Barack Obama Dreams from My Father

the area. Walking Johnnie and me to the door, Asante asked me about my name, and I told him about my

background.

“I thought so!” Asante smiled. “You know, that’s where I went for my first trip to the continent. Kenya.

Fifteen years ago, but I remember that trip like it was yesterday. Changed my life forever. The people were

so welcoming. And the land-I’d never seen anything so beautiful. It really felt like I had come home.” His

face glowed with the memory. “When was the last time you were back?”

I hesitated. “Actually, I’ve never been there.”

Asante looked momentarily confused. “Well…” he said after a pause, “I’m sure that when you do make

the trip, it’ll change your life, too.” With that, he shook our hands, waved in the young man waiting in the

hall, and shut the door behind him.

Johnnie and I were quiet for most of the ride back to our office. We hit a patch of traffic, and Johnnie

turned and said, “Can I ask you something, Barack?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m scared of what I’ll find out.”

“Huh.” Johnnie lit a cigarette and rolled down the window to let out the smoke. “It’s funny,” he said,

“how listening to Asante back there made me think about my old man. I mean, it’s not like my old man is

real educated or nothing. He doesn’t know anything about Africa. After my mother died, he had to raise me

and my brothers on his own. Drove a delivery truck for Spiegel’s for twenty years. They laid him off before

his pension vested, so he’s still working-for another company, but doing the same thing every day. Lifting

other people’s furniture.

“Never seemed like he really enjoyed life, you know what I mean? On weekends, he’d just hang

around the house, and some of my uncles would come over and they’d drink and listen to music. They’d

complain about what their bosses had done to ’em this week. The Man did this. The Man did that. But if one

of ’em actually started talking about doing something different, or had a new idea, the rest of ’em would just

tear the guy up. ‘How’s some no-’count nigger like you gonna start himself a business?’ one of ’em’d say.

And somebody else’d say, ‘Take that glass away from Jimmy-that wine done gone to his head.’ They’d all

be laughing, but I could tell they weren’t laughing inside. Sometimes, if I was around, my uncles’d start

talking about me. ‘Hey, boy, that sure is a knobby head you got.’ ‘Hey, boy, you starting to sound just like a

white man, with all them big words.’”

Johnnie blew a stream of smoke into the hazy air. “When I was in high school, I got to feeling ashamed

of him. My old man, I mean. Working like a dog. Sitting there, getting drunk with his brothers. I swore I’d

never end up like that. But you know, when I thought about it later, I realized my old man never laughed

when I talked about wanting to go to college. I mean, he never said anything one way or the other, but he

always made sure me and my brother got up for school, that we didn’t have to work, that we had a little

walking-around money. The day I graduated, I remember he showed up in a jacket and tie, and he just

shook my hand. That’s all…just shook my hand, then went back to work….”

Johnnie stopped talking; the traffic cleared. I started thinking about those posters back in Asante’s

office-posters of Nefertiti, regal and dark-hued in her golden throne; and Shaka Zulu, fierce and proud in his

leopard-skin tunic-and then further back to that day years ago, before my father came for his visit to Hawaii,

when I had gone to the library in search of my own magic kingdom, my own glorious birthright. I wondered

how much difference those posters would make to the boy we had just left in Asante’s office. Probably not

as much as Asante himself, I thought. A man willing to listen. A hand placed on a young man’s shoulders.

“He was there,” I said to Johnnie.

“Who?”

Johnnie scratched his arm. “Yeah, Barack. I guess he was.”

“You ever tell him that?”

“Naw. We’re not real good at talking.” Johnnie looked out the window, then turned to me. “Maybe I

should though, huh.”

“Yeah, John,” I said, nodding. “Maybe you should.”

network, something to provide at-risk teenagers with mentoring and tutorial services and to involve parents

in a long-term planning process for reform. It was an exciting project, but my mind was elsewhere. When

the proposal was finished, I told Johnnie that I’d be gone for a few days but that he should go ahead with

some of the meetings we’d scheduled, to start lining up broader support.

“Where’re you going?” he asked me.

“To see my brother.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“I haven’t had one that long.”

The next morning, I flew down to Washington, D.C., where my brother Roy now lived. We had first

spoken to each other during Auma’s visit to Chicago; she had told me then that Roy had married an

American Peace Corps worker and had moved to the States. One day we had called him up just to say

hello. He had seemed happy to hear from us, his voice deep and unruffled, as if we had talked only

yesterday. His job, his wife, his new life in America-everything was “lovely,” he said. The word rolled out of

him slowly, the syllables drawn out. “Looove-leee.” A visit from me would be “fan-taaas-tic.” Staying with

him and his wife would be “nooo prooob-lem.” After we got off the phone, I had told Auma that he sounded

well. She looked at me doubtfully.

