Ghetto Bastard III: The Ghetto Bastard Series, #3

By Russell Vann

In Ghetto Bastard III, the third installment of Russell Vann's memoir series, his compelling, courageous, and empowering life story comes full circle.Fight! Fight! Fight! Malik Russell has been fighting his whole life. Now, he literally has to fight for it. After outrunning fate and creating an existence outside the ghetto for himself and his family, Malik is diagnosed with an incurable illness. This makes him realize that some aspects of living in the ghetto were a frame of mind. As if that isn't enough for this survivor, Malik must encompass every lesson he's ever learned from his abusive and unsettling upbringing to outwit the very person who personifies the meaning of the word ghetto—his mother.There are no guarantees in life, but there's even less when you're born a ghetto bastard. Will Malik find the inner strength to hold onto life beyond the ghetto? And, even if he does, will he beat the odds and reap the rewards of living honestly, of being loved?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Russell Dynasty, LLC
• Release date: Feb 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393122241

Book preview

Ghetto

B A S T A R D

   3

                         a memoir

Russell Vann

Ghetto Bastard 3

Published by Russell Dynasty, LLC

Copyright © 2018 by Russell Vann. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author.

Twitter: @Ghetto_Bastard

Facebook: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100018804571379

Website: ghettobastard.com

www.529Books.com

Editor: Lisa Cerasoli

Cover: Claire Moore                                                

Praise for Russell Vann’s Other Award-Winning Works:

Ghetto Bastard Books I & II

Novel Writing Festival’s 2018 Novel of the Year

2019 Finalist in Chanticleer International Book Awards  

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I was hooked on page one....

This is such a beautiful story...and a real look into how the ghetto can make you or break you.

Malik Russell endures so much but his perseverance always sees him through. I was lucky enough to meet the author at a book expo and sure am glad I purchased his first two books in the series.

    

To my precious daughters, Ashley and Amber, who are my inspiration and motivation for living.

Ghetto Bastard

BOOK 3

LIFE AFTER DEATH

It’s been said that Dying is easy! It’s the living that’s the hard part. Waking up every day in this world facing everything that life throws at you without losing your mind is the hardest thing in this world: The System. Family. Work. Illness. Love. Betrayal. Heartache.

Looking at all the future holds…some days it seems dying would be easier!

ONE

Six months to live. A common cold could kill you. Six months to live. A common cold could kill you. You have full-blown AIDS. The words kept repeating in my head. They rang in my ears like church bells. Dr. Stone tried to offer me words of comfort, but the ringing was so loud that his lips were moving without sound. When the bells stopped, I heard the back end of his conversation.

Mr. Russell, every day they’re coming up with new medications that prolong life. But some are in their testing phases, and some require that you be HIV-positive, not full blown.

The doctor offered to submit my name to the HIV clinic at the hospital. I tried to play it off as if the news was not devastating, but my mind was going a mile a minute. A million thoughts—what would happen to my family? Denise, Ashley, Malik, my unborn child.

I started to analyze my life in an instant. I came to the realization that I was nothing and I had nothing but God.

I already knew from the non-outpouring from the church that Denise would be on her own, and with Victor just sending a fruit basket and having Helen call once to find out where to send it. Who would help when I died? Nana was pushing eighty-three, and I hadn’t spoken to anyone else in the family except my grandfather, and we weren’t so close that he would help take care of my widow and fatherless children. From what I understood, he didn’t want to raise his own kids; why would he want mine?

Denise entered the room. Dr. Stone ended the conversation and told me the clinic would be contacting me soon. When the doctor left, I told Denise everything he said except the six months to live and a common cold could kill you thing. I played it off for her. I sugarcoated it the best I could. She was seven months pregnant and she didn’t need this bullshit going on in her head. Denise was taken aback by the information, but with the news of the clinic and the new medications, there was hope in her eyes.

As we exited the hospital, it was the first time I had taken a breath of outside air in eight days. I realized that I was a very sick man. My lungs felt raw as I inhaled. The doctor had put me on steroid medication to help build up my lungs, but it was going to take a couple of days to kick in. I didn’t get the wheel you to the door treatment for discharged patients. Denise and I walked, so I was winded and weak by the time we reached the front entrance. We took a cab home. No one from the church came to pick us up, and there was no welcome home party.

Denise left to go pick up Ashley from Patricia’s, and I was left alone to contemplate my dilemma. The future looked grim. I had no plan, no scheme, no angle to play, no ghetto experience to draw wisdom from.

This wasn’t in the plans. I thought I had more time. I’ve often heard stories of people getting diagnosed with terminal diseases and given so many months or years to live. One of two things happens at this point, and I am a witness to the fact. In one, the person says, Fuck it, I’m going to die anyway. They just give up and indulge in every decadent activity there is. The other option is the person says, I’m going to fight to my last breath. I’m not going to give up. I’m going to try everything I can to stay alive until I die. I’m a survivor.

