Father's Dey: The Trials and Tribulations of Growing up Without a Father and Ultimately Becoming One

By Keith G. Walker

A Book on Fatherhood Revealing the Consequences of Fatherless Homes

Statistics, provided by US D.H.H.S., Bureau of Census, show that 85% of all youths sitting in prisons, 63% of youth suicides, 90% of all homeless and runaway children; and 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes. These are only few of the depressing truths and information caused by this situation. Author Keith G. Walker shares his own personal struggles from living a life without a father to trying to save his sons from a similar fate. In his engrossing book, Fathers Dey, readers will discover how he lived such a complicated life at such a young age and how he made it through.

Why do these things occur and how could these issues be addressed?

I feel there is a great disparity when it comes to fathers gaining custody of their children and want to bring this problem to the attention of the public so that changes can be made, giving fathers an even playing field, Walker says.

In Father's Dey, readers will follow the story of a young man who grew up without his parents, lived with several different relatives, and despite the low odds of surviving, he goes on to do great things and become very successful and a good example to others in similar situations. Walker has written two fictitious chapters which show what has happened with others and what can happen depicting situations and outcomes where no one wins. This book is an eye-opening instrument that would enlighten readers about the value of family, the essence of parental love, and the importance of parental guidance and presence in their childrens growing up years.

Filled with real life events common to many families throughout the world, suffused with intense emotions, and dashed with indispensable insights on fatherhood and family rearing, Fathers Dey is an interesting and inspirational read everyone will find fascinating and revealing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 26, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462891207

Book preview

FATHER’S DEY

The trials and tribulations of growing

up without a Father and ultimately

becoming one.

Written By:

Keith G. Walker

Copyright © 2011 by Keith G. Walker

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011910196

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4628-9118-4

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4628-9119-1

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4628-9120-7

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 permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

92999

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

My Family Tree

My father left me hanging

As though I was hanging from a tree

While there, I wondered how could he do this to me

A man walked by and asked me why

Was I hanging from the tree

I couldn’t lie

So I said

My father did this to me

He said, He can see your suffering

How could he leave you there

I said to the man

Cause the man

Don’t care

By: Keith G. Walker

Chapter 1

Fuck it! I’m gonna kill this b-tch tonight! I’ve been planning to do it for some time now, thinking of every possible way I can carry out what some would consider a heinous, evil, sick, or barbaric criminal offense. I’ve been studying her moves for weeks-what she does and when she doe’s it. I know where she lives and hangs out. I know where her nasty ass friends and every one of her ignorant relatives live too. I know every move she makes. I thought about poisoning her by breaking into her rat-infested apartment while she’s out smoking dope and drinking by placing strychnine, A deadly type of poison, into her coffee can, or wait until she comes home and stab her about fifty times, simultaneously talking to her like the dog she turned out to be. With each stroke of my ten—inch hunting knife I will say things like, You funky low-life b-tch, who’s laughing now, tramp? Tried to kill my son, huh, now who’s gonna send me to the penitentiary? Remember what you said about my dead momma, You stinkin, piece of shit, while slowly and methodically piercing and penetrating her drug induced body more and more with each blow.

I should just shoot the b-tch right in her f-ckin face till I run out of bullets and kill whoever is with her. Maybe I’ll get one of my homies from the Lou to come out here and put it down for me. At this point, I really don’t give a f-ck how this b-tch dies as long she is dead tonight. I must have devised at least fifty different ways to kill her, trying to figure out how not to implement myself, knowing I would be the first person the police would look at.

I should run that b-tch over while she’s walking home drunk and back up and run her ass over again. Maybe pour gasoline all over her and light that b-tch up. Yeah, I like that idea. If I had the time I would bury that bitch alive like I saw in a movie one night I was up late, give her ass plenty of time to think about how she tried to destroy my life and my son’s life by having him drugged on a continuous basis in the hopes of receiving a disability check. Who’s disabled now b-tch?

I knew she would be staggering home drunk this Friday night, coming from her decrepit—looking friend’s house where all the other welfare recipients party on the first weekend of the month after getting paid to be stagnant by the government.

I stole a car and staked out what I labeled the haunted house because the people in there looked as though they had recently risen from the dead. The music was blaring. 2 Pac could be heard rising above the laughter and the slapping of bones dominoes onto the fold-up table that was decorated with cigarette burns, ashtrays, and beer bottles in the smoke-filled tiny home. Hood rats, crack heads, wineo’s, and other neighborhood stars came and went. It reminded me of a circus or freak show. I was up the block, scoping the place with binoculars, making sure I spotted the b-tch when she left asking myself how in the hell did I allow myself to ever associate with this good-for-nothing hoe in the first place.

Finally, after almost everyone had staggered, fallen, or was carried out, she started to stumble my way, not knowing I was about to get even by killing her ass.

