Fracas

By Jimmy James

It is 2010. The economy is in shambles and Jimmy James is a homeless felon. Desperate for refuge when his unemployment benefits end, Jimmy faces continual rejection from shelters and employers, leaving him to reconsider the promise he made to God to give up the lucrative life of gangs and drugs. Still, he is a man of his word. Despite the temptation to return to his dark past, Jimmy does his best to avoid the police and stay on a straight-and-narrow path.

Determined to beat the odds, Jimmy finally finds a place to lay his head and a minimum wage job at a packaging company. Regardless of the rejection and judgment he continually must face, he keeps his head held high. When he takes a risky gamble with the money he has saved for housing and heads to New York, Jimmy soon discovers that when it comes to pursuing dreams, its all or nothing and that sometimes, hope, faith, and new beginnings can arrive in unexpected ways.

Fracas shares the compelling tale of a homeless felons struggle to recreate his life after prison, pursue his dreams, and overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781491792360

Jimmy James

Jimmy James after fighting a long hard battle of 4 years of homelessness is nominated and wins the 2014 Poverty Matters Conference Courage Award for becoming self-sufficient and for helping homeless people out of homelessness.

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Copyright © 2016 Jimmy James.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-9237-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-9238-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-9236-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016904504

iUniverse rev. date: 03/11/2016

Table of

Contents

A Vision

Safe Haven

Faces

The Kid

The Journey

Many Moons

Dedication%20Image.jpg

I

dedicate this book to my Grandma who always found time to play a game of cribbage with me every time I saw her, and to all the wonderful times I had with her in the casinos.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to my sister, Bonita; my brother-in-law, Vince the Salvation Army Project Homes; and a big shout-out to all the volunteers and clients I met on my journey.

And to Raine, who once said to me, when I was staying in the shelter, that I was like a little tuft of grass growing through a crack in the concrete. It's so . . . heroic.

CHAPTER ONE

A Vision

I can see my father, dark hair, all dressed up in his green army uniform---the one he'd worn when he was fighting in the Korean police action. He's setting down his trusty M-1 carbine rifle, the one that saved his life many times. It was a gas-operated rotating bolt with a -round detachable box magazine. He's loading it up with four live rounds and a blank round. Now he's digging into his pocket and proudly showing off his shining army medals, awarded for fighting on Pork Chop Hill, to his father and mother.

My grandpa had a vision when my father was born: my father would have to take a journey over big water to fight with a yellow tribe. It would take many moons to get there. There would be thick woods. He would kill many of the other tribe's members.

I heard Grandpa say to my father on the shining oak porch, He will disagree with the council at a young age and become a renegade Indian. He will be like a great black bear in the woods. The white eyes will haunt him for many years. Many moons will pass and the white eyes will trap him.

Staring at my father with his dark eyes, he continued, But after that, again many moons will pass and he will speak at a big feast; many will come from different tribes to hear him speak. They will know he speaks from the heart, and they will all be proud of him. Then he will take a great journey in the spirit world like an eagle in the sky. He will see many waters and the white eyes' totem pole that stands as high as our village. This great village has many tribes, and they live together in stone mountains that reach to the sky.

My grandma, rocking away in her wooden rocking chair with her long black hair pulled back, wore her wisdom like the robes of a queen. She slowly pulled the corn cob pipe from her mouth and said, He will be at war with all the tribes, even his own. He will have no tipi and will walk Mother Earth alone.

She added, The spirit world will haunt him. The white eyes' black iron horse will come and take him. The iron horse will have many colors of war paint on it. He will see visions of warriors with whom he fought.

I'm standing beside the rusted iron railroad tracks, hearing the loud whistle of the Cannonball Express as it comes into the station and watching the blue sky darken with coal black smoke from the engine as it slows to a crawl.

I hear a male voice with an Italian accent say, Who in the hell are you, kid? Are you from around here? He looks like Mr. Ciro, a capo in the New York crime family, the Piscanos. Even as a little kid, I'd always dreamed about having a life like Mr. Ciro.

Hey, kid, are you stupid or something? I'm talking to you. I run this outfit here, and I don't like new faces hanging around. If you aren't from around here, move on if you know what's good for you.

I notice a few people in the distance wearing ragged, patched clothes holding old metal plates as they line up for food. Standing at the end of their line is a big, black kettle of poor man's soup hanging above a red-hot fire.

As I watch the soup line inch forward, a short, slight, Spanish-looking man with close-cropped dark hair walks up to me. He's wearing a gold cross and long black robe and holding out a plate of food.

Here you go, my son. We will always feed someone who is down on his luck, and he makes the sign of the cross. "Look at me when I'm talking to you, young man, the priest says. He's staring me down with his dark eyes. My son, you're always welcome to come and eat here, but there is no way I can allow you to stay. Once you're done eating, you will have to move on."

I start to look down the lonely pair of iron railroad tracks that stretch for miles, noticing a few hobos placing silver metal cans of beans along with their personal belongs in oversized red bandannas. One of them yells,

We don't want your kind around here, you hear me? You have trouble written all over you, boy!

Go to Bed Rock, shouts one of the others.

From somewhere nearby, I heard a cautious voice say, James . . . Jimmy James, you need to wake up and talk to me! I need you to tell me what happened here last night.

I knew that voice well. It belonged to Officer McKnight. And it had scarred me for life the last time I'd heard it. He was the one who'd arrested me in 2000. The one who'd put me on the front page of every newspaper in the state of Wisconsin. Back then, every time I went down to court, the cameras were rolling.

I opened my eyes slowly and looked up at him, unable to make heads or tails of the dream I'd just had.

