When I Became a Man

When I decided to write this book, I did it for therapeutic reasons. My therapist (at that time) suggested that I write a journal about my day to day activity. At first, I resisted. I didn’t see how important it was to do it. But putting everything in print means that I don’t have any reason to hold on to it anymore; in therapy I learned to let go my anger and pain but it’s liberating when you write it down.

I know a lot of my friends and family are shocked at reading that I was in therapy but there is a reason for it as you will soon read. But some might ask why now? Why put your personal business out there like that?

What I found out is that there are a lot of people struggling with the same issues that I was struggling with. Absent father, depression, insecurities, parental drug abuse and alcoholism, child sexual abuse/molestation and relationship issues are just some of the issues that people are walking around with every day. When you are in the victim mode no one can feel your pain. No one can understand what you are going through.

I was that victim. For years I suffered in silence until I had an epiphany. My epiphany came when I went to have my annual physical. In my case bi annual. I never took care of myself as I should have, and I was paying for it. My cholesterol was damn near twice the minimum limit. My blood pressure was just as bad.

I am forced to take medications for high blood pressure and high cholesterol until further notice. My doctor told me that he was considering dropping me as his patient because I have been noncompliant. He stressed to me that I had to meet him half way. He didn’t want to put me on medications, but he felt he had no choice. Looking back on it I didn’t give him one. Why was I this way? Why was I deliberately trying to sabotage my health? I can’t say that I didn’t know. Ever since my time in the military I been told to change my diet and drink less. But I didn’t want to listen, why?

It was as if I was killing myself methodically.

My doctor told me that I was a heart attack waiting to happen. But what turned me around was my daughter telling me, “Daddy I don’t want you to die. I need for you to be there at my wedding”. Those words shook me into reality.

I know it may sound crazy to some but that was the first time I felt the impact of if I was no longer here. If I were dead what would that impact be? Well I know now that I have a lot of people that genuinely care about and are depending on me. I have it in my control to change the circumstances. So I decided to get serious about my mental, physical and emotional health.

This is never easy for this man to admit. Society says we as men are supposed to be macho. We are supposed to be above struggling and dealing with feelings. Sensitivity is a sign of weakness is often the prevailing thought.

This is the mentality that I had for a long time. But the conventional ways that some men deal with emotional issues (i.e. sex, alcohol, money and drugs) wasn’t working for me. Even prayer by itself wasn’t enough for me. What’s the use of having faith if you are not willing to do what is necessary to repent?

“In the Beginning”

It’s funny, in trying to remember my childhood; I’ve always prided myself on being able to recall important moments in my life. I can remember certain things vividly, dating as far back to when I was three years old.

When I was three years old my mother got me dressed. As we left the house as we sometimes did. But for some reason today is different. I could tell even at an early age that something is not right with my mother. She seemed distracted. As we were driving very little is said. She wasn’t responding to me like she normally does.

We came to a big building that I did not recognize. There were people lining up to go into it. It’s not church because no one is dressed up. Still I can feel an uneasiness resting on my mother. For some reason this is not a happy occasion.

When we get inside the building I noticed that there are white men who are walking around in blue uniforms. My mother walks up to one of them to ask a question. He gives her an answer and motions in a direction that seems to be where we need to go. It still hasn’t dawned on me where I am.

We come to an area of the building where security is tight. The white men in uniform search my mother’s purse. They search through her pockets.

I still have no clue where I am.

My mother and I walked into this room that had what I thought were sit down phone booths with a window. When we get to the booth I see my father on the other side of the window. His face lights up when he sees me as does my face when I see him. But something is not right. Why is he on the other side of that window? Why can’t he come to pick me up and toss me in the air like he always does?

He picks up the phone on his side of the window, my mother picks up her phone. They talk for a little bit but I’m wondering when it will be my turn. But I don’t a chance. My mother pulls out a piece of paper and shows it to my father. Whatever that paper said it stole the smile off my dad’s face. Now he had the look of frustration, anguish and sadness; in what seemed to happen all at once.

My mother was unapologetic in her actions towards him. My father fighting back tears looked at my mother with such hatred in his eyes.

I was not aware that our lives were about to change drastically soon.

In-retrospect:My mother served my father divorce papers in jail. Of course, at three years old, there was no way I would know what led to that moment. The thing I remembered is that I witnessed it. I witnessed my mother handing my father divorce papers. Later, I found out that there were issues such as alcohol abuse, domestic violence and pure recklessness that led to my mother making that decision. But at three years old I didn’t understand what type of man he was, all I wanted was my dad.

“Just the Two Us”

My mother and I moved into the Longwood projects in Cleveland, Ohio as I turned four years old. Longwood in the 1970’s was one of those places it is impossible to erase from your memory.

Longwood had solid light orange brick buildings that stood three levels high with three individual apartments on each level. In the middle of the development was a community center that also had a preschool in it.

I remember going to the pre-school and feeling somewhat lost in the mix so to speak because there seemed to be so many kids in the daycare that even I found it hard to concentrate. I used to get into fights constantly. I was always being teased for how I looked and for the fact my mother would never let me play outside with the other kids in Longwood.

One thing about Longwood I couldn’t understand. When you passed through the projects you would see these big holes in the ground that look as if something (an animal) did a lot of digging. Come to think of it, those that had cats as pets never let them go outside. I always wondered why that was… and then one day I found out.

One day while leaving preschool me and a group of kids were walking home we saw a dog standing over something that was dead. As we got closer you can see that its intestines were spilling out of its body, but I still couldn’t make out what it was. Then some cried out; “that’s a rat!” A rat? This couldn’t be. This thing was about three feet long from nose to hind leg. I could not believe it. The rats I watched in the cartoons just didn’t measure up.

These rats as I later found out ran amuck all over Longwood.

My godmother came over to visit me and my mother. When it was time for her to leave, she walked out of the front door. The last image I had of her in my mind was her walking down the stairs.

Before my mother could put the deadbolt on the door; my God mother yelled, “OPEN THE DOOR, OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!!!!” She ran into our apartment and quickly ran up the kitchen chair. When I looked out in the hallway, I could see the rat coming up the stairs and running right for the door. My mother slammed the door. She put the deadbolt on and followed my Godmother up the same kitchen chair to get away from the Rat and left me at the door after she closed it. My mother looked back at me and said, “John get away from the door”.

All I could do is look at them and try to understand what just happened. After a few seconds I left my mother and my godmother in the kitchen and went to my room to play with my toys.

During my parent’s separation, I grew closer to my mother. I relied on her for everything, even entertainment. My mother did what she could. But at times I had to entertain myself because she wasn’t around much because she worked a couple of jobs while going to Nursing school.

At times, I stayed with a family friend or with my grandmother.

My mother chose to befriend our next-door neighbor. Her name, let’s call her Stacy. Stacy had an eleven-year-old daughter Christine.

For the casual observer, you would think that two single parents would have a lot in common, which is trying to do what’s right for their children.

Christine and I grew to become close. She would look out for me sort of like a big sister. Every day, after school Christine would pick me up from daycare and walk me and a couple of kid’s home to our building. Christine would make sure that all the other kids that walked with us made it to their respective apartments. Christine and I had to go to the top floor (third floor) of our building where we both lived.

When I spent time with Stacy and Christine, Stacy would let me and Christine play in Christine’s room.

Christine loved to play games and with her dolls. I seemed to always get wrapped up role playing the Prince, King or super hero.

But things would become drastically different with the role-playing. Christine wanted to play a new game called ‘house’. She was to be the wife and I was supposed to be the husband. We acted out everything that we thought a married couple would do.

One day we were playing house and me being the husband was coming home from work. When I came home (figuratively speaking of course) Christine greeted me with a big ole kiss. But this time it was different to me.

She had slipped her tongue in my mouth and started moving it around. Then she started caressing me with her hands and unzipping my pants. She stuck her hands down my underpants and started fondling my penis.

I didn’t know what was going on. This was something that I had not experienced before. Was this a part of playing house? Is this what husbands and wives do?

Christine and I would play ‘house’ a lot and with each time it seemed to be getting progressively worse.

One day, Christine got undressed for me while we were in her room. She pulled me close to her and started kissing me. As she is kissing and caressing me I noticed that she gradually moves her hands up towards my head. Cupping my head, she pulls me to her chest and asked me to suck on her breast. Thinking that this was a part of playing house I obliged. After a few minutes she looked at me with a strange look and said, “Now it’s your turn.”

What does that mean? I remember asking myself.

She pulled my pants down and put my penis in her mouth. I was horrified. The kissing didn’t bother me too much because I had saw it on television, but this was not right.

But I felt like I could not move. I felt like I couldn’t cry for help and if I did who would help me? My mother wasn’t there. My father wasn’t there. I felt like I couldn’t go to Christine’s mother because that is her mother. So I chose to endure it. I was just hoping that she would hurry up and finish doing whatever it was she was trying to do because I did not want to be there.

In-retrospect: After living in Longwood for about two years we moved to a two-family home owned by Muslim couple that were members of the Nation of Islam. I never saw Christine again. My mother would eventually would run into Christine in the federal building where my mother worked in. The funny thing is when my mother said that Christine had asked about me all of those images and thoughts came rushing back. I quickly became disinterested in talking about it any further.

It took me years to understand that what she was doing to me was abusive. In my irrational mind, I figured that this was some sort of rite of passage into being a ‘man’ and that there was no harm in it. I didn’t realize that a seed was planted on how I would deal with women and the type of women I would be attracted to in my adult life. But for now, I was set with a corrupted view of what intimacy is between a man and a woman. On top of that I was missing my father a lot. I needed him to protect me. At five years old now, someone should.

I went into Kindergarten not knowing that my innocence was corrupted. I played ‘house’ with other girls my age pretty much in the same way it was shown to me. By putting my hands down their pants, kissing them with an open mouth and tongue and groping them. Some would say I was acting out… To a little boy it's part of the game we are playing but to the girls I did this to, I’m pretty sure they must have felt like I did when it happened to me.

“What’s that on your face?”

I can honestly say that I became more self-aware as I turned six years old. After the dealing with the sexual abuse I started to notice more things about myself.

Evidence of this came in the form of a simple childhood game of red light, green light.

Being a child of a single parent that’s working two jobs, at the time, I spent a lot of time in before school programs and after school programs. As a kid, the only thing that I was concerned about was playing and where my dad was. The hardest part of that is trying to understand the why? Why wasn’t my father there? Where was he? I really didn’t have a clue.

One day I was playing a game of a red light, green light. A girl that I consistently played together asked me, “What is that on your face?”

It was the first time that I realize that I was different from everyone else. When I got home one of the first things that I did was to look in the mirror to see what she was talking about. As I looked at my face, I felt a haze of dejection come over me. I felt ugly. I didn’t look other kids. What was wrong with me? Why is this thing on my face?

I asked my mother what is this on my face? She told me that it was a birthmark. She tried her best to have me accept it as some type of brand that is only unique to me. I didn’t want to understand that. The only thing that made sense to me was what the girls thought of me. It felt like most of the girls thought I was ugly. Was this the case? Who knows? The important thing was that I felt that I was ugly.

How is it possible that I was born with a mole on the side of my face in the shape of a continent, Africa? I’m thankful that I had older cousins that could teach me how to fight because I’ve never been the type of person that would accept being teased or picked on. My mother would always tell me, “Never let someone run all over you.” Even at that age I took that to mean that it was okay to fight, if I had no other options. This was something that I followed without question or hesitation. There were two things that would get me to fight automatically; One was if you said something about my mother, the other was if you talked about my birthmark.

But what if the girls tease me? Laugh at me? Or call me names because of my birthmark? What do I do then? I can’t fight a girl. I guess I have to just take it.

In-retrospect: This is the time where things to me started to pile up for me emotionally. Being so young, could not make sense of what Christine did to me. I thought that’s how girls and boys were supposed to play. But why do I feel this way? Why do I feel ugly? Where is my father? Why aren’t my parents together? Why don’t the girls like me anymore? Why are my mother and I struggling to eat? I started to become more self-aware and aware of my surroundings. There was so much that I didn’t understand.

I can remember this was the time where I started to retreat into myself. This is about the time that I started to disassociate myself with the reality around me. I started to find my escape through television and the little bit of toys that I did have. I was done. I was done with not being accepted by others. So, I started to create my own little world just for me that was full of laughter and fantasy. Certain things that I used to hear people say had a way of sticking with me. For example, one of my favorite expressions used to be, “laughter is the best form of medicine”. I took that to heart. I needed to laugh. I would watch a lot of reruns just so that I could just laugh and put a smile on my face if only for a few minutes.

“My Dad”

I didn’t know a lot about my father and still don’t know a great deal about him. But what I remember of him is not as they say, ‘all good’. He was your prototypical drug and alcohol abuser; uninvolved parent when it came to me. The few times where were together forever left an impression on me negatively.

When mother and I left my father, we were on the run constantly. We changed addresses at least every other year it seemed just to get away from him. I had no idea why we moved so much. But one day it made sense.

I remember that I was either six or seven years old. My mother told me that I was going to go see my father. I was super excited as any kid would be when seeing their parent that they haven’t seen in a long time. The closer that day came, the more it became harder to sleep.

Finally, the day was here. “I get to see my daddy!!!” I was packed and ready to go. But before I left my mother had pulled me to the side before we went to my great uncle and aunts. She told me, “I hope you have a good time with your father. But do not, I repeat do not tell him where we live”. At the time I didn’t understand. The only thing I understood was that is my daddy and I want to be with my daddy.

We get to Uncle Bill and Aunt Rosemary’s house and my mother says hello to them and kisses me goodbye and tells me to enjoy myself and don’t forget what I told you. I said; “OK Ma”.

A couple of hours pass, and a car pulls up. Uncle Bill yells out to me Your father is here. I grabbed my suitcase and ran to the door. I didn’t even let my father get out of his car good before coming down the stairs of the front porch. My father walked around the car when he saw me walking faster he picked up his pace too. We met each other somewhere in the middle. We hugged. He told me over and over how much he missed me. I missed him too. I felt safe now, I’m with my daddy.

What is always funny about these types of visits is that you always seem to squeeze years of no involvement into a couple of days which is impossible to do. Keep in mind I haven’t seen him since I was three years old and now I’m six going on seven, so he needs to get caught up. All this on the way to Grandpa and Grandma Daisy’s house, how is school? Do you like any sports? How is your mother doing? Man, you got big!!! By the time I got to his house my little mind was tired of answering all these questions.

But my father wanted to spend time with his son. I was still excited about it. I couldn’t believe we were together after all this time.

We went to a store. He asked me what kind of soda pop I want. I told him Pepsi. He got it and he got himself something to drink. I didn’t know what it was. Assumed it was something like what I had. He drove around East Cleveland just trying to talk to me and I guess reconnect.

We get to Grandpa and Grandma Burkhalter’s house. He parked his car so that we could just talk.

