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Soul Cry

Missing Fathers

“It’s never too late to do the right thing.”

—Dad

-inspired by true events

A HardDrive Entertainment Production

Seven out of ten black kids grow up without fathers. There has never been a greater number of voluntary absences by fathers from their children’s lives than there is in the black community today. When dads are not around life gets lonely, hopeless and confusing for the children they leave behind. So for these fatherless kids, the future becomes unsure as they unknowingly are destined to continue the vicious cycle: the cycle of a tribe lost in the shadows plagued by broken homes.

No fathers to teach our sons how to grow up to be men. No fathers to display how to respect and treat women. No fathers to teach our daughters their true values and how to carry and respect themselves. No fathers to instill in our daughters what not to accept from boys or men because they’re worth so much more. But most importantly no fathers to teach our sons how to grow-up and become real fathers themselves.

Without a father, a child is left to learn the other side of life on his or her own. So our daughters are getting pregnant by sixteen, while our sons become missing dead beats by age eighteen. The cycle stays in motion because now the child he leaves behind will never heal from the pain of not having their father around or from the agony the child’s mother endured. He or she becomes the reason Mommy and Daddy couldn’t fulfill their dreams.

However, nothing in life is gained or discovered without sacrifice. We have sacrificed many generations of black families, and a change has to come. It is time for us as young black men to take a stand and break the cycle of missing fathers. It is time to learn and discover how to be real men and real fathers. We will not begin to change until we are confronted with the reality that we are repeating our father’s behavior patterns; promises, we promised ourselves, we would end. “It’s never too late to do the right thing.”

Chapter 1

With the last of my stuff in my hands, halfway out the door I replied, “You said you don’t want me here. You called the cops on me and took back your house keys. You even said I wasn’t your son. So I’m gone. Don’t worry about where I’m gonna stay. Just know that’s it for us now. You don’t gotta worry about me anymore Mummy. Goodbye. Let me go.”

She was clinched onto my arm, “Andre a where you a go, a where you a go? Don’t go! Andre mi sorry don’t go. ANDRE!”

I pulled away and slammed the door behind me. It felt good to slam the door and be done with her for good, but the walk to Lance’s car was a hard and heavy walk to take. I was scared as fuck! I had just slammed the door on security and walked into uncertainty. I’m 17 years old, soon to be a parent and now homeless, hundreds of miles away from my family. Here I am running away into a world in which I can’t perceive the future. I felt a new overwhelming feeling of loneliness as I walked to Lance’s car listening to Robin crying behind me. I thought about turning back, as I began my life long journey to where? I did not know.

As the years came and past I lost that drive. Sometimes, I felt like I had lost my will to survive. This is the stress that lives within me.

Dear Lord,

This is my confession. It’s so hard to cope I hope you can forgive me for all of my indiscretion. Before I start this session I’m professing, I have learned my lesson. I pray I’m forgiven for every bad decision I’ve made and it isn’t anybody’s fault because I made the decisions I’ve made. I know you might think this is the life I chose, but this is the life that chose me: A life as a black fatherless child.

My first memory of life was at the age of three, in Silver Spring Jamaica, on my family’s property. By three years old, I already had a taste for independence, so I decided to cross the bridge by the river all by myself. The bridge was made from four round tree logs and I made it half way across before falling off the bridge. From that point onward, I have been falling off the bridge of life ever since. If you knew my life you would shed a tear yet, I pray that I’m forgiven. If I am not to be forgiven, then all I wish is to be understood. I have grown and am now thankful for the lessons of life given to me.

On September 17, 1984, in Savannalamore Hospital in Westmoreland Jamaica, Robin Brown, at the age of 21, gave me the gift of life. Growing up, mom wasn’t really around because she went to America to seek a better life for us. Therefore, my grandparents raised me. Life at a young age in Jamaica was happy and good for what we knew and had. My grandfather, Uriah Brown, gave me everything from candy to his chicken bones. He had me spoiled rotten! See I come from a big family and we all built houses on my grandpa’s 50 to 75 acres of land. At the top of the property was my grandparents’ house. My closest, older cousin by two years Anthony and I were the only two grandchildren allowed to sleep and live with our grandparents. Anthony’s mother went to America with my mother, who was her younger sister.

