Different Heroes The Story Of A Man Slain After Super Bowl XXXIV

By ETN OObanga

DIFFERENT HEROES

BY

ETN OOBANGA

Different Heroes is a story about a young man named Jacinth Baker whose spotlight only began to shine when his blood drenched, gutted body lay dead on an Atlanta, Georgia street on January 31, 2000. While he and his friend Richard Lollar bodies lay devastated on the cold pavement, their assailants seemed to be invisible. However someone was looking.

Ray Lewis, Reginald Oakley, Joseph L. Sweeting were among those who were present the night of the incident. There were some of them who did see and some of them who did participate in the massacre.

In just a shimmer of time these young men’s lives were over. Their efforts and good deeds in life were discredited by the very hands that took their lives away. The very hands that are to blame for this tragedy continue to deflect and disguise the truth away from their heinous deed of being murderers or accessories to murder.

If you thought you heard it all, you haven’t!

• Language: English
• Publisher: ETN OObanga
• Release date: Jun 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301676040

ETN OObanga

About the Author ETN OObanga I have always taken an interest in reading and writing as an expression of feelings. I have an inclination to always want to know the truth about various situations in life since everything usually has two sides or versions, only one of them sticks out in my mind as being right and that is the truth. Well –educated, well- traveled and nourished by many different nationalities and scholars in various subjects. I always strive to bring lessons learned and wisdom in my writings, because they are what is priceless in this world.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Reading

Right after my graduation from high school, my mother and stepfather came up with an ultimatum and a plan of how my life was going to go and this is how they presented it. They appeared in my doorway exactly one day and one week after my High School Graduation on a bright Saturday morning in May of 1981. It was the kind of day that was made for sleeping in especially given the fact I had just came out of thirteen years of being railroaded to school every morning on rooster time. While the hot sun shown through the window and gravitated towards my skin I was following in and out of day dreaming and real dreaming. On this day I would have just been content to sleep in for the entire day because this day was one of those hot spring days that come at the end of the month of May to announce that summer was on its way. This was the day that I had long ago planned for the day after I graduated from High School I thought that I could relax and not think about school forever this day was a wonderful gift from the Lord that I had long ago imagined. It was a beautiful weather day a day made just to enjoy it. It came into me with the presence of an elated feeling of warmth shining through my windows and onto my skin then every few seconds the sheer drapes gave me a nice sweeping of a fresh scented breeze blowing over my head making me want to stay lying in this state forever, however my pleasure dream that I was having was all blown away with the sound of a creaking door. As my mother came into my view she entered the room with the appearance of acting as though she was the peacemaker but when I began to focus my eyes more clearly I noticed the expression on her face and I had seen it before and it was forewarning me that this wasn’t going to be good. Now with the unexpected company who has now entered into my room I began trying hard to find some reason for this visit into my territory and at that point my mind started rambling through my last days, and nights. Once I started Replaying in my mind my last days activities I let out a loud Ah, ha, haa, Ha, Ha then a smile came over my face and I started thinking to myself no humph, that wasn’t exactly wrong, all I was doing was a little flirting at the night club the other night and then we got down and dirty on the dance floor and then… When I came out of my that was so much fun trance, I let out a mischievous sigh then I glanced back over at my mother, only to find my stepfather sliding in the door after her. The outfit he was wearing made him look like he had just climbed out of a landfill trench he did not look like he was going to work in a vegetable garden at all. He had on these tall rubber black boots that still had dried mud on them from several incidents from working days before outdoors. Around his feet area was hay that was compiled with a mud mixture but as the seconds had past from his slick entry into my room now the mixture on the bottoms of his boots started to kick in, and it smelled foul the kind of foul that might have been the result of him falling into a dog cage. He paired the rest of his attire with one of his favorite plaid shirts with his draftsman flat pencils and ink pens neatly tucked in the holder and he completed his look with his Hawaii Five-O straw hat that’s right out of book’em Danno he was looking like a farmer and a black cowboy with a Jehri-Curl all mixed into one and yes the Jehri-Curl juice was dripping too!

