CHAPTER 2
Introduction
They say it takes a village to raise a child.
Where I come from, it wasn’t no village, it was the block.
And the block didn’t only raise you, it claimed you.
Fed you when your fridge was empty, schooled you when your mama was too tired.
Tested you when you thought you was tough.
Protected you when it wanted to, punished you when it had to.
The block was church, school, playground, and courtroom all in one.
It raised me almost as much as Mama did.
Every block has aunties. The aunties wasn’t blood, but that ain’t matter.
‘Auntie’ was a role. A position. A responsibility you stepped into whether you signed up for it or not.
They sat on the steps, legs crossed, housecoats catching the breeze, hair wrapped.
Cigarettes burning slow between fingers that had seen too much to rush anything.
Miss Janine was the nosiest one. She would shout down the street like a referee.
“Shay! Yo’ skirt too short! I know Denise ain’t raise you like dat!”
“Uh-uh, Summer!” calling out without looking up.
“Don’t lemme catchu runnin’ ‘round here barefoot!”
She had eyes in the back of her head, waving a dish towel at us like we was stray dogs.
Miss Tracey was another Auntie, she was nice though.
A big gold tooth that flashed each time she laughed, and she laughed loud, real loud.
Her apartment was scented with hair grease and incense, she braided every kid’s hair on the block.
While she parted your hair, she talked. About people, about drama, about the ‘old Philly.’
According to Miss Tracey, the city used to be better. It was hard for me to imagine that.
“Watch people’s eyes, baby. They tell the truth before they mouth do.” I didn’t know it then, but she was right.
The aunties seen it all. And they ain’t ask questions for answers. They asked so you knew you was being seen.
“Where you goin’?.”
“How was school?”
“Did you help ya mama?”
“I raised you betta than that.”
And they meant raised. Because they did. Piece by piece. In looks. In words.
And you listened. Not because they yelled, because they meant it.
Discipline came from the whole block. That was the balance.
Correction and care living in the same breath.
They fed you when your house was light. Watched you when your mama was working late.
Stepped in when things started slipping.
They ain’t make it gentle, but love wasn’t soft on the block.
It was direct, loud, sharp. Protective in a way that didn’t ask if you liked it.
The aunties wasn’t perfect, but they was present. And that meant everything.
The ol’ heads on the block moved slow. More careful rather than weak, like every step had meaning now. They already seen what rushing get you. They was there at all times. Same spots. Same time of day. Like the block had anchors and they was it.
Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins lived four houses down from us.
Been there longer than most of the bricks.
Married fifty years, people said it like it was a record nobody else was going to break.
He sat on the top step every morning, newspaper folded tight in his hand even when he wasn’t reading it.
White tank, with his suspenders hanging loose, and house slippers that had seen better days.
Mrs. Jenkins stayed behind him, half in the doorway, half in the house, like she was always in between tending to things in the house.
Her hair wrapped neatly, and her apron tied tight.
“Don’t be sittin’ out here all day, James.”
“I ain’t,” he would mumble, not moving.
He watched every movement. Not in a loud way, not the same as the Aunties.
The ol’ heads watched passive, deep. They wasn’t only seeing what was happening, they was comparing it to what used to be.
Mr. Jenkins would shake his head sometimes, real smooth, like the block disappointed him in ways he ain’t want to explain.
“Wasn’t always like this,” he would say to nobody in particular. You could hear it in his tone, no judgment. It was memory.
He would stop you if you moved too fast past his steps.
“Slow down,” he always barked.
“Where ya runnin’ to?” It wasn’t meant as a question, more so a reminder.
Mrs. Jenkins held things together in softer ways. You would see her sweeping the sidewalk each morning even if it wasn’t dirty. She was trying to keep order in a place that didn’t always want it.
They didn’t have kids in the house no more, but the block was theirs.
You could see it in the way they carried themselves.
They was trying to hold onto what the neighborhood used to be.
Before things got faster. Before the corner started raising kids more than the parents did.
Out of respect when Mr. Jenkins or Mrs. Jenkins spoke, you shut up.
We knew they done lived long enough to see how things turn out.
The two of them. Fifty years thriving side by side. Still choosing each other in a place where most things didn’t last. As the block changed around them, they stayed. As a reminder. Physical proof, that life could survive here if it was strong enough.