Down the path past the mango and apple trees by the river was Mervin’s house, Anthony’s father. Behind his house was my uncle Lasie’s house where he lived with my two little cousins Marcey and Suesan and their mom Jem. Following the path, again by the river, you’ll soon arrive at my Aunty Cibel’s house. She lived with Tommy, her boyfriend and father of two of her sons. Shocka the youngest and Derval who was a year older than me. Her two oldest children lived there as well, Eatan the oldest and his sister Stacia. Across a little stream in their backyard was my Aunty Misie’s house where she lived with her two daughters and two granddaughters that she cared for after their mother, her daughter, had died. Sandra, her older daughter and her sister Marline both had their houses next door. Marline lived with her two sons Davian and his little brother Bobby.

As kids in Jamaica, we learned to live off the land, survive and make do with what we had. From chasing chickens until they got tired, to climbing trees higher than 8-20 story buildings just for food so we could quiet the stomach from grumbling. In those days, most people did not have jobs; they gathered and grew what they could which was then sold at market. Therefore, the growing of marijuana or “herb or weed” as it is known in Jamaica was a profitable market. Every Saturday morning after watching cartoons, on the six channels and the only color TV on the property I might add, Anthony and I would make our way down to his father’s house where my other two cousins Eatan and Derval would meet us. We would then go to Uncle Lasie’s house where we would bend down and pick the buds off the herb plant for many hours. Our fingers would become tar black from picking at the THC all day, for free I might add, boy, if I only knew. On some Saturdays, we would climb the mountain up the road to meet Tommy at his ganja field, where we would bring back down, in crocus bags, the herb that was harvested. Damn I did a lot for free. When dinner time would come around I was always well fed because I would always eat at Mervin’s, Dervals’, Lasie’s, and at my grandmother’s house. Anthony was always with me, he was like my older brother, but he didn’t eat much, he was always fussy with his food and I would end up eating his too.

Come Monday mornings it was time for school. All the older kids went to Sheffield school by themselves, but I was too young so grandpa took me to and from school on his bicycle until the day I decided I was too old and I wanted to go with my cousins. We would all walk together until we come to the intersection; my school was on the left and my cousins went to the right. After I cried and acted up, Grandpa said he would never take me to school again. Surely enough, he never did take me again and we never spoke about it again. My older cousins would have to walk me to school until I graduated pre-school and started first grade now. Once I got to first grade, my school was a lot closer to my cousins. It was not long after I got to the same school as my cousins, when I realized that maybe I did not want to be here.

See we lived a good 15-20 miles from the school and in Jamaica tardiness is not handled with a pink slip, detention or a grade point deduction. No, at Sheffield when you are late or you broke any rules you are brought out into the courtyard, where you are visible to all the classrooms. Mister Spragga, the principal, would then humiliate you and beat you like a slave at times. One whip, from his thick long and black worn out leather strap, for every minute you are late. Unfortunately for us since we lived so far, we were always late. However, being the youngest my cousins would do their best to push me into the crowd or a classroom whenever they could. I guess they felt they had to look out for me and protect me. However, for those hurtful times that they could not save me, I would be held up in the air by my arms and legs by two of the older boys through instructions of Mister Spragga. I would then be whipped across my back for as long as that punishment took, depending on the extent of what I have done. Yeah, painful! Nevertheless, it was legal in Jamaica. When we weren’t stretch out by our arms and legs, we had to hold our hands out and take the needed amount of strikes for the punishment. I remember dropping my hands with each strike to make the pain easier to bear.

It was in this same painful place where I got my first memory of beauty, one that made me smile and shy up at the same time. Lara; eyes like a pair of fresh sparkling untouched black pearls, a smile that gave life, brown sugar milky complexion, and hair of an Egyptian queen. As far as I could remember Lara was the first girl I ever liked and my first girlfriend, if that is what you want to call it that.

