All the Right Stuff by Walter Dean Myers

things,” Sly said. “When most people run into a problem, the first thing they do is stuff cotton in their ears and close their eyes. Most of your life, that’s what you’re going to want to do, and most of the time, it’s going to be what you do.”
    â€œYou think that Elijah has his eyes closed?”
    â€œHe means well,” Sly said, “but he’s tap-dancing across a rainbow and telling the world that it’s a bridge to the good life. It all sounds good, but it doesn’t work for us. And when a young man like you comes along, somebody with something on the cap, we need to make sure that you’re going to be useful to the tribe. We got enough nonthinking people running the streets, and enough of them behind bars or hooked up in the medicine business.”
    â€œMedicine?”
    â€œI’m talking about all these guys standing on the corners feeling sick because they can’t get around your professor’s rules and start building something that looks like the American dream,” Sly said. “When they get sick enough, they start self-medicating—smoking dip and snorting girl—to make themselves feel better or at least helping them get through the day. That’s folk medicine. The man calls it addiction. What you call it?”
    â€œI never thought about it as self … what did you say?”
    â€œSelf-medicating. People trying to ease the pain the system thinks they should bear.”
    I thought about the girl in Anthony’s film and wondered what pain she had been bearing. I wanted to think that my father had been in pain, too, and that he had been self-medicating, as Sly said.
    We pulled up on a crowded part of Thirty-second Street, in front of a Korean restaurant, and Sly got out.
    â€œKeep an eye on our passenger,” he said through the window to D-Boy. “If he tries to steal anything, shoot him.”
    D-Boy had his eyes right on me in the rearview mirror. From the corner of my eye, I could see Sly going into the restaurant. Sly had a sense of humor, and he was smart, but he also acted like he wouldn’t mind shooting you if he thought you needed it. A lot of brothers in the hood acted tough. It was a way that kept you out of trouble at times. If you acted soft, there was always somebody around ready to test you. But the stories about Sly made me think there was more to him than acting.
    â€œYou know I’m not going to steal anything,” I said, throwing out my best smile to D-Boy.
    D-Boy didn’t say anything, but he kept his eyes on me. It wasn’t a good feeling.
    Sly was in the restaurant for five minutes or so. When he got back into the car, he said that everything was cool, and D-Boy pulled off. I tried to think of something funny to say, but nothing came to mind.
    On the way back uptown, Sly was quiet. I didn’t know what he was thinking about, but I didn’t want to jump in with anything stupid. I found myself breathing shallow so I wouldn’t make much noise.
    It didn’t feel like we were going very fast, but we were passing cars on the highway. I noticed that D-Boy never said anything, but every once in a while he would kind of hunch his shoulders up and down. I wondered if he was carrying a gun.
    When we got off the highway at 145th Street, D-Boy turned on the radio, and Sly immediately turned it off.
    â€œI’m starting a new business on 145th Street,” Sly said. “I’m importing goods from Korea and China and selling it wholesale from a store I’m opening. Anybody from the neighborhood who can prove where they live can get credit. I’m going to call the place The Woods. How you like that name?”
    â€œI guess … it’s okay.”
    â€œI’m calling it The Woods because back in slavery days, that’s where we had to go to talk over our business and strategies. You like that?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œYou’re running scared, man,”