I decided to go with number two.

TWO

I had faith in God, but I thought I needed to draw strength from something else. As I lay there in my bed, weak and alone, I started reflecting on my life. I thought of everyone that ever did anything to hurt me—from Emma to Sister Hyacinth to my mother and everyone in between. I thought of the joy they would receive knowing that I was just another statistic, a ghetto bastard dead from AIDS in the Bronx.

I could see them confirming their hidden—and sometimes unhidden—proclamations of, He ain’t never gonna be shit. I told you so. The only thing they would remember and say about Malik Russell was that he died of AIDS and left behind a pregnant wife and two bastard children.

That’s all anyone would ever hear if I died at that moment. I drew strength from all of those negative thoughts. I refused to give all those people the satisfaction.

Denise and Ashley returned home and it was a joyful reunion. I called Victor to let him know I was out of the hospital and that I would take a couple of days off to rest, then return to work.

Victor sounded happy to hear from me, but to tell the truth, I wasn’t happy to hear his voice. I was harboring resentment from him not calling or coming to see me in the hospital. I had thought I was his right-hand man. I’d been with him almost every day for the past two years, but there I was lying up in the hospital, dying, and I couldn’t even get a phone call.

I went to sleep that night with a little fear that I would not wake up. I said to myself, Take it one day at a time. I had to analyze every thought and not fall into a depression—the Why me? bullshit.

I woke up the next morning, took a deep breath, and exhaled. I was on a mission to live, and one of the first things on my list was to get out of that church. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I knew the inner workings now. Their standard procedure was to have people close to you question if you were struggling with your faith in God. If that didn’t work, then they would have a group of brothers, four or five deep, come to your house saying, We love you and want to make sure you are alright and pray with you.

This wasn’t going to be easy. It would have to be well calculated.

The first thing I wanted to do was go pick up my car. I took the bus to the parking garage. I was still weak, but walking short distances wasn’t a problem.

After getting the keys from the parking attendant, I walked over to the car and started the engine. The second the car turned on, there was a beeping sound. It was the fuel gauge reading empty.

I thought that I could still drive a few miles. I started to drive the car out of the garage and it ran out of gas right as I got to the entrance. I couldn’t believe this. I knew that when I left it, the car had at least a half a tank of gas. That meant Dorian had driven my car around for a long time and parked it on empty. I was lying up in the hospital, dying. I’d given my keys to a fellow church brother to move the car from the street to the garage, and he took it joy riding. He didn’t even have the common decency to put gas in it.

I got out of the car and pushed it back into the parking space. One day out of the hospital and I’m pushing a car. The parking attendant helped me move it about ten feet out of the way of the entrance and then went on about his business as I continued to push it another thirty feet into a space.

The nearest gas station was about ten blocks away. I walked there, bought a gas container and two gallons of gas, and went back to the garage. I got the car started and drove home.

The first thing I did was call Dorian. I was going to give him a chance to be honest, to test him. Dorian picked up on the second ring. I didn’t have a tone of hostility, but one of gratitude. He sounded happy to hear from me. I thanked him for taking the car to the garage and asked him if he heard any beeping while driving the car. He had. I told him it was a low fuel signal. He acted surprised and said, That’s what that was?

I informed him that the car ran out of gas when I tried to drive it out of the garage and that I had to push it. He apologized and said that if he had known, he would have put gas in the car.

I asked him if he took the car straight to the parking lot. He said, Yes. I told him the car had a full tank of gas when I parked it, and that the garage was only about five miles away.

There was a long pause, and then Dorian said the most ignorant, self-centered thing I have ever heard. Well you didn’t expect me to take it straight to the garage, did you? You knew I was going to drive it around.

I was speechless. I just hung up the phone.

THREE

There was nothing more to say. When I left the hospital on that eighth day, there was bitterness inside of me regarding the church. I felt scammed, suckered, hoodwinked, and any other word that describes being made a fool of.

How could I, with all the street knowledge, wisdom, and instinct, let these people fool me? I really believed that they cared about me. In reality, they only cared about me when I could do something for them.

I received several phone calls the second and third days out of the hospital, maybe four or five people inquiring if I was okay. I thought, This is ten days later. I could have been dead and buried by now. But when they needed me to drive them around in the limousine, I was getting calls like clockwork.

Denise, Ashley, and I went to midweek service and, of course, everyone was happy to see me. They all apologized for not coming to visit but said that they prayed for me. Almost all played the classic, Please forgive me, brother.

