Where my mom was all about structure, my dad had no sense of order at all. With his apartment’s yellowing walls, stench of body odor, stale cigarette smoke, and animal droppings, it felt like I’d entered the armpit of the world.
When night fell, there was no actual dinnertime. There was just food lying around, which you had to grab before someone else did. When I got tired, I went to take a bath, but the apartment didn’t have hot water. I had to heat water on a kerosene heater, then dump it into the tub.
I went to sleep in that room, which was still filled with animals, dubious relatives, and friends of my dad’s. There was barking, snoring, and elbows and knees poking me. I could barely sleep. At seven in the morning, I untangled myself, crept out of the room, found the phone, and called my mom.
“Can I come back home?” She didn’t seem surprised to hear from me.
An hour later, she picked me up at my dad’s house and walked me home. As she did, she spoke sternly: “You’re either gonna respect my rules and respect my word, or you’re not gonna live under my roof. It’s that simple.”
I thought about her ultimatum. There was no middle ground between my parents. I could either choose a comfortable dictatorship or I could choose uncomfortable anarchy. I could follow in my brother’s footsteps or stay on the other path. There was only one decision I could make.
“Yes, Mom.”
In retrospect, I realize that she had known all along exactly what was going to happen and how things would play out. It was like a poker game, and she played her hand perfectly.
She could have written a book on reverse psychology. Once, after a friend of mine was caught smoking, she asked if I smoked too. I told her truthfully that I’d never smoked and had no interest, because Dad smoked cigarettes and I hated the smell. “If I ever see a single sign that maybe you’ve smoked a cigarette,” she warned, “you’re gonna sit in front of me and I’m gonna make you smoke five packs of cigarettes right there. You’ll be so disgusted by smoking that you’ll never want to pick up a cigarette again.”
After I left my dad’s house that morning, carrying my basketball and clothes in defeat, I wasn’t the same. I had learned a valuable lesson that would last me a lifetime:
It’s easy to complain about your life—how tough it is, how unfair it is, how stressful it is, how everyone else has it much better. But if you step into the life of someone you envy for just a day, you’ll discover that everyone has their own problems, and they’re usually worse than yours. Because your problems are designed specifically for you, with the specific purpose of helping you grow.
Experiencing a lifestyle without structure, discipline, values, strictness, and work ethic taught me to appreciate them a little more. Instead of just seeing the things my mom was taking away from me, I began to see the things she was giving me.
I didn’t flip all the way from resentment to appreciation, but I began that slow process. And logically, no other response to the ups and downs of life makes sense besides gratitude. You are already in your experience. So you can either resent and resist it, and make it that much less enjoyable, or you can accept it and find something positive in it.
I accepted that I was stuck with my mom, so I may as well make the best of it. At times, that meant trying to sneak around behind her back to get what I wanted. But that didn’t last long either. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the ability to outsmart my mother.
I learned this the hard way.
Life Lessons
FROM SCHOOL
* * *
No matter what you may think, education is important and you need it and you can’t succeed without it—unless you’re talented and intelligent and figure out another path.
The bowl cut
13
* * *
SECRETS OF AN INTERNATIONAL PLAYBOY
I had a tough time with girls.
The reason is because my mom used to cut my hair.
“I’m not paying nobody to do what I can do,” she said. My mom would put a bowl over my head, grab the clippers, and go around my head one time, against the grain, and that was my haircut. Once, I looked in the mirror afterward, and there were these random bald patches. I looked like a Lego figure after you unsnap the hair from it.
Meanwhile, she used to go to the hair salon to get shape-ups and trims. To this day, I don’t understand this shit. My brother actually began his entire life of crime because he wanted a haircut and couldn’t figure out any way to get money for it besides stealing.
On my right-hand path, I realized that I could set up a barter system with my mom. The secret was to find something that was more important to her than twelve dollars for a haircut. And that something was my grades.
One day, in middle school, when I got good grades on my report card (which for me were Bs), my mom gushed:
Mom: I’m proud of you. What do you want as a reward? Name anything.
Me: All I want is a haircut from a barbershop.
Mom: I can just cut it for you.
Me: Please, I’m begging you: Let me go to the barbershop. I just want to experience a professional barber one time.
Mom: Okay, Kevin—but don’t get used to it.
The next day, I went to school, saw the popular girl I liked, and with the confidence that only a hairstyle not cut by your mama can bring, said, “Hey.”
To my complete surprise, she replied, “Hi.” That was the first time she ever spoke to me.
“I got a haircut,” I told her, like an idiot.
She smiled.
And that was enough for me. I decided that looking good made the world revolve around you. To this day, I still remember the name of the guy who cut my hair: Greg.
Thank you, Greg.
Two weeks later, the haircut had grown out and I was right back where I started. When I asked my mom for money to get my hair cut, she refused: “I’m not giving you twelve dollars for something I can do myself right now. Come over here. It’ll just take five minutes.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I muttered as I submitted to another bowl cut.
Consequently, I never had girls beating down my locker. I damn sure remember who did have them though: Hakim. Girls loved Hakim. And I was pissed off about that—until I realized the secret to his success. It was pubic hair.
“Hey, you got hair on your dick yet, man?” Hakim asked one day.
Most guys my age seemed to be sprouting pubic hair and their confidence was growing in tandem. You were no longer a boy once you got that new growth. You were a fucking man.
So of course I told him, “Yeah, I’m already good down there.”
“Let’s see,” he said.
He lowered his waistband and proved that, yes, he did indeed have some fuzz.
If I didn’t back up my words by flashing some fuzz, Hakim would tell everyone. My already dismal chances with girls would hit a new low. I had to think quickly.
I dropped a notebook on the ground. As Hakim bent to pick it up, I reached my hand to the back of my head and pulled out a few strands.
Then, as Hakim was standing up, I reached into my waistband and pretended to pull the loose hair out.
“Oh, Kev’s got hair,” Hakim exclaimed. “He’s got hair!”