Hope she didn’t say, See ya tomorrow, to any of her funky friends cause the last person she will see is me.

I turned the car on before she got close, rolled the window down, and turned the music up a little, hoping she would still feel like dancing. I said, Hey what’s up, you know where I can get some bud from, Trying to disguise my voice by giving it a slightly higher pitch knowing that would spark her interest. She didn’t recognize me because of the hat and sun glasses I was sporting at night and my temporary getaway car. She was still in party mode, I could tell because she smilingly said, Yeah! you gon smoke some wit me in her part uneducated part country accent as she opened the passenger door to get in, exposing me to a mixture of disgusting smells that consisted of beer and cheap wine. Cigarette smoke spewed from her mouth, from her body was the smell of weed smoke, cigarettes, and a body odor that notified me soap and water were foreign to her these days. She looked closer at me while trying to focus and adjust her vision to the inside of what would turn out to be her last ride. I could tell she thought she knew me from somewhere, but before she realized who I was, I hit that b-tch twice, as hard as I could with my right hand in her nose, which so happened to be gloved and covered with brass knuckles. BAM! BAM! Too late b-tch. I could hear her flesh separate going into different directions and the crumbling of bones as she began to bleed from her nose and slobber from her mouth as though the two liquids were destined to congregate somewhere below her chin.

I pulled off, knowing there was no turning back, noticing my heart seem to beat in unison with the song that had just started to play. It was a song I wrote called, Hard Ta Kill. I laughed to myself at the irony as I turned it up. I drove two blocks to a more secluded area and stopped so that I could duct tape her hands, feet, and mouth before covering her up and placing her into the backseat, just in case she awakened before we got to our destination and her gruesome but deserving final resting place.

After brainstorming for months on how I would get rid of this tramp, it finally hit me. I studied a construction site where they were building several new homes and found out that on the coming Monday they were paving the street that led to this development. I figured if I could kill her and bury her there before that Monday no one would ever find her body. It would be as though she just up and disappeared, sort of like Jimmy Hoffa, it would be a mystery.

I drove flawlessly through the streets of Seattle, trying not to draw any negative attention to myself. All I need is to be pulled over for some traffic infraction and the police discover this b-tch in the backseat wrapped up like a mummy. Once I reached the construction site, I knew I wouldn’t be disturbed because there were no occupied houses in close proximity nor was there a guard on duty, so I could take the time I needed to execute my plan to perfection. I slowly backed in and settled on her final resting place right in front of a porta potty. I did have to pee but I figured I could hold it until I was finished with the task of killing this low-down dirty soon-to-be-dead dog.

Before exiting the stolen vehicle, I took a minute to look around to make sure no one was in the area. It could be some kids coming here to make out or something, I didn’t want to have to smoke some innocent bystanders that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like they say in the old movies, The coast was clear, so I got out popped the trunk, grabbed the shovel that I brought with me and immediately started digging.

The ground was soft so it wouldn’t be hard for me to dig a hole three feet deep, three feet in width and four feet in length. She’s not that that big and will be placed in the fetal position anyway: she’ll fit. It’s funny what you think about when you’re digging a hole for the person you’re about to kill: it’s not as if you do this all the time unless you’re a serial killer like the Green River killer or something. As I’m thinking of him, I realize were not too far away from the green river and wondered why didn’t he kill this b-tch? The only sounds I hear is the sound of my shovel entering the ground, the landing of the dirt, vehicles from a distance, and myself breathing in and out the crisp night air. Oh sh-t, I think this b-tch just woke up; it’s okay because I’m almost done with her grave. I went to the car. I could see her shaking her head frantically while squirming her body around, trying to escape and mumbling through the duct tape. I picked her up and dragged her to her final resting place by her ankles. By now her high had escaped her, she’s realizing this is not a joke and that the end is near. She began to scream as loud as she could but only I could hear her. Tears began to flow down her sad face like a river that had runith over, (for all my church people.) I said, Don’t cry now b-tch, in a low menacing tone and followed up with, I told yo motha f-ckin ass to leave me alone didn’t I?

She started to squirm more, scream though the duct tape, urinate, and sh-t on herself simultaneously. I guess her nerves got the best of her. I don’t feel sorry for her or any of the other women out there who use their children as tools to destroy relationships between the fathers and their children, who take advantage of the welfare system, and who lie and destroy men’s lives as if it’s a game. She had a lot of nerves when she did everything she could think of to hurt my son and me, so don’t lose your nerves now b-tch.

I had planned to torture her before killing her, but now, I just wanted to get it over with. I took out the snub-nosed 38 I had from back in the day, knowing it would come in handy for an occasion like this. I placed a sixteen ounce plastic bottle over the barrel and wrapped the duct tape around it to create a ghetto silencer. I had to drag her ass back to the hole because she had squirmed about five feet away in a feeble attempt to escape. It was actually kind of funny, so while laughing, I said, B-tch get yo ass back over here.