Classes were separated by green chalkboards. Looking from the front, in the middle is the principal’s office, on the right was the 12th, 11th and 10th grade classrooms that were separated by chalkboards with my class, the 2nd and 3rd grade. On the left across from my class is the 4th grade up to the 9th. For lunch, if you don’t have any money you get government cheese and bun with a little box drink. If you have money, you would buy from the stands. We had big family so we only got but so much money for lunch, but I always wanted the better things in life, the things my family didn’t have and couldn’t afford. My family always told me, “Andre your chest too high! You too big chested, you need to learn how to be satisfied with what you have.”

I use to steal shrimp and plums from the vendors. But when I couldn’t steal it a few times I would be so hungry, I picked up people’s leftovers off the ground and washed it off. I was young, hungry and I just want to eat good like the other kids who did. Whenever Anthony, Stacia or any of my older cousins caught me they slapped the life out my hand and mouth and told me, “Andre a wah you a do? That’s nasty don’t ever let me catch you doing that, go wash out your mouth, if you still hungry after your lunch come to me.” I didn’t want to pick food up off the ground but at my young age faced with hunger, I didn’t see a better way. It was hard to be in school all day long and only eat what I had. At lunch, I would chill with my best friend Richie he lived in Springfield, the next town from mine going towards school. We would run through the bushes down the hill by where the older kids had built huts and would be messing with girls. We never really cared if they caught us because my cousin Stacia did not play any shit and would always beat up anyone, boy or girl, who messed with her little cousin.

After school, the journey home was always filled with surprises. Whether it was falling off the bike with Anthony, or falling down a hill after trying to jump onto the moving pickup truck, with my cousins and best friend, only to get bruised up and left behind. Then there were those days we would have to run through bushes and cane fields, because we were being chased for trespassing on someone’s land, trying to take a short cut home, or running from the crazy guy that lived in the cane field by the bridge. There were even days when Eatan would pay Neeka, a very sexually advanced girl from our town, a dollar for Anthony, Derval, Ethan and me to fuck. I was seven years old in the woods, and after Ethan, it was my turn. I remember tipping up on my tippy toes to just rub my dick back and forth on her clit. I was just trying to do what I saw my other cousins do before me.

I will never forget the day I ran from the person whose last name my mother had given me. At the time I was not aware of who he was and never really paid any attention to or thought about my last name and where it came from. See I did not have a father growing up, I just had grandpa and other than him, I would look to Mervin for guidance. So when Mister Moore drove up to me that day, on my way home from school, I ran. Really because I thought he wanted to kidnap me, I never met or saw him before. My older cousins have but I hadn’t so I ran all the way home. Nevertheless, the journey home always had something waiting for you around each corner.

Holidays in Jamaica as long as I could remember came with family fights and arguments. For Christmas, we would put foil paper on a little tree from the backyard at my grandparent’s house for a Christmas tree. I also remember the moments of feeling warmth and comforting love in my heart when my mother would send me stuff. I vividly remember thinking, at those moments, that my mother was the greatest mother in the world and no other kid was luckier. She was so wonderful in my young eyes.

Early 1993 my Grandfather had a stroke. Anthony and I were sitting in the room with him, when out of nowhere after he stood up to walk he just fell. After he came back from the hospital, I remember seeing the fight for life in my grandfather’s eyes. The strongest man I have ever known now depends on other people to survive and take care of himself. It was as if seeing life starting all over. When you’re a baby, you crawl, wear diapers, and depend on others for help. I would sit by his bed and cry at times and he would say, “Andy…,” that’s what he called me, “…a wah you a cry fa? Me going to be all right.” His hearing started to gradually leave him and we would now have to scream for him to hear. Even with all the pain, he was going through, my Grandfather always smiled and laughed as if he had no regrets.

