How the Streets Changed Me and Almost Took My Life

By Vincent A Robinson

Even at a young age, Vincent's obsession with money and his love of attention were preeminent traits. Because of it, his life would be forever changed and nowhere near mediocre. He recognized he was quite different from his peers and quickly sensed that he was twice as advanced, albeit in streetwise wit. Realizing the possibility of acquiring absol

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vincent Speaks
• Release date: Oct 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9780990553113

Book preview

PROLOGUE

So, I’m walking towards my mother’s apartment. I’m thinking, I just want to hug my little sister Donna, as well as hug and talk to my mother for a moment. Those were my thoughts as I got closer to my mother’s porch from the street. As I took a few more steps, I heard a noise. It was a normal noise that you would hear every day all day. But it was something about this noise. This noise seems to be the loudest and the strangest noise I have ever heard. It was weird, because it was like everything else was tuned out and the only thing I heard was this sound and these footsteps. Eventually, this noise and these sounds would change my life forever. The noise was a car door slamming. I don’t know what it was about that car door being slammed that made me turn around and expect something different, something scary, something powerful, something life-changing. Still, I did it. I turned around. When I turned around, I knew at that very moment, I would not walk away from that corner the same way I arrived there. I can’t explain how I knew that, I can’t explain why I felt that, but from the moment I turned around, it’s like everything was going in slow motion.

The first thing I saw when I turned around was a set of eyes. They were big, wide open, blood shot, and very scary looking. Reading into those eyes, I saw death. It was like I was looking into the eyes of a serial killer. When I gathered my focus, I realized that these set of eyes belong to a man who was holding a military assault weapon. It was huge and long. It looked like a rifle, only bigger. In the streets, this weapon is known as a street sweeper. It’s a modified shotgun that holds more shells with deadlier ammunition. This guy just stared at me for about five seconds. These seconds were the longest five seconds of my life. He had the street sweeper pointed toward my groin area. He didn’t say a word, neither did I. There was absolute silence inside those five seconds. Then I heard an earth shattering noise. That’s when I knew he’d pulled the trigger. At that moment, my life flashed before my eyes. I actually saw my life play before me like a video. It’s like I heard that very loud noise, and then it seemed that someone pushed the play button. I went as far back as I can remember. So, I want to take you on a journey with me to take you through everything I experienced in that flashback of my life. I’ve got to take you through my experience before I finish telling you what happened after this guy pulled the trigger on that street sweeper he was holding, and had aimed at my groin area. I began to think about, what got me here? How did I end up here at this very moment? Why me? Why am I the one who’s standing here with this man while he has a shotgun pointed towards my groin, and wanting to kill me or destroy the rest of my life? Why me? Therefore, I went to the beginning where it all started, to the beginning of my life as far back as I can remember.

CHAPTER 1

FROG FEET

Iwas a normal kid; well I guess I was almost normal. I was born with what some people might call a deformation! My feet turned outwards like a frog. I really looked like a frog by the feet. My mother took me to the doctor when I was around a year old. The doctor x-rayed my legs and recommended that I wear braces on my feet for a couple of years. My mother would always joke about those years. She would say,

Vincent I knew you were going to be unique in some way because of the way you adapted as a baby to those braces.

So that means every night as I slept, I slept with just a diaper, a t-shirt, and my shoes. I had to sleep in my shoes because the braces hooked to the bottom of the soles. They were the hard-bottom shoes. The white hard-bottom shoes. I was born and raised in Bankhead Court Apartments in northwest Atlanta, Georgia. At that time, Bankhead Court was a very high crime area. It was one of the toughest, if not the toughest place in Atlanta. My mother had a two-bedroom apartment, so my sister and I had to share a bedroom. I think as a baby, my sister didn’t like me very much. For one, she was the only child for seven years. Then all of a sudden, here comes a little brother to take away all the attention she was getting. Now the second reason, (to add insult to injury) we didn’t only share rooms, we shared beds as well. So that means I slept with my sister with those cold, hard, metal braces I had to wear every day and every night, even while sleeping.

My sister would complain about me kicking her with those cold, hard, braces, and hard-bottom shoes. I remember clearly the nights she would be so upset with me she would pretend she was dead. My sister would put her arms along the side of her body and would call my name.

She would say, Vincent look, I’m dead.