I think her ass got snagged on something because she grimaced a little while I was dragging her back. After finishing my weapon, I looked at her very intensely, her eyes filled with tears, she looked at me the same way hoping I wouldn’t complete the task I came here for. There was total silence. Without saying a word, I put the 38 up to her head above her broken nose and pulled the trigger. The sound was like a fat man had just farted. Blood, bone, and brain matter introduced itself to the morning air as she fell perfectly into her final resting place. That’s about the only thing I recall her doing right.

A sense of relief came over me as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders: I felt free for the first time in a long time, like Tony Braxton, I can breathe again, but this b-tch never will.

I filled the hole, asked God to forgive me, took a piss, and drove to within a block of where my car was waiting for me. I grabbed my CD and shovel, dowsed the car with gasoline, placed a four-foot long rag in the gas tank, lit a cigarette and wrapped the rag around the butt. It took me two and a half minutes to get to my car. Right after driving off I heard the getaway car explode. Like Sollonzzo said to Tom Hagan in The God Father after having Don Corleone shot.

What’s done is done.

Now I’m gonna do the same thing to her older sister who seemed to be the master mind behind all of the plots to destroy me. I can’t wait ta kill that b-tch.

Ready or not, here I come. Biiiiiiiitch! In my Too Short voice.

FLASHBACK:

I played JFL for three years. JFL stands for junior football league. I loved playing football more than anything besides boxing. My friends and I played every chance we got. My brother was a high school football star and was well known. Anything he did, I tried to do, like lift weights, run fast, hit hard, etc. My father paid my tuition to get on the team the three years I played, but not once did he ever encourage me, take me to practice, throw a ball to me, or come to see me play. My best friend lived two house’s down, and we were on the same team. I rode with him and his dad to practice and games the majority of the time.

I think I was the only kid whose dad didn’t come to games and or practice. My grandparents weren’t in any condition to attend my games due to their health issues. One night, after a grueling practice, my teammates and I, like always, headed for the concession stand that was near the parking lot in hopes of getting a snack.

The closer I got to the stand, I thought I saw a man who looked like my father among the crowd of people. The more I looked I realized it was him. He may not have been able to find me, he went to the wrong field, and he missed seeing me practice I thought to myself. I knew he would come one day. I ran to him the rest of the way with a big smile on my face anticipating showing my team mates I had a dad like they did. He didn’t move he just continued leaning on the wall with a look on his face that said I was hoping I didn’t see you. I happily said Hey dad my team was over there. You couldn’t find us huh? Before he could say anything, a kid named Craig I knew from Meacham Park came from the concession stand with snacks in hand and yelled out, Hey E, you ready to go? My temporary happiness instantly turned into sorrow. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing or seeing. It wasn’t me he came to see, he was there with his girlfriend’s son, doing for him what he was supposed to be doing with me.

They looked so comfortable as though they spend plenty of time together. He brought a kid to football practice that wasn’t his son and never once took me to practice or came to see me play.

My father smiled at me and said, See ya later or something to that effect. I felt drenched with humiliation to the point I almost threw up and fainted. One of my teammates asked who I was talking to, I said, No one.

Chapter 2

I was raised by my grandparents in the city of St. Louis Missouri. We moved to the suburbs in the summer I was going into the first grade. My grandmother was the best women you ever wanted to meet. She was a beautiful heavy set lady that sang, played the piano and organ at our church, and was what is called a missionary. She was a true believer in the Lord. She was so well known in the church community that when we would visit other churches the person on the piano would rise from the piano and motion her to take over for the day.

My Grandfather was a light-skinned native American gentleman who came to know the Lord through my Grandmother. He actually learned to read by reading the Bible and eventually became a Pastor who served our country during World War II.

My Grandparents raised my big brother, myself, and also assisted in raising several foster children. At one point our household consisted of my Grandmother, Grandfather, my big brother Flip, my foster brothers Ameal, Big Keith, Kent, Anthony, and myself.

We were required to go to church every Sunday whether we liked it or not, sometimes on Wednesday night, depending on what was taking place.

One day our car wouldn’t start, a blessing to all the kids, so we began to take off our church clothing our Sunday best, smiling all the while. From downstairs we heard the deep voice of my Grandfather directing us to the living room where we were to have church. What? Our smiles immediately turned upside down. My Grandfather preached, my Grandmother played the piano, and sang songs while we stared at each other periodically in disbelief, trying not to let our disappointment show on our faces.

They were as Christian as Christians can get. Because of their belief, we were raised beautifully, with values and morals instilled into us and I appreciate all they taught us even if I didn’t understand at the time.

