I had gotten a paper route when I had first returned to Chicago because things were not what I had anticipated. On my first day on the route, the neighborhood welcoming committee accosted me. They didn't hurt me, it was just that I was a "new" face in the neighborhood and they had to let me know that I was in their territory. Ironically, the selfsame committee ultimately educated me on how to survive on my own in my new surroundings.

    I believe Roosevelt Franklin once said, "There is nothing to fear, but fear itself." From the age of ten to eleven, I had trained religiously in Tai Kwon Do for free at a neighborhood children’s’ center in Wisconsin. However, I was afraid of actually being engaged in a real physical confrontation. The streets of Chicago soon cured me of that though, very soon.

    I have a brother 3 years my junior so we pretty much hung out. As he was already experienced in the streets, with my "ehgucashun" and "kulcher", we soon became a duo. I introduced him to structure and thinking as compared to thought. While he introduced me to what I call, 'the Cain virus.'

    'The Cain virus,' best described, is "having the fear of-to rationalize conflict with;" not to be confused with having fear.

    If you will, fear is arguably the single most driving emotion of the life consciousness, if not all of life itself.

    In the 'Cain and Abel' story, Cain displayed a “fear of” his offering not being as welcomed as Abel's; “a fear of” God's retribution; and a fear of being ostracized.

    Having fear is like, the time my mother sent my brother and I to the store. On our way, we met one of the members of the “neighborhood committee," and had it not been for my younger brother...

    In preparation for the possibility of an encounter with the neighborhood welcoming committee, prior to leaving for the store, I had put a chair leg w/metal corner in my pocket. As it was raining, I had on a London Fog raincoat, not your typical 1970's Chicago in the hood look. As dynamic would have it; Dude, that did not like me, stops us and asks me if whether or not I was the dude that he did not like. I'm not yet 13, and dude looked to be about 17 or so. So I'm standing there, with my hand on the chair leg in my pocket, and dude is standing there with a Moses sized staff! I tell him that I don't know who he likes or dislikes, all the while wondering why in the hell does he have such a big damn stick. My brother saved me by knowing whose name to say. It turned out, that our eldest brother, whom was 16 at the time, was messing around with our landlord's daughter. Whose brother, happened to be the leader of the little neighborhood committee!! That's how I came became accepted within the circle. And when my "buddy," former terrorist, learned that he and I had the same last name, we became "cousins."Anyway, that was having fear, because I walked to the store with my brother in spite of the fear of harm. Having fear of, I would not have even gone to the store.

    As I became "street poisoned," but obviously lacking street experience, I also became a target for parasites. Another example of having fear is one time when my mother had sent my brother and I to the store. While waiting outside, because I was barred from the store for just walking out with whatever I wanted in my hand,( I had stopped stealing, lol) Anyway, while standing outside waiting for my brother, a man about in his 20's, approached me and asked me if whether or not I wanted to make some money helping him move some boxes. We were on 43rd and Michigan Ave. and he said we had to just walk up the street. Although it was around nine at night, I needed money so I didn't immediately think anything suspicious. However, as we walked, instinct had me on guard because I walked a pace away. When we neared 47th, he tried to pull me into an enclave and to this day, I shudder to think why. In retrospect, I recall us walking and talking and him specifically asking me if whether or not I knew anything about "bi-sex." My ignorant little ass thought he had said "bicycles" and remembering rambling on about how fast my brother and I could dismantle one. I also remember the look in his eyes at my seeming vulnerability.

    I got away, but the same name that had saved me that night from "Moses," happened to be friends with the parasite that had almost got me while I was waiting for my brother outside the store. It appeared that parasite lived across the street from the store, which is how he had spotted me. After that, I stopped hanging with that crowd. Besides, they had proven themselves to be bitches prior to the gay scare. At least seven of us robbed a woman and we had had a gun!

