Everyday Courage. Niobe Way
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However, he has taken on the caretaker role and he wants Mike to know this.
In response to a question about whether or not he has a best or close friend this year, Malcolm says:
Just my girlfriend really. I be chilling with her, but besides that I’m getting tired of being crowded really. I like hanging out but it just gets boring when you, like, do the same things so much. So when, like, people say, you know, “Why don’t you come out anymore,” I don’t feel like just going out, sitting on the corner or nothing.
What exactly do you mean by being crowded?
Well, it could just be one person. But sometimes, that one person just get aggravating. Not what he says and stuff, it’s just that he’s being—that he’s there. ’Cause it’s just most of the time I like to be alone, you know, just me and my dark side. I like music a lot. So I just buy a lot of albums and stuff, but I don’t like people always around me and stuff.
While Mike asks Malcolm about “friends,” Malcolm responds by referring either to his girlfriend or to “people” (last year it was “associates”). Like last year, Malcolm is seemingly frustrated with his male peers and does not believe he has a close male friend.
Malcolm mentions, at a later point in his interview, that spending time with his male peers may not only be “aggravating” but also dangerous:
So like I’d rather just go [out] by myself if anything’s going to happen it’s gonna happen with me alone. Therefore, I won’t have to bring nobody else into it. You know, ’cause when you’re hanging with a gang, there might be a dude that’s hanging with you that got a beef with these people over here. And then all of a sudden you getting stabbed up or you in a fight or something or arrested over that.
Remarkably, Malcolm’s peers do not provide him with a sense of security but rather with a grave sense of peril. Keeping to himself, however, has not protected Malcolm from all threats of violence. He was recently shot at by a gang of boys while walking his dog. Since these situations frighten him, he tries to stay “out of trouble” and not make any “enemies.” For Malcolm, there are dangers to being alone as well as being with his peers. He is caught in an environment that has no clear route toward safety.
Malcolm prefers to spend time with his girlfriend rather than with his male friends:
We could talk, you know, we go out, we go to the movies. But we could do certain things that you can’t—you don’t—well you can do it [with male friends], but it is just not the same feeling like when you’re walking with a girl because with a girl you can express certain feelings and stuff. Like, say if you don’t really want to spend no money, you just go for a walk on the river, whatever. You know, you can do that with a girl. And you can talk about certain things, you know, be laughing, have fun. That’s the kind of stuff I do with her and stuff. You know, me and her, we went to the park and stuff, chill, walk, took pictures. … [With boys] it’s just harder to like—’cause some of the things you may [want to do] make you seem as if you’re gay or something. You know, … it’s more relaxing when you’re with a girl so you can just chill. Seems like you have more to talk about.
In dramatic contrast to his dismissive attitude about girls in his freshman year, Malcolm tells Mike that he finds girls more relaxing and easier to talk with than boys. Interestingly, Malcolm discusses “certain feelings” with Mike while, at the same time, claiming that he can only express such feelings with girls. Malcolm may feel that his male peers are less trustworthy than an adult male—even an adult male who is a stranger to him. However, as suggested by some of his peers, Malcolm may feel comfortable with Mike precisely because he is a stranger: there is no risk that Mike will spread his stories to others and tarnish his reputation.4
About his feelings for his girlfriend, Malcolm says:
I don’t feel myself falling in love or nothing like that because you know—I feel if she left me, it would leave a little emptiness but after a while I could fill that with a different girl … so I feel like if she left me, I feel empty because I ain’t got a girl there. But see, once I do have a girl there, then all thought of her is gone. [My girlfriend] claims she’s in love with me, but you know, I just, you know, don’t let myself—I don’t even think like that. Therefore, I won’t fall in love, I guess, because it ain’t the right time in my life. I gotta be handling things for myself right now.
Describing how he would know if he were in love (“I feel if she left me …”), Malcolm makes it clear to Mike that, although he enjoys spending time with his girlfriend of two months and considers her a close friend, he is not in love with her. Like last year, Malcolm seems cautious of being intimate with others. He also explains that while his girlfriend is a close friend, she is not a best friend because “if you have a best friend, you know, you express yourself more and … you, like, feel lost without them.” Articulating the subtleties of relationships, Malcolm vividly conveys a personal understanding of love and friendships.
Malcolm explains to Mike that he likes his girlfriend because she has encouraged him to do things that he has never done before:
That’s helping me really to expand like when you learn a new word in your vocabulary. You open up more vocabulary words. She’s just like expanding in a different variety of things you can do instead of just going to the park, playing ball, hanging on the corner you know. … But she was like, “Let’s go take some pictures,” And while you’re actually taking pictures, when you’re done with that, you go get some ice cream, then go chill in the park, you know, go ride the [boats] or whatever, you know, and just chill. And that’s really things that girls like.
Do you like doing those things?
Well, yeah, they’re cool.
Despite his previous concerns about sounding “gay,” Malcolm describes the pleasure he takes in doing things that are not stereotypically male activities. In fact, he perceives such “girl” activities as mind expanding and as “cool.” Malcolm’s comfort in communicating these potentially risky thoughts and feelings attests not only to Mike’s skill as an interviewer (Malcolm seems to trust Mike), but also, perhaps, to Malcolm’s growing self-confidence and pride in his ability to transcend his peers’ expectations.
Malcolm says that both he and his girlfriend consistently use birth control, but if she got pregnant he would support her in whatever decision she would make: “I want her to do what’s right for her. Whatever she feels she could do.” Once again, Malcolm seems uncertain about whether or not he wants a child. He claims, however, that he is more cautious than he was last year:
[Everything is] more of a struggle. So you gotta make—I gotta make sure my life’s right first before anything surprising happens.
When you say it seems more like a struggle, what do you mean?
You know, it’s like—’cause it’s now the time when I’m in the tenth grade and stuff and this year’s ending so I’ll be in the eleventh grade. So therefore, I’m growing up, you know, I’m about to get out of school. I gotta figure out everything. If I’m going to college right away or whatever.
So you try to be especially safe so nothing gets in the way.
So I won’t have this responsibility that holds me off from that, you know.
Malcolm seems particularly focused on “figuring things out” for himself this year. His sense of “growing up” has heightened his concerns about his future and has made him more careful.
When Mike inquires about Malcolm’s role models, Malcolm says, as in the previous year, that he likes certain rap stars such as Public Enemy because they “talk knowledge”:
They speak of the history and stuff. Certain stuff that could help you so you can fill that confidence inside you. ’Cause if you just know what’s going on now, sometimes you might hear the wrong things and you feel like you can’t do nothing, you can’t get out. But that’s not always true because when you see other