ABSTRACT
Much had changed in my life by the time a million black men marched in Washington. I no longer live in Harlem. The decision had less to do with gunshot lullabies, dead bodies ‘round the corner, or the pre-adolescents safe-sexing it in my stairwells-running consensual trains on a twelve-year-old girl whose titties and ass grew faster than her selfesteem-and more to do with my growing desensitization to it all. As evidenced by the zombie-like stare in my neighbors’ eyes, the ghetto’s dues for emotional immunity are high. And I knew better than to test its capacity for contagion.
