CHAPTER 6
COMING OF AGE
“A young lion doesn’t know it’s
dangerous until it’s tested.”
—African proverb
Things were getting tighter at home. My mother, now working two jobs, carried more weight than five children and a mortgage should allow. We never said we were starving, but there were nights the stomach echoed back at me— and I’d go to bed hungry, praying that morning would bring something more than silence. If there wasn’t food, there sure wasn’t money for clothes. I was starting junior high at Shellbank, all the way in Sheepshead Bay. To get there, I had to take the B44 bus up Nostrand Avenue, into neighborhoods that Black kids were warned about—the kind of places where the air told you you weren’t wanted. It was 1976, and they had just started the school busing program. The idea was to ship Black and brown students out of their zip codes and into more “affluent” white schools, as if proximity to whiteness would fix what poverty had broken.
Shellbank was mostly white—Italian, Jewish, and angry. You could feel it. You could smell it. The few Black and Hispanic students stuck together like survivors of a shipwreck. The white kids stared at us like we were aliens. The ones our parents told us to fear.
There was one rule: don’t miss the “Special Bus” home. That bus was our lifeline, a carriage out of enemy territory. Missing it meant you were on your own. It meant danger. Some kids went as far as Bedford Stuyvesant; others transferred buses halfway across Brooklyn. I always got off at Vanderveer, where I felt safest. The Rastas would be playing soccer, old and new faces would greet me, and I’d nod, walking home like I hadn’t just spent the day surviving.
Tensions at Shellbank kept rising. White boys who looked like they belonged on Happy Days started hanging around after school. Leather jackets, greased hair, smug grins. Every one of them thought he was Fonzie. And we knew— they weren’t there to look cool. They were there to send a message.
One afternoon, about five of us missed the Special Bus. We were waiting on the regular one when we saw the Happy Days crew walking toward us. David Dagio was with them. He was the kind of kid who smiled while saying “nigger,” like it was punctuation. He locked eyes with us.
“What you niggers doing in our neighborhood?” he spat.
A Black girl, bold and fearless, snapped back,
“We’re waiting on the bus. I don’t wanna be in your neighborhood any more than you want me here.” Her voice could’ve sent dogs running. But these weren’t dogs. These were wolves.
David lunged. Fists flew. She fought back. So did we. But we were outnumbered and outmatched. Bats. Chains. Boots. We ran.
I searched the street for anyone to help. Faces stared back—white and angry, complicit in silence. Nobody stopped them. Nobody stepped in. It was two blocks of terror before we found a cop car. We slapped the hood like we were playing tag with salvation. Two white officers stepped out. Agree that we touch their vehicle. They saw the white mob. They didn’t blink an eye. “David, go home,” one of them barked. And just like that, the mob evaporated. Bats still in hand. No arrests. No justice.
We begged the cops to do something—the girl had a swollen eye. One officer shrugged, got back in the car, and drove off. No escort out of danger or anything.
That day changed something in me. I didn’t hate white people—but I feared them now. They could kill with hands or with silence. And the law was just another bystander.
At the same time, Kesner was gone—arrested. My protector vanished. In his place came Trouble, one of his friends from Winthrop Street, who introduced me to the Five Percent Nation. I was impressionable. They called me Jamal, I had friends called Divine and Young God, who handed me my lessons, and taught me the Supreme Mathematics. At night I’d come home right before ten, finish homework, and by morning I was back on that same bus to Sheepshead Bay.
I still got good grades, but something was shifting. I’d talk to Cadien in Vanderveer. Head to Winthrop and join cyphers, building and quoting degrees. I learned about Yacub, the scientist who created the white man. It made sense— blue eyes and pale skin matched the terror I felt in school.
I joined the Jolly Stompers, but only because Kesner vouched for me. I didn’t have to go through the initiation. But I didn’t like it—I wasn’t trying to fight in a park with bats and chains on command. I still went to Catholic Church, lighting candles to a white Jesus, torn between my faith and my fury.
On other days, I stayed in Vanderveer, building with the Rastas. They taught me about the 12 Tribes of Israel and the Torah. It was a street seminary, while school was teaching me Columbus discovered America.