I knew that he was either coming in with her to back her up or either he put her up to whatever this fiasco was going to turn out to be, this trick I thought to myself was not going to be good for me either way! After viewing what I was up against I naturally begun to roll my eyes to let them no that I clearly knew that this was a pure conniving illustration that I was about to witness. My stepfather started tripping right away, he says ETN we have been thinking that you need to do something with your life, and we can’t take care of you forever so you’re going to have to do something about your situation! At this point he is standing there with his mouth open, shifting his eyes back and forth with a snake like movement first he looks over to my mother and then he does a swift side glance back to the floor; I guess my mother missed her prompt? Now, all of a sudden I realize that my mother is not my advocate, and she’s wearing the appropriate attire to sink you in, a long black dress with a black scarf partially around her head which was cleverly disguised as a black hangman’s outfit. I can see that she’s no longer my advocate, and at that moment she is in full charge and I am not in any position to question her authority because she is hell bound and determined to win! Then she says You’re an Adult now an either you go to college or go to California to live with your cousin Kimba. After that quick delivery I went into shock because all I heard was California and my mind, body and senses are being taken over by a joyous feeling. I could instantly feel the hottest sun that I ever felt staying onto my skin, it was breezy and I could just hear the ocean roaring. In this daydream I and my Girltourage were dressed in all white outfits and we were on the beach flirting with Frankie B and Stevie W and then my own mule headed type of beach boyfriend shows up and almost ruins everything and then I and my Girltourage start to act as though we weren’t having any fun in order to avert him then finally my mule head boyfriend leaves and I and my Girltourage go right back to nonstop flirting and partying on the beach with the fellows!

The whole image of California makes you think of never ending joy, at 18 years old, it gave me the idea of having one big continuous party however the look on both of their faces clearly said something else it was too much happiness on their faces, some how, somewhere some sort of set up was waiting around the corner. Then just like that my daydream went pop the picture in my mind was over. Somehow the reality began to set in once again in my mind and I realized that I had never met my cousin Kimba in California. Now once again I am looking at the look on their faces, and I could tell that they were clearly up to something here. Then I suddenly remembered what my older girlfriend who had graduated one year earlier from High School had said and warned us younger girls about and now I knew it was true. She new exactly what parents were going to be up to, she said prepare your self for the Speech. My older girlfriend down the street had seen it one to many times because it was five children in their family and she warned me, she said Watch as soon as you cross the stage and get your diploma their going to kick you out, my parents they did it to Bunny, Carla and Pumkin they all got the speech and then the boot! She said and sometimes if you have the type of parent who likes to cuss like her Uncle Jimmy, she said he just straight told her cousin You’re not shit, and you’re never going to be shit, so get the hell out! That’s the A version of the Speech meaning get your ass out! Well I guess I got the B version of the Speech the bullshitting before, they say get your ass out!

Now to sell their plan to me they went into a well executed Marketing Pitch, they were selling me on a California Dream, and it was sounding so easy and so beautiful and lovely. And so, seeing how I had just broken up with my boyfriend Marko, who I thought was the love of my life, this was seemingly an easy choice. At eighteen years old the great state of California with all its beautiful weather was more than enough to get the spark plugs in my mind to come alive with all kinds of possibilities and intriguing ideas. The very idea alone made the blood to flow in my veins at a high speed. My mind was thinking this is a vacation. Then when they said that they would throw in three hundred dollars in cash to get me to accept the deal and coupled with the fact that they were so tight that they squeaked, Hmm… I thought this was the ideal choice for me. Being eighteen years old and ignorant with regards to the cost of living made me overlook the whole catch factor; I had just got suckered, they purchased me a one way ticket!

I had always visited California since I was ten years old sometimes staying as long as four months at a time, every two years. I would visit in the City of Inglewood with my favorite Uncle who is an avid tennis player or I would visit faraway in the City of Bakersfield with my vegetarian Holier than the average Aunty. Staying with her never lasted very long. Even as a child I thought that it was strange that she had all that religion in her life but yet she was evil!