Before I got sick in the hospital, I might have fallen for the bullshit. But now, the blinders were off. The reason they were asking forgiveness was because if I were hostile toward them, they could say I wasn’t being righteous. What would Jesus do? I knew they were all full of shit because no one even asked me what I was in the hospital for.

I wasn’t seeing everything with rosy glasses. I started seeing everyone for their faults, who they were and what they had done. Ninety percent of people in the church struggled with some kind of drug addiction in the past, and some in the present. They struggled with alcoholism. They were emotionally and mentally abusive to their spouses.

The church was an outlet for them. It was a place where they could be around other damaged people and feel like they were different or better somehow. I realized a difference between them and me—I was a leader, and they would be followers all their lives.

I finally understood so many situations that happened in the church. One is worth mentioning. About two weeks after I got out of the hospital, after Sunday service, Denise’s disciple partner, Tricia, told Denise that she and a few of the sisters wanted to speak with her.

Denise followed Tricia and I watched as Denise sat down among a group of six women. They circled her and sat all around her. Denise was about eight months pregnant at this time. Something in my gut started twisting. Where were these women when I was sick in the hospital to comfort her? Where were the phone calls, the prayers, the concerns? What the hell could they possibly have to say to her?

I started to circle around to where they were so that I could hear the conversation. From what I picked up, they were verbally admonishing her for not coming to all of the midweek services, and a couple of the Sunday services, as well. I knew the women were jealous of her and her marriage. They were jealous of how I treated her like a lady while their husbands neglected them.

As I listened to them, I became furious. I walked into the middle of the women and said to Denise in a calm voice, We need to go.

Tricia said to me, Oh, we’ll be done in a few minutes.

Denise waved me off as if to say it was okay.

I continued to hover around and became more enraged. I felt that they were attacking my pregnant wife. I walked into the middle of the women again and stepped next to Denise and said in a not-so-calm, but still not yelling, voice, We gotta go.

Again, Tricia interjected and said, In a minute, in a minute.

Then I put my hand on Denise’s arm, firmly said, We gotta go now, and helped her up. My voice may have been slightly elevated because all the women scattered like cockroaches. Denise, Ashley, and I went home laughing about the incident.

Later that night, the phone calls began. Hey, brother, I heard you snatched your wife up today in the church. You know, you can’t be physically mistreating your wife like that. I said, What the hell are you talking about? I helped my wife up. I don’t abuse my wife. Your wives were causing her emotional distress, and I came to her defense. Denise is right here if you want to ask her. Every conversation ended with, You need to mind your business.

FOUR

I went back to work a week after I left the hospital. Victor was glad to see me and commented on my extreme weight loss. He asked what was wrong with me. I had already contemplated people asking what kept me in the hospital for eight days. It had to be convincing. People go into the hospital for operations and don’t stay for eight days. I told Victor that I had strep throat and was walking around with it untreated. It then infected my lungs and I had walking pneumonia when I was in Atlantic City with his father. Victor fell for the story, no questions asked.

I was making trips back and forth to Pennsylvania three or four times a week, so Victor asked me if I would be interested in moving there. He said he would cover the relocation costs and pay my rent. He would feel better if someone was close to his mother and father. I didn’t give a shit how he felt. I was thinking about what would be best for my family. I ran the idea by Denise, and she was gung-ho about it. She had wanted to get out of the ghetto all of her life. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

About two weeks after I left the hospital, I caught a small cold. I ran straight to the emergency room. They gave me some antibiotics and asked me if I was scheduled to go to the HIV clinic. I told them that the doctor submitted my name. They told me besides that, there was nothing else they could do for me. I took a couple of days off from work to rest, and the cold didn’t kill me.

The clinic called and I went in. It was way deep in the bowels of the same hospital I had stayed in. I had to go down all kinds of corridors and staircases to get to it. I was happy about that. Besides dying, my deepest hidden fear right now was being discovered.

When I stepped into the clinic, it was a nice place, clean and welcoming. I also noticed something else—the clientele. Everyone looked like they were at death’s door. There were IV drug users, crackheads, and many nefarious characters walking around. I could recognize the types from my days running the streets.

I sat in the waiting area, listening to the many ghetto conversations confirming my visual suspicions. I heard talk of how they were going to hustle the system. They had a terminal disease now, and they were entitled to shit. Housing, drugs, pity, whatever they could get. What the fuck? They were dying, so the world owed them?

I sat there listening to all the negative conversations and tried to relate. I couldn’t. It seemed like all these people had just given into dying. They were okay ending their lives without a fight. I was going to fight until my dying breath. I wanted to be alive until my children were grown. I needed to be there to protect them. Who would protect my family when I was gone?

The nurse called my name and escorted me to the exam room. There were two smiling white men in there,