If you ever visited our home, you were welcome to eat and given a place to sleep if need be. You would never hear curse words, smell cigarette smoke, liquor, or see any kind of disrespectful behavior. There was no card playing, no dominoes, no boggy woggy music as they called it (R&B), and the television was monitored, so there were no R-rated movies either. We ate dinner at the dinner table together every day. This is where we would talk about our day: hear stories, taught manners, family unity, and everyone had their own chores to execute on a daily basis.

My biological mother was literally a beautiful woman full of life. She was one of those women you may see in the background when they describe the 1960’s. She loved to party and loved everybody. Her personality was infectious and she was fun to be around.

My biological father was a nice looking well-educated gentleman who graduated from college, served time in the marines, an avid golfer, and a certified accountant for a well known company. I loved both of them very much although they were completely different from one another.

My Grandfather taught me everything a kid would normally learn from his father. He was the provider for our house. He worked in construction for several years until he retired. He would always leave a treat in his lunch box for me when he came home since I was the baby of the family. He taught me how to build a bike, how to fix flats, how to fight, work ethics, how to drive at age ten and would whip my but when I needed it which was every now and then. He taught me everything I knew: he was my real father, he was the one there for me each and every day. I went to him when I was afraid of the dark, lightning and thunder, firemen, the boggy man or any man for that matter. I knew I was safe as long as he was around.

My biological father lived with both his parents until he was about thirty-five years old. They lived on the west side of St. Louis. His mother and father were uppity Negroes. His mother was about one shade away from being white, his father was dark as night. It just dawned on me that I don’t know either of their names off-hand. As a child, I was disowned by my father’s side of the family. I was never a part of them. I went to his home a couple of times but went no further than the front room. We would only stop by after picking me up because he may have forgotten something. During the time I was there I don’t recall anyone coming to say hi to me while I waited for him to finish whatever he was doing. As a kid, I never understood why his mother, father, brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts didn’t acknowledge me. They never showed any interest in me. I never spent the night with them, ate dinner with them, received a birthday present from them, a phone call, or once heard them say the words, I love you.

That really didn’t affect me much at the time maybe because I didn’t understand I was being disregarded and disowned. I was so happy to be with my father I guess I really didn’t care (until I got older) since I received an abundance of love from the Grandparents I lived with. It wasn’t everyday that I got the privilege to spend quality time with my biological father. It was during these periods that I felt on top of the world. We went to the movies, shopping for school clothes, I knew he would never forget my birthday, and Christmas was a time I knew he would make his presence known. I could count on seeing him at least ten to twelve times a year. He would come in and out of my life like a magician because he would always disappear leaving me wondering when would be the next time we’d see each other. I loved him more than he loved me. I needed him more than he needed me. I reached out countless times to him never to feel his loving touch.

I was twelve going on thirteen when my Grandmother passed away from a long bout with cancer. Life as I knew it would never be the same. My family disintegrated right before my very eyes. She was the glue that held everything together, the master link in a chain, without her everything fell apart. I was the youngest of the three kids that were left in our suburban home. My big brother had recently graduated from high school. He had become a track and football star. He was probably the most popular kid at his school KWH.

You could often see him on the news, running a touchdown or the forty-yard dash during track season. He was so talented we already were picking which professional football team he was going to play for. For some reason he didn’t even go to college, instead he got a job that paid good, and began his life like most were taught to do. Finish high school and find a good job.

My Grandmother lived long enough to see him walk across that stage and receive his diploma. It was as though she loved him so much she may have passed away months earlier, but she wanted to be there to show him love and give him the support he needed and feel a sense of accomplishment that she so well deserved. A couple of weeks after the ceremony, she was gone.

As young as I was, I really didn’t understand death. For a long period of time, I was under the impression my Grandmother was coming back: there is no way God would take her away from us, not from me, no way. One day, on my way to school, a couple of weeks after she passed away I saw her at a bus stop (I thought) that was on a main street across the street from my school on Manchester Road. There were cars coming and going so it was difficult to cross. I dodged vehicles that were traveling at about 35-40 mph. She looked at me, and I knew it was her. I was going to ask her to come home so things would be the way they were before she left. I was going to hug and kiss her, tell her how much I loved her and apologize for being bad in the past, and promise her I would never act up again. The road contained three lanes in both directions. I made it across five lanes. Before I could reach the person that I knew was my loving Grandmother, the beautiful lady that raised me, the bus came and went before I could reach her. I ran along side of the bus yelling for it to stop only to witness it speed off while breathing in the fumes from its exhaust pipes. I started to cry and then pretend something was in my eyes when I noticed some students approaching. At that moment, I think I realized I may not ever see my Grandmother alive again.