I would look at her and she would have her face towards the ceiling with her eyes closed. Then she would slowly turn her head towards me and open her eyes and just stare! She would do all that with the lights off, yet I could see her clear as day. I would scream to the top of my lungs. She would do that to me almost every night and I would fall for it every time.

Imagine being two or three years old, in a bed with a person pretending to be dead. I was very afraid. My mom would run into our bedroom to see what was going on and ask why is her son screaming like that? I would try to tell her the best way a two or three year old child could explain it, and she would tell my older sister to stop. At that age, I’m thinking: stop? No, that doesn’t work, just take me with you!

Just as I knew it, as soon as my mother went back to bed, it would start all over again. That went on for a few years. I guess I must have realized my sister had died so many times and come back from death, I’d be okay, and she would too. After all, she’d been okay all the other times.

CHAPTER TWO

THE CAT THIEF

Iremember being about four years old. My mother gave my sister, Terry, a kitten. Terry was so proud of her kitten that she took it everywhere she went. She would love on that kitten and play with it, and she would never let me get near it. Terry would tease me, saying, That’s why I have a kitten and you don’t. I would cry because she would be in the bedroom playing with her kitten, and I would have no one to talk to or to play with. I guess you can say I was kind of jealous of Terry and her kitten. She had a kitten she could play with and talk to, and I would just sit there watching her, and be very upset. So, one day Terry went to school and she couldn’t take the kitten with her, and I thought to myself, This would leave me with a friend to play with. Although Terry told me not to touch her kitten, in my four year old little mind I’m thinking, Terry can’t see me, and she don’t know what I’m doing if she’s not here to stop me.

So, I got the little kitten and started playing with her. I’ve owned a dog before, but I’ve never owned a kitten. I was a little curious at four years old, (okay, I was very curious). I wanted to know everything that cat could do. So, I thought I would have the little kitten do some tricks for me. I would have her jump over the broom that was lying in the floor. Then I would have her jump over a shoe. I would have her jump over my toys. She would make it over everything and just keep coming.

Now, I wanted to know how far she could jump overall. I put her on the bed, and she jumped and landed safely on the floor. I put her in the chair, and again she landed safely on the floor. Now it was time to take her outside. I remember every little task I had for her to do, and she passed them all. I remember really falling in love with that kitten. I said to myself, this kitten can do everything I want her to do.

Now, the kitten and I were walking around the apartments. I have her in my arms trying to find another task for her to do. Then all of a sudden I said,

Wait! I see something!

I remember thinking, if she can do this, I will never give her back to my sister!

I think this is when my life started to change. This is the beginning of when everyone began calling me a bad little boy. This is the point when I think my sister Terry, began disliking me that much more. Remember, I was only four years old, and a very curious four year old at that.

I saw a sewer and thought, if I put her in this sewer and she climbs back out, she would be a super cat! I know she’s going to climb back out. I know that she’s not going to want to stay down there. I know she would come to me when I call her!

So, I put her in the drainage area where the water drains from the street. I had no clue that the sewer was as deep as it was. I put her in the sewer and I let her go. I remember lying down on top of the sewer calling for her to come out and she never would come. I was there lying on top of that sewer for a while. Then a friend of my mother saw me and asked if I was okay. When I told her what happened, she took me home and told my mother. It seemed that the entire neighborhood was out there trying to find that kitten I put in the sewer. Once Terry found out, she tricked me into walking up the street with her to that same sewer. She tried to push me in the sewer, but my mother came out just in time and caught her. Terry was crying and so upset that she stated she didn’t want a little brother anymore. See, she figured that since I made her cat disappear, she would do the same thing to me and make me disappear. Fortunately, Terry went down to the other end of the drainage pipe, which was not that far away and called for her cat and after a while, the kitten eventually came running out. I said to Terry, See, I knew she could do it! She gave me a look like she could hurt me right then and there if my mother was not around.

CHAPTER THREE

FROM BAD TO WORSE

There was a time when I had a very good friend who happened to be a female. We were very close. I would say we thought of ourselves as sister and brother. I think we did everything together. The reason we were so close was because my mother and her mother were very close. The name we called her in the hood was Peaches. She was my best friend, my ace in the hole.

Peaches was a beautiful young black girl with the thickest, longest, prettiest, black hair I’d ever seen. Peaches’ mother would have Peaches’ hair in three long ponytails. Her hair would be very neat, and would shine for days. One day, I looked at her hair and wondered, how would it look if I changed some things around in her head?

