Northview Heights

NORTHVIEW HEIGHTS

Marie Kessler Kaminski

Northview Heights Marie Kessler Kaminski

Northview Heights Marie Kessler Kaminski

The Literary Arts Department Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 A Creative and Performing Arts Magnet

For Maman, who raised me in the arts and encourages me always; and to my neighborhood, who inspired this chapbook in the first place.

Copyright Š 2019 Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12, A Creative and Performing Arts Magnet Pittsburgh, PA The copyright to the individual pieces remains the property of the individual.

Reproduction in any form by any means without specific written permission from the individual is prohibited.

For copies or inquiries: Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 Literary Arts Department Mara Cregan 111 Ninth Street Pittsburgh, PA 15222 Mcregan1@pghschools.org

Ms. Melissa A. Pearlman, Principal

Table of Contents Black Holes

Honkeytown

Mourning Sickness

Brother, Not By Blood

25 Things Northview Heights Won’t Tell You

Food Desert

There’s Commonality in Suffering

Ignorant Neighbors

It Don’t Matter if it’s the Cuts

Black Holes It is reported that they…. break windows. And they no longer believe in elephants.

— Slawomir Mrożek, “The Elephants” An old black man sits in a wheelchair at the bus stop across the street from the corner store labeled as a deli (but isn’t really a deli) and the looming apartment complex where the welfare-dependent elderly live. He reads a newspaper— one with a frontpage headline always claiming that my neighbors are gang members. He looks up as I come to bake in the summer heat beside him. He stares at me with the same eyes as everyone else that ask all forms of the question Do you belong here? Instead, he only wonders where I’m heading.

“Downtown,” I say, like a yinzer.

The old man nods. He asks if I live up here. Everybody asks if I live up here.

Here, as in Northview Heights. Here, as in the housing projects.

Yeah, “I live up here.”

“What number?” he asks. It’s more out of formality than interest.

That’s normal, in Northview Heights— to ask a person what number they live in.

What number? As if we're all animals inquiring what cage someone lives in because it's for future reference. In case, one of us ends up a victim of this neighborhood's reputation for dangerous deadbeats. In case we need to know which of us were taken to society’s slaughterhouse.

This old man assumes I live in Honkeytown— that I don’t have a number. I’m in number sixty-four. The man’s eyebrows raise. He sucks on his teeth and asks how long I’ve lived here. Everybody asks how come I ain’t ever seen you before?

“A while. Three years, I think,” I say.

The man shakes his head as if he’s disappointed in me, mumbling about how someone like me shouldn’t be here. I know that. The old man’s thumb smoothes the crinkled edges of the newspaper as it sits on his lap.

“Y’know,” he says, “I been here since I was fourteen.”

The man’s in his mid-sixties, aging as he talks. His face sags like a bloodhound’s.

“This place’s like a black hole. Once you move here, you ain’t ever gonna leave,” he says.

The man’s words chill me with truth as the 15 Charles comes up over the hill and charges towards us like a wild stallion.

This is a neighborhood everyone fears and avoids— consumes what comes too close to escaping its endless cycle. It gorges on what the rest of Pittsburgh does not want— the Somali-Bantu refugees, the impoverished blacks, the elderly on welfare, and me.

Honkeytown After Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl”

When you want to catch the bus, take the 6 Spring Hill whenever possible. The 15 Charles always runs late and you don’t want to be late. It’s rude to keep people waiting and you aren’t a rude person. This is where you catch the bus— there was a sign there before a reckless driver plowed into it. When did it happen? Don’t ask about events that occurred before you moved here. Don’t wonder when it’ll be replaced, it makes you seem nosy. It makes you seem like the white girl your neighbors think you are. Catch the bus at the bus stop with the yellow shelter. It’s where the nice people are, like the mute nurse. This is how to greet a stranger: Say, “Good morning,” to the sourfaced Somali woman, even if she doesn’t respond. When you’re on the bus and are asked by a heavy man where you’re from, answer the question they want to know.

Where do you live? Nobody wants to know you’re from Wales. They want to know if you live in Honkeytown because they want you to behave like the white girl they think you are. This is Honkeytown and what it looks like. It’s in the woods and littered with more roadside garbage and potholes than Penfort. Don’t act happy because where you live isn’t a happy place. This is how you act—annoyed but not angry. Don’t act like you live in Honkeytown because that’s the cuts. Don’t act boujee or snobbish. Don’t act like the white girl your neighbors think you are. When the heavy man on the bus is surprised that you live here, say you live on Chicago Street because that’s where Honkeytown is.