I started skipping school, drifting from classrooms to hooky parties and train rides. I’d duck truant officers with friends, stealing Uncle Ben’s rice, frozen vegetables, and butter. We’d cook it at Andre’s apartment, imitating his Rastafarian brother by not eating meat. We were just kids—but West Indian kids. And Veer kids. That meant something. It was a black version of the television show Little Rascals.
I moved between crews easily, thanks to Kesner. I’d be on 21st Street with the Raiders, at Ebbets Field, or at the Empire Skating Rink. Every block had a lesson. I smoked marijuana daily, learned how to read graffiti and eventually make it. Percel from 21st Street showed me how to tag walls. I chose the name ACE. It stuck. I tagged buses, trains, buildings—everywhere. And when I finally hit the train yard with spray paint? That was graduation. I wasn’t just a tagger after that. I was a graffiti artist.
To make money, I hustled. Packed bags at grocery stores. One summer I worked at a mechanic shop down the block from my house. But my best hustle? Newspapers.
I’d get up at 5 a.m., intercept the delivery truck, snatch the bundles before they hit the stands, and sell them at Newkirk Avenue station. Dime a paper. Smile included. I refused to ask my mom for money—I knew if she didn’t give it, it meant she didn’t have it.
I had good friends in Veer—Fat Cat, Eggy, Andre, Mark Monroe, Duddy. We’d smoke, play hooky, hang in buildings. But then came the day Fat Cat told me something happened to Eggy.
We ran to the scene. Detectives were already there. A white sheet covered Eggy’s body. You could see his outline. Small. Lifeless. He’d been stabbed in his stomach.
They said it was over a misunderstanding with someone named Screw, a member of the Untouchables. Apparently, Eggy had roughed up the wrong kid—Screw’s girl’s little brother. It didn’t matter if it was justified. Screw didn’t forgive. It was a protocol of the Untouchables, forgive no one.
That moment shattered any illusion we had about being safe. We weren’t immune. And from then on, I watched my step around the crew.
At Shellbank, the racism didn’t stop. I found Kesner’s .22 caliber pistol and started carrying it. I looked for his .32 with the shoulder holster, but settled for what I had found. Then it happened again—three white boys jumping a Black girl. I fired a single shot in the air.
They scattered.
We ran onto the bus. White faces swarmed it.
One of them was David Dagio.
Days later, they got their revenge. A fight broke out after school. Dagio put me in a headlock, kicked me. I fought back, but we were outnumbered. They wanted to teach us a lesson. And they did.
We were transferred to new schools—no consequences for them. I ended up at Huddy Junior High, trying to stay quiet, get through seventh grade. Still cutting school, still at Walt Whitman, Erasmus, McDonald’s, wherever the older kids were.
At Huddy, it was the same. One day, the principal ordered locker checks. I carried a 007 knife, never a gun. But when they opened a white kid’s locker and found a box, he pointed at me, said, “It belongs to him!”
Inside was a small pistol. I was stunned. High off a fat spliff from that morning, confused. Then a woman walked in. Black. Composed. Eyes soft but serious. Ms. Betty Williams. The school’s guidance counselor. An angel.
She questioned the staff like a lawyer. Called my mother. Refused to let the police handcuff me. Rode with me to the precinct. Stayed by my side until my mother arrived. And when they asked if the gun was mine, I said, “No.” They let me go. But I was kicked out of school.
Ms. Williams wasn’t done. She called my mother. Helped us explore options. Military school came up—but she suggested St. Christopher in Dobbs Ferry. Pulled strings. Got me in.
St. Christopher’s was co-ed, structured, and felt like a hybrid of group home and youth detention. Some kids had no parents. Others came from trauma. If you stayed out of trouble, you earned weekend passes.
When I came home? I went straight to Vanderveer. Cadien handed me a gun every weekend usually a .22 caliber that he cared less about, then warn me to be careful. And every Sunday, I gave it back before getting on the Metro North to the Dobbs Ferry station.
I was living two lives.
One foot in a prison cell, the other on a dorm room floor.
Brooklyn was the Wild West.
Vanderveer was its Badlands.
There was Veer.
There were the Untouchables.
Then there was everyone else.
Cadien and Vinny Vance were now inseparable. And I was right in the middle.
Still the only Haitian.
Still the punchline.
But still standing.
They called me Ace. And they knew I wasn’t just surviving—I was becoming something else entirely.