Chapter 2

On October 10, 1993 my uncle Coma came and got Anthony (11 years old), his older sister Sherry (she wasn’t around much) and myself (9 years old) to go to the airport. Our mothers filed for our passports to live in America: Brooklyn, New York. My uncle lives in Kingston, Jamaica and he has houses all over Jamaica. He created a big life and name for himself in Jamaica. A true hustler if ever there was one. His name and assets are so big that he beat murder charges, smoking gun and all. He picked us up in his big white tour bus, that had a microphone on which he would ask “what are you gonna do when you gua faring?” I smiled and said “me a go be a movie star”. So he says “so you want to become an actor. Alright mister movie star. Guan big man”. Later at the check-in window, at the airport, I was asked the same question again and trying to sound proper and remember how my uncle stated my answer, in our prior conversation, I said, “I’m going to be a movie star”. However, what I really meant to say was I am going to be an actor. We said our goodbyes to my uncle and it was time to board the airplane. We sat in the middle aisle next to the first white woman I ever met. It wasn’t long after the seatbelt sign came, which the nice lady helped me with, I suddenly got a feeling of nervousness when the plane first took off the ground and I began to feel gravity for the first time. The woman next to us then assured us that the feeling was only momentarily. We watched a movie about a guy that cloned himself it was supposed to be a comedy, but I can’t remember the name. After the movie, we arrived down from out of the clouds over New York City sometime after 8:00pm. I don’t know if you have ever had the pleasure of flying over NYC at night, but it was amazing. I have never seen anything as beautiful or more captivating as the lights and how they light up the city. I felt life starting all over again after gazing into the spectacular lights of NYC. It was like a rebirth so to speak. When we landed everyone applauded and the nice woman wished us well on our new journey. My mom and aunt were both there to greet us at the gate. It was a happy moment to finally be with my mom that I loved so much. However, I couldn’t help but to be taken aback by this new and amazing world. From breathing this new air, the smell of new life, and the buildings, I was in awe. As I stared at the tall structures all I could say was “All the big buildings, wow!” We drove from the airport to 206 East 93rdst in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The whole ride to the house I did not hear a word anyone said, I just stared out the window taking in a rich feeling, “we made it.” However, it was not long before I came to learn that life in America has its price and I will soon be required to pay my dues.

When we got to the house, there was food made, oxtail with rice and peas, and cake amongst a few. My two cousins were to stay in their mother’s room, and in the other room, my mom stayed with Brian, her boyfriend. As I recall, when we lived in Jamaica, my aunt kicked my mother out of the house, and he helped her out. Therefore, I had to sleep on the floor in the hallway that connected my aunt’s bedroom to the living room. After about three weeks, I could not sleep there. My aunt and my mother were not seeing eye to eye, so my bed was now a mattress on the kitchen floor. After about a month or so, I began to notice a change in the way my mom expressed her love towards me. It started by her beating me if I did something very “bad”, and progressively got worse.

After a few months of tough love, it was time for me to begin school. It was my fourth grade year, and on Anthony’s first day of 6th grade, I went with him to register. They did not have a fourth grade at Summers, but I stayed the rest of the day with him anyway. Sherry attended Wingate high school. The next day, I received a great surprise. The family that my mother worked for was going to pay for me to attend a private school, so I registered at Holy Cross, on Church and Rogers in Flatbush. It was here that I began the transformation into the man I have become today. It was at Holy Cross where I met Sister Mary, whom was very fond of me, she was the principal and Spanish teacher, Miss Flatts, who was a life saver, as I had passed nothing but my math class, and still made it to the fifth grade on time. Miss Flatts followed me to the fifth grade; she said she saw something special in me and she knew that she could help me. During lunch she spent time with me teaching me how to write, read, and speak English. I was reading and writing on a 1st grade level when I started school at Holy Cross. I was illiterate and that made me feel ashamed and afraid to read out loud whenever it was my turn. But I gradually progressed with the help of my friends and Miss Flatts. I love her. She read us a book about the life of a black doctor. I think his name was Ben Carson, hearing his story and the struggles he overcame gave me hope for my own life and problems. I also had Mr. G, he helped me with basketball, and he was my science teacher and computer teacher. Mr. B was my video game friend and my “friend”, one of the few father figures that blessed my life. Miss Patton was my religion teacher, female guidance, a comfort, even when she was being hard on us it was always in our best interest. Miss Patton played a strong female presence in my life and she always did her best to talk to us and prepare us for our futures. Mr. Strong, he was my history teacher. He was a nice man, but for some reason, we liked to go crazy in his class. We would throw papers, running around, and talking out of turn. Last of all was Ms. Kelvin; she was an English teacher, a very funny old lady. My best friends were William and Adam. Adam and I got all the girls. In the first week of school, all the boys were talking about Power Rangers. Everyone was arguing about what Power Ranger they would be. Ray, the bully of the class before I came, did not like anyone being or even thinking of being the red Power Ranger. After a smile from Jessica, I stood up and announced that I was the red ranger. The bully was enraged, and started acting up. Little did he know that I was from Jamaica, where we don’t act up, we just fight, along with the fact that, my mom beats me daily. I was well aware of how to harm someone. We began to fight, and after that was over, he tried to be my friend from that day on. I had whooped his ass. After my first fight in America, I felt at ease with the pain my mother inflicted on me. School fights would soon become a pattern in my life; it was my way of earning love and respect from my peers.