    Another example of having fear… I was in the Cook County Jail in Chicago at the age of 18. We, the inmates, were "gang-banging," (A dynamic of the “Cain Syndrome”) and the guards had to come in to secure the unit. Usually in that type of situation, six guards would come inside, while one guard stood safely outside in the event the first six get their asses whooped. Well, there were these two guards that worked there whom were brothers and American African. One was a martial arts expert and the other one was the size of a fucking grizzly bear, REALLY!! Anyway, in the event of a riot on the deck, these two motherfuckers would come into the damn units by themselves!! Oh yeah, they were that vicious, especially together. Anyway, the fucking grizzly bear, (one of his hands made two hands of the average person!) had a habit of looking for tattoos on inmates. When he would see one representing something, he would ask, "What the fuck does that mean," talking about the tattoo. I must have seen this man send SEVERAL inmates to Cermak hospital after them answering that question! Well, 'the bear' caught me. I have never felt more bitched in my life! Even to this day! I had just gotten a tat on my chest so it was rather visible. Dude, I damn near shitted and pissed on myself as this "bear" stood over me bellowing, "What the fuck does that mean?"

    As I shook, and I do not mean trembled, I mean shook, all I could think of was that this motherfucker was about to knock my damn head off!! Me, not knowing what to do other than the obvious, stammering and stuttering, stated the obvious. To my shock, "the bear" simply ordered me to get into my "house," (my cell)!

    Now THAT was having fear!!

    I will share the moral of this later...

    But the dynamic relativity of this is, is that this fear of has driven us as a species, to attempt to become greater than our idea(s) of a God or deity. We are attempting to capture eternity, while the notion of eternity is packaged and marketed. When one truly grasps the concept of life, one will comprehend that “life” in and of itself, is eternal. Time is a relative concept, restricted to the dynamics of a controlled environment.

    In plain English, so-called answers to life will cost you, but be mindful of what that cost may be. Because man, and I mean the member of the human group with penises, has claimed he is heir to the throne and the ordained savior of life. Simply put, man is “gorilla pimpin,” fuck what you heard, act like you know!

    Chicago...

    After the paper route incident, with my brother as my ghetto guide, became a world I set out to conquer. As I said, within a year of my return, I was street poisoned, in the streets most of the time drunk and high. I stayed in the streets also due to all of my mother’s estranged children returning home, (the two older girls had been with a different cousin for a time); from time to time my mother took in strays, (I supposedly have three children by one of them, the first child born when I was only 13, she was 18, read the story!); the preexisting dynamics of the relationship between my mother and I, our personalities just clashed; and finally because the family, had moved from where we lived during one of the periods I was not allowed in the house. When they had moved, it took me at least a month or more before I found out where they had moved. Ironically, the family says the two of us, my mother and I, do not get along because we are too much alike, especially in our meanness and perversity. In fact, the first time that I actually got locked up was due to a “difference” between my mother and I…

    It was Christmas Eve 1975, only a year after my return home; my mother’s boyfriend at the time, whom happened to be a police, had come over. We called him “The Lunchmeat King”, because he would always by us lunchmeat and bread when we had no food, which was most of the time. Anyway, he had come over and as usual, we had no food, and as usual, my mother did not want him to buy us any. Why? I don’t know! Not to make excuses for her, but as I understand it, her childhood wasn’t all that great. In addition to inheriting the Johnson sexual mystique and appetite, she inherited the Johnson greed. Had she inherited the Johnson love, she may have known how to love in return...

    In fact, I am quite sure that if she would admit it, the only time that she has ever felt wanted was when the man whom became her legal husband, her “hero”, asked her to marry him. He was a “hero” because to my understanding, the Department of Children and Family Services were about to take her remaining children from her. This would have been during the time that I was growing up with auntie-mama…

    …Or maybe she did get mad because of me, seeing as I was the one whom usually asked for food.

    Anyway, since she would not allow him to give us any money that night, sometimes she would, he decided to go to the store himself. Now, she supposedly has two children by him, I say supposedly because I did not assist in their activities; one was born in 1974 and the other in 1975. Now, knowing that he was going to the store, she took both of his children by their feet, standing in the doorway of the room, and slung them on my sister’s bed, with one of them bouncing to the floor. When he returned with the lunchmeat and bread, as I was telling him to get his children because my mother had thrown them. She came running out into the hallway with a caste iron bookend, grabbing me in the collar. And for some reason, this time, I did not resist, in spite of having learned of her dangerousness, which was a big mistake. Mother, cold cocked me directly under my left eye with that caste iron bookend!

    Boooooooiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnngggggggggg!!!!!

    As I write this, Entologically, I wonder if my response to her attack was solely due to the fact that just like in cartoons, I saw stars! Or, was it due to some penned up anger stemming from the overall dynamics of our relationship.

    Whatever it was, I shamefully report that when everything stopped spinning, my mother’s face was a bloody mess.

    As I sat in the juvenile home, all I could think about was that now, I had really lost my mother, because I had become another one of the many men that had beaten her in her life.

    Although the courts had released me, it took my mother nearly four months to come and get me, and I understood, I had fractured bones in her face. Anyway, after that, I believe out of shame, I stayed away more and more, coming “home” maybe once a week and ultimately less and less. The second time I got locked up was because, unknowingly, I broke into a preacher’s house and stole an electric can opener. I had a paper route and while on the route, my stupid ass broke into this man’s house and stole a fucking electric can opener! He, the preacher, had actually came and talked to me at the police station because nothing else had been touched in his house; which he couldn't quite understand, especially since there had been nearly 300 dollars under his mattress. The irony, I stole the can opener to give to my mama for a bribe, so I could stay for the night and so we could use more of the money I made from the paper route for food.

    Prior to returning to Chicago I was in accelerated eighth grade classes in school. I can honestly report first hand, that the curriculum was at least ten years outdated in the neighborhood school that I was forced to attend upon returning to Chicago. For instance, although it was an “eighth” grade class, the highest level of academia was probably fifth grade, and that was even outdated comparable to its suburban counterpart. Anyway, as with my momentous return to the nest, I was disappointed and became disenchanted with school. Also, continuing the status of school leper wasn’t too appealing. Although I did receive a diploma, by mail, I am mentioned nowhere in the school yearbook, nor graduation ceremonies. But then, I would not have been able to attend anyway because I had been rushed to the hospital during that time threatening an appendix rupture. I had complained to my mother for nearly two days about pain. Her solution was to shove some soap up my ass. A remedy she quipped as I clung to the baseboard of her doorway, interrupting her “ministering” the man she had broughthome over the weekend.

    Some things never change.

    That Monday morning my eldest sister had to convince my mother to give my god brother the medical card so he could take me to the clinic. When the examining clinician became excited and kept repeating, “Why you no die, why you no die?” An even deeper pain, the pain of feeling unwanted all over again, gripped me and would not let go… some things never change, well I had to.

    After surviving the too numerous parasites and dangers of the city streets, at 15, though I thought I was 16, I went to Atterbury Job Corps Center in Edinburgh, Indiana.

    After being there for less than six months, we, the Job Corps members, took the center over. Part of the genius of the Job Corps program, in addition to addressing the disparity in our educational system, was to utilize abandoned army bases as Job Corps sites. Which really was a great administrative budgetary decision; but instead of refurbishing the bases, at least reporting on the one I attended, all that was done was a clean up. Now, this was an army base that had not been used since WWII! Hell, the entire time I was stationed there, a window by my bunk stayed broken! To make matters worse, the center director was stealing funds; we learned this from our mutiny; the cafeteria was infested with rodents; as well as the dorms and commissary; hell, the damn officers quarters beyond the perimeter of the center were still standing! (Which we used as motels) But the thing that did it was the security staff assaulting us. Whenever it was felt necessary they would beat us and put us in the brig! Yeah, that’s right, an actual military brig! I am not exactly sure how the mutiny began, but I do remember why.

    There were these twin sisters that got into fight with two other girls. As security was arriving, all but one of the twins ran. A fight developed between two male security guards and an under age female. These fuckers split her ear so bad it was hanging!! We fucking snapped!! I must add that the twins were personal friends of mine, so yeah, it was personal. Anyway, after nearly two weeks of mutiny, we got to meet with a Department of Labor officer from Chicago.

