Chapter 1
For the first five years of my existence, Mom’s crazy lifestyle sent me packing to my Grandparents. I was a “bastard,” but when I asked what that meant no one seemed able explain it to me. All I knew was that my Grandparents gave me plenty of unconditional love. Being so young I didn’t know what any of this meant, or the effect this sense of rejection would have on me when I grew up.
It was the beginning of a journey down a hard and lonely road.
In the beginning my life was absolutely wonderful. My Grandparents gave me pretty much everything a little boy could ever want growing up and Grandma’s food was off the chain. Me and Grandpa would always be on the floor playing with my toys, or just goofing off and making all kinds of noise till Grandma couldn’t take anymore and put us out the house. That’s when Grandpa would show me how to sneak over to the window and grab cookies and slices of cake without Grandma seeing us. Even though I thought we were getting away with it every time, Grandma knew what we were up to. We knew this because every once in a while she would put two glasses of milk in the window for us. Grandpa always said it was the magic cake fairy and she wanted to make sure we had something to wash the cake down with.
Grandma would give me a bath and read to me most nights when she wasn’t tired. I loved the quality time that both Grandparents spent with me. They showed me how to pick up after myself, taught me how to write my name and even showed me how to count. I remember those days like yesterday.
At certain times, I heard my Grandma talking to Grandpa about some other lady she was calling my mom and something about her goings and comings. I always thought my Grandma was my mom but who was this other lady she was talking about? One day I decided to ask Grandma what she was talking about and who was this other lady she was calling my mom.
Grandma said, “Ervin how long have you been behind that chair listening to me?”
I said, “I was just playin and heard you telling Grandpa about the lady you call my momma. You not my momma Grandma?”
“Ervin baby, come over here and sit down with me. I’ll tell you all about your momma.”
Grandma told me about how my mom grew up in the very house we were in and her room was the room I was staying in. She told me all about her being in the top of her class in school, about her winning the school spelling bee four times in a row, and; she was a cheerleader in high school and how she graduated with honors. Grandma told me that she grew up to be a very beautiful woman and that sometimes beautiful people make mistakes and become very ugly because of what other people do to hurt you. She said my mom was hurt real bad and never really got over it. Because of that hurt she made a very bad decision because of what happened one day before I was born.
I asked Grandma did she think I was going to grow up and be ugly.
She said, “No baby, you’re my handsome boy who will grow up to be a very handsome man one day.”
“Well why don’t I live with my momma now Grandma?”
“Ervin your mother had a nervous breakdown when you were born. She couldn’t handle you and your half-brother, so we stepped in to help her until she could get things together and was able to take care of both of you.”
“Is this lady nice like you Grandma?”
“We’ll finish this a little later ok. Now you go play upstairs while I fix us some dinner.”
I remember overhearing my Grandma telling her best friend what happened that day. She said somebody named Don, who I found out later to be my half-brother, called my Grandparents over to the house and said his mom caught his dad in the room with another man and that my mom was down on the floor screaming to the top of her lungs, “Why Charles why!” Grandma said my mom was on the floor whaling and just kept asking why her, why him, why. Grandma said they both tried to get her up but she just laid there for a long time screaming with tears rolling down her face.
Then all of a sudden mom got up off the floor, wiped her face and walked out the house without a word to anyone. Nobody knew where she went or heard from her for several hours. My Grandparents’ took Don to their house and left Mr. Charles in his situation. Mom showed up to my Grandparents’ house at 2:30 in the morning banging on the door; she was drunk as shit and said she just wanted to come in for a minute. Grandpa didn’t want her to be raising hell in front of the neighbors so he let her in. She smelled like booze and looked like she was half out of her mind.