I noticed that taken meat out of your diet, Church 24/7 and how my eyes never seen a boyfriend, husband or handyman around wasn’t doing her any good. She never spoke about a man in any good way. And my little cousin, her five year old son never dared to ask her where his father was or even at the very least who his father was? This seemed like way to many things to give up, a meatless diet, that was the last straw! Something had to give; we would be sitting in her church on a Saturday this was unheard of in Akron Ohio when I was young. Saturday’s meant in my young mind Cartoon Day. Cartoon Day was my favorite treat to myself from my hard weeks work at school but my Aunt was a Seven Day Adventist and in Bakersfield California we would be in church 24/7 and at that young age, it left no time for me to watch cartoons and play with my toys! I used to beat it out of her house as fast as my little feet could carry me and sneak to the payphone and call my Uncle Peter, he would then come and rescue me and get me, and take me right back to his house in Inglewood, California. As my Uncle Peter drove his little MB away with the top down I would turn around and be happily waving goodbye to my Aunty I was doing the wave of victory and I probably looked like a little rascal but I was glad to be able to get away from her. While I watched her get smaller and smaller through the rear view mirror I would be feeling way to sorry for my little cousin who was looking very sad he would have tears in his eyes bigger than raindrops because I was leaving him and he knew that he had just lost his protection from his own mother and the abusive beatings and her crazy antics. My Uncle Peter was my savior and I was my little cousin’s protector but sadly I had to go. I knew I would always love my Uncle Peter for all of his rescues efforts, he was a cool Uncle. My Uncle was forever and always right on time!

My plane landed at LAX and so I began my journey. I don’t know if my parents knew that my cousin Kimba lived in South Central directly off of Western either they didn’t know or if they did know they didn’t care. South Central was somewhere else far away from the painted picture of Hollywood gorgeousness. Well put it this away, it was like plucking a chicken straight off of the farm and planting in the middle in Times Square at rush hour. The new undergoing led me to have frequent bouts of diarrhea drawers, due to the constant gun in your face or seeing it in someone else’s face. In South Central there would be many confrontations all around that can easily make one become an unwilling witness to an all out dangerous situation on a frequent basis and that wasn’t easy to get used to! I quickly learned the best way to overcome a potential disastrous situation was to play crazy sometimes when I would be at the bus stop and seeing some real live boys from the hood approaching me and not knowing if they were friendly or not I developed my own way of taking their minds off of doing something that wouldn’t have necessarily been good. I would all of sudden start waving my arms around in the air acting as if I was being chased down by some huge insect. I would be swatting my arms at invisible flies and bees then I would begin talking out loud as if I was talking to the insects or myself. Sometimes I would run around in a quick circle and start saying all kinds of crazy ramblings they would look at me and say Oh that Bitch is fine but she’s crazy girlfriend is gone then one of the other brothers would say yeah she gone just like the wind. Then they would start laughing at me and go their other way. Then I would breathe a sigh of relief knowing that my mission had been accomplished I saved my ass!

Some of the sites that I would see while living in Los Angeles I had never ever seen before. One time I saw a man who was still walking around in the same clothes that he had been fired from his job in. His clothes appeared to have been worn for a good six months straight complete with pants that looked liked frayed knickers. He must have worked at some chicken restaurant. The chicken outfit resembled a huge red bird, presumably a rooster which I don’t believe is supposed to be eaten anyway, was minus several feathers, and sprinkled with dingle berries in private areas and mixed with the 90 degree California weather, then when it is worn for a time period of six months straight without being washed and or dry cleaned, amounts to a compilation that smells like a fried chicken and booty juice combo! Yeah, that firing must have caused him to go into a severe rebellion against society and he was punishing us all.

