How I Became Me Chapter 8

Apparently my life was dramatic enough; I had to date a child molester, and go to court to testify against a murderer… Not long after moving back home I was slapped in the face with the truth behind Diamond. There was a part of me that wanted to move back so I could see where he and I could go. Shortly before quitting Apple Bee’s I stopped talking to Diamond. On many occasions he would have a house full of very young guys and it just felt so uncomfortable. Not to mention the date he invited me on which included his girlfriend and her sister, from whom she was trying to hook me up with. That was a night from hell and after that dreadful experience I decided to cut him out of my life. He called me several times at home and work, he blew my pager up constantly asking me to give him a chance to explain. I didn’t want to hear it and I was still dealing with the issues building up at home with my brothers. I felt out of place when I moved back home. Everyone was older and different. The friends I grew up with had moved away, were on drugs, selling drugs, in jail, or dead. It was such a rude awakening. Home was different as well. I had gotten a taste of independence and now I was living with my parents again. It was a difficult adjustment. Night life in Atlanta is far greater than the night life in Aiken. I could feel myself withdrawing again. It was like I left this skin behind me and as soon as I moved back it found its way back on my body. Nothing entertained me, the things that use to keep me focused no longer worked. The conversations I longed for were not available to me. So one day I went to the recreational center after being locked up in the house for about 3 weeks. I bumped into a few of the friends from my past. She was more family than friend but at the time it didn’t matter, I needed some form of companionship. Carol was on the wild side. She slept with any and everybody she could. She was easily convinced by anything you told her, growing up I use to feel sorry for her because she was always picked on. That was what I did in my past. People that seemed to be the underdogs were the people I would befriend. I don’t know if it was empathy or that I felt a familiarity towards them, hell it may have been both. I started hanging out with Carol and shortly after we reconnected the old crew start showing up. We would drink, play music, play cards, etc. It was something going on every night of the week. At this point I’m out of school and had no job. So my days and nights started blending into one another. My family could tell that I was different but no one ever really said anything. I was struggling so hard to fit in with everyone that I totally lost track of my goals to be a better and stronger person. What came naturally to me then became natural to me when I returned. It felt like days were the same every day. I wasn’t having fun I was just trying to numb the emptiness I felt being back home. There was a bit of guilt that I wasn’t happy being around my family, but it wasn’t them it was me and I didn’t know what to do to make it better. So drinking increased, the late nights became late weeks, and before I knew it I was in the streets more than I was home. One night after coming home from the fair, which we went to every year, we hung out at Carol’s house as usual. I was playing with her kids Mary and Donald while their mom was in the bedroom with another one of her flings. After getting the kids to sleep I decided to call it a night. I hollered to Carol that I was leaving and as soon as I opened the door I was startled by Tron busting through the door with his eyes bulging. He told me to close the door and I did. When I turned on the living room light I saw just how frantic he was. He kept repeating, “I killed him! I killed him!” At first I thought he was just exaggerating. I never had a relationship with Tron. In the people we hung out with mutually he was the biggest asshole of them all. He led with his fist and everyone under him was terrified of him. He was abusive to any female he dated; he was known to be violent with his siblings and his mother. So him looking the way he did this night made it hard to determine what was going on. I asked him what was wrong. He just took his shirt off and asked did I see any blood on it or on him. At this point I’m starting to panic because I didn’t know what was coming next. Hearing the noise in the living room Carol and her date Larry came out of the bedroom. Tron and Larry were cousins and they all have had Carol so it wasn’t a shock to see him coming out of the room with her. Tron finally sat down and started telling us what happened. Apparently, Tron went to the fair as well. While he was there he met up with his friend Jerry. Tron and Jerry have always been in and out of trouble. This particular night things went into a darker incident. While at the fair Tron and Jerry met one of the workers at the fair, they found out that he was a crack head and was looking for someone that was selling. Tron and Jerry convinced him to meet them later after the fair closed. The meeting place was a convenient store on Hampton Ave. When the fairground worker showed up he was accompanied by a co-worker who also wanted to score some crack. The scam was for the guys to show them the money they had, and then Tron and Jerry would rob them. The plan didn’t work as they had hoped. When the guy showed his money Tron tried to grab his wallet but the guy put up a fight. While struggling to get the money Tron pulled out his gun to scare the man into submitting. That didn’t stop the struggle and before anyone could stop it the gun went off and the guy was shot in the head. Tron said that Jerry ran and the white guy that was with the fairground worker drove off. Tron jumped on his bike and rode over to Carol’s house to hide out because he wasn’t sure if he was seen by anyone. Tron kept saying that he was going to kill Jerry for punking out and running. After he finished telling the story I could see a very dark and sinister look form on his face. He stood up and told me, Carol, and Larry that if we told anyone he would kill us. My heart began to beat faster and faster. I told Carol that I had to get home. I grabbed my radio from her room and headed out the door. The walk towards the street felt like it became endless. I kept replaying what he said happened and then the threat to take my life if I told anyone. All I could think was I should have stayed in Atlanta. All I had to do was stick it out and maybe things would have been better. Now I’m back home and I have become an accessory to murder and then threaten by the murder. As I made it to the street I could feel a presence behind me. I turned half way and recognized that it was Tron walking towards me. I instantly imagined having to fight him to keep him from shooting me. I have never been faced with something so deep and terrifying, but my fear wasn’t just for me, it was for my family. God forbid if he managed to take my life, how would my family heal from this? What would this do to my mother and father? I was one of the babies of the family, everyone thought so highly of me and here I am hanging around with people I have nothing in common with just to feel anything