Free Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur

understand why i was so angry. As a matter of fact, even i didn't understand. Then.
    Outside of school was a whole 'nother matter. When i wasn't doing homework or chores, i would go "exploring." My bicycle was one of the great loves of my life. I would jump on it and ride all over Queens. Sometimes on Saturdays or Sundays i would ride all day long, leaving early in the morning and returning as late as i was allowed to. And if i wasn't on my bicycle, i was somewhere playing with my friends. We played everything from house to handball. I played with the boys more than with the girls because the boys had better games. I loved punch ball and handball, anything that involved running. The playground was right across the street from my house and i took full advantage of everything that was there. I played hopscotch, marbles, and cowboys and Indians. I always wanted to be an Indian and would hide over or under something and leap out shrieking at the top of my lungs. I guess i was unusual in that respect, because most of the kids wanted to be cowboys.
    I was always rough and clumsy and i played everything as if my life depended on it. Some of the girls didn't like to play with me because they said i was too rough. And i was always excluded from the rope-jumping sessions. I was too clumsy to jump double-Dutch and they didn't even like me to turn because they said i was "uneven-handed."
    But i always had one best friend and she was always a girl. I had other friends to play with and hang out with, but i always had one special friend that i could really talk to. We would go to the candy store and the movies and places like that and we would sit and talk for hours about just anything. By the time i reached the sixth grade, i began to idolize and imitate the big kids who went to junior high school. I couldn't wait to grow up. The grownup world was so exciting, and when you were grown up you could do anything you wanted to. Besides, i was beginning to feel different. I was beginning to be interested in boys.
     
    CRACKERJACKS
    I coulda told you,
in the old days,
in the park,
or skating down some hill what it was all about.
    I coulda sat next to you
on some stairway
and gave you half my bubblegum, and, in between the bubbles
and the giggles,
I coulda told you.
    But we are grown up now. And it is all so complicated when you dig somebody.
    Now, when i open up my crackerjacks, I find no heart-shaped ring.
Only a puzzle
that i don't wanna solve.
     

Chapter 3
    It seemed like the middle of the night. Some one was calling me. Waking me up. What did they want? Suddenly i was aware of all kinds of activity. Police, the crackling of walkie-talkies. The place was buzzing.
    "Here, put this on," one of them said, handing me a bathrobe.
    "What's going on?" i asked.
    "You're being moved.”
    "Where am i being moved to?”
    "You'll find out when you get there.”
    A wheelchair was waiting. I figured they were taking me to jail. There was a caravan of police cars outside the hospital. It looked like i was gonna be in a parade again.
    The ride was pleasant. Just looking at houses and trees and people passing by in cars was good. We arrived at the prison at sunrise, in the middle of no where. It was an ugly, two-story brick building. They pushed me up the stairs to the second floor.
    I was put in a cell with two doors. A door of bars was on the inside, and directly outside of that was a heavy metal door with a tiny peephole that i could barely see through. The cell contained a cot with a rough green blanket on it and a dirty white wooden bench with a hundred names scratched on it. Adjacent to the cell was the bathroom, with a sink, a toilet, and a shower. Hanging above the sink was the bottom of a pot or pan. It was supposed to serve as a mirror, but i could barely see myself in it. There was one window covered by three thick metal screens facing a parking lot, a field, and, in the distance, a wooded area.
    I walked around the cell, to the bath, to the