But I never did. Grandmother was real strict on me and she had to be, because the streets of Harlem were nobody’s joke. So I fantasized and masturbated my ass off, careful not to make enough noise to disturb Jimmy, who slept on the love seat across from my sofa bed.

But while Grandmother was busy watching me, she tried not to press Jimmy too hard. Our father, James Joseph, was a mental case and had been locked up on the crazy ward at Bellevue ever since Jimmy was a baby, but his genes must have been real strong because Jimmy was something else. A real live piece of work. Grandmother feared he might get sent to the crazy house just like our daddy, and just the thought of losing Jimmy sent chills through me because as much mess as he got into, I was Jimmy’s heart and my baby brother was my soul. I’d lay down and die for him without a second thought.

Don’t get the idea that Jimmy was a bad boy or nothing, because he really wasn’t. He couldn’t help the things we’d been through no more than I could. Life had really shit on us, so of course Jimmy bore scars from it. When he was little he had to be watched all the time. Grandmother would send him to the Spanish store on the corner and that boy would be out there throwing rocks through car windows. On check day Grandmother would tell him to go downstairs and wait for the mailman, and we would find him on the roof hours later. Striking matches and watching them burn out.

Grandmother used to throw rent parties every month, and one day we left Jimmy at the house while we went to get some fatback to go in the collard greens. That crazy boy took and threw my kitten Fee-Fee out the bathroom window. “Where’s Fee-Fee?” I ran around the house crying when she didn’t meet me at the door like she usually did. I saw Jimmy’s eyes slide toward the bathroom. I ran in there and the window was pushed open and my cat was bleeding on the ground in the alley downstairs.