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The truth came spilling out. Of course she’d known: the car. It had been missing the whole time. I’d been so wrapped up in dealing with jail and covering my tracks I’d forgotten that the proof of my crime was right there in the yard, the red Mazda missing from the driveway. And of course when I called my friend and he’d asked his dad for the money for the lawyer, the dad had pressed him on what the money was for and, being a parent himself, had called my mother immediately. She’d given my friend the money to pay the lawyer. She’d given my cousin the money to pay my bail. I’d spent the whole week in jail thinking I was so slick. But she’d known everything the whole time. “I know you see me as some crazy old bitch nagging at you,” she said, “but you forget the reason I ride you so hard and give you so much shit is because I love you. Everything I have ever done I’ve done from a place of love. If I don’t punish you, the world will punish you even worse. The world doesn’t love you. If the police get you, the police don’t love you. When I beat you, I’m trying to save you. When they beat you, they’re trying to kill you.”
M y favorite thing to eat as a kid, and still my favorite dessert of all time, was custard and jelly, what Americans would call Jell-O. One Saturday my mom was planning for a big family celebration and she made a huge bowl of custard and jelly and put it in the fridge. It had every flavor: red, green, and yellow. I couldn’t resist it. That whole day, every time I walked past the fridge I’d pop my head in with a spoon and sneak a bite. This was a giant bowl, meant to last for a week for the whole family. I finished it in one day by myself. That night I went to bed and I got absolutely butchered by mosquitoes. Mosquitoes love to feast on me, and when I was a kid it was bad. They would destroy me at night. I would wake up covered with bites and feel ill to my stomach and itchy all over. Which was exactly what happened this particular Sunday morning. Covered with mosquito bites, my stomach bloated with custard and jelly, I could barely get out of bed. I felt like I was going to vomit. Then my mom walked in. “Get dressed,” she said. “We’re going to church.” “I don’t feel well.” “That’s why we’re going to church. That’s where Jesus is going to heal you.” “Eh, I’m not sure that’s how it works.” My mom and I had different ideas about how Jesus worked. She believed that you pray to Jesus and then Jesus pitches up and does the thing that you need. My views on Jesus were more reality-based. “Why don’t I take medicine,” I said, “and then pray to Jesus to thank him for giving us the doctors who invented medicine, because medicine is what makes you feel better, not Jesus.” “You don’t need medicine if you have Jesus. Jesus will heal you. Pray to Jesus.” “But is medicine not a blessing from Jesus? And if Jesus gives us medicine and we do not take the medicine, are we not denying the grace that he has given us?” Like all of our debates about Jesus, this conversation went nowhere. “Trevor,” she said, “if you don’t go to church you’re going to get worse. You’re lucky you got sick on Sunday, because now we’re going to church and you can pray to Jesus and Jesus is going to heal you.” “That sounds nice, but why don’t I just stay home?” “No. Get dressed. We’re going to church.”
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Copyright © 2016 by Trevor Noah Al
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IMMORALITY ACT, 1927 To prohibit il
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RUN Sometimes in big Hollywood movi
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like bouncers at a club, and hold t
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failed her she’d use her wits. If
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you stealing our customers? Why are
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there, this little boy and his mom,
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BORN A CRIME I grew up in South Afr
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Many of the prostitutes in town wer
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he hadn’t, but once I existed he
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Traveling around the world today, I
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TREVOR, PRAY I grew up in a world r
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That’s all she did, all day, ever
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speakeasy. The shebeens were where
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using sonar. Every time she called
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praying continued. It went on for s
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CHAMELEON One afternoon I was playi
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As a kid I understood that people w
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was an ocean of black, like someone
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Before apartheid, any black South A
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and uncles had gone off to the citi
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through those. My books were my pri
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If we weren’t at school or work o
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Apartheid, for all its power, had f
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at school used overhead projectors
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She shrugged again. “So sad. I ho
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“What?” “Look, did you or did
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When I was seven years old, my moth
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I grew up in a black family in a bl
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oth. She brought them home, and I w
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They went back and forth. This woma
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ROBERT My father is a complete myst
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dad’s, where we’d watch Formula
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A bottle of Sprite. Custard with ca
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W hen Dutch colonists landed at the
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your grandfather couldn’t keep hi
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Things like that happened a lot. I
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Revenge truly is sweet. It takes yo
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A YOUNG MAN’S LONG, AWKWARD, OCCA
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Valentine’s card and the flowers
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OUTSIDER After finishing primary sc
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work for it—and I still get my br
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A YOUNG MAN’S LONG, AWKWARD, OCCA
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me the digits one by one as I wrote
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COLORBLIND At Sandringham I got to
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pedestrian out for a stroll. Once I
Page 99 and 100: “Is it David?” “No.” “Ria
Page 102 and 103: A YOUNG MAN’S LONG, AWKWARD, OCCA
Page 104 and 105: I got up onstage and Tom did some t
Page 106 and 107: There was a red Mazda that we’d h
Page 108 and 109: hair and started painting this crea
Page 110 and 111: “Are you ready?” I said. “Let
Page 112: I’d been dating a girl for over a
Page 115 and 116: GO HITLER! When I was in grade nine
Page 117 and 118: Business was booming. By matric I w
Page 119 and 120: Back then, most DJs could spin for
Page 121 and 122: someone must be the toughest guy of
Page 123 and 124: My mind was racing, trying to figur
Page 125 and 126: THE CHEESE BOYS My friend Bongani w
Page 127 and 128: settlement going on. Third, Fourth,
Page 129 and 130: In the hood, even if you’re not a
Page 131 and 132: “But who did this belong to?” I
Page 133 and 134: “Hey, let’s make a deal. We’l
Page 135 and 136: Everyone must know that your succes
Page 137 and 138: e a whole lot harder for an investm
Page 139 and 140: O nce, when I was ten years old, vi
Page 141 and 142: lesson, and now that lesson is the
Page 143 and 144: me aside and told me what I was in
Page 145 and 146: first night, everyone was giving me
Page 147 and 148: couldn’t afford anything but a st
Page 149: “I-I’m not fine, Your Honor. I
Page 153 and 154: could lift car engines and gearboxe
Page 155 and 156: Xhosa woman no less, a culture whos
Page 157 and 158: “Respect?! You almost burned down
Page 159 and 160: She gives and gives and gives; that
Page 161 and 162: on it as well. Clients were getting
Page 163 and 164: Bramley, three neighborhoods away,
Page 165 and 166: wouldn’t happen again, but it was
Page 167 and 168: “This is all I can do,” she sai
Page 169 and 170: “Where are you now?” I said.
Page 171 and 172: times he pulled the trigger, and fo
Page 173 and 174: emergency room to give us an update
Page 175 and 176: W hen my mother was shot, so much h
Page 177 and 178: For my mother. My first fan. Thank
Page 179 and 180: ABOUT THE AUTHOR TREVOR NOAH is a c
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