When she got to the living room she just started laughing and blurting out her drunken story sayin; “I caught that nigga with his lil fuck buddy didn’t I. They was havin a good ole’ time in there, that is till I popped in onum, haha. Did I tell you what they was doin, let me tell ya. They thought I was still at work but I caught’em. I got off early an came in the house, it was reeeeal quiet. I walked down the hall toward the bedroom and heard Charles saying, “Give it to me just like that,” I thought he was in there screwing another woman so I rushed and opened the door and bam, there it was; Charles with his best friend, ass in the air. I was like; dis is a dream right, haha. Let me pinch myself an wake up. I just stood there like a big ass dummie. I shuda ran down stairs, got me a knife and started cutting up me some nigga’s. But naw, I just fell on da flo’ cryin’ like a lil broke bitch. I’ll make them pay for this; I’ll show’em a real woman.”
Grandma said My mom was a mess after that. She felt like she had to prove her womanhood by sleeping with every Tom, Dick and Harry she came in contact with!
As a result of my mom’s decision my Grandma told her friend that mom became a whore and that she was the talk of the town. She said that my mom could often be seen taking two or three different men into her apartment at a time; only to have them come out fixing up their clothes. It seemed that I was the product of one of my mom’s tricks. How low can you go?
I guess this was true because my Grandma said mom would go over to the base at Fort Jackson on the weekend looking to pick up guys that didn’t mind paying for sex. She ended up getting pregnant by some captain over there. They were together for a few months and apparently this captain wanted more of a commitment but my mom was having too much fun opening her legs to as many as she could. Grandma told me she didn’t even tell my father he had a son. He had to find out from some of his friends that the chick he was messing with got knocked-up, and word on the street was it was his.
Thinking back, I remember years ago seeing a tall light skin guy in a military uniform come to my Grandparent’s house looking for my mom. I remember standing next to my Grandma looking up at his face wondering, ‘Who is he?’ He searched my face as he talked to my Grandma, I held onto her leg real tight. I remember feeling her tremble just a little bit. She gave him my mom’s new address and said, “I don’t think you’re going to find what you’re looking for.” The strange man just stood silent for a moment then looked down at me and asked how I was doing. I hid my face in her skirt as I watched him.
When the door shut she told me, “Ervin that was your daddy.”
I just stood there frozen. At that time I was about four and a half years old.
Grandma and Grandpa gave me more love than I could ever want. There were times when I heard Grandma arguing on the phone with my mom and things would get heated then they would calm down, and then heat right back up again. One day I found out that all the arguing was about me. My Grandma sat me down at the kitchen table and tried to explain that I was going to go live with my mom and brother. After five years, my mom decided that she wanted to bring me into her home. I thought it was the greatest day of my little life. My mom would finally accept me as her own and welcome me into her arms. Grandma and Grandpa had always been there for me, but now I was about to embark on a whole new fantastic life; or so I thought.
After the news sunk in I was frightened to death to go live with my mom because of all the horror stories that were told to me about her. She talked so sweet and softly, but yet there was something missing. At five years old I could sense that something wasn’t right about her.
My Grandma said, “Love your mom and brother because family is family and you can always depend on them.”
Mom had her own issues, so; I couldn’t figure out why she wanted to bring me into this picture. A few days later my mom showed up to take me to my new home. I was excited about going but sickened because I knew I would miss my Grandparents.
My stepbrother Don and I were as different as night and day. He was darker and much bigger than me. Whenever I saw him he was always grinning like a Cheshire cat. I was skinny, light skin with brown eyes and he was chunky, coca brown with dark brown eyes. He was ten years old when I came to live with them. I remember standing in my mom’s house looking around terrified. It didn’t look anything like Grandma’s place; there was food lying on the table, clothes on the floor and it seemed like everything was out of place. I remember looking up to see my brother gazing down at me with a sly grin on his face. I couldn’t tell whether he was happy to see me or if he was going to tie me to a tree and torture me. It turns out I was right about that slick grin on his face. He ended up making me his special project and gave me hell.
I remember how he used to come up to me like he was going to tell me something and then strike like a cobra with his hand and pinch my nipple so hard. It would paralyze me every time; there was nothing I could do but scream. At other times, he would get a wet towel and chase me through the house popping me. I would try my best to hide behind the chair, under the bed, anywhere I could find to get away from him but nothing ever worked. He would pick on me all the time so I had to quickly learn to protect myself. There were times when I would pick up something and knock the hell out of him when he was watching TV or asleep. My brother was a demon but eventually ended up embracing me and showing me the ropes. He told me he was glad I was there to share his bedroom. It took a moment for me to give in though. I would never let my guard down; it was going to be me or him and sometimes I felt like killing his ass.
