On the Other Side
Do you want to know the truth? I grew up in the Bronx. My whole childhood was filled with gunshots followed by mothers’ agonizing cries. So loud. Every cry was different, but they were all over the same thing. A child got shot. A car was destroyed from another bomb. Or a husband murdered. Gang violence defines the people of my town. They can’t escape it because it is what they are. It is like there is a growing scar, branded on them from every gunshot they fired. Every person they killed. And every life sentence they received. They are cursed, marked with an omen of a sorrowful and unrecognized death. Where they go and what they do at this point is now meaningless to their lives.
My mother was an easy night of fun. My father was an unknown. I never knew who he was. Neither did my mom. I was one of eight. But now I am one of two because of that little thing called meth. Methamphetamines change the way the brain works. You start to do stupid stuff!
That’s what happened to my brothers.
They died.
One of them thought he could fly and jumped straight off his apartment balcony. He then found out that he couldn’t do that. The police found his body later that day after a child went screaming to his mom because of what he saw. Another brother just passed out because his brain couldn’t handle the amount that he took. He laid in a coma for weeks
He died.
They all died.
Why is it that as time goes by, it takes more and more people that shouldn’t have gone in the first place?
Time is so cruel.
But time goes on and on. We as people change into things that we could have never have imagined as kids. Well some of us at least. I wanted to be a firefighter, and save dying lives. As soon as my mom stopped making payments to the bank, we got evicted. That meant that I had to go to work when I was twelve. I had to lie to the manager of a McDonalds, and tell him I was sixteen, and out of a job. I always looked older than I really was. I was six foot in the eighth grade.
I never could be a firefighter.
What I wonder is how my life could have turned out differently if I was raised like all the other kids. You know. Parents who stayed together and got married after they had a kid. Going to the park to play basketball without having to strap on a bulletproof vest. I cant even go to the park anymore because of the reputation my older brother has picked up. Just because of him everyone looks at me as a criminal, and a murderer. Whenever I try to go to play basketball, I get cussed off the court, and beaten up.
My brother is a horrible person. He is a Blood, and never sends mom a card on her birthday. He has killed more people than he can count to. He never went to middle school. After fifth grade he dropped out and became a street rat. Mom always loved him though. He never loved her. After about three years on the street, he became a part of the Bloods because they thought he was a real criminal. He never even thought that they weren’t his real family. People always say that the brothers you make from a gang are closer than your family. I bet you my next paycheck that they wouldn’t ever stand in front of a bullet for you. They would never take care of you if you became paralyzed from the neck down from a bullet shot to the neck. That’s happened before.
When life turns bad, you know what my mom always says? Stay close to your true friends, and go after what you want.
I wish I could.
I really do wish I could.
Things went bad three months ago with a project I tried to get off the ground. My internet business that provided people with useful links for abuse web sites got destroyed. The money stopped comming in, and the bills stayed there, slowly building higher and higher on the kitchen table. I wont tell you how it got destroyed, because that would mean I would have to tell you who did it. And I would rather you not know that.
Now I have to work three jobs to accomidate my expenses.
My friend recently got shot in the head. He’s now a vegetable, and rotting in a hospital bed. The only reason why he’s not dead is because I decided to help him. I called the ambulance, and I have been paying for every day he stays in that bed.
I want to help him because I love him. He’s my best friend. I have to work an extra four hours a day just so I can have the opportunity of going down to the hospital every weekend to see him still alive.
So now you know the truth. You know me. You know who I am, and you know my story. But you dont know why I am telling you this. I want somebody to know how it is on the other side. I want somebody to recognise me before I become just another story lost in the endless pages of the endless volumes of time. Nobody can sincerely feel the pain of a life. They can think about it for as long as they want, but they will always be able to go home and think about their own lives again. Nobody can sincerely say I know what you feel like because they havent experienced the feeling of comming home to the same situation as what they heard somebody talking about. What I am trying to articulate is that it is impossible to feel another person’s pain because you dont have to feel it for your whole day. You can always come home to regular life. I am telling you my story because I want you imagine what it would feel like to face my kind of problem’s your whole entire day, and not just for the time you read this. Know what it is like to not ever be able to escape.
When you are able to feel that, then you can truly know my story.
