Stolen - Stories from a Violent Childhood
Soft cover 5.5 x 8.5 400 pages

Biography/Book Synopsis:

Sample Stories: 

Blood

I  must have been around seven. My stepfather used to disappear into the bathroom with his friends, two and three at a time, for long periods of time. You never, ever, disturbed them. Mom would grow silent and sober, serious.

Once, in my single-minded urgency to pee, I forgot to knock and barged right in. Lou, my dad’s friend, was passed out. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, elbow on the tub and head on his knees. My dad was passed out sitting on the toilet in the opposite corner from Lou with his head sunken on his chest and leaning against the sink. A syringe with about a quarter an inch of blood and yellowish-clear plasma backed up into it, was dangling from the prominent vein in his left elbow.

I stared at this morbid scene before me, absorbing, frozen. I thought they were dead.
Fear and indecision had paralyzed me. I knew I was not supposed to be there. I knew a child should not see this. It was a thing I shouldn’t understand.

I stared at Dad, searching for signs of life. I wanted to shake him, tell him to wake up… desperately. But I also knew I would be beaten for being where I wasn’t supposed to be.
And deep down… I wished he were dead, and then felt guilty immediately afterward.

A dry rasp in his throat, almost a snore, confirmed both his life and patheticness. I didn’t bother to check Lou. If Dad was still alive, then Lou was his problem. Before this I had always liked Lou. He was kind of like an uncle to me. Unlike Dad, he never hit me, and he had never said a bad word to me. But now, seeing him this way, placed him on the same plane of existence as my dad, representing the same evil, the same animal, the same monster… the same beast.

I remained standing in the doorway just inside the threshold and there at my feet were drops of scarlet. I stared transfixed at the perfectly round bubbles on the octagonal patterned white tiles with black grouting in between. Those three tiny crimson drops fascinated me. Squatting down, I examined them further. The red had separated to form a clear liquid. It had a watery, slightly oily, consistency, but not the potent coppery smell that had always accompanied the taste of my own blood.

Then I remembered a movie with Bill Cosby and Robert Culp, Hickey and Boggs. Dad and I saw it in the theater not long before. In the movie there was a scene where they approached an apartment where blood was pooling out from under the door. Cosby knelt down, touched his fingers to it, and touched them to his tongue to find that it was blood. I always associate that movie with my ill-fated trip to the bathroom that summer afternoon.

I now imagine my stepfather coming out of his nod groggily, dreamily, opening his eyes and abstractly focusing on those three crimson drops. Zooming in to an extreme close-up, he sees the larger of the spots has the imprint of a child’s fingerprint. Realizing what has happened, he stares… frozen.

Jumped!

Life in the ghetto is, to say the least, unpredictable. That is the one thing that forces further creativity and independence. It is also the one thing that makes it so hard to fit in to the rest of the world.

We who are raised there forget that we make up only the smallest fraction of our country. That we were the minutest fragment of the world at large wasn’t even a consideration. When you are struggling just for physical, mental, and emotional survival, the rest of the world pretty much ceases to exist. The surreal jungle you dwell in becomes your only reality, the only reality. Your focus becomes the one square city block where you are at that moment.

You must constantly be aware of your surroundings, you must constantly be on alert, and you can never let your guard down. For the jungle doesn’t care that you are weak, young, girl, boy, rich, or poor. It only sees predators and prey.

We were about ten years old, John and I . We’re walking up Lawrence Avenue. We had gotten about three blocks from my place when out of a doorway just in front of us poured five guys. Each of them was about twice our size and at least fifteen years old. Three were Black, one White and one Latino. Two of them had pistols.

“Get in there!” one shouted as they shoved us roughly into the doorway in which they had been lying in wait. Once in the small, now crowded foyer of the three-flat, the biggest one pushed a chrome semi-automatic in my face. Another shoved a gunmetal blue revolver at John.

Surrounding us, they jabbed those guns painfully into our ribs, stomach, and face. They threatened to shoot us and demanded our money. Then they threatened to take our money and just shoot us for the fun of it. Fortunately, we were two poor, broke, ten-year-olds and didn’t have any money to be stolen. Unfortunately, they weren’t really after the money. What they wanted was a victim. And we were it.

