Summary

Coates recalls that the first girl he had a crush on was Brenda Neil who he’d wait for after school so he could try to walk home with her. Brenda flirted with him but he still couldn’t break out of his shell. Another girl, Teyanda, whispered in his ear one day that she had a crush on him. He was immobilized and by the end of the week, she whispered that she didn’t have a crush on him. Coates writes that there was great tension in the air and many threats: HIV was in the air and cops seeking to make a name for themselves at the expense of black boys that no one cared about were trigger-happy. In his senior year, every class he attended had girls who were already mothers or were expecting. Coates believed that girls became cynical...