He begins to tell me that he still loves my mother. In his words, “she will always be my queen”. As he finishes his drink he reaches over to the glove compartment and pulls out a gun. It was a .38 revolver. Up to that point I had only seen guns in movies or TV shows. He takes the bullets out of it and hands it to me saying; “this will be yours one day”. I smiled. I can remember feeling happy about the fact my father was giving me something.

He goes on to say when I turned sixteen; I was going to get a car. He then asked me what my favorite toy was, and I told him G.I. Joe. He was going to get it for my birthday. I was so excited I could hardly hold it in.

Then he asked me where mother and I were staying. I didn’t hesitate. I told him not realizing that I just broke my promise to my mother of not telling him, but I was thinking what harm would it cause?

One day while my mother and I were settling in after coming from the shopping we heard a loud knock on the downstairs door. We lived in a two-family house that had a second level unit and a first level unit. My mother and I lived on the second level.

My mother was very surprised to hear the knock at the door. The look on her face let me know that she was not expecting guest. Then the knocks grew louder and louder. Then I heard, “Come open this Mutha Fuckin door!!!”

My mother walked out on the second-floor balcony to look down at who it was banging on the door.

Then I hear, “Bitch let me in!!!” It sounded like. It couldn’t be. Is that my father?

My mother replied, “Shhh be quiet. I’ll be down to let you in.”

I came out of kitchen to see if it was him. Yes!!! That was my father's voice. But why was he fuming on his way up the stairs? I didn’t care my daddy was here.

He walks in. He glances over at me and says;” how are you doing little man?”

Smiling I replied, “I’m fine”. He hugs me. “John John go into the other room so that me and your mother can talk”. I look at my mother and I noticed that she isn’t as excited as I was to see my father. She seemed to be worried.

My Mother said, “John, go into the kitchen.”

Since our only television was in the kitchen that wasn’t hard for me to do.

After a few minutes of trying to find something to watch; I hear my father getting louder. “You Bitch!!! You ain’t taking my son from me.”

My mother yelps, “Don’t!!!”

I come back into the living room to see my father knocking my mother down and beating her. I was frozen with fear and confusion.

So far in my life up to this point I never let anyone talk bad about my mother without fighting them, let alone lay a finger on her. Therefore, I wasn’t good with the ‘yo momma’ jokes. But I had no answer for this. Why was he beating her? Why?

As I start to walk towards them, my mother noticed that I was standing there and she looked up at him and replied, “You gonna beat me in front of your son?”

My father looks up at me and immediately stops hitting her. Then she repeated with a mocking tone; “Are you gonna beat me with your son watching?!!!” He then gets up and runs out of the house. He ran down the stairs, jumps into his car and races off.

I was literally trembling with fear. I couldn’t believe what I just saw. My father was beating my mother. The woman he said he loved more than anything. The woman who he told me was still his queen. Why would he treat her like this? I never thought that this would happen. I never thought that telling him where we lived would have this affect.

Still shaken, my mother calls out to me, “John you ok?” I got myself together enough to nod my head yes. As I looked at her I realized why we had to run from my father. I realized why my parents were not together anymore. I helped my mother up so that she could go to the bathroom. She had blood coming from her nose and a busted lip. I felt so guilty. This was my fault.

After she cleaned herself up she came to me and asked me, “John did you you’re your father where we lived?” which I reluctantly replied nodding yes. She said, “This is why you can’t ever tell your father where we are living. I know you love your father and you want to see us together, but some things are better left alone. Don’t do this again, ok?” I replied, “Ok ma.”

A few months had passed, and we were moving again.

My dad was deemed a violent drunk by many people. Every time he would drink alcohol he would always do it to get drunk. When he was drunk he became violent most of the time. There were few occasions where he would be happy while drunk, but that was usually brief.

I never realized how bad this problem was for my dad. When I did visit with him he would always be talking about how he had it under control. I never realize what ‘it’ was. The ‘it’ was the alcohol. Things got so bad that he was given a court order to go to rehab for alcohol abuse.

Despite all he had done to us, I wanted him to get himself together. I never knew him sober up to this point.

He would send me letters telling me what he would do when he got out. He still promised to get me a car. He is still telling me that he would get me whatever I wanted. I believed him. I wanted to believe in him so bad, but it was hard. He constantly let me down.

Before my birthdays would come, there were so many promises that my dad had made that when my birthdays were over those promises were smashed. Since my birthday was in October, I wouldn’t hear from him until after Christmas. He would lie so much that eventually I stopped visiting with him after I turned eight years old.

As time passed, my mother eventually remarried. I didn’t hear from my dad for a while after my mother remarried. I guess he figured that he had lost his ‘Queen’ and that there was really no point. No phone calls. No letters. No getting in touch with Uncle Bill to schedule visits. Just silence.

I hate that it was this way. I never got a chance to bond with my other family members like I wanted to. This is a regret that I have been trying to rectify. There are a lot of issues that my dad’s family is and have been dealing with for a long time. There is a lot of betrayal and pain that keeps them at odds with each other. No one adult is innocent and that includes me.

In-retrospect:My father abused alcohol, drugs (yeah, I know you’ve probably heard it before) and was violent at times. I’ve never known him to not have a substance abuse issue. When I would ask my mother about who my father was to her credit she never said anything derogatory towards him even with all that he put us through, but she let me from my own opinion about him. As my anger towards him started to grow I kept asking the same questions. Why was he choosing alcohol over me? If he wasn’t an alcoholic would my parents still be married? If they were still together would I have ever been sexually abused? Does he even love me? Everything came back to him and the lack of a relationship we had. He would lie to me constantly, but I kept finding ways to forgive him because when I looked at him I was looking at myself. As a little kid, I didn’t see the baggage that a person is bringing. The only thing I was focus on was why wasn’t my father here?

He is the reason why I was caught off from my Burkhalter family. Rather than being the man he was supposed to be and make it right. He got caught up in his pride and refused to reach out to me. When he remarried he had my brothers (twins) and even went so far to name them some version John for fear that I would change my name.

Yep that’s my ‘father’. The funny thing is later in life when I was around him I would never call him dad. Why should I? Even being as young as I was I felt that he had to earn that. I’m not going to call you dad when you haven’t been in my life. I wish I had the catch phrase ‘sperm donor’ back then because I probably would have used it just to piss him off.

But I am his child. I have his temper. I have his love for music. I have this propensity to want to help the people I love and care about anyway I can. I look just like him but we are completely different in other aspects of our lives. I used to feel as though I didn’t have the role model to pattern my life after. This is when I used to slam my father because it was so easy to do.

But what I didn’t see is that my father was a role model of how not to be as a man. I remember telling my mother that I will never drink alcohol, I will never use drugs. I’m saying and doing all the right things. But his absence in my life created a huge void that was never adequately filled. Cut off from my Burkhalter family I couldn’t get another perspective. A lot of things had to figure out on my own.

I knew I picked up a lot of his mannerisms and some of his characteristics; it would have been nice to have him there to share with me what to look out for. What to avoid all those things that parents should do. Instead I was only getting it from one side. My mother couldn’t tell me why my father did what he did. She only knew him as an abusive alcoholic.

“The Bloodline Betrayal”

After dealing with my father, I was trying to find that one father figure that in my bloodline that I could look to as a role model.

My mother’s father, my Grandfather was to be that man. I didn’t know a lot about him other than he lived in the Washington D.C. area and worked for the U.S. Capitol Police. I met him a few times before.

The first time I remember spending time with him was when my mother and I came to Maryland to visit him and his wife at the time. We went to Ocean City, MD to enjoy the beach. I even met my mother’s long-time child hood dog Corky.

My Grandfather was distant for most of my life. He would only reach out to me when it was my birthday or Christmas, I would hardly ever see him or hear from him outside of those events. My mother would call him occasionally, but I was never really a part of those conversations.

My mother remarried when I was eight years old. She married a man named Roger. Even though my mother started dating my step father when I was five years old I still did not know this man. The first year that we all lived together I had my mother leave on the hallway light so that I could see if he was coming down the hall.

It was hard adjusting to having a man in the house. Not only was it a space issue but it was an issue with sharing my mother. My mother’s time was not my own anymore. I had to adjust to this guy trying to get to know me. At first, I really wasn’t giving him a chance because he wasn’t my biological father.

Now at the age twelve, my mother, stepfather and I moved into a bigger house in the Lakewood, Ohio. My Grandfather wanted to contribute some furniture that my mother was interested in getting. We had to go the Washington, D.C to get it.

My Stepfather, Step Uncle and myself rented a moving truck and left for the Washington.

When we got to Washington D.C. my Grandfather wanted to meet us at his apartment building because he was moving out of his apartment an into a house.

My Grandfather lived in a high-rise apartment that had at least sixteen floors. As we were coming up the elevator the conversation switched to how we were going to fit everything in the truck and how we were going to be able to reserve the service elevator. As we walked down the hall toward his apartment; I couldn’t help but feel a little bit nervous about seeing him. In the back of my mind I was hoping that we would hit it off. As far as I was concerned he was the last male role model in my bloodline that I could look to.

Roger walked up to the apartment door and before he could knock on the door. My Grandfather opened it to welcome us in. When we walked into the apartment mostly everything was in boxes. We brought a couple of sleeping bags because bedding was very limited.

When we came in my Grandfather made it a point to say what he and I would be doing the next day. I couldn’t wait. I get to hang out with my Grandfather. He kept telling me that he wished that he could take me to his job so that I could see all the cool things that he does.

But this wasn’t social visit. We were there to load the truck with the furniture that my mother wanted. We spent most of Saturday loading the truck. When we finally finished loading the truck my grandfather took us all out to eat.

When we came back from the restaurant we went back to his apartment. My grandfather knew that we were leaving in the morning to go back to Cleveland, Ohio. He told Roger that he and my uncle should go and get some gas now instead of waiting in the morning to do it. He also recommended that they make sure the truck is locked up and even suggested where they could go to get a lock.

Roger and Uncle Clayton left to get everything ready for the trip tomorrow. As soon as the door closed my grandfather asked me to come into his bedroom. I didn’t think anything of it. I was enjoying the time we had together, even though it was brief.

When I came into his bedroom his was sitting on the bed; he asked me to come over and stand closer to him. I remember feeling uncomfortable not because of his request but by the look in his eyes. It was as if he was looking through me. Or he was looking at me as a piece of meat. I couldn’t make sense of it. But I moved closer to him.

He hugged me and said; “John I’ve missed you a lot. We have to spend more time together”. I replied; “yes we do grandpa”

He never let go of his hug. He kept his left hand around the small of my back. While his other hand was situated in his crouch; I didn’t know exactly what he was doing. He kept telling me, “John your mother has told me so much about you that I feel like I should be more involve in your life”.

He hugged me again. This time tighter than before; when he let up he started to unfasten my belt. Saying to me, “John it’s time to get ready for bed”. But I’m thinking to myself there is no shower running or bath water what’s going on?

He gets my belt undone and lets my pants fall to the floor. He tells me in a more forceful tone to pull down your underwear. Frozen in confusion and fear I respond with doing what I am told to do. As my pants and underpants rest around my ankles; I looked up and notice that my grandfather had unzipped and unfasten his pants while he was still on the bed.

He reached out with his left hand to feel on my gentiles. As soon as he did that I could feel cloud fall over me. It was as if I had died right then. What was left of my innocence was gone. I stood there totally numb to what was going on. He was using me to get off. He was rubbing my penis, my butt and testicles while he was stroking his own penis until he reached orgasm.

When he finished he said; “pull your pants up. Don’t anyone about this ok? This is between you and me. Can I count on you to keep this between us”, I nodded in the affirmative just to get out of that room.

As I walked out of the room Roger and my uncle came back from running errands. I looked at Roger but couldn’t say anything. It wasn’t because of the ‘secret’ it was due to the shame I felt. I felt as if I was shamed into silence. So I stayed quiet and to myself.

The next day we left for Cleveland. I was withdrawn on the whole trip back. I was trying to make sense of it. Why did he do that to me? I thought I could trust him? Why? Why? Why? Roger would try to talk to me, but I wasn’t in a talkative jovial mood.

In-Retrospect:It has taken me years to get to that level where I could sit down and comfortably remember what had happen that day. To have something that happen at that period (it’s never a good time for anything like that to happen) was devastating. I was twelve years old and just starting puberty. There were times when I questioned if this meant that I was gay. A question that nonetheless has been disproven but I never stopped asking myself if that indeed was the case.

Why would he do that to me? The answers that I got were that he is a sick man. If he is that sick why do you let him around children? If he is that sick why isn’t in a mental institution? I don’t give a fuck about understanding him and the why. What I wanted at the time was to eliminate this pain, anger that I was feeling.

My whole outlook on life changed. I went from dreaming of playing pro basketball to wanting to hurt people. From wanting to be an accountant or a lawyer to feeling as if I won’t live to see my eighteenth birthday. I was a B, C student before this happened turned into a C, D, F student. I didn’t care anymore. My dreams didn’t seem to be obtainable. I took on the mindset that terrible things were supposed to happen to me, shoot look at my life, I thought. Everywhere I turned people were lying to me, looking at me funny because of my birthmark or betraying me.

I made anger my friend at first. It’s the main reason why I decided to play football. Yes, I liked the sport, but it wasn’t my passion. Basketball was my passion for me before this happened. But now all I wanted to do hurt people. Playing football was my way of dealing with my anger. I played on the Offensive and Defensive lines because you got to hit someone on every play. I got used to punishing others and punishing myself. Playing through pain became somewhat enjoyable.

“Blue Funk”

When we came back from our trip to Maryland, my mother noticed a change in me. I was withdrawn. I was trying to find out why this happened. But my answers just didn’t make sense to me. This was my Grandfather; the man I’m supposed to look up to. Why did this happen?

My mother one day sat me down to ask me, “John, are you alright? Your attitude seems to have changed. It seems to that you are in this blue funk”.

Blue funk? What the hell is that? I thought to myself. Immediately I felt ashamed at what had happened in Maryland. I didn’t want to talk about it. I was trying to lock it away to never have to deal with it again. If only it was that simple.

My mother then said to me, “John I know something is wrong with you and if you don’t want to talk to me maybe you can talk to someone else”. She told me that my pediatrician was also a child psychiatrist and would be more than happy to sit down to talk to me.

I can remember the first time I sat in his office. My mother and I sat in the waiting room. My mother didn’t say a whole lot. I could tell that she really wanted what ever happen to me to come out so that we could deal with it. But I didn’t have any expectations. I didn’t even know how to deal with what had happen to me.

When the receptionist called my name for the next patient, I felt paralyzing fear come over me. Should I keep this secret? Should I tell my doctor? If I tell on Grandpa should I tell on Christina too? I don’t know why but at that moment I’m thinking about my father. But those images of him in my mind were quickly erased as soon as my doctor greeted me at the door.

I sat in a chair that was in front of his desk. He then sat behind his desk. He pardoned himself because he had to close a patient’s file from a previous appointment. The doctor then looked up at me to say;

” John, your mother is concerned about you. Did you go on a trip recently?” I replied. “Yes”. As anxiety starts to take hold. He asked, “Did anything happen while you were on that trip?” I paused. I looked down at the floor nervously fidgeting with my fingers and a pen that I took from the waiting room. I looked up writhing with shame at him to say, “No!”