    Time out from the story, this is really personal, Dude, I am going to respect your privacy, as I will for everyone mentioned in these writings. However, I have a burning question for you, Are you the same B.W. that told me I needed to find out who I was nearly ten years later in a Wisconsin institution? And if so, contact me, please.

    Readers, yeah, read the story!

    Anyway, the DOL officer, in agreement with our plight, created a committee of eight, of which I was a member. Our duty would be to report directly to him as to what was going on at the center. For our efforts we got a brand new cafeteria built, ALL of the necessary repairs completed, the jail closed and the security staff penalized for assaulting minors. Needless to say, but I was forced to terminate my contract due to violating the no fraternizing rule, yeah, I had a girlfriend. I am going to share this only for insight and because it is touching.

    Although I had not been in Job Corps that long, I already had a girlfriend and she was in my age bracket!! I could barely believe it, but when I got to Job Corps, I became a hottie! Since my hair grows crazy, I would wear a hair net in order to give it a faux-Afro look. Anyway, it was a look that appeared to be working because girls were going just ape shit over me.

    This is significant because in truth, men do not choose women, women choose men. Ladies, remember that, and learn to read the label before buying.

    Well, like I said, I was messing around with this one girl and one day a friend of hers kissed me. No, I did not resist the kiss, and not just because I am a man. But because I was stunned! Hey, girls had never shown me any attention! Women had always paid me attention, but not girls. So hell yes, I was like a little puppy, eager for attention.

    I want to also take the time to apologize to a certain female that wanted to be with me when we first got to Job Corps. I would not be with her because she was a little too much woman for my liking. I know that sounds mean, but it is the truth. I have seen some very pretty buxom women, but the only time I have found one sexually attractive was for five hundred dollars a week! Anyway, I apologize girl, nothing personal; I wish we could have remained friends. And if you are still gay, don’t be still lying saying that I am the reason.

    And to “Ms. Job Corps romance”, if all you wanted was sex, why in the hell did you leave me waiting at the Chicago Greyhound Bus station not once, not twice, but three times!!!

    Like I said, I had voluntarily terminated myself from Job Corps. My thinking was that when I got back home to Chicago, I would go to the DOL officers’ office and get his help to get back to Job Corps, and back to her. Well, he either wasn’t there, or I got spun, either way, that became just another chapter in my life. I terminated in September, and when I learned of her being at home in October. I was so sprung that I caught a Greyhound bus to East St. Louis, where she was. After her two-week pass was over, she went back to Job Corps and I went back to my life. Yeah readers, girlfriend left me sitting at the bus station waiting for her to come to Chicago over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, even after I had taken a bus to her to East St. Louis!

    After returning from Job Corps, wounding a broken heart, I found myself once again for the most part, homeless. My mother lived on 53rd and Calumet and three of my sisters lived together on 55th and Prairie, approximately five blocks apart. My relationship between my mother and I was still what it was, and my sisters were so damn goofy! Let me tell you, to get away from our mama, they got an apartment together because neither of them could afford to live alone being on welfare. They had their baby daddies, but to this day, our social policies do not advocate for the family unit as a dynamic whole. Anyway, these heifers literally divided areas of the apartment into three sections!! They would not cook dinners together, they divided the refrigerator, the cupboards, and they shopped separately for everything! They would even constantly buy quarts of milk instead of gallons! When it came to my younger brother and I eating, we got scraps! And to think that when we were all living with our mother, my younger brother and I would steal to feed them wenches! Anyway, I would often sleep in the hallways around the neighborhood if I could not get in for the night or find a bed for the night. This is how I initially met the family.

