The Beautiful Struggle

At this point, Coates is 13 and is riding high as he begins his classes at Baltimore Polytech. He has just spent the prior summer doing a college prep program at the University of Maryland, and he describes an early encounter with a girl. She comes into his room and lies down next to him; he asks if she’s all right, and then goes back to sleep: “The next morning, all the girls giggled and asked if I was gay. They were so advanced” (130).

Big Bill, meanwhile, is “transitioning into life at the Mecca” (132). He is skeptical of Howard University, but “his prejudice melted in the first week” (132). He quickly finds his people and begins to deal marijuana. At home, Coates and his friend Kier are tutored in the SATs by their mothers. Coates’s Consciousness grows, and he devours his father’s books, sometimes treating them with negligence.

Coates struggles at Polytech, as his mind is obsessive and unable to focus: “I considered myself capable of student awards and honor, and sometimes I even longed for them. But I longed more to live in my own head” (138). Coates is failing out of Poly, and one day he snaps and “mushes” (140) his English teacher in the face: “All my life, I played my position.