I would watch them from my front door, the way they nestled close without saying much, like they said what needed to be said years ago.
That kind of love. Steady. Still there when everything else fell apart.
I always dreamed of having that. A happy life, me and my husband, standing strong side by side.
A bond that stayed. I didn’t see it nowhere else. They made true love seem possible.
The real teachers on the block wasn’t the Aunties or the ol’ heads though, it was the hustlers.
They had names that sounded like legends.
Peanut. Tone. Black Mike. They always looked put together.
And on a block where everything else felt worn down that mattered.
You noticed that as a kid. How they always had stuff.
Money. Food. A certain way of moving, like they wasn’t worried about nothing.
“Go on head, lil’ one,” they would tell you, stepping aside as you walked past,
“Stay out da way.” Their tone made you understand they wasn’t repeating themselves.
They watched too. Different from the Aunties, different from the ol’ heads. Their watching had purpose. Who was coming up. Who was slipping. Who had potential.
Call you over talking about.
“Lemme see dat,” one of them would snatch your basketball from your hands, spinning it easy on his finger before tossing it back.
“You gotta keep ya’ head up when you dribble. Can’t see nun lookin’ down.”
Light lessons. And you back to playing like nothing happened. But you remembered.
And they would look out in small ways. Hand you a couple dollars without making it a big deal.
“Go get you sum’n from tha store.”
They would break up a fight before it went too far.
They kept certain lines in place even if they lived on the other side of them.
They had what everybody else didn’t. Freedom or at least that’s what it seemed.
No boss. No clock. No waiting. They moved how they wanted.
Went where they wanted. Had things other people had to struggle for.
As a kid you didn’t see the full picture, you saw the surface. The clean clothes. The money. The respect. But you didn’t see the cost. All you knew was they was a part of the block. Part of what raised you.
They taught you confidence. Taught you how to carry yourself.
How to read a room. How to stand your ground without saying too much.
They also showed you that there was another way.
A faster way. A louder way. A way that didn’t wait for permission.
And that sticks with you. Even if your mama told you to stay away.
The block didn’t separate lessons like that.
It gave you everything at once. The warning and the temptation.
It was up to you to figure out which one you was learning from.
In the beginning, I didn’t understand what they was doing. Shay figured it out before I did.
“Don’t stare,”
She talked under her breath one afternoon while we hung on the stoop. But I stared anyway.
Later that day I asked Shay.
“Why everybody listen to dem?”
Shay didn’t answer right away, her eyes went towards the corner. Hesitantly she whispered,
“Cuz they got all tha power.”
The dopeheads on the block ain’t hide neither.
Moving through the same space as everybody else, just slower.
Or faster depending on the poison. They be out early, before the day even start.
Posted on steps that ain’t theirs. Leaning against walls, like they bones needed help holding them up. They always asked for things.
“Lemme get a dollar.”
“You got some change?”
Voices worn down, like they been saying the same sentence all day. Most people kept walking. Some didn’t. The Aunties would sigh, reach into their pocket, and always give them something. Not because they ain’t know where it might go, but because they remembered who they used to be.
“Get yaself somethin’ ta eat,”
they would preach. And maybe they meant it. Maybe they didn’t.
As kids, we learned early how to move around them. You didn’t have to be scared, just aware.
“Don’t get too close,” of course Mama would always say,
“And don’t stare.”
It was hard not to. They wasn’t strangers, and that was the messed-up part. Many of them had names people still remembered.
“Used to be so handsome,” somebody would say.
“Used to work down at tha post office.”
“He used to look out fa everybody.”
Used to. Those words followed them wherever they went, like a shadow. You could see flashes of it, of the ‘old’ them. In the way they laughed at noises nobody else heard, or how they bopped they head when music played, like it still reached them somewhere deep.
They was just there. Moving through the block, like a warning nobody said out loud.
Not as bold as the hustlers. Not as steady as the ol’ heads.
Not as protective as the Aunties. But definitely present.
And that mattered, because they showed you something too.
Showed you what it looked like to lose your grip.
To drift too far from yourself. To be right there and still be gone.
But the block don’t separate lessons. And the dopeheads was part of that education heavily.
Then there’s the OG’s on the block. Not quite ol’ heads, but they wasn’t young either.
Somewhere in between. Forties, maybe a bit older.
Caught in that space where the block still knew them, but didn’t move the same way around them no more.