Raekwon "Hold your head up high, young Raekwon." His father was 6 foot tall when he walked out on him and his mother and his sisters. He liked to give Raekwon bits of advice, the type of advice which sounded like a bumper sticker or at times like a crossword clue. Raekwon had these words flooding in and out of his brain at all times. "If you do not brush your own teeth, then you will have to brush someone else's." Raekwon was baking a cake for his eldest sister's birthday. She was 6 years old. He was 12 years old. She walked in and asked Raekwon if he knew where their father was. No, he said, but it was not what he meant to say. He did know and that knowledge sat uneasily in his belly. He had flour on his hands and left hand prints on his sister's back as he grabbed her up in his arms and then told her to go out and play in the street. "Raekwon, always be good but never tell the truth if you don't have to." Raekwon's father was in a car headed elsewhere. Raekwon felt bad for his mother, but more so for his sisters. He had spent 12 years with his father, and his mother had had another year and a half on top of that, but his small sisters would never really know their father. It was better this way though. Better never knowing than living with a deeply unhappy man. "Hold your head up high, young Raekwon. No one else is going to do it for you." He forgot much of the advice Raekwon got from his father. The parts he remembered most were also the most selfish parts. Raekwon's mother never mentioned their father once he had left. Not once. <<<<<<<<<<          >>>>>>>>>>