Alive With Purpose
E-Book, Englisch, 306 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-5439-8685-3
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet/DL/kein Kopierschutz
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
Chapter One LUCKY ME There’s this incredible energy in the air, as fans begin to pour into the arena. A distinct smell of popcorn, pizza, and nachos with jalapeños immediately hits your nose as the lines begin to form at the entry. Glancing back and forth at their ticket stubs, everyone is eager to find their section. DJ Khaled’s All I Do is Win, featuring T-Pain, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, and Rick Ross, is booming in the background. T-Pain’s demand for everyone to put their hands up when the hook drops puts a rhythm in your step. Excitement is continuing to build. Below, we see the players finishing up their last round of warm ups and getting in the zone. In the blink of an eye, the entire arena has filled with 8,919 fans and is submerged in green and white. Suddenly, it’s time. All at once, a collaborative pulse propels us to our feet, and the crowd projects a rioting, “Let’s go Eagles!” clap-clap, clap-clap-clap. The lights suddenly cut to black, and from the Jumbotron, the game opening video demands all eyes. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your 2019/2020 Men’s Basketball team!” The crowd unleashes a thunderous roar as the greatest arena rock song of all time, We Will Rock You by Queen, rushes over the speakers. The start of the college basketball season has officially begun. After the line-ups are announced, it’s time to take the stage. But first, the team heads to a huddle for one final word, and they all look to me. Standing there in the daze, I snap out of it. I am on the court completely surrounded by the eyes of sixteen eager players, all waiting on my queue. “Coach! Whatcha got for us?” I quickly clear my throat, “It’s the first game of the season, and this is OUR home court! You know what to do! Let’s go! Defense on 3! 1, 2, 3!” I take my seat on the bench in an arena engulfed with green and white, and I pinch myself. Is this really happening? How in the world did I get here? I grew up in a single-parent household in one of the roughest Detroit neighborhoods in the 1970s. We lived on the west side of town, typically referred to as Dexter & Linwood. Thugs, drug dealers, and gang bangers shared the streets with the vagrants, crackheads, and regular working-class folks just trying to make it. It didn’t take long for me to get used to the sound of gunshots and the sight of illegal activities at an early age. Dexter & Linwood was one of the many low-income, poverty-stricken areas that made up the inner city of Detroit. But to me, it was just home, a place I loved. Throughout my life, I only met my father twice, and quite frankly, I barely remember those two visits, let alone his name. It was clear that he had absolutely no desire to know me, which frustrated my mom most. I, on the other hand, felt indifferent about the situation. It was my mother’s frustration that upset me rather than the fact that I was abandoned by my own father. After all, how can you miss something you never had in the first place? My mom and I lived on the top floor of a duplex on Calvert Street with my grandmother, Annie Mae and my favorite Uncle Skeeter. They all called me Chick because my skin had a bright yellow undertone that was, to them, similar to a baby chicken. I had the lightest skin complexion in my entire family. Uncle Skeeter stood 6’5” with a huge afro. He would throw me on his shoulders and take me all around the neighborhood, morning to night. Folks would routinely shoot dice on the corner, and children would run around the playground and play pick-up on the basketball court nearby. I felt invincible with Uncle Skeeter. At the time, he was the only man I had in my life to look up to, so naturally, we grew extremely close. It wasn’t until I turned five that I really began to understand that my biological father was nonexistent in my life. My mother, Andrea Jean Murphy, gave birth to me when she was sixteen years old, and I am the spitting image of her. She had a smooth caramel complexion, and a petite delicate frame. Her almond brown eyes sat behind stylish glasses, and she dressed in the trendiest outfits from head to toe. Her beauty was amplified when her face broke into a smile. That smile of hers was brighter than a crescent moon in the night sky. When I look in the mirror, I see her face every time. The first impression she gave was sweet and docile. But beneath those qualities was an outspoken and strong young woman with unwavering confidence. She was truly a phenomenal human being. All of her friends characterized her as a giver, a person who would do anything for anyone. She’s the kind of person who would set aside all personal needs just to make everyone else happy. The kind of person you’d be lucky to come by, selfless. To this day, I have never met another person who has been as generous as her; it’s from her that I learned to live life the very same way. For any teenager, raising a child is a challenge. Although my mom was years ahead of her age, it was still difficult. But through it all, she devoted a great deal of time and energy to mold me into a proper young man. I continue to carry on small habits she instilled in me from a young age. She was a stickler for hygiene and organization. I had to brush my teeth after every meal, iron my clothes before bed each night, and make my bed every morning. When it came to teaching me good habits and discipline, my mom did not play. The summer before I turned six, we moved to Santa Rosa Street, in an area known as the 7 Mile, BK territory. Our house sat snugly in the center of a long block, surrounded by patches of grass and lots of trees. It was a small, square-shaped house with an A-frame roof and chimney. We had a barely paved walkway that led to a grey front door, which sat left of a small window. It was slightly better than the home we had before, but we were still in a poor area of Detroit. The houses on my block were small and spaced closely together. You could take five steps from one house to the next. Iron bars covered the doors and windows of every house for protection. While the neighborhood had a few boarded-up houses and businesses, most people took pride in the upkeep of their front lawns. In our new house, Uncle Skeeter lived in the basement. It was during my time in the basement with Uncle Skeeter that my love for music was born. Marvin Gaye, Stephanie Mills, The Jackson 5, Teddy Pendergrass, Aretha Franklin, and The Whispers, are some of the artists that were on constant replay, as well as my all-time favorite song, Rapper’s Delight by the Sugar Hill Gang. There was a fully loaded refrigerator with all sorts of snacks and juice, and a stocked bar with every liquor you could imagine. If I could have hung out down there all the time, I would have. But on certain days, the basement was completely off limits, and under no circumstances was I allowed to take even one step into the basement… When I came home from school on any given Friday evening, I would walk into a house full of people. Our house was the spot for all sorts of gatherings, cookouts, birthday parties…you name it! The whole neighborhood was welcome to stop by and enjoy whatever they pleased, and so they did. The music was always bumping, food was always cooking, and we were always having a good time. But under the surface of the fun, like in most hoods, there was gambling, drinking, and lots of drugs. I can still hear my mother shouting at me, “Get outta here, Chick! Promise me you won’t ever do none of this stuff you see!” But all of the secrecy only made me more curious. My inquisitiveness always led me to the basement on those days I wasn’t supposed to go down there. What were they trying to hide from me? I desperately needed to see. So, one day when my mom and grandmother were gone, I snuck half way down the steps and quietly peeked over the banister. I saw various groups of men making stacks of aluminum packages filled with drugs. There were scales, heroin, cocaine, tablespoons, sifters, and more cash than I had ever seen, neatly organized on the bar, right when you entered the basement. I wasn’t too sure what to make of it, but as I got older, it didn’t take long for me to understand what was going on. The pipes, needles, and syringes on the table would eventually have meaning. Our house was a stash house. When my mom was eighteen, she met a guy who made her undeniably happy. His name was Hosea “Bullet” Payne, but people just called him by his street name, Bullet. Four years later, at twenty-two years old, my mom and Bullet had a baby boy, James Bullet Payne. We called my little brother “Woo” because he had more energy than anyone could handle. And my grandmother would always let out this sigh, “whew,” when she was out of breath from chasing him around. He wore her out! I was officially a big brother and excited to no longer be an only child. Bullet moved in with us after he and my mom married. Bullet was the first man I was truly able to call “Dad.” Looking back, my life wasn’t as structured as I thought it was. I missed out on the first two years of school and didn’t start until I was six. The kids in my class at Hampton...