So, I decided that we should do something different this day. See, Peaches and I would do so many things together. I guess at that time, I didn’t look at her as girl or a young lady, but rather, looked at her as if she was a boy! We played in the woods. We would build clubhouses, and played marbles; we also played football and baseball together. Now this day was different, this day I wanted to play hair dresser. Peaches and I were the same age, but for some odd reason it always seemed that I was much older than her. She would call me her big brother. Basically, everything I would ask her to do, she would say, Okay let’s do it.

So this day I looked at her hair and said to myself, wow her hair is long and pretty and shiny. I wonder if I can make it look a little bit different?

I asked her, Peaches, do you want to play hair dresser?

Of course, she said, yes.

I would never forget this as long as I live. I went and grabbed everything out of my mother’s drawer I could find to use on her hair. I grabbed the brush, comb, and hair grease, and things of that nature. I decided to let her be the hair dresser first, so I sat down on the floor and told her to sit on the bed. My back was against her knees as she gently combed through my hair. She would put a part on one side of my head, and she would comb through and twist a small area of my hair and put grease in it, and comb through my hair once again. After I sat there for a while, I decided it was my turn. Now I wanted to be the hair dresser. She moved herself off the bed and sat on the floor. I sat on the bed and started out twisting and turning her ponytails at first. Then, I remember going to get a cup of water. I would take the comb and dip it in the cup of water. I would put a little hair grease on the end of the comb and rub it through her scalp. I never took the ponytails down. After teasing her head for a while, I got bored. I guess I wanted to add something more. I told Peaches to wait in my room for a second, I said to her, I’ll be right back!

I went in my mother’s room. I was looking for something to add to whatever it was I was doing to Peaches hair. I was rambling through my mother’s drawers, cabinets, and all of her baskets she kept different things stashed in. Then finally, I saw something. I said to myself, yes this is it, I can use these.

I found a pair of scissors!

I thought, I can make her look great with these.

I went back in the room so excited that it made her excited as well. Peaches didn’t ask any question, she just sat back down on the floor as I sat on the bed. I told her to hold still as I pretended to be the stylist. I put more hair grease in her hair and added more water. I snipped the little hair ends around the edges of her head. Then I snipped the little ends of her hair that stuck out the middle of her head. Then all of a sudden, there was a big SNIP! I grabbed one of her ponytails that was in the middle of her head, actually it was the longest one, and I snipped it off. I didn’t know or I did not think at that time that it would matter. She had a few more thick and pretty ponytails left.

I said to myself, this one ponytail wouldn’t make a difference would it?

That was my thought at that time. I just cut it off. I didn’t think it would make a difference until I told her to stand up and look at me. Once she stood up and turned around, I said to myself, I done really messed up this time!

I was very young, but I knew when something looked very wrong.

So, I said to Peaches, OOOOOOOO, you’re in trouble! OOOOOOOO, your momma’s gonna get you! Let me try to fix it so she can’t tell it is missing!

I added more grease, and packed the area where the ponytail used to be with hair grease. Then I tried to slick the hair down a little with the water I had in the cup. I combed her hair thoroughly and again wetting it to thicken the area. I packed just a little more grease where her ponytail used to be. When I was done, I told her to stand up again and look at me. When Peaches stood up and faced me, I knew at that moment I might not make it out of that situation alive! I looked at that little girl, she had two ponytails hanging out the side of her head, with a fuzzy looking space at the top of her head where a ponytail used to be, and that area was wet and shiny!

I said to myself, what have I done?

That did not look right to me, and I was only four years old.

I was thinking, I’m gonna be in big trouble unless I come up with something fast, and I mean very fast!

So I told her to come to the front door. I brushed the middle of her head a few more times with the palm of my hand, and I said to Peaches, Now you go home and see if your mother noticed anything.

When Peaches walked out that door, I locked the door behind her and went and climbed in my bed. I guess I thought at that time no one would notice her hair, or I guess at that time I hoped no one would notice her hair. I was only a four year old baby, so I didn’t know if my plan would work or not. Well, I’ll have you know that my plan did not work. I remember waking up and seeing Peaches, her mother, and my mother, and the strap! Oh, and I didn’t wake up on my own, it was the strap that woke me up. I think I heard it before I felt it. I heard something that sounded like, WHAM. I looked up and said, What in the world was that?

