When Shit Got HARD, I STAYED I DIDN'T RUN! (eBook)

Straight out of Brownsville, Brooklyn

Joyce Bermudez (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 1. Auflage
224 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-9269-7 (ISBN)

Infos

This powerful memoir will take you on an unforgettable journey to see through the author's eyes and experience life in a place called Brownsville, Brooklyn. This is a place referred to as the 'jungle' because it's all about survival. It's a place where it's not normal for a young man to reach 25, and if he does, it's celebrated. Readers will feel the pain and understand what it takes to survive. The era was the 1990s, also known as the crack era. This book captures the full scope of human emotion - excitement, love, anger, sadness, happiness, and pain. Readers will feel as if they are right there, living it. There are lessons to be learned in this book. God uses us all as examples and the author's story is a powerful testimony.

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This powerful memoir will take you on an unforgettable journey to see through the author's eyes and experience life in a place called Brownsville, Brooklyn. This is a place referred to as the "e;jungle"e; because it's all about survival. It's a place where it's not normal for a young man to reach 25, and if he does, it's celebrated. Readers will feel the pain and understand what it takes to survive. The era was the 1990s, also known as the crack era. This book captures the full scope of human emotion - excitement, love, anger, sadness, happiness, and pain. Readers will feel as if they are right there, living it. There are lessons to be learned in this book. God uses us all as examples and the author's story is a powerful testimony. No one chooses the life they are dealt. Everything in life comes down to how we respond to the circumstances we face. For the author, life involved frequent shootings and violence, as if she were living through a war. Life was filled with hardships and suffering. But she would see her life in dreams, and her soul knew that the dreams were God's way of communicating with her - bracing her, comforting her, and preparing her. Throughout this book, you will read about a young girl who begins to pay more attention to her dreams as they play out in real life. As you read and embark on this journey with the author, you'll see failure but also perseverance. You will see how God carried her through all the pain and hardships and led her with strength. You will see how God took a bunch of nobodies and turned them into somebodies in this world.

Textauszug

Chapter 3

The Phone Call

When I went inside the house my mother, was walking back and forth looking very nervous. I could see it all in her face. I ask her right away, what was wrong. She told me she just received a phone call with some horrible news. A person called threatening to kill my older brother, the brother that is right above me. He is 2 years older than me. They had the nerve to give the message to my mother! She was so scared and freighting but who wouldn’t be?

Someone called her in the middle of the night to tell her that, “she would be losing one of her sons soon.” And he hadn’t come in yet, so I turned right back around to find him and make sure he was alright. And as I started to go in front of the muse he was standing right there talking to a few people. It looked as if he was about to come inside, so I stood on the side of the small circle of people waiting for him to finish talking.

Guess who was right in that very same circle! DIVINE the one I was falling rapidly in love with. I just can’t escape him, could I? Was this Faith or was it a coincidence that he was appearing everywhere I was? I pulled Franky to the side to let him know someone was terrifying our mother with death threats. He knew who it may be. Apparently, he owed someone money. Franky got mix up with the wrong crowd somewhere down the line and got into drugs.

Things were always missing from the house, mainly money and jewelry sometimes even coats. We knew it was Franky, but we could never catch him stealing. Nor could we prove it was him. But we knew it was him. After I finish talking to Franky, I was ready to go back inside, so I was saying my good nights. He asked me, “could I come with you?” I almost died! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! Of course, of course you could come with me! And do what I don’t know; its wee hours of the morning, so I really don’t know.

I knew that I was feeling him but not enough to slut myself out. I wanted and needed his respect. Which means I had to respect myself. Which means if I wanted him, and I did from the very first time that I saw him. I wanted him, but I knew I had to brace myself. I knew I had to control myself, if I wanted his respect in the morning.

So, we went into my parent’s apartment, I walked in first and he followed. When you walk into the apartment. you’re in the dining room. Once you past the dining set and the stairs, which leads downstairs to all 5 of the bedrooms. Past the stairs is the living room, which has a door and staircase that leads to the backyard. My mother decorated the apartment really nice. She had wood panel throughout the entire house, my mother had chandler over her dining table, and she had carpet in the living room, with expensive furniture.

He seemed amazed when he walked into the apt. He was looking around at our furniture. Then he said, “You have a nice apartment.” I said, “Thank-you.” We went inside the living room; there was a love seat soon as you walk right in the door. Directly in front of it was the sofa, a little further from the sofa was the entertainment center, there was the wall unit with the TV, VCR, besides the love seat were fish tanks.

We sat in the love seat, right next to the living room door. It was so quiet, so peaceful; everyone that was in the house was sleep. Directly in front of the love seat was my daughter’s Mickey Mouse playpen. The play pen was in the middle of the love seat and the sofa. She was not in it. She was downstairs in my parent’s room sleeping.