Chapter3

In sixth grade, my mom and I moved to Troy Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. It was in that home where I came face to face with the darkest hours of my childhood, and some of the scariest moments of my life. I came to terms with the phrases, “I gave you life, and I can take “It” away.” and “You are so stupid, why couldn’t you be like.” and then she would go on to compare me to one person or another. My favorite” You are a mistake and I wish I never had you”. My mom and Brian fought every other night. I would see everything; my mom would slap Brian, he would punch her in the face, she would sit there, and bleed, with her shirt torn. I would sit with the blanket covering my head, holding my Bible, and praying for my mother. “Lord God, please let him stop hitting my mummy, please don’t let her die. I promise when I get older I’m going to make him pay for hurting my mummy.” I remember feeling hurt and scared because I wasn’t big enough to save my mom. I use to tell myself it was my fault she was getting beat so I deserved the way she treated me. Because I couldn’t save her from her hurt and pain. I was so sorry and I ashamed that I couldn’t help my mom. Whenever I tried to stop him, Brian would just lock the door. Moreover, the tears would fall from my face onto the open Bible pages. About once a week, the cops came to the house, and my mom would make Brian leave. Nevertheless, just as soon as he left, he would be back. After each fight, my mom would come to me, and we would cry together. I felt her pain, yet something inside me thrived from those hugs that were not always there when I needed them. My life was like walking on thin ice in brick shoes; no matter how carefully you step, the ice is going to break. When that ice cracked, I wished with all my heart I could stop time, because to me, there was no worse pain than being hurt by the one woman who was supposed to love you and care for you above all else in the world. Anything could set my mom off. You see, my mother would hit or beat me for any reason you might be able to think of, if there really is a reason for anyone to abuse their child, and reasons you would not believe.

On Valentine’s Day in the seventh grade, my valentine was Maya. Maya was a sexy, caramel, light skin complexion with delicious pink lips. At lunch all the popular kids would sit at one table and vote on who was the cutest male and female. Maya was the hot girl in our class, so I had to get next to her. It all started in Miss Kelvin’s free period, with a game of truth or dare in the back of the classroom. It was me, Adam, William, Damian my friend from Jamaica. He came to Holy Cross in the fifth grade, his mother and mine grew up together. Maya, and Vanessa, a skinny, tall, hidden beauty with braces was there. Also, Chanel who was a smart, hood wise girl who was always ready to fight, athletic, singer and, Jessica the first girl to like me at Holy Cross. I got into my first fight at Holy Cross, off the strength of off Jessica’s smile who was a very beautiful sexy dark skin girl who had luscious lips, with the ass of a 19 year. And Grace, boy oh boy, fucking with Grace was a whole other world. She was a skinny, light skin freak with a sense of hopelessness and lost in her eyes, but Grace had a real thing for the kid. Honestly, I always liked Grace. She used to let me suck on her tits in the hall way and in the bathroom. After gym class, she used to let me finger her in the locker room, or sometimes she would just sit behind me in class and I would do it right there. My dares always had to do with Maya though. After school that day, it was time to start French kissing. We all walked down the block and took the left by Erasmus Hall, onto a quiet one-way street. Everyone watched and cheered as I had my first French kiss. Nobody knew that it was my first. It was like meeting in Heaven, tasting her soft, pink lips, after she had just ate a red Now and Later candy. We both closed our eyes, and I immediately had no pain or worries. With only a day before Valentine’s Day, and after a kiss like that, I had to get her something; therefore, I stopped at the corner store and picked up a five-dollar teddy bear for her.