Staring down at me in his brown suit with his scarecrow eyes, McKnight said, Come on, James, get up. I need to talk to you. You know something? It seems like every time you come rolling into town, there's some type of trouble close behind. Are you still on parole?

I sat up on the single bed, my large frame dwarfing the mattress. Staring down at the blue carpeted floor with both my hands on my forehead, I replied, Hell no, I'm not on parole! I've been off of that for years now. Whatever happened last night had nothing to do with me. I have witnesses that will say that I didn't leave the house last night!

That's what I want to talk to you about, he explained, his brow wrinkling. What happened last night between Tina and Kyle? I need to know whether the three of you were drinking.

I stood up and heaved a sigh. What was wrong with these people that they just couldn't get along for one night? I had met Kyle about eight years ago in prison. He was in his mid-forties when the judge gave him an eight piece for his sixth DUI. He'd been released six months previously and had promptly moved in with Tina, a woman he'd met in one of those prison magazines.

McKnight, proudly wearing that shiny police badge and assuming an official tone, said, James, you'd better get it together. I'm here investigating a criminal complaint. Now, for the second time, were the three of you drinking last night? By looking at you, I can tell you had your share. You didn't drink all of those beers out in the living room by yourself, now did you?

I looked up at him. Let me ask you this, I began. If you had to walk in here and wake my sorry ass up out of bed, you already know what happened. There's no doubt in my mind that they both already gave statements; so why don't you just tell me what those two knuckleheads did last night?

The lieutenant rested his right hand on the gun in the black holster on his hip---the Ultra Compact Bersa Thunder, a .45 semi-automatic pistol with double action. Are there any weapons in the house I should be aware of? he asked sternly.

Lying back down on the bed and pulling the brown blanket up over my head, I growled, You can search my room if you want, but anything you find out there in the rest of the house has nothing to do with me. As for last night, whatever they did to each other is on them. I had nothing to do with any of that crap. Now leave me alone!

McKnight ordered, James, get on out from under that blanket so I can see your hands. This is the problem I'm having right now with you: Kyle's sister and her boyfriend are saying you and Tina took all of Kyle's personal belongings, drove over to their house, and threw Kyle's things into their front yard. Is that true?

I had an eerie feeling in my stomach as I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. My life had been a living nightmare for the past two months, ever since I'd moved in with Kyle and Tina. I would get up early every morning to go fill out four or five job applications, never with any luck, and when I'd get back home, it seemed like I always had to be walking on eggshells. There was a rumor going around that the only reason Kyle wanted me to move in with them was that he was on parole and wanted someone around just to talk to, besides his old lady. Not a day went by without the two having a huge fight, and guess who always got stuck in the middle?

Just then, Tina came in from the living room, her whining voice grating on my ears. What, you don't believe my statement I gave you? she asked. All three of us were drinking and when Jimmy went to bed last night, the old man beat me up and ran out of the house. That's when I packed up all his stuff and put it into a grocery cart and took it down by his sister's house. I just left it there! I didn't throw it all over the place like they're saying. Why would I do that? I'm the one who called you guys so you could notify his parole officer he isn't living here anymore!

Tina was a piece of work. By the time she was twenty-four she'd had four children, all of whom Child Services had taken from her. She was $37,000 in arrears on child support, and was supplementing her income watching other people's kids. One time, I heard her tell some kids she was babysitting that if they didn't behave, she'd punish them by making them pick up dog shit in the yard.

I quickly popped out from underneath the blanket, my short hair ruffled. Eagerly, I said, There you go, McKnight, a corroborating statement from another witness. What more do you need? You know, like my attorney Ms. Smith always told to me, 'If it's not written, it never happened.' You've got Tina's statement, so there's nothing more for me to say to you. Get out of my room. I'm going to wait to hear from Kyle to find out what's really going on here.

Surprisingly, McKnight moved on. About ten minutes after he left, the phone rang and I grabbed for it quickly, looking at the caller ID. It was Kyle. Maybe now I'd find out what had actually happened the night before.

I answered cautiously. What's going down, man? The police were all up in your house this morning. What the hell happened between you and Tina after I went to bed last night?

On the other end, Kyle went crazy, yelling into the phone. What's wrong with you, dawg? he shouted. I thought we were tight? I gave you a place to lay your head when you had nowhere else to go, and this is how you do me? Why would you and my old lady throw my stuff all over my sister's front lawn?

I shot out of bed, gesturing even though I knew he couldn't see me. Hey, dawg, I don't know what's up with your stuff in your sister's front yard, but I had nothing to do with it! I'm letting you know that right now. So what all went down between you and your old lady last night? What were you guys fighting about this time?

I pictured Kyle with his black hair and wrinkled-up face yelling into the phone. The same thing we're always fighting over---you, man! You know something? Ever since you moved in with us, all we do is fight every day, and it's always about you. I don't know what's up, but I'm starting to think my old lady and you have something going on.

I was so dumbstruck I didn't say a thing. Then I collected my thoughts and responded. Whoa, hold up there a minute! I said angrily. I called you a few times before I moved in to see how you guys were getting along, and you told me everything was all good. I should've known something was up after the second night I was here, the night Tina kicked us both out! Don't be blaming me for how all of this went down! Are you coming back or what?

You can put all that to rest, he replied. I just got off the phone with my old lady and she told me that her mother said you can stay at her place. Really, she needs someone around to talk to. What do you think you're going to do, stick around and help her out like you helped out Stanley? I want you to think about it like this: How would you feel if the tables were turned on you? I wouldn't do that shit to you. That was the last straw. I didn't need to put up with that kind of talk. I slammed my phone shut and headed back into my