My brother would wake up in the morning early and eat up all the cereal and leave the empty box on the counter and empty carton of milk in the refrigerator. I would ask him why he didn’t save me some; he would always say, “Every man for himself.” Then he would give me that sly ass grin. I was mad as shit cause that meant I had to go hungry until mom came home. Oh yeah, another time mom told us to take a bath cause we both smelled liked mules. Don rushed in the bathroom first and slammed the door. He knew we didn’t have a lot of soap, so he would use all the damn soap and leave me with a little sliver; it wasn’t even enough to lather up. Again, I was mad as hell.
I paid his ass back though; we both knew mom didn’t keep a lot of food in the house but what we had we had to share. Mom went to the store one day and bought some bologna, cheese and some juice. I could see Don calculating how he was going to eat more than me so in my mind I said, “Not this damn time.” He was leaving to go to the basketball court, so when mom left the house I went in the kitchen, opened the bologna and cheese, and took all the food out of the original packages. I put half a piece of cheese and a piece of bologna back in the package then I put it in the freezer until it turned brick hard. I took the juice out and poured what I wanted in a separate bottle. Then I filled the juice bottle with a bunch of water and put it back in the fridge. I knew when Don got back from the basketball court he was gonna be famished and head straight to the kitchen.
Sure nuff, when he came home I watched that nigga go to the fridge, get the juice out and put the bottle right up to his mouth. You should’ve seen his face when he realized it wasn’t the regular juice. He spit it out all over the counter and said, “What the fuck is this!”
I sat on the couch with the same shit eatin grin on my face now. I laughed my ass off.
Then he looked at the bologna and cheese, he said, “Ervin, what the hell happened to the food!”
I just looked at him and said, “I don’t know, that’s all that’s left.” It was hard as shit.
He said, “I know you didn’t eat all the bologna and cheese.”
Again I chuckled to myself then picked up my sandwich and started eating. He came over and smacked me in the head. I jumped up swinging like crazy. I knew his ass was hungry but you don’t treat your family any kind of way! I ended up with a bloody nose but he had a busted lip. From that day forward he started sharing the food with me. As far as the soap issue, I switched it with some other kind of soap nobody used under the sink. What I learned later on was that was lye soap. You think I ever had another problem with him being ugly about how much soap I got after that? All I can say is that soap tore his ass up.
As it turned out, all the fear I had about coming to live with my mom wasn’t about her, it was my crazy ass brother I had to worry about. We began to talk more after that and he told me several times how I was going to see mom bring in men who didn’t want anything but sex from her. I didn’t fully understand what he was talking about but it didn’t take me long to figure out what he meant.
Because of whatever happened to her long ago, mom was losing herself in any and every man she saw. She didn’t want anything from them but a wet ass and a mouth full of cum according to my brother. Keeping it real, mom was fucking everything, sometimes two and three men in the same day. I tried to think of why she was doing it and the only logic I could come up with was that she was so wrapped up in her own self-pity from not having any one to love her. Having someone pretend to love her, if just for that moment, was her only relief. All night long, I would hear creaking of the bed and the sounds of mom moaning and groaning at the top of her lungs. My brother would put his hands over his ears trying hard to drown out all the noises. I was young and really didn’t know any better so I just laid in bed trying to figure out what was going on and what exactly it was my mom and that man were doing in her room.
