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“He’d want me to do this,” she said. “He’d be proud of you. Wherever you wanna go, Snoop, I’m happy to drive you.”

“Take me to Mama’s, please.”

Mama was the first person I wanted to see. Hadn’t seen the lady for six years, since I first went into city jail. Hadn’t wanted her to see me locked up. Hadn’t told her when I was getting out. Wanted to surprise her.

That drive to Baltimore was the best trip of my life. Everything looked beautiful. The passing cars. The billboards. The telephone poles. The Burger Kings. The motels. Even the white lines dividing the highway.

I kept closing my eyes and imagining I was still in the Cut. Then I opened them and smiled. I wasn’t in the Cut. I was passing by a gas station, a school, a factory, a car wash, a playground.

On the radio Da Brat and Tyrese were singing “What ’Chu Like.” I liked everything, everything I saw, everything I felt. I liked Destiny’s Child. I liked DMX talkin’ ’bout his “Party Up in Here.”

At the same time, I wasn’t looking for no party. Didn’t wanna drink and sure as shit didn’t wanna drug. I was looking for Mama.

“Child,” she said, as soon as I ran up the stairs, opened the door, and fell in her arms, “I sure wasn’t looking for you. But now that I found you, I gotta praise the Lord. Gotta say, ‘Thank you, Jesus.’”

She started crying, and I started crying along with her.

“Thank you, Lord,” she kept whispering. “Thank you, sweet Lord.”

She fixed me a big meal and called the relatives over to greet me. Everyone was cool. No one said a nasty word about where I’d been.

“We just happy to have you back” was the only word I heard.

Everyone congregated around the kitchen table while I devoured the best meal of my natural life. Baked chicken. Macaroni and cheese. Greens. Corn. Hot apple pie.

You couldn’t tell me that life wasn’t sweet.

One cousin said, “Tell us the worst thing that happened to you in there.”

“Not being here” is all I said.

“She’s prettier than ever,” one of the aunts told Mama, nodding in my direction.

“Pretty on the outside and inside too,” Mama said. “Minute I laid eyes on my baby, I saw the Lord had been dealing with her. She changed. God done put her in there for a reason.”

I didn’t disagree with Mama. On that day, I didn’t disagree with anyone or anything. My mind was smiling as much as my mouth. I’d look out the front window of Mama’s place, the windows where you see East Oliver, and remember the tiny window in my jail. How many times had I looked out the window?

Ten thousand? Ten million? Who knew?

When I looked out Mama’s windows, I saw cars riding up and down the street. Kids playing. Dogs running. A taxicab. An ice cream truck.

I could just step out the house and buy an ice cream cone. No one would stop me. No one would look twice.

I did it. I bought the ice cream. Ate it. Sat on the stoop—that same stoop where I had first looked at the world, trying to understand the game—and just listened to the sound of my breathing.

Evening fell. The rain stopped. The city smelled fresh. I continued taking in the sights and sounds all around me. Sirens. Buses. Mothers calling in their children. The world going on. The world doing its thing.

I was back in the world.

I was going on.

But this time my thing would be different.

This time everything would be different.

LOVE, INSIDE AND OUT

There’s inside love and outside love.

Love inside the Cut is strange love because you’re locked up and nothing’s normal. Your life ain’t normal, your thoughts ain’t normal, your dreams ain’t normal. Your brain’s scrambled by all the bricks and bars and the cold fact that you can’t get out until they let you out. You’re also surrounded by a whole lot of bitches who ain’t never getting out. Their attitude about love will fuck you up.

You want love. You always want love, no matter where you at. At Grandma’s House, when you find someone who seems sweet and nice, you grab on to her. Least I did. That was CO.

Inside the Cut, CO and I met in the secret corners to steal a kiss. That always