    Before I became acquainted with the element on 55th St. in Chicago, I was pretty much just a petty crook. I ran around with this group that was primarily into theft from and theft of vehicles to robbery. I had met one of the crew because his family lived in the same building that my mother lived in. I was accepted because I was the most daring. However, I did not know how to drive which was used to justify not giving me equal share of the bounty. When I learned that I never got equal share, no matter what we did, I moved on. I started hanging out with this kid around my age that lived down the street from my mother because I had become infatuated with his mother. She saw this as an opportunity to have me selling pot for her. When she would not pay me for my services I conveniently got robbed. That winter, she got three nephews visiting for the holidays to supposedly kill me…

    It was before I had stopped hanging out with the car-stealing crowd and a few of us had just returned from the store getting more liquor when, three dudes burst into the hallway with guns!! As I was trailing, I didn’t have time to react, which really did not matter anyway because unbeknownst to me, I was whom they wanted. They started talking shit about us having stolen some car of theirs, which turned out to be bullshit. Because the story changed after they had ushered me out of the hallway, through some houses and into the alley. Once in the alley, they began talking shit about me having done something to an auntie of theirs.

    Which didn’t surprise me because when they had first burst into the hallway brandishing the weapons, I immediately recognized the weapons because I had often cleaned all three, the .32, the .38 and the sawed-off shotgun!! They walked me from the 5200 block to the 5100 block down the alley stopping underneath the el-train tracks behind the el-train station. Because they were talking too much shit, I knew that they were not “killers,” “murderers” perhaps, but not killers. The difference?

    A killer wants to look its victim in the eyes before killing them; a murderer CANNOT look its victim in the eyes. Yes, I took a gamble on my instincts, but I’m here writing aren’t I?

    Anyway, instinct told me that they were not killers and as long as I did not act like a bitch, they did not have the nerve to even shoot me. After missing the signal four times, they were supposed to shoot me as the trains passed overhead, they told me to run. I started backing away slowly telling them that I couldn’t run, ensuring to keep my gaze locked with the ringleaders'. I kept backing up slowly until I saw a snow-pile and darted! I dove over a fence into a backyard full of untouched snow, which was at least three feet deep! Of course, as soon as I bolted, they started shooting, no, I didn’t get hit.

    Hey, if there is a reason for life, then mine is to share my life with others.

    Since selling pot was the closest I had ever come to an honest living, I tried to sell for this older guy in the neighborhood; however, he was bi-sexual and was really more interested in me, personally.

Since this is an autobiography, I will tell, lol.

    There was a group of older men in the neighborhood that had a liking for young boys. The ringleader, the one that I was trying to sell pot for, was married, but he also had a young boy living with them that he took very good care of. I ultimately agreed to let the group give me head and although I made $150, I did not get an erection, so I knew that homosexuality was not for me. No, homosexuality was not for me, but I would often put myself in homosexual situations for the money, until I almost got assaulted…

    It was when I was around 18 and I had gone to this guy’s apartment to "make" some money, only he, just as I, was on bullshit. As I desperately tried to unlock his apartment door, he calmly informed me that he had done this several times and if I wanted to scream, go ahead, because no one would care, and I wasn’t going to get out. As he was admonishing me about playing with people’s feelings, and made his way towards a closet to get whatever, I jumped from his second-story window to escape.

    That was the end of my playing homosexual games.

    In the fall of 1977, I met one of the elders in the neighborhood around 55th that lived across the street from where my sisters lived. Because I slept in hallways a lot, I was always outside, which is how I met the elder. . In actuality, had he not taken me under his wing, my life may not be what it is today. Believe it or not, he himself had actually worked for the infamous Al Capone, so he was serious about giving a young hustler an opportunity to prove himself. I first started running errands for him to make money; which was my introduction to the family. After he took ill and was placed in a hospital, he instructed his daughter to move me into his room because I had no place to really live. He passed away shortly after.

    His daughter allowed me to continue living in his room out of respect for her father’s liking to me, besides, I was very good housekeeper in addition to my brazenness. One day while just hanging out, her man, also a hustler, and some of the other up and coming came in for a break. One of them, seeing us “young-ins,” dared one of us to step up and gladiate. Of course, I stepped up, but after one blow, I slithered to the floor, however, my courage was not ignored. I was later offered to work for him, to which I declined, stating that I would rather work for the daughter’s man under the auspices that he and I were born under the same astrological sign. Unbeknownst to me, the one that I refused to work for simply gave his product to the one that I agreed to work for, bad move, at least for me. Well, the product, which happened to be heroin, began to come up missing and wouldn’t you know it, I was the one blamed for the disappearance. No, I have never been a heroine user. I did snort it once, didn’t like it, and never did it again. But then, I am not so keen on snorting things up my nose. At least my experiences have informed me of that. Anyway, when the time came for “court,” I was allowed the option of running or accepting a violation. Well, having no place to go, I accepted the violation, but not before I went to the carnival and had $500 worth of carnival fun. I figured hell, since I am going to get my ass kicked, it might as well be for something I did instead of for something I didn’t.

