New York State Literary Center

A Couple of Lesson Left

Industry Residential Center

2003

Dale Davis, Founder and Executive Director of NYSLC, adapted the writing of the young men with whom she worked in a ten-day residency at Industry Residential Center, Rush, New York in 2003 to create A Couple of Lessons Left.

INTRODUCTION TO A COUPLE OF LESSON LEFT

I rode the tide of hip-hop in the play, hip-hop, the most important influence in young American culture. Russell Simmons stated, “If I am in a high school in a ghetto right now, and I ask, ‘Who writes poetry?,’ or ‘How many of you have a book of rhymes?,’ eighty percent of the class raises their hands” (Jon Paraeles, “A New Platform for New Poets,” The New York Times, November 10, 2002). Adjudicated young men had rhyme books.

I began with hip-hop, poetry, and rhyme books. There were no funds for sets or costumes.

I began aware that the play would be performed on a minimally dressed set by young men most of whom had never read a play or seen a play, never mind help write or perform in one.

My work in NYSLC emanates from my belief that art that can be a vehicle for marginalized young people to express themselves. For A Couple of Lesson Left I worked with time constraints. Given the time constraints, I knew the play would have to build accidentally, not in a linear fashion. This is why I chose to work within a tradition that forged style from spare parts. We had no money for costumes and sets and ten days. We had teenagers with rhyme books whose ears were penned to rap, imagination, our ten days, and the orange jumpsuits adjudicated youth wear when they are transported from one facility to another.

We had hip-hop, “an attitude, one that can be nonverbal as well as eloquent. It communicates frustration, community, and aggression, creativity, and street reality, style and substance” (Russell Simmons, Life and Def, New York: Crown Publishers, 2001).

I conceived A Couple of Lesson Left as a vehicle for the young men to communicate their lives, their worlds, and their thoughts on the system that locked them up in their own language, so that together we all might begin a dialogue.

I want to write away

I want to write here

I want to write brave words to fight fear

Write dreams and nightmares

Talib Kweli. “Stand To The Side.” Quality. New York: Rawkus Entertainment, 2002.

Introduction

Dale Davis

FROM THE SCRIPT, A COUPLE OF LESSON LEFT

Me, I’m from the city, the inner city of Rochester where kids my age die every day over envy, money, and drugs. Drugs, the Number One cause of death. At night gun shots speed through the hood. Out of one of those shots somebody is always hit. Three minutes later, I hear the sirens of the police and the ambulance. Then come the newscasters and the people in the hood.

I thought to myself this would never happen if it wasn’t for the drugs, the money, the envy. It seemed that the kid who was shot always went to the same school as I did or he lived only three houses down from me. I always asked why did this have to happen. I always wondered what did we do to deserve this.

There was never any answer.

. . . .

I don’t believe anybody wants to be locked-up, but all of us have done something to get locked-up. For most of us if we had not done what we did we would not have had food or the clothes we had.

I believe God will understand why we did what we did.

The question is will we do it again? If we did it once, will we do it again?

When we sleep, we all think about what we have done. We hope we won’t do it again. In our sleep we see what we have done over and over.

. . . .

I’ve been lost for so long,

could barely hold on. I’ve done wrong.

I’m not trying to get rolled on.

Nope,

I’m trying to cope

while I travel this road,

staying whole,

but don’t know how long I can hold on.

I’m giving all

not to let go.

In this life

jail is trapped in a box

of hungry stomachs and dirty socks

and fighting with cops and mac and cheese in a pot,

dirty spots, front door, broken locks,

go to school and get mocked,

rather hustle on the block,

sell, snatch, get paid, get props,

come home pockets with a knot,

but not knowing when you’ll get caught, robbed, or shot.

Standing on a corner if it’s cold or hot.

Go home sleep with roaches in your cot

and parents with an addiction they can’t stop.

Drug money is the cream of the crop,

steal when you shop.

The pressure builds up until you’re ready to pop,

trying to be something you’re not.

Brag about what you bought with slick thought,

Untouchable when you get locked.

Just a touch of the ghetto.

I’ve been through it,

seen it happen a lot.

I’ve been lost for so long,

could barely hold on. I’ve done wrong.

I’m not trying to get rolled on.

Nope,

I’m trying to cope

while I travel this road,

staying whole,

but don’t know how long I can hold on

I’m giving all

not to let go.

It’s not my fault

what I did I did for myself,

did for the pain of the belt,

did, for the clouds and the rain that I felt.

Stress got me ready to melt.

They’d rather turn their heads and throw me in jail.

Where I grew up

the only thing I knew how to do was rebel.

Never got letters or bills in the mail,

foster homes,

disrespecting moms

never saw she was a pearl.

All school wanted to do was write me referrals

because school didn’t see what I saw in the world.

My daily struggle

I got as high as the Hubble,

screamed at the top of my lungs.

We bury each other when we should bury the shovel.

Domestic violence every night,
I pray for my guardian angel.

It’s sad to see how death and poverty change you.

What you do to survive

the judge uses to blame you

so, they tame you

put you in a cell, physically drain you.

It’s mentally painful.

How many pushed cain for a range

and now are staring out a caged window

watching the seasons change?

They just want to be claimed,

looking for love in this desolate place.

I’ve been lost for so long,

could barely hold on. I’ve done wrong.

I’m not trying to get rolled on.

Nope,

I’m trying to cope

while I travel this road,

staying whole,

but don’t know how long I can hold.

I’m giving all

not to let go.

. . . .

Through working on this play, I was able to express my feelings. I hope that you will hear me, and together we can make a change. I felt like I was holding a large load, holding all my feelings in. Now I feel a lot better.

Everybody wants the American Dream,

big house, nice car, nice family,

but in the hood all we have to look up to

is money in our pockets and a good meal for the day.

There aren’t many choices

for us young people in the hood.

We hustle to feed our families.

If there were better jobs for young people

and better schools

maybe this wouldn’t happen.

Maybe this would not have happened to me.

All I want to know is

why is there money to build prisons

and not to bring jobs into our neighborhoods?

Why?