Just when they were getting warmed up and the real beating was about to begin, we heard a door close up above and two voices. When our assailants heard this, they quickly hid the guns behind our bodies and their leader hissed loudly down at us, “Y’all better not say nothin’!” They started chatting with each other trying not to look like the jackals they were.

Moments later a middle-aged white couple came down the stairs. When they reached the bottom, they looked up and saw us.

John and I saw this as our one chance at salvation. I remember looking into their eyes with a silent, desperate scream for help. I know they saw the petrified pleading there in my face. Taking in the scene they hesitated, almost backing up.

Then the spell was broken. Rather than save us, they chose to ignore us. The man took his woman by the elbow, put his head down and they silently hurried past us and out the door. When I watched that door close in on us after they had disappeared outside, it was like a lid closing on my coffin.

We were then told that we were going to be taking a little walk. “All right now, when I open up this door you are going to run across the street and down the alley, and if you stop or try to get away, I’m gonna put this up your nose and pull the trigger.” He waved the big gleaming gun slowly under my nostrils for emphasis.

One of the others opened the door, stepped out and looked up and down the street. After a moment, he stepped back in. “Let’s go!”

Suddenly John and I were both shoved out the door onto the street and were propelled quickly across it. Looking both ways, I saw no hope of rescue. Secretly I cursed the couple for not even bothering to send help for us.

Those young men were experienced professionals. They surrounded us immediately on all four sides. In the middle of Lawrence Avenue, I made a decision.

Whispering to John, I told him what I had in mind. “Just before we enter the alley, you break right and I’ll go left. They’ll have to split up to catch us.” I was thinking maybe we could lose at least a few of them and even out the odds a bit.

“Naw man, just be cool,” he shot back.

Great, I thought. He’s got a plan too. Looking up the alley, I tried to think ahead and figure out what his plan was. Was there a better escape avenue ahead? Did he see someone up there he knew? I decided to wait and follow his lead.

As we went deeper into the alley, my sense of dread grew. I could see only one reason they would want such a secluded location. Now I know what one must feel like walking to the gallows or guillotine or firing squad.

We came upon a recessed loading dock of a closed business. They stopped and savagely shoved us both into a huge cavernous loading bay. “Get in there!”

My feeling of foreboding just took a big leap ahead. It was like a big, dirty mausoleum. It was dark and dirty, and secluded and scary, maybe sixty feet across, thirty deep and covered above.

John was shoved so hard that he sprawled face first on the ground. Another one grabbed him, picked him up and along with me, they threw us against the wall.

The creepiest thing about it was that three of them were in the background near our prison’s entrance gleefully cavorting around. They were jumping, shoving each other, throwing bricks and breaking bottles on the ground. It was like an orgy of violence. They were clearly working themselves up into a frenzy. The two who faced us had smirks on their faces like they knew something that we didn’t.

John ducked and moved as one threw random punches at his face and head. When the guy pulled his dick out, I cannot describe to you the depths of fear and apprehension that hit me like an irresistible tidal wave.

I felt panic gnawing at my guts and I prepared myself to break and run, and if John wanted to “just be cool,” he could do that by his damned self. In some bizarre way, having the shit stomped out of me didn’t scare me half as much as being raped did.

Even at such a young age, I’d heard stories of women I knew being raped. Kids get to hear that kind of stuff on the news, in the movies and on the streets all the time.

But before I could move, a thick stream of urine poured forth in a long, steady arc from him to John. I stared at the yellow stream dumbfounded, confused as the yellow line drew patters across John’s pants, legs, and feet.

Caught between relief and wondering what the hell he was pissing on John for, I told myself to stop expecting it to make sense. He was doing it because he could. As I stepped aside, John danced and moved trying to avoid the stream while those assholes laughed at us. Eventually his legs from the knees to his feet were crisscrossed with dark wetness.

