Hundred Dollars & A Dream

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Sometimes I wondered what type of life did my sperm donor live. Has he ever been to prison? If so, after his sentence expired, did he ride around in stolen cars brandishing firearms? Did he have a 'no matter what' attitude when it came to taking care of himself and his family? Did he have dreams and accomplish them or did he simply succumb to the repetitive cycle of miseducation? Shit, was the nigga even still breathing?

I don't have too many fluent memories involving my biological father. In fact, I don't have any memories or at least a picture to affiliate our genetic association. Every time I asked my mother about him, the story was the same. That he was a "middle man drug dealer" from Richmond who was pursuing a boxing career foundered in a larger city like Baltimore and DC. Uncle Lenny swore he was 'the truth' when it came to his skill set with the gloves. But a drug deal went sour and my father was shot. Thus, pushing him away from the boxing ring and more into the streets.

Being a semi-country boy, the Baltimore drug scene, fascinated the shit out of him. My mother, a Baltimore native, introduced him to all the power players she knew. That's when the money started rolling in and soon after, she became pregnant with me.

According to rumors, my father had promised my mother that he was just getting in "the game" to stack up and move around. That he wanted to save up enough money to move us to a nicer neighborhood in the suburbs. He wanted to give me a fair chance at life without the privilege of being exposed to the shit he was witnessing in the late eighties. From the stories, he carried a reputation of being a pretty decent fellow. Like a motherfucker with some morals.

But all of his dreams and aspirations erupted very quickly or ended tragically, if you ask my mother. She said I was eight months old when she last saw him.

My father and a neighborhood hustler named Crum had became drug trafficking dummies; transporting "work" to Philadelphia, twice a week. Everything was all good and the money was even better. Especially in the late eighties. But this one trip in particular, something had to go wrong. Because after this one trip, everyone lost full contact with my father. According to Uncle Lenny, after the strange disappearance, my mother was never the same.

So that makes me think. What kind of father did I want to be with Stacy? How can I teach her about valuing her purity and self-worth, when you have these trifling bitches running around, sucking dick for a Xanax pill? How can I tell her to follow her dreams, when I gave up on mine? How can I be a good role model without being a hypocrite?

The first 23 years of my existence, I was led into a destructive lifestyle. From shit others taught me, shit the streets taught me, but mostly the shit I taught myself. Because of my mothers' extensive drug addiction, I in so many ways had to raise myself. If it wasn't for Uncle Lenny, I would've either been serving an L or got bodied a long time ago. But Uncle Lenny wasn't always there. So the solo walks through the 'hood, seeing people sell drugs had programmed the idea in my head that this was a normal part of life.

Picture this is all you see, consistently, from a shorty on up.

Picture saying your prayers, as a youngin' and having your thoughts interrupted by gunshots. You start to think that if God can't even save the innocent babies from stray bullets then who can? And the older you get, the more you stop giving a fuck. Why, because the art of destruction has become a normality in your cipher. Destruction is what you think. Destruction is what you see. Destruction is what you speak.

Growing up as a young 'Alley Boy', we were taught to practice the meaning behind every famous 'hood quote that has been quoted in every ghetto across America.