The Greatest Story Never Told

Chapter 19 - My Life With Shirley

Because Shirley and I had fallen deeply in love, she began leaving home with even greater regularity. I gave her a spare key to my place, and sometimes I'd come home from the college campus to find her sleeping in my bed peacefully. Home for her had become way to stressful and my place became her happy place. I'd cook for her, and we'd lay in my bed listening to tunes out of my sound system. Her favorite song was this soulful oldie called 'Step Into My World' by Magic Touch. Whenever it came on, she'd go into a deep trance as I lay with her drinking in her beauty. I knew then that I was ready to die for her. And, one night Carson almost made that a reality...

She had gotten tired of all the fights and verbal threats that  Carson threw at her, and one night while she was on the phone with me, he grabbed her by her legs and dragged her off the bed making her bang her head while I was on the other end of the phone. I saw red! She hung up and called the police. They asked him to leave the house for awhile. He went to stay with one of his brothers. She was now very afraid of him knowing he also had a shotgun in the house. His raging made him dangerous. She had him leave the house, which upset her kids. 

This scenario may have been one of the factors as to why I began to fail the nursing program, this was a major distraction and I was really worried about her safety as these situations often turned into murder-suicides. It all came to a head when Shirley ended her marriage to Carson and he stopped living with her, opting to stay at his brother's place. At this point in time I had applied for a job in the foster care system, nursing had fallen through and I needed to step my game up for Shirley and I. I landed a counselor's position at The Edwin Gould Academy located in Chestnut Ridge New York, a 400 kid campus housing the so-called 'Last Chance' kids. They predominantly came from the Five Boroughs of NYC. This was the last stop for all of the wayward city kids, just shy of being placed in a 'lock-up' facility. If they acted out and became unmanagable, the goon squad would arrive, shackle them and place them in a black van with black windows and transport them to lock-up never to be seen again.

I fell into this very strange world and went to work learning all about the  group dynamics of, Storming, Forming and Norming. I winded up in 100's of physical restraints, but the pay was good and they threw me overtime, double overtime, and even triple overtime. Soon, I brought a car. Things were financially great. Then, Shirley said, ' What sense does it make for us to be paying two rents? You might as well move in with me. I balked. I said, 'What about your kids? Carson Jr. hates me and I hear his sister is pissed about all of this. I don't think I want to live there if they hate me.' So, for awhile we dated but lived in separate places. She started inviting me over for dinner and to watch a movie. When she introduced me to Carson Jr. he just rolled his eyes, and when I met his sister Yolanda, she was very luke warm. They tolerated me, barely. But, things began to change when they began to see how I treated their mother like gold.

I've always been very romantic and giving. Sometimes to a fault. I gave gifts all the time and made sure our household wanted for nothing, doing special things for Valentine's Day, her birthday, Christmas, even showing love to her kids showing them birthday and Christmas love. This relationship never was just about me and Shirley, I grew to love her kids. They began to rethink the things that they had been told about me from their father. It was her kids that finally said okay to me moving in. Maybe 4-5 months after Carson left the house, I moved in. We became a family. Yolanda soon got pregnant, and gave birth to her first child 'Niecy,' and asked me to be her god-father which I accetped with honor. Then, she gave birth to Shalya. I'm also her god-father today. They also had a cousin that was born, and her mother, 'Rosie' being a huge and supportive part of Shirley and my love story asked me to be her daughter 'Shardaes' godfather, which I gladly accepted. 

(Shayla and Neicy... My God-daughters. My blessings.)

Late one night after pulling two shifts, and getting off at midnight, I jumped into my car for the ride home. As I was doing 50mph down Route-45, I was the only car on the road. I was tired and hungry, looking forward to Shirley's good Southern cooking. I saw a car coming in the opposite direction, it was speeding. It was Carson. As he drove past me and saw me at the window, he didnt know I had a car yet, but he had found out that I had moved in, spun his car around at 40mph, tires squeeling. I saw his car damn near flip over as he pulled a hard u-turn. Soon Carson was on my ass. He got right behind me inches from my my bumper. Then, since we had the road to ourselves, he pulled around to drive alongside me at breakneck speed. Before long we were doing 70mph speeding down route-45. I looked into his eyes and saw he was insane with rage. He wouldn't crash or bump into me but he was trying to make me crash. It was fucking scary!

Soon, we hit the interscetion and were held there by the red light. Then, it was round two. He followed me all the way home. I sat in my car in the  parking lot across the street from our apartment as he slowly pulled off, having had his fill of road rage. I parked and went up to tell Shirley and the kids what had happened, all three of them were pissed. After that craziness, I just wanted to shower, eat and sleep. I was safe and sound for the time being. The next morning I got up to head to work, not knowing how many shifts lie ahead of me, and whether I'd have to deal with road rage again. I kissed Shirley and the the babies goodbye and headed off to work. I was in for a shock...

I crossed the street, dodging traffic to start my commute. As I approached my Pontiac, I realized that all of my widows were busted out and all four tires were flat! I was super pissed. I stood there just staring at it. Then, as I was about to head back to the house, I saw Carson standing a block away with a huge grin on his face. I wanted to kill him. I called Shirley, then called the cops, as he ran off. I couldn't press charges because I didn't see him do it. He was off the rails... I called a cab and went to work leaving the car there until I could had time to deal with it.  The harder he attacked us, the harder we loved each other. The kids got much closer to me after that. They really felt bad about it. They realized that I wasn't the problem, Carson was the problem...