This entire episode took me from fear to a rage that burned in me then, animates me now, and will likely leave me on fire for the rest of my days. I still had my journalism. My response was, in this moment, to write. I was lucky I had even that. Most of us are forced to drink our travesties straight and smile about it. I wrote about the history of the Prince Georgeâs County police. Nothing had ever felt so essential to me.
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I began to feel that something more than a national trophy case was needed if I was to be truly free, and for that I have the history department of Howard University to thank. My history professors thought nothing of telling me that my search for myth was doomed, that the stories I wanted to tell myself could not be matched to truths. Indeed, they felt it their duty to disabuse me of my weaponized history.
Sometimes it all comes back to me and I ask myself: âWhy all this shit? Why do all these horrors happen to me? ⌠All the shit Iâve been through in this motherfuckinâ world ever since I was born. ⌠What kind of world is this? A world where you get your ass kicked if you do good ⌠but given a medal if you kill some guy in the name of patriotism! What shit is that?â My first clash with âlaw and orderâ people was on 30 April 1974. I canât forget that, man! Oh, what bastards! There I was in my house in Surulere. At that time, you know, there wasnât any barbed-wire fence around my place. I had nothing to fear. I wasnât even thinking they could have something against me. I was just preaching revolution for Africa, you know.
One night, desperate for the loo, I stepped on a giant slug and it squelched between my toes in long green tubes. I think thatâs the night I became a soprano. After that, I made myself a salt path every night to dispose of them. As young, first time tenants, we had no idea that we could complain â we had to pay the whole termâs rent up front, so we had no leverage at all. God, it was awful, but we loved having our independence.
I wanted to grab his cigarette from his rough lips. I wanted to burn my fleshâany cigarette-sized section of fleshâwith it. Then, for just a second, I wanted to burn his flesh instead. Perhaps I wanted to see physical pain in his eyes because I couldnât see my own pain, not really, not clearly. I was horrified by my thoughts, but my horror did not quiet them.
It was on patrol. I was on the left flank, & dismounted Voska to inspect some tracks when a Tommy suddenly emerged from behind a taaibos. We were both frozen in shock, each with his loaded rifle in hand. I believe we both thought the same thought: He could be me. That was the first time I shot somebody down from such proximity. Though I recount it now, I possess no visual memory of it. Before, during & after, everything is missing. Only the words with which I am reporting here, remain.