but the misery I adopted from my experiences in Atlanta. Tron stopped half way and told me not to tell anyone what he told me or he would have to come after me. I turned to him after calming down long enough to sound convincing and said, “I don’t even want to remember what you told me. I don’t need this kind of drama in my life so you don’t need to worry about me saying anything.” Tron nodded his head as to say he understood my point and trusted that I wouldn’t say anything. When I finally made it home I wanted to tell my mother and father but they were sleep. I wanted to tell my brothers but no one was home. I sat up in my room replaying that entire night, from the early part of the day, to the time at the fair, and to the crap that just happened at Carol’s house. I shook off my worries about myself and started thinking about the guy shot in the head and left dead in the parking lot of a convenient store. What about his family? What if he’s married? What if he has kids? Being on crack doesn’t warrant you getting your life taken away from you. I prayed to God to give me a sign on what I needed to do. Shortly after praying I felt a sleep come over me and drifted into a deep slumber. That following morning I woke up feeling like I had the most vivid nightmare ever. Somehow I’d tricked my mind into believing that what happened didn’t happen. I got up, took a shower, made me some breakfast, watched some television, checked the mail, and then grabbed the morning paper. As I sat in the living room looking at the funnies I happened to glance at the front of the newspaper. “Fairground Employee Found Dead In The Parking Lot Of The Hampton Avenue Parking Lot Of the Convenient Store From A Shot To The Head” That really isn’t the correct title but I didn’t need to get the title correct after knowing firsthand knowledge about a murder that the news paper just printed. My heart raced and my body began to work against me. I wanted to get up but couldn’t get out of my seat. I finally managed to get out of my seat and pace. I kept trying to figure out how I could tell the cops without anyone finding out that I told. It wasn’t just me here, if I tell and it gets out, my family could be in danger. Tron didn’t care about his own family, what would stop him from hurting mine. I walked outside and sat on the porch to try and clear my mind. As I looked up I saw Carol coming up the street. Even from a distance I could see she was crying. Carol told me that after I left Tron threatened her and told her he was going to stay in her house until he got enough money to disappear. All I could think about was Carol’s kids being stuck in a mess that we brought into our lives by befriending such a lunatic. I felt compelled to do the right thing because I didn’t want my fear to keep someone like that free and to make people affected by his actions suffer. So I called the police and informed them that I had some information on the shooting last night. It seemed like seconds before I heard a knock on the door. It was the police. They put us in the back of the squad car and covered us up with their coats to drive us to the station to give our statements. It felt like we were there for 24 hours. They asked us details, they made us repeat what we said, and they asked us about that entire day, what did we see before Tron came to tell us he killed someone; did we see the man that was murdered? The questioning went on and on until finally they said they had enough information from us. As we were leaving I asked the investigator what would happen with us. I explained to him the fact that we know the same people Tron knows and if word gets out that we told on him we could be in danger as well as our family. The investigators said that they would keep squad cars in our area until they make the arrest. The hell went on for weeks. We would still be around the same people trying to act like everything was fine. I didn’t tell too many people because I wasn’t sure if it would trigger something. I told my brothers but not my parents. I was watched the entire time. Then one night all hell broke loose. I was keeping my distance from Carol so no one would put it together that we told. I decided to walk over to my sister’s house to get away from the neighborhood. As I was walking I heard someone whisper out to me to tell me to come here. I turned around and it was Tron, my cousin Jennifer that was dating him at the time, and our friend Sarah. I walked over and tried remain composed and not nervous. Tron told me that he heard that Carol told the cops what he did and he was going to kill her when he saw her. I told him that Carol was with me the entire week and she didn’t tell anyone anything. Jennifer interrupted and said she saw Carol talking to a cop at the unemployment office. I was speechless because I didn’t know she talked with anyone. I told Tron that if he is planning on leaving why you wouldn’t just leave. Why do something stupid like hurt a female while you’re hiding out from the cops at the girl’s house you are now threatening to kill? Tron was zoned out and nothing I said seemed to waver. I walked away and said I’m out of this mess. My luck is always working against me. My intensions were to get to Carol’s house first, warn her, and get her to the police. As I began to walk the street I saw Carol and Larry walking together. If this was a cartoon I would have that face that pops up when a cartoon character is shocked. As I walked towards her I gave her a look and then gestured my eyes to my right showing her that Tron was waiting for her up the hill. To my surprise she understood exactly what I meant and she took off running. She ran to Ms. Betty’s house, Ms. Betty was like the neighborhood mom that would let us come over for dinner and hang out. When I saw her make it in I also saw Tron run in after her. I ran towards the house and saw Tron jumping off the porch. My heart was hanging on my shoe strings. All I kept picturing was Carol on the floor stabbed or strangled because I didn’t hear a gun shot. When I got into the house I saw Carol sitting on the couch holding her neck. When Tron grabbed her Ms. Betty’s son grabbed the phone and called the police. Tron heard him talking to the cops so he ran out of the house. When the cops got there I cursed them out for anything and everything I could think of. I told them that they lied to us about protecting us and how quick either Carol or myself could have been hurt or worse. The officer told us to get in his car and he would take us to an undisclosed place until Tron was apprehended and locked up. We were taken to North Augusta and dropped off at a local hotel. By the next morning we were home and Tron was arrested. About a year later the trial came, Carol and I had to testify. The trial only lasted a week or so. He was released after spending a year in prison. Shortly after the trial I was asked to go to Atlanta with a friend of the family named Lenny. I said yes, went for the weekend, met a man Henry and fell madly in love. 3 weeks after my visit to Atlanta I moved back and this time I moved in with a man and not with my brothers. In the beginning of the relationship it was magnificent, but like everything else in my life this didn’t have the happy ending I expected.