I remember a few times when Don would fall asleep I would sneak out the room and go to mom’s door, peak through the hole and listen. I couldn’t really see much but the bed would be moving all over the place. With all the moaning and groaning I thought the man in the room was hurting her but she would just keep going and ask for more. One time the door was left cracked and I could see the man down between my mom’s legs doin something. At the time it was real strange to me because the man was one way and my mom was the other way with his dick in her mouth going in and out. They never even saw me standing there; I wondered what made them do this. They kept switching positions and doing weird stuff like; the man sticking his finger in my mom’s pussy, twirling it around then taking it out and putting it to his nose. He smiled and then stuck his finger in his mouth and put his dick in my mom’s pussy. My mom said, “Ride it Mike,” as his dick was going in and out fast as shit. Mom started hollering even louder. In my mind, I thought that was just nasty but there were other parts of me that had a mind of its own. As I looked down at myself I noticed my pants sticking straight out cause my little side kick was hard as a rock. I got so embarrassed and ran back to my bed; my heart was pumping fast. I wondered had Don ever seen what I saw and did this ever happen to him.
There was another time I remember that mom had a party. She invited lots of people over and told Don and I to stay in our room. Well, I had to pee really bad, so I slipped out the room unnoticed and mom was in the middle of the room; two men were holding her legs open, and one after another the men were hoping on her like a pack of wild dogs or something. She had one in her mouth and another fucking her. At first, I thought they was hurting her then I heard her laugh. I ran to the bathroom and when I pulled my pants down, there I was again, hard as a rock. I didn’t understand how this was happening to me. How was I mad at my mom’s behavior with being butt naked in the middle of the living room floor and all these men fucking her left and right, and be excited at the same time? After what seemed like forever, my little water shooter finally went down long enough for me to pee and then I went back in the room. Don asked me had I learned anything. I didn’t know what he meant, so I got in bed and just thought mom was really having fun. I wondered did Grandma and Grandpa have fun like that too. It was embarrassing but mom was mom. I learned to love her and accept her promiscuous ways.
Life went on as usual and I got used to seeing the men coming and going. It became a normal part of the day. Even though this was so, my mind hadn’t forgotten about the strange occurrences with certain body parts of mine and why I kept getting hard every time I saw my mom fucking everywhere. Something even stranger occured, I noticed a lot of times when I woke up, my little thing was at full attention for no reason. I hadn’t seen anything or even dreamed of seeing anything; he was just sticking straight up ready for the world. Even in school, I would get so embarrassed because my dick would get hard for no reason at all. My pants would rub across it a certain way and there he was. I would be in class doing homework or listening to the teacher and out of nowhere, boy yoi yoing. Look everybody, it’s the amazing wonder dick! You can’t imagine my embarrassment; I had to avoid being called by the teacher and going before the class, keep my hand in my pocket to hold him down while walking down the hallway and God forbid being caught in the lunch line holding my tray and he decided to jump out. I couldn’t get home fast enough.
Mom didn’t have good housekeeping skills and she hardly ever cooked. There were times my brother and I went hungry all day, and a few times we ate sugar sandwiches with butter and drank sugar water just to have something to eat. I wanted to talk to Grandma but I knew mom would kill me for telling our family business.
One day when I was seven, mom left us all day with nothing to eat. There was boiled peanuts on the stove, so I ate them and the next thing I remember I was in the hospital; I found I was allergic to nuts. I couldn’t walk for a week. I missed my Grandparents; I never went hungry or felt unloved with them. There were even times when my brother and I would come home and the lights or water was turned off, but never at the same time; thank goodness.
Mom held a job and several men at the same time. She changed her men as the wind blew and that was often. There was always a different man entertaining her in her room.
As time passed and I got older, I would spend weekends with my Grandparents. There I was shown love and given plenty to eat. I even had a bedroom with my own bathroom in it. I loved taking a bath over there because it was so huge. Grandma would fill the bath with warm water and I would just lay there in perfect peace. I had my first experience in that tub also. It was really strange because again, my dick just stood up for no apparent reason while I was laying there. I looked at it and wondered what was causing this to happen, then I reached up and tried to push it down. I’m not sure what happened but something I did felt kind of good when my hand slid across it as I pushed down. I rubbed my hand across it again and it felt the same. That’s when I decided to put my hand around it and move up and down on it. Whatever this was felt great so I kept doing it and that’s when this remarkable feeling came over me. I moved a little faster and all of a sudden this white stuff started squirting everywhere and I got scared and jumped. The water splashed onto the floor, my heart was beating fast and I was like, “Wooooooooo, what was that!” I wanted to do it again but when I touched it it was like I was being zapped with an electric charge so I stopped trying and put it off till later.