There I’m done. Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk about this anymore I thought to myself. The doctor leaned back in his chair and looked at me as if he wasn’t sure of my answer. He shook his head and said, “Well John if you want to talk to me you can what you say to me doesn’t go to anyone else. It is only between me and you”. I nodded my head as if to say, “yeah I’ll tell you anything”. Knowing full well the only thing I wanted was to be out of that office as quick as possible.

Later on my mother asked how my session with the doctor went. I lied and said, “it went good”.

I just wanted to forget everything. I didn’t want to remember anything about that trip. I didn’t want to talk about what happened with Christina or the fact that my father wasn’t in my life. I just wanted to get away from everything, but I had nowhere to go. Moving to a different city, state or country wasn’t an option for me.

I started to sink deep into my depression. There were times where I felt different. There would be times where I would stay angry ready and willing to break something or someone. There would be times when I would be sad. Those were the times my mother would worry the most. Because it seemed like it was harder to get out of that mood than it was to be angry. My sadness would overwhelm me at times. So much so that at the age of thirteen it was the first time I considered killing myself to stop the pain. I felt that no one would miss me so why not?

But I grudgingly kept pressing on. Thinking to myself it has to get better right? One day my father is going to come through that door to and save me.

I started to notice how much my moods would swing. I literally would be upbeat one minute and within seconds, I would be sad or angry.

In-retrospect:Later, in my life I found out that I have bipolar disorder. There’s no cure for it. There are only ways in which you can manage it with the proper diet and exercise.

It took me years to understand that there wasn’t going to be a quick fix to this disease. I was so much in denial that I thought that maybe few sessions and a little medication would be sufficient, but it wasn’t.

I had to realize that I had to get serious about dealing with my issues which in turn will help me with my mental disorder. There’s so much to learn. At first the amount of information is enough to depress anyone. But I had to overcome that anxiety. But how was I going to do that? The funny thing about me sometimes is the fact that I can have the answers literally at my fingertips but I’m always going to look for an easier way. This was no different. I was trying to cheat treatment with dreadful results that cost me financially and emotionally.

“Race Doesn’t Matter?”

Canton, Ohio

My mother was one of those parents that felt it was important for her to experience different communities. I feel her reasoning was because we had a lot of people (black and white) that died so that black people could live where they want to live. Go anywhere they want to go. I understand that completely.

My first dealing with white kids my own age was in Canton, Ohio 1983.

My mother remarried on November 21, 1982. My step-father accepted a position to sell insurance through Nationwide. So, we moved to Canton, Ohio. I had never been to Canton and didn’t know what to expect. When My Cousins Tony and Kevin found out that I was moving to Canton, they decided to coach me up on how to deal with ‘white kids’.

Tony said, “Don’t let no honkey call you a nigger, boy or pat you on the head like you are a dog”. I wonder to myself what am I getting into? It seems like I’m going into a hostile situation. I wanted to tell my mother that I didn’t want to go but I quickly realized that I didn’t have a choice.

But I was armed with the knowledge that my cousins gave me and I didn’t want to let them down.

On my first day of school I was looking for someone to say something racial. The night before I must have replayed every scenario in my head of how I would react. In every scenario I was John Rambo beating up racist white kids. If they looked at me wrong, it was going to be an issue. So, when I hit the school yard I was ready for war.

I approached a group of boys getting ready play touch football. They were in the middle of picking the teams.

When the one the captains noticed me, he ran over to me and said, “we got him!!!” He had not seen me play at all. He didn’t even know my name. But because I was black he felt I was the wild card.

After scoring two touchdowns suddenly, I became hot property but there was one person that did not like the fact that I was getting this attention. His name was Roger.

What a coincidence. This boy had the same first name as my stepfather.

For the rest of the day Roger would whisper jokes to the other kids in class to get them to laugh and then look in my direction. I knew from that moment I would have to deal with Roger sooner or later.

The very next day Roger saw an opportunity to taunt me. It happened when our teacher left the room while we were doing our class work. Roger said, “Hey boy!!! Where can I get some good fried chicken?”

I didn’t hesitate. I got up from my chair walked over to him, knocked him out of his chair and proceeded to punch him and later choked him until the teacher came into the room. What made this peculiar is that Roger was the tallest kid in our third-grade class at Avondale elementary school. Once the teacher pulled me off Roger I went straight to the principle office.

It seemed as if every other day Roger would say something that pissed me off and every time I’m going to the principal’s office for some type of disturbance in the class room. It got so bad that by the time we got to Thanksgiving the school Principal threatened to expel me.

The good thing was that my parents realize that I wasn’t completely at fault and that Roger is the clear-cut agitator. When the Principal finally came around to the understanding that he might have a lawsuit on his hands for discrimination he then basically orders me and Roger to stay away from each other. We couldn’t play in the pick game. We couldn’t work together on class projects. It wasn’t a complete separation, but it worked for the rest of the school year.

We stayed in Canton, Ohio for one more year before my parents decided to move back to the Cleveland area. I never had another incident at Avondale after the beef with Roger. Most of the kids stayed away from me either because of the birthmark on my face or the perception of me being a hothead. Being the only Black child in class had it perks when it was time for sports. But when it comes to the other areas I started to see the differences. The teachers would talk to me differently as if I had a problem comprehending what was being taught. Or being treated as if I am a threat to public safety. I hated it with a passion. I was ready to leave Canton and I felt at the time that Canton was ready to see me leave.

Lakewood, Ohio

After leaving Canton, Ohio we moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio. When people from the Cleveland area tend to think of Shaker Heights they tend to think of the miniature mansions and manicured lawns. Well I didn’t live in that part of Shaker Heights. I lived on Rolliston Road just off Lomond Avenue, two blocks from Lee Road, which if you cross the street on Lee road you are technically in Cleveland, Ohio.

Shaker Heights was home for me. After dealing with Canton, Ohio for two years it felt good to finally see some similar faces. Even though I never escaped the question, what is that on your face? But nevertheless, I had fun adjusting to my new surroundings.

Its 1984, around the time that hip hop started to leave the east coast and venture mainstream black radio. Break dancing and graffiti was the new thing to do.

I loved living in Shaker Heights. It was where I fell in love with hip hop, it is where I developed my first crush on a girl and it was also a place that I felt that I was truly accepted.

It was towards the end of my sixth-grade year. Everyone in my class was excited about attending Byron middle school. As we were seeing it we were on our way to being teenagers and our graduation from the sixth grade was symbolic of that. So, wrapped up in my euphoria I had no idea what was about to happen.

One day my mother and my stepfather told me that they had to tell me something. I didn’t know what it could be. They had already told me that my mother was pregnant. But this time they had a serious look on their faces. From their demeanor I could tell that this was not going to be good for me.

My mother said, “John we are moving”. I’m thinking to myself not again!!! “We are moving to Lakewood. You will like it there. There are a lot of activities for you to get involved in”.

I couldn’t believe it. I finally found a home and now I had to pick up and leave again. This wasn’t fair.

On the night of graduation, I cried because I knew I wouldn’t be back.

The first week of living in Lakewood was extremely difficult. It started with my grandma Mildred driving me back to my parent’s new home (I called it their home because I didn’t want to claim it). My grandmother said to me, “John this is a fantastic opportunity for you. You can get a great education here. It’s here for the taking it’s just up to you to make it happen”. I nodded in affirmation only to keep her from talking. It didn’t matter what she was saying I hated the move. As far as I was concerned no one asked me. In a strange way, I was hoping that my mother didn’t turn in the keys for the Rolliston road house. But to no avail. Then my Grandmother said something to me that caught me completely off guard.

“John, you are coming into your own as a young man. I know there some girls that are going to really like you. But don’t bring no white girls home. There is nothing wrong with catching the bus and train to see a black girl your age”. I looked at her as if I was waiting for a punch line. When no smile came from her face I knew that she was serious.

My grandmother didn’t ask much from me, so I had no problem agreeing to it. But to do it would be damn near impossible as I entered puberty.

A few days later my stepfather and I went on a bike ride around the neighborhood. Roger loves cars. So, pulling into a car dealership on bicycles wasn’t a surprise to me because that is what he likes to do.

As we rode our bikes into the Ganley Oldsmobile dealership parking lot. I noticed that all of the salesmen’s attention was fixated on us, but no one offered to help. As Roger walked around looking at the other cars a salesman finally came up to him to ask him if he needed any help.

By this time someone had called the police. A Lakewood police car pulled up to the dealership as we were leaving the parking lot. At which point the officer turned his lights on basically pulling us over on our bikes.

The officer told us why he was called. It appears that the dealership was having issues with vandalism and the manager was worried that we were going to do something to their vehicles in broad daylight right in front of them. But he then noticed that we did not have Lakewood bike licenses on the bikes. He gave Roger the ticket and sent us on our way.

I was ready to go back to Shaker…yesterday!!!

But what choice did I have? I was stuck in this situation and my first day of school was just coming around the corner.

My first day at Emerson Middle school came with so much anxiety that I could not sleep the night before. The only thing that I kept thinking about was is this going to be Canton, Ohio all over again. But I already had an idea on what to expect. When someone calls me a Nigger I will act accordingly.

The next morning my mother drove me to Emerson. She dropped me off and with a smile on her face. She kissed me goodbye and was on her way to work.

There were so many white kids there either playing, talking or just hanging out. As I walked through the football field to get to the basketball courts. I noticed that some of them did notice me. As if to ask, who is the black kid? But I just continued walking towards the basketball court.

As I approached the basketball court, I noticed that there was one game that was playing on a full court. We still had an hour before the first bell was due to ring. My original thought was to just be a spectator. I wanted to just observe to see if these kids were any different than ones in Canton. But before I could settle into that role. The game that I walked up on was over and a new person was picking his team and he noticed me on the side of the court. He said, “I want him!!!” Pointing at me.

I looked around to see if he was talking about me. I don’t know why I did that because there wasn’t anyone standing behind me or beside me. But I sheepishly walked out on the basketball court not knowing what to expect.

The team captain came over to me after picking the rest of the team. The first thing he asked me is, “can you play?” Funny how he would ask me this now after the teams were set. I answered in the affirmative. He said, “My name is Ray, Ray Devito”. I answered, “My name is John, John Burkhalter”. He looked at me with a puzzled look as if I slipped into a language that he didn’t quite understand. But before he could ask a question the game started.

When the game started we ran up and down the court as if I was playing in a real game. I was defending, rebounding and dribbling as if a scout was watching. What I didn’t notice at first is that there was a distinct way they played the game that was different from what I knew. These kids actually shot three pointers. I was shocked.

Coming from Shaker Heights, I was used to playing a physical brand of basketball. Shooting jumpers were discourage!!! Come hard or don’t come at all. We never really called fouls. If there isn’t any blood showing, then it isn’t a foul.

So just image how I felt when I went to shoot a layup I went up basically unchallenged I was shocked. I was so shocked that I missed the layup by double pumping expecting to get hit. But I looked good doing it.

When the basketball possession changed. I was on defense and the person that I was guarding started to drive to the front of the basket. I was caught off guard because I was preparing for him to take a jump shot. By the time I caught up to him the only thing that I could do was foul him. Now where I came from he cannot get this ball off. So, I fouled him so hard that you could hear that slap as I came down hard on his right arm as he attempted to shoot a layup.

Surprised and a little hurt from the foul, he looked at me with an angry look and said, “What the fuck you hit me for? You fuckin Nigger!!!”

Damn! I thought. My school day hadn’t even started yet and already I’m greeted with a racial slur. As I started to clinch my fist and step towards this person, my teammate, Ray, ran over to me to get in my way and instantaneously I hear this voice in the background say, “what the fuck did you say?”

I turned to look to my right a there is this black kid that was taller than me walking quickly over to the basketball court to confront the person that I was guarding on the basketball court. Before he could get over to the court he was cut off by other white kids on the playground. A couple of them kept saying, “Tucker calm down!!!” Even the person I was guarding said, “Tucker I wasn’t talking you!” As if that made it alright. Tucker was a lot closer to six feet than a lot of kids in the seventh grade. He was my dark-skinned complexion with an athletic muscular build. Now, it is 1986, I just left east side of Cleveland where latest trends matter. I was used to seeing the latest fashions such as the Michael Jackson’s Thriller jacket or the Kangols, shell toe Adidas or Pumas with the Fat Boy shoelaces and shag haircuts. Now I am seeing water moccasins, tight jeans with holes cut out at the knees and a lot I mean a lot of hair. I felt like I was living a Van Halen video. So, the question I had to ask myself is why does this black man still have a Jerri curl?

I was upset with Tucker for most of that morning because he took my fight away from me. What made it so bad was the fact that he wasn’t even defending me. He thought that person was directing it at him.

What is funny is when my friends that I went to church with found out that I was moving to the Westside of Cleveland they acted as if they hit the lottery. The thought was that my parents must be making all this money. If they were making all this money they hid it from me because I’m still getting my clothes from Value City. There aren’t many things worst lay away (of course, not being able to put anything in lay away) to me. I used to hate going to the store, fall in love with an outfit only to say ‘see you later’. When school started I would wear what I could still fit from the previous year. But I’m smiling the whole time in class because I know my outfits are on the way.

I don’t know how it happened but Ray from that day became my best friend. He tried his best to get me acclimated to my new surroundings. We would go to a lot of different play grounds around Lakewood looking for a good game of basketball or some football. Sports seemed to unite us and given the fact that I was a decent athlete needless to say I was always picked but Ray and I were pretty much a packaged deal. You couldn’t pick one and not expect to take the other.

Around this time the great sports debate was who would you take first Larry Bird from the Boston Celtics or Irving ‘Magic’ Johnson from the Los Angeles Lakers? Magic was my favorite player at the time, but I hate being put into a box. When the question was posed to me I said with a straight face, “my favorite player is Larry Bird”. Now Larry Bird was a great player and I liked how he played the game, but I wouldn’t pick him over Magic. Shoot, Magic always had the ball in his hands. But I wanted to prove a point and that was to never judge a book by its cover. Just because I am black doesn’t mean that I agree with or show empathy towards everything that is black. It’s as if white people think that think we all get along, maybe when it involves dealing with injustice but that is it. Once the objective is achieved (or not) the unity dissipates, and we go back to our corners of the world only to come together at the next call to march event.

The fact that I picked Larry Bird was a shocked a lot of them. Even Ray couldn’t believe that I liked Larry Bird over Magic. He chose Magic Johnson and then at me as to say what’s wrong with you? I didn’t care. It was important to me to stay true to myself and fight through a lot of these stereotypes that white kids associate with black people. As if I am an ambassador for all black people.