My big brother was offered to keep our house and at the same time keep us together. He and my Grandfather’s relationship had fallen apart due to him remarrying so fast. My brother declined and moved out on his own leaving us to fend for ourselves.

Our home was practically given away by my Grandfather. I remember him asking me if I wanted to go live with my Uncle P who lived in Meacham Park. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This is the man I knew as my father. I couldn’t imagine waking up in the morning and not seeing him there, but his plans were already in motion. Unfortunately, what little was left of my family disappeared like dust blown away by a strong wind. At this point there were four of us, my Grandfather, Kent, Flip, and myself.

My Grandfather went his way, my foster brother Kent was adopted by the people who basically obtained our home for free, (they were the second of the two black families that lived in this area). Flip moved to Meacham Park and I was left like an unclaimed package at baggage claim.

My life changed dramatically. I went from living in the suburbs in a home where there was no cursing, no card playing, smoking, drinking, or any profanity, to being relocated with my big brother right smack dab in the hood, chocolate city, the ghetto, an all-black neighborhood called Meacham Park.

This was a poor yet fascinating place. For the first time in my life I was up close and personal with ghetto stars. There were people everywhere all the time that looked just like me. People at the parks playing, people on the corner talking, drinking, shooting dice, you name it you could find it here in Meacham Park. We used to visit our cousins here every now and then and sometimes attend church with them, so I was familiar with the place.

This would be the first of many stops for me. I will soon share with you all of the places and people I lived with starting at age thirteen to age eighteen.

To everyone that has chosen to continue reading this book, I wanted to inform you that I did not act on my urges to kill my son’s mother or her family members although I must admit I did come close.

I could have easily turned out to be one of the many men that for some reason or another could not handle the pressure and pain that is sometimes attached to being a father who is terribly mistreated by the child’s mother. Pressure does burst pipes. I feel for those men who have experienced similar situations as mine and choose to carry out those diabolical fantasies that seem to conquer the intricate part of our brain that allows us to think rationally. As I think about all the men I have witnessed on the news, day in and day out, all the ones that have lost everything they ever had, the ones on America’s Most Wanted running with no place to go, I realized no matter what, it’s not worth it. Maybe being incarcerated in the past was a blessing in disguise. To me there isn’t a woman on this earth that is worth going to prison for, lose everything you have and ever worked for, family, friends, freedom, finances, and your future. Forget that. (The five F’s.)

That’s exactly what she wanted me to do even if it meant her dying. As long as I didn’t have a future, she would have been satisfied. Instead of rolling over in her grave, she would have been laughing hysterically probably haunting me in my dreams after smoking a bag of weed.

I have talked to many men that unfortunately have experienced some of the same trials and tribulations I have. I have also on the other hand talked to many men that did not care how their children turned out. The mothers of the children played a big part of it in many cases by using the kids like a debit card, their ace in the hole. Many times they are coached by their mothers on how to treat a man, how to get over on the system, how to get something for nothing, how to lie and deceive, and how to hate and despise their fathers. They become a tool used to perfection by the manipulative mastermind of misery.

Please don’t think for a minute that I am anti-women because I’m not. There are many, many young men that are fed the wrong advice about women, lots of times by men who were dragged through trials and tribulations similar to mine. They weren’t taught what it means to be a man, about fatherhood, responsibility, pride, honor, or respect. Instead, they are taught to be hustlers, pimps, players, drug dealers, thieves, inmates, and ex-cons.

With this kind of teaching, it is nearly impossible for a man to raise children and guide them to become a productive member of society.

Have you witnessed a Talk Show lately? I find myself feeling saddened and ashamed for some of the people on the show, male and female. It’s hard to believe people can act this way on national television. Intentionally degrading themselves in anticipation of receiving fifteen minutes of shame but wouldn’t know shame if it smacked them in the face.

How can someone be so disconnected from their own offspring, a child that they help bring into the world? Often you will hear the women saying things like, Look he look just like him, look at the nose, look at his eye’s, he even got the same little ding-a-ling. The host will ask, Are you 100 percent sure he is the father. She’ll scream I’m 1000 percent sure, most of the time with a ghetto or uneducated accent, causing the audience to roar with excitement.

Let’s see the results screams the host. He or She will grab the envelope and pleasantly announce Devonte, you are not the father. Devonte seems to have a flashback of himself being at his favorite nightclub because he starts doing the Chicken Head or whatever the latest dance is at the time or starts jumping up and down screaming and laughing I told you I wasn’t the daddy of that ugly ass baby. Go find yo baby’s daddy cause it ain’t me!

I feel sorry for the kid sitting in the green room, hoping that one of the staff members will happily hoist him or her in the air and carry them on to the stage to be united with their father, but that doesn’t happen so all that the audience can see is the kid on the big screen behind the would-be father, looking bewildered and wondering what is happening.

