The Other Wes Moore

Wes - Author

Wes is arrested for tagging his name on a wall. Wes becomes apprehensive about how his mother will react and comes to the realization that he has made a mistake. He realizes, “. . . [the police officer] had control of my . . . immediate fate. And I couldn't deny that it was my own stupid fault . . . The cops gave us a gift that day, and I swore I would never get caught in a situation like that again.” Wes felt he had lost control to the police officer, a feeling he never wanted to experience again. He makes a promise to himself that he would not let it happen again. In the end, getting arrested was a good experience for Wes because it gave him a glimpse of what happens if you don’t follow the law.

Valley Forge Military Academy has a steeper price tag than Riverdale and it took a lot of help to get Wes money for tuition. Valley Forge is Wes’s new home. After all of the trouble Wes had gotten in back in the Bronx, Wes’s mother decides to send him away to military school. This is one of the most influential events in Wes’s life: “[Valley Forge] was a different psychological environment, where my normal expectations were inverted, where leadership was honored and class clowns were ostracized” (96). Wes is coming from a home with no rules - no discipline. Other than the law, Wes is free to do what he pleases. This is far from the case in Valley Forge where eating and going to the bathroom requires permission and shoes are spit shined. Wes is dropped into a whole new world where he comes to realize that if he makes a mistake he is punished with harsh and immediate action. He is learning discipline.

The Other Wes

Wes - Author

Wes is making a lot of money dealing. Being in the business himself, it didn’t take Tony long to notice. Tony confronts Wes and beats him up: “Wes was so confused . . . Tony was the closest thing Wes had to a role model. But the more he copied him, the more Tony pushed back. Wes wanted to be just like Tony. Tony wanted Wes to be nothing like him” (72). Without a father to look up too, Tony was all Wes had. Tony was too deep in the drug game to get out, but Tony thought he could keep Wes out. When Tony finds out that Wes is following in his footsteps he is infuriated to the point where he hits Wes. Mary, Wes’s mother, flushes Wes’s drug stash down the toilet. This enraged Wes who had not realized that he was heading down the wrong path. The author Wes realized his mistakes and promised not to make them again, this is unlike the other Wes who does not realize that what he is doing will be harmful to his future. He will continue to make the same mistakes.

The Other Wes

While at military school, Wes has found new role models to look up too – Cadet Captain Hill among others. Cadet Captain Hill and others at Valley Forge care about Wes and have helped him come to enjoy his time there. They also care about his performance, “They made it clear that they cared if I succeeded, and eventually so did I” (115). Prior to attending Valley Forge, Wes cared little about his academic performance but now he is making a name for himself at school. He is the only sophomore on the varsity basketball team and is being recruited by camps and colleges. Wes is starting to be successful because of his disciplined environment and excellent role models. Wes is emulating those around him and he is doing excellently.

The Other Wes Moore

The influence of a nonexistent father and drug-dealing brother are beginning to take an even greater toll on Wes. Wes is becoming a father and he doesn’t know what to do: “Wes’s nonexistent relationship with his father probably contributed to his seeming indifference about becoming a father himself . . . He had no idea what his role would be in this new situation . . .” (101). Without a clue on how to raise a child, Wes leaves his pregnant girlfriend by herself. Wes finds another girl. While staying at his new girlfriend’s house, Wes runs into her ex-boyfriend, Ray. Ray attacks Wes: “Wes could only see red. He was blind with rage. Instincts kicked in. Tony’s words rang through his mind. Send a message” (104). Wes fired shots at Ray and was later arrested. Wes was only doing what he was told to do by his brother, the man he looked up too for guidance. Wes’s decisions are heavily influenced by the men in his life whether he realizes it or not. His decisions to leave his pregnant girlfriend and shoot at Ray only send him further in his life’s downward spiral.

Timeline Project

Part 2: Choices and

Second Chances

The Other Wes

By: Scott Cohn

The other Wes Moore is not doing as well as the author Wes. Wes has sporadic attendance at class and with the birth of his first born he has stopped attending all together. Also, Wes is arrested for attempting to deal drugs to an undercover cop. Unlike author Wes and reflecting on what he did wrong, other Wes is used to it, getting arrested is routine. Wes is annoyed, “Getting arrested was starting to feel routine. Wes wasn't shocked or afraid anymore, just annoyed” (114). He is stuck in a vicious cycle of getting arrested and released. Wes, like his dad, is an absent father and, like his brother, a drug dealer. He is becoming the man whom he had once met when he was six.

The Other Wes

Wes - Author

Part 3: Paths Taken and Expectations Fulfilled

The Other Wes

Wes - Author

Wes acknowledges for the first time that Valley Forge has shaped the man he wants to become. He says, ”As I started to think seriously about how I could become the person I wanted to be, I looked around at some of the people who’d had the biggest impact on my life. Aside from family and friends, the men I most trusted all had something in common: they all wore the uniform of the United States of America” (132). Those men were his mentors, his role models, those men were the ones that helped him at his lowest point and continue to help bring him up to his high potential. Wes also reflects on the different attitudes towards life of the boys he left in the Bronx. Life’s impermanence created apathy in the boys of the Bronx, it drove them to a, “. . . permanent state of mourning. . .” (133). Wes realized, “Life’s impermanence . . . is what makes every single day so precious. It’s what shapes our time here. It’s what makes it so important that not a single day be wasted” (133). Wes is becoming a man. He sees that life, in all its up and downs, is precious and not something to be wasted. In this realization, he makes the decision to stay at Valley Forge’s junior college. He wants to lead soldiers.

Wes is accepted into John Hopkins University and travels to South Africa for a semester abroad. While in South Africa, Wes learns about ubuntu. Ubuntu is not a word, but a way of life for the South Africans he meets.