But I played that role the best that I could because there was a lot of misinformation out there floating through the media. Got asked some crazy questions. They were crazy to me but to the asking the question they really wanted the answers to. For example, are all black people are violent? John, do you like fried chicken? Do you like Watermelon? Are you part of a gang? Do you have family or friends that are affiliated with a gang? Why would your father leave you? Why is your hair the way that it is? Curly (aka nappy)? Do you like rap music and why? I’ve been asked it all basically any question you can ask a person about their culture without being offense. Well at least I did not take it that way.

One story illuminates that paradigm.

It is 1988. This was myself and Ray’s freshman year in high school. I invited a new friend of mine, named Tito, to the football game with us. It was our first varsity game. We were excited for all the wrong reasons that night. Ray had it made up in his mind that we were going to go there and get some phone numbers. I thinking to myself that he and Tito were going to get those phone numbers because I promised my grandmother no white girls.

This was a tough thing to do. The proverbial itch was starting to kick in. There was a lot of pressure to lose our virginity as quickly as we could. Ray was highly charged and so was Tito. For me, I wanted to watch the game. Football was my outlet. It was how I dealt with being isolated so to speak from interacting with the rest of the student body.

Ray and Tito must have walked around Lakewood stadium about three or four times trying to get a phone number but to no avail. When the game ended we were already at the exit trying to catch the some of the female traffic coming back through the entrance.

I let Tito and Ray do their thing. I kept looking at the football day dreaming of when it would be my turn to coming out of the home locker room. For me this was a big deal. Lakewood was going to be my ticket to the National Football League is what I conjured up in my mind. This is it.

I was living the stadium feeling that my destiny was set, and Lakewood High School was going to be my springboard towards my professional football dream.

Still caught up in the euphoria of the moment. I didn’t realize as we were walking back to Ray’s house that there were a bunch of white teenage boys following us. At the same time Tito leaned over and whispered to me that something is about to happen. Ray looked at me and Tito and said let’s walk a little faster. The next thing I hear is, “hey nigger!!!”

“Hey you fucking coon!!!” “I’m talking to you”.

I wanted to turn around, but Ray pleaded with me to just keep walking. But to me he was missing my point if I don’t make a stand now than when will it happen? Right at that moment someone through a cigarette and it hit me on my shoulder. I turned around and Ray grabbed my arm and Tito reached for my jean jacket this when I realized that there were at least twenty-five of them and only three of us. Right at that moment the law of fairness came over me.

I glanced over at Ray and then I quickly looked over at Tito and gave him the single.

We took off running. We ran for about four blocks until we got to Ray’s house. Ray’s house was about five houses from the main street. We ran into his back yard and waited. Tito and I waited until we didn’t hear anymore voices coming from the main street.

The following Monday, I was hoping to find that white boy that called me a nigger. I heard his name was Bear. I remember walking around that day thinking in my head how this confrontation was going to happen. I even tried to figure out what I would do if he and his friends tried to jump me.

As I walked the hallways on the way to my science class, I bumped into the one they called ‘Bear’. Bear stood about five feet ten but he was two hundred eighty pounds easily. He had me by a good hundred pounds. My heart felt like it was about to jump out of my chest as soon as I saw him. When he made eye contact with me I could just feel that something was going to happen. He walked towards my direction and walked in his direction. People in the hallway at that time did not realize that me and ‘Bear’ have a history. Albeit a brief history

but a history nonetheless.

As we get about three feet apart from each other Bear extends his hand. He said, “Hey Dude, listen I’m sorry about the other night”. “I was having a bad night. I shouldn’t have done that. Shit, you probably have your homeboys ready to come and get me”.

I was shocked! I paused for what felt like five minutes. I struggled to find the right thing to say. The only thing I could muster up was, “Nah, I wasn’t going to do that”. In the back of my mind I knew that the Lakewood police would be waiting for my cousins at Lakewood/Cleveland border ready to profile any young black teen as a gang banger.

Bear went on to say, “Hey I don’t care if you except my apology I just wanted to get that off my chest. Are we cool?” I quickly nodded in the affirmative that I have accepted his apology and we were ‘cool’ after that. I even helped convince him to play football his senior year.

This was a prime example of how the images that were seen on television didn’t match up with reality. Though I never had to ask my cousins to help me with any issues like that. The fact that he would think that I had some gangbangers ready with AK-47’s or something actually surprised me. But I wasn’t complaining. If he thought my family was the cast off of the Colors movie I wasn’t going to discourage it.

But I’d be remised if I didn’t mention that in Cleveland, Ohio in the late 1980’s like other major cities around the Midwest were having issues with gangs coming in from Los Angeles and Chicago. Gangs like the Bloods, the Crips, the Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples were all fighting over territory to move their drugs. They even went so far as to recruit white kids into their gangs. The first time I was recruited by a gang member, it was a white boy named Jason that approached me about joining the Vice Lords. I declined. I was too into playing football to be running the streets of Cleveland.

For me gangbanging at that time didn’t appeal to me because I had sports as my outlet. When it was warm enough I was playing basketball and when it was cold I was training and playing football. This was pretty much my existence in Lakewood. I stayed to myself pretty much most of the time. My main objective was to get a scholarship to pay football (In nineteen eighty-nine there wasn’t any requirements for high school grade point average or SAT scores). I figured that since I had to be out here in this city that seemed to not want me the very least they could do is give me a platform to get me to my end goal which was playing professional football.

But it was through football that I made some unlikely of friends. I was oblivious to the impact that I made on my teammates and people in my life in general. Some people say you never know who your friends are until you go through some tough times. One example of this was during a junior varsity game against the Parma high school. It was about the end of the third quarter. We were beating Parma convincingly. I was playing defensive tackle and on one play during the game someone on Parma’s offensive line moved before the snap of the ball. As a unspoken rule when that happens the Defensive line can move to show that the offensive player’s movement influenced my movement. So, when that offensive linemen in front of me moved, I shot through the gap causing the referees to quickly blow their whistles to signify that the play is over. As I took a step into the backfield their team’s fullback took a cheap shot at me knocking me down. He stood over me and said; “fuckin nigger!!!”

Before I could get up, one of my teammates (Rusty) came out of nowhere and tackled the fullback and followed the tackle up with a series of punches. As the referees tried to separate the two of them about four other fights started at the same time. Sensing that they had lost control of the game, the referees called the game with about 7 minutes left in the fourth quarter. My junior varsity head coach ran across the field to get me and the other players because with Parma’s varsity team watching the game this had the potential to get ugly for Lakewood in a hurry.

As a team we ran to bus fearing that we would get backlash form the students and parents that attended the game. Some of those that were in attendance yell at us. They yelled at my head coach who in turned would reply with a “shut the hell up!!!”

As we boarded the bus he looked at me, nodded and patted me on my shoulder pads to let me know I had his full support.

In that moment, I shattered every stereotype I had about all white people being racist. Even though they didn’t really know me that well they were willing to put it on the line for me regardless of how it looked to others.

In-retrospect:This is why I love football. To bring people together from diverse backgrounds for one common goal could either go horribly wrong or it can be a beautiful thing. I’ve watched NFL films when they have done stories on how black and white players have extended their camaraderie beyond the football field. It was good to see how they still depended upon each other still. Well after their playing days were over.

I understand now that I didn’t take full advantage of what Lakewood presented me besides football. I was so caught up with what Lakewood didn’t have and what it should have been doing for me that I didn’t see that I had great opportunities that other kids would have killed for. But not me. I paid the victim role to damn near perfection. In my mind Lakewood had to make me happy and when it wasn’t doing that I turned on it with the quickness.

One of the dumbest moves I made was not going to homecoming my senior year. I’m co-captain of the football team and I’m not going to homecoming? I didn’t take my senior pictures either. Yeah that was me, John the militant. How narrow minded am I? That I am not trying to create good memories. I was so fixated with racism that I didn’t see completely that I had some good people around me that were white and yet I didn’t give them a chance.

I was so disgusted with the racial inequality that I left Lakewood to attend a historically black institution. It was the right and wrong move to make. It was the right move because it got me to the point where I felt like I reconnected with my people. But it was the wrong move also because I was going for the wrong reasons. I attended Norfolk State University to get as far away from Lakewood as I possibly could. I picked that university because it was one of the largest historically black colleges on the east coast. The ratio from girls to boys didn’t hurt either. But nothing in my reasoning said that I was going to this college because it was the best fit for me academically.

I dove head first into the party life and for two years that is what I was all about. Yes, I went to class but only when there was nothing else to do. This was your classic wasted opportunity. By the time I wanted to take things seriously such as attending classes and playing spring football, it was too late. The football coaches like the athletic ability that I displayed during conditioning but when they looked at my transcripts they quickly became frustrated with me and wrote me off.

The irony in all this is that after an expensive two-year party in Norfolk, Virginia, I was right back in Lakewood after coming close to flunking out of college; just trying to figure out what my next move will be.

No Outlet

I came back to Lakewood in 1994, after leaving Norfolk State University, I sank into a deep depression. I felt like I had failed. The plan was to go to college for four years while playing football, get my degree and go on to play professional football. This was not going to happen.

To make matters worse was the fact that I returned home to bury my one of my close childhood friends in Stewart Lee.

This was the second time in two years that I am burying someone that I was close to. Before I graduated Lakewood High School in 1992 I had to say goodbye to another close friend in Willie ‘Sonny’ Prevo. Neither death made sense to me but they both were killed in similar ways. They both were run down by cars.

Sonny and I first met through our mothers at the tender age of five. Almost immediately we hit it off. In a way we were like brothers that were always competing. One of our favorite games to play was, “that’s my car!” That game sometimes ended with an argument or one of our mothers telling us to be quiet.

As time went on I would see less and less of Sonny even though we went to the same church. At the time I never knew why. I thought maybe it was because we moved a lot as child. Or was it something else? I did not know.

But when we did see each other it was as if we never lost time.

What brought all of us together was church. When I say all of us, I’m referring to The Five Deadly Venoms as we were affectionately called. Our version of The Five Deadly Venoms was comprised of Stewart Lee, Sonny, Eric Sanders, Luke Davis, Jr. and myself. Stewart was the biggest and tallest of the group. Luke was not far behind him as far as size and height. Stewart and Luke used to battle consistently to see who was the strongest. Sonny, was our mediator. He was always trying to peacefully resolve issues. I can’t remember him ever getting in a fight or even getting mad at someone. Eric, who I affectionately call E money (I call him that because growing up he always had the latest fashions), is kind of in the same mold as Sonny in that they didn’t want a whole lot of trouble. Everything with them had to be smooth. Junior players. The girls seemed to always flock to them. Then there was me, honestly, I couldn’t tell you what I brought to the table at that time. I didn’t talk much. I was somewhere in between all of them. I guess it could be determined that I was the middle child because I liked to fight and wrestle, but I also liked to chill. I could slap box with Luke or play tackle football with Stewart and still be a third wheel to Sonny and Eric, if there was a third girl around of course otherwise I didn’t have anything to do.

We were always getting into some trouble in church. Either for being too loud, talking and playing during service, being disruptive in Sunday school and missing the sermon to go to the corner store to get some snacks.

Separately, we could be contained. But when you put us together it’s was a wrap. We were going to do what we wanted to do (in our minds) and worry about the consequences later. I can’t count how many times our parents would stop choir rehearsal just to see what we were doing. It also worked against us that Stewart’s mother was the Choir Director (Brenda Veal Lee) for the Voices of Lane of Lane Metropolitan C.M.E. church. She always stopped rehearsal to find Stewart. That was just how things were and we loved it. In some sense were one big happy church family.

I remember very vividly when my mother told me that Sonny had been killed.

It was towards my senior year in high school. I getting ready to go to my prom. We all were getting ready to go to respective proms, Stewart, Sonny, Luke (now living in California) and Eric at the same time. We were all competing to see who would look the best in their tuxedos.

When I came home from track practice. My mother was sitting at the dining room table. This was strange because usually my mother would not be home at this time. I could already tell something was wrong because I could see the bald up used Kleenex’s in front of her. I started to ask what was wrong, but my mother stopped me.

“John have a seat, I have something to tell you” she said. “Sonny died today”. She told me that he was riding his bike to a friend’s house and was run down in a car driven by teenager.

I was devastated. Nothing made sense to me at that moment. Why would anybody want to kill Sonny? Why!!!?

My mother went on to say that because my grades were the way they were in my English class; she did not want me to go to the funeral for fear it would impact me too much to the point where I would not be able to concentrate on graduating. I didn’t want to hear that. I wanted to go. Why was she not letting me go?

I can remember shutting down emotionally after that.

I didn’t want to do anything. My high school football coach had been selected to coach in a high school all-star game in the state of Ohio. Each coach could bring one player that they wanted to give a showcase what they could do in front of the college recruiters. I shunned him when he asked me to go with him. I didn’t care anymore none of that mattered to me.

When it was time for his funeral and realized that I wasn’t going I let that became ashamed that I could not be there. When my parents came home from his funeral my mother mentioned that I could still pay my respects to the family at their house. I thought to myself, “It’s not the same”. So, I immediately let the shame of not paying my respects properly consume me.

So now here I am getting ready to bury another friend. It just didn’t seem fair.

Why am I alive and they are not? Sonny was going to go to Morehouse University. Stewart had college football coaches still after him even being two years removed from graduating high school. What did I have?

Sitting there at Stewart’s funeral felt weird. It seemed like only yesterday we were burying his mother, now her son, my good friend was going home to be with his home mother. Images of her welcoming him to heaven gave me a much-needed smile. But it still didn’t stop me from questioning my own existence.

To find out that Stewart was killed in a similar way that Sonny was really sent my head spinning.

I had so much that I was dealing with emotionally, my father not being there, dealing with the unresolved issues of my past abuse, now I’ve had to bury two close friends in less than two years.

Up to this point, the only way I chose to deal with my anger issues was to play football. But now that wasn’t an option. The window of opportunity to play football again was closing by the day for me. I wasn’t training. I wasn’t trying go to community college to improve my grades. No, I just wanted to just get a job.

When I couldn’t find an outlet for my anger. I turned inward. It appears I would purposely try to sabotage myself from succeeding at all cost. It just didn’t matter anymore. I wasn’t supposed to succeed in my mind. I was supposed to be just like my father.

My mother fearing that I was going to give up, tried to get me to see the military as a viable option. I was reluctant to say the least. I did want the military to brain wash me. Nope it wasn’t going to happen.

My mother said to me, “John if you are not going to go back to college then you will have to pay rent and other expenses to live here. If you don’t like that you can move out”.

Realizing that I do not have any money saved up for such a move (because I blew it partying the night before this conversation) I told her that I would consider it. Lying to her the whole time.

She went ahead and contacted an Army recruiter to come out and talk to me.

After dodging his calls for a while I decided to answer his call. I scheduled a place and a time for us to meet. He picked me up in his personal vehicle. As soon as I strapped on my seatbelt the sales pitch began.

He asked, “John where do you see yourself in five years?” I thought for a minute and I really didn’t want to reply so I shrugged my shoulders as if to say, “I don’t know”. But I knew. I knew that I didn’t want to be a part of the ‘Man’ ways. In my mind my life was fine I didn’t need the military. I just needed to get back to Norfolk State.