I know how that kid feels; I’ve felt that bewilderment so many times. Sometimes I can’t prevent the tears from staining my face and leaving a trail from my eyes down below my chin when I see myself in that kid.

Society seems to look at men as nothing but sperm donors. Once a man’s sperm enters a woman’s womb, he has absolutely no say whether the child lives or dies. The women is free to smoke cigarettes, weed, crack, sniff cocaine, drink alcohol, even abort the baby if she choices to. This is why so many kids have asthma, down syndrome, bipolar disorders, ADHD, learning disabilities, and other drug-related illnesses. If a man was to hit a woman in the stomach while she is pregnant, he may be charged with attempted murder. If this is true, why is a woman allowed to do these things to an unborn child without any repercussions?

We hear so much about child support these days as though a couple of hundred or thousand dollars a month can replace a man. Believe me when I say that there is not any amount of money that can replace the love, nourishment, and presence of a father.

I read an article written by Leonard Pitts Jr. called A Father Phobic Nation Doesn’t Know Best. This article talks about how fathers have somehow become irrelevant and the census bureau reported that of 72 million U.S. children younger than eighteen years old, 16.1 million-nearly one-quarter live without their fathers. In the black community, roughly half of 11.4 million black children are in fatherless homes. He goes on further to write how fathers have become obsolete like vinyl records and don’t seem to be missed. He ends the article with, Once upon a time, father was the indecipherable presence at the head of the table, then we took away his chair.

I truly believe the welfare system was designed to destroy black families. The reason I say this is because black women in the 1960s were offered a monthly check based on the amount of children she had. The more children, the more money she was awarded. This woman was also given coupons for food called food stamps, and as time went by they offered her assistance with housing. The housing assistance could have been subsidized in some way, or Section 8, a program that paid a large portion of her rent. This all sounds good, but it came with a catch. The catch was that she could not have the children’s father in the home or any man for that matter. What type of program would promote the separation of the family?

I believe in the late sixties a white man predicted at the beginning of these programs, that in about twenty-five years the black community would have a generation of children that would be unruly, dysfunctional, confused, and out of control due to growing up in fatherless households. Today, it seems to be the norm for a woman to raise a child without the assistance of the father. Take a good look around and tell me what you see.

The last thing I ever wanted was for my son or daughter to grow up without me in their lives as a full time father. I know how it feels to experience that type of pain; it’s astronomical, pain I would not want any child to endure.

Today I am a grown man with two kids of my own. You would think I would be cured or over the fact I grew up without my father, but there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish he was in my life.

Chapter 3

My brother moved into a two-bedroom apartment with no running water or bathroom. There was a half-bath in the hallway and a full bathroom downstairs in the back of what must have been the owner’s storage room. The building rested on the very last block of the neighborhood. There were no streetlights. At night, it was the scariest place you ever seen. Other kids in the neighborhood called it the Castle. It looked like a tiny White House, but haunted. Upon entry, the owner’s apartment was to the left, the storage room was to the right, and up the concrete stairs were three, two-bedroom apartments. The one to the right housed a single woman in her forties and the one to the left housed an old man if my memory serves me correctly.

There was another set of stairs by the half-bath that led to another small apartment that housed a family of six or seven people. There was the mother, father and about four or five little snotty-nosed kids.

The owner was an elderly woman who looked as if she had just jumped out of a horror movie. Her skin was wrinkled, her voice sound eerie, and her eyes bulged from their sockets. She would sometimes scare the heck out of me on my way to or from the bathroom.

(About 3 or 4 Years later while watching a movie at some cousin’s house in Berkeley a news flash came on. They were showing the castle from a helicopter. Someone broke into the old ladies home and killed her by chopping her up with an axe. They dubbed it, The Axe Murder.)

We had two rooms that consisted of a kitchen, and a bedroom. In the kitchen, there was a table with one chair and a refrigerator that was the caretaker of a jug of water, an old jar of mayonnaise and a bottle of ketchup. That was it, and that’s how it stayed most of the time. The tiny bedroom consisted of a broken down couch, a dresser, a small table, a stereo, a bed and a black and white TV with no room to spare.

Within two months, my life was completely different: I was completely different, slowly but surely becoming a product of my environment. Most of the time I was alone in the castle, and my brother spent very little time with me. It was sort of a pit stop for him, a place to go when he had nothing else to do.

I didn’t attend school; I roamed the streets, did odd jobs to buy things to eat, washed what little clothing I had by hand with a bar of soap, started stealing, drinking, smoking weed, and was constantly ridiculed by other kids and adults as well. There were times I would go without eating a nutritious meal for days at a time, maybe weeks. My clothes were dirty and nasty. My shoes had more holes than Swiss chess and my hygiene went on a downward spiral. I was a mess. I lived like this for about six or seven months.