Later, after my mom got home, I was sitting in the living room, and I asked her how her day was. I guess it was not okay for me to ask that, because right after she ran to the bathroom to try not to pee on herself, she came out and knocked me out of the chair. She began to explain to me through brutal force, that I do not disrespect her like that. “How me day was? Boy, a who you a talk to? I am going to teach you some mannas.” After she became tired, or the phone rang, she would just go on as if nothing happened. If she was on the phone, no matter how hard the beating, I could not cry for anyone to hear. I had to endure the pain in silent tears or I would get it twenty times worse when she hung up. After my beating, my mom discovered the Valentine’s Day gift I had brought for Maya. While still recovering from my last beating, and thoughts of a new one lingering, I told her the gift was for her, but I had to wait until tomorrow to give it to her. When Valentine’s Day came and went, later that night I was in the shower getting ready to go to bed, and my mom must have realized the gift was not for her, and that it had been for a girl. I can still feel the belt hitting my naked skin, while all I can do is put one hand over my dick and the other over my face, and beg for her to let me put clothes on first. “Mummy, please, your hurting me! I’m going to listen! Mummy please, just let me put some clothes on mummy, it hurts!” After about five minutes or so, and seeing all the welts and hives that covered my body, she couldn’t watch anymore, so she allowed me to go get dressed before continuing my punishment. At this point, I’m feeling weak; it isn’t my fault I’m getting beat, my tears would burn and soon stop coming and I no longer made a sound. I just took it in silence, curled up in the corner with (crazy) welts on my body, thinking of fantasies and fairy tales of me going upside her head with the kitchen knife, but that’s my mummy and I don’t really want to see her dead. I’m just tired of the abuses to the body and the head; matter a fact, sometimes I wished I were dead. It was at this point that I began to feel a complete sense of hate. Hate towards myself, towards peers, and a dark hatred towards my mother, the woman who gave me life.

Now it is as if every beating would take a part of my soul, on the outside, I am calm and collective but inside I am hurt and have lost all control. Growing up in Brooklyn I was given many chances to inflict the pain which I have received at home on to other people. There is one particular moment that stands out in my mind. It was when I was about to start the sixth grade, when one of my mother’s friends, Hakeem, came to the house and told me that I looked just like a man that he knew. Until then, I had never thought about it, I had known my mummy, and she was both my mother and father. My mom said nothing to me, just told me we were going over to Hakeem’s house. When we got there, there was nothing different, I played with his fishes in the tank in the living room, and then turned on the Nintendo. After about thirty-five minutes, a strange man came through the door; he walked over and spoke to Hakeem and my mom for about ten minutes. Thinking nothing of their conversation, I continued with my game. After their quick, quiet conversation, the strange man walks over to me, by himself, and says “Hi. What’s up? Do you know who I am?” Looking up from the ground, at this strange man, I replied, with a crazy face, “Hi. You’re a stranger.” He smiled. “Mummy come here.” Before my mom could walk over, the stranger replied, with a sense of hesitation in his voice, “I’m your father.” At that very moment, a million questions and thoughts went through my head. However, I smiled and said, “My father lives in Jamaica.” As soon as I said that, I stood up and looked into the eyes of this stranger. It was like looking into the mirror and seeing myself more mature. There was something in his eyes I cannot explain but I felt I had seen it before. It was like a sign from the all mighty Lord. He then explained to me his name is Orlando Petiford and he was my real father. He told me I have six other siblings. Tiffany my younger sister, Melissa my older sister, Jerome my older brother, Terrell my older brother, Mark my older brother, and Gavin my older brother. As any other child meeting their real father for the first time would, I became very excited and could not wait to meet my siblings. Before we went home, my father told me next weekend he is going to come and get me and I will meet my brothers and sisters. That night I did not sleep much. I was up all night feeling lost and confused but at the same time happy and relieved. Finally, I have a father.