The recruiter went on to say what the Army offer and what I would qualify for if I scored high on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Test (ASVAB). I thought that if I failed this test that there would be no way for me to go in the service and my mother would be quiet about asking me to join and I wouldn’t have to pay rent.

So, test day came.

My mother was excited to see me take the exam. She felt that this was me finally getting my life together.

‘The military will straighten John up’. Yeah right! I thought. I will be back with a failed ASVAB test and she can get off my back about going into the military and I can get back to my original plan of doing what I wanted to do and that was to have fun at all cost.

I had failed many tests before, but this was the first time I actually went in to testing knowing that my main objective was to fail.

When I got the results back from the recruiter he told me that I did not qualify for the Army, Navy or the Air Force. But he surprised me when he told me that I qualified for the Marines. But that didn’t matter because I told my mother that I would only consider the Army or the Air Force and sense I qualified for neither I wasn’t worried about it because it wasn’t part of the agreement.

In-retrospect:This is around the time I was trying to figure out my purpose in life. I was completely clueless. I started wallow in a lot of self – doubt and self – pity when I wasn’t high, drunk or both.

I really didn’t want to be accountable for my actions. It was always some other reason why things were not happening for me. But I was comfortable with deflecting that kind of attention because owning a failure would require me to make the situation better. Something I had no real thought of doing.

In my mind I was supposed to be here.

I was supposed to not have things go right for me. But in the same vain, I would hope that eventually things would get better. I always believed that I would be rich. I would dream about it every time. It was sort of like my escape from my reality. I needed a miracle.

I was reaching for any pie-in-the-sky scheme I could think of. I went from Network Marketing’s don’t call it a pyramid but it’s a pyramid scheme to purchasing real estate with poor credit and no money down. I felt that things just had to get better. I felt had no real other options.

My mother, now realizing that I failed the ASVAB test on purpose kept pushing for me to try to take it again. I finally relented. I told her that I would retake it but in the back of my mind I was going to do the same thing.

The turning point for me came when I was over a friend’s mother’s house off Lakeview road near St. Clair Avenue. We were getting high and drinking that night. But on this particular night something felt unusual. There was an eerie silence on the block tonight. Even though the crack house on the corner was still busy there wasn’t the same loud noises coming from the house that night.

My friend and I were waiting on a ride to come pick us up to go out to Vel’s nightclub. As we waited we were talking about what we were going to do that night and for the rest of the weekend.

That’s when I noticed a woman walking down the street in a daze. The same look that I saw a lot of drug addicts have when they are about to get high. It’s as if nothing else matters.

On this particular night it was different to me. This was the one time, the one night I could not harden my heart to it.

As the woman continued down the street towards the crack house. I noticed a child walking behind her struggling to keep up with her mother. The little girl crying. Was trying to get her mother’s attention. The mother would not respond.

I heard the little girl cry out, “Ma, ma!!!” “Ma, ma!!!”

The mother would not respond. She just kept walking.

The little girl made one last attempt to keep her from going to the house. She lunged to grab the end of her mother’s dress. She grabbed the very end of her mother’s dress with one hand but the little girl loss her grip as she fell on the sidewalk.

I could not take my eyes off of her. I wanted to see her get up. I wanted to see someone come and pick her up and tell her it would be alright.

None of that happened immediately.

I looked at the little girl as she made a make shift bed out of the dirt on the sidewalk with her diaper barely having the elasticity hang on to her. She curled up in the fetal position and began crying.

I stood there and did nothing.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour, someone came from the house. It was a teenage relative that came to her aid and picked the little girl up off the ground. But the damage had already been done. It was as if that little girl’s spirit left her body when she fell on the side walk.

There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think about that little girl. Immediately, I felt guilty for not coming to her aid. What could I have done differently? Where is that girl today?

One the few times as a man I should of done the right thing. I did not. But that little girl had impacted me immensely. The seed had been planted. I wanted to and I needed to make changes in my life.

So, I retook the ASVAB test. I scored high enough to qualify for all branches of the military. I eventually went into the Air Force in 1997 (On April fool’s day no less) and was honorably discharged in 2001.

“Girls, Girls, Girls”

One of the funny things about growing up in Lakewood is that I wasn’t under a lot of peer pressure to have sex. Shoot listening to my mother and my grandmother I couldn’t have a white girlfriend so that wasn’t going to be a possibility. Sure, there were questions in the locker room asking me about the first time I had sex.

Of course, I lied.

In a strange way, in my mind, I wanted to count the time that I was abused by Christina. But there is no way anyone of my friends would accept it so I made up something just to get them off my back. My Lakewood high school football teammates knew I didn’t hang out in Lakewood much. So most of them assumed that I must be getting girls on the east side of Cleveland and my friends from church thought that I was all caught up in jungle fever (Interracial relationship). But what I was, was an introverted recluse and the only time that I would come out would be to play sports.

My mother would try to encourage me to get out and meet girls, but I really didn’t want to catch the bus then the rapid transit just to go on a date. I would constantly look at what I didn’t have and immediately discount myself before even taking the chance to take the risk.

With everything that I had been through up to this point, I did not believe that any girl would find me attractive. Even when I girls would flirt with me, I never believed it was genuine. It is not that I had this big cash windfall for me to protect but it was as if I was getting some type empathy and if I felt that way I would shut down. The girl would eventually lose interest because she may have thought I was rejecting her for some reason.

For me, the issue was deeper than then what may appear to be shyness. What my Grandfather did to me had me questioning my sexuality. I was not attracted to men, but I would often question what had happened to me. What would be the fallout from it? Does this mean that I am gay? How can that be when I am not attracted to men?

While other teenagers were worrying about who they would be boyfriend and girlfriend with. I was struggling to see myself as a viable boyfriend. The only things I would concentrate on was what I didn’t have and how I looked. I never put either in a positive light. In what I didn’t have, I would look at the fact that I didn’t have money like many other suburban kids or have a vehicle to get around in instead of finding alternatives. In how I looked, I would look at my birthmark as the main road block towards happiness as I was starting to define it. I would often think things would change a lot for me if I just got rid of this birthmark.

I zeroed in on the birthmark as the reason why was unhappy. If I could get rid of it then I would feel better about myself.

Attending Norfolk State University was a culture shock for me. I’ve never seen that many beautiful black women in place before and it wasn’t a concert. But that is the reason why I picked it. On a college visit our group’s tour guide mentioned that the ratio from girls to boys was about twelve to one. I remember looking at him in amazement. Really? Twelve to one? I like those odds, I thought. I finally can shake being a virgin.

But like a lot of things in my life there is a catch. What I forgot about Norfolk State University was the fact that there were no co-ed dormitories or co-ed visitation. Which brought me back to the same issues I had leaving Ohio and that was I didn’t have any money!!!

No money for a hotel and no means of transportation (freshmen weren’t allowed to have cars. Not like I could afford it anyway) meant that I was back to feeling the same way I did all through high school.

Plus, I kept running into that same question I had hoped I wouldn’t run into and that was; what is that on your face?

Depressed. I sank deeper into partying, abusing alcohol and marijuana. Chasing after my dream of playing football didn’t matter to me anymore. Why chase after a dream when in my mind I’m living the nightmare?

When came back to Lakewood after basically flunking out of college the only thing that I wanted to do was to continue what I was doing and that was partying, drugs and alcohol. I felt this was the only thing that made me happy but there was one thing missing. I was still a virgin.

Now a lot of my friends have that special story of how they lost their virginity. Either they lost it to a girlfriend or at a party. My story is nothing like that.

When I came back to Ohio to live I had my mind made up that I wasn’t going to be broke anymore. I was going to sell drugs so that I can finally have what I have been longing for; a car, a place of my own and money in my pocket.

One night while hanging with some friends off of Lakeview Avenue in Cleveland. We came across a berry (A woman who sells her body for drugs) who was looking for a hit (to buy some drugs). But she didn’t have any money. She pleaded. “I will suck your dick if you give me a hit”. My friend Mark hesitated. Then he looked back at me and asked. “Hey Jay, you want to fuck?”

Seeing my opportunity to lose my virginity I jumped at it. Now what complicated things was the fact that I didn’t have any drugs on me to give her. So, I told her that I would give her a dub (twenty-dollar rock of crack cocaine) if she let me have sex with her.

She took me behind an apartment building down in the lower level near a basement entrance. After I finished that was it. No hugging, kissing or laughter. Just sex.

At the time I didn’t care. My innocence was already corrupted. A milestone in a man’s life. I had taken the excitement of the first time out of it because I got tired of being teased and lying about sexual escapades. Now that I crossed that off my short list, it is time to look for a girlfriend.

Veronica

I had no idea of how a relationship was supposed to work. The give and take, the sacrifice and the high level of commitment were things that were foreign to me. Did I have an example of a relationship? Yes, I did. But as good of a man that my step-father is I could not relate to him. When I looked at him I wanted to see my father. I wanted to see how I would look in a relationship.

I never had that talk of how to seductively get a girl’s attention without having to empty out my bank account.

This is not an indictment on my stepfather, I just never asked him for advice. I just figured that with the promise that I made to my mother on not dating white girls what was the point?

So, I a lot of what I know I learned from my friends experiences, television and music. I was determined to be a self-taught man. Since my father wasn’t around I didn’t see learning any other way.

One night, Eric and I went to one of our favorite clubs, Vel’s. Vel’s night club was the hottest club in Cleveland during the early 1990’s. Eric and I both had returned home from college around the same time. For us the weekend started on Wednesday and ended on Sunday night, unless there was a three-day weekend and in that case Monday.

But on this night, something just felt different. Most of the time when we would go to clubs together we would always stay close to each other. Even though at this time things were relatively quiet on the streets with lack of negative gang activity, we knew that at any given moment something could happen and on rare occasions it would. But for the most part a lot of nights went off without any incident.

I remember walking around the club trying to find someone to dance with.

Vel’s was one of the biggest clubs in Cleveland. It had a stage where artist would could perform on and there also was the main dance floor in front of the stage that could easily fit two hundred people comfortably.

As I made my way towards the stage I noticed a tall, dark skinned, voluptuous woman dancing with what look to be a couple of friends. I watched her turned down men advances. But I had to get closer to check her out. So, I made way on stage.

When I got on stage I noticed few guys had congregated around this woman and her friends. By the time Eric had caught up to me, he noticed that I had been looking at this group of girls. With one that I had my eye on. So together we walked up to the three of them.

She stood about five feet seven, mocha chocolate skin tone, with a very voluptuous figure that had every man around us envious of me. From a far I had watched her turn down guy after guy. But when I asked she said yes.

I didn’t want it to go to waste. So, I used some of my best dance moves on dance floor. Getting tested in every way from hip hop to reggae to rhythm and blues and back to hip hop. Our chemistry was amazing. We spent most of that evening dancing and talking. I even manage to get a kiss out of her before we left the club.

When the last call went out for alcohol we knew that the night was coming to an end. I walked her to Veronica to her car. I sat in her car and we kissed and talked then kissed again. WOW!!! Is this what I have been missing for all these years? Man, if every day could be like this then I should marry her, I thought.

We exchanged phone numbers that night. A couple of weeks later we became a couple.

I was clueless over what a man’s role is in a relationship. I didn’t ask my stepfather for advice. I felt at the age of twenty-one I should already know but I didn’t. So, I did some elaborate research. I watched television shows, movies that centered on romancing and seducing a woman. But I was not prepared for what was about to happen.

Veronica was no Clair Huxtable or even Denise Huxtable. Veronica was very intelligent, compassionate, funny, direct, aggressive, opinionated, and moody at times. But there would be times where I didn’t know who she was going to be on any given day.

This is when I learned about the premenstrual syndrome and where the most of her mood swings that originated from. Our worst arguments would be the week before she started bleeding. I never paid attention to it with my mother, so I was clueless in my understanding of women and the characteristic that most women share. I knew what a period was, but I felt like someone should have told me that Ms. Hyde comes out four to five days before she starts bleeding.

I remember a time when we were leaving her favorite restaurant in my car and an argument started over something clearly out of the blue. She accused me of not loving her enough. I looked at her is disbelief. “What are you talking about? I asked. She proceeded to list my short comings as a man and without warning she said, “Stop the car!!! I want out of this damn car!”

I said, “It’s after midnight, you are miles away from your house are you sure?”

“Stop the damn car!!!” she replied.

So, I stopped the car in the middle of the street. She got out as if she was going to walk to her house or wait for a cab. I asked her to get back into the car, but she wouldn’t. I was conflicted, I really didn’t want to leave her there, but I wasn’t going to let her dictate to me how this situation was going to go down. So, when the light turned green. I started to pull off a little bit. She still didn’t move. So I waited for her to eventually walk to the car to get in it.

The first thing she says to me when she gets in is, “You are a fucking asshole! I can’t believe you were about to pull off!!!” We argued all the way to her house.

By the time we got there we had broken up. I dropped her off and started back to my parent’s house. I am getting ready to get on interstate 480 when my pager starts buzzing. I look to see who it is Veronica. Which surprised me because we had just broken up and I was dealing with it the possibility of not having her in my life anymore. Now she is paging me? Why? To pour more salt on the wound?

I waited until I got home to call her back.

When I called her, it was as if I was talking to someone completely different. She was in tears. I was completely thrown off. I thought to myself, “This girl is fucking crazy!” She did not show this side when she was cursing me out. Now suddenly, she is sorry…Huh???

The next day she revealed to me that she was about to come on her period.

I felt compelled to let her know some of my past. I told her that I was exposed to domestic violence and since I have some of my biological father’s characteristics how I respond in verbal arguments this way was always a concern for me. I didn’t trust myself to remain calm and though I did not blow up on her that night, I thought it was only a matter of time before I would cross that line.

Images that I had suppressed for so long started to come in and out of mind like a continuous slide show. My father beating my mother, Christina sexually abusing me, my grandfather molesting me and the death of my friends never seemed to leave my mind. I felt as though my soul will be forever corrupted.

But I was in love now and things would just have to get better. Even though I did not know what my next move was as far as college, military or career I felt that I was ready to settle down. Unbeknownst to Veronica, I started to place the responsibility of my happiness on her. When things were good with us they were good but when it was bad it went bad.

Just about every argument ended with a break up. We would stay apart long enough to miss each other. We would always seem to find a reason to get back together that reason for me was sex.

This is the first time that I started to recognize that I had intimacy issues. It difficult for me to cuddle with Veronica and not be aroused. For me it was one in the same. Intimacy equaled sex in my eyes. I didn’t understand why that was the case. At the time I just chalked it up to being excited but there was a deeper issue that I wasn’t seeing.

But I continued. I was at a point in my life that I started to think about having a family as if that was the solution to my unhappiness. Veronica and I had been talking about getting married and having a family.

I thought I was ready to make that jump. So, we went out and looked at some engagement rings. She picked out the style that she liked. I went back to get the ring. I set up everything trying to make it special. Later on, that week I took her out to dinner and pop the question.

