For most people, we experience similar memories early on in life but, we will remember them and experience them differently. As we grow older we start to remember times that we were happy, sad, anxious, and the events that triggered them. Personally, I can remember some of the earliest accounts of violence that I have experienced and the feelings that resulted. Violence is never a good thing, even when it has just cause; however, violence doesn’t affect me like it probably should which is the result of the things that happened early in my life. Living in Pigtown, South Baltimore, seeing shootings, fights, and arguments is an everyday thing. It didn’t make it any better to see some of these same things in my own household.
Being the youngest of my mother’s five children, I was more often than not subject to receive the butt of all the violence. There were times that I can recall my brothers purposefully sending me into the basement, just so they could turn the lights out and lock the doors to see me cry. There were other times that they would put me in a trunk and sit on the top to see me cry. At a young age, I was an angry person. These daily bullying events just spilled over into other parts of my life. In the classroom, I was prone to fighting and arguing so much so, the principal knew my parents’ phone number by heart.
I can remember other times that my siblings fought each other, in one instance my sister bashed my brother in the head with a can. One of my older brothers, Terrell, agitated my sister for an entire hour even into the bathroom. When my sister Ashley went in she grabbed a can of air freshener and beat him until he ran away. This wouldn’t even be the wildest event to happen in my household, there were times where my mother would argue with my brother’s girlfriend and, the result was never pretty. Violence even travelled to us, people that felt the need to beat my siblings up would come to knock on our door in search of them. That usually was halted with me chasing them away with a bat to “protect” them.
Once you stepped foot out my door things just got way worse, because street fights, shootings and stabbings were the norm in Pigtown. I can recall times that there would neighborhood wide race fueled street fights and as the fight travelled so did I. I was no older than 7 when I saw the police come to control and detain an entire mob of brawlers in my neighborhood. That same summer I saw my first shooting, it makes it even worse that it didn’t scare me.
That summer I had a job, I travelled with my brother and his friends to other neighborhoods fighting other kids my size. My payment was what most other seven-year olds would want, ice cream, shoes, and circus tickets. That night after a long day of work, I was out running around with my friends up and down the block in our fifteen-yard stretch from the tree to the pole in front of my house. I can remember going in the house to get my Spider-man themed water gun, which had to be the coolest toy ever invented. As I came out two young men ran down the street, one was stumbling while being carried by his friend. They introduced themselves as Marquis and James, Marquis had been shot in the leg after leaving a party not far from my house. They were unsure if anyone had followed them and soon after it was revealed that someone had been. While my neighbors were tending to Marquis two more shots were fired, one hit a car and the other hit James in the arm. The two young men survived their wounds and they came by to thank everyone that helped them. I can say from that day forth, violence just didn’t affect me the same way. I began to become desensitized, and I was no longer hurt by anything.