My attacker faced me and looked me up and down while he tried to think of something creative he could do to outdo his partner. Then he saw that I was wearing an almost new pair of Converse All-Stars.

Back then they were not expensive, but in demand. Also they were the only pair of maroon ones I had seen. Apparently my captor liked them also. Looking down into my eyes, he stepped menacingly closer. “Gimme those shoes,” he said through a twisted smile.

At my response all action ceased. “No.”

The silence was immediate. Everyone stopped what they were doing, even the guy pissing. “What?!”

Now all eyes were on him. His friends gathered around us not knowing what to do next. Waiting to see what he would do, they looked from him to me. John was temporarily forgotten beside me.

“I said take ‘em off, motherfucker!!” Feeling my defiance growing within me, I stood a little taller, enjoying the confusion I had caused among them. “I’m ain’t takin’ off my shoes.”

This pair of shoes was one of the few nice things that I had ever owned in my entire life up to that point. I’d had ten years of hand-me-down clothes, food stamps and second-hand toys. It was nice to have all those, but I was always aware that they all belonged to someone else first.

These had never been worn by anyone else but me. And they fit. And far above any of that, it was my only pair of shoes.  I’d be damned if I was going to take them of and just hand them over to some asshole just because he said so. If he wanted to beat my ass and take them off me then so be it. But I wasn’t going to just hand them over.

“What!?!” he stammered, his voice rising another octave. Fists balled up at his sides. I waited for him to swing. He was so mad that his whole body began to tremble. Looking at him, I almost laughed as his lip quivered, and his friends all stood around sputtering and fuming but not knowing what to do.

I knew better than to laugh at him in front of all his friends. The situation was bad enough without adding fuel to the fire. While I was fully prepared to take his punches, I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

He began to pace the dock. He roamed around so furious he did not know what to do with himself. Then he started searching. He went around looking at the bricks and broken bottles lying around on the ground. My eyes followed his searching of every brick, every item. He selected, picked up, and then rejected two of each.

Then he found it.

There lying on the ground was a wicked sharp, jagged, burned remnant of a one-by-four with twisted rusted nails sticking out of the sharpened end. His eyes lit up in triumph. Snatching it up, he stomped back over to me and in one motion jabbed it hard into my stomach.

I had tensed up my stomach in reflex and it backed me up against the cold of the brick wall behind me, and held me there hard with the sharp points digging into my stomach.

In a low whisper, he hissed at me, “I said take ‘em off.” Looking in his eyes I saw that whereas before he hadn’t been prepared for any resistance now he was fully prepared to gut me like a fish. In order to keep his rep on the street, to keep his crew following him, I would have to be made an example of.

While I was fully prepared to take an ass-kicking by five guys just to keep my All-Stars, I was not, however, prepared to be eviscerated, killed for a pair of shoes. So with that firmly in mind I slowly and reluctantly took them off.

With my shoes now in his possession, it was time for the fat lady to sing. Pushing us into the center, they formed up in a ring around us giddy with anticipation.

Both John and I knew it was about to begin in earnest. A sob escaped his lips an instant before the first blow fell. They fell upon us like a pack of wild animals.

The terrifying thing was not the beating, but the blood-chilling frenzied delight they all took in it. It was like being caught up in a howling tornado.

Screaming and whooping like banshees, they punched, kicked and stomped us from every angle. Blows rained down on us from all sides.

Eventually in the midst of the chaos, we were knocked to the ground. Both of us dodged and rolled around trying to avoid ten stomping and kicking feet.

I can still hear the popping as my numb, tingling, ringing head rebounded off the gritty concrete again and again.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of them raising a huge chunk of concrete above his head with both hands.

I screamed out just as John moved his face out of the way of falling death.

I then began to cry. A cry of rage, a scream of anguish for the unfairness of it all. Our cries mixed with theirs with that unholy chorus.

Through my tears I saw John rise, picking up his thick black glasses with the coke-bottle lenses. He stood there trying to put them on and before he could finish, a savage kick knocked him right back down. Then the grim dance would repeat itself.

