It's indicative of the kind of show The Wire was that there have been conversations about which was the "most tragic" scene. David Simon would probably prefer you don't have those conversations, but still - there are plenty of tragic moments to go around.
Some you hear over and over (the murders of Wallace and D'Angelo, Bubbles' accidental killing of Sherrod, Randy's fate at the end of Season 4, Dukie's slide into addiction), and others that get shorter shrift (Omar identifying Brandon's body, Ziggy's post-arrest conversation with Frank, Frank's long walk to his own death, Randy's appearance in Season 5). But there's one that always sticks out to me, and I rarely (actually, never) hear it mentioned when the show comes up.
To me, one of the most tragic moments in the show's five season run is when Preston "Bodie" Broadus breaks.
Not when he gets killed (though that's certainly tragic enough), but earlier in the episode, when he finally understands his place (and insignificance) in the world. The moment comes in Episode 4.13 ("Final Grades"), the Season 4 finale, as Bodie watches the county medical examiner staff wheel the body of his friend and corner compatriot Little Kevin out of a West Baltimore vacant. You can watch the clip here.
Some background, for those unfamiliar or rusty on the season's arc: In Season 4, a major story point was that ascendant Westside kingpin Marlo Stanfield has been using the city's vacant houses* as mausoleums for the various people he's killed in his rise to power. One of these victims is Little Kevin, a corpulent corner boy who was friends with Bodie. Earlier in the season, Marlo orders Kevin killed for a relatively minor infraction.
* There are about 30,000 vacants in Baltimore City, according to a recent commentary piece in the Sun.
When Bodie initially hears, he's stunned by the coldness of the act. Hard as he is, Bodie believes that there's some fairness to the drug game -- that loyalty, hard work, and initiative will eventually pay off. Think back to that famous Season 1 scene with the chess board (one of the show's clumsiest moments of symbolism, but still better than a lot of TV writing). When D'Angelo explains that pawns don't get to be kings, Bodie responds with a cocky half-smile and the rejoinder: "Unless they some smart-ass pawns."
That dream ends in "Final Grades." When Little Kevin's body is removed from the vacant, Bodie loses it. At first he's shocked, which builds into outrage, and finally explosive anger. At first the sticking point is that Marlo would kill Little Kevin when Kevin hadn't done anything. Despite having witnessed the often-random violence of the drug game firsthand, Bodie still believes that there are rules, and he's stunned by Marlo's rejection of them.
He doesn't stay stunned for long. As Bodie walks away from the crime scene, it's clear that this breach of the street code has shattered something fundamental in him. This was a moment that had been coming since Wallace's murder, when Bodie's gangsta facade cracked to show the fear and confusion underneath (I could write a whole separate blog post about J.D. Williams' performance in that scene, not to mention the implications it has both for his fate and Poot's). Everything he's stood for over the course of four seasons, beliefs that he's risked his own life for, killed for, no longer mean anything. And then he says what might be the saddest line in The Wire's five seasons:
"It's like a n**** ain't fit, man."
That "fit" is punctuated by Bodie attacking a police car parked next to him, kicking its door and shattering a back window in impotent rage. The line lacks the poetry of the other expressions of despair or rage written by David Simon (series co-creator, who is credited as the writer of this episode). But those two syllables, "ain't fit," pack a real emotional wallop for me. Part of it is that pause in between, during which Bodie goes from reeling to reacting. That pause is the moment that he breaks.
But more than anything is the sentiment. Bodie's realized a horrible truth about the world and his place in it.
And that truth is that some people are disposable. That to the world at normal, even the smartest, wittiest, loyalest project kid in West Baltimore is still a project kid in West Baltimore. He comes from a neighborhood that the living world, the world of power and legitimate money, left behind a long time ago. He comes from a place where the only industry still hiring is the drug trade, and he's risen about as far as he's ever going to in that particular hierarchy.
He's not necessary to the economy. People in his demographic are either feared or ignored by society at normal. He has no education, no marketable skills (none that have been developed professionally, anyway), and no story that a culture obsessed with wealth and amplifying personal happiness has any interest in hearing. It's like he, in his own words, isn't even fit to live. Him, Kevin, Poot, Wallace -- all of them deserving nothing better than years of compounding trauma, ending with a well-placed bullet and a vacant house as a tomb.
In short, he is disposable.
Fr. Greg Boyle, S.J., founder and director of Homeboy Industries, wrote in Tattoos on the Heart (2011):
"The wrong idea has taken root in the world. And the idea is this: there just might be lives out there that matter less than other lives."That's the message Bodie receives: You do not matter. You never did. But the true tragedy here is the real-life hopelessness that his "ain't fit" is inspired by. Every day, black (and brown) kids growing up in the forgotten corners of our cities hear this same message. And many of them internalize it. Kids aren't stupid, after all. Inner-city kids don't grow up ignorant of their neighborhoods' reputations; nor do they miss the fact that people like them only appear on the news as objects of fear or revulsion. Even kids who stay in school and do everything right feel the stigma of being "ghetto" kids.