I remember thinking and praying maybe he was going to save me from all the pain. I did not see my new father for another month. After playing the fire escape, watching the block everyday, looking for my father with no result I developed a habit of carrying a mean face. Smiling for me was now just a memory or something I do to front for people when my mother was around. Everything, I had to smile about, has been beaten out of me. From TV, video games, to laughter, fun, childhood happiness and even the smiles themselves. Now to top it off, I have the pain of my father not coming to see me. The anger inside me grew and finally that Saturday came around when Orlando came and got me. I felt happy again for that moment. We went to his office at New York Life Insurance where I met three of my siblings. My little sister, by three years, Tiffany, who had a female version of my face, and I was blown away. Jerome my older brother by three year was a shorter version of me. I remember feeling like a new person; I had brothers and sisters. I then met my older brother by five years, Gavin. He is a tall street version of me. Within minutes, he was explaining to that if I had a problem with anyone let him know, he will handle it. He gave me the big brother feeling I always wanted. We ate and talked about the past and my other brothers and sisters. However, it was not long after Orlando started to ask questions about changing my last name that my mood took a sudden change. My sister agreed but my older brother saw the change in my face and that I was not feeling that. I started to feel out of place. You have to understand, my whole life I have been someone else. I just met him and what are my friends going to think if I change my name? They all think my life is perfect. Suddenly I miss my mother. Through all the abuse and pain, a part of me still loved her. It is like being the son of a beast. You will always have a place in your heart for her; despite the needless pain and hardship, she gives you. Mummy was my mother and as for my father; I didn’t know him. I don’t know if he was insulted but soon after he took me home. On the ride home, I heard promises of more days and visits, but it would be another year or two before I saw Orlando again. After a few months went by my mom explained why he wasn’t coming around. I was conceived while he was with his current wife, Tiffany’s mother. I got ahead of myself; my siblings and I all have different mothers. However, out of all the kids I wasn’t allowed to be around because he cheated on his wife with my mom. I came to learn he lived five minutes away, East 49th and Farraget. I didn’t know if my mom was telling me this out of love or to hurt me, so I took it as hurtful intentions. See my mother likes to play mind games until she finds a reason or a new way to hurt you. Being in the sixth grade at the time with all my past problems only increasing; the beatings, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and watching and growing up in a domestic violence home never knowing which night the cops were going to take me away from my mummy. I could no longer maintain the hurt I felt from my father not seeing me.

With all this pain inside of me, I began to resort to the violence and humiliations towards other people that the streets love and expect so much, inside and out the classroom. One day at school in Mr. Strong’s class, Charles, whom only really wanted to be friends with my friends and me, was unwillingly forced to feel my pain. He would always have to go to the bathroom and when he couldn’t, he would shit on himself. This particular day was a half-day and that meant we got to wear regular clothes. Anthony was only two years older and he went to public school. Whenever he didn’t have anything fresh to wear to school, he and Sherry wouldn’t go to school. So he was fly, and the days before half-days he would let me pick something out from his closet after a, fight or two. We would fight every other day to make sure we stayed on point. So here I am, fresh hair cut seasick waves with a part to the side, and new gear. Charles sits in front of me in class that day. It was a regular day in Mr. Armstrong’s class, loud and crazy; paper fight, arguments, fights and people running in and out the room. Charles asks Mr. Strong, who is now standing in the doorway trying to block anyone from leaving, to use the bathroom and he screams “NO”. The teacher’s head is boiling red as all he wants is for the class to settle down. Charles was at the point where he began to shit on himself. Honestly, it really wasn’t as if I honestly couldn’t just go sit elsewhere. However, something inside of me saw an opportunity to bring pain to someone and maybe vent my problems through violence. I began to kick his chair and bring attention to him to cause a disruption and embarrass him. Everyone laughed and threw paper balls at him. Mr. Strong was already so frustrated and furious that he never noticed or all he cared about was everyone sitting down. Finally, with the smell becoming unbearable he let him go to the bathroom. Once the chaos erupted again Adam, Ray, William and I ran out the class and went to the bathroom. William watched the door and the rest of us and my young dude Peter, who happened to be in the hallway at the time, began to kick and punch Charles. We threw wet toilet paper and splashed water at Charles after we pushed him back into the stall. All with a smile and a sense of no care. The poor kid, even after the pain and humiliation, thought we were going to be friends. It was as if my soul had died. See the more and more beatings I took at home, it became easier or almost second nature for me not to feel or care for anyone else.