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At this point, I was beyond downtrodden and hunger knew no one as well as he had known me at this point. I put on Blue’s shirt and shoes since I obviously needed them more than he did. However, the harsh weather and hunger landed their heavy hands on me every stiff chance that they got. What did I do in my past life to deserve so little in this one? Regardless of reason, I had to move forward. I wanted to up-stage life. For just one moment in time, I wanted to win. I wanted to make up for the miserable mother and childhood that I had.
No matter how ridiculous it seemed, I had to get a job. I had to figure out a way to make a living. Akron is the rubber capitol of the world; surely someone will hire me to take out trash, sweep floors, clean toilets, or something. Hungry, tired, cold and dejected, I trekked to Goodyear, Firestone, and Goodrich one by one to plead for work. However, they all still said that I was too young. Even if I wasn’t too young, this wasn’t the season to hire—unskilled niggers, I thought. Maybe it was all in mind, but I was tired of nothing being in my stomach. I was also tired of taking no for an answer.
Days later, I relentlessly failed to achieve any type of employment. My armpits wreaked plus I was dingy and dirty so that made it even harder to acquire some 9-5 employment. Grandma Betty had kept me on the straight and narrow, so I didn’t have a game plan like running numbers or three- card- Monte. And I wasn’t born with a pink portable income like mom and I had no intentions on converting my asshole into one.
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There were a few soup kitchens in town but the hobos were so menacing in presence and the food was limited. I never understood why they called them soup kitchens because every cup I had was only broth. With no other options at hand, I wandered the streets of my old neighborhood surviving one day at time, one lid at a time trash can by trash can. I was determined to find any kind of grind.
Often shunned and deeply shamed of my birthright, I was a local pariah and a famed smack whore’s relinquished son. The neighborhood children didn’t know my name but they knew my face, my misery, and worst of all, they knew my mom. They ridiculed me to no end. They cursed me, pushed me, shoved me, and even spit on me. Not only was I a trick-baby, but also I was a high yellow Negro and intra-racism was also an issue as well inter-racism. I once heard Grandma Betty call it light-skinned supremacy which meant that some light skinned blacks did think they were better than darker skinned blacks, especially light skinned women. And some dark skinned blacks acted as if all high yellow blacks had it made and enjoyed the absolute good life.
I was a testament to the difference. Blacks turned against blacks over a few shades of pigment! How come blacks don’t understand that together we stand and divided we all fall? Yet day after day someone was screaming, ‘Get away from us! You high yellow motherfucka. All you yella motherfuckas are some house niggas.’ On the contrary, there were also fair skinned blacks that snickered and called dark skinned blacks monkeys, baboons, gorillas, and tar babies. It’s sad when smart people say dumb shit. Look at what a good job the white man has done at making us hate each other, over some shit none of us have control over.
By the grace of God, I weathered the long winter; somehow I lived long enough to become fifteen years old. I still wandered aimlessly, usually at night to avoid detection, among unlit garbage strewn alleys to scavenge some food in slimy dumpsters and smelly maggot-trap trashcans. Not even the roaches wanted to share the alley with me, but rats proved to be constant competition for what crumbs existed.
Once I found partial hot dog and bun on the ground, it was riddled with swarms of ants. I had no choice but to swallow my pride and dust off them ants, and swallow quickly as possible so that I wouldn’t have to think about the degradation of my existence. Other times I was dizzy with hunger, and nauseated from polluted air. One night I was so dizzy and weak that I inadvertently stepped on a homeless drunkard balled up underneath a bundle of boxes and he was drenched in nose burning defecation, putrid vomit, and bodily filth. At that moment, I reluctantly realized that I was centimeters away from becoming him.
Although hygiene wasn’t my number one priority, I tried to keep it somewhat in tack the best I could, but it was nearly impossible. I stole whenever the opportunity revealed itself, but I knew I couldn’t smell like death and go shoplifting. I stole some much needed articles like soap and small eateries from Woolworth, but once certain cashiers noticed that I never bought anything, they kept a close eye on me. So when my short-run of thievery ran out, so did my options.