A real life example might help: In the summer of 2007, I volunteered with a camp in Baltimore. It was run by a community center in a particularly beleaguered Northwest neighborhood, but the camp itself was hosted on Loyola's campus. For most of the day we were in a hallway of basement classrooms in one of the older buildings. But for meals we'd meet in a makeshift dining room in the back lobby of one of the dorm dining halls. Tables were set up in the lobby space, with several more added to an adjoining room. We were also given one of those refrigerated cases that you buy plastic bottles from to store our government-provided meals (lunch was generally an Uncrustable, an apple, and one of those little Carroteenies bags of baby carrots). It was simple, sure, but the kids didn't seem to care. They were more interested in getting to the playground or the pool, anyway.
But then, midway through July, a high school lacrosse camp showed up. They were seated in the actual dining hall, and ate catered meals from campus food services. Day after day, our kids walked through the lacrosse lunch on the way to the bathroom, eyes bugging out at the pizza and burgers and other non-Uncrustable delicacies.
Finally, on the Wednesday of that week, one of the kids turned to me after watching the lacrosse camp for a distance for a while, and asked why they got better lunches.
With the insight of a white 21-year-old with no experience of education, I replied: "Uhhhh."
"Is it because they're a better camp?" he asked.
I told him no, but I also said that their program probably just had more money, which may or may not have softened the blow. He went back to watching them, and observed that there weren't any black kids there.
"We'd probably just mess it up if we had something like that anyway," he concluded.*
*I'm paraphrasing that from memory, although the quote about them being a better camp is something I wrote down that same day while reflecting.
I'm sure Loyola had plenty of valid reasons for putting us in the lobby, and the lacrosse kids in the actual dining hall - space, scheduling, a desire to attract prospective players. And the lacrosse program certainly would have had enough money to pay whatever enormous price tag dining services (Sodexho in those days) put on daily catered lunches. I'm sure no one intended this as a slight against the kids at my camp.
But intentional or not, they received the message, loud and clear, that they were not a priority. That they were not important. That they didn't really matter.
Of course, the point of the camp (and the community center in general) was to counteract exactly that type of message, and I like to believe that the veteran teachers running it did exactly that over the course of their time working with those kids. One of my favorite memories was from a thank you ceremony held in Loyola's chapel for everyone on campus who had helped arrange for the camp. Each class performed a thank you poem or song, with one group finishing with the statement: "We're from B-more, and we KNOW we're gonna be more!"
I often tell my students that one of the first things poverty takes from people is their dignity. At the very least, it makes you fight pretty damn hard for it. In the real world, fortunately, I know of a lot of people and organizations working to uphold the dignity of the people on the margins of society.* In The Wire, Bodie realizes that his dignity means nothing to the people who control his fate. It isn't something that can be commodified or used to increase profits - at best it's of no consequence, and at worst it's a liability.
*Obviously I'm biased towards the Jesuit-organized ones (Homeboy Industries, Hopeworks 'N Camden, the Ignatian Solidarity Network, the Cristo Rey network, etc.), but I'm sure you can think of plenty of organizations doing this work as well. If the stories on The Wire affected you like they did me, a great way to respond is by supporting those organizations with your time, money, or both.
Throughout the series, we see some characters surrender to this degradation, and sacrifice their dignity for whatever survival or fleeting pleasure it offers. Bodie, on the other hand, decides to make a stand for his.
In this scene (filmed not far from the neighborhood where the kids from my camp lived), Bodie talks to McNulty and offers a more eloquent description of the "ain't fit" epiphany. Instead of ending with helpless anger, however, Bodie decides to help the police build a case against Marlo. It's an act of defiance against anyone who values power and money over human beings. Despite the risk to himself, Bodie says he's willing to do it. "Just don't ask me to live on my fuckin' knees, you know?"
Shortly afterwards, Bodie is killed. When Chris and Snoop approach his corner, he opts to stand and fight, only to be executed from behind by newly-minted killer O-Dog. In many ways, it's suicide: Bodie certainly knows he has no chance against his attackers.
But in reality Bodie is affirming his life, not throwing it away. All season, we see the condemned allow themselves to be led down alleyways, knowing that they're going to be shot and left to rot in a vacant. Bodie is the only one who fights back. In doing so, he makes a final, definitive stand for his dignity. They can shoot him, kill him, but he won't be forced to live on his knees. He knows his own worth, his own humanity, and he refuses to be disposable.
"I ain't running nowhere," he says. "I'm right here!"
No comments:
Post a Comment