63 pages • 2 hours read
Wes MooreThe Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Part 2, Chapter 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Choices and Second Chances”
Part 2, Introduction Summary
The preamble to Part 2 covers another visit between the author and the other Wes Moore. Their conversations initially centered on what one “thought the other wanted to hear. What the other needed to hear. But over time it was hard to keep up the act, and [their] conversations [drifted] toward an almost therapeutic honesty” (66). Both men pondered what in their lives made them men. Moore recalls,
There was no official ceremony that brought my childhood to an end. Instead, crises or other circumstances presented me with adult-sized responsibilities and obligations that I had to meet one way or another. […] for some of us, the promotion to adulthood, or at least its challenges, is so jarring, so sudden, that we enter into it unprepared and might be undone by it (66).
Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary
After entering the drug game, Wes acquired boxes and boxes of new brand-name shoes. Tony challenged his younger brother, asking where he got his money from. Wes made up a story about DJ-ing neighborhood parties. However, Tony knew where that kind of money really came from. Wes vehemently denied Tony’s accusations, and Tony punched him. This altercation inspired their mother to dig deeper into Wes’s situation. She searched his room and found drugs under his mattress. She flushed away every single ounce.
When Wes returned home, he confronted his mother for flushing $400,000 worth of drugs. His mother demanded that he stop selling drugs, but his biggest concern was figuring out how to come up with the money he had just lost. The only option he saw was going back to selling on the street and finding a new hiding place. His girlfriend agreed to let her place be his new bolt hole.
Moving back to Moore’s childhood, the author recounts his mother’s concerns with his academic performance. Moore admits that he didn’t attend school very much, which was why he struggled. He figured out he only needed to go during homeroom, and he and one of his teachers had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” agreement because he disrupted her class anyway. He was only 11 years old.
Moore met up with Shea, who “was one of the most respected young hustlers in the neighborhood” (80). Shea delivered drugs to drop-off points. He opened his backpack to Moore, revealing spray paint bottles, and asked if Moore wanted to “tag.” Moore couldn’t resist posting his “Kid Kupid” logo. The police showed up and arrested both boys. While being arrested, Wes thought about his mother:
My relationship with my mother was in a strange place. My desperation for her support was in constant tension with my desperation for independence and freedom. […] I was a teenager, deathly fearful of disappointing her but too prideful to act like it mattered (82).
Moore wistfully reflects on his “crew” and how you could only mourn for someone who was killed or shipped off for so long before “life went on” (82). In the cop car, Shea showed confident arrogance. The cop said, “You kids are way too young to be in this situation. But you know what, I see kids like you here every day. If you don’t get smart, I am certain I will see you again. That’s the sad part” (83). The cops let them go with a warning, but they kept Shea’s bag.
Part 2, Chapter 4 Analysis
Chapter 4 highlights two pivotal moments in both boys’ lives. They both got into trouble with the law, and while Moore’s misdeed seems much less serious, both were chastised by others to turn their life around. The end of the chapter draws another parallel between the two, with both choosing to stay the course. Wes knew that to make up that huge loss of money, he would have to return to selling drugs on the streets, and Moore let “Kid Kupid […] on the loose again” a week later (84).
These incidents exemplify the concept of becoming a “man” alluded to in the Part 2 preamble. Here were opportunities for them to make a clear, responsible choice that could have set them on a more mature and successful path, but both boys were too young and inexperienced to make that choice. Because Wes’s only mentor was his brother, he was steered away from a “safe life.” Even though Tony “tried to keep Wes in school and away from drugs as long as Wes could remember […] Tony was still deep in the game himself […] it was clear that Tony himself didn’t have any better ideas or he would’ve made those moves himself” (71).
This chapter emphasizes the importance of strong mentors who can model maturity and integrity to developing youths. The dynamic between Wes and Tony is a case of the blind leading the blind. Tony lacked a decent and reliable mentor himself, and so the life lessons he passed on to Wes are those he learned on the streets. Without a proper, positive example of manhood, it was nearly impossible for Wes to cultivate those traits on his own.
