The Lady in the Picture

For many years in my early childhood, I recall looking at a photo in an old album of my baby pictures that was taken of me as an infant being held by mama at one of my aunt Pearl’s basketball games. In that photo, there was my Aunt Pat (Pearls older schizophrenic sister who helped raise me) sitting on mamas left side and and a white woman who was seated on her right. On a number of occasions I asked mama and other family members who that lady in the picture was. The bleachers were not that packed and she seemed too close and too familiar with mama to be a stranger. The reply was always “I don’t know” or “just some lady at the game.”

One day after my father had returned sober from one of his times away, he beckoned me over to my room to sit beside him on the edge of my bed. I was still in grade school at the time. I had just returned from playing outside with the neighbor kids and found my father to be holding the photo album in his lap with the page open to that photograph of me and mama with the white lady in the picture. I had a deep ache in my gut that felt something was wrong. I did not ask him who that was, as I usually did. My father asked me “do you know who this is?” I shook my head no, but inside felt that the truth of what had been hidden from me for years was about to be told. He pointed to that white woman in the picture and said “this is your mama.” Wrong choice of words. My mama was in her room across the hall, unaware that my father was telling me this. Maybe if he had said “this is your mother” it would have not been such an insult and shock, but to replace the woman who raised me with this stranger was too much. Rage and sadness overwhelmed me. I don’t remember what I said, but I threw a fit, kicked my giant of a father out of my room, and locked myself in there for hours. The whole house knew what happened and my father was told to not come around for a few days while I adjusted to my new reality that my mother was not mama.

Shortly after the revelation regarding my birth mother, there was another difficult interaction with a crackhead who was not part of my family. I learned not to get involved in the business of crackheads after that situation with my dad, but I didn’t think that David was all that dangerous. David was a former boyfriend of my aunt Pat. He, like others, came to my home to hang out with my uncle who used heroin and crack. I suspect my uncle also sold drugs, but I never got that deep into his business as a kid. David was a short, dark complected guy who always looked like he had just finished running a marathon after smoking crack. He always appeared a bit unkept in his plain white t-shirt with yellow sweat stains under his arms and dirty jeans. He often came to the door making light jokes when I would answer the door. His light humor made me feel comfortable enough to one day poke fun back at him. That didn’t work out so well.

That day, I watched David leaving my uncles room with beads of sweat running down his face and said something that seemed funny at the time. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but it wasn’t anything much worse than he had said to me in the past. He snapped. He sprinted across the room towards me before I had any time to react and grabbed me by my shoulders. I was shaken with such force that I felt as though my neck was going to break. He threw me onto the couch and pointed his finger at me saying don’t you ever mess with me again. Do you understand?! I remained sprawled out on the couch, paralyzed with fear. Do you understand?!!! A slight nod of my head with my eyes diverted to mama’s door must have sufficed because he ran out the door before mama even knew what happened. Although David was high, he must have recognized he screwed up because he never returned.

After that 2^nd incident of being attacked by a crackhead, I chose to not be a victim moving forward. I remained isolated in my room most of the time and started lifting weights. I was going through a growth spurt that accompanied many of the other changes of puberty. I thought that if I could become strong, then maybe the next time I could fight back. Anger and hate started to grow inside of me. That feeling of helplessness made me feel disgusted with myself. My innocence and gentle childhood nature darkened. Many hours were spent fantasizing about my revenge. If I could not overpower him, I had a backup plan. I carried a cheap knockoff of a Swiss Army knife, but I never felt comfortable with the idea of stabbing someone, but my combination lock fit very well in my hand and made a great sneaky weapon. If held the right way, I could strike him on the side of his head with a roundhouse punch. If that failed and he grabbed me, I would either scratch at his eyes or bite him. I spent many hours strategizing about what I would say when I saw him to make him react in such a way as he did when he attacked me, but this time I would be ready. I wished he would come back. There was never a next time for David. He, like many others who are addicted to crack and heroin, died on the streets sometime after our last encounter from an overdose. My hate and anger lived on after his death and was transferable to others who would ever cross me in the future.

That following summer, I entered the 5^th grade. I started getting into fights and my grades started to slip. I rarely smiled when not with friends and if provoked I would never turn the other cheek. I managed to keep my grades just good enough to stay in the district throughout middle school, but near the end of 8^th grade, I was out of control. Besides the poor academic performance, I started getting into more trouble and hanging out with the wrong crowd. I separated myself from the privileged kids who once bullied me and started to associate with those who I felt were like me. My girlfriend relationships in middle school were often short-lived as would be expected for childhood love, but they too were with girls who I felt were like me in being afflicted by darkness. They had been hurt by others and they were not afraid of my way of being- if anything, they may have been attracted to me because they thought they could fix me.

Many of the kids I went to school with on the “good side of town” had families that were well off financially. Some of them spoke of the college funds that their parents had saved up for them and the expensive trips they had taken across country with their older siblings to visit colleges. My grandmother barely had money for us to survive on, let alone to pay for college. We survived off of government assistance through welfare, food stamps, and disability checks. I felt out of place in the more affluent school because I was poor. My outlook on education around that time became quite bleak. Although I had aspirations of becoming a doctor as far back as the 2^nd grade, I felt as though my efforts were futile and lost interest in my education as I approached high school. After I allowed my grades to drop, I was not allowed to continue my education in the same district, so I ended up returning to my side of town for high school where things only got worse.

Going to school in an area with poverty, gangs, drugs, and very few resources at times felt like going to prison. There were guards and fences in place to ensure no student escaped during the school day. Those who dared to leave without permission before school was out had to plan their escape carefully so as to not be chased down and detained. While school was in session, we were prisoners. Most students who would eventually go on to become law abiding citizens would follow the rules and go to class as they were expected to do so that they could graduate on time. Such students had some sense of direction and understood the importance of getting their education. Perhaps they saw the opportunity in getting their education or they were just afraid of the consequences of not doing what they were expected to do. I did not see things that way. I only lived for the moment and not the future. I entered a lifestyle of fighting, stealing, and complete disregard to any who were not inline with my path.

It is not clear to me if it was the emotional loss that I felt when I discovered that the lady in the picture was my mother or if the physical loss of control that I experienced when my father and David jumped on me that played the larger part in my spiritual decline. Mama and my father introduced me to the Bible early in my childhood. I believed in God, but never really recognized His presence in my life. In chapter 19, verse 14 of the book of Matthew in the Bible, Jesus makes reference to children and says “the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” It was around this time in my life where I felt that I had lost this inheritance.