I think he was eight years old when he brought the pine seedling home from school and planted it in the front yard of the house I attempted to buy for him and his mother and little brother.

By the time he was sixteen, standing on the front sidewalk, as five savages came with bricks and bottles to bash his head in for the crime of fighting back when they’re younger associates had tried to rob him, the tree was almost as tall as him and as round as the fattest Negro in the pack.

When I locked the doors for the last time, after checking to make sure no junkies were squatting in it and left it for the bank, the tree was my height.

This past summer I went through there with Mescaline Franklin, showing him some of the little-known corners of Northeast Baltimore. It had been two years since I had gone by the old place, so we drove by and saw the pine tree rising crookedly, ugly, with a bald bottom. I liked seeing it there but thought for sure whoever had done such a nice job of restoring the landscaping I did in 1984 would not let it remain. The tree looked rough enough that I didn’t say anything to him three weeks ago.

I didn’t have to. I got a text from him yesterday, of the front yard at 4711 Luerssen Avenue, the ugly little pine tree gone—not a trace—it’s roots covered over by the green lawn.

I had not realized that he stopped by and checked, but should have—that was where he came of age, where he had been hunted through the streets and stripped of multiple coats by black men and had been afraid to tell me for fear I’d end up in prison. I feel good that we fought on the same ground against the same enemy and that he remembers.

Today I picked his son up from a school thirty miles out of town, a bright, five-year-old boy, who recently said, “School is death to me.”

Hearing that hurts, but means there’s hope for his mind. He loves reading. Public schools are designed to kill that passion, and as I was wondering about countermeasures, was thrilled to hear him say he wants to be a “nonfiction illustrator-author.”

He didn’t know that his grandfather was a writer until then.

Today I tried to cheer him up and it seemed to work.

“Hey, Buddy, you know where I live?”

“No,”

“I live at the Baltimore Zoo, in the monkey house.”

He smiled, “You mean you escaped from monkey school?”

“No, I escaped from people school and ended up in the monkey house.”

“That sounds interesting!” he chirped.

“Someday I’ll tell you about.”