." "I'm never getting out of here." "Come on, man." "It's not so bad." "Give it some time." "Things will change." "Hey, bacon bit, want to go to the arcade?" "I can't take this anymore!" "Yes!" "A book hit my windshield!" "Well, the good news is, I'm getting kicked out of Corleone." "The bad news is, I'm going to jail!" "I was so busy trying to get kicked out of school, it never occured to me that I might not live long enough to transfer." "Okay, thank you very much." "You got suspended?" "It was an accident." "Well, how can you accidentally have an accident?" "Some kid was messing with me, so I tried to hit him with my book." "Chris, if you were reading the book instead of throwing the book, maybe people wouldn't have time to mess with you." "They always find time to mess with me." "I don't even want to hear it." "And don't think you just gonna be laying around here watching Knight Rider all day, okay?" "You're gonna be here working, you're gonna have chores." "You know what?" "Just go upstairs in your room and wait for your father to get here." "In our house," ""Wait for your father" meant I was getting a whupping." "My father took his whuppings very seriously." "He had a belt for every infraction." "There was the Lying Belt, there was the Stealing Belt, the Lying and Stealing Belt, the Got Somebody Pregnant Belt." "And the worst was the Doing Drugs Belt." "While I was getting ready for my punishment, my mother was getting ready for my father." "He's crazy if he think he gonna... be... coming up in this house smelling it up like 42nd Street." "Oh, no, no, no." "People in this neighborhood ain't gonna talk about... me." "Rochelle... what you doing?" "Uniform was stinking up the whole house." "I been cleaning up all day, trying to get that smell out of here." "But what's all this?" "That's $16 worth of plastic wrap." "This plastic is protecting my furniture." "That fish smell was saturating everything." "Oh, baby, you bought groceries?" "I even got you the Turtles." "Thank you, baby." "Ooh, ooh, Turtles." "Mmm!" "These Turtles taste like... turtle." "I can't eat these." "Fine." "Don't eat any of 'em." "But do I get something to eat?" "No!" "No!" "Not until you take a bath." "I do not want you smelling up my plastic." "Here, put your clothes in there." "Oh, and before you do that, I-I need you to talk to Chris." "What happened?" "He got suspended." "Oh, no." "I'm gonna give him my belt..." "No, no, no, no, no, no." "This time, I really need you to talk to him." "Okay?" "Okay." "My father smelled so bad," "I didn't know if he was gonna beat me or suffocate me." "Dad, before we start, can you open up a window?" "N o." "Consider this part of your punishment." "Okay." "Come on, man." "Tell me what's going on." "I hate that school, Dad." "I hate everything about it." "I know Mom wants me to get a good education, but every day, it just gets worse." "You can't just quit something 'cause you don't like it, Chris." "But Mom quits her job all the time." "But you're a man." "Men don't quit." "What if Jackie Robinson quit?" "What if George Washington Carver quit?" "What if Martin Luther King Jr. quit?" "When my father had a point to make, he always started off strong, but he never ended that way." "What if Colonel Sanders quit?" "What if Apollo Creed quit?" "What if Katherine Jackson quit making kids?" "Ain't she a woman?" "!" "They might be The Jackson Three." "What if Kool from Kool and the Gang quit?" "You think they would have gotten a record contract if they were just called The Gang?" "To this day, I can't tell you what my father said but that smell stayed with me forever." "If you quit, you're letting them win." "It's not about winning or losing." "I just want to leave the school." "Okay, fine." "Let me talk to your mother about getting you in a different school." "Another school?" "!" "If you bail Chris out every time he doesn't like something, that means he's gonna run to you every time he has a problem." "Which means he'll never learn how to be a man." "And if you can't teach him how to be a man, that means you're a bad father." "And if you're a bad father, that means I picked the wrong husband." "And if you think I'm about to let people run around here talking about I just marry anybody, you must be out your damn mind." "Look..." "Oh, wait, wait, no, wait!" "Put the plastic down first." "Thank you." "Look, I know you're worried." "But Chris is just not happy at Corleone." "I'm sorry." "I just don't think Sanford is good enough for him." "Well... now that I got this new job, maybe we can afford to pay for him to go to school." "We could at least look around." "Okay, fine." "We'll