Son of a God Who Became a Dope Fiend
My middle school years were the worst.
I had friends from the neighborhood who sold drugs and there were many days when they would surround me and tell me how my father stole their dope, how he was robbing people, and how he crushed a roach and tried to smoke it on the pipe. I got in many fights because of that, but even so, it made me hate myself and my father. Sometimes I would see him standing in front of the crack house and I would walk past him without even speaking.
I lost all respect for him as a man and as a human being. He was no longer my father, but a monster. A creature only fit for the grave and the pits of hell. He used to come to my bust stop and beg me for money and food in front of my friends, and worst of all, he had been wearing the same clothes all week and didn’t bathe.
My friends would “cap” on me and laugh. The streets were no better. The area I grew up in, everybody knew everybody, so there was no such thing as a secret. Whenever my father was involved in something, someone would come over my grandmas and tell us what happened.
In 1990, my father checked himself into rehab and got clean.
He started coming to pick us up and taking us out. Me and my brothers were excited to have him back and the future was looking good from where I was standing. He gained all his weight back and had that look of confidence and radiance that only a man can have.
A few months later, he showed up to the house with my future step mother. I was pissed! He asked me what was the problem and I said, “We finally got you back and now you are talking about getting married? You’re not going to do nothing but put us on the back burner again, I don’t want no part of it.”
He told me, “I deserve to be loved too and I need a good woman in my life, be happy for me”. I walked off and left him standing there. A year or so later, they were married and I didn’t even go to the wedding in protest. I knew that would hurt him because he wanted me to be his best man, but I wouldn’t have no part in it because I felt we would be left out.
After being married to my step mother and with me getting married also, he started sneaking out to get high again. My step mother would call me and ask me and my wife at the time, to accompany her on a “Jessie” finding mission. He would rent out their vehicles, pawn and sell their household goods, and beg, borrow and steal to get the drugs.
I almost got shot by a childhood friends for beating his ass and wrangling my fathers van from him. If I didn’t have quick reflexes and a cold right hook, that nigga would have got a shot off on me. Many times I went into the streets and put myself in danger because of my father. My step mother went through hell dealing with him because she truly loved the man, but even a dog gets tired, so she eventually left.
When I was released from prison in 1995 after doing a stretch for aggravated battery, my brothers were on their way in. They had become rebellious and lost respect for my father, as I had also done a few years earlier. He couldn’t control or intimidate them no longer. My step mother was now gone and my father went down worst than he did before he got clean.
I remember he called me one night crying, telling me how much he messed up his life and that no one loved him. I told him, “No matter how much dope you smoke, I love you and you will always be god to me.”
A few weeks later, my grand father Deda passed and I went to New Orleans for the funeral. My father was walking by my uncle Lil Llyod to meet up with my step mother.
He was looking good, as he walked up to me I said, “Where you going?” he answered, “I’m going to the movies with my wife”, I replied, “You not going to Deda’s funeral?” he responded, “Naw lil brother, I done seen too many people in a casket, I want to remember your grand father how he was”.
I understood what he meant, so I didn’t pry no further. He hugged me and started walking down the street. I watched him walk down to the corner of church street until he was out of sight, holding his head high and walking with the stride of a man filled with pride and without a care in the world. Little did I know, that would be the last time I would see my old man alive…..
Two weeks later, I received a phone call from my grand mother. She told me that my father died and I need to come home. I couldn’t believe it! Here was a man 6ft tall, 255 pounds, cock diesel. How can superman die, I thought to myself. I went into the kitchen and told my employees that I was going to be leaving and won’t be back for a week.
I called my wife Marilyn and told her I was on my way to New Orleans, I didn’t even go home to get clothes. When I got to New Orleans later that night, they informed me that my fathers body was still in my uncles house and asked if I wanted to see him. I said , “No!”. By the end of the week, the coroner informed us that he died from a heart attack induced from multi-drug toxicity.
My father died when he was 39 years old, the same age I am today.
I spoke at his funeral and went through all the motions. Some of my misguided family members even went as far as to try and blame my step mother, the woman who was there for my father and tried her best to see him through his addiction, putting herself and her children in harms way in the process! She loved my father, there is no doubt, but like I said, even a dog gets tired.
A year later, in the middle of the night, it finally hit me. I woke up and started balling out of control! I cried like a baby for over an hour.
My wife was panicky and didn’t know what to do. She never saw me get emotional or cry before. For the next five years my life felt surreal and it seemed like I was a walking zombie. I lost all direction and sense of self. I had nightmares from my childhood and it seemed as though I had a haunted mind. I found peace in 2004 when my girl friend Trell at the time, took me to my fathers grave sight so I could talk to him. I asked him to forgive me and I forgave him. I haven’t had a nightmare since.
The life of my father was a life of tragedy and misfortune. When my mother died, he was only 26 and she died in his arms while they were making love, leaving five young children behind in the process! Who can honestly say that they would have been able to endure such circumstances? Drugs was his escape and it was the drugs that eventually brought about his demise.
I have three brother and two of them, myself included, are convicted felons. All three of my brothers have had drug problems. I have never used drugs, except weed back in my college days. But I watched my father destroy himself, throw a NFL career down the drain, mentally impair my siblings, and lose houses, material goods, a wife and his life because of drugs.
The damage done to my siblings and I is permanent and we have been and are forced to to live with the pain of our fathers follies and misadventures. He now has 9 grand children by my siblings and I and 2 great grand children on the way that he will not be able to enjoy or know. He had his whole life in front of him, but that wasn’t enough.
(continued on page three below)
Category: Guest Posts, Society and Culture