I saw Peaches and her mother, then I looked around and saw my mother with the strap, then I looked down at my leg and I saw this instant bruise that was swelling by the second and that’s when I felt it. I started to rub the area where the bruise was on my leg and I was crying at the same time. Now this is when the interrogation started. My mother asked me, What happened to Peaches’ hair?

The wheels in my head went to spinning so fast that I was stuttering trying to get my words out. I said to my mother, Peaches made me do it! Peaches said that she didn’t like the way her hair looked and she wanted to play hairdresser so that I can fix it for her!

Needless to say, my mother knew that I was not being honest. I looked at Peaches to try and figure out what she could do or say to get me out of this mess. She was just standing there watching and quietly waiting for what was about to happen next. It states in the Bible, Spare the rod, and spoil the child!

Trust me; my mother was a true believer! She definitely had no intentions on spoiling the child, especially me, not at that moment. My mother was old school. She really believed in chastising her kids when they were out of order. Now that was not the first time I was chastised, and definitely not the last. I think that was one of the worst chastisements I’ve received in my life. Not the worst, but one of the worst and there was many. I don’t understand what was going on with me growing up. Honestly, I can’t tell you what made me take all the chances I took as an adolescent. I can remember being, or trying to be very sneaky. I guess it’s safe to say that I took a lot of chances because I thought I could easily do something and get away with doing it. I thought I was very slick as a kid. I ask myself these questions to this very day, Why would I do so many devilish things, knowing what would be waiting for me if I were caught?

CHAPTER FOUR

KING FOR A DAY

Now it’s time for me to go to pre-school. I was almost 5 years old when my mother enrolled me into Head Start. Head Start was a program for pre-school kids at that time. It was a school within the apartments where I lived. I never had to leave my area. It was literally thirty to forty yards from my home to the school. Never really liking school (and I can’t give a good reason why), I just couldn’t bring myself to want to be there. The first day of school was a clear memory. My mother took me and dropped me off, I almost lost my mind. I didn’t know what was going on. Why is my mother trying to leave me here with all these people that I don’t know? Is what I wondered. Which was wild because I knew all the children there; everyone was from my apartment complex. I cried while rolling around on the floor and kicking things. I was having a temper tantrum. My mother grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the boy’s bathroom, pulled my belt out of my pants, pulled my pants down, and went to work on my bottom.

After about a minute in there with my mother, I was ready to learn. My mother was the type of parent who will tell you, Oh no, I’m not going to whip my pants, you got to take those off. I paid too much money for those pants.

My mother took me back to my classroom after she was done with me, and I was ready to learn. All the kids knew me and they heard everything. Not only did they crack on me about how I was rolling all over the floor and crying like a little girl, they cracked on me about how I was screaming in the bathroom as well. So I had to straighten up quickly because even at that age, and being raised in the hood, that was not cool. I learned how to deal with the fact that I had to be there, but I still didn’t like it. I was doing other things to keep my mind off being there. I was playing with the little girls and playing games with the boys. Even when it was time for everyone to take a nap, I stayed up playing with the custodian. They were called janitors in my days. I would never forget how I got in trouble with the janitor. I would tease him a lot, and he was cool with me teasing him because a lot of times he would tease me back. He would come and get me during class to help him out with certain things. When I started to get a little hyper, the teachers would call him to come and take me away from the class for a little while. I know now, it was to keep me out of trouble. I didn’t look at him as an adult; I looked at him as a friend because we did everything friends would do in school. We laughed, we joked all the time, and we played. I guess this particular day, he didn’t feel like playing, or just didn’t want to be bothered. I did not know the signs at that time. I was only four or five. I had never done this before, so I guess I must have scared him. I saw him sitting at the top of the steps reading a newspaper, and I ran up on him with his back towards me. He had no clue that I was even around. I put both my hands on his shoulders and leaped down the rest of the stairs. When I landed, I was laughing like crazy. He screamed, No, while I was in the air, so I knew I scared him. That was the funniest part to me, but I noticed he was not laughing. He came and grabbed me by the arm and took me to the office. They called my mother and she had to come and get me from school. A few short days after that, my teacher let us out for recess. I remember looking up at the sky and saying to myself, It is hot, and I am ready to go home!

