Maverick is an extremely loyal person. Though he takes issue with his gang affiliation for several reasons over the course of the novel, he maintains that being a part of the King Lords means that he’ll always have “brothers” who are loyal to him and whom he needs to be loyal to in return. Similarly, Maverick cares deeply for his parents, Ma and Pops and his older cousin Dre. And when he suddenly becomes a full-time parent to his infant son Seven, he instantly realizes that his son needs his loyalty and support too. Though Concrete Rose shows that loyalty among friends and family members can motivate people to take steps toward creating a more secure life, loyalty within the context of gang affiliation can create a dangerous sense of obligation and keep people from being as loyal to their families as they could be otherwise.
For Maverick, the loyalty he receives from the King Lords is positive and necessary because it protects him from danger and helps him make a living. He explains at one point that he had to join the King Lords at age 12 because Pops made so many enemies on the streets before he was imprisoned nine years before the novel begins. In order for Maverick to expect to survive leaving the house, it was necessary for him to join the gang. This is because in general, loyalty guides how the gang members interact with each other. Since Pops was the former “crown” (leader) of the gang, there’s no question that the older gang members are going to protect and care for Maverick. But Maverick is only one person in a group that, on the whole, is immensely loyal and looks out for its own. There are unspoken rules guiding how different people in the gang show loyalty to each other, as when the “big homies” and the “li’l homies” (adult and high-school-aged gang members, respectively) look out for the “youngins” (middle-school-aged gang members). And in exchange for this care, the li’l homies and the youngins are supposed to show the big homies their loyalty by doing whatever they’re asked to do. Finally, the gang also gives its members a guaranteed way to make money through dealing drugs. Having this steady source of income means that the big homies (who exclusively deal the more expensive hard drugs) can take care of their families and the families of li’l homies (who deal less expensive cannabis) and the youngins. Through the gang, a young person can find protection, financial help, and mentorship in exchange for their loyalty.
However, when Maverick suddenly becomes a full-time single parent to his three-month-old son Seven, he begins to see that family will be there to support him where, perhaps, the gang won’t be. When Maverick takes custody of Seven, his social life disappears—few of his friends, he realizes, want to hang out with him when all they can do is sit at home and watch him take care of Seven. But where Maverick’s friends in the gang disappear, Maverick’s Ma and Dre step in to fill the gaps. Maverick relies heavily on Ma’s support—she surprises him with her willingness to coach him on everything from how to change a diaper to how to properly feed Seven a bottle. And though she says Maverick needs to figure things out for himself and be able to support his son, she also makes it clear through her actions and her words that she will always be there to support Maverick and Seven financially. Dre, too, shows Maverick immense loyalty and support as he dispenses parenting and life advice. He counsels Maverick to rethink his affiliation with the gang as, in his experience, being part of the King Lords means that it’s impossible to truly dedicate himself to fatherhood. With this, Dre plants an important idea in Maverick’s head: that gang affiliation may offer protection and a way to make money, but that it’s more important to be a good parent than it is to be a good gang member.
As the novel progresses, Maverick is forced to choose between gang loyalty and his family—and the book frames his loyalty to the gang as increasingly misguided. After Dre is murdered and Shawn (the current crown) is imprisoned, a man named P-Nut takes over as the crown. P-Nut is a big homie, but Maverick soon realizes that P-Nut doesn’t really care about him or any of the other li’l homies or youngins. For instance, P-Nut doesn’t seem to care at all when Maverick discovers that a man named Red killed Dre, and he reminds Maverick that he can go against Shawn and Dre’s wishes and force Maverick to sell drugs again at any point. This impresses upon Maverick that he can’t trust the gang to look out for him or his family—at least not when P-Nut is in charge. Discovering that Red killed Dre presents its own problems, as this discovery means that Maverick’s loyalty is pulled in multiple directions. Maverick knows that according to the “rules” that guide life on the streets, he’s required to kill Red to avenge Dre’s death. This is how, in his understanding, he shows Dre his loyalty. But Maverick also realizes that by shooting Red, he’s also putting himself at risk of being imprisoned or killed himself, which would then put him in a position where he couldn’t take care of his family.