One of my favorite things of all time was when my Grandparents would take me out to Pizza Kingdom. They would let me eat all the pizza I wanted and after we finished we would go to the ice cream shop. Oh my god that was the best ice cream I ever tasted. I tried my best not to miss a drop but I seemed to have just as much fun getting it all over myself too. There must be something to having a full belly and sleeping cause I never made it back to the house awake. It was almost like a dream because I would wake up the next morning clean like nothing ever happened.
One morning Grandma was cooking breakfast so I came up and stood beside her. She looked at me and said, “Why such a long face Ervin?”
I said, “Grandma, is Don’s daddy my daddy?
“No baby.”
“Then how did I get here and where is my daddy?”
My Grandma’s face looked like I had said something bad; she took a moment before she began to speak.
“Well Ervin as I told you, some time ago your mother had some serious issues before you were born. Because of those issues she sort of went wild and started hanging around in the streets. That’s how you got here,” she said. “Before your mom got a divorce she began sleeping around with other men and got pregnant with you.”
“Do you think my momma loves me?”
“Why yes Ervin, why would you think she doesn’t?”
“She’s nothing like you Grandma and she’s never home. She doesn’t even feed us much. She hollers all the time and she always has men coming in and out the damn house.”
Grandma’s eyes got big and she said, “Watch your mouth boy; things are going to get better just you wait and see.”
That same weekend I asked my Grandpa the same question about my daddy. He told me to take a walk with him. We walked to the park and sat down on a bench next to the big water fountain. Grandpa stared off into the sky for a moment and then said, “Ervin your mom has had a tough time and has made some bad decisions in her short life. I can’t tell you who your father is or where he is but I’ll always be your Grandpa. It might be hard to understand it all right now but you’ll learn everything you need to know in time. Your Grandma and I love you very much and think of you as our son so don’t worry about where you came from right now. Your mother carried you for nine months but we have raised you from the time you were born.”
“Do you think my mom will ever really love me?
He hesitated and said under his breath, “First she has to learn to love herself before she can truly love anyone else.” He looked away for a moment then said, “Ervin, don’t concern yourself with things like that right now; I’m sure your momma loves you.” He took my hand and we headed back to the house. I loved being with my Grandparents.
Then Sunday came and I would start screaming, “I don’t want to go back to that hell hole.” I hated being there witnessing my mom fucking all those different damn men with her nasty ass. The shit was driving me crazy. I told my Grandparents what I saw and they told me to stop telling people about what goes on in my mom’s house. “It’s her house and it’s her business and you need to stay out of grown folks business.” Of course my Grandparents told my mom what I said, and needless to say she wasn’t happy at all about me going around telling her business. But I really wasn’t telling her business to nobody else except for my Grandparents, and the only reason I told them was because I was hoping somehow they could get her to stop having sex with so many men.
My mom cussed me out and threatened not to allow me to go back over to their house if I didn’t know how to keep my mouth shut. She told me that I had no damn right telling anybody about what goes on in her house and if I had that much of a problem with what she does in her own house, I could find me some place else to go. Now if I remember correctly, didn’t she come and get me and bring me to this shit hole? I was fine at my Grandparent’s house. Anyway.
Being home alone most of the time I decided to start venturing out to see what I could find to play with. There wasn’t really much in the neighborhood to do and most of the houses looked sort of messed up. I would spend a lot of time playing in the dirt or throwing rocks at things, or just sitting on the porch watching people come and go. Sometimes I would notice this girl looking at me through the window next door but she never came out so I just acted like I didn’t see her. Every once in a while I would see her parents going in or out but they never really said anything either. Strange folks.