Three times he got up. Three times he got knocked back down. I watched as they laughed at him like a wind-up toy that will bump into the wall only to back up and do it again repeatedly until it winds down.

Throughout all this, two things were constant in the back of my mind. One: somewhere nearby a dog was barking. Incessantly. It was a German Shepard by the sound of it and it knew what was going on. Was its owner not home? Why was no one checking to see what it was barking at? Second: Why was no one attracted to the sounds of our attack? Neither our cries nor the screams of our attackers drew any attention from the neighbors.

It was impossible that no one had heard us. The warehouse was just off two busy streets: Lawrence and Sheridan. And it was also just across the alley from homes that stretched up the street. It was a residential neighborhood.

My mind drifted around the block seeing in my mind’s eye the traffic, pedestrians, and people sitting in their comfortable homes drinking coffee and watching television, and turning up the volume to drown out our screams.

Then suddenly it was over.

I don’t even remember them leaving. They were just… gone. I must’ve lost consciousness. For how long, I don’t know. I just remember becoming aware of sobbing.

It was mine.

John was lying there curled into a fetal position with his back to me, motionless. I lay there listening for the sounds of our assailants but heard none. Then I just lay there some more. Our crying echoed across the empty cavern.

Then I became aware that the dog was no longer barking. I began to wonder how much time had passed. The chill, gray daylight had not changed that I could tell.

Finally when I had rested enough, I tried to move. Slowly at first, gingerly. I hurt all over. Rolling over on my back, I looked to my right. There, not fifty feet away, was that German Shepard. And standing at the fence by his side was a gray-haired old lady in her house robe. There was silver covering her head and in her hand she held a white mug of coffee. She was just staring at us.

She had been standing there for some time, just watching us.

“What are you kids doing back here?”

“Bleeding, dumb-ass,” was what I wanted to say. Instead I gave her my most withering look.

It never even crossed my mind to ask her for help. If our screams hadn’t elicited it, then asking wouldn’t either.

It had been at least ten minutes from the beginning of the screaming until it was over. And that bitch just hid up in her house until it was all over. She couldn’t even pick up the phone. Then she came down here to stare at us, rubberneck. To fuckin’ spectate.

“I heard my dog barking and I thought you kids might’ve been playing ‘cause you know kids are always playing back here and it’s dangerous and…”

Yeah, that explains why you waited for it all to be over before you came back here to check things out.

Imagine: You come out your door, down into your yard where your dog has been barking incessantly for the last quarter of an hour. You discover two ten-year-old kids lying semi-conscious in a brick and glass-strewn back alley. They are bloodied, bruised, and their clothes are torn. One boy has no shoes, only torn and dirtied once-white socks.

Now, what do you do? Run to help them? Shout for help? Call 911? Ask them if they need help? They can barely stand, so they obviously do.

No, this old biddy stands and watches us like ants under a magnifying glass. I wanted to shout at her, to scream, to wake her up: HELP US!!! But at the time all I really wanted to do was go home.

Finally, rolling over, I made my way up onto my hands and knees. I crawled slowly towards where John lay. As I got closer, I heard a faint moaning. He had begun to slowly, subtly rock himself back and forth. Shaking him gently, I got no response.

Then I began to worry.

It took me a few tries to rouse him. Calling his name and shaking him harder, I asked him if he was okay just to see if he would respond. He slowly began to stir. He was disoriented and at first and did not know what was happening. When I told him they were gone, he anxiously looked around to find out if it was true. 

“My glasses!” he blurted out in a panic. It seemed surreal that after what we had just endured he would be in a panic about those ugly-assed glasses of his.

I helped him scour the loading dock looking for them. We both crawled around on our hands and knees like a couple of stray dogs until he finally found them broken.

By then I’d had enough of crawling around and was ready to attempt standing up on shaky legs. It took me a while and once on my feet I was dizzy, so I did not trust myself to walk. But after a minute my head began to steady.

I walked over to where John was sitting on the ground and asked him if he felt like he could walk, but he didn’t answer. He was in pretty bad shape and I was trying to decide if I should call an ambulance, but I did not want to leave him alone in that alley. Dragging him out was about all I could manage on my own and that didn’t seem like a good idea.