Ultimately, Maverick chooses not to kill Red and starts to consider leaving the King Lords. Through these choices, Maverick shows that he’s come to prioritize loyalty to his family over loyalty to the gang. Gang loyalty may provide protection and a sense of camaraderie, but their support is conditional on his continued loyalty and deference—unlike the loyalty he receives from his family members.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Loyalty, Gang Affiliation, and Family ThemeTracker
Loyalty, Gang Affiliation, and Family Quotes in Concrete Rose
I study Iesha real hard. She got bags under her eyes she didn’t have before. “Anybody helping you with him?”
“Help?” her momma says, like I cussed. “Who supposed to help her? Me?”
“C’mon now, Yolanda,” says Ma. “This is a lot for anyone to handle, let alone a seventeen-year-old.”
“T’uh! She wanna act grown, she can deal with this like she grown. By. Her. Self.”
Iesha blink real fast.
I’m feeling real bad for her all of a sudden. “If he is mine, you won’t be doing this alone no more, a’ight? I’ll come over and help as much as I can.”
“You good?”
Hell no. My life got thrown into a blender and I’m left with something I don’t recognize. On top of that, I’m suddenly somebody’s pops and I wish I had my pops.
Nah, man. I can’t freak out. I gotta handle mine, on some G shit. “I ain’t tripping.”
“You know it’s okay to be scared, right?”
“Scared of what? A li’l baby?”
“Of all the stuff that come with having a li’l baby,” Dre says. “First time I held Adreanna, I cried. She was so beautiful, and she was stuck with me for a father.”
I look at my son, and damn, I feel that.
“I decided I was gon’ be the kind of father she deserved,” he says. “I had to man up. That’s what you gotta do, Mav. Man up.”
“Fool, I’m a man already,” I say.
“I walked out on him last night, Dre.”
“Who? Your son?”
I nod. “He wouldn’t stop—I didn’t know how to make him stop crying man, and I was tired and—” I shake my head at myself. “I walked out of the house and left him crying.”
“Did you go back?”
I look up at him. “Of course I did.”
“That’s what matters,” Dre says. “Parenting is hard, cuz. You gon’ break sometimes. The most important thing is that you pull yourself together and go back, playboy.”
“Weak,” P-Nut says, behind a fake cough. The big homies smirk. I’m nothing but a joke to them.
I storm toward the church. I found Dre with bullets in his head. The least Shawn could do is let me handle the dude who killed him.
But nah. I’m just a li’l kid who can’t live up to his pops’s name.
I’m gon’ prove all them fools wrong one day. Believe that.
“Everybody in the set already think I’m soft, Shawn.”
“So?” he says. “Forget what them fools think. You gotta live for you and Dre now, you feel me? You can do everything he didn’t get a chance to do.”
I never thought of that.
“Raise your son. Be the best father you can be,” Shawn says. “That’s how you honor Dre. A’ight?”
The person who killed my cousin got killed.
It’s been a weird three weeks since it happened. ‘Cause Ant was shot at a school function it was all over the news. His parents cried on TV, and I realized he had parents. Like Dre. Some kids at school were really tore up over his death, and I realized he had friends. Like Dre. At the stadium, he got a memorial in the parking lot with flowers and balloons. Like Dre.
Everybody get mourned by somebody, I guess. Even murderers.
I’m feeling bold as hell, and things I’ve been scared to say suddenly not so scary. “You left us. Got Ma busting her ass to take care of me and put money on your books. I had to join a gang ‘cause of you. You can’t come at either of us.”
“What I did ain’t got shit to do with the fact you keep knocking girls up.”
“Yeah, a’ight, I made some bad decisions,” I admit. “I’m gon’ be there for my kids. Unlike you.”
He can’t say nothing, like I thought.
“I felt bad for leaving him and not being able to handle it.”
“That don’t mean you disappear, baby,” Ma says. I’m sorry that your momma didn’t support you like she should’ve and that you had to go through so much yourself. But you have responsibilities now. Seven needs you as much as he needs Maverick.”