“Yah, you never know with Roy,” she had said. “He doesn’t always show his true feelings. He’s like the

Old Man in that way. In fact, although they didn’t get along, he really reminds me of the Old Man in many

ways. At least that’s how he was in Nairobi. I haven’t seen him since David’s funeral, though, so maybe

marriage has settled him down.”

She didn’t say much more than that; I should get to know him for myself, she said. And so Roy and I

had arranged a visit; I would fly to D.C. for the long weekend, we would see the sights, it would be a

wonderful time. Only now, as I searched the emptying gate at National, Roy was nowhere to be found. I

called his house and he answered, sounding apologetic.

“Listen, brother-you think maybe you can stay in a hotel tonight?”

“Why? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing serious. It’s just, well, me and the wife, we had a little argument. So having you here tonight

might not be so good, you understand?”

“Sure. I-”

“You call me when you find a hotel, okay? We’ll meet tonight and have dinner. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

I checked into the cheapest room I could find and waited. At nine, I heard a knock. When I opened the

door, I found a big man standing there with his hands in his pockets, an even-toothed grin breaking across

his ebony face.

“Hey, brother,” he said. “How’s life?”

In the pictures I had of Roy, he was slender, dressed in African print, with an Afro, a goatee, a

mustache. The man who embraced me now was much heavier, over two hundred pounds, I guessed, the

flesh on his cheeks pressing out beneath a thick pair of glasses. The goatee was gone; the African shirt had

been replaced by a gray sports coat, white shirt, and tie. Auma had been right, though; his resemblance to

the Old Man was unnerving. Looking at my brother, I felt as if I were ten years old again.

“You’ve gained some weight,” I said as we walked to his car.

Roy looked down at his generous belly and gave it a pat. “Eh, it’s this fast food, man. It’s everywhere.

McDonald’s. Burger King. You don’t even have to get out of the car to have these things. Two all-beef

patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese. The Double Whopper with cheese.” He shook his head. “They tell

me I can have it right away. My way! Fantastic!”

He threw back his head to laugh, a magical, inward sound that made his whole body shake, as if he

couldn’t get over the wonders this new life had to offer. It was infectious, his laughter-although I wasn’t

laughing as we made our way to dinner. His Toyota was too small for his bulk-he looked like a kid in a

carnival bumper car-and it didn’t seem as if he’d yet mastered a stick shift or the rules of the road, including

the speed limit. Twice we almost collided with oncoming cars; once, at a turn, we careened over a high

curb.

“You always drive this way?” I shouted over the music blasting out of his tape deck.

Especially since the accident…”

“What accident?”

“Ah, it was nothing. You see I’m still here. Alive and breathing!” And again he laughed and shook his

head, as if the car worked independently of him, as if our safe arrival would be yet one more example of

God’s ample blessings.

The restaurant was Mexican, beside a marina, and we chose a table with a view out over the water. I

ordered a beer, Roy a margarita, and for a while we made small talk about my work and his accounting job

at a large mortgage finance company. He ate with gusto, drank a second margarita; he laughed and joked

about his adventures in America. But as the meal wore on, the effort he was making began to show.

Eventually, I came around to asking him why his wife hadn’t joined us. His smile evaporated.

“Ah, I think we’re getting divorced,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“She says she’s tired of me staying out late. She says I drink too much. She says I’m becoming just

like the Old Man.”

“What do you think?”

“What do I think?” He lowered his head, then looked at me somberly, the flame of the tea candles

dancing like tiny bonfires across the lenses of his glasses. “The truth is,” he said, leaning his weight forward,

“I don’t think I really like myself. And I blame the Old Man for this.”

For the next hour, he recounted all the hard times that Auma had spoken of-of being yanked away from

his mother and everything familiar; the Old Man’s sudden descent into poverty; the arguments and

breakdown and eventual flight. He told me about his life after leaving our father’s house; how, bouncing

from relative to relative, he had gained admission to the University of Nairobi, then secured a job with a

local accounting firm after graduation; how he had taught himself the discipline of work, always arriving at

his job early and completing his tasks no matter how late he was out the night before. Listening to him, I felt

the same admiration that I’d felt when listening to Auma talk about her life, the resilience they had both

displayed, the same stubborn strength that had lifted them out of bad circumstances. Except in Auma I had

also sensed a willingness to put the past behind her, a capacity to somehow forgive, if not necessarily

forget. Roy’s memories of the Old Man seemed more immediate, more taunting; for him the past remained

an open sore.