Act ashamed when he asks which part of Chicago Street and you say the left. This is

how to hide your Welsh accent. This is how to trick yourself into believing you don’t act like the white girl your neighborhood thinks you are. When walking home, ignore the neighbors’ stares. Make small talk with the sour-faced woman when you cross paths on the sidewalk. Don’t ask why she won’t look you in the eye. Be kind to the girl your age who thinks it’s funny to say that her friend likes you. This is how to know if the girl your age is mocking you. Don’t be angry that neighbors won’t stop staring—they can’t help it.

Always smile at the little boy on his tricycle—even if he stares at you. This is how to make yourself feel wanted in your own home. This is how to make yourself feel wanted in your own neighborhood. How? This is how to make idle conversation with the mute nurse at the bus stop. She will always smile at you. What’s her name? I don’t know. Are you kidding? She’s the only person in the neighborhood who is willing to speak with a Welsh girl who lives in Honkeytown and you don’t know her name?

Mourning Sickness Dedicated to Nikki Dailey She is digging in the garden, a large hole, the size of her body, carefully measured.

— Star Spider, “Green on the Inside” On Monday, the day after Nicole died, I call off work with a case of mourning sickness. Last night, the corner of Mount Pleasant and Chicago was a morbid purple galaxy— red and blue lights mixing into midnight-sky hues, the earth she will be buried in.

Boss is silent for a moment, “Take the week off, Myasia.”

“Okay,” I say, “thank you.”

“Oh,” he says, “and I’m sorry… for your loss.”

I hang up the phone.

On Tuesday, I attend Nicole’s funeral. Nia, seven months old and eyes like sunspots, squirms in her grandma’s arms. I wonder if she’ll remember her mother’s face.

I say, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Nicole’s mother hugs me and thanks me for coming, “It means so much that you’re here.”

Our conversation is sucked into the void. Nia burbles with her fingers in her mouth. She smiles at me as the elderly woman waddles away, muttering about speaking with another relative— a male cousin.

There's talk of how Nicole was the blazing sun of our neighborhood— of Northview Heights. Talk about how she will be greatly missed. It is impossible to look Nia in the eye.

After the funeral, tokens of remembrance— space junk— accumulates across the street with each friend, relative, and neighbor who passes by.

Wednesday, I shut my blinds to summer sunshine and the unbearable view of the space-shuttle-sized crucifix bearing her name and youthful face. Looking out my window resurrects the wails of the ambulance and Nia, who Nicole had been cradling in her arms when they found her body.

The house is unable to contain supernovas and restlessness, so I walk three miles downhill to the Family Dollar. The heat is humid and swollen— a star on the verge of exploding. Perusing aisles of candles, balloons, Chinese manufactured flowers— space junk— I know, unlike her lunar headstone, her cluttered memorial will wither and fade like stars and the fresh-cut flowers I laid on her grave after her funeral. I end up purchasing a small candle, a box of matches, and a bouquet of cheap silk flowers in Nicole’s favorite color— pink.

On Thursday, news reporters and police officers wonder if we— the neighborhood— know who? Even at the family’s pleas, the neighborhood is tight-lipped and noiseless as outer space.

A cop knocks on my door asking if I have “any helpful information.”

I choose to feed my knowledge into a black hole.

“No,” I say. “I don’t know anything.”

I slam the door in the officer’s face.

The following Sunday, the community holds a memorial service barbeque in the park— blanketed in the dark matter shadows of the apartment complex it hides behind.

There are colorful balloons and conversations and tears. Memories and celebration.

Neighbors ask how I knew her— Nicole.

“Yeah,” I say, “Nicole… she was my neighbor.”

“Oh,” they say, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Brother, Not by Blood A black and white photograph, out of place but mixed in, a part belonging to a whole that exists elsewhere.

— Jennifer Tseng, “The Serpent’s Daughter” When I ask Mom if she’s got any siblings, she drops her eccentricities at her feet.

Lips pursed, she retreats into her bedroom, still dressed in work clothes. She doesn’t leave and I hear her muffled weeping in the middle of the night. When I ask Gram if Mom has any siblings, she asks if I’ve gone crazy.

“I ain’t stupid, Gram,” I say.

“They why you asking stupid questions?”

“Mom says she got siblings.”