So I opened the gate and walked away. No one noticed a thing. I looked at the teachers to see if they noticed I had left, but no one was paying attention. I headed towards my mother’s apartment. It was still early in the morning and I knew my mother would know that school was not out yet, so I just waited out in front of the apartment. What I’m about to say next even makes me laugh today! I don’t know what I was thinking at that time, or should I say, I don’t know why I was thinking what I was thinking, but I couldn’t have thought that this was going to work. Needless to say, the school called my mother and asked her if I were home. My mother said, No, I brought him to school!

The secretary said, We know, but he left during recess!

My mother got up out of her bed and went to the front door, and when she opened the door and looked outside, I was standing behind a tree looking at her. The tree was about as thick as my leg at that time, and I was there with both shoulders hanging out from both sides of the tree with both my legs showing. My mother said that she could practically see my entire body, with the exception of the tree blocking the middle of my body. My mother would call my name, and I would peep at her with one eye, then I would move my head back behind the tree. This might sound crazy, but I remember thinking, if I can’t see her, then she can’t see me. I look back on that day and I say to myself, what was I thinking about? I was just too smart to do that, well at least I thought I was!

For some odd reason, I was just way too hyper. I remember doing everything, and it’s as clear as if I did it just yesterday. I remember all of my thoughts at that time. I just don’t know why I did some of those things I used to do! The only thing I can come up with is that I loved attention. Even though I’m full grown now, that has never left me. I still love attention. Before I left that Head Start, I left my stamp… everyone knew who Vincent was.

My last day there I must say, I made King. I don’t know how, nor do I know what made them pick me. I love to hear my mother talk about it. She said that she had requested to be off work early so that she would make it to my May Day program. That’s what it was called back in my days, but now it’s called Field Day. My mother was still a little late. She thought I would be out there dancing and playing games, but I did too. That’s what we had rehearsed all those weeks. My mother says she got there, saw me on the stage sitting next to the Queen, wearing a purple King’s outfit with a matching purple crown, and said she said to herself, I didn’t know this was happening.

Nonetheless, she further said, I was so proud to see my son up there.

From that day to this day, I still don’t know how I made King. I always say that I made my mark there and that’s probably the reason. I would never be in my own classroom, but instead, I would be in other teachers’ classes that I didn’t have any business being in. I stayed in trouble, so the janitor kept me with him. I guess it’s safe to say that I did what I wanted to do, that’s probably why they made me King. I would jokingly tell people that!

CHAPTER FIVE

TROUBLE CHILD

Now I am promoted to first grade and this is more of a challenge for me. Because now I’m in elementary school, and I can’t get all the attention that I was getting in the Head Start program. There were no other classes I could go to if I didn’t want to be bothered with the teacher or some of the other students in my classroom. There was no one to call for me to hang out with, to keep me busy by working with him and joking and kidding around like I had with the janitor at Head Start. In elementary, play time was over with. They made it clear that it was time to work. It took me a while to adjust. Right out of the gates, I got into trouble. On the first day, my mother had to come to the school. She took me into the utility closet and just talked to me this time. She said to me, Look, I’m not going to go through the same thing I went through with you at the other school. So, you need to straighten up and get it together because if I have to come up here again, we’re not coming into this closet just to talk!

I knew my mother meant business when those words came out of her mouth; especially from past experience. I did everything in my power to try to be on my best behavior. But at times, I seemed to get very bored. It’s not that I was just sitting around thinking of something to do, no, that’s not it. I would get my work done, and it would be done correctly. The problem is when I was done working everyone else would still be working or moving on to the next assignment. So, I would try and talk to my other class mates while they were doing their work. I would sometimes tap them on the shoulder and tease them in some kind of way. Basically, I would do anything to get some attention from anyone. My first grade teacher had a corner she would tell her students to go stand in when they were not following the rules. In that corner, there was a light that shined straight down from the ceiling. My teacher would tell us that the longer we stayed in that corner, the more that light would cook us. I was the type of child that believed everything an adult said to me. I never would have guessed that an adult would be dishonest to a kid, especially a school teacher. So, I actually thought this was true. I would see all the other students being put in that corner, but up to that point, I had never been in the corner. I don’t know why, because I was really acting out at times. I think maybe my teacher was trying to give me some time to adjust. I can’t think of any other reason why I never made it to the corner by that time. So, this one particular day, I guess Mrs. K had gotten a little tired of dealing with the way I would carry on in class. She told me, Go to the corner!