Before he sat down, he took his coat off, I was admiring his Fila suit, and how well he dressed. And how well he matched his cloths. How neat he was. I was just impressed that a guy would take that much time to make his self look good. After he took his coat off, he pulled these two guns out of his waste. I was so scared, but tried so hard not to show it, I was like, “Oh my GOD, he is going to kill me and my entire family. Who did I just let into my house?” I let this stranger into my parent’s house. As I was finishing my thought and taking some breaths, because living in the hood you know, you learn that you are NEVER to show fear, even if you are scared.

I tried to remain as calm as I could, wondering to myself why does this individual, has not one, but two guns on him. He took the guns from his waist and as he was standing there, he and puts them underneath the sofa he was sitting under. I didn’t ask any questions I just wondered and wondered and wondered. But still at this time nothing told me to get this nigga out my parent’s house and fast!

It never crossed my mind, why I don’t know but it didn’t. Before he put the two guns underneath the sofa, he kissed both guns, looked at me and smiled the cutest smile ever. And said, “my name is Divine, 2 nine, Divine.” And place them underneath the sofa. I felt safe again, he put them away I didn’t fell scared any more. He sat right next to me. He looked so tired. He reached to take his hat off.

When he took his hat off, I was like Damn! He is so cute! He had these braids that looks like he just started to grow them almost 6 months or so, maybe a year. So, they hung like right before his eye and right above his ear. They probably would have hit his eye, but the tips of his hair were so curly, like he had Indian in his family, Hispanic or something. He didn’t look like your average Black guy. He was mix with something.

I tried to hold myself from falling for him so quickly, but I couldn’t help it. My problem now was that I was falling in love, and I knew I had to somehow stop myself from falling in love. At the same time not let him know that I already fell for him.

Because remember he is married! That’s what he told me at the party. Which means I must brace myself. Get to know him as a person, just be there for him as a friend and that’s it. So, we began talking about ourselves. When we began talking, we realize we had more in common than we thought. We knew a lot of the same people but never came across each other.

I began telling him about my relationship I had about 2 ½ years ago. It was actually my first relationship! The guy I lost my virginity to, JR. Well, his real name is Nathan, but JR was his street name, and that is the name he went by. When we started going out he was a nice individual, had a good hard working mother who tried really hard to raise a man, but if you are a single mother or know a single mother, than you know how hard that is. There were not too many people named JR. So, when I said his name, he stopped me in my tracks. And said, “JR from Vandyke?”

I was like damn, he knows him. I said, “Yes, that’s the one.” He started laughing like, “no, ah man, no.” And I was just looking at him, “like you know him?” He said, “Yes I know him, I turned him on to the streets. I am the one who got JR as wild as he is now. It’s because of me.” He took the credit for turning this guy into a trigger-happy felon. Apparently, they were friends at some point in time! But I had no idea. JR had one friend that I knew of name Divine, but I knew him. He was also from Marcus Garvey Village. The same place I am from.

I didn’t know how to deal with this now. I was like damn, he knows JR. Not that I was with JR anymore. I never dealt with two friends before. Or two guys that knew each other. It’s not like we all use to hang out together, I never even heard JR mention Divine. JR and I broke up after money got to his head.

We were inseparable at one time. Everywhere he was, I was. He got into selling drugs around the way, the projects where he lived. I guess that wasn’t enough for him, the money that is, I guess it wasn’t coming in fast enough for him. He heard that nickel bags of crack went for twenty dollars in Texas.

He found out in Texas he could sell the same product, for a $15 profit. In his projects it was only $5. A whole $15. more. This is a drug dealer’s dream! He started leaving the state to sell his drugs. It’s why a lot of our young men leave town, to go to another town to sell drugs. I was so young, and so naive.

I was only 15 years old and he was 19. I couldn’t leave the block let alone the State. I couldn’t do the things he could; I couldn’t keep up with him as much as I wanted to as bad as I wanted to. I wasn’t even allowed to have a boyfriend, so I had to sneak and see him. I thought I loved him, I believe he was my first love, I thought this was it. I was going to be with him forever, he cared about me.

JR eventually met people that were doing the same things he was doing. He started to cheat on me with other females. Around where he lived, one in particular who lived in the building right across the street from him. She was able to travel with him and do all the things he wanted her to do. All the things I couldn’t do. She was 19 like him. She was light skin, she wore extinctions, and she had a unique Moe on her nose. She was a little short but she was very pretty. She eventually had his first son. Which led to me loosing my mind, wanting revenge. Not realizing that by having a baby I would only be hurting myself.

I didn’t know any better, I didn’t care. I was only 15 years old hurting so bad, experiencing things I shouldn’t be experiencing yet at my age. I didn’t know how to deal with the emotions I was feeling, he was my first! I loved him, I trusted him and now someone else was having his baby. I was crushed! My only focus should have been school and passing my grades. But it wasn’t it was this nigga leaving the state, with some broad who eventually got pregnant and had his baby. Their first baby.

I can’t...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.10.2021
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-10: 1-0983-9269-8 / 1098392698
• ISBN-13: 978-1-0983-9269-7 / 9781098392697