The old woman returns to rolling out pie crusts on the countertop. She orders me not to dig my nose where it don’t belong.

I play soccer down the street from building sixty-four— where Mom and I live among a solar system of facades. The sun’s sleepy head sags in the sky, casting shadows over the housing projects. I hear Mom’s lemon clunkering up the hill, idling while she chats with neighbors on her way home. Driving by, she notices me with panicked eyes and calls my name.

“Amiyah!”

At the dinner table, I remember that the amount of times I’ve seen Mom cry-three-- is a lucky number in her mother country of Sweden. I wonder who’s right, Gram or Mom. I ask my mother what her siblings’ names are.

“I only had a brother,” she says.

"Gram says you ain't got siblings," I say.

“Gram only thinks of siblings as being your blood,” Mom says, “but blood don’t matter.”

And, “No, Amiyah, I don’t wanna talk about it.”

I realize Mom’s never said her brother’s name as I listen to gunshots and the commotion outside and Mom’s crying that follows soon after. Her brother would be my uncle, but I know how much it’d burn Mom if I called him that.

Mom returns from working a week of graveyard shifts. When she wakes up the next morning to me cooking breakfast, she sounds like her alarm clock— shrill and unrelenting. I ask her why she’s panicking.

“I’m only trying to do something nice for you,” I say.

Mom’s ears are bolted shut. She doesn’t want to hear my explanations or excuses. I tell her that I’m fourteen— old enough to cook using a stove, but she’s too worried about my safety to hear anything I’m saying.

After we eat my homemade breakfast, Mom tells me to clean up.

“We’re gonna go on an adventure,” she says.

She takes me to a graveyard and I follow her as we wade through a sea of fallen asteroids until she finds the one she’d been searching for. We stand in heavy silence, side-by-side, as she massages the peg-sized lump of scar tissue oozing from her shoulder. I ask why we’re here.

“This was your uncle,” she says, “and when he died, I vowed to never make the same mistake twice.”

“What mistake?”

“I put my nose where it didn’t belong,” she says.

25 Things Northview Heights Won’t Tell You Dedicated to Jonathan Freeman After Matthew Burnside’s, “38 Things You’ll Never Know…”

1. J shows up at your door, breathing heavily. He asks if he can crash on your couch for a few days. His father died and he has no family left except for you.

2. The nurse who sits at the bus stop with the yellow shelter wasn’t born mute. She lost her voice to throat cancer when she was twenty-two.

3. J and you met inside a somber house stinking of embalming fluid and old furniture.

You were seven and J was eight. It had been his older brother’s funeral.

4. Your neighbor, Nicole, drew her last breath as you climbed into bed.

5. It had been Nicole’s angry ex-boyfriend who had caused the gunshots in the middle of the night.

6. When Father gazed into Mother’s eyes, he saw the Milky Way. It was why he left Wales to, as Beyoncé once said, “put a ring on it”.

7. While you stayed the night at J’s many years ago, Father and Mother fought for hours, loud enough for the neighbors to call the cops to report a noise disturbance. That was the moment Father and Mother stopped loving each other.

8. When Father and Mother announced that you were going to be a big sister, you had hoped it was all a joke. You were content enough with J as your only sibling and it was why you felt so insulted by the “good news”.

9. J stops by on his way home. Rummaging through your fridge, he hands you leftover tomato soup and shrimp with the tails still on them. He asks you to heat them up together. In the same pot. You do, sending him on his way.

10. J stopped by because he didn’t know how to cook. He was too embarrassed to ask you for lessons, even as he was about to go off to college.

11. J regrets not telling you the real reason he showed up on your doorstep. It wasn’t because he’d been evicted from his apartment for missing rent one time too many.

12. Mother picked up a job working at a non-profit that ran after-school programs.

13. While Mother was at work, she was approached by a guy who wore a durag.

Paranoid, he’d been convinced that he was in constant danger of being attacked by rabid deer. Mother successfully warded off the man after convincing him that, since he was better equipped than she was at handling a wild deer, he should go in front of her.

14. The paranoid man who’d been afraid of rabid deer attacks lived down the street from you.

15. J flunked out of college.

16. The old black man in the wheelchair who firmly believed that Northview Heights was a “black hole” had lost both of his sons to the neighborhood’s reputation for violence-the same way J lost his older brother.

17. J’s father was a touchy subject. He resented how his father would only show up when it was most convenient for him— without concern for J’s feelings on the matter.