Oh no, I said to myself, I can’t go to that corner!

So, I begged her, Mrs. K, please don’t make me go there!

Tears began flowing down my face, and I think I really started to panic. I remember feeling the need to escape. My legs were feeling heavy, and it felt that someone was holding me very tight. My breath was getting short and I felt that if I go into that corner, I would not make it out alive. I remember what happened next. I grabbed a desk and turned it over, and I kicked a chair down to the floor. I remember that, because I saw myself doing that in my head before I even did it. I guess it’s safe to say that I mapped it out in my head. But I can honestly say that I don’t know what happened after that. I guess I must have blanked out. The next thing I remember was being awakened by my mother. I didn’t know what was going on. I felt a tap on my shoulder. My mother was calling my name to wake me up. I looked up, saw my mother, and said to myself, what have I done?

I looked around and saw some of the desks turned over, and a lot of the chairs were turned over as well. One of my shoes was in a corner of the room, and the other shoe was in another corner. Here I am, in the middle of the classroom, in the middle of the floor, asleep! Wow. All the other students were doing their work, and trying to ignore the fact that I was laying there sleeping. It turns out, Mrs. K was okay with me being asleep because I was not bothering the other students, and it was pretty quiet in the class with me on the floor sleeping. Ironically, it turns out that I was a distraction! The other students couldn’t be productive because they would constantly stare at me in the middle of the floor. Mrs. K told the other students she would be right back and for them to be on their best behavior. She went upstairs to the main office and called my mother. I asked myself, Where did all the time go? After everything that happened, I don’t know how I ended up on the floor sleeping. Mrs. K had enough time to continue teaching the class, but eventually got tired of seeing me on the floor asleep. She decided to talk to the students, then walked all the way to the main office (which was not a short walk), to call my mother. Mrs. K came back to class and continued to teach. My mother walked all the way from home (because she didn’t own a car), and saw me on the floor still asleep. I asked myself, what happen to the time, it went by so fast?

I’m still mad at some of my friends today for not waking me up. Yes, I still have friends that were in my class in first grade that I’m still close with today. But imagine that, being awakened by my mother after she had told me not to make her come back to the school. Wow! My mother asked Mrs. K if she could borrow her yard stick, and all I could think about before my mother snatched me up off of that floor was, can somebody please help me? My mother took me into the utility closet and told me to drop them! I knew exactly what she meant, because she told me in the past that she does not beat her clothes because her clothes cost too much. She would say the clothes I wore everyday were her clothes because she paid for them. So I dropped my pants, but I was easing them off. I guess I was taking too long because she reached over, grabbed my pants, snatched them off, and then I felt like someone had set me on fire. It sounded like World War III had started in that utility closet. She was getting me good. I was calling everybody’s names! Names of people I knew and some names I never heard before. It sounded like this, Lord, help me Father, God, Jesus, please stop her, Frank, Joseph, Mrs. K, somebody please come save me.

Wait, who is Frank and Joseph?

I was just throwing names out there I guess. At that time anybody could’ve come and rescued me. I would’ve been very thankful. I’ll have you to know that my mother didn’t have any more trouble out of me in first grade; which was great because Mrs. K came to be one of my favorite teachers.