“Veronica, will you marry me?” She smiled back at me and said, “Yes!!!”

This was a joyous occasion that lasted for about a couple of days. Then Veronica asked the question that I was not prepared to answer. “John, how do your parents feel about us getting married?” Boom!!! All euphoria ended with that question.

These two people, along with my grandmother did not like the fact that I was not in college or going into the military. So of course, I did not have their blessing. This put wedge between me and them. Strangely enough it put a permanent wedge between me and Veronica. She didn’t see the fact that I put her first. Maybe I shouldn’t have but this is what I wanted.

Now our arguments were centered on my parent’s perceived lack of approval of her. She was hurt by that and she took it out on me. Here I am caught squarely in the middle of what was turning into an ugly feud over me.

Feeling like I was on my own. Went ahead with my engagement to Veronica. We decided to get an apartment together to get used to living with each other. She was in school and working at a local bank. I was in training to be an insurance debit agent for American General. I thought things would be alright. I felt that my parents would eventually come around to the idea of accepting Veronica but not now. If we got our footing with her getting ready to graduate from trade school and me getting ready to pass my certification to be insurance agent, we would be alright.

But soon it came crashing down.

Veronica quit her part time job at the bank over a dispute with management, which left us with only one income for the apartment which made it tough to make ends meet. On top of that was the fact that my income was not guaranteed because I had to pass my state exam to get my certification which meant the money that I was bringing was only a fraction of what I could be making due to my trainee status.

One day while I was at work being mentored by a senior by a senior agent. Veronica wanted to talk to me. She paged me but because I was in the field I could not call her until I got back to the office. When I got back to the office I could see that the office secretary was visibly upset. She looked at me shaking her head. She said to me, “John your fiancé called for you. The regional manager would like to speak to you.”

I went into his office. When he saw me come into his office he looked at me and said, “John please close the door”.

I closed the door and quickly sat in the chair in front of his desk.

“Okay John, a couple of things. I just got the results from your state exam and you didn’t pass”. My heart sank. “John, we can have you take the test again but today your girlfriend called the office looking for you. When our secretary told her that you could not be reach because you were in the field she proceeded to curse the secretary out. When I got on the phone she had some choice words for me too. John, I can’t have this happening in a place of business. We are going to have to let you go for now, but I want to keep the door open for you to return”.

I am completely shocked and embarrassed. The manager goes on to say, “John, you are a nice guy, but you might have to reconsider your choice to marry this girl”. I looked at him then dropped my head. I thanked him for the opportunity as I shook his hand and left his office. I apologized to the secretary, cleaned out my desk and left the office.

I’m driving home and all I could think about were my parents telling me, ‘we told you so’. Not that they literally said it but to lose a job not just because of your performance but for the person you are with was hard to overlook.

When I got to the apartment to the apartment it was like a scene from a Married with Children episode and Veronica is playing Peggy Bundy.

I come home to no cooked dinner and a whole lot of attitude. She was sitting down on the couch watching Jerry Springer. “John, I tried to reach you today what were you doing? I looked at her as if she had lost her mind. She goes on the say, “I called your office and some secretary there would not give me your contact information. What if it had been an emergency?” I did not reply. I sat down. Head down looking at the floor. I started to look around the apartment. All I kept thinking about is what is going to be my next move because I am the only one that was working and the only one on the lease. Finally sensing something is wrong with me she asked, “John, what’s wrong?”

I told her that I did not pass the exam and that they let me go. I don’t know why I didn’t lead with her being part of the reason but before I could get to that she got mad at me. She kept asking me, what are we going to do? Then the ‘we’ turned into what are you going to do. I told her that I will do what I must do.

I told a friend of mine (James) about my situation. He told me that he and two other people wanted to go out to Lorain to rob a known drug dealer out there. They only needed a driver. He told me that they would pay me seven hundred dollars just to get the out there and back, but we would also split what we get four ways.

James asked, “What do you think?”

It didn’t take me long to agree to do it. Rent was due in less than two weeks. When I told Veronica about it at first, she didn’t mind but she started to grow concern the closer it came to me meeting up with James. Before I left she asked me to be careful. I told her I would. Not realizing the fact that I might not make back home tonight.

I met with James and two other associates around 6:00 pm. I drove them out to Lorain, Ohio to find the drug dealer.

We first went to drug dealer’s house. We got there around 7:30pm. We sat outside his house for approximately two hours. There was no activity. Not even a girlfriend or mother or a child, no one was home. I started to think that this was the worst mistake that I could have ever made. Not that I could go to jail or worst die but because James and his associates were not prepared.

But just as I thought this was a waste of time one of James’ associates stated that he brought an ounce crack cocaine with him. He came up with the idea of taking over the drug dealer’s territory to flush him out. Here I am in another city trying to sell dope just so that I could keep my apartment.

We stayed in the Lorain for about three more hours and the dealer never showed up. It’s almost as if he knew we were coming. But we did make some money while we were there. Collectively we made about fifteen hundred dollars. Split that four ways and I should be alright as far as covering the rest of my rent.

James and his associates wanted to celebrate. They found a prostitute to have sex with. I did not want any part of it. I just wanted to take my cut and go home but since I drove I had to wait on them to finish.

I parked the car in a parking lot behind some houses. They took the woman behind some trees and bushes.

When James got finished he jumped into the back seat of the car and yelled, “Nigga take off, let’s leave her ass!!!” As I started to pull off I notice that James couldn’t get the rear passenger door closed before I knew the prostitute had grabbed onto the door as the car was moving. James tried to push her out, but she wasn’t losing that grip. Before I knew it she was in the car as I started to pull out of the parking lot.

Right at that moment I saw lights flashing. Damn!!! We got busted!

The police pulled up on us. James hid the rest of his dope on one of his associates that was in the wheelchair. James put it right underneath him feeling that the police were not going to pull him out of the car and search him. James’ other associate did the same thing with the rest of the marijuana and crack he had on himself. We tried to get our stories straight with the car smelling like marijuana we were going to get searched. It was just a matter of what were they going to find.

The officer asked me to step out of the car. He had me stand over near the front hood of my car. The police officer said, “Your car smells like weed. How long ago did you smoke it? Empty out your pockets for me.”

I pulled out some cash, a few receipts and some candy wrappers. He took my cash (three hundred dollars) and put it in the middle in the middle of the hood. His partner asked James and his associate to get out of the car. He searched them and empty their pockets on the hood of my car. All our cash was out on the hood of the car. The cash they paid me to drive and cash we made that night.

Police officer said, “Here’s the thing, you guys keep saying that this money is from your pay checks, but I don’t see any pay stubs. If you don’t produce a pay stub for me right now I will confiscate this money”. “Nothing? Okay if I ever see you in this neighborhood again I will lock you up, do you understand me?”

We all replied in the affirmative.

On the way back to Cleveland no one said a word. I didn’t get back home until four o’clock in the morning.

I knew as soon as I opened the door I knew I was going to hear it. Veronica came rushing out of the bedroom and asked me, “So how did I go?”

I told her what happened, and she went off. She cursed me out and then said that she was leaving me and going back to her mother’s house. I didn’t even fight it. There wasn’t much I could do she was not on the lease. She wasn’t on the hook for the rent that was my problem.

I watched her pack her stuff and leave.

Two weeks had passed. I sunk to a new low now. As far as I could see everything I touched turned bad, college, my relationship with my parents, my career and now my relationship. Thoughts of suicide really started to become more prevalent. What did I have to live for? I just wasn’t seeing it. Every time I would wake up I would ask myself why I even bother.

I even threaten Veronica with suicide. I remember mixing bleach and ammonia together and was going to drink it. Veronica kept calling and paging me and I wouldn’t answer. I sat in the bathroom with this concoction inhaling the fumes and just looking into this bowl thinking, am I ready to die? Right before I could answer that question I heard a knock on the door. At first, I tried to ignore it but the person knocking would not leave.

I answered the door and it was the maintenance staff coming to do HVAC inspection. But this knock at the door interrupted me and I was okay with that for now. I was a little light headed from inhaling the fumes and I had to go to my new job that one of Veronica’s family members helped me get as a mail courier. I worked the third shift which I was not used to.

I was on my way home from working all night and was struggling just to stay awake. The company I worked for was based in Garfield Heights. My apartment was in Euclid, Ohio on Lakeshore Boulevard.

It was a chilly night. I was driving with the windows down think that the frigid air would keep me awake. But I kept swerving. I remember getting off on Babbit Road and feeling as though I was close to home being home and once I saw familiar landmarks I relaxed which was a mistake.

I was awakened by my car hitting the curb. Before I could react, I hit a telephone pole head on. To make matters worse I didn’t have a seatbelt on. As the car made impact with the telephone pole my chest crushed the steering wheel and my head went into the windshield shattering the glass. As I fell back into the driver seat. I can remember being covered in glass fragments before blacking out.

When I woke up I was in intensive care. I overhead the nurses talk amongst each other, “he is lucky. The officer said that his car was totaled”.

I left the hospital with a knee contusion, minor concussion and a bruised sternum. But rather than look at the blessing the only thing I focused on was the fact that now that I didn’t have a car meant that I didn’t have a job. No job meant that I was going to lose the apartment.

My mother asked me to come back home. At first, I was reluctant, but I realized that I didn’t have anywhere else to go and at this point I needed to be home.

Veronica and I broke up for good. I was mad at her for a long time, but I was more upset with myself for getting caught up like that with no protection for myself. I promised myself that no woman would ever get that close to me again.

Stephanie

After going through Air Force basic training, technical training school and spending some time at my duty station in Maryland. I came back to Cleveland for the Thanksgiving weekend. I had just gotten out of a long-distance relationship and looking to party.

I called Eric to see if he wanted to go out to a club. Things had changed it was November 1997 and Vel’s had long since closed. The main club Cleveland at the time was the Millennium. Eric and I reminisced over old times as we were walking into the club. The nostalgia had me pumped for one classic escapade. Eric and I were always good for something unusual happening to us when we are out together. Tonight, I was hoping for more of the same, in a good way of course.

We walked in and just like before we walked around the club to see what kind of turn out this club had. It was a nice crowd. All of a sudden the lights come on over the dance floor. I heard the disc jockey ask for security to come to the dance floor. When I used to hear that I would look for Eric to make sure it wasn’t him caught in the melee but on this night, it wasn’t them men this time. It was two women fighting on the dance floor. Eric and I laughed at it because this time it was the women stopping the music in the club.

After things settled down people went right back to what they were doing. I looked over at the bar. But I wasn’t looking in that direction because I wanted a drink. I was looking in that direction to find the restroom. When I looked over in that direction I noticed a woman staring at me. She was looking at me very intently which made me very uncomfortable. I started to think that maybe I met her before. As I shifted through the mental images of faces in my head she did not look familiar.

The closer I came to her I figured that I had to say something, but I couldn’t think of anything. Finally, something spontaneously rolled off my tongue.

I noticed that she wasn’t smiling. I said, “You know you should smile baby it can’t be that bad”. I breathed a sigh of relief because obviously I wasn’t on her hit list. I was thinking that when I left the restroom I would ask her to dance. When I came out she was gone. I went back to the dance floor to see where Eric was at.

In the back of my mind I wondered where she went. I looked over my shoulder in the direction of the bar and there she was. I walked up to her asked her name (Stephanie), I looked in the direction of the dance floor and before I could get it out she was headed to the dance floor. She looked back at me as if to say why are you still standing there? We danced for the rest of the night until the last call for alcohol. The chemistry between us was great. I had a great feeling that night this might be something special.

As the club was closing we didn’t want the night to end. I told her that I had to catch the Greyhound bus in the morning. Which didn’t leave us much time to do anything else. She offered to take me to my parent’s house. I said goodbye to Eric and I left with Stephanie. Once we made it there, she parked in front of the house and we talked until we started to see the sun rise. We exchanged phone numbers and I kissed her passionately goodbye.

Stephanie lived in Cincinnati, Ohio and I was stationed in Maryland. The distance between us did not deter us from wanting to be together. We talked every day since that first time we met. In about two weeks we became a couple.

I was at a point in my life where I was really looking to settle down. Even though I had my birthmark removed I was not looking to test the field so to speak. I really wanted to have a family. I felt that would be the answer to my unhappiness that I was still experiencing. I wanted to be a husband and a father. For the first time since Veronica I saw that possibility with Stephanie.

During our courtship I was completely faithful, just as I was with Veronica. Sure, with my fresh look women made advances towards me but I wasn’t biting. I wanted to take the necessary precautions to make sure that wouldn’t happen. So, I came up with the idea of beefing up my porn collection. I thought this would curb the lusting after other women. I didn’t realize what Pandora’s Box I was about to open with it but in my mind, this was the best option for dealing with a long-distance relationship.

Besides the way things were going with Stephanie and I who knows we might get married soon. But for right now let me use porn as a means to entertain myself with when things get bad.

I was twenty-four years old, Stephanie was twenty-two years old when I proposed to her just four months after we first met. I felt that I was ready to get married. Besides I felt that things were perfect. We hadn’t had an argument or any major issues. Even though we only saw each other once a month we talked every day and I felt I knew her well enough to make that decision.

I could hear my mother’s voice in my head saying, ‘boy don’t shack’n up with nobody do it the right way’. Okay even though we were fornicating when we got together; you’re going to overlook that and focus on not living together? Alright mom I thought. Since I want to do it right and me wanting a family lined up that right way in my mind why not get married? What’s the worst that can happen?

Stephanie and I were married July 2, 1998. We had a relatively small ceremony in her church in Cleveland, Ohio. This day had finally gotten here. I was now a husband and she was now my wife. It was as if I was proud of myself. I remember feeling that sense of pride that comes over a man when others in the room have to acknowledge your woman as your wife.

I’m all in.

I remember people would tell me that since we are newlyweds our honeymoon period will probably last year or two. But after that it will get ‘real’ real fast. We beat that in about three months.

Stephanie assumed that there would be no need for me to have a porn collection that was separate from our own. This had been such a big part of my life at this point I didn’t understand why it was a big deal to her. So, I kept sneaking it in the house. I would strategically hide magazines and DVD’s all over house. I would mostly put them in areas where she wouldn’t frequent. Such as the storage room, my car, up in the ceiling anywhere I could hide it I would.

This was my release. This was something I wanted for myself how come she could understand that? I thought she was tripping. The way I was seeing it I wasn’t cheating so what harm am I doing?

Besides we had other issues to worry about. When we first got married I wasn’t in the best of financial situations. My credit so bad that I couldn’t qualify for a VA home loan. So we had to stay in base housing which wasn’t ideal but it was better than the alternative. But my poor credit and with her fair credit rating there wasn’t much we could get in terms household appliances and things of that nature.

Even though we were married we kept things separate. We had separate bank accounts we halved everything including utilities, cable and trips. The only problem with that is my military salary left me short on my end most of the time and that was a major issue with her at the time.

