Why I Ain't a Que No More

Growing up traveling around the world and trying to be somebody, eventually facing the pros and cons regarding the brotherhood as it relates to the United States Army — I didn’t consider myself very smart, but I sure can do as I am told and will usually win despite the game. Just tell me the rules. Yeah, you guess it, I am my own fiercest competitor.

As my brothers and I grew up, of course, there was the “Green Book”, but as a military family, we had no money to buy a book simply to know the specific gas stations (we were only allowed to relieve ourselves in the colored bathrooms). My brother, who I know for a fact could clearly read “COLORED BATHROOM” printed on the Stanck Doors learned the hard way as we dragged him from the white bathroom crying, snotnosed and watery eyed, rather than allow him to be killed. That is about the time that I was put in charge of my father, even though he often told me that if ugly was a crime, I would get the electric chair.

As we kept moving on, my mother would demand excellence in every school we went to, as she would fight anybody who identified us as poor, snootynosed, homeless looking black boys: even though we were just that. As of today, I know they both did their best, as often I still hear my father’s voice saying “Patches, I’m depending on you son.”

My father, along with his best friend, were burned by a jet’s afterburners that crashed over Mayfield Drive, right outside of the front gate at Shaw Air Force, Sumter County, South Carolina in 1989. They were minding their own business in the yard and my father was burned over a quarter of his body. I still hear his screams of “Son, don’t let them scrape me”. He did live at least until August of that year, whereas his friend died immediately.
My mother always preached that she wanted a doctor, a lawyer, and a teacher in the family. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, I need say nothing else about that, which you can find inside of Why I Ain’t a Que No More: You Are What I Say You Are, Boy