I knew I was destined to be a writer, a lover of words, and an urban storyteller. From the moment I cracked open a dog-eared copy of Donald Goines’ classic tome Eldorado Red, I was hooked like a heroin addict. My love affair with books was at times both tumultuous and serene. I found the fire of my spirit, and the calmness of my heart between the pages of books written by men and women who looked like me. It is these men and women who helped me navigate my way through nineteen years of captivity. And it is these brilliant authors who infused me with the desire to escape the state pen with my ink pen. Without their words, I have no doubt I would have died in the filth and squalor of a solitary confinement cell; however, their writings freed me long before the state ever would!
I entered the prison system at the tender age of nineteen. From the very beginning, I rebelled like a recalcitrant slave. It wasn’t in my nature to be held captive, so I fought everyone from inmates to guards. Within my first year, my security level was raised to super-max due to an “assault on an inmate and staff” misconduct. At the rate I was going, I was on a fast track to complete self-destruction, and ultimately, to dying in prison. I refused to listen to the older captives who told me I should calm down because I would one day be free. To me, they were dreamers. In my mind, I had too much time left to think about getting out on parole. The only way I was leaving was by escaping or in a body bag, or so I thought.
Little did I know, I was undergoing an educational process that would change my life forever. I didn’t earn any fancy degrees or diplomas; I am a self-taught scholar in the field of prisoner transformation. I like to say that I have multiple degrees in revitalizing the spirit and minds of young men and women who grew up like me. Like many who came before me, my degree was earned the old fashioned way – through personal experience.
While serving time in solitary confinement, I read book after book. The more I read, the more I realized I could control my own destiny. I read everything I could get my hands on. I read Donald Goines and Icerberg Slim, then moved on to Malcolm X and Angela Davis. As my reading selections expanded, my interpretation of what it meant to be free expanded as well. I no longer looked at my prison sentence as a barrier holding me back from reaching my dream. In fact, I began to look at it as another in a long list of obstacles I had to overcome. Finally, after nearly a decade, I found the tools of liberation I needed to free myself from the prisons of child abuse, street life and ultimately the state pen! With my ink pen and note book in hand, I escaped from the joint as though I were Harriet Tubman on the Underground Railroad.
For me, writing became cathartic. It allowed me to dig deep into my soul and extricate the demons of my childhood. It was my reaction to those demons that led me to prison one month into my 19th year on earth.
I came from a complex home environment. It was partially good and partially bad. In the early days, my parents were married and we had a warm and welcoming home. Sadly and unfortunately (for me), my parents’ union didn’t last. As a result of the dissolution of their marriage, there was a dramatic emotional shift in our household. My mother became cold and distant and physically abusive. When I felt like I could no longer take her abuse, I ran away from home. I was 14 at the time.
When I turned to the streets, I didn’t have anywhere to go and no one to turn to. I stayed at the homes of different childhood friends for a few weeks. I either slept in their basement or garage. They would do their best to assist me by sneaking me food and clean clothes whenever they could. But they couldn’t keep me concealed forever. After a few weeks of living like a vagabond, I was introduced to a local drug dealer who offered me money, food and a place to live in exchange for my services selling drugs.
Crack cocaine was relatively new to the inner-city, and I didn’t have any knowledge of the drug trade. I didn’t understand the far-reaching implications of being a naïve child in a destructive, adult sub-culture. Within six months of entering the drug trade, I was stripped of the warmth, innocence and hope that characterize childhood. At the age of 14, I was introduced into a cold and indifferent world – robbed at gunpoint, beaten by adult drug addicts and dealers, sexually exploited by drug-addicted women, and addicted to Crack-laced joints.
By the time I reached 15, I witnessed my older brother shoot my eldest brother in the neck, and months later, the first of my childhood friends was shot and killed (he was 15). At age 17, I was shot multiple times while standing on the corner in my neighborhood, and from that point forward, I carried a gun with me everywhere I went.
In July 1991, my twisted existence in the streets culminated with me shooting and fatally wounding a man after a heated argument. He was a stranger to me at the time. He accompanied one of my usual customers on a visit to my house for drugs. After I refused to sell him the drugs because I didn’t know him, an argument ensued. It escalated when I asked him and his partners to leave. He made a few threats and attempted to get out of the car, and that’s when I shot him several times, causing his death.
I didn’t know him or what he was trying to do. I feared for my safety and reacted based on my past experience of being shot. I had vowed I would shoot before I allowed someone to shoot me again.
This was a very distorted way of thinking and ultimately led to the tragic loss of a man’s life. It also cost me nearly twenty years in prison. When I entered prison, I was very bitter and angry. My failure to control my anger eventually led to another “assault on staff” misconduct and an additional sentence at the beginning of my eighth year in prison, for which I received four-and-a-half years of solitary confinement. During this period of my life, I realized I had to take control of my destiny. I dedicated my life to change and started taking writing seriously.
I used my experiences from the streets and prison yards to construct thought-provoking street lit. Through the written word, I have been able to reach out to readers who feel disconnected from larger society, and who feel like no one understands their story. Well, I am here to let them know not only do I understand their story, but I am their story.
Drop a Gem Publishing 