“Nothing was ever good enough for him,” he told me as the busboy took our plates away. “He was

smart, and he couldn’t ever let you forget. If you came home with the second best grades in the class, he

would ask why you weren’t first. ‘You are an Obama,’ he would say. ‘You should be the best.’ He would

really believe this. And then I would see him drunk, with no money, living like a beggar. I would ask myself,

How can someone so smart fall so badly? It made no sense to me. No sense.

“Even after I was living on my own, even after his death, I would try to figure out this puzzle. It was as if

I couldn’t escape him. I remember we had to take his body to Alego for the funeral, and as the eldest son, I

was responsible for making the arrangements. The government wanted a Christian burial. The family

wanted a Muslim burial. People came to Home Square from everywhere, and we had to mourn him

according to Luo tradition, burning a log for three days, listening to people cry and moan. Half these people,

I didn’t even know who they were. They wanted food. They wanted beer. Some people whispered that the

Old Man had been poisoned, that I must take revenge. Some people stole things from the house. Then our

relatives began to fight about the Old Man’s inheritance. The Old Man’s last girlfriend, the mother of our

baby brother, George-she wanted everything. Some people, like our Aunt Sarah, sided with her. Others

lined up with my mum’s side of the family. I’m telling you, it was crazy! Everything seemed to be going

wrong.

younger brother. That guy, let me tell you, he was okay. He looked like you a little bit, only younger…fifteen,

sixteen. His mother, Ruth, had tried to raise him like an American. But David, he rebelled. He loved

everybody, you see. He ran away from home and came to live with me. I told him he should go home, but

he refused. He didn’t want to be an American, he said. He was an African. He was an Obama.

“When David died, that was it for me. I was sure our whole family was cursed. I started drinking,

fighting-I didn’t care. I figured if the Old Man could die, if David could die, that I would have to die, too.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had stayed in Kenya. As it was, there was Nancy, this

American girl I had been seeing. She’d returned to the States, so one day I just called her and said I wanted

to come. When she said yes, I bought a ticket and caught the next plane out. I didn’t pack, or tell my office,

or say goodbye to anyone, or anything.

“I thought I could start over, you see. But now I know you can never start over. Not really. You think

you have control, but you are like a fly in somebody else’s web. Sometimes I think that’s why I like

accounting. All day, you are only dealing with numbers. You add them, multiply them, and if you are careful,

you will always have a solution. There’s a sequence there. An order. With numbers, you can have

control….”

Roy took another sip from his drink, and suddenly his speech slowed, as if he’d dropped deep into

another place, as if our father had taken possession of him. “I am the oldest, you see. In Luo tradition, I am

now head of the household. I am responsible for you, and for Auma, and for all the younger boys. It’s my

responsibility to set things right. To pay the boys’ school fees. To see that Auma is properly married. To

build a proper house and bring the family together.”

I reached across the table and touched his hand. “You don’t have to do it alone, brother,” I said. “We

can share the load.”

But it was as if he hadn’t heard me. He just stared out the window, and then, as if snapping out of a

trance, he waved the waitress over.

“You want another drink?”

“Why don’t we just get the check?”

Roy looked at me and smiled. “I can tell you worry too much, Barack. That’s my problem, as well. I

think we need to learn to go with the flow. Isn’t that what you say in America? Just go with the flow.…” Roy

laughed again, loud enough for the people at the next table to turn around. Only the magic was gone out of

it now; it sounded hollow, as if it were traveling across a vast, empty distance.
I caught a flight out the next day-Roy needed to spend some time with his wife, and I didn’t have the

money for another night at the hotel. We had breakfast together, and in the morning light he seemed in

better spirits. At the airport gate, we shook hands and hugged, and he promised to come visit me once

things had settled down. The entire flight back to Chicago, though, and through the rest of the weekend, I

couldn’t rid myself of the sense that Roy was in danger somehow, that old demons were driving him toward

an abyss, and that if only I was a better brother, my intervention would prevent his fall.

Roy was still on my mind when Johnnie walked into my office late Monday afternoon.

“You’re back early,” Johnnie said. “How was your trip?”

“It was good. Good to see my brother.” I nodded, tapping on the edge of my desk. “So what happened

while I was gone?”

Johnnie dropped into a chair. “Well,” he said, “we met with the state senator. He committed to

introducing a bill to get funding for a pilot program. Maybe not the whole half million, but enough.”

“That’s terrific. How about the high school principals?”

“Just got back from a meeting with Dr. King, the principal at Asante’s school. The rest of ’em haven’t

returned my calls.”

“That’s all right. What did Dr. King have to say?”

“Oh, he was all smiles,” Johnnie said. “Said he really liked the proposal. He got real excited when he

heard we might get funding. Said he’d encourage the other principals to work with us and that we’d have his

full support. ‘Nothing’s more important than saving our youth,’ he said.”

“Sounds good.”

“Right. Sounds good. So then, I’m about to walk out of his office when suddenly he gives me this.”

