How I Became Me Chapter 3

Life can at times flash past you; before you know it things are moving in an entirely different direction than anticipated. You can fool yourself to believe that you have everything planned and nothing will surprise you. I guess that is what we do to keep life interesting. If everything happened exactly how we plan it seems like it would become boring and too predictable. We want excitement and adventure yet we still plan ahead and pray that it works the way we want it to. After getting over my fear of performing in front of people it became known that I could dance very well. We entered talent contests, performed at every Gym Jam at Smith Hazel’s Recreational Center, and everyone in Aiken South Carolina wanted to see us perform. It was as if our group “Young Image” became local super stars. That excitement built my confidence and pushed me to look into what more I could have to share with the world. After years of performing we decided to add rapping to our resume. We knew of a local guy that worked at the local grocery store who could write pretty good lyrics. We all met up with him and explained to him that we wanted to be the ABC (Another Bad Creation). Instantly he started writing songs for us. We all created our stage names and were ready for our new journey as rappers. I was called G-Fresh and I loved the name. We got shirts made and we bought blank hats and had our brother the artist write our names on them. The buzz about us rapping went through South Carolina just as fast as the news of our dancing. We would walk around town and see our names on the back of signs, spray painted on walls, and everyone that new us called us ABC. It was such an amazing feeling. We performed at a talent show that promised a video taping of our performance, a cash prize, and our video would be sent to record labels. We won the contest, got recorded, got $25 and told everyone that didn’t make it to our performance that the judges was sending our videotaped performance to record labels. Weeks then months went by and no word from the judges or any record labels. Eventually the group started to drift from performing and practicing to just getting back to regular life. We ended the group and everyone went back to their regular lives. It was impossible for me to. I had a bug for the feeling that came from hearing people cheer, hearing people ask to see it again. I wanted that feeling all the time. Nothing seemed to shake it. I knew at that point in my life I wanted to become a performer more than anything else in the world. I started writing my own songs, I started singing again but this time I felt that I could sing good enough to perform. Growing up in a Baptist family I sung in the youth choir but always want to sing in the gospel choir because they sung deeper songs that the bubble gum kid songs they had us sing. My grandmother talked with the choir director and I was put in the gospel choir. I was a baby compared to the elders of the church choir but they let me in and were impressed with my vocal ability and eagerness to sing. I feared so long that people would never know the real me. I kept so much to myself and was so afraid to allow my comfort to get the best of me. After so many years of holding in my deepest and darkest feelings I was actually cloaked in my own ignorance at the things I could do that would have been a benefit to me and those around me. My hunger for freedom out of my own hell and for a new life outside of South Carolina only tripled. Nothing made me happy anymore. My writing continued but my imagination for a future full of excitement and adventure was blocked at the lack of opportunities. That memory of winning the talent contest and being lied to about having our performance sent to record label weighed heavy on my spirit. I knew that Aiken would not be the place for me to find that bliss I searched for. I knew I had to leave but I just didn’t know how. At 16 I was in a miserable state of being. I stayed up all the time, I cut school, I began holding things in again, and my wall was rebuilt and reinforced. I would cry at the drop of a hat because everything hurt. I wanted to have been more at this point in my life but feared that I would only be what I was at that moment. Everyone around me was settled or beginning to settle in their daily lives. I felt so out of place and I felt so separated from the rest of my community. In an odd twist of fate my nephew was in trouble and the only option my sister had was to send him to juvenile detention or Job Corps. So my sister picked Job Corps but was scared for him to go there alone. I decided to drop out of High School and accompany my nephew to Job Corps. I wasn’t sure what I was getting in to but the thought of him being alone scared me and then at the same time this new experience would give me a feel of how it would be to be away from home. I was there for about 7 months and then I graduated. I was President of Student Government; I was an honor student; I lived in the honor dorm; I got the award for student of the year which was the highest award you could get; I participated in the talent shows and I also joined the campus choir. I was a part of any and everything possible. It wasn’t easy socially though because now I was being targeted for not having a girlfriend. I had guys that said very degrading things to me, I had guys that flirted with me and most of them really wanted me but because they were surrounded by their “home boys” they played the role of picking on me and at me. While there I had a few sexual encounters with a couple of guys. Nothing considered all the way by any means but I started understanding the attraction and the ability to turn guys on. I started realizing the things I had issues with like my lips, my legs, and my butt were actually assets that attracted guys. After I graduated I moved back to Aiken South Carolina. Jobs Corps awards their students that graduate a job, a place to live, your license, and some money to start your new life. I didn’t get my license because my mom couldn’t find my license so I wasn’t able to be placed in a job or relocated to another state for a job. When I got back to Aiken I felt so temporary. I knew the moment I got there that I was ready to leave and start my life away from home. Being home for about another year really pushed me to want to leave and never come back. On a night that still haunts me, my brother came home to visit from the NAVY. The house was full of family, kids, and friends. My father was a known alcoholic and he had the shortest nerve that would explode into a rage when he got upset and wanted a drink. That night we had people running in and out, making noise, drinking, and just having a ball. I could hear my father in his room fuming and getting ready to explode. He suddenly jumped out of bed, got dressed, and stormed out of the house. The family knew what that meant but to keep the energy level high no one acted on it. After a little while all the adults left and it was my mom, my brothers, and my young niece and nephew in the house. Being home from Job Corps I lost my bedroom to the older brother of the 4 of us. I was on the living room couch falling asleep after getting my niece and nephew to bed. I heard the back door open and immediately knew it was my father. Instinctively I sat up in the dark living room waiting to hear him curse, eat, and then go to sleep like he would do usually. When he got into the bedroom with my mom the anger in his voice let me know that this was not going to be one of those simple nights. I could hear him cursing about the people running in and out of the house, I heard him mention how tired he was of not coming home and being able to just relax. It quickly jumped from that to him verbally attacking my mom. As she always did, she got up and walked to the kitchen to prepare his dinner. Normally he would stay in the room and continue to ramble; he would eat and go to sleep. This night was not the norm. I heard he walk up the hall into the kitchen. Before I could completely put on my left sock I heard a crash followed by my brother that was a year older than me scream out, “He hit mom in the head with a plate!” Instantly I ran into the kitchen, once there I saw my brother grab my mom, I grabbed my father and before taking him out of the kitchen my younger brother hit him in the head with a tin plate he kept under his mattress for my dad. Sounds crazy but being raised in such violence a child adapts to the situation or gets crushed by it. I picked my father up which was easy since he was extremely smaller in weight to me. At this time I was 17 and about 165lbs going through changes in my body. I threw him in the bathroom where he hit his head on the sink. Right before my eyes I saw a splash of blood coming from his head. It was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. I remembered stepping back and being frozen for a moment. I was shocked out of my trance by my brother telling me to call the police. After calling the police I ran to my sister’s house. It was storming really badly, the wind was blowing and the push of the wind was so powerful I constantly fell and slipped on the muddy ground. By the time I got to my sister’s house I was covered in rain and mud. My sister instantly knew what I came to tell her but when she got to the house the sight of all the blood shocked her. In my mind I thought I’d killed my father and I didn’t know what was going to happen from there. Suddenly I heard his voice in the bedroom. I heard him on the phone with his mom, my grandmother, telling her that my older brother tried to kill him. I guess in the speed of things he thought it was my brother and not me. Not to mention the fact that we all look so much alike. The ambulance and the cops came. They patched my mom up, they saw to my father, the cops asked my mom and the rest of us questions. We told them what happened and before the cops left they told my mom we would need to go to court to press charges on him. The night went by so fast that I can’t remember if or when I fell asleep.