Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun: A Personal History of Violence

“Even as a very young child, I knew that our survival depended on our mother.”

With no father in their lives, Canada and his brothers must depend on their mother for food and shelter. They are also dependent on her for advice about how to navigate their neighborhood, and while she is a loving mother, she is also a mother who pushes them out into the world and encourages them to be fighters. It is her insistence to Canada’s older brother, Daniel, that he fight to retrieve his brother’s stolen jacket that marks Canada’s first awareness of violence.

“My mother told us to stick together. That we couldn’t let people think we were afraid. That what she had done in making Dan go and get the jacket was to let us know that she would not tolerate our becoming victims.”

This is the first time that Canada hears this sentiment, but it will not be the last. The importance of not being a victim, and also of sticking together, will be emphasized to him over and over, by his peer group of neighborhood boys. The boys must present a united and tough front so that they are intimidating to boys in other neighborhoods.

“Dan’s description of the confrontation left me with more questions. I was trying to understand why Dan was able to get the jacket. If he could get it later, why didn’t he take it back the first time?”

Canada still does not understand how much feelings of fear and pressure–in this case, the pressure that Dan feels from their mother to retrieve John’s jacket–can be a motive for fighting, and can even make one a fiercer fighter. Since the code of machismo that the neighborhood boys live by prevents them from talking about these feelings, Dan cannot explain this to him.