look for other schools." "And we'll look for other soap." "You stink!" "From there, we tried performing arts school." "Next!" "We looked into Hebrew school." "Next!" "We even tried old school." " Next!" " What...?" "After that, there was only one thing left to do." "Well, me and your father discussed it, and if you really want to go to the neighborhood school, you can." "For real?" "Yes, but you have to keep your grades up." "A's and B's." "And if you even think about getting in trouble," "I will march down to that school and knock the no-good out of you." "We'll go to Corleone and pick up your papers." "You can transfer next week, after your suspension." "Thanks, Ma." "All right." "I love you." "I did this, but here's what I felt like." "I'm outta here, suckas!" "I was feeling great." "Meanwhile, on the street, my father was clearing folks out like a cop in a crack house." "Something's dead!" "Mama, I don't like Daddy's new job." "He stinks!" "Yeah, but he's making a lot more money now." "So?" "He stinks." "He didn't stink when he worked his other jobs." "Well, baby, with this job, he gets to spend more time with us." "More stink time!" "Oh, come on, Tonya!" "It's not that ba..." "Y'all smell that?" "!" "Yeah." "Damn, man!" "You stink!" "Oh, Lord!" "Oh!" "Rochelle?" " What?" "!" " Let me in." "No." "You smell." "That's the smell of a working man." "No, that is the smell of Aquaman." "Rochelle, open the door." "No." "Look, baby," "I understand that this job brings you more free time and more money, but I can't take it anymore." "The kids can't breathe." "I cannot sleep at night." "Do you not know that I'm at that Laundromat every day?" "I've been burning so much incense, ten people came by here trying to buy reggae albums." "Hey, mon!" " What you want me to do?" " Quit!" "I can't just quit!" "What kind of example would that be for the kids, huh?" "Did Thurgood Marshall quit?" "Did Frederick Douglass quit?" "Did Booker T. Washington quit?" "I don't know, and I don't care." "All I know is, I want you to quit." "What about taking the kids to Great Escape, huh?" "We don't want to go nowhere with you." "Yeah, Daddy, you stink." " What's this?" " Clean clothes." "Where am I supposed to change?" "I don't know." "Why don't you ask them cats?" "Meanwhile, back at Corleone, like Kunta Kinte," "I was waiting for my freedom papers." "Greg!" "Hey, man." "What are you doing here?" "My mom came to get my transcript." "I'm going to Sanford." "So, you're really gonna go?" " Yeah." " Man!" "Well, at least you won't have to worry about Caruso anymore." "Yeah." "How are things going for you?" "I don't know." "Caruso doesn't bother me anymore." "In fact, nobody bothers me." "It's kind of lonely." "He must be really lonely to miss an ass whuppin'." "Well, I got to go to class." "All right." "See ya." "Yeah, see ya." " Good luck." " Thanks." "Since it was almost official, the next day," "I decided to walk by Lamont Sanford, to get a feel of what it was gonna be like to go to school in my neighborhood." "Damn!" "They got bullies here, too!" "What you looking at?" "Nothing." "You guys go to school here?" "Yeah." "I've been going here for 16 years." "Now boy, I asked you a question-- what you looking at?" "Nothing." "So what you trying to say?" "We're nothing now?" "I just..." "I couldn't help but think that if Greg was here, he could've taken half of this beating." "Hi, baby." "I made you dinner." "I'm sorry about your job." "I know." "I can't believe I get one good job and it almost destroyed the whole family." "It's okay, baby." "Don't worry." "You'll find another good job one day." "It's better to have had one good job and lost it, than to never have had one good job at all." "Now I'm back to two jobs." "Yeah, now his second job is a philosopher." "That tastes like fish." "I told you!" "Back to clean out your locker?" "Nope." "Just back for good." "Cool!" "Hey, this ain't Brokeback." "Greg!" "Sorry." "So, what made you decide to come back?" "I thought Corleone was my problem, but then I noticed the real problem." "I'm little, skinny and I can't fight." "So no matter where I go, I'm still the same guy." "So, they jumped you." "Yeah." "I figure the bully you know is better than the bully you don't." "Hey, Dolomite." "Welcome back." "It was rough without you." "I had to go back to beating up white kids." "The next time you decide to quit, could you let somebody know?" "So, what do we do now?" "Same thing we always do." "Glad to have you back, man." "That day I realized that no matter what school I went to, things were gonna be rough." "But as long as I had Greg, things were gonna be all right."