My Past.....My Life.....

         You discover so many things about “self” in this journey called life, and the people around you. There are some many stories you can tell, so many; you just don’t know where to begin. Some can make you laugh, and some can make you cry. A lot of us want to start from the beginning with times and dates, but life as I remember it was random and chaotic. All I can do is speak from the voice within me. From a place I believe we call, the heart. If you noticed I didn’t say the human heart. I really don’t think there is much humanity left to call us human anymore. We stopped being human along time ago, at least that’s how I see it. Oh, but life itself has its own stories, kind of like a movie, or soap opera, if you will. There are good parts and bad parts, heroes and villains, but both are bittersweet bedfellows. My life is about love and hate.

       I don’t think it really matters when I was born, or how old I am. What matters are all the events that have happened in my life that led me to be, who I am. I would like to first ask what the hell is normal? The reason why I ask is because, what’s normal to me might not be normal to you. For example, being beaten, every other day by your mother, is that normal to you? Maybe not, but it was damn sure normal to me. And what is it with this word called “love” that we seem to just throw around? Does it even have meaning anymore? It’s kind of like saying “hello” or “how are you doing?” In other words you’re just saying it, to say it. Follow me there’s a point to all this rambling.

Mother, why do you hate so?

           If you want to see how fucked your kids are going to be, you need only to look at yourself in the mirror. Because what ever you do, or say, they will damn sure repeat it, and possibly relive it. May God forgive me for what I am about to say, but my mother was one of the most fucked up people to ever become a parent. Seriously, I won’t say her name. She is a very evil and vindictive individual. Everything I will say on this journey (book) is the truth. I think its time for me to start doing that, you know, telling the truth? I think I have lied my whole damn life about one thing or the other, but you have to ask yourself where did I learn it from? I’ll let you guess. My mother is a short woman, maybe about 5’2”, kind of thick, but with a badass attitude. To be honest I don’t know how we were even born, my sister and I. I mean if she weren’t my mother, I wouldn’t have dated her. She was a total bitch. She hated everyone, and everything. And didn’t mine getting into a street brawl, or throw a pot of boiling lye on someone to prove a point. So it just came natural to me that I developed those loving qualities.

            You see if you don’t show your children love, then what are you showing them? If you never tell them you love them, or hug them, what are you raising them to be? If there is no love, then naturally there is hate, or fear. So, I must tell you that you would be raising some dysfunctional, and dangerous children. Better yet, little firecrackers, growing up to be ticking time bombs.

             My very first memory of my mother was her beating my ass. Try telling your grandchildren that story. If you did not notice already, my mother and me do not get along at all! Like a good friend told me once, “you can forgive, but you can never

forget.”  The funny thing about our relationship, she only raised me for 3 years, before giving me up to the state, and that was when I was 12 years old, so where the fuck was she in the beginning of my life? As you can see her priorities weren’t straight. Anyway, lets move on.

         I can remember when she gave up her parental rights like it was yesterday. It was actually one of the best days of my life. Which meant I didn’t have to put up with her shit anymore. September 13, 1986, my mother acted a damn fool that day. She embarrassed my grandmother, and sent me into my first rage. Let me set the scene for you.

        It was a nice day at Hamilton County Courthouse. The criminals were chained up together dressed in county orange, waiting to see their judges. The bailiffs wore brown uniforms, while barking orders. I was sitting next to my caseworker on a hard wooden bench, and we were all waiting for my mother and my grandmother to arrive. At this point, I was nervous like I have always been. Waiting for her evil ass to come walking down the hall, talking shit, and loud like she always was. But wait, here she comes, walking beside my grandmother, wearing tight fitted jeans, a maroon leather jacket and a dried up Jeri curls. And trust me, she didn’t fail me either, she was loud, drunk and all my grandmother could do was lower her head in shame. My mother gave me a cold stare, as if wishing I were dead. Soon after that, we were told to enter the courtroom. From then on, it was nothing but drama. I mean really, you can’t make this shit up. She told the judge, that my sister. Quiana, and me were thieves, and she wished she had flushed us both down the toilet. Wow?  I sat there for an hour listening to her rant and rave about me. How I never helped her, and I was no good, when in fact, I was the one taking care of her high and drunk ass. I was pissed off; even the white judge shook her head. I was sitting next to my grandmother, when something strange began to happen. My chest tightened, hands were sweaty and there was pain in my stomach. For the first time in my life I was not afraid, but enraged with my mother. It felt good, and liberating. In a flash, I flipped over the table we were sitting at and ran to my mother’s table. I was fucking fed up with her shit. I wanted to kill her ass, for all the shit she had put my sister and I through. I slammed my fist on the table and told her “to shut the fuck up!” I then proceeded to say “You ain’t never done shit for us, you’re a crack head, and you will never put your fucking hands on me again!” My mother was stunned. She didn’t move, her eyes were wide, but mouth was shut. She knew that day I was tired. I was tired of being afraid, jumpy and silent. I was tired of getting beat on, and made to feel like a slave. I was tired of feeling helpless and lost. I was free that day! The judge cleared the room, and shortly after that I became a “ward” of the state. No judge in there right minds would let her keep children. My mother did me a favor by giving me up. I still smile back on that day.

