little stick. He’ll break. But you,
God gave you that ass for
whipping.” Even though she was
kidding, I could tell that the reason
she didn’t beat Andrew was because
she’d had a genuine change of heart
on the matter. It was a lesson she’d
learned, oddly enough, from me.
I grew up in a world of
violence, but I myself was never
violent at all. Yes, I played pranks
and set fires and broke windows,
but I never attacked people. I never
hit anyone. I was never angry. I just
didn’t see myself that way. My
mother had exposed me to a
different world than the one she