Ubuntu helps him to understand the meaning of his middle name ‘Watende’, given to him by his father. Wes describes ubuntu, “The common bond of humanity and decency that we share is stronger than any conflict, any adversity, any challenge. Fighting for your convictions is important. But finding peace is paramount. Knowing when to fight and when to seek peace is wisdom. Ubuntu was right. And so was my father. Watende, my middle name, all at once made perfect sense” (168). Watende means “revenge will not be sought”. What Wes discovers is that the bond we share because we are humans is greater – will overcome – any conflict we have, and that knowing when to fight for a cause or settle for peace is true wisdom. His time at Valley Forge, his time in South Africa, and even his time in the Bronx and Baltimore all contributed to the successful and knowledgeable person he is becoming.

Wes enters the drug game; he stands on the corner with a headset and warns dealers about nearby police. However, this is not his first encounter with drugs. He first encounters drugs when he finds weed while skipping school with some friends. He was going through the closet when he finds a plastic bag: “He had just found his mother’s weed stash” (59). Wes gets high and loves it. This is the beginning of the end. Wes soon becomes reliant on drugs for income. He feels great, he has money in his pockets and girls on his arm, but his life is quickly making a turn for the worst. He is following his brother’s footsteps.

Wes, his brother, and a few others rob a jewelry store and are charged with first-degree felony murder. Wes is guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Wes had been in prison before, but this time was different: “The hands of the state would stay on him for the rest of his life . . . he’d never figured this. Maybe it was because he’d never thought long term about his life at all. Early losses condition you to believe that short-term plans are always smarter. Now Wes’s mind wandered to the long term for the first time. Finally, he could see his future” (157). Wes is discovering what author Wes discovered in high school; life’s impermanence is what makes not wasting a single day so important. His decisions early on in his life, like getting into the drug game, have led him down a path that has taken him here and that has made all the difference.

Wes's move to the Bronx was accompanied by a move to a new school. Wes is suspended for fighting and is sent to Riverdale - a predominately white private school across town. Being from a low-income part of the Bronx, Wes has difficulty fitting in: "I was becoming too 'rich' for the kids from my neighborhood and too 'poor' for the kids at school" (53). Wes's confidence takes a hit as did his grades. His mother threatens him with military school where poor performance and minor infractions are not tolerated. Wes ends up attending military school and it becomes of the greatest influences in his life.

The Other Wes

Other Wes decides that his current lifestyle is not one that is okay to have when raising a family. He is tired, “Tired of being locked up, tired of watching drugs destroy entire families, entire communities, an entire city . . . He understood that his thoughts contradicted his actions; he had long accepted that. It was just his tolerance of his own hypocrisy was wearing thin” (138). Wes wants to make a change in his life. He talks to his friend Levy who sets him up with Job Corps, a program that would get him a GED and a job. Wes did well in Job Corps. He earned his GED and was helping other students get their own. He was becoming a leader just as he was on the streets of Baltimore. Then he went home and was haunted by his past. He walked into the kitchen, “Muscle memory kicked in . . . Wes held the plastic bag with both hands and poured in nine ounces of cocaine” (145). Wes had almost gotten away from the drug life but his old habits prevail. He

has made his first mistake back home. All of his improvement just disappeared. He is back on his

downward spiral and nothing good is to come of it.

The Other Wes

COCAINE

The other Wes did not have a father who was present in his life. The author Wes's father died, leaving him with a feeling of sadness and longing. The other Wes' father left by choice and Wes only met him when he was six: "Mary . . . uttered the words she had never said before and never thought she would have to say. 'Wes, meet your father'"(25). Wes had no father, that man helped conceived Wes but he played no role in raising him. Wes had an older brother who became his role model. His lack of a father affected him greater as he got older.

LEADERSHIP

Birth

The Other Wes

Wes - Author

Tony, Wes's older brother, becomes his role model. Tony was deep in the drug game and tried to keep Wes out. Tony tried, ". . . to give his little brother information he thought he needed, the kind of information that Tony never got. Tony felt his brothers life could be saved. . . "(27). Wes tries to emulate his brother because he was the only man he could look up too. One of Wes's friends, Woody, has both parents. Wes loves hanging out with Woody because, ". . . Wes enjoyed the simple fact that Woody's father was there" (30). Wes desperately wants, and needs, a male figure to look up too. Unfortunately, the ones he chooses are not model citizens. Wes, to Tony's dismay, begins to act like him.

A male influence, like one provided by a father, is important for development in a boys life. A father-figure teaches the boy how to be man and treat women in a way that no mother could. Wes's father dies when he is three years old: "While I knew something bad had happened, I still wasn't sure what it meant . . . I heard that my father had 'passed on' but had no idea where he'd gone"(15). The lack of a father-figure had a profound influence on Wes as he grew up in a female dominated household with no significant male presence. He was the man of the house.

Wes - Author

In 1982, Wes moves away from Baltimore and into the Bronx. Wes's mother is still coping with the death of her husband and she needs help: "She was losing her grip. She needed help only her parents could provide" (37). Wes's mother iss unable to take care of her children alone and she seeks help from her parents. Wes and his family arrive at his grandparents where Wes soon discovers his love of basketball. The guys he meets on the court served as his support group: "We were . . . Showing one another our best and worst, revealing ourselves - even our cruelty and crimes - as if that fence had created a circle of trust. A brotherhood" (45). Wes has found boys to look up too. Basketball becomes his passion and he plays throughout high school. It allows him to connect with other guys in his neighborhood, it gives him a feeling of safety and belonging.

Part 1: Fathers and Angels