One of many…

      You would think the story I just told you was bad right? Hell no, that was on a good day. My daily life living with her crazy ass was much worse. Like I stated earlier, my mother didn’t take care of me when I was born. You know how selfish she was? She let my great grandfather’s best friends, Ed and Estlle raise me to the age of 9 years old. Now when I look back on it, I think it was probably one of the few best decisions she ever made, after all she was just 16.  I at least with them had 9 years of a child hood, but even then she would pop in and out of my life. She was “auntie” not “mommy”. Yeah you heard me right. I didn’t even know she was my mother, and now I think it would have been better that I never knew. I had a good life with the Rankins. I mean I had everything a child could dream of, I was spoiled, and far as I was concerned, I was their only child. But you have to realize something about people that are unhappy. They want you to suffer, just like they suffer. I believe my mother became jealous of me because I had a better life as child, then she did her whole life. So in her unhappiness she would periodically popped in and out of my childhood.

        Majority of the time when she came around was to whoop my ass for something I might have done. I mean come on know, I was about 5, when she started this crap. Think about it this way, what do little boys do at that age?. They get in trouble, and back then it was strange to me that my “auntie” was only coming over to punish me. I mean this was going on from the age of 5-9. When I look at the hand that I was dealt, and knowing what I now know about God. I always ask to this day, what is His purpose for my life. Why put a child through painful, hardships. What glory can be given to God out of abusing a child? So the ends justify the means, and at some point in my life I walked away from God. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t come back.

       I hated God for this one incident that happened in my life. It was a Saturday morning and I was playing in the front your of the Rankins home. I had to have been about 6 or 7 at the time. Well by now I knew my “auntie” was really my mother. Anyway a day earlier I had got caught stealing in Kmart. It surprised me because Ed didn’t get upset. He was the one that handed out the capital punishment. And this time he didn’t do anything. I should have known it was a setup.

          Across the street a bus stopped, and as it continued on, my mother was left behind. She had a neck brace on, and a cast on her right foot. She was limping across the street towards the house, and the closer she got, the more serious her face became. Its funny what you can remember. It was just like yesterday. She walked up to me, and it seemed like it was in slow motion. But then she slammed the hell out of me. I was seeing stars, so I immediately jumped up and ran in the house to tell Ed and Estelle. I think what happened next was the beginning of my trust issues, that I still have now in my life. I cried and told them what happened, but they just sat there watching tv like I wasn’t even in the room. They ignored me. Later I found out all of this was their doing. It was a damn set up. My mother cam storming in the house yelling, then grabbed my by my are and dragged me into another room. She then close the door, and gave me an evil smile. The kind of smile like no one can help you now. She smacked me around a bit, and ordered me to remove my clothes. That’s right she was going to beat me butt naked. The slower I moved to remove my clothes, the more she became in raged and hit me. I was just standing there in the middle of the naked as the day I was born, ashamed and helpless. On the ceiling was a spider plant hung up by rope. My mother snatched it down, and began tieing  my hands to my feet. I laid on the floor like an animal, hogtied and afraid. She began to beat me with a leather belt all over my body. I mean she spared no spot on my body, even my head was fair game. I began screaming. But it wasn’t a normal scream. It was a scream like someone is trying to kill, which alarmed Ed. Ed came in the room with shock, because he couldn’t be leave what he was seeing. He became angry and grabbed my mother. Asking her over and over “what the hell is wrong with you?” She was crazed, like a mad woman with the lust of hate in her eyes. She wanted to keep beating me. Its kind of like a dog when he taste human blood, they want more, so you have to put them down. Someone should have put my mother down along time ago.

Time out…

How does things like this happen? Back in the day it was ok to chastise your child. But not beat them. My mother always went over board. But I find that she has the same diseases like I do, which is Bi-Polar II, among other things. I have a hard time as well controlling my temper, becoming deeply depressed at times. But when I look to God I ask Him, how did we fall so far from grace? We are stricken with pain, and hate. We can not show love, because we don’t know what it is. This is the case with my mother, and with me.

Not Done....God willing....