18. J’s father didn’t attend any funeral except his own—not even his sons’.

19. You were ten when your brother, Charlie, was born. When you held him for the first time, you cried because you’d felt guilty. You saw J as a sibling more than you ever would your biological one.

20. The guilt over how you felt about Charlie eventually morphed into the reason why you hated kids.

21. Even though their marriage had gone stale, your parents never divorced because, long after you and Charlie had flown the coop, they learned to find cold comfort in the familiarity of their relationship.

22. You're still living in Northview Heights. It's been a few years since you've graduated from university. You could be living comfortably elsewhere, but you stay because you're hoping that, one day, you'll see Charlie like you see J— like a brother.

23. When Mother retires from her job working for the non-profit, you take over her position. Everyone, including you, can’t fathom why you work with kids. You hate children, but you enjoy the work because it gives you another reason to stay.

24. J calls you, saying he's planning on cooking dinner as thanks for giving him a place to crash until he can find a job. He says he'll call you back once he's on his way home.

He was going to make you spicy chili, your favorite meal.

25. J regrets never calling you back. He wishes he had made it home.

Food Desert I saw our empty refrigerator and the cupboards we barely risk filling anymore. Our stores are exhausted. We’re exhausted.

— Adam Peterson, “When You Look for Us, I’ll Be Here”

Big Brother, we hop off the 6 onto Mt. Pleasant’s sidewalks with our asphyxiated arms burdened with blue plastic bags from Giant Eagle. This is a food desert. There aren’t any grocery stores here, but you refuse to starve and I refuse to live off of ancient barbeque sauce living in the back of our fridge.

I wonder what we would have done if Whole Foods had gone through with building a new location down the street. You and I would have probably moved to Allegheny Dwellings because Northview Heights would have been gentrified into an even newer East Liberty.

Big Brother, I know you thought I was crazy for swinging into the deli-that-isn’treally-a-deli to buy Hot Fries and a 2-liter of Sprite with the leftover grocery money. We never have any room to spare, but I assure you that I’d been perfectly sane.

I said our long hours of working minimum wage earned it.

You maintained that we couldn’t afford to spend money on luxuries.

Big Brother, neither you nor I have relaxed since the minute we were born— you, a year before me. Still, we don’t complain because we know it won’t change the white-man’s system that keeps us here.

We buy ourselves snacks and eat them as we march up the hill.

I ask you how your day was.

You say it was okay. You ask about my day.

I say that my day had been better than it usually is.

Big Brother, you were lying. I could tell. You were so exhausted you could die.

Did I ever tell you how much I don’t want you to die?

We talk about our futures and degrees and all the ins-n-outs.

I wonder if you’ll talk to me once you leave for university—if you will disconnect once your belly no longer grumbles and I'll be left to complain about my stomachaches to the empty bed in the room that we share.

We heft our blue plastic bags full of goods into the fridge because we can’t afford to leave them out to spoil.

Big Brother, you’ve admitted to me that, some nights, you dream of what life living free from the housing projects— and all that our neighborhood represents— would feel like. I’ll admit that I’ve had similar dreams.

Do you wonder what our future will look like?

I wonder if you’ll be too busy living our shameful dreams that you will forget to say that you love me. I wonder if I’ll be so busy living out our shameful dreams that I will forget to remind you about how much I care about you.

Big Brother, there’s something I want to know.

Big Brother, what does it mean to live freely?

There’s Commonality in Suffering Dedicated to Hassain Musa Muktar In June, as the sun-hot sidewalks scorched the soles of children’s shoes, Bashiir Karim fell from a window with a faulty screen— his body becoming a fiery meteor. The girl who watched the boy’s space-rock body plummet to the earth had been walking home from work. She reported that she had never seen a demise so tragic yet so beautiful.

Once the girl’s community learned that Bashiir Karim’s parents were refugees, the girl felt an attitude of coldness towards the boy’s family that her mother had instilled within her because the girl’s mother found the refugee community threatening.

The girl noticed that the Easter decorations adorn the chain-link fence of Northview Heights' community garden for much longer than necessary. The woman who ran the community garden never seemed to "have time" to take them down, even though the girl saw her working there nearly every Saturday.

Bashiir Karim’s community of refugees purchased a plot of vacant land outside the neighborhood, on North Charles Street. The girl found it unnecessary and asked her mother about it one lazy afternoon.

“My child,” the girl’s mother had said, “Easter is a Christian holiday. Refugees are not Christian.”

