SITTERS

    My purpose in this tell all blog, is so that after I give those that know me an inside look at me, I can get them to understand how I think. That way they will be just as lost as I am. Not really, I just want someone out there to hopefully see that maybe I can relate to some of the hardships that others have endured. Everyone has good and bad times in your life. Sometimes it's good to know that somebody can relate.
    Being a single parent is hard…. I would imagine. So being a father and a single parent is impossible. As a kid you would never hear me say anything like that. Four kids later, it's a different story. Of course my dad had custody of me shortly before my mom was killed. So after her death, he was really stuck with me. I give honor to my father. He showed me the prime example of how to provide for a child. He worked long hours, and I imagine went without many nights just to make sure I had it. And I can tell you now that I always had a roof over my head. I never went without a meal. And I always had clean clothes on my back. Plus toys every Christmas. He did what he had to for his child. My mom, from what I was told, played me and even sold her body to provide the same things for us growing up. That's how I learned at a young age not to judge people. We are who we are.
    At first my dad would leave me at home alone in this one bedroom apartment in north Dallas while he went to work. You see he drove the city bus, and worked there my whole life. He was the opposite of my mom. They were like night and day. He was always laid back, conservative, stable, and humble. She on the other hand was all the opposite. She could never stay still in one spot, wild, spontaneous. He was about having a family. She was about running the streets. He was black. She was white. How that relationship went past the first day was a miracle. But it did, and to make it worse, they had a kid together. So back to this 6 year old kid in this one bedroom apartment. It gave me a sense of independence. It would be a lie to sit and tell you that at that age I was not scared. I was, but not all the time. It was really not all that bad. I guess I was a normal kid. I talked to my toys, played school with my bears; Raggedy Ann was my second kiss. (And hunch). I mean I was far from lonely, so I was cool with it. And being that he drove the city bus, there was no way to check on me, plus back then cell phones were, well….. It was back in the day. Well from what I can remember, I must have started to venture outside a few times while he was at work, because the next thing I know I'm going to stay with this other lady and her kids. This lady had five kids, four stayed with her. One girl and three boys. I was in the second or third grade. One son was in about the fourth or fifth grade, one son was in junior high. And the other son and daughter were in high school. I stayed here throughout the school year, and my dad would come pick me up most weekends. It was a two bedroom apartment in the hood, what most people called a bad part of Oak Cliff. But black people living in the same situation, had more love for each other back then. So it was only bad to those who did not live there. This lady and her kids took me in, but not with love. Not even pity. Sometimes it was almost like I was entertainment. We all had chores to do. And these chores were to be done by the time the mom gets home from work. She drove the city bus also, must be where my dad met her. Well of course, me being the youngest. I was taken advantage of. So guess who was ordered to do everyone's chores? I remember times I refused. The two youngest boys would take neck ties and tie my arms and legs to the bunk bed and beat me with a belt. Or if for some reason they got in trouble for something, I knew the next day they would take their frustrations out on me the next day by tying me to the bunk bed. One day the youngest got in trouble at school and the night before his mom beat the hell out of him, I loved it. So the next day, I was always the first to make it home from school. By the time he got home I had already tied most of myself to the bed so we can get it over with. (Hell I was used to it by then, plus I had a lot of damn chores to do). The daughter knew, and she always acted concerned, but never made an attempt to stop any of them. Not like she was afraid or anything because she was a tom boy and rough as hell, she just did nothing, for whatever reason. Yea some pretty rough shit went on in that house. I remember one weekend my dad came to get me. When he brought me back we sat in the car in the parking lot, and I tried to tell him most of the things that was going on in that house. He just looked at me without saying a simple word, and walked me right upstairs to that same apartment. Yea must have been hard being a single parent. They had a grandmother that was mean as hell. For some reason I would always stare at her. And every time she sees me doing that, she would pop me in my damn mouth. Well it got so bad that if I even just glance at her, she would pop me in my mouth. Shit I got popped so damn much I couldn't even tell you what she looked like. My dad would leave a certain amount of money for my school lunch each week. The family and a few friends played a card game called tonk almost every night, and they played for money. Most times a quarter a hand. This is when I learned how to gamble. At first they made me learn the game by making me gamble my lunch money. Funny how fast you learn the game after you miss enough meals at school. Fuck you, after about a week or two I learned how to win. I ate good at school many of days.
