Floating in a Most Peculiar Way by Louis Chude-Sokei

Author:Louis Chude-Sokei
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781328781079
Publisher: HMH Books
Published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

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Before Garth broke my head open, we’d had a fight no different than the ones we’d had when I lived in Jamaica. The wall the tile sailed across was one we’d sat on together most nights with my cousins and other boys from the neighborhood, talking about comic books and American television programs and music. We also talked about girls. Not the ones from our neighborhood, we feared those, but the ones at school who came from towns and neighborhood in the small hills outside Montego Bay. Their social distance from us made it easy to imagine them vulnerable to our charms.

What made my conversations with Garth different this time was that I had done the thing we’d all shaped our lives in preparation for. I’d gone to America. I no longer had to make strong arguments or defend my positions. I’d also achieved a personal goal in that I’d come back as a Black American, not the African I was when I left. Every other word out of my mouth was “man” or “cool,” and I bobbed my head when I walked. I slapped everyone’s palm, giving them “five,” which they all gathered to receive as if something were being passed from hand to hand.

Garth had said something, jealous of the attention I was getting. I said something back too loudly and probably too proudly. In a flash, he’d crossed the wall from his yard and was in my face. I had him down before he could hurt me. When he got up and went back over the wall, I continued posing for the girls at the front gate, ramping up the Yankee accent until I heard Cousin Dale calling my name and raising his finger.

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