Out of the blue my Grandfather and my birth mother came to pick me up, I felt only because her welfare check was in jeopardy and my Grandfather helped my mother get a small house a couple of blocks from where he lived in a neighborhood called Kinloch about twenty-five miles away from Meacham park, and he also wanted to see us together. They found me at my friend Ray Ray’s house. I didn’t want to go with her because I could tell she had been drinking and would be quick to embarrass me. To give me added incentive, she hit me with a wiffle ball bat in front of a lot of kids to force me into the car. I was so embarrassed I ran away. They caught up with me in Meacham Park, packed my little possessions, and I was on my way to Kinloch. Kinloch was exactly like Meacham Park, but twice the size.

My stepfather Bill lived with us off and on. It was a refreshing feeling to have my mother around every day. She had recently had a baby, a boy who was born premature, so small he remained in the hospital for several months. Things began to unravel due to my mom’s irresponsibility and childlike behavior.

In a matter of a couple of months, my mother managed to mess this up like she always seemed to do, so I was taken in by my distant cousin who lived around the corner.

Her name was Rose Marie; she had a son named Anthony who was close to my age, just a little younger. We played together all the time and got along pretty well.

I lived with them for a little while until Rose Marie got tired of taking care of me, she told my mother I had to go. She was getting serious with this guy she was dating and was going to move in with him and his two girls. For some reason, on the day of my eviction everyone was upset. There was me, my mother, my Grandfather, Rose Marie and her son. There was a lot of yelling and screaming and finger pointing, but the bottom line was I had to go.

My mother and I stayed with my cousin Aaron (aka Pistol) for a week or so, who had a daughter named Ruby who was just a couple of weeks older I was. We also stayed with a couple of different friends of hers for about a week or two, until she got fed up with trying to take care of me.

She got on the phone and called another distant relative, told her about the situation, and I was on my way to another all-black neighborhood called Robertson about five miles away from Kinloch. We entered the home, and my mother spoke with the lady of the house for a couple of minutes, thanked them, said bye to me and left. I remember standing there looking, feeling stupid, abandoned, unloved and unwanted, not able to comprehend what had just taken place. I couldn’t grasp how she could turn her back on me so easily without even trying to make things work out for us. I wanted to cry, but held back the tears, knowing that would only make matters worse for me. It was nighttime so I was directed to a room and told to get in the bed with my cousin whom I’d never met and was asleep. The bed smelled of urine and feet that hadn’t been washed for a couple of days.

These people were related to us, but I wouldn’t consider us close. I played with the eldest brother before when he visited our house a long time ago. They called him Man because he looked like a little man. My Uncle Herb was his step Grandfather, and he brought him over to our house when we lived in the city.

This home consisted of the mother, father, two boys, and two younger girls.

I hated living here the most because the boys would beat me up all the time, and there was nothing I could do about it while living under their roof.

It was here I started boxing for a club called North County, before that I boxed in Kinloch while living with Anthony. One day at the gym, I was able to get some well-needed revenge. The three of us boxed at this gym. The eldest boy happily invited me into the ring to spar with him. The anticipation was the equivalent to a visit from Santa Claus. The bell rang and it was on. I jabbed, double dabbed, threw right hooks, left hooks, and combination after combination until tears shamefully flowed from his eyes. The coaches were impressed with me. My cousin was taken by surprise by me giving him the ass whipping of his life. He cried all the way home and said nothing was wrong when asked by his mother. She asked me if I knew what was wrong with him. I smiled at him and said no to her.

They used to beat me up all the time and make fun of me to other people by saying things like I didn’t have a mother or father and no one loved me that’s why I had to live with them. They had the whole hood laughing at me.

Christmas is supposed to be the most joyful period in a kid’s life, but for me it was the most demoralizing period. Many people came to their home to celebrate. Each kid opened up additional presents given to them by the visitors: their faces were decorated with huge smiles and wide eyes filled with anticipation. After discovering their treasures, they thanked the person who gave the present with a hug and a kiss. It was obvious I was the only kid not receiving any presents, so the person who just received the hug would smile and say to me I’m gonna get you something next week, when I get my check. I smiled back nodding my head in agreement knowing I would never see a present from them. This went on for about forty-five minutes. All I could do was stand there and pretend to be happy while inside I wished my father would surprise me by walking through the door and tell me he was taking me home. I thought if I prayed and wished enough he would eventually appear. I knew he wasn’t going to let me continue to experience this stomach-churning embarrassment that was obvious and even humorous to some of the people congregating in the living room. I was wrong: he never came. Later my cousins and I went outside to shoot their 22 rifles they received for Christmas. The same rifles they would soon start aiming at me and threatening me with.