    I don't remember how or when or why I left. All I know is I went from that household to another lady's house, and she too had four kids. Ironic. But everything in my life is good and bad black and white, like those two poodles. The first family was the black poodle. This one was the white one. This lady was a Christian lady, never cursed. We went to church every Sunday. I remember I was in the 5^th grade. She had a set of twins in the 6^th grade, a boy and a girl. Then she had another daughter, she was about in the 8^th or 9^th grade. And a son who I think was a senior. Like I said, we went to church every Sunday, and prayed every morning before we went to school. I even got baptized. This was the perfect family, at least compared to where I came from. We had two dogs in the back yard. The boys slept in one room, and the girls slept in another room. We lived in an old fashioned neiborhood. You know, one where if you do something wrong, Mrs. Jackson up the street sees you, and whoops your ass. Then tells your mom so she can whoop your ass. The oldest son had a friend a couple of houses down that hardly ever used the front door; he would always come to our bedroom window. This is where I met my first love, Penny. Oh my god she was the most beautiful thing in the world…. At that time. (From what I hear now, she caught some STD that she can't get rid of). But back then, she was like a piece of heaven. Like I said my dad always provided. So I got $2 for my school lunch each day. But what I didn't tell my dad is that like the other kids that I lived in the house with, I qualified for free lunch. So I had an extra $2 to blow every day. Shit that's ballin in the 5^th grade. Anyway, at that age, I had not yet learned the skill of being a Mack. So I had to come up with some idea to get this girl's attention. Back then the teacher would take the attendance and then she would walk it up to the front office. This would give me about 15 minutes to make my move. So for about 2 weeks straight. I would wait until the teacher would take the roll up to the front office. Then all the kids would go to the back of the class room and then I would through a quarter at a time in the air and the kids would fight over them until I threw my whole $2. I did this thinking that this would impress her. Wrong, every day for two weeks she and her best friend would just sit at the table, no moved at all by my stupidity. After that did not work. I got the cassette tape, Lionel Richie, and I played the song, "Penny Lover" over and over, until I could copy each word down on paper. Then I signed it, "from your secret admirer". And I placed it in her mail box…….Your waiting for the happy ending? Shit me too. Man I never said a word to her. Good thing I guess, I hate taking medicine. Anyway, I loved my life then. It was good, and simple. I went to school. I came home, did my homework then watched cartoons. I went outside and rode my bike with my friends. We ate dinner together. We talked and worked out our problems. Then in the middle of the night, the teenage girl comes and wakes me up, and tells me to come in the bathroom with her. Then she… well let's just say she taught me everything I needed to know. This went on for a long time. Sometimes in the middle of the night. Sometimes if the mom was gone and everyone else was outside. Just whenever we could get away with it. Then one night she wanted to do it in her room in the bed. And her mom walks in and catches us. Now this is a die hard, Christian woman, who sleeps with her Bible. That night she did everything but gave us an exorcism. She cried for days after that. From that point, everything changed. It all just felt different. Then one day during a cold winter, the oldest son went to the back yard to check on the two dogs that had been out in the snow. He came back and said that he found one of the dogs dead in the snow. The mom assumed that I had done it. Made a big deal out of it. I mean she never just flat out accused me; she just did it in a round-about-way. I guess she felt if I was mean enough to molest her daughter, then I'm mean enough to kill their dog. Hell after she caught us, we never sat down and talked about who was molesting who. She just swept it under the rug. I later realized that she in fact didn't sweep it under the rug. She just waited for the right opportunity to separate two bad ass kids from each other. Hard as hell being a single parent. But yet the best memories of my life happened at that house. You have good and bad no matter where you go. You just have to roll with the punches. Going through this, you have to ask yourself, how does one maintain his sanity? The worst thing you can do is let your emotions control you. It's your worst enemy. If you control your emotions then you keep your sanity. Something tragic happens in your life, your emotions cause you to get sad or angry, which leads to losing your sanity. From there you make stupid, irrational decisions. How can that help you? The same woman that gave birth to me gave up her life for me. How I see it, the worst thing that could ever possibly happen to me, did. So everything else that comes my way is manageable.


-Jboogie