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Chapter Two
POST
CHILDHOOD BEFORE THE RAIN
Opportunities were available for those Blacks who had the
focus and fortitude to pursue them.
Desegregation laws opened up access to education and
business for minorities, which were previously out of reach.
That I didn’t flourish during this period cannot be
solely attributed to society.
By my not having a dream to follow, I found myself
participating in as oppose to planning beyond the naughty trends
of the day.
Spending the baulk of my teenage years during the mid to
late 1960’s, my character began to mold around the motto creed
of sex, drugs and rock and roll.
When the entire scene of pot and wine sessions on the way
to the party proved to be as shallow as the rest of my life, I
looked for something deeper.
One day, while hanging out with my new band of party
revelers, I noticed a schoolmate leaning against a streetlight
post looking as though he had the answer written on his face.
While everyone else appeared to move around in a fog,
clarity seemed to ooze out of his glassy eyes.
Heroin was sweeping through the community like a plague,
appealing to those who lacked direction such as me.
I resisted for a while as I watched many of my companions
fall victims to this powder misery temptress.
The more I floundered within the mainstream course of
things, the more I began to feel myself submit to the clutches of
despair.
Finally, I relented.
I found myself easing a mixture of brown heroin and red
blood into my vein.
This indeed brought about a blanket of clarity over me,
which caused me to feel immersed in calm.
I remember seeing the reflection of my glassy eyes while
looking out of the window of a bus on route to an away high school
basketball game.
Subsequent injections turned out to be just a chase after a
repeat of my first indulgence for clarity.
This was not the niche I was looking for.
Therefore I drifted away from the addictive drug.
As expected I did enough to get my high school diploma.
There I was on the front steps of the graduation hall, in a
tailor-made double-breasted ice blue suit along with a black
turtleneck shirt and black boots, not knowing what was next.
The pretty-boy was moving on.
A high lottery number prevented me from being drafted into
the United States Armed Services during the Vietnam War.
I wound up working a couple of years at one of those
factories I use to peer at from my family’s Federal Housing
Authority project apartment.
During this period I developed a lifestyle of extreme
independence.
It was not because I am antisocial but because I have been
too busy trying to get somewhere from nowhere to run around
goosing everyone.
One night while out partying with some friends, I borrowed
a stolen car from one of them.
I wound up paying restitution for damages occurred after
being jailed for wrecking the vehicle.
This incident caused me to hold on to the factory job I was
working longer than I wanted.
The hours were subject to change daily and I needed a
source of income more accommodating for me to attend college once
I became so inspired.
Once freed of my court ordered financial responsibility, I
tried attending a trade school.
The interest was not there however.
Having done just enough study to only get by, at that
point, did not help any.
I held jobs washing dishes for a while before I decided to
cash in on a family connection.
I spent a great deal of time at my great uncle’s home on
my father’s side.
He was a gambler.
I enjoyed listening to the many stories he told of the old
days. One
of the more interesting stories was of a renowned female
entertainer who would come to town occasionally to perform.
Reportedly she was known for her excursions through the
neighborhood in a limousine where she would pick up a young
fellow, who would catch her eye, to spend an hour or two with
before her show.
This practice was ignored supposedly because she was well
liked and really delivered at show time.
My great uncle’s wife was a committeewoman in politics
and was instrumental in getting me a job working in a road crew
for the state.
It was here I began to mature.
ORDER
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