“What do you mean, Mother?”

“They’re Muslims,” the girl’s mother had said. “They don’t believe in God.”

The girl only attended Bashiir Karim's funeral out of solidarity, but she soon saw something that she had never seen among her own people—the African American community. She saw everyone from the neighborhood's refugee community was in attendance— them and her crammed together inside a tiny funeral home. The girl found it stifling—the close proximity, the wailing of Bashiir Karim's mother, the stoicism of Bashiir's father, and the repeated phrase of condolence said in a language the girl did not know. She felt as if she were choking on stardust. She couldn't breathe, so she offered her most sincere condolences to the boy’s mother before she left the funeral home’s heart-wrenching atmosphere.

In September, close to midnight, a woman from the girl’s community died. The woman had lived down the street from the girl. When the girl’s community came together to mourn the woman’s death and rejoice in the wonderful, fulfilling life that the woman had lived, the girl felt as stifled as she had at Bashiir Karim’s funeral— despite the woman’s memorial being outside. She couldn’t bear the repeated phrase of condolence.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the girl heard them say-- repeated as if it were a chant or a prayer.

That night, as she watched the woman wrap the Milky Way around her like a blanket and join Bashiir Karim in galactic slumber, the girl suddenly felt stupid for not realizing it sooner—that she was caught in the middle of a cultural dispute that would only result in more pain. The girl felt waves of shame. She was sorry for looking down upon Bashiir Karim's family. Suffering, the girl thought, was a twisted kind of emotion—

able to cause her and Bashiir Karim's communities so much pain, but also being one of the few things that the two communities had in common. Suffering, the girl believed, was universal—regardless of religion—because, the girl knew, everybody in this neighborhood knows what loss feels like.

Ignorant Neighbors (400 Words) It’s early—maybe the middle of July when I confront and ask my neighbor if she’s responsible for calling the cops on the pair of dark-skinned twins—a boy and a girl— who’d been waiting outside my house.

“They’re only ten, for Chrissakes,” I say. “Why’d you do that?”

The twins said it'd been my neighbor who was responsible for getting them in trouble. Though she denies the claims, shaking her head, I know she's lying because I don't have any other next-door neighbors in Northview Heights except for the elderly couple with their elderly dog who lives down the street. The husband fixes bikes snatched off of curbsides on garbage day and out of green dumpsters. The wife thumbs her nose at me while walking Cooper, their dog, and while gardening on Sunday mornings.

“I don’t want people constantly coming back here,” she says.

I roll my eyes. She’s a cranky old woman. The desire to call her an ignorant old crone is held under my breath—under my tongue—and swallowed like a bitter pill. I don’t want to become a cranky old hag like my neighbor.

“Still,” I say, “they’re only children.”

It’s early August. The summer is marching on, moving steadfast towards autumn.

I ask the twins why they don’t visit anymore. They say they’re terrified of getting in trouble again, despite my reassurances that my neighbors know better now. That I had talked the matter over with the old hag and that it won’t happen again.

My neighbor maintains her denial, insisting that she never called the cops on, “those little black kids.”

I miss the twins’ presence. I miss the sounds of their approach—sometimes with company following at their heels. Sometimes appearing alone. The patter of their feet— like a downpour of rain in the dead of night—on the crumbling road when they come to visit me. I miss the hugs the boy and the girl would give me—their short arms encircling and squeezing my bony hips tightly.

It’s early September when I run into the twins again while they’re with their father, riding the bus home. We greet each other like old friends, warmly and with wide smiles.

I ask if they’re planning on visiting soon. The twins smile and their father chuckles.

“Maybe, Miss Meghan,” the girl says, “we can visit you soon.”

I can’t help but grin.

“Good,” I say. “I miss y’all.”

Ignorant Neighbors (300 Words) It’s early July when I confront and ask my neighbor if she’s responsible for calling the cops on the pair of dark-skinned twins—a boy and a girl— who’d been waiting outside my house.

“They’re ten, for Chrissakes,” I say.

The twins said it'd been my neighbor, though she denies the claims. I know she's lying because I don't have any other next-door neighbors in Northview Heights except for the elderly couple with their elderly dog who lives down the street. The husband fixes bikes snatched off curbsides on garbage day. The wife thumbs her nose at me while walking Cooper, their dog, and gardening on Sunday mornings.

“I don’t want people constantly coming back here,” she says.

I roll my eyes, the desire to call her an ignorant crone is held under my tongue and swallowed like a bitter pill.

