Born a Crime

where you had a home. My grandmother lived in Orlando East. She had a two-room house. Not a two-bedroom house. A two-room house. ...

my grandmother and my great- grandmother. The adults each had their own foam mattresses, and there was one big one that we’d rol ...

driveway. All of our neighbors had driveways, some with fancy, cast- iron gates. None of them had cars, either. There was no fut ...

thing you could never aspire to improve: your toilet. There was no indoor running water, just one communal outdoor tap and one o ...

uncomfortable, but at least I stayed informed while I handled my business. The thing that I couldn’t handle about the outhouse w ...

I was dreading going outside to use the toilet, getting drenched running out there, water dripping on me from the leaky ceiling, ...

shitting person. You’re transitioning from a person about to shit to a person who is shitting. You don’t whip out your smartphon ...

same. Beyoncé shits. The pope shits. The Queen of England shits. When we shit we forget our airs and our graces, we forget how f ...

robbed of your moment, and nobody should be robbed of that. Squatting and shitting on the kitchen floor that day, I was like, Wo ...

turn and the T. rex is right there. Her eyes were wide open, cloudy white and darting around the room. I knew she couldn’t see m ...

waited. “Who’s there?! Hallo?!” I kept quiet, waited, then started again. “Is somebody there?! Trevor, is that you?! Frances? Ha ...

chair, and then I’d start up again. Finally, after what felt like forever, I finished. I stood up, took the newspaper—which is n ...

Mission accomplished. — An hour later the rain had stopped. My grandmother came home. The second she walked in, Koko called out ...

definitely in the house.” They went back and forth about it, quite concerned, and then, as it was getting dark, my mother came h ...

She went to the rubbish bin. “It’s in here.” She lifted out the rubbish, pulled out the folded newspaper underneath, and opened ...

“But how?!” Koko said. “There was no one here!” “Are you sure there was no one here?” “Yes. I called out to everyone. Nobody cam ...

Once my mom found the turd, all hell broke loose. This was serious. They had evidence. She came into the bedroom. “Trevor! Trevo ...

my mom put the newspaper with my little turd on the driveway, lit a match, and set it on fire. Then my mom and my gran stood aro ...

calling to all the other old grannies for an emergency prayer meeting. “Come! We’ve been bewitched!” I stood there, my shit burn ...

driveway, a dozen or more at least. Everyone went inside. The house was packed. This was by far the biggest prayer meeting we’d ...