Just then he rose up to his knees and I helped him to his feet. He was as unsteady as I had been. Finally we both steadied ourselves by leaning on each other.

In one of the most sublime moments I have ever experienced, John looked down and saw my shoeless feet amidst all the broken glass and rock. At first, I thought he was about to fall over. As my grip around him tightened, I realized that he was not falling but bending.

Eventually he bent all the way down. Then he untied his left shoe. It was a black suede Rocker with a black sole. Once untied, he removed it… and handed it to me. “Here, put this on.”

That single act of kindness touched me in a way that few things have in my long and eventful life.

I tied it on, that loose suede Rocker, black and fuzzy, and together, each supported by the other, we limped out of that alley.

At the corner, he asked, “What are you gonna do now? Do you wanna come to my house?” His house was twice as far away as my apartment.

“No, I’m gonna go home.” Handing his shoe back to him, I told him thanks. Neither of us knew what to say at this point, so without even saying good-bye, we each turned to our separate points of the compass and headed home.

I wasn’t surprised, but it’s always kind of odd when you are walking through throngs of people bloodied and torn. They all notice you, but pretend not to. They look at your body, but not your eyes. They show concerned looks on their faces, but not enough to break that barrier that is the code of the street: mind your own business. So they just pass you by. We were like ghosts passing without touching each other’s lives. Strangers trapped together.

When I entered our apartment, Pamela was sitting at the dining room table doing homework. Pamela is five years older than me and much taller. Whereas I was the loudmouth, the clown, or the troublemaker (depending on which of my teachers you spoke to), she was always considered the good one, quiet and studious.

As soon as I opened the door she looked up at me, and instantly I saw shock written across her face. I didn’t even want to look in a mirror. I knew what I must look like.

“What happened to you? Who beat you up? Where are your shoes!?”

“I got jumped.”

When I moved towards the bedroom to lie down, she stopped me. “Who jumped you?” I told her briefly where and what had happened and she stood silently for a moment. Then a dark look crossed her face.

“Go get your jacket,” she said to me.

Damn. I just wanted go to bed. When I got back from getting my jacket, she handed me a pair of shoes. They were a pair of her brown suede sandals and could be tightened enough to fit me.

Once I had them on, she said, “Come with me,” and taking my hand in hers, we headed for the door.

“W… where we goin’?”

“We’re going to get your shoes back.”

I stopped there in the hallway torn between two opposing thoughts: On the one hand, I was afraid to put her safety at risk with a bunch of thugs her age. Not to mention getting my own ass kicked for the second time in the same afternoon. On the other hand, she was determined. And I have to be honest with you, I was surprised. Not because I didn’t think she cared, but because no one, and I mean no one, had ever stuck up for me before and to be honest, I wanted to see how it worked.

I saw them from a block away. I recognized the leader in his bright red hoodie, but the other three guys I didn’t. Each was about the same age and height as my sister. They were clowning around with no fear of anyone. Fresh from their latest conquest and full of their own bravado, they pushed and shoved each other around like they owned the streets.

As we got closer he recognized me and turned his face to the brick wall as if examining the mortar, obviously trying not to be seen.

“Are these the people that beat you up?” Pamela asked me.

“Yeah, that’s one of ‘em,” I said, pointing to the asshole. The other three guys I didn’t recognize. Bold, they gathered around us to see what was happening. This time when they surrounded us, I was not afraid. One: I was determined to fight back. Earlier I had tried the “turn other cheek” thing hoping things wouldn’t be as bad. That didn’t go well at all. Two: I was motivated this time by the instinct to protect my sister, even though she was older than me and calling the shots. I was fully prepared to kill everyone there to protect her.

The leader had turned and started off up the street. “Hey you!” she shouted at him.

Trying his best to look innocent, he sheepishly asked, “Who, me?” His friends laughed out loud at him knowing that he was in trouble being called out by a girl.

