Concrete Rose

“One of them yell out, ‘Don’t let them punk you, Li’l Don and Li’l Zeke!’ It don’t matter that my pops been locked up for nine years or that King’s pops been dead almost as long. They still Big Don, the former crown, and Big Zeke, his right-hand man. That make me Li’l Don and King Li’l Zeke. Guess we not old enough to go by our own names yet.”

This moment provides an important piece of background information on Mav’s and Zeke’s fathers while establishing the complexity of Mav’s identity and relationship with his father. Even though Pops has been off the streets for nine years, within the King Lords, Mav is still viewed as a smaller version of his father. While he admires his father, it frustrates him when he isn’t viewed as his own person.

“No mother want their son in a gang, but no mother want their son dead either. Pops made so many enemies in the streets that I need somebody to have my back. He told Ma I had to join. Kinging run in my blood anyway.” 

This quote again touches on the theme of a pre-determined identity. As the son of a former King Lords leader, Mav had no choice but to join the gang himself for protection. He feels that being a King Lord runs in his blood because of his father, which makes the idea of leaving the gang or trying to chart out a different path through life feel futile.

“I look at him. I mean look at him. Yeah, I see me­—ain’t no denying he mine. More than that, I see my son. My heart balloon in my chest.” 

Mav usually suppresses strong emotions because he wants to appear manly. With his son, however, there is no way to ignore the intense love he feels. Caring for Seven will continue to help Mav experience and accept his emotions over the course of the novel.

“‘You know it’s okay to be scared, right?’

‘Scared of what? A li’l baby?’

‘Of all the stuff that come with having a li’l baby,’ Dre says. ‘First time I held Andreanna, I cried. She was so beautiful, and she was stuck with me as a father.’

I look at my son, and damn, I feel that.” 

Dre is one of Mav’s biggest supporters and motivators. Here, he models healthy emotions. Mav thinks that men aren’t supposed to cry, but Dre challenges that idea by being open and honest about the spectrum of emotions that come along with fatherhood. Mav looks up to Dre, so hearing him express his fears helps Mav identify and accept those emotions in himself.

“‘Damn. A grandson,’ he says, in awe. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Iesha named him King since she thought that was his daddy.’

‘Aw nah, man. You gotta change it,’ Pops says. ‘Zeke named King that in honor of the set. I got nothing against it or your homeboy, but your son oughta have something of his own. A name with purpose. I was real mindful when I named you. Maverick Malcolm Carter.’” 

This passage establishes the importance of names in Concrete Rose. While Zeke named King after the King Lords, Pops gave Mav a name that reflects an ability to lead and to think for himself. It’s telling that Mav’s real name is often disregarded by the King Lords in favor of the nickname Li’l Don, suggesting that membership in the King Lords inhibits Mav’s ability to think for himself. Although Pops is loyal to the King Lords, his insistence on changing baby King Jr.’s name hints at a desire to give his grandson the chance at a future outside of gang membership.

“‘Everybody knew that you slept with another girl except for me!’

‘Every didn’t know,’ I say.

‘Iesha knew! Her friends knew! King knew! I bet Dre knew, didn’t he?’

I can’t respond, ‘cause they did.

‘You know what?” Lisa murmurs. “Maybe my mom and brother are right about you.’” 

Although they both live in the Garden, Mav and Lisa had vastly different upbringings. Mav’s family is poorer and less stable than Lisa’s. Usually this doesn’t matter to Lisa. After discovering he slept with Iesha, however, Lisa sides with her family, who have long thought that Mav is not good enough for her because he deals drugs and is in a gang. This moment sets up the recurring idea of a class divide between Lisa and Mav which negatively affects their relationship and communication.

“Roses, they’re fascinating li’l things. Can handle more than folks think. I’ve had roses in full bloom during an ice storm. They could easily survive without any help. We want them to thrive.” 

Roses are a metaphor for Mav, and Mr. Wyatt’s statements about the roses’ ability to survive in the harshest of conditions apply directly to Mav’s life. Like the roses, he is adept at surviving on his own, but he finds it hard to believe in himself and allow himself to reach out for the help and care that he needs in order to thrive.

“Men ain’t supposed to cry. We supposed to be strong enough to carry out boulders and everybody else’s. What I look like crying when Aunt ‘Nita cry all the time? I gotta wipe her tears.” 