Johnnie reached into his briefcase, pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to me. I read over a few lines

before handing it back.

“A résumé?”

“Not just any résumé, Barack. His wife’s résumé. Seems she’s kinda bored

around the house, see, and Dr. King thinks she’d make an ‘excellent’ director for our program. No pressure,

you understand. Just once the money is allocated, some consideration, you know what I mean.”

“He gave you his wife’s résumé-”

“Not just his wife’s résumé.” Johnnie reached into his briefcase and pulled out another

piece of paper, waving it in the air. “Got his daughter’s, too! Tells me she’d make an ‘excellent’ counselor-”

“Naw-”

“I’m telling you, Barack, he had the whole thing figured out. And you know what? The whole time we’re

unbelievable.” Johnnie shook his head, then suddenly shouted out like a preacher. “Yessuh! Doctah Lonnie

King! Now there’s a brother with some nerve! An enterprising brother! Program hasn’t even started yet, he’s

already thinking ahead.”

I started to laugh.

“He don’t just want one job! He gotta have two! Go in to talk about some kids, he gonna hand you his

whole goddamn family’s résumé….”

I shouted out, catching the spirit. “Doctah Lonnie King!”

“Yessuh! Doctah Lonnie King!” Johnnie started to giggle, which made me laugh even harder, until soon

we were doubled over in loud guffaws, catching our breath only long enough to repeat that name again-

“Doctah Lonnie King!”-as if it now contained the most obvious truth, the most basic element in an elemental

world. We laughed until our faces were hot and our sides hurt, until tears came to our eyes, until we felt

emptied out and couldn’t laugh anymore, and decided to take the rest of the afternoon off and go find

ourselves a beer.

teenage boys and a set of stereo speakers so loud that the floor of my apartment begins to shake. I’ve

learned to ignore such disturbances-where else do they have to go? I say to myself. But on this particular

evening I have someone staying over; I know that my neighbors next door have just brought home their

newborn child; and so I pull on some shorts and head downstairs for a chat with our nighttime visitors. As I

approach the car, the voices stop, the heads within all turn my way.

“Listen, people are trying to sleep around here. Why don’t y’all take it someplace else.”

The four boys inside say nothing, don’t even move. The wind wipes away my drowsiness, and I feel

suddenly exposed, standing in a pair of shorts on the sidewalk in the middle of the night. I can’t see the

faces inside the car; it’s too dark to know how old they are, whether they’re sober or drunk, good boys or

bad. One of them could be Kyle. One of them could be Roy. One of them could be Johnnie.

One of them could be me. Standing there, I try to remember the days when I would have been sitting in

a car like that, full of inarticulate resentments and desperate to prove my place in the world. The feelings of

righteous anger as I shout at Gramps for some forgotten reason. The blood rush of a high school brawl. The

swagger that carries me into a classroom drunk or high, knowing that my teachers will smell beer or reefer

on my breath, just daring them to say something. I start picturing myself through the eyes of these boys, a

figure of random authority, and know the calculations they might now be making, that if one of them can’t

take me out, the four of them certainly can.

That knotted, howling assertion of self-as I try to pierce the darkness and read the shadowed faces

inside the car, I’m thinking that while these boys may be weaker or stronger than I was at their age, the only

difference that matters is this: The world in which I spent those difficult times was far more forgiving. These

boys have no margin for error; if they carry guns, those guns will offer them no protection from that truth.

And it is that truth, a truth that they surely sense but can’t admit and, in fact, must refuse if they are to wake

up tomorrow, that has forced them, or others like them, eventually to shut off access to any empathy they

may once have felt. Their unruly maleness will not be contained, as mine finally was, by a sense of sadness

at an older man’s injured pride. Their anger won’t be checked by the intimation of danger that would come

upon me whenever I split another boy’s lip or raced down a highway with gin clouding my head. As I stand

there, I find myself thinking that somewhere down the line both guilt and empathy speak to our own buried

sense that an order of some sort is required, not the social order that exists, necessarily, but something

more fundamental and more demanding; a sense, further, that one has a stake in this order, a wish that, no

matter how fluid this order sometimes appears, it will not drain out of the universe. I suspect that these boys

will have to search long and hard for that order-indeed, any order that includes them as more than objects

of fear or derision. And that suspicion terrifies me, for I now have a place in the world, a job, a schedule to

follow. As much as I might tell myself otherwise, we are breaking apart, these boys and me, into different

tribes, speaking a different tongue, living by a different code.

The engine starts, and the car screeches away. I turn back toward my apartment knowing that I’ve

been both stupid and lucky, knowing that I am afraid after all.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

need of tuck-pointing and perhaps a new roof. The sanctuary was dark, with several pews that had cracked