Читать книгу The Roar of an Uncaged Lion - Frederick Howard Jr. - Страница 7

Some may fault my parents for my corruption, but each man or woman must themselves choose their own paths. Before homelessness struck, my mom tried her best to create in me a balance of both good and bad but left it to me to choose. By the time 1987 rolled around at the ripe age of thirteen I was full of corrupt morals and values, but they were not the sum of my foundation. There were also good principles at my core, which battled within me with the bad morals. Now at thirteen I spent most of my time out of the reach of my parent’s watchful eyes, so in the neighborhood I felt free to explore each path before me. Since I was poor I didn’t have the new shoes or clothes that other kids wore, but I desperately wanted them—therefore, poverty’s temptations sped around me like the mighty flow of a great river, and with only my childish understanding to do combat, I succumbed to its waves.

In the neighborhood were many kids doing what was considered right, but there were just as many doing what could be considered wrong. It was my decision to follow those with questionable characters. I remember the summer before I was to enter the seventh grade I can honestly say I made my choice during this period. That summer I had made friends with the cool kids; they were brothers named Otis and Cesare. These two boys dressed like they were rich, but spent food stamps like all of us poor kids.

So one day while out riding our bikes, I asked Otis, “How much did you pay for them shoes?”

Otis—a tall, lanky, blonde-haired, light-skinned black kid was the older of the two but always followed Cesare—said, “Eighty dollars.”

Out of nowhere, Cesare who also had the same physical characteristics as Otis yelled out, “He lying! He stole them shoes!”

I remember I felt surprised, but at the same time it intrigued me and I turned to Cesare and asked, “How?”

Cesare said, “It’s easy; all we do is wear some tore up shoes to J.C. Penny and then put on the new shoes and leave the old ones in the box.”

Otis chimed in and said, “They don’t even have alarms, and the side door is there for us to walk right out.”

After their explanation, my next words to them were, “Can yawl take me?”

Cesare said, “Yeah, but you got to be ready early because that’s the best time.”

That night I could not sleep; the thoughts of Nike shoes danced in my head like belly dancers on the tables of an emperor. Would I get red Nikes? No, maybe blue, then I thought even better: I would choose blue and red. The next morning I was up at 6:00 AM, dressed by 6:15 AM, and out the door by 6:30 AM. To my disappointment, Otis and Cesare were still asleep when I got to their house. So I passed the time going to the basketball court where all the kids hung out shooting hoops. As I walked, I decided to find the shoes I would steal by first judging the shoes of the kids at the court. When I arrived there were three kids playing, but I didn’t like any of their shoes. I remember feeling eager and frustrated at the same time. After about two hours, I found them. To my surprise, I didn’t pick Nikes—Fila’s caught my eyes instead. They were all white with red, blue, and black lines running down the sides. I ran to Otis and Cesare’s house with the anticipation of a runner at the starting line of a race that was waiting to hear the gunfire. And fire it did: as I approached their house, their door opened and out they came.

Even though I had only stolen things to feed the family, the thought that it was okay to take what you didn’t have was already imbedded in my young character. I was scared, but I didn’t want to stop. All the way there I could only think of the benefit, never considering what would happen if I got caught. Once at the store, Otis said, “We got to go in one at a time so they don’t see us.” Cesare went in first, then it was my turn; soon as I turned down the second row, I spotted them. I went straight for the boxes and grabbed a size 4, put them on and, remembering my dad’s instructions at Safeway, I immediately left the store. I thought I got in and out fast, but when I got to the meetup spot Otis and Cesare were already there. At the time, I thought getting away was something good. Looking at it now with a hint of wisdom, I realize it was the worst thing that could have happened—due to the fact that stealing food only satisfies the hunger, but stealing clothes and shoes satisfies the ego that, like the belly, will always need to be fed. This was the first time my corrupt morals had benefited only me, but it wouldn’t be the last. So I stole all of my school clothes and shoes throughout junior high school.

Stealing became my way of life. I had gotten so good at stealing and lying to cover it up that Kim followed me one day. When I asked her why, she said, “I want to become friends with the kids whose parents are buying you all this stuff” (which was my cover story).

I busted out laughing and turned to face the store, pointed, and said, “There they are!”

She looked real hard then said, “Which ones are their parents?”

I pointed to the sign of the store and said, “Look up there: these are the parents who gave me all that stuff,” but Kim still looked puzzled. I looked her right in the eyes and said, “Don’t tell Mommy or Daddy, but I’m stealing those clothes, Kim.”

Her first words to me revealed the beginning of our upbringing, because she said, “Ooooh, Tootie, if Mommy finds out you gonna get it.” Then her second words revealed our reality because she said, “How you do it?” After a quick explanation, she was willing and ready to try.

Before we walked in the store I said, “Kim, find what you want quickly, put it in your coat, and hurry up out the store.”

She said “Okay” but left my sight and did the exact opposite.

I went in and knew where to go and what I was in there for. I quickly picked up some blue jeans and a black tee shirt and left. I waited for Kim at the meetup spot but after twenty minutes and no Kim, I feared she had been caught. So I left my clothes under a bush and went to go find her. When I entered the store all looked clam, so I went to the girl’s section. What I saw I couldn’t believe: Kim had six or seven outfits in her hands, and was still looking for more.