Another issue for me was Stephanie’s sassy mouth. The funny thing was it wasn’t as if I didn’t see it coming. I thought would never be on the receiving end of one of those tirades that I heard her have over the phone with people around her. But since we were out the gate with drama that I brought in. I was getting it… a lot!

Two years in to our marriage we were pretty much living separate lives but would come together just to put on appearances for friends and family.

By the year 2000, my porn addiction received a supernova with advent of the internet into the private sector. Not only did I have my magazines and DVD’s not I could see the same images on my personal computer.

Things had deteriorated so badly between us that our intimacy was basically relegated to once every two weeks. This was okay with me at first but when she cut my off from having sex with her it did not deter me from porn it just made the lust grow even stronger. I went from porn to having sex with strippers to meeting women to have secret affairs with and that still wasn’t enough.

I remember the first time I physically cheated on Stephanie. Stephanie was going to Cincinnati for a sorority event over the Labor Day weekend. But my best friend Eric was coming to Washington D.C. for the first time and I wanted to make sure that we were going to have a classic weekend. I took Eric to a strip club that wasn’t far from our house. It small place located in a commercial building district in Capital Heights, Maryland.

I had frequented this place often. So, some of the strippers there were familiar with me even if they didn’t know my name.

Her name was Caramel. I don’t know why I remember that, but I do. She was getting into her routine totally trying to seduce me with her bedroom eyes. She had that classic coca cola bottle shape that would make the average man weak. She would come close to kissing me. She would put her head between my legs as if to assimilate giving me head. I was totally aroused, and she knew it.

She started to outline the bulge in my pants with both her hands. Impressed. She turned her back to me and sat on my lap and started grinding creating a fevered pitch that I wasn’t about to cool down from. It was as if she knew that I wanted to go further. She asked me, “Do you want me?” Without hesitation I said, “Hell yeah!!!” She whispers to me, “For eighty dollars I’ll hook you baby”. I thought she was going to say that we could go somewhere else for privacy but before I knew she was reaching down my pants. She pulled a condom out of her purse and slid it on then quickly straddle me.

After it was over I felt that things between me and Stephanie were going to change forever. I remember telling Eric, “Man I fucked up!!!” He asked me what was wrong. So, I told him what had just happened. He asked me what I was going to do now with my marriage. I couldn’t give him answer. I really didn’t know but I knew that it wasn’t going to be the same after this.

I try to rationalize it and say, ‘well if she had not cut me off maybe I wouldn’t be out here’. I didn’t see that anything wrong with how I was acting. The more I thought about the more I kept looking at Stephanie as the problem. I started to accentuate her flaws.

In my mind, she needed to change first. If she would be the way I need her to be then I would be the perfect husband. But the more she keeps nagging me the worst it’s going to get. It was as if I was my love for her hostage and the only way she was going to get that back was to be the wife I need her to be. If she didn’t then it would be gone forever.

During this period, I drank alcohol a lot. I was still in the military, so marijuana was not an option. Alcohol and sex became my crutch. When I didn’t have one I had the other. I would go through a case beer every other day and on the weekends, I would get a liter off brandy to go with my beer.

My life was spiraling out of control and the only way to maintain was with the alcohol and sex. My finances were horrible, my marriage was falling apart, and I had just been reprimanded for viewing pornographic material at my duty station. On top of that was the fact that I was running from my past.

The images of what my grandfather did to me had me questioning myself as a man. From that I needed to hear affirmation that I’m a man in my woman’s eyes. Since Stephanie had pretty much kept her distance emotionally, I wasn’t getting that affirmation that I was that to her, her man.

I went free falling into a cyber-world looking for someone to fill my void. The void left in my soul. Sounds like mission impossible? Not to an addict. To me my wife didn’t understand me like I needed her to. She became my enemy in my eyes. I convinced myself that my life would have been better had I not married her.

How could I get out of this marriage? I’m going to make things so tough for her that she will have to leave me. It has happened before why would this be any different? From my father to some of my friend’s people were leaving me and I felt it would only be a matter of time before Stephanie would be next.

I tried to expedite the divorce but before I do that I have to secure a safety net. I remembered the first time I made that emotional attachment to someone online while I was still married.

I met a woman from the Bahamas. To me she was everything that Stephanie wasn’t and fell for her. We chatted everyday just as Stephanie did before. I was head over heels for her. Which made it hard to be emotionally invested in marriage. I pulled back and Stephanie could feel it.

She found my chat messages that transpired between me and this woman. She printed out every communication so that I could see it. I could not deny it the evidence was there. So I flipped on her. I made it her fault when she asked me what was wrong with our marriage. I listed some things that I needed from her and she listed some things from as a man. But what she didn’t know was I wasn’t doing any of it until I got what I wanted first.

This cycle went on for years. I kept pushing her away and she wouldn’t let me go. Every time I would get caught I would find a way around how she found out. Whether it’s changing profiles on websites or email accounts I was not stopping.

But with each time that I got caught I’m trying to figure out why is it I cannot turn this off when I want to? Why am I still feeling emotionally bankrupt? I’m not happy at all. Even with the women on the side I still find myself lacking something. I just could not figure that out.

I remember one time I got caught we had one of those talks that we always seemed to have after a moment of amnesty. I broke down. I broke down and told Stephanie that I had been sexually abused and molested. For once, I wasn’t gaming her. This was my attempt at being raw with her. I cried right there in front of her. My scars were now open wounds again.

I was so confused. I can install a car stereo, but I couldn’t emotionally get over my past. I can play football, but I can’t tackle what is behind my addiction. I’m everything to other people. A good grandson, son, brother and friend but I couldn’t be the husband that Stephanie needed me to be. Why?

It wasn’t her fault. It never was. It was mine all mine. The reality of that fact hit me like an anvil.

When I looked at Stephanie now. All I kept seeing was the damage that I caused. I would think she would never look at me the same. She will never trust me again. I was clueless as to how was going to make things work. I started to get discourage. There were no way things were ever going to be the same.

Stephanie was hurting and there was little I could do. I couldn’t wipe it all away. Plus, when she would lash out. I didn’t receive it well. I would retreat into doing my thing. Just to start the cycle all over again.

We had started going to church as a last-ditch effort to save our marriage. But for me, I was not going to change that much. I changed a little by not hanging out with friends much thinking that staying home and in her face, more was going to make things alright. But now she was the one that would be gone a lot. I never suspected that she would ever cheat on me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she did because I wasn’t giving her much to hold on to.

December 2001, Stephanie caught me again chatting with women this time she set me up by posing as a woman who just so happened to email me by mistake and now she wanted to get to know me. I fell for it. She had me telling her everything that I thought was wrong with my marriage and what I didn’t like about my wife. All our conversations were happening during the day while I was at work.

When I got home she had been waiting on me. She had printed out the email conversations we had with each other. Busted!!!

We had amnesty hour. She came clean about all of her affairs and I came clean over the ones that she knew about and confirmed her suspicions with the others.

We were starting fresh.

She mentioned to me that she wanted us to be a family. That meant having children. She didn’t know why we hadn’t gotten pregnant yet. So, she asked me to go to a fertility clinic to make sure that I didn’t have a low sperm count.

I went to the clinic in February but before we could get the results back she was pregnant. I was excited about being a father. Finally!!!

Our marriage as fragile as it was I felt needed purpose and her being pregnant with our baby. I was so happy I about that I cut everything out. No more chatting, no more women, no more strip clubs I am a family man now.

This euphoric feeling lasted for about four months. Then I got selfish. I noticed started noticed what I wasn’t getting from her now that she was pregnant. Most of the time she was not feeling up to having sex. I felt if I found just one woman to fill in where she couldn’t it would be alright.

But I should have known that I couldn’t limit it to just one. When I jump into that cyber-world there are no restraints. Anyone showing me any attention was getting that reciprocated and then some. I just wanted to someone to be there for me as I was handling my duties as a husband and a soon to be father.

I was out of control.

Being an expecting father brought about a new stress to me. Not the financial stress but the stress of confronting the fact that I needed to be more responsible as a man. I was ashamed of myself and everything I claimed to represent. I stood in church as a saved saint, claiming to have everything together but I wasn’t that much different than I was when I wasn’t saved. The only difference now was for every negative action there was regret and an attempt at redemption. I always found myself on my knees asking God to help with the same issue. I felt that I had done everything necessary to change but why wasn’t it happening? Why don’t I have peace of mind? What am I doing wrong? Why wasn’t prayer by itself not delivering the results I wanted?

One night I hooked up with a woman that I had been talking to for a couple weeks. We decided to meet at a hotel. After we had finished. I came home as if I had come from the gym. But Stephanie knew where I had been, and she had the emails and cell phone records to prove it. Here I am busted again. She was ready to kick me out, but she was only going to keep me there because she didn’t want to raise a child by herself.

I felt like a monster. How am I different than my father? My addiction was putting my family at risk just like my fathers did. Even though I wasn’t physically abusing my wife I was tormenting her emotionally. She never got a chance to experience true marriage bliss. Every time she thought we were on the right path I would snatch that away from her.

Now I’m about to be a father. What example am I setting for this child? If I’m having a son do I want my son to be like me? If I’m having a daughter would I want her to marry a man like me? The answer to both questions is a resounding no. So, what do I do now?

Stephanie stormed out of the living room, running upstairs to the bedroom then slammed the door.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed a bottle of vodka and some pain killers. I swallowed all the pills in the bottle. Rinsing it down with about a half a bottle. I really felt that my child would be better off not knowing I ever existed.

As I started to pass out Stephanie came down stairs to find me with an almost empty bottle of pain killers and vodka that was about gone. She called 911. The ambulance came and took me away to Prince Georges County hospital. They pumped my stomach out while I was intensive care. After that they kept me for the weekend on the psychiatric ward under suicide watch for the weekend.

I kept asking God why me? Why do you keep saving me? I’m not worth it? No response would come. I didn’t understand what my purpose in life was. Why did other’s die before their time and I’m still here trying to figure life out. I didn’t have a career to hang my hat on, in debt, failed in a lot of my business ventures to that point, my marriage was on life support if not in a coma and now I’m about to be a father to a child that doesn’t know that their father is a failure.

On September 27th, 2002 my daughter was born at the end of Stephanie’s seven month of pregnancy. About a month after my suicide attempt. Nala, my princess, was born with a pair of healthy lungs. She had my hands, my feet and even my nose. Because Nala was born prematurely she had to stay in the hospital for a month just so that the doctors could monitor her and make sure she could eat and breathe on her own.

January 2003, I was back at it again.

This time when Stephanie caught me she wanted to kick me out. But I kept throwing up in her face that as long as I was on the lease I wasn’t going anywhere. She was determined to get me out of the house. She kept hitting me upside the head. She went up to the bedroom and started throwing my clothes down the stairs going towards the kitchen and the front door.

I still not did not move. She yelled, “Get the fuck out!!! You are leaving tonight” She put all my clothes in a pile on the floor in the middle of the kitchen. But was still sitting in the kitchen not moving. She came into living room and shoved me hard in the head telling me to get out.

I lost it. I jumped up and wrapped both hands around her throat. I pushed her against her chair where she lost her balance and I ended up on top of her. All I kept thinking about is could I get away with killing her. As I squeezed tighter images of my daughter without both of her parents dominated my mind just that quick.

I let up on Stephanie. I was so shocked that I ended doing the one thing I would swear to anyone that I wouldn’t do. I told anyone that would listen, even my mother at a very young that I would never put my hands on any woman. But this was my wife. The mother of my daughter.

I had crossed a line that had even scared me. Stephanie was trying to apologize to for her role in it but I couldn’t accept it. I should have never done it. This wasn’t the first time she hit me in response to something that I had done. She had even bloodied my nose once, but I should not have crossed this line. So, I left.

I found a room for rent where I stayed for about two months. I had a lot of time to reflect on what was the cause of my behavior. It was my past. I had not reconciled my past. How was I going to do that? I didn’t know where to start.

What about my marriage? Was it repairable? In my estimation with me putting my hands on her there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t happen again. Plus, with the damage between us not only would I have to rebuild her trust and belief in me again. I would have to place value in her again therefore something like that wouldn’t happen again.

But when Stephanie reached out to me to come back the main reason why I came back was because of my daughter. I thought our love for our daughter would be a reason to rebuild our marriage. But it wasn’t. We had deteriorated to the point where she was tired of me and I was tired of dealing with her barbs. I felt that there’s no way I can move to a positive future if I’m being defined by my past.

We needed to separate for a while, but the birth of our daughter made that especially tough for me because I remember how I felt about my father not being around. But at what cost? Arguments between Stephanie and myself were not happening just in private anymore. We were doing it in front of our daughter. Did I want my daughter to be brought up in a loveless family? Of course not. Though the church that we were going to advocated against divorce. But the more I looked at it, it was the best option at the time.

This time I was going to force the issue. But instead of being a man about it and sitting her down talking it out. I decided to start chatting again. If I got caught again I knew that it would end us. This time I would be prepared for her to kick me out.

I jumped back into chatting with women. I knew what the result would be and I was not worried about the consequences. If I lose everything so be it. I didn’t want the house, her pension or anything from her. I just wanted to be able to see my daughter without the court having to intervene.

When she caught me for the last time. It was as I predicted. Stephanie had had enough of me. She gave me thirty days’ notice to leave the home. In retaliation, I got a couple of signature loans out to satisfy my need to get furniture and a bedroom set for my apartment.

As prepared as I was it was extremely hard to leave my daughter. But I did not want to be together with her mother just for the sake of the child. But I knew that eventually I would have to explain myself. When she got older I let all about me, the good, the bad and the ugly.

November 30th, 2005, I packed up my belongings for the last time. I was not coming back to here live. In my mind I had planned it out a thousand times. But now it was official. We were done as husband and wife.

Now I had to find myself. I was determined to be a better man for at least my daughter. I was living in a moral deficit. My priorities needed to be rearranged to match up with the kind of man that I wanted to be. But how would I go about doing that?

Climbing that mountain was a daunting task that appeared too much for me to handle. For the first time I realized that change was not going to happen overnight. It was going to be a slow, painstaking process to a peace of mind, peace in my heart and peace in my soul. Where was I going start? Clueless, I got frustrated and gave up. I wasn’t ready to accept full responsibility for my part of my marriage not working out. To me I was reacting off what she was doing. Why does it have to be me?

Dear Stephanie,

I know I have said it before, but I want the world to know that I deeply apologize for all that I have done to you.

I know that you have mentioned before that you felt that I kept this from you. There was no knowing that it would manifest itself the way that it did. If I had known that I would go down this road I would have never asked you to marry me because I would have been able to understand that I was not ready for that level of commitment no matter what superficial benefit I would get by us being together it wasn’t the right time for me.

The last thing I ever wanted was for us to end the way we did. I should have been man enough to express what was wrong with our marriage without going to that extreme. I did not respect you or the marriage for that I am deeply sorry.

I want to thank you. I want to thank you for the ultimate sacrifice. You gave me the one gift that I could never repay you for and that’s our beautiful daughter.

Stephanie, I promise to be a way better father than I ever was as a husband. I hope that over the years after our divorce I have proven that to you.