Mav’s obsession with masculinity means that he can’t allow himself catharsis after Dre’s murder. He feels that crying is something that’s reserved for women, and that his role as a man should be there to support his family. No one in Mav’s family actually wants him to repress his emotions, but he traps himself in this mindset by worrying about what others will think of him if he shows vulnerability.

“‘Weak,’ P-Nut says, behind a fake cough. The big homies smirk. I’m nothing but a joke to them.

I storm toward the church. I found Dre with bullets in his head. The least Shawn could do is let me handle the dude who killed him.

But nah. I’m just a li’l kid who can’t live up to his pops’s name. I’m gon’ prove all them fools wrong one day. Believe that.”

Mav’s relationship with his father is complicated by his fear that the big homies think he’s weaker than Pops. When Shawn tells him he can’t kill Ant, he is trying to protect Mav from the dangers of the streets, but Mav believes that he is once again being compared to his father and found lacking, which reaffirms his desire to prove himself to the gang.

“When Rico was nine, his twin brother, Tay, was killed by a stray bullet while they slept in their bunk beds. Junie’s aunt got stabbed at a block party freshman year. The Garden take somebody from everybody, and we still go hard for it. I guess it’s ‘cause it’s all we know.” 

This moment shows that Dre’s murder is far from a unique tragedy. Life in the Garden is fraught with danger for even the most innocent people. Despite this, Mav notes that the Garden’s residents feel a strong loyalty to their home because they grew up around this constant danger and are used to this way of living.

“Son, one of the biggest lies ever told is that Black men don’t feel emotions. Guess it’s easier not to see us as human when you think we’re heartless. Fact of the matter is, we feel things. Hurt, pain, sadness, all of it. We got a right to show them feelings as much as anybody else.” 

Mr. Wyatt calls out the harmful stereotype that Black men are too masculine to feel emotions. He points out how it upholds racist ideas, and he reminds Mav that he is human and entitled to feel and express negative emotions, such as his grief over Dre. This allows Mav to finally access the feelings he’s been trying to suppress since Dre’s death and cry it all out.

“Everybody get mourned by somebody, I guess. Even murderers.” 

Even though Mav has spent days wanting to kill Ant, he can’t celebrate when Ant is killed in an unrelated gang fight. Mav displays a huge capacity for empathy by recognizing that Ant had friends and family who are mourning his death just as Mav mourns Dre’s. Ant’s death has not fixed anything. Instead, it’s just put more violence and suffering out into the world. The eventual reveal that Ant did not kill Dre makes this quote even more tragic when revisited.

“‘I told you, I’m done with the street stuff,’ I say.

‘Oh, you’re no longer a King Lord? Great.’

‘You don’t get it.’

‘What’s there to get?’ she asks.

‘A lot! You don’t know how it is in the streets! Sitting in your house without a clue.’

‘Wooow.’

‘I’m just saying we from two different worlds, that’s all.’” 

Lisa has not had to struggle for survival in the way that Mav has, so it’s easy for her to ask him to leave the King Lords without understanding what a risk leaving would pose to Mav’s safety. She is often frustrated with his seeming inability to straighten out his life and plan for a better future, while he thinks that she is too privileged to understand just how limited a life that begins in poverty can be.

“Lisa depending on me, Seven depending on me, and so is my new baby. It’s real clear that I can’t do much for any of them with what Mr. Wyatt pay me. If I can’t pay a twenty-dollar co-pay, I damn sure can’t pay for diapers or food.

The way Dre wanted me to live just don’t work.

I gotta get back in the drug game.” 

Up until this point, Mav has been doing his best to live the way Dre would have wanted. Even with money getting tighter and tighter, he has avoided the temptation to get back into dealing even when that means missing out on experiences with his friends. His inability to pay for Lisa’s doctor’s appointment, however, is a turning point because it makes him realize that two babies are just too expensive to support on a single part-time paycheck. He’s going to have to return to dealing, not to make a quick extra buck, but out of his need to support his growing family.

“It kinda peeve me how life set up. Here I am, trying to make money to keep my momma’s lights on. Meanwhile, some rich brat might hit me up tomorrow, offering to spend a couple hundred for an ‘experience.’ He never think what that money mean to somebody like me. Then who gotta watch out for the cops? Not him. I’m the one who gotta glance over my shoulder 24-7.” 

There is a double standard around dealing. Mav’s wealthy, mostly-white customers can throw away hundreds of dollars on drugs just for fun, while that same amount of money might make the difference in Mav’s ability to buy essentials for his son. Even though both parties are partaking in an illegal activity, as a young Black man from the inner-city, Mav is far more likely to be caught and punished by the police than his customers are. It’s worth comparing the way that Mav’s wealthy customers indulge in drugs for fun to the experience of someone like Bus Stop Tony, whose entire life is consumed and ruined by addiction.