I looked around to see if anyone was watching us, then asked her, “Kim, what the hell are you doing!”

She looked at me and said, “I can’t decide on the pink or the red.”

I thought this is unbelievable and said, “Kim, this stuff ain’t free!”

I then yanked the clothes out of her hands and dragged her out the store with nothing. All the way home Kim threatened me about telling our parents if I didn’t take her back tomorrow. Kim and I became closer because of the secret we shared and the benefit that came by way of that secret. But what we didn’t know at the time was that we would have to say good-bye to the circuit of stores we frequented—our circle of friends, and even the city we lived in in the coming months.

Once again the family was threatened with homelessness because sometime during my seventh grade, my parents started to smoke crack. Up until that time we were only down on our luck, but once drugs entered the scene we became without hope. Who could really say why they chose to partake of the devil’s medicine, but one thing I know for sure it didn’t help our situation. So one day my mom came into the living room where us kids were watching TV and stated: “Since there is one less mouth to feed (as she put it) in the house, we are moving back to San Francisco.”

We were so unprepared to hear that kind of news that Richie blurted out, “Fuck!”

All my mom said was, “Deal with it.”

By this time Shawn had left home, Richie was looking for his way out, Kim was a young woman dealing with boys, and I had become just the fourth child—due to fact that in 1977 my mom had given birth to my younger sister, Chantia, who now was the baby. Chantia was three years younger than me, and a sweet, round-faced, chubby little kid. We could not get her to steal, lie, fight, or stop following us around for anything. Chantia became Kim’s responsibility: where Kim went so did Chantia. Even though Chantia wasn’t a boy like I desperately wanted her to be, I happily took on the role of big brother, and where we went next she would need one.

Up until the move, we lived and was homeless in the suburbs of San Francisco in cities like San Mateo and Redwood City, but our parents up and moved us into the heart of San Francisco, or the inner city, what is called the Tenderloin. The Tenderloin was a city inside the city. It is thirty square blocks and sits in the center of downtown San Francisco. It is lined with motels owned by slumlords and filled with drug addicts. The streets were covered with filth, urine, and old gum, which made the concrete look black instead of grey. It was called the financial district for drug dealers, because like Wall Street it is where hood commodities were bought and sold. The streets were always full of young men and women who were dealing drugs, and smoking cigarettes and weed. The homeless lined the walls of the buildings, and there were also the drug addicts who bought dope in the open. There were certain blocks we could not walk down, because addicts smoked crack and shot heroin right outside.

The Tenderloin was divided up into sections; some blocks were where they sold weed, and other blocks were where they sold crack. At the top of the Tenderloin was where the prostitutes were, and at the bottom was where they sold pills. There was also a corner where the older men and women sold and shot heroin. The Tenderloin was also divided up by race. The Asians had their corners, the Mexicans had theirs, and the blacks had their corners, so it was full of different cultures, foods, religions, and languages. Each group had their own overflow of kids running the streets of the neighborhood.

Before we moved, I had only known pampered preppie kids of whom I had always been the toughest. But the kids of this neighborhood were hard, fighting and playing hoops since they were able to walk. I looked, acted, and felt out of place. I was like a fish out of water that everyone laughed at. My speech, manners, and even my stolen clothes all were different from those around me, and they let me know it. The one cool thing was that there was a big park right in the middle of the neighborhood and it had a basketball court. There also was a loving and compassionate female coach named Ja’net, who always rounded up the kids for basketball leagues.

The leagues were fun and it gave the kids a chance to get to know each and every boy in the neighborhood, which helped me make friends. While playing in a tournaments game, I stole the ball but it got loose, so I chased it down and even dove to keep it inbounds. After the game, one of the teenagers who helped out, named Henry, patted me on the back and said, “Way to hustle out there.” All the kids looked up to Hen because he was a real lady’s man, fought really well, and could really play some ball. Hen was about 5’7”, a handsome young man with a muscular body type. He was known for having one of the best curly high top fades in the neighborhood. Hen was a lady’s man not just because of his pretty face and muscular tone, but also because of his ability to manipulate the minds of the girls who loved him. He had a brother named Jay-Jay who was my age and over the months he and I became good friends. Jay-Jay was a 5’9” slim young man. He wasn’t as handsome as Hen, but he did all right with the ladies. Jay-Jay wore his hair in corn rolls that hung past his shoulders. The ladies of the neighborhood always wanted to braid his hair, which gave him his way into their pants.

I credit the friendship between Jay-Jay and me with the blossoming of the seeds of my corruption. In the suburbs I was the only kid stealing, so it was nothing to be proud of or brag about, but in the inner city stealing was a badge of honor. This badge I wore with pride. The inner city was a breeding ground for corruption. The principles I adopted as a kid—like preying on the weak, never telling on anyone, not to trust others, and stealing was only bad if you got caught—were the norm in this environment. Not because the inner city kids were any different from the kids in the suburbs, but because the need and desperation led to many of them succumbing to the temptations of the streets. Very few resisted or overcame these temptations without the help of a compassionate and loving mentor who was able and willing to provide for them. However, there were more needy kids than there was available help, so most took the route of stealing, selling dope, or selling weed, which furthered the corruption we dealt with.