It’s early August. The summer’s marching on, moving steadfast towards autumn.

I ask the twins why they don’t visit anymore. They say they’re terrified of getting in trouble.

My neighbor maintains her denial, insisting that she never called the cops on “those black kids”.

I miss the twins’ presence. I miss the sounds of their approach—sometimes with company following at their heels. Sometimes appearing alone. The patter of their feet— like a downpour of rain in the dead of night—on the crumbling road when they visit. I

miss the hugs the boy and the girl would give me—their short arms encircling and squeezing my bony hips tightly.

It’s early September when I run into the twins again. They’re with their father, riding the bus home. We greet each other warmly. I ask if they plan on visiting soon.

The twins smile, their father chuckles.

“Maybe, Miss Meghan,” the girl says.

I grin.

“Good,” I say. “I miss y’all.”

Ignorant Neighbors (250 Words) It’s early July when I confront and ask my neighbor if she’s responsible for calling the cops on the dark-skinned twins— a boy and girl— who’d been waiting outside my house.

“They’re ten, for Chrissakes,” I say.

The twins said it'd been my neighbor. Though she denies the claims, she's lying.

I don't have any next-door neighbors in Northview Heights except for the elderly couple with their elderly dog who lives down the street. The husband fixes bikes snatched off curbsides. The wife thumbs her nose at me while walking Cooper, their dog, on Sundays.

“I don’t want people constantly coming back here,” she says.

I roll my eyes, the desire to call her ignorant is held under my tongue and swallowed like a bitter pill.

It’s early August. Summer’s moving steadfast towards autumn. I ask the twins why they don’t visit anymore. They say they’re terrified of getting in trouble.

My neighbor maintains her denial, insisting she never called the cops on “those black kids”.

I miss the twins. The patter of their feet— like a downpour in the dead of night— on the crumbling road. I miss the hugs the boy and girl would give— short arms encircling my hips.

It’s September when I run into the twins again. They’re with their father, riding the bus home. We greet each other warmly. I ask if they plan on visiting soon. The twins smile.

“Maybe, Miss Meghan,” the girl says.

I grin.

“Good,” I say. “I miss y’all.”

It Don’t Matter if it’s The Cuts After Black M’s “Je suis chez moi” Learn to take pride in where you’ve come from. Learn to take pride in where you live, even if mentioning that you live Northview Heights makes your friends’ and strangers’ noses wrinkle and ask, “What you doing living out there?”

Enjoy the way the axle of your father’s car almost snaps with each pothole— its chassis bouncing in-and-out of them as he drives up Pentfort.

Don’t forget to smack your red dust-covered lips and lick your fingers when you finish a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos or Hot Fries.

Some of your friends will ask if your family is poor.

They will ask you, “Why you living in the cuts?”

Ignore that sinful influence.

Embrace the phrase, “I don’t have enough money.” Learn it well. Let it flow off your tongue as easily as profanity slips past your lips. You are trying not to swear so much, but you haven’t made much progress.

Don’t shy away from duct-taping up the pair of shoes you’ve had for years. They look pathetic. Always use colors of tape that won’t draw attention to the condition of your footwear.

“Ain’t those the same pair of shoes you had for years?”

Make up excuses.

"Yeah," you say, "but I'm savin up for a new pair."

After leaving work— on the days you get paid— even in the bone-stiffening cold of winter or the unbearably sweaty summer, hike up the hill to Perry Market and buy up all the spicy Cup Noodles. Make them last. You must be prepared for those times when there isn’t any food in the house.

Mom will try to hide the fact that you live in the housing projects— in Northview Heights. She’s the one who taught you how to feel humiliation— the best ways to be untruthful. You’re the one who will teach her pride. People will ask Mom where you live.

“Perry Hilltop,” she says.

“No, Mom,” you say. “We live in Northview Heights.”

When you learn how to drive, you slow Mom’s car in the middle of the road to talk to the friends that, had either of your parents been driving, you would have driven past. Nobody is in a rush to do anything here and neither are you.

Invest in an aux cord. It’ll be the best thing you’ll ever buy. Blast music from the stereo of Mom’s car. Disregard her concerns that you’ll blow out the speakers.

When you and Mom are the only ones at the dinner table, she will ask you if you’re ashamed.

“Ashamed of what?”

Of where you live. Of Northview Heights.

“No, of course not. This is home,” you say. “It don’t matter if it’s the cuts.”