CHAPTER SIX

THE MYSTERIOUS AUNT

Around the end of my first grade school year, I found out that I had an aunt. I knew that I had a cousin who lived with us for a while, but with me being so young I guess I was not so curious about where she came from. Around this time, I found out I had an aunt who was my cousin’s mother and my mother’s sister. I never even knew my mother had a sister. It was a big deal about my auntie coming home. Everyone was happy. So, I was happy as well. Here it is, I have an auntie whom I’ve never met before or even knew existed. She was coming home to our apartment, and I was very excited. The reason I think she was never mentioned to me was because she was in prison. She went to prison before I was born. I guess no one told me about her because they felt I would have had a lot of questions. Knowing me, I probably would’ve. Now it was time for her to be released. I would never forget the day she walked into my mother’s apartment. She was a beautiful brown skinned lady, with the most beautiful, black, curly hair that I had ever seen. She was short and petite. Oddly, she knew exactly who I was. I was the first person she ran up to, grabbed, hugged, and kissed. My heart fluttered. This is going to be something that I have never mentioned to anyone in my life. This is the first time that I felt that it is okay to say this. Know that I am being nothing less than totally honest! I have to say that, that was my first crush. I don’t mean to be weird, but that was my first time ever seeing her and I didn’t even know she existed. The crush only lasted for a few days. I finally came to grips that this was my mother’s sister. So she became my favorite aunt in the world. Even though my mother didn’t have but that one sister, she was my favorite! She played with me a lot, and she talked to me all the time. I eventually found out that I had some more cousins that I had never met or even heard of. It was my cousin Tiny who had been living with us whom informed me of this. Tiny told me that I have a cousin who was my age whom I needed to meet, and that I had more cousins who are coming over not only to meet me, but to see their mother. See, when my auntie went to prison, all of her children were separated. Each one had to live with a different family member because my auntie had five kids. I guess no one family member could handle all five of my aunt’s children and still have enough to take care of their own. So, I would talk to my cousin who was my age a lot on the phone before I met her. We talked about everything, which was great because I had a sister who was older than me and hung out with all her friends her age and really didn’t have any time for me. I had a younger sister who was barely walking and most of the attention from my mother and my step-father at the time was on her. I was very excited to meet someone who was my age and related to me.

Eventually it was summer break, I was promoted to second grade, and I heard the best news ever. I heard that my cousin, whom I had been talking on the phone with almost every night, was coming to live with us. I was so happy, and to think, we would start second grade together. So, she finally came, moved in, and we finally met face-to-face. It was as if we had known each other for years. We immediately began playing, joking, and talking. Her mother (my auntie), never stopped treating me like she did, even when her own kids came around. I felt like I was one of her kids as well judging by the way she cared for me. I loved them. All of my cousins and my favorite auntie in the world were in one home. It was great. My cousin and I played the entire summer that year in the projects where I was born and raised. She was so smart and she could sing like the birds. Everywhere we would go in the neighborhood, people would ask her to sing. She could hit some amazing notes that would draw crowds. I remember saying to myself, I want to be like her one day.

I felt good. I was hanging out with my cousin, and had someone to tease and stay up with all night telling jokes, and wake up in the mornings ready to play. That was an amazing summer, one I would never forget. Now the summer break is over, and we’ve started school. Everything is going great. My cousin happens to be in the same class as me. We had two second grade classes, and my cousin ended up in my classroom. That was extremely cool. Now I could watch out for her. All my friends would try to be her boyfriend and I would say, no, you can’t because this is my cousin, and you are no good.

My friends would be so mad at me. We had so much fun that year. My cousin didn’t finish her second grade year with me, and I thought that was very hard for me. Here you got something or someone you grow to love and want to be around all the time, only to find out they’re going away was really hard. Ultimately, my cousins and my favorite aunt moved out of my mother’s apartment, and there I was back in the same situation I started in. It’s just me, my little sister, my older sister, and my mom. I’m the only boy in the family. Yes, my cousin was a female, but at least she was my age, and I treated her as if she was a boy. Suddenly, it seemed that a crisis surrounded my world. I had not too long ago met my great-grandmother. She was the mother to the only grandfather I had ever known. I only remember seeing her once in my life. The only thing I remember during that time was it being special. I remember experiencing a special kind of love from her. My mother took me to my great-grandmother’s high rise and she gave me everything. She gave me a sofa that could transform into a bed. I had never seen a sofa like that before. She also gave me a cake. I called her Nanny. She hugged me and talked to me the whole time we were at her home, and I felt that I had known her for years. I never imagined that would be the last time I would see her alive. For some reason as I look back on that day, I believe she knew. I remember being asleep and my older sister came into my room and climbed in bed with me. She shook me so I would wake up. As I opened my eyes, my sister told me that my Grandma Nanny had passed away. I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it.

I had just seen her, and now I would never see her again?

Those were the questions I had for my older sister and my mother. Wow, that was hard. I remember even asking my mother, Can they bury my Grandma Nanny in our back yard?

At that age I didn’t know any better, I just wanted to be close to my Grandma Nanny at all times. Then a few months later I got more bad news. My favorite aunt who I had just met, who had moved in with us from fresh out of prison, she was murdered shortly after she and my cousins moved away from us. Devastated, I couldn’t believe all of this was happening almost at the same time. My auntie was lying in bed sleeping and someone came into her room and stabbed her several times. I was not there, so I don’t know the details of what happened. My cousin, who was my age, was there. She saw the whole thing. I was so young and couldn’t understand why it had to happen that way. I remember being so mad at my cousin that I lashed out at her. I said to her, Why didn’t you help my auntie? Why didn’t you jump in to help her?