Ironically weeks after I had spotted him out, I also ended up smack dead in the presence of his company. I encountered him while on one of my many job hunts, I was riding on a bus on Wilshire Boulevard, which now from this experience I learned what the proper thing not to do while riding public transportation is never, never, never when you’re the only one on a seat let someone sit down, while you take the window side of the seat, stay by the aisle way so you will always have a way out and the reason why because I had to learn the hard way by what happened to me. I was being Miss Nice, I let a sweet little Asian Girl Sit down on the seat with me rather than to let her stand in the aisle, now everything was find, then came the Booty Juice Combo Man who I described above. And I still believe to this day he knew exactly what he was doing, yes he was down and out, but he was ornery with it! I could perceive his ill planned thoughts clearly as I seen him walking down the bus’s aisle taking his own personal survey. While Passengers ducked, cringed and gasped in secret behind his back he kept on strolling slowly down the aisle. There were a few seats left that he could have chosen to share with many other male passengers, but he choose to fix his mind on satisfying his ego he wanted to sit down with the two finest females on the bus, the Black Goddess and the Asian Princess. I couldn’t shake my head so that he would take notice so I just said silently in my mind Oh Hell No; because I knew this trick was not going to be good! I could see him coming closer down towards us and my first reaction to seeing him that close was OH WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS MAN! IS THIS MAN WEARING A CHICKEN OUTFIT THAT HAS BEEN WORN FOR SEVERAL MONTHS? Then as I was trying not to let my eyes meet with his, I changed my fixation from him and tried to play it off with a glance out the window. I was playing it off perfectly I was looking at the Famous Landmark of an old Hollywood Big Time restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard where the mascot which was an Old Brown Hat Still Sat. The Old Brown Derby Hat was now all that was left yet it was still standing there and it was very interesting or so I pretended it was! Then as it never fails; oh what buzzard luck do I have. I was gazing happily at the Old Brown Derby Hat when my nose started to quiver I all of a sudden began to smell something horrid and rancid. Something smelt of dung and it was invisibly choking me then I knew that I smelt him! Out the corner of my left eye I could see that he has stopped right at our seat. As I let my left eye shift downwardly, I then began to have a moment of sadness start to overtake me, it started to attack my heart this onset began with the crust on his feet, his feet looked as though they had been born of the river and then they got shipwrecked on the bottom of the ocean floor complete with all the bacteria, algae, seaweed and barnacles. He needed a scraping performed on his feet! His feet had become as hard as work boots, muddy work boots you couldn’t tell where the dirt ended or his skin began. As I shifted my left eye upward swiftly, I could swear he had this shitty grin on his face and he was looking very thirsty, literally and figuratively! His tongue was hanging out of his mouth and it was long! It was way past the normal length of an average mans tongue. Then all of a sudden he took his tongue and pointed it straight upward and wiggled it, then that action stirred up his foul fishy mildew breath into the air and then I knew. He had just committed a sexual gesture Yuk, Yep; I told myself his nasty butt just confirmed that he did in fact have that type of shitty grin that most men cast off when their sexual deviant side of their nature arises. Sympathy time is now over now the music in my head has changed the violins that produce the sympathy music has now stopped. He looks over at Miss Asia and as he looked at her, the smell of his body alone intimidated her into getting up and letting him sit down the smell was purely offensive. At that point I was trying not to fall apart, I couldn’t believe that my co-public transportation seat buddy AKA Miss Asian who obviously was way nicer than me stood up and let him sit down. Oh God No I muttered to myself, he had just won and now he would be able to get-off and continue on by carrying out his whole evil plan? His evil plan was to inflict a total state of paranoia aroma on us! It’s a no brainer that I was overcome with lots of mixed emotions to say the least and you could have held a count down between the time that the Thriller n Manila would take the stage. Only this version was going to be me and her, this bus fight would not be featuring Ali and Joe. It was going to be me and her! I looked at her and used my mental telepathy coupled with the fire in my eyes, and I was trying to let her know that I would jump over his nasty ass, and punch her nice little lights out if she didn’t sit the fuck back down and suffer with me! Yes, suffer with me because I was trying to save her from sitting with strange men and then she gave me up to him and yes, she could feel my anger and she sat back down on the end of our seat by the aisle very slowly and cautiously. Using a side glance out of the corner of my left eye I could now see him closer than I could have ever imagined and he is in the middle of us and he is in his heyday. He was having the time of his life by torturing us with his foul stench! Time felt like an eternity I could feel my nostril hairs begging to fry in my nose I tried to hold my breath and not breathe, then my throat was trying to hold back from regurgitating the one dollar taco that I had purchased earlier from the local street cart man and now I am regretting not starving myself I am hating the fact that I ate now. I was there, in total nasty agony without physical pain, my body was doing a senses battle it was mind over matter and this horrible smell did matter! I tried every known type of mental restraint that I could muster not to let the smell make me sick. The Booty Juice Combo Man knew that he was purposely grossing me out. My right eye was looking west bound on Wilshire Boulevard, and my left eye was looking at his 8 year old dreads that had never been washed. All of a sudden something jumped somewhere from his body and bit me on my left bare shoulder; I know this to be true because I slapped it dead. THAT’S IT I screamed at the top of my voice, there was no more containment. I had no more restraint I could not remain silent, there was no way! I jumped up and did everyone on the bus a favor that day, I said You nasty ass fucker, don’t even try that bullshit anymore, go some place and take a damn bath you know what the fuck you doing, cut the shit. He forced me into another realm, which amounted to having to go ghetto on him in order to get him to snap out of it! I still can’t remember to this day where I got off the bus at, but I got off, and walked all the way back home that day! See I have no problem with the homeless but there has to be some restaurants that have sinks even if you have to resort to it, or some public pools that have showers and especially so in California. The state of being down an out can happen to anyone we are all living by the Grace of God. When I look back, it was a rarity to see the homeless in the 1980’s. It wasn’t seen then like it is now, now we are living in the Days of Bush and we have been feeling like we’re in a constant state of mourning every since he took office, and in almost every state the numbers have tripled when counting the homelessness the occurrence of homelessness used to be rare!