“Not if I get in that bad space again, he don’t,” Iesha murmurs.
[…]
Ma rub her shoulder. ‘If it’s not, you’re not alone. It takes a village to raise a child. Seven has a big one. That means that you do too.”
“We need to start calling you Old Man Carter,” Rico says. “I take that back. My grandma get out more than you and she fresher than you.”
“Whatever,” I mumble.
The first bell ring for class. I follow Rico and Junie down the hall as they discuss the dance and their plans. It’s like they speaking a language I ain’t fluent in anymore. The words real familiar, but they done lost all meaning for me.
“No offense, Mr. Wyatt, but your nephew seem like a nerd. As for Carlos, his momma kept him and Lisa in the house. Of course they didn’t need protection. Anyway, I’m Li’l Don. Everybody expected me to join.”
“Because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?” Mr. Wyatt asks. “However, it can roll away from the tree. It simply need a little push.”
“Word around the school is that you’ve had some life-changing developments this year,” he says.
I wait for the look. I swear, when grown folks know I got two kids, I see myself become trash in their eyes. It’s like they see my babies as trash, too, just ‘cause I made them so young. Hell nah.
“Do you love Pops?”
“I do,” she says. “I’ll always love Adonis, and I’ll always be there for him. I also have to love myself. All of that ‘ride or die’ stuff, it’s nice until you feel like you’re dying from not living. Adonis made choices that put his life at a standstill. He didn’t have to sell drugs; he chose to. I shouldn’t have to put my life on hold because of his decisions.”
Lisa stare at me real hard. “You’re selling drugs with King again, aren’t you?”
I sigh. “Man, look—”
“You know what? Don’t answer that,” she says. “Do whatever you want, Maverick. Me and my baby will be all right.”
“There you go, acting like I won’t be around.”
“Because you won’t!” Lisa says. “I make plans, knowing that. My baby needs one of us to think about the future.”
She don’t get it. She really don’t get it.
There’s a lot of things I never wanted to know ‘bout my pops. It come with the territory when your father is Big Don. I’d rather hear that he bought kids’ shoes and fed families at holidays. Not that he got people hooked on crack.
Sometimes one person’s hero is another person’s monster, or in my case, father. Yet it’s hard for me to judge him when I’m plotting to kill somebody else’s father. But see, taking Red out is the best way for Dre to get justice. It ain’t much different from a judge sentencing Red to death row.
I think.
“Daddy’s here. It’s okay.”
Them few words do me in. I say them to Seven all the time, but I ain’t heard them myself in years, and they everything I ever needed. “Dre should be here,” I blubber.”
“He should be.”
“He deserve better.”
“He did.”
“I wanna do this for him. I got to.”
Pops smile so sad it’s hard to call it that. “There were a lot of things I thought I had to do, too. Reality was, I only had to be there for you and your momma, and I failed at that.”
But when it comes to the streets, there’s rules.
Nobody will ever write them down, and you’ll never find them in a book. It’s stuff you need in order to survive the moment your momma let you out the house. Kinda like how you gotta breathe even when it’s hard to.
If there was a book, the most important section would be on family, and the first rule would be:
When somebody kills your family, you kill them.
“Why didn’t you do it?”
“I thought of my kids, my momma, and…and you. What it would do to y’all if I got caught or killed.” I close my eyes. Tears slip outta them. “I’m such a fucking coward.”
“No,” Lisa murmurs. “You sound like a man to me.”
I look at her. “How? That fool murdered Dre, Lisa. And what I do? I let him run away. What kinda justice is that?”
“It wouldn’t have been justice if you threw your life away to kill him.”
I almost laugh. “My life ain’t worth much. I just didn’t wanna put my babies through that. I know what it’s like to not have a father around.”
“Looks like you’re right. These canes need to be snipped.”
“Because they won’t help them grow, right?”
“Mmm-hmm. It’s kind like how we have to do with ourselves. Get rid of things that don’t do us any good. If it won’t help the rose grow, you’ve gotta let it go.”