We were only seven years old, but I can remember feeling the anger and hate that was raging inside of me. I imagined myself being there with my auntie and doing the best I could to try and help her while trying to save her life. That was the first time I realized I could get so angry. But it was my mom who brought me back down to reality. My mother was standing right there when I asked my cousin that question. Mother said to me, Vincent, had your cousin gotten involved, then she probably would be a victim as well. There was nothing your cousin could have done. She was too young and too small to be able to do anything."

That made a lot of sense. Thinking back on it, it really took a lot out of me. I thought about it often, and my mother’s explanation seemed to replay in my head over and over as well. I carried the anger of my auntie’s murder with me everywhere I went. I never talked about it, but rather kept it bottled up inside. I would occasionally wonder, if I saw the murderer walking the streets after being released from jail, what would I do to them? Would I be able to do what I felt needed to be done and get away with it?

These were among my thoughts as a seven year old. After everything I went through with my auntie’s murder and seeing how it affected my family, especially my cousins, I looked at life, and people, totally different.

CHAPTER SEVEN

FIRE IN THE WOODS

At the age of 7, I would wonder if I was going to be the next one to get murdered. This was during a time when there were many kidnappings and killings of kids in our own neighborhood. During this time, the Atlanta Police Department was looking for a serial killer who was supposedly responsible for the missing and murdered children of Atlanta. We, as children, had a curfew that was issued by the police officials, but I remember not being afraid. I would still sneak outside to play with some of my friends after curfew. I didn’t worry about the killer the police were looking for. I was more worried about getting caught by the police for being outside after curfew. Spotting a police car driving through our neighborhood, I would find a cut to hide in, steps to hide under, or drains to hide in until it was gone. It all became a game. I know it’s sad to say, but I think I really enjoyed the fact that I would see the police, take off running, and was able to escape.

At that age, I began to make everything a game. Making a game out of the hunt for the killer, I would yell out to the other kids, Hey yall, here comes Wayne William.

And I would take off running along with the other kids. At that time, I felt that I was a little older than my actual age and knew how to plot out certain things, make the plot happen, and even get away with it. My friends and I would do a great deal of devilish things. Plenty of times my friends would get caught and I wouldn’t. If it happened that I was caught, I would try and talk my way out of trouble.

The summer of that same year, I went to spend it with my father. He was married, and I had step brothers and step sisters who lived with my father and my step-mom. I had one step brother who was around my age, but a few years older. We had gotten ourselves into a lot of trouble coming up. This particular summer was one I’d never forget. My step brother and I loved to experiment with anything and everything. We loved to play in the woods. This wooded area was like something you would see on television. My father and his family lived in apartments that literally looked like someone had cut a hole out of a rainforest and stuck these apartments inside the hole. They were surrounded by trees. No, these were not housing projects nor subsidized housing like the ones I grew up in. These were townhomes. My brother and I loved to go in the wooded area to swim, fish, and try to catch different kinds of animals. There was a little small pond that was far back in the trees; we named it the frog pond because there were a whole heap of frogs and tadpoles in the pond. Yet, we would still swim there. There was not a swimming pool anywhere in sight and we were so hot those long summer days. We had a nephew and two other friends who would hang out with us as well.

One day, we decided we loved being in the woods so much, we thought we would find a way to stay in there for most of the day, every day. We decided to build a clubhouse. We wanted this clubhouse to be so nice that we wouldn’t have to leave out for anything unless we wanted to. So, we began to pull the plywood off the boarded up apartments vacated by previous tenants, and would head through the woods with it. There were plenty of boarded up apartments, which means we had plenty of plywood. We went deep into the woods, past the frog pond, and deeper than we had ever been before. We didn’t want anyone to be able to accidentally stumble upon our clubhouse. Once we found a nice area in a corner of the woods, we began to clear the area and build the clubhouse. After we were done, it was one big room. We realized that it was five of us and each one of us wanted our own room. We had built clubhouses before, but nothing like the one we were about to build this time. We decided that we wanted to make this one with three levels: an upstairs, a downstairs, and a living room. Yes, we all had wild imaginations. But it happened. We went back through the woods every day for about two weeks until we