Born a Crime

He was the firstborn, dutiful, took care of his mother, took care of his siblings. He was the pride of his family. But Abel was ...

this thing in the house that cried and shat and got fed, but when you’re nine years older than your sibling, their arrival doesn ...

grow some of the most amazing fruit—mangoes, lychees, the most beautiful bananas you’ve ever seen in your life. That’s where all ...

extremely patriarchal. We’re talking about a world where women must bow when they greet a man. Men and women have limited social ...

“No, no, no, no,” Abel’s mother would protest. “Trevor must go outside and play.” I was made to run off and have fun while my gi ...

raises his siblings. His mom treats him with a certain level of respect as the dad’s surrogate. Since this was Abel’s big homeco ...

something, do whatever manly tasks needed to be done, but then they would go to an area that was only for men and hang out and d ...

mockery of it. The other women would bow before men with this polite little curtsy. My mom would go down and cower, groveling in ...

particularly loudmouthed and promiscuous. The two of them fought and bickered the whole time, and after that first trip my mothe ...

his color. His family was him, my mom, and the new baby. My family was my mom and me. I actually appreciated that about him. Som ...

Abel’s presence in the house brought with it new rules. One of the first things he did was kick Fufi and Panther out of the hous ...

where she wanted. Slowly, those things got reined in. I could feel that he was trying to rein in our independence. He even got u ...

mom couldn’t afford another car, and she couldn’t get the car fixed somewhere else. You’re married to a mechanic and you’re goin ...

“Why are you going to Yeoville?” “To see Trevor’s dad.” “What? No, no. How can I take my wife and her child and drop you off the ...

married a woman like my mom in the first place, as she was the opposite of that in every way. If he wanted a woman to bow to him ...

When we first met Abel, he smoked a lot of weed. He drank, too, but it was mostly weed. Looking back, I almost miss his pothead ...

drinking more and more. He never came home from work sober. An average day was a six-pack of beer after work. Weeknights he’d ha ...

were everything. They were the eyes of the Devil. Late one night we woke up to a house filled with smoke. Abel hadn’t come home ...

him before. He’d been hungry, tried to heat up some food on the stove, and passed out on the couch while it was cooking. The pot ...

going on and on about Abel and his drinking. “This man, he’s going to kill us one day. He almost burnt the house down...” Abel w ...