CHAPTER 6
COMING OF AGE
“A young lion doesn’t know it’s
dangerous until it’s tested.”
—African proverb
Things were getting tighter at home. My mother, now working two jobs, carried more weight than five children and a mortgage should allow. We never said we were starving, but there were nights the stomach echoed back at me— and I’d go to bed hungry, praying that morning would bring something more than silence. If there wasn’t food, there sure wasn’t money for clothes. I was starting junior high at Shellbank, all the way in Sheepshead Bay. To get there, I had to take the B44 bus up Nostrand Avenue, into neighborhoods that Black kids were warned about—the kind of places where the air told you you weren’t wanted. It was 1976, and they had just started the school busing program. The idea was to ship Black and brown students out of their zip codes and into more “affluent” white schools, as if proximity to whiteness would fix what poverty had broken.
Shellbank was mostly white—Italian, Jewish, and angry. You could feel it. You could smell it. The few Black and Hispanic students stuck together like survivors of a shipwreck. The white kids stared at us like we were aliens. The ones our parents told us to fear.
There was one rule: don’t miss the “Special Bus” home. That bus was our lifeline, a carriage out of enemy territory. Missing it meant you were on your own. It meant danger. Some kids went as far as Bedford Stuyvesant; others transferred buses halfway across Brooklyn. I always got off at Vanderveer, where I felt safest. The Rastas would be playing soccer, old and new faces would greet me, and I’d nod, walking home like I hadn’t just spent the day surviving.
Tensions at Shellbank kept rising. White boys who looked like they belonged on Happy Days started hanging around after school. Leather jackets, greased hair, smug grins. Every one of them thought he was Fonzie. And we knew— they weren’t there to look cool. They were there to send a message.
One afternoon, about five of us missed the Special Bus. We were waiting on the regular one when we saw the Happy Days crew walking toward us. David Dagio was with them. He was the kind of kid who smiled while saying “nigger,” like it was punctuation. He locked eyes with us.
“What you niggers doing in our neighborhood?” he spat.
A Black girl, bold and fearless, snapped back,
“We’re waiting on the bus. I don’t wanna be in your neighborhood any more than you want me here.” Her voice could’ve sent dogs running. But these weren’t dogs. These were wolves.
David lunged. Fists flew. She fought back. So did we. But we were outnumbered and outmatched. Bats. Chains. Boots. We ran.
I searched the street for anyone to help. Faces stared back—white and angry, complicit in silence. Nobody stopped them. Nobody stepped in. It was two blocks of terror before we found a cop car. We slapped the hood like we were playing tag with salvation. Two white officers stepped out. Agree that we touch their vehicle. They saw the white mob. They didn’t blink an eye. “David, go home,” one of them barked. And just like that, the mob evaporated. Bats still in hand. No arrests. No justice.
We begged the cops to do something—the girl had a swollen eye. One officer shrugged, got back in the car, and drove off. No escort out of danger or anything.
That day changed something in me. I didn’t hate white people—but I feared them now. They could kill with hands or with silence. And the law was just another bystander.
At the same time, Kesner was gone—arrested. My protector vanished. In his place came Trouble, one of his friends from Winthrop Street, who introduced me to the Five Percent Nation. I was impressionable. They called me Jamal, I had friends called Divine and Young God, who handed me my lessons, and taught me the Supreme Mathematics. At night I’d come home right before ten, finish homework, and by morning I was back on that same bus to Sheepshead Bay.
I still got good grades, but something was shifting. I’d talk to Cadien in Vanderveer. Head to Winthrop and join cyphers, building and quoting degrees. I learned about Yacub, the scientist who created the white man. It made sense— blue eyes and pale skin matched the terror I felt in school.
I joined the Jolly Stompers, but only because Kesner vouched for me. I didn’t have to go through the initiation. But I didn’t like it—I wasn’t trying to fight in a park with bats and chains on command. I still went to Catholic Church, lighting candles to a white Jesus, torn between my faith and my fury.
On other days, I stayed in Vanderveer, building with the Rastas. They taught me about the 12 Tribes of Israel and the Torah. It was a street seminary, while school was teaching me Columbus discovered America.