My God continue to bless and keep you safe.

Yours Truly,

John

Alexis

I was in a position where I just wanted someone to understand me. I wasn’t desperate, but I was close. I was free falling and I needed someone to catch me. I was out telling my story trying to get that empathy.

When I met Alexis, she was everything I thought Stephanie wasn’t. Everything about her to me was different. Her view of the world was different. She was very liberal as opposed to Stephanie. The differences between the two is what attracted to Alexis more.

I never questioned myself whether I was ready for another relationship. I just jump into it. I thought that I had been through enough to where I would never go down the road that I went down with Stephanie. Besides she was different.

The more I started to commit to her the more I started to think that I wasn’t ready for this level of commitment that she needed from me. Early on in our relationship I fell into the same behavior.

She came over to my apartment. I had mistakenly left my computer up and since we were officially in a relationship. I should not be chatting with other women, but I was. I was talking to other women trying to meet them. Alexis saw my emails and when I came out of my bathroom she asked me to take her home.

I asked her why. She said, “I see you trying to talk to other women. I don’t have time for this shit take me home!” I took her home. I did not want her to leave me, so I broke down in front of her. She gave me another chance to make it right.

Right then I realized that I hadn’t changed at all. I had to question everything that I was doing. There really was no legitimate reason for my behavior. But how was I going to change? I told Alexis about my issues with porn. I told her about my past and how it was affecting today. I basically was trying to give her a way out. Suggesting to her that she could leave if she wanted to. But she stayed.

Images from my past were a permanent stain on my brain now. I just couldn’t shake them. My grandfather molesting me, Christina abusing me, my marriage, leaving my daughter and my failures as a man. I was in very bad shape and that’s when I got a call from my mother’s father.

He was in town from Florida and wanted to come by to visit me. I didn’t want to see him, but Alexis encouraged me to see him and confront him about the molestation. At first, I was apprehensive. I know how I wanted to handle it. I wanted to beat his ass for what he did to me. But I realize that wasn’t going to be the answer.

Alexis made some suggestions as to how to handle it and realize that he would never admit any wrong doing.

When he came in my apartment Alexis was in the bedroom, so it was just me and him. He sat down on my couch and I sat next to him. I couldn’t even look at him. But I knew that I had to do it for so many years I had been wearing this badge of shame and I wanted him to wear it if only for a couple of hours. But he was going to know that he damaged me as a child.

I told him the details of what he did to me. Down to him gratifying himself in front of me. He sat back with a surprised look on his face. He stayed quiet for a second then he responded.

“John, you have to understand that at that time your grandmother and I were going through some hard times”. He tried to blame my grandmother for it but I was tuning him out. He wasn’t going to admit to it.

He left my apartment not apologizing for anything. He even tried to carry on a conversation as if we didn’t talk about something very serious in nature. At first, I was hurt but I got through it.

A month later I got a call from Grandma Burkhalter. My father was in the hospital.

He passed out in a fast food restaurant. It was believed that it was a reaction to some bad drugs that he was taking. Grandma Burkhalter gave me his hospital phone number and wrestle with should I call him or let it go. I finally decided to call him. When I called it was as if we had picked where we left off when I was toddler he was talking to me, reassuring me that he would be ok.

I felt good until I realize that he didn’t know who he was talking to. He was under the assumption that he was talking to my younger brother. Stunned and hurt, I told my father that I loved him but in heart I was hurting. He didn’t even know my own voice.

Three days later he died.

At his funeral I needed to make peace with him so that I could move on. I felt anger growing inside of me over the fact that we never got to resolve our issues. He cheated me by dying on me. What was I supposed to do now?

At the wake I made sure that no one was around me when I said what I had to say. I told him that I forgive him for what he did to my mother. I forgave him for choosing his addictions over being the father I needed. I forgave him for not being there when I needed him most. It took me about four or five months after that but I buried my anger with my father that day, but I still had to go through my grieving process.

All this before Alexis and I made it to our six-month mark as a couple. I was not only dealing with that, but I was dealing with my legal separation and being a part time father. I did not give myself a chance to deal with this on my own. But I kept thinking to myself that things will get better eventually. I was in a better situation which in my view meant that I would be better off than I was with Stephanie.

But that feeling did not last. I went right back to chatting with women online. Even though I confronted my grandfather and buried my grudge with my father. I still had problems with letting it go. With the newness of a relationship wearing off, I fell back into my comfort zone.

This is how I was dealing with my issues, my pain. I was still masking it with attention from other women and alcohol. Damn!!! I am the same person I was with Stephanie. I did not progress as I thought I did. So, I gave up.

I remember the first time I cheated on Alexis. I was at work one day and a coworker friend of mine approached me with a revelation that someone that he worked with was admirer of me and wanted to know if I would be open to communicating with her. She did not care about my relationship status. She just wanted to get to know me and see if he had chemistry.

My friend wouldn’t tell who it was, but he gave me her email address so that we could exchange emails. Curious, I sent a generic email basically saying ‘hello, how are you doing?’ This mystery lady replied. Her name was Tina. She had been watching me ever since she had started at the agency that I worked at. I was taken off guard by this, but it was something that I wasn’t going to shy away from. After a couple of days of exchanging emails, she wanted to reveal herself. When I met her we immediately hit off. I told her that I was living with my girlfriend, but she didn’t mind. She wanted me no matter what.

Tina and I would find creative ways to get together. During this time, I was playing semi-professional football for a local team. We would practice Monday thru Thursday, so I had an excuse to meet up with her because most of the time as a team we never had one hundred percent practice participation anyway. I could afford to miss a practice here or there.

The time I spent with Tina was good from the stand point at first all she wanted was sex. I was with that. What I didn’t want was for her to get attached to me. But in the end, that is exactly what happened.

One thing that I noticed about myself during this period is the fact that I wasn’t enjoying sex anymore. It started to be a chore and that is how I looked at it. The women in my life were getting something out of it accept me.

Rather than acknowledge this as an issue that I need to seek therapy over. I thought if I found a new woman that would change how I would feel about it. There’s nothing like a new lover I thought. It’s always good when it is new.

I met Gloria on a website I had just signed up to. She was looking for something casual but did not want a one-night stand. That was fine with me. I was going to be around for a while. To me that meant two or three months. I was trying to figure how I was going to juggle three women with two women I’m not supposed to be dealing with anyway.

I was reckless. I just stopped caring. My heart was numb. I knew what I was doing was wrong. I knew eventually I would get caught but I didn’t care. Sometimes I would see Tina and Gloria in the same day. Tina knew about Alexis but didn’t know about Gloria. Gloria didn’t know about Tina or Alexis. I gave her the impression that I was single.

One day it all came crashing down.

Alexis had hacked into my email accounts and saw what websites I was on. She got into my phone and read the text messages that I had sent to the two women and others. Alexis was pissed. But part of me didn’t care. I was trying to push her away from me.

Alexis had me sleep in my daughter’s room. This was the first time I was concerned for my safety and for good reason. She was totally unpredictable at this point. I knew that after our talk. If I fell asleep I would I would probably wake up looking like a used pin cushion.

It was about three o’clock in the morning when I started to doze off on my daughter’s bed. This is when Alexis came into the room with a knife. She sat in a chair adjacent to the bed just holding the knife trying to decide whether to stab me or not. She sat there for about twenty minutes just looking at me. But there was no incident. She got up and walked out.

The next day I ended both affairs with Tina and Gloria.

Unfortunately, this would not be the last time I did this. The last time was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. I met someone from Cleveland that I would see on a regular basis when I would travel to Cleveland to visit family and friends.

Alexis was finished with me after she found out. She pleaded with me to get help.

Dear Alexis,

I want to thank you. You never stopped challenging me to be better especially when I was ready to give up. You let me deal with my issues even though it meant that you would have to sacrifice the relationship which I know was hard for you to do.

I hope you find the happiness that you deserve. You are a good woman that needs a good man that has his stuff together. At least I was man enough to admit that I could not be that man for you in the state that I was in at that time.

I wish you all the best.

Yours Truly,

John

In-retrospect:My daughter asked me, “Daddy, why did you leave me?” What do you tell (eight years old at the time) a child? There was no way I could tell her all this. What I did tell her is that daddy had to get himself together. It had nothing to do with her. I wanted her to understand that leaving her was the toughest thing I ever had to do because I know what it is like to not have your father around to be a part of your life.

She told me that she remembered the day that I left. I remember it too, after I packed up my Uhaul truck I came back in to give Stephanie the key to the house. As I was leaving I saw Nala sitting on top of the steps going up to the second floor. I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge her at the top of the stairs. When I closed the door for the last time. I fought back tears as I walked to the truck. I didn’t want to leave but it was necessary.

Looking back at my serious relationships I was non-descriptive in who I was as a man. Early on I said the right things. Finding myself trying to each one’s likes and stay away from the dislikes. But when it came to me defining what I wanted or needed from a woman it was always incomplete.

So as soon as something happened in the relationship that I had an issue with I was always in protective mode over my heart but reckless with theirs.

I really couldn’t stand myself.

I remember one woman asking me recently would you want your daughter to marry a man like you. I paused and replied, “How I used to be hell no! But now, I would say yes”.

The funny thing in talking to a lot of the women that I have come across over the years that there was a common theme with all of them. The relationships with the fathers were either non-existent, dysfunctional or cancerous. Is this what I wanted for my daughter? Did I want my daughter to be one of these women seeking to understand men with no positive reference to look at in her own life? No. I realized that my daughter deserved my best. She never asked to come into this world. The fact that I was willing to abandon her disturbs me to this day. But I don’t wallow in guilt. I am determined to not only have my daughter know who her father is but to look at her future boyfriend or husband and compare. Do you take care of business like my father does? Are you family oriented like my father is? Will you be a father faithful man like my father is? Will you protect/provide for your family like my father does?

I understand that I have a lot of work to do in all areas. But for the first time in my life I realize it is not about me. I don’t have time to play the victim. This is a cold world that we live in and though past was hard. No one is going to stop time and wait for me to get it together. My time is now.

“Therapy”

I used to think that therapy was admitting that you are weak. As a man, I never wanted to acknowledge that I didn’t have it together mentally and emotionally. After my mother tried to get me help after coming back from Washington, D.C. I vowed to never set foot in a psychiatrist office. In mind, I felt that I could work it out on my own.

But God is the best communicator ever in my estimation. He knew how to reach me. I am a big crime drama fan. The Godfather series, Goodfellas, Casino, Carlito’s way, Usual Suspects and Deep Cover are my all-time favorites. So, when The Sapranos debut on HBO I thought to myself what a concept. A mob boss that had to sit in front of a psychiatrist to assess why he blacked out from a panic attack and at the same time still dealing with the criminal underworld.

At the time I was married to Stephanie when the show debuted. I had just gotten caught chatting online and we had talked about me getting help. Strangely enough this show pushed me into the deep end so to speak.

I jumped in to seeking therapy at first out of obligation. I was doing it for Stephanie. I was still in denial. Even watching the show, I was wondering how I could game it and turn it around to benefit me without changing who I was.

I went expecting to get a quick fix type of answer in an hour. I remember trying to tell my life story in that hour and at the end I wanted to know how to fix me and I would do that on my own. When the doctor gave me a prescription and asked me to come back in two weeks. I thought to myself what did I get myself into?

I wasn’t ready to go through every tragic event in detail. I was afraid of bringing up those feelings that experience during those events. Even though they were right under the surface. I was from that school of thought that if I don’t deal with it maybe just maybe it would go away. No such luck.

The reality that this was going to potentially take years to do scared me off. But every time I messed up I came right back to therapy.

What I also found out in my journey is that the relationship that you have with your therapist usually determines how successful your treatment will be. I’ve visit with some therapist were only concerned with if my insurance paid their part. I’ve had other therapists seemed to be just as unstable as I was. I even had one admitted to me that we had similar backgrounds.

But only one Therapist was perfect for me. Her name was Mary Ann.

She helped me understand that the emotional and mental fallout from those tragic events have not been addressed and as a result it was bleeding into through and affecting every layer of my life. She told me that we were going to have to get to the root of it. She told me that I would have to have homework as well.

I was excited to get started. I had a plan of attack that was something I didn’t have from the others.

The abuse I endured from Christine contributed to the type of woman that I would end up gravitating to. The aggressive women with loud boisterous voices. I would often defer to them. If you asked Veronica, Stephanie and Alexis they would all tell you that I deferred too much. But the flip side to that was the way I treated all of them was an attempt to get back at Christine for what she did to me. Every time I perceived any of them trying to take over. I would either shut down or find a way to upset them.

Not knowing who my father was as person outside of his drug and alcohol abuse also slowed my understanding as to who I was as a complete person. I always felt incomplete because I never had that relationship with him that I wanted. The only thing I had to go off was were stories from other people which helped a little bit.

Mary Ann made me realize that what gets people in trouble a lot of times is the way people think. If you change the way you think you would do better. She gave me a homework assignment that literally saved my life.

She gave me a cognitive worksheet. My task was to write down what I first think about when I first experience stress. How often am I thinking about sex? When are those times happening the most?

She had me examine every facet of my life. I focused on everything that was negative in my life. I changed how I view people, I started to become more trusting of others instead of trying to have people prove themselves first before I trust them. I finally forgave my father, my grandfather and Christine not because I wanted to excuse their actions or that I suddenly believe in their character. No, I forgave them for me. Holding on to that pain and anger wasn’t doing anything to them. They could have careless that I was hurting or that I was angry. I had to finally let go of all of it.

When I see my grandfather today in his old vulnerable state, I’m indifferent towards him, which for him is a good thing.

“March 11, 2011”

March 11th, 2011 is a special day for me because that’s when I felt that depressive haze lifted off my head, my heart and my soul. If I could I would label this day as my new birthday.

On this day I was on my way home from work sitting on the train thinking about my last session and I realized one thing. At the heart of my pain was a four-year-old boy that was never made whole after his innocence was taken from him. For years, all he wanted was for the hurt to stop but he did not know how to go about doing it.

Now that little boy can rest easy knowing that everything is alright. There’s no more pain coming to him. He is protected now and shouldn’t be afraid to live out the rest of his days in true happiness.

“Dear Nala”

Dear Nala,

My Princess. Ever since your mother and myself got divorced. I knew that I would have to explain myself to you in detail as to where I came from, where I have been in life and what ultimately lead to your mother and me splitting up. It had nothing to do with you. I want you to really believe that. I know that I have told you that before but it’s true.

Your father had a lot of issues he had to overcome but I never stopped loving you and I never will. You are my heart. You are the reason why I put that smile on my face every day and endure whatever storm comes my way. Because I know that I’m not doing this for me anymore. This is for you baby girl.

I wanted you to understand why I am so protective over you. It’s just because you are a girl. I just don’t ever want you to experience anything that I’ve been through. If I had to go through it all over again just so that you would be safe I would do it in a heartbeat no questions asked.

I will always want the best for you never forget that.

Love,

Daddy