The Awakening of Malcolm X by Ilyasah Shabazz

Author:Ilyasah Shabazz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

Studying the dictionary helps pass the time. It feels familiar, like I’m back home at the kitchen table. My brothers and sisters surrounding me. Mom telling another story about her voyage to Canada, where the Marcus Garvey convention took place in the early 1900s. That’s where she met Papa. I’ve got my books in hand, we all do, and we’re absorbing her every word like a gospel hymn.

The bell rings for lunch. “Line up!” the guard calls.

In the mess hall, I spot a brother who looks just like Shorty. Enough for me to almost ask if he is related to a Malcolm Jarvis. Pretty wild that Shorty and I are both from Lansing and both named Malcolm. Two needles in a haystack found each other like a couple of long-lost twins, years apart in age, destined to meet that day Fat Frankie hustled me out of forty dollars. Back then, I was so green, they couldn’t call me Red. Shorty knew I was young, probably because I was tall and lanky and always had a book in my back pocket. But after he showed me the ropes, he never treated me like some kid again. He respected me.

I wouldn’t be who I am if it weren’t for Shorty teaching me everything he knew and then some.

“Heard you ain’t eating pork no more.”

Chucky stands in front of me, blocking my path to the tables, and I reel back from the stench of his hot breath and rotting teeth. Most of us don’t have toothbrushes, but I keep my teeth clean with a piece of washrag. He has some nerve coming up in my face about anything but what he owes. Then I remember, Reginald will be here soon. I’ll be free. And this fool will still be in this filthy cage. Just have to play it cool, like Shorty taught me. Like Bembry showed me.

“Yeah, who you hear that from?”

Chucky is startled by my response, probably expecting me to beg him to pay up. He digs deeper.

“Oh, you know everybody talking about it,” he says, a laugh in his voice. “‘Little don’t eat no pork no more.’ Folks trying to figure out what you getting at.”

“Nothing. Except wondering why everybody is all in my business. Most of all, you.”

“Strange, that’s all. You ain’t have a problem with it before.”

“Just staying away from it. Never ate it as a kid. Not eating it now.”

“So you and your family too good for what’s being served here? Thinking you better than everyone else?”

I grip the tray tight, swallowing back the urge to shove it in his face. I have a fire pit deep in my belly. Especially when it comes to my family. Chucky is trying to coax that fire out of me, trying to push any button to set me off.

And it’s working.

Right as I’m about to shove my tin plate down his throat … I hear my number called.

“22843. Little! Visitation, line up.”

My blood is racing as I head into the visitors’ center.

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