Coming of Age Theme Analysis

My father had entered seeking help. But his face was unshaven, his clothing disheveled, his name unfamiliar, his address not in a wealthy area. The hospital staff looked at him suspiciously, questioned whether his illness was even real, and basically told him to deal with it himself. Now my mother had to plan his funeral.

It was like being double agents or superheros—we had another identity off that campus. It was stressful. I felt like a chameleon. Justin did, too. If we wanted to fit in with our crew, we had to act a certain way. If we wanted to fit in with the kids at school, we had to act another way. And we wanted to fit in with both—very different—groups. But we wanted to do it on our own terms, by being “ourselves.” I was having a difficult time understanding what that meant, and I also felt the burden of representing something bigger than myself. There was this increasing need to wear the mask wherever I went, and the mask seemed to change based on the audience.

All the players retreated to their separate corners, to their separate worlds. All except me, still caught in the middle.

But even more than that, I found in hip-hop the sound of my generation talking to itself, working through the fears and anxieties and dreams—of wealth or power or revolution or success—we all shared. Music was a way to broadcast what was going on in our world to the rest of the world. It made us feel less alone in the madness of the era, less pushed to the margins.

Once I felt the coast was clear, I began to draw, starting with the connected Ks and finishing with a wide circle around them, in my custom style. Seven seconds and done. I had added my mark to Laconia Avenue, a testament to the world that Wes Moore lived—or at least Kid Kupid did. Nobody could ever deny I was there.

The kids in my crew loved one another, but how long would we mourn if any one of us disappeared? I’d seen it happen already, kids leaving the hood in one way or another—killed, imprisoned, shipped off to distant relatives down south. The older kids would pour out a little liquor or leave a shrine on a corner under a graffiti mural, or they’d reminisce about the ones who were locked up. But then life went on. The struggle went on. Who really cared? Besides my mother, who would truly miss me if I went to jail?

I had never seen a young man demand that much respect from his peers. I had seen Shea get respect in the neighborhood, but this was different. This was the kind of respect you can’t beat or scare out of people. In spite of myself, I was impressed.

These people made it clear that they cared about whether I succeeded. Eventually, their caring made me care, too. Having people around me who believed that I could succeed made me want to succeed.

I had spent so much of my childhood feeling out of place. I’d allowed other people to dictate my expectations of myself. I was finally realizing that I could do better than that. I didn’t need to have different versions of myself for different people.

Then he said something I will never forget: “When it is time for you to leave this school, leave your job, or even leave this earth, you make sure you have worked hard to make it matter that you were ever here.”

Back in his old hood, the streets seemed the same as when he’d left them seven months earlier. The check-cashing stores instead of banks; the rows of beauty salons, liquor stores, Laundromats, and funeral homes; and the graffitied walls were right where he’d left them. The hood was the hood, no matter how much time passed.
He’d changed, though.

But he’d never seen this coming. Maybe because it’s almost impossible to tell the difference between second chances and last chances. Or maybe because he’d never thought ahead about his life at all. He’d always figured that to get by in the hood, short-term plans were enough. Now, all of a sudden, Wes’s future was sealed.

“If they expect us to graduate,” he went on, “we will graduate. If they expect us to get a job, we will get a job. If they expect us to go to jail, then that’s where we will end up.” He gestured around himself with an ironic smile. “At some point you lose control, no matter how much you learn.”