Meanwhile, living in South Central, Los Angles made me feel like I was going through shell shock. I was ducking and dogging every time I heard gun shoots or seen cars squealing their tires, many times after a drive by shooting. These were all new experiences for me, the shock of street dealers running up to your car at stop signs, and surrounding your car was unbelievable at first and also frightening. After the 3rd or 4th re-occurrence of the same, it began to resemble some of the Flea Market peddlers who also try to push all sorts of stuff on you; the flea market just has a different back ground scene. That was all that was needed to separate the street entrepreneurs from the flea market peddlers both groups are salesmen. Some with a great sells approach and some with a thugged out approach. However, unlike the flea market, by being in my car, I would just roll up my window and try to pretend that I didn’t see them; all the while having superb eye control making sure that no hostile activity was taken place around the car and trying at the same time not to receive a vehicular homicide case.

Life in South Central had a very different view and through all the bad and ugly and some of it having a comical twist, this adventure I would never trade, I wasn’t raised in the hood so this was truly a hand’s on experience! But when it’s time to leave the hood, you go. You must go, or in my case run! Yeah I ran, just as fast as I could. It was rough territory. I packed up and called my cousin Debbie and said I cant’ take it anymore damn this! After a while the neighborhood bullshit was far better than my living environment with my evil cousin Kimba. The people who were her neighbors showed me more love and they were total strangers. I befriended many friends who just met me by seeing me in the neighborhood, and Kimba was so evil that no one in the hood liked her. I told my cousin Debbie that ever time I went back to Kimba’s house after being out all morning, afternoon and evening job hunting that I felt extremely uncomfortable, she would call my newly befriended friends, low life scavengers, this was strange because she lived their too and in my opinion she was the only blood sucking scavenger that I had ever seen! She was always on a constant come up. She always had a hidden agenda she was always on a constant plot to beat her poor husband. She would start by offering him liquor as soon as he came through the door then she would beat him out of the food that he bought by giving him as little as possible. After she got him liquored up as the night went on he would usually pass out and then she would rummage through his pockets and rob him of the little money he had left after paying all the bills. Every day that came, she came up with a new lie those lies were about more bills although they were never due. If that didn’t work it was back to plan A for her she would wait until he fell into a drunken curl on his little lawn chair then push him over on his side then go in his pockets. Then when poor Marvin did wake up, he thought that he lost his money. Sometimes I believe that Marvin was aware of what she was doing but he was so scared of her that he didn’t want to create a scene lets just say she wore the pants. Poor Marvin was lucky if he came home and found partial scraps left after his day’s hard work. She turned him into an alcoholic the poor brother was skinny and shriveled like a little raisin. She claimed that