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 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 Ashley, my sister, for an entire hour even into the bathroom. When my sister 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 even though I was the youngest.
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.
I remember summer days where I would be playing outside and around the corner shots would be fired, and the exact area I just left would be found riddled with bullets. By the time I turned thirteen, I could tell you what type of gun was used just by the way the shots sounded. Shots no longer woke me up in the middle of the night, they no longer alerted me and could often go unnoticed if I wasn’t told that they occurred. It’s almost as if becoming a product of your environment is inherent and inevitable, some of the most violent things intrigue me, yet to the public, a sense of disgust is unanimous. I’ve grown so used to violence that my tolerance to these things has reached an extreme level.
One dreary fall afternoon, a group of my friends took their bikes out to ride across town. Like any other eleven-year-old, I followed. We rode in a pack of around twelve and carried ourselves as if we were in four wheeled automobiles riding with reckless abandon, only protected by the frame of the bikes that we rode on. It seemed like we were riding for hours on end, and we came across a yard with more bikes. We investigated the yard and the surrounding area to see if stealing the bikes was a good idea; whether it was or not, we took them anyway. Almost immediately after taking them, the owner pulled up in front of us, and tricked us into believing that he wanted to buy the bikes. The longer he spoke the more comfortable the situation got, but then suddenly things changed. He went to his car to get what he called “money,” but returned with a blade. I was the closest to him and was struck with it across my chest before I could even begin to speak. I scrambled on the ground for my bike. After I collected myself well enough to ride off, I did. The last words I remember him saying as we all rode off was, “Don’t run, I got something for your ass.” Soon after he fired his gun and my tire went flat. All my friends were either yelling “GET DOWN!” or “SPLIT!”, so I rode as fast as I could on the single tire that I did have. I got home to tend to my somewhat minor wounds and took a second to stretch out on my floor to rest my exhausted body.
My household was also in a state of turmoil; my older brothers Elliott and Terrell were having trouble with the law. Elliott was facing a murder charge and Terrell was facing a handgun charge. It hurt me to see my mother deal with what seemed like endless trials and days without seeing her sons. It was then that I made the decision to refuse to be like them, not to say they aren’t good fathers or sons, but I refused to make my mother go through that with the child she tried the hardest to steer in the right direction. While she worked hard to put me through private school, she also had to deal with “knockers” (narcs) raiding our house in search of guns and drugs. While I was trying to get A’s in the classroom, she was paying lawyer fees hoping that her two sons could make it home to her once again.
There was a short-lived state of peace which helped me to turn my life around for the better. My oldest brother was married, other two brothers were back home, sister was in college, I was in high school, and things seemed to be going well for us at the time. Outside of my immediate family, things were terrible from the time I started elementary school and ended high school. I had lost over twenty-five close friends and family members. It makes it even worse that twenty of them hadn’t even gotten to age twenty yet. The two most significant were the murders of my friend Curtis and my Uncle James. These two murders were directly related, and it hurts me to say that.
In December of 2016, Mr. James Johnson Sr. turned his life around for the better and was trying his best to help lift his community. James Sr. was a former alcoholic and smoker that lost custody of two of his three children, but he looked directly to God to turn his life around. My godfather, Craig Lofton, was a preacher in the early stages of having his own church. My godfather looked directly to James Sr. to be one of his “disciples,” to help to lead his church and James Sr. found love, companionship, and the support that he needed to turn his life around. After joining the church, he stopped drinking, smoking, and even got custody of his children. He found a way to become a happy man in some hard times for him because his son turned to the streets for guidance while his daughter was going through her first pregnancy. On the night of December 23rd, James Sr. left church and returned to his home to call from his daughter. She called to let her father know that she was in the hospital getting ready to deliver her baby and wanted him to get some sleep before coming to see her. James Sr. told his son that it was his time and urged James Jr. to stay home with him for what he felt might be his end. At 5am, James Sr. received a call that the baby had been delivered, and soon after in the waning hours of the morning he was shot and killed in his home. This affected our entire community; almost as if the streets were flooded with tears. It hurt me even more to have to wake up to the news, but it changed me forever.
A week prior, a neighborhood kid and friend of mine, Tony B, was gunned down right around the corner from me. The thought was that two other friends of mine, Curtis Deal and James Johnson Jr. were the suspects. I grew up with those two young men my entire life, we’d gone to school together, ate together, played on teams together, anything you can name we’d done together. While on the run, Curtis was seen in a car and chased by the police. He turned and pointed his gun at the police, and he was shot and killed. Now I can’t say that it was wrong to kill him because I understand he had been doing the wrong thing for most of his life. It’s hard to see someone you love to have their life ended like that. James Jr. has been on the run since the day of his father’s murder and nobody has seen or heard from him, so I can only hope that things change for him before it’s too late. While only three people were murdered, I feel like I have lost four loved ones forever.
In a matter of two weeks I had three people close to me murdered all in a somewhat related case. Things still won’t change for me, I continue to do the right thing and hope to stay out of harm’s way. I look to my community for some protection too, they know that I’m working for something so they start to think twice when acting. This summer even my presence stopped two shootings, it at least delayed them. Not many people will understand the “happiness” that I get from that. It makes it seem as if I’m making a positive out of something rather grim, but to me it’s a move in the right direction. If they can use discretion when they see me, then what goes to say they don’t stop shooting completely? I’d just like to see all my friends and family that are incarcerated or in the streets turn their life around. I just want to be a guiding light.