“Ain’t no astronauts, doctors, or veterinarians around here. Everybody I know just tryna survive, and that’s all I wanna do.” 

This quote tragically highlights how poverty can crush a person’s self-esteem and aspirations. Like every little kid, Mav had big dreams when he was younger, but life in the Garden has made him and everyone around him give up on dreaming and focus on the challenges of daily survival. Mav later admits that he would like to be a business owner, suggesting that his assertion that all he wants to do is survive is not the truth, but an attempt to protect himself from the pain of having yet another dream snuffed out.

“‘Anyway, I’m Li’l Don. Everybody expected me to join.’

‘Because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?’ Mr. Wyatt asks. ‘However, it can roll away from the tree. It simply need a little push.’” 

Mr. Wyatt doesn’t believe that the circumstances a person is born into determine their potential future. With this quote, he is assuring Mav that he can distance himself from his father’s fate if he puts in the work.

“For the first time in my life, I ain’t sure I can depend on the set. It look like Dre can’t neither.” 

The King Lords have protected Mav since he was a kid. He’s shown them loyalty while expecting loyalty in return. With Shawn and Dre in positions of power, Mav could count on being looked out for, but now that they are gone and P-Nut is in charge, that guarantee is voided. Losing the loyalty of the gang is a major shift in Mav’s life and foreshadows his eventual decision to leave the King Lords.

“What’s the point of a high school diploma or a GED? Nah, for real. People claim they’ll make my life easier, but all a high school diploma did for Ma was help her get two jobs that don’t pay enough.

Nah, man. I’m done with this school shit. It’s time to put all my focus on making money.” 

The work Mav has been doing to improve his circumstances and distance himself from the King Lords feels futile when the stress of his everyday life makes him flunk out of 12th grade. It’s hard for him to even see the value in an education when a high school diploma didn’t even help his mother out of poverty. When Mav decides to give up on school entirely, it feels like the Garden is winning, pushing him back toward the gang-oriented lifestyle that once felt like his inevitable fate.

“‘Do you love Pops?’

‘I do,’ she says. ‘I’ll always love Adonis, and I’ll always be there for him. I also have to love myself. All of that ‘ride or die’ stuff, it’s nice until you feel like you’re dying from not living. Adonis made choices that put his life at a standstill. He didn’t have to sell drugs; he chose to. I shouldn’t have to put my life on hold because of his decisions.’” 

As Mav’s life begins to parallel his father’s more and more, this conversation prompts him to step back and consider the way that Pops’s actions hurt the family. If Mav goes ahead with his plan to kill Red, he too could end up putting his life on hold and forcing his loved ones to move on without him.

“Markham ain’t meant for drug dealers who flunk outta high school and plot to kill people.” 

On Lisa’s Markham tour, Mav allows himself a rare moment to dream and starts to imagine himself attending university, until King’s page reminds him of his plan to kill Red. Because of the choices he’s made so far, Mav doesn’t feel like the kind of person who deserves the chance to dream about a happy future. Although he hasn’t yet killed anyone, he feels resigned to the role of future murderer, indicating that the small amount of self-confidence he has previously built up is gone.

“‘I won’t give you the permission or the approval you want, Maverick,’ he says. ‘You’re becoming your own man. This is your choice to make. You just make sure it’s one you can live with.’”

Mav thinks that being a man means avenging Dre’s death, and he goes to Pops seeking a stamp of approval for his decision. Although Pops has killed before, he refuses to give Mav permission to do the same. Although his phrasing indicates that he doesn’t want Mav to kill Red, he doesn’t outright say this either. Instead, he leaves the choice squarely in Mav’s hands, because to Pops, making one’s own decisions is exactly what being a man is all about. Mav’s choice in this situation will determine what kind of man he wants to be.

“If there was a book, the most important section would be on family, and the first rule would be: When somebody kills your family, you kill them.’”

When Mav first mentioned street rules, he was young and relatively carefree, concerned about losing a basketball in front of his girlfriend. Months later, this same set of rules is driving him toward a murder. He is not acting out of an organic desire to kill Red for revenge but following along with what he thinks a man has to do. He’s made great strides toward improving his life and establishing an identity outside of the King Lords, but if he decides to follow this rule, he may forfeit all of that progress if he is caught or killed.