I started skipping school, drifting from classrooms to hooky parties and train rides. I’d duck truant officers with friends, stealing Uncle Ben’s rice, frozen vegetables, and butter. We’d cook it at Andre’s apartment, imitating his Rastafarian brother by not eating meat. We were just kids—but West Indian kids. And Veer kids. That meant something. It was a black version of the television show Little Rascals.
I moved between crews easily, thanks to Kesner. I’d be on 21st Street with the Raiders, at Ebbets Field, or at the Empire Skating Rink. Every block had a lesson. I smoked marijuana daily, learned how to read graffiti and eventually make it. Percel from 21st Street showed me how to tag walls. I chose the name ACE. It stuck. I tagged buses, trains, buildings—everywhere. And when I finally hit the train yard with spray paint? That was graduation. I wasn’t just a tagger after that. I was a graffiti artist.
To make money, I hustled. Packed bags at grocery stores. One summer I worked at a mechanic shop down the block from my house. But my best hustle? Newspapers.
I’d get up at 5 a.m., intercept the delivery truck, snatch the bundles before they hit the stands, and sell them at Newkirk Avenue station. Dime a paper. Smile included. I refused to ask my mom for money—I knew if she didn’t give it, it meant she didn’t have it.
I had good friends in Veer—Fat Cat, Eggy, Andre, Mark Monroe, Duddy. We’d smoke, play hooky, hang in buildings. But then came the day Fat Cat told me something happened to Eggy.
We ran to the scene. Detectives were already there. A white sheet covered Eggy’s body. You could see his outline. Small. Lifeless. He’d been stabbed in his stomach.
They said it was over a misunderstanding with someone named Screw, a member of the Untouchables. Apparently, Eggy had roughed up the wrong kid—Screw’s girl’s little brother. It didn’t matter if it was justified. Screw didn’t forgive. It was a protocol of the Untouchables, forgive no one.
That moment shattered any illusion we had about being safe. We weren’t immune. And from then on, I watched my step around the crew.
At Shellbank, the racism didn’t stop. I found Kesner’s .22 caliber pistol and started carrying it. I looked for his .32 with the shoulder holster, but settled for what I had found. Then it happened again—three white boys jumping a Black girl. I fired a single shot in the air.
They scattered.
We ran onto the bus. White faces swarmed it.
One of them was David Dagio.
Days later, they got their revenge. A fight broke out after school. Dagio put me in a headlock, kicked me. I fought back, but we were outnumbered. They wanted to teach us a lesson. And they did.
We were transferred to new schools—no consequences for them. I ended up at Huddy Junior High, trying to stay quiet, get through seventh grade. Still cutting school, still at Walt Whitman, Erasmus, McDonald’s, wherever the older kids were.
At Huddy, it was the same. One day, the principal ordered locker checks. I carried a 007 knife, never a gun. But when they opened a white kid’s locker and found a box, he pointed at me, said, “It belongs to him!”
Inside was a small pistol. I was stunned. High off a fat spliff from that morning, confused. Then a woman walked in. Black. Composed. Eyes soft but serious. Ms. Betty Williams. The school’s guidance counselor. An angel.
She questioned the staff like a lawyer. Called my mother. Refused to let the police handcuff me. Rode with me to the precinct. Stayed by my side until my mother arrived. And when they asked if the gun was mine, I said, “No.” They let me go. But I was kicked out of school.
Ms. Williams wasn’t done. She called my mother. Helped us explore options. Military school came up—but she suggested St. Christopher in Dobbs Ferry. Pulled strings. Got me in.
St. Christopher’s was co-ed, structured, and felt like a hybrid of group home and youth detention. Some kids had no parents. Others came from trauma. If you stayed out of trouble, you earned weekend passes.
When I came home? I went straight to Vanderveer. Cadien handed me a gun every weekend usually a .22 caliber that he cared less about, then warn me to be careful. And every Sunday, I gave it back before getting on the Metro North to the Dobbs Ferry station.
I was living two lives.
One foot in a prison cell, the other on a dorm room floor.
Brooklyn was the Wild West.
Vanderveer was its Badlands.
There was Veer.
There were the Untouchables.
Then there was everyone else.
Cadien and Vinny Vance were now inseparable. And I was right in the middle.
Still the only Haitian.
Still the punchline.
But still standing.
They called me Ace. And they knew I wasn’t just surviving—I was becoming something else entirely.