By not being able to bath regularly, my skin became greasy, my face broke out with terrible rashes, and my underarms were sticky and stinky. I went to public restrooms in hotels and took whatever soap available off the sink. Sometime I’d wash balls and all right there in the public sink.
One day a businessman looked over at me and said, “Why don’t you get a room son?”
I casually pulled up my scrotum sack and washed underneath them as if he wasn’t standing there and replied, “Pops, why don’t you give me some money to rent it with?” Needless to say, he strolled off in the sunset without dropping a damn dime in my direction. However, on one occasion to my surprise, I was taking a birdbath in a hotel sink again when a young white police officer actually dug in his pocket and gave me five dollars. He told me that he hoped it helped and for me to be careful. Trust me, acts of kindness from cops didn’t happen often and I still can’t believe it. Eventually, I was banned from the hotels because patrons started complaining and those tight fisted owners had the nerve to want to charge me for using their soap and sinks. It was back to doing what I did best, beg and dumpster dive.
In the alley, if we witnessed someone toss a decent portion of unwanted food like pizza crust or bit off burger buns, we fist fought to see who got it. There was a particular incident, I’ll never forget. This young, classy, black chick had tossed nearly an entire hamburger down after just one bite; she apparently didn’t approve of the taste. Simultaneously, this other bum and I darted for the burger like Jackie Robison trying to steal second base. I urgently grabbed the burger and shuffled much as I could into my mouth; I shoved it in my mouth so fast that it skipped over my taste buds and damn near choked me. This angered the competition and he fired off a wild left that rocked me. Being robbed off my balance, my mind raced for survival.
However, the competition already had his attack plans laid out and charged at me. Subsequently, I quickly head-locked him and rammed his head hard against the iron dumpster, not once but twice. He squawked like a rat in a trap as he flopped to the pavement. I got on top of him and hit him a third time and rendered him unconscious. I sat and watched foam leak out of the side of his mouth. Although I couldn’t explain it, I derived a perverted joy from that small violent victory. It felt good to be on winning side of violence for once. In fact, the taste of victory felt great. It felt grand to have nearly a whole burger bopping around in my stomach; it felt magnificent to be king. In my mind’s eye, my tongue happily molested every millimeter of that burger over and over again.
As weeks moved forward, life in the alley was one of deep desperation and great determination to survive. This alley was battle boot camp. It helped me to be very resourceful at using my surroundings to both defending and shelter myself. The spring nights lasted forever and weekends were the worse because it was payday for workers. People partied and parlayed on payday, but there was no payday for the homeless.
We merely watched everyone else celebrate. Hot tears poured down my narrow face, as I asked God to grant me the answers for such unwavering pain. I‘d futilely begged passersby for some change, but the filthy trashcans were much kinder.
I remembered Chappie Johnson and his kindness, his words about God. Eventually I mustered up the courage to solicit local churches for help but many of the so-called saints turned their noses up at me, wanted me to fill out applications, to declare my religious affiliations, to give them an address that I didn’t have, and they acted apprehensive like I was an undercover con artist. They acted as if I were some scam artist trying to trick them out of their blessings. Often so-called saints were worse than people of the world, even a white cop had given me five dollars. They told me to go home even though I explained repeatedly that I had no home, no parents. They’d stare at me with great suspicion, but the only good reason that I could come up with was that maybe I looked a little old for my age after all I had been living on the streets for over two years.
Maybe I just caught these ‘good’ Christians on the wrong day because they made me feel even less than I already felt. Sister Clarkson offered lots of advice, lots of words, lots of biblical verses, but little food and absolutely no money. She even offered to pray for me, I told her to pray for my empty stomach. Far as I was concerned, their God had abandoned me. I’m better off a being bum than a hypocritical Christian anyway.