“Don’t act stupid. You know who I’m talkin’ to!” At this his friends all fell silent sensing that she meant business. I became aware of someone coming up the alley. I watched as he approached to see if I recognized him. When he looked up and saw me, he immediately did an about-face.

“There’s another one!” I shouted.

“Get back here!” she called out to him. He hesitated and when he did, she said with more menace than I have ever heard from her, “Don’t make me chase you down.”

It worked. He turned back to us and sheepishly came and stood before us with guilty, downcast eyes. Now the other boys had backed off as if fearing she would suddenly erupt and they would be caught up in her fury.

Squaring off nose to nose with the two attackers, she spoke calmly and clearly. “Now, I don’t know why y’all beat up my little brother and I don’t care. But I want his shoes back and I want them back now.

I was going to step in front of her in case one of them took a swing, but honestly I was afraid of her as well.

“HEY!” came a booming shout from across the street. Everyone turned to see who the voice belonged to.

Ooooh-my-God. I saw coming across the street, two of the hugest women I had ever seen in my life. Both were as tall as Pamela, who is a tall girl, and each weighed in at about two, two-fifty. Easy.

“What ‘chu doin’ with my brother?!”

Those five assholes twice my size with my sister by my side, I was prepared for ‘em. Now add these two into the mix and I was ready to rethink the whole thing. But Pamela, however, was unfazed.

Turning to face them, she said, “Your brother and his friends jumped my little brother here, beat him up and stole his shoes.”

“What?”

“Nuh-uh! No we didn’t!” he shouted.

Turning to her friend, the asshole’s sister said, “Didn’t I see Terrel carrying a pair of shoes?”

“Yeah, those All-Stars?” The sister looked down at me and asked, “Were they maroon All-Stars?”

“Yeah, brand new,” I replied.

Turning back to her brother, she said “Boy! Go get this child his shoes back!” As he opened his mouth to protest, quick as a whip, she smacked him across the side of his head. “Now!”

To us she said, “Ought to be ashamed of hisself, beatin’ up a little kid. You okay baby?”

“Yeah,” I said.

While I watched her brother run off down the street and disappear around the corner, Pamela and the two girls began talking with each other like they were old friends.

It took him about five minutes to make the trip and then he came from around the corner with my shoes hanging from his left hand, laces dangling loosely. He slowed to a walk as he came into view and we all stopped as he approached. He handed the shoes to his sister who then turned and handed them to me.

“Here you go, baby. You just let me know if he messes with you again.” I looked at him darkly as she handed them to me. He couldn’t even meet my eyes. Briefly I wondered how badly I could hurt him in a suicide attack before the crowd jumped me. And then I remembered that Pamela would probably be attacked too, and then maybe both of us would get our asses kicked.

Besides, my sister had just publicly humiliated the creep and his family was there to see it.

Soon the entire neighborhood would know three things. One: This guy needed all his friends with him just to beat up little kids. Two: He was really just a great big pussy. And three: My sister is one baaaad-assss!

On that day she was officially upgraded in my eyes from big sister to hero. But I learned some valuable life-lessons on that day… many life-lessons.

That one day has made me a far better man for both being jumped and the return of the shoes. From that day forward I never again let anyone lay hands on me without making them pay a price for it. You might kick my ass or take something from me, but it’s gonna cost ya.

I also learned the appreciation for talk as a weapon. The sound of one’s voice, timber, level, and projection were all just as important as what you said. And what you said could be uses as a weapon just as much as a fist or knife or gun.

Just lying there and taking the ass-kicking was no longer an option for me. That was the last time I got my ass kicked, outside of the house that is.

Dad still regularly used me as his own personal punching and kicking tool. But outside the house, I learned to pick my battles. Sure, I did my share of running when I was outnumbered or outgunned, but that was the last time I got beat one-on-one. I even took on whole groups of guys when occasion demanded. Thankfully, that has been very seldom.

Seeing Pamela stand in front of those thugs and the sisters undaunted, taught me worlds about confidence and about being willing to take an ass-kicking if the price is high enough. I also learned the power of determination. He who wants a thing badly enough and is willing to sacrifice the most for it, will get it.