The mother and the father I must say treated me as if I was one of their own, they never tried to make me feel uncomfortable or unwanted, I never complained to them about their kids and the way they treated me either. The two boys on the other hand had different ideas. I became their scapegoat: the person they thought they could treat anyway they wanted.

One day, I had taken all I could take: I was feed up with the way I was being treated by the kids. We were all at the bus stop on our way to school, and I asked this kid to hold my books for me. I went back to the house and knocked on the door. The mother stuck her head out of the door asking me what I wanted. I pretended I forgot something for school and picked up a few needed belongings. I went to the public bus stop and caught the bus all the way to Meacham Park back to my big brother’s shack with the bathroom in the hall.

Nothing here had changed much. I still didn’t attend school, the fridge was still bare, and I was still being made fun of by other kids, and my clothing was below subpar. I began to steal again, and after a couple of weeks, it was like I had never left. It was this second time living with my brother that I was allowed to stay out as long as I wanted to after turning fourteen years old. If I’m not mistaken, it was around this time that I began to transform into a full-fledge thug. No one seemed to care about me, and I was considered a disgrace to society, and to the ghetto. I lived in a neighborhood that was considered a disgrace, and I was a disgrace to it, that’s how bad I was doing. I was told by a lady who was in charge of Chocolate City by the name of Dorothy Wallace that if she caught me in there she would have me arrested. I don’t remember what I did to trigger that kind of response from her; it was probably an accumulation of things. I know she caught me smoking weed and acting out while I was under the influence, cursing, fighting, and acting as ignorant as I most probably could.

One day, I got into a fight with the neighborhood bully. Prior to us fighting, he told everyone he was going to beat my friend Ray Ray and myself up. My brother Flip and his sister were boyfriend/girlfriend, and they later had a daughter together.

Ray Ray was scared to death of the bully. I wasn’t scared of him or anyone for that matter. The whole neighborhood was anticipating us fighting. In reality, I couldn’t bust a grape with the little strength I had from not eating on a regular basis, but the fight was on in front of half of Chocolate City. Somehow he managed to get me in the full nelson. The full nelson is when your opponent is behind you and has his arms underneath your armpits and holds your head down by pushing your neck toward your chest with both hands. I stayed in this demoralizing position for about thirty minutes, and I couldn’t get out even after biting clean through his thumb.

Finally, someone broke up the well-anticipated fight. I stood up dizzy, barely able to hold my head up from pain, exhaustion, and pure weakness. I ripped off my already ripped shirt and said in the most menacing voice I could muster up, Come on wit it.

If someone had blown hard, I would’ve fallen to the ground. An older dude named Zippy told me to take my little ass home after giving a brief description of how pathetic I looked. My cousins lived just fifteen feet from where I just got humiliated at so I staggered over there.

Now that I think about it, I find it hard to believe no one knew I was out there getting embarrassed in front of the whole neighborhood, probably just didn’t want to come to my rescue.

I asked my uncle P if I could have something to eat. He fixed me a bowl of cereal, which was difficult for me to eat due to the fact I could barely keep my head from falling into the milk. My pride had been crushed by the bully; my lack of energy and strength, my whole predicament convinced me it was time for a change. I picked up the phone and called my aunt Lo who lived in Berkeley, not too far from Kinloch in a very nice neighborhood. Within an hour she, her husband my uncle Lebo and my aunt Rosie was there to pick me up. We went to my brother’s shack to retrieve what little clothing I owned, and I was on my way to Berkeley to live with my aunt Lo and uncle Lebo.

Their household consisted of my aunt, uncle, and my cousins Michael and Deb. Mike was about two years older and Deb was two years older than me. They had a beautiful home and family. They lived how I probably would be living if my Grandmother was alive. They had curfew at 11:00 p.m. on the weekends. They received an allowance every week. Everything they had was nice. I was enrolled in Ferguson Junior High, and my aunt gave me money every week for lunch. I was grateful, but uncomfortable because I wasn’t used to discipline. I was used to doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. By now, I had missed a total of two whole school years and didn’t know how to act. I got in trouble all the time for acting silly, I broke curfew every weekend. I was getting high and drunk at this stage and was unable to hide it. I came home smelling like weed smoke and alcohol disrespecting my aunt’s house. I was a wild child by now that couldn’t be domesticated anytime soon. I got kicked out of class and found myself in the principal’s office often. He was a black man whose last name was Walker also. I thought since we had that in common, he would show some concern for me; maybe help me in some kind of way. He let it be known to everyone working there that we were not related in any fashion. He was disgusted with me and found it astonishing that I hadn’t sat inside a class room on a consistent basis for two years. Instead of offering me some assistance he called my aunt Lo to discuss my unruly behavior. I know she felt embarrassed and ashamed.

So once again, my bags were packed and I was on my way to my mother’s house in the city of St Louis.

This was a