I grew up in a majority white neighborhood. I didn't get out much either. I didn't really have a need to—everything that I needed, from food to shopping to friends to school, was all in just a couple of square miles.

I didn't have the privilege of having friends of other ethnicities as a kid. To me, that was normal, and it was surprising to enter the world and realize that there were people who were not like me. When I went to college in North Carolina, I began realizing that not everyone was like me, but even then I did not have any significant friendships with someone of a different race or ethnic origin.

Duck is my mom’s name. Well, sort of. Her mother’s maiden name was “Quackenbush”—that’s right, “Quack—en—bush” and so her friends growing up affectionately called her “Duck” from the “Quack” of “Quackenbush.

That’s why when I met Donald on the Corner and he told me he went by “Duck,” I couldn’t help but feel we were meant to be friends.