    Since it had already been determined that I was guilty, I was tied to a chair with wire found on bundles of newspaper, blindfolded and beaten, even with a plastic bat across my head, and I was bald at the time. As I started receiving the violation, I began hollering, which halted the violation. The one that I had refused to work for, leaning to talk directly in my ear, asked me why in the hell was I hollering, since I had chosen to accept the violation, I should just take it. From that point, I did not so much as make a whimper, which only infuriated the one that had set me up, causing him to get brutal. Taking all I could stand, I broke free of the wire, snatched the blindfold off and stood up. Scaring the one that had set me up, he pulled out his pistol and pointed it to my head. After firing a shot between my legs to prove that he would fire, he aimed right between my eyes and tried to get me to fess up. Fearing that this was it, I stood my ground and simply closed my eyes. After what seemed forever, not having heard a shot I opened my eyes to find him fighting with the weapon, it had jammed. Unable to un-jam it, he told me to get my shit and get the fuck out.

    Coming from the third floor, as I gripped the handle of the vestibule door, an all too familiar sound announced that it had not been my time to die.

    I later learned that his real motivation for setting me up was because he was jealous of the relationship that I had with the daughter; he thought we were having a sexual relationship. We ultimately did, but that did not come until later.

    Losing my room is how I came to start hanging out around where my mother lived. She had a friend that lived in the same building and would let me stay at her house so that is how I met the homosexuals. I would get pot from the homosexual and go and smoke it with the daughter of the elder that had taken me under his wing before he passed away. By that time, the daughter was no longer with the dude that had set me up and was now with the one that had wanted me to work for him in the first place. She had lost the apartment that we had lived in and was at that time living with her mother. Which is where our first sexual encounter occurred…

    I had come over to smoke pot with her and she was still in her nightgown, being alone, I did not resist when she pushed my head between her legs. One day while over there, her now current man wanted her to bring him something to the motel he was in. Informing him that she could not leave, after finding out that I was there, he asked her if she thought that I could be trusted to bring what he wanted, she said yes and gave me my instructions. I had no ill resentment towards him for the violation because he was duped just as I was so I complied with my instructions. After taking him what he wanted, he asked what was I doing, saying nothing, he asked if I wanted to hang out with him; I “hung out” for four years, he had finally gotten what he wanted.

    One must be careful of what one gives ones’ self to; because if one gives ones’ self to the wrong thing, it can and most oftentimes will, hurt you…

    Not to say that the 4 years I spent on 55th St. were wasted, but many did not, and do not survive such experiences, however, I seemed to be a natural.

    My “Godfather” started me out with an ounce of pot, showed me how to bag it up in five-dollar envelope bags and set me up on the corner of 55th and Prairie in Chicago, Ill. He had also introduced me to the “cop-man” and told me to keep “re-copping” as soon as I made enough money to do so. At the time I was purchasing ounces, which were $40, so every time I sold eight bags, I would go get another ounce. Although I was only getting a $60 to $80 dollar return with each ounce, within a month, I was buying quarter pounds, which were around $110.

    A significant point later on in the story…

    My eldest sister, like many, would say that my experience on 55th was just another psycho-emotional scar in my life. However I, and the established U.S. government disagree…

    Our respective positions...

    I believe that we are to enjoy the gift of life because all of our senses record and store information. The things that we seem to like and enjoy the most, we seem to try to do the most. I will not be convinced that life is, or should be a burden, and that I should be in conflict with life in any aspect.

    Whereas, according to an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, the foundation of the U.S. Constitution and Government, “…and accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

    A "starve-a-ho'-to-feed-a-pimp" campaign!

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to be continued...
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