It took twelve cops to pull my brother and father apart. The big bodies of men, all entangled like a swirling hurricane, crashed loudly into the living

room. Within an instant, familiar things were no longer in my sight—no windows, no floor, no furniture, and no light. All I could see was a chaotic

mass of body parts in motion: dark pants and strong arms bursting out of dark sleeves, enormous hands grabbing, fists punching, limbs tangled

together and tearing away, heavy, polished black shoes scuffling and stomping. There were quick flashes of shiny things: buttons, badges, and

guns. At least a dozen pistol handles, stiff and sticking out of dull leather holsters, a few cradled in palms and thumbs, sat on wide black belts

around broad hips. Chaos filled the air with the sounds of cursing, grunting, and howling. The entire house seemed to be shaking. And

somewhere in the eye of this storm were the two most important male figures in my life, destroying each other.

I always thought of my brother’s anger as weather—powerful, destructive, and unpredictable. I don’t know if it was a singular act or an ongoing

illness that made him so volatile, but it was all I had ever known.

I was a little girl with very few memories of a big brother who protected me. More often, I felt I had to protect myself from him, and sometimes I

would find myself protecting my mother from him too.

This particular fight with our father had escalated more quickly than most, however. A shouting match became a tornado of fists in what seemed

like a matter of seconds, banging through the room, knocking things over, and leaving havoc in its wake. In that moment, the rage between my

father and brother was so forceful that no one person could have stopped it. No one would have dared.

By the time I was a toddler, I had developed the instincts to sense when violence was coming. As though I was smelling rain, I could tell when adult

screaming had reached a certain pitch and velocity that meant I should take cover. When my brother was around, it was not uncommon for holes

to be punched in walls or for other objects to go flying. I never really knew how or why the fights would begin, but I did know when tension was

turning into an argument and when an argument was destined to become a physical fight. And I knew this particular one was going to be epic.

My Nana Reese was there, which was a bit odd because it was rare that she or anyone from my father’s family, who lived in Harlem, was at our

house. We were in Melville, a predominately white, affluent-adjacent town in Suffolk County on Long Island, New York, though I would eventually

move thirteen times growing up. Thirteen times to pack up and go, to try to find another place—a better place, a safer place. Thirteen new starts,

thirteen new streets with new houses full of people to judge you and wonder where or who your father is. Thirteen occasions to be labeled

unworthy and discarded, to be placed on the outside.

Pastor Nana Reese, the Good Reverend Roscoe Reese, and their African Methodist Pentecostal Church were where my father came from. Roy

was the only son of Addie, Nana Reese’s sister. My father never lived with his father, and there was always a potent distance between them, a

mystery that inevitably held a misery. These people, living in the village of Harlem, were his people. They had come up from Alabama and parts of

North Carolina and other regions of the South, bringing with them traditions, traumas, and gifts—some of which were ancient, African, and

mystical in origin.

Nana Reese and I found each other right before all hell really broke loose. The thunder of profanity, fists, and feet drowned out all other sounds, so

I didn’t hear when the cops burst in.

I didn’t know if they had come to save us or kill us. It was Long Island in the 1970s, and two Black males were being violent—the appearance of

the police almost never meant that help had arrived. On the contrary, their presence often complicated and elevated the existing terror and

escalated violence. That hasn’t changed, but this was my first encounter with the fact. I had no benefit of experience; I had no benefit of any kind.

My cousin LaVinia, Nana Reese’s daughter, always said, “You kids had all the burdens of being Black but none of the benefits.” It took me a long

time to understand the reality of her observation.

This, of course, was not the first vicious fight between my father and brother—for as long as I could remember, their relationship had been a war

zone. But it was the first time the troops had been called in. It was also the first time I witnessed the possibility that a member of my family could

brutally die in front of my eyes. Or that I could die too. I wasn’t yet four years old.

Before my mother and father found their marriage unbearable, they lived together in Brooklyn Heights. Though the neighborhood had seen a

stream of bohemians arrive as early as 1910, and the 1950s brought in a wave of urban activists—liberal folks with money who loathed the

suburbs—in the 1970s it was still a pretty eclectic mix of mostly working- and middle-class families. It was pre-yuppie and ungentrified. If there

was a tolerant place for a young mixed-race family in that era, Brooklyn Heights was probably the closest you could come to it.

Throughout my childhood, I would live in many obscure places, mostly on Long Island, and feel very much like a castaway on this island-off-the-

island of Manhattan. Both my parents worked very hard so we could live in neighborhoods where we could glimpse that elusive “better life” and

feel “safe.” Conventional wisdom, however, suggests that “better” and “safe” are synonymous with white.

We were not a conventional family. Was it better to live in a place where my white mother would often walk alone through the front door first, ahead

of my Black father with her mixed kids—for their safety? What does that do to the psyche of a man who is supposed to be the head of the

household? How can such a man keep his family safe, and what does such an indignity signal to his Black son?

After the squad of policemen managed to separate my father and brother, though there was still a considerable amount of yelling, everyone was

alive. The truly dangerous part of the storm was over; the thunder had stopped. The next thing I knew I was cradled in Nana Reese’s arms, crying

and trembling. She had scooped me up like a sack of laundry and set me close beside her on what the kids used to call “the rocking couch,” a

cheap, flimsy structure the color of dirt, rust, and olive, dotted with flecks of mustard. Sometimes I think it was that couch that planted the seed of

my eventual preference for Chanel. We kids called it the “rocking couch” because it was missing a leg, and if you shifted your weight back and

forth it would, well, rock. This was a noble attempt to find humor amid broken things, a talent I shared with my brother and sister. In the midst of the

violence and trauma, a great comfort came to me on that sad sofa.

Nana Reese held me tight until my little frame stopped shaking and my breathing became normal. From disorientation I returned to the room, I

returned to my body. She turned my face up toward the light and made sure my eyes were focused and locked on to hers. She placed her delicate

hand firmly on my thigh. Her touch immediately steadied any aftershocks still pulsing through me. Her gaze was unusual—not that of a great-

auntie, a mother, or a doctor. It was instead as if she looked directly into the essence of me. In that instant we were not a frightened little girl and a

consoling elder but two souls, ageless and equal.

She told me, “Don’t be scared of all the trouble you see. All your dreams and visions are going to happen for you. Always remember that.”

As she spoke, a warm and loving current spread out from her hand to my leg, gently coursing through my body in waves and rising up and out the

top of my head. Through the devastation a path had been washed clear; I knew there was light. And somehow I knew that light was mine and

everlasting. Before that moment I hadn’t had any dreams I could remember. I had very few memories either. I certainly had yet to hear a song in

my head or have a vision.

From around when I was four years old, after my parents’ divorce, I didn’t see my Nana Reese much. My mother and my father’s families

remained locked in conflict, and since I lived with my mother, I was largely cut off from Nana’s life of healing and holy rolling in Harlem. I did later

learn that people called Nana Reese a “prophetess.” I also learned that she was not the only healer in my lineage. Beyond all that, I believe a deep

faith was awakened in me that day.

I understood on a soul level that no matter what happened to me, or around me, something lived inside me that I could always call on. I had

something that would guide me through any storm.

And when the wind blows, and shadows grow close

Don’t be afraid, there’s nothing you can’t face

And should they tell you you’ll never pull through

Don’t hesitate, stand tall and say

I can make it through the rain

—“Through the Rain”