One day I saw a small group of guys playing down the street so I walked down a few blocks and just watched them play. The tallest one, Ron, saw me and asked if I wanted to play, and I said yes. He said it was called stick ball and told me how the game was played. The other guys were Michael, Kevin, Steve, David and Tommy. It turns out that Kevin was my cousin but we didn’t find out till later. Meeting these guys was probably the best thing that ever happened to me over there. I finally had something to do rather than be stuck in the house by myself all day. I wouldn’t stay out with them to long at first because mom didn’t want me going too far away.
This again left me with a lot of time by myself to create my own fun. I remember finding some matches one day and making fireballs with some paper in the house. There was something about the fire that captivated me until I held on to a match to long and it burned my finger. I dropped the match and stuck my finger in my mouth quick. Now that the sting was gone another brilliant idea popped in my head. I call this the big fire day, and the day I almost got the beating of my life.
Mr. brilliant idea guy, me, decided to go out back and pile up all the trash, sticks and leaves in a big pile sort of close to the house. I just knew mom was gonna love me for this. Once I finished collecting everything I got my box of matches and set my mountain ablaze. I had to back up cause it got real hot real quick and the flames started climbing. It was beautiful cause all these pieces of floating fires were going all over the place and landing on the grown. What I didn’t pay attention to was that they were landing on everything else too. Apparently the girl’s dad next door was watching my work from the window and saw that I had put the pile to close to the house. He came flying out the back door and grabbed his water hose and started spraying my mom’s house and the fire. If he hadn’t done that I would’ve burnt the house down.
After he finished yelling at me, telling me I was crazy and how I could’ve killed myself, I told him I was just trying to help my mom by cleaning up the yard for her. He calmed down after that and told me to be more careful, and if I needed help to just let him know before I get started next time. I said thanks to him and he went back in the house. While all this was going on I did notice the little girl and his wife just standing there looking at me like I was the dumbest kid in the world. They never did say anything to my mom and neither did I. She didn’t even know it ever took place. Needless to say that ended my fire creating days.
A few days after my big fire episode the little girl finally decided to come out and talked to me. Her name was Crystal and we just sat on the steps and talked about whatever came to mind. She started cracking jokes and laughed at me almost burning up the house. She was really funny and was pleasant to talk to. For some reason I didn’t mind talking to her about anything. Whenever we got bored and I was home she would come out and we would just sit on the front porch talking since there was nothing else to do.
A few days later I invited some of the guys from up the street over to the house. We were going to go in and watch TV but Ron and Kevin started looking around with this weird look on their faces. They looked at each other and started grinning. I asked what they were laughing at and they pointed to the wall. I was so embarrassed because I could see some roaches on the wall like they was in a fucking parade; that shit wasn’t funny at all. There was food laying on the table from last night, Don had took his shorts off and left them laying on the floor and one of mom’s wigs was laying on the floor along with a pair of her dirty underwear. Shit, I knew I should’ve cleaned up first but I didn’t think it mattered much to guys. I told’em to have a seat and each one hit the other like they were daring each other to sit down first. I just shook my head; in the back of my mind I knew they would have something slick to say later. Our house wasn’t the cleanest but at least I knew I was clean and my side of the bedroom was clean.
One time I was coming up from the store and I saw three of my friends standing on a old log peeping in my mom’s window. They were saying, “Look at that hoe go.” I asked them what the hell they were looking at and Kevin said, “Man your momma is a hoe, she’s in there sucking Mr. Mike’s dick like it’s a lollypop.” Before I could think I knocked Kevin in his mouth. I wasn’t going to let no one call my momma a hoe. I got so angry I was breathing fire. That’s when I decided I would never bring anyone in my house again. My mom had no respect for me or anyone else and now everyone knew about her ways. That shit cut deep; I wanted to run away.
But where would I go, I was too young to take care of myself. I became so self-conscious after that and went back to playing by myself. At times I would look up and see the neighbors pointing in my direction; I couldn’t say for sure whether they were talking about me but it sure felt like it. I made up in my mind that no matter what, when I got big enough I was leaving this fucking town and if not the town at least I was going to leave my mom’s house. She could have this fucked up house and her fucked up life.
