A Story From My Trip

October 27th, 2008 | By Sonnie Johnson

I must apologize for my absence. I was dealing with some personal issues but now I’m back. I got a great story for you though.

I was visiting my peeps and my baby cousin was arguing with her baby daddy. They aren’t officially a couple but they are always together. Anyways, she was telling him that she needed some diapers for their daughter. He was telling her that he didn’t have any money.

I’ve never met the dude, so I didn’t really pay attention to the conversation. Come to find out the hard times are really hitting the streets. The drug dealers are being affected by the the economy. I lie to you not. My baby cousins dude isn’t selling crack like he used too.

Me, being who I am, told her to get him to come to the house. Two cars pull up. One was a Chrysler cop car with shiny rims painted bright orange. I lie to you not. Bright fucking orange. The other was a brand new 2008 Tahoe Hybrid.

Her baby daddy hopped out the bright orange car, switched keys with the driver of the Hybrid, and pulled all his chains from under his shirt. Now my cousin is trying to find a job but she doesn’t have a car. This dude has three cars and won’t let her use one to find a job. He lives in a nice neighborhood and she lives with family. He is dressed head to toe in name brands but so is my baby cousin.

He walks up and throws $20 dollars at my cousin, who immediately bent down and picked it up. Then she started smiling and being nice to the dude. She was cussing him out an hour earlier. Now she was blushing like it was her first crush. I got sick.

So then another car pulls up in front of the house and I got a blast from my past. My biggest crush that never materialized was standing in front of my face. Let’s call him, G. Damn, he looked good. He rushed to hug me and I let him. I felt like I was 16 again.

Anyways, turns out G and the baby daddy are cousins, small world. Then G told me something so interesting. He told my cousin not to fuck with his cousin because men like them were no good. I didn’t think it was possible to lose so much respect for a person so fast.

Let me tell you G’s explanation, this is what pisses me off about alot of black men that I meet. He said it isn’t anyone’s fault that he is still a drug dealer. It’s his choice and he knows were he is going to end up but that won’t ever stop him. There were six of us back then, always together no matter what. Three of us have jobs and lives that no longer involve drugs. One is in Jail. One is dead for trying to shot back at the police officers trying to arrest him. And then there’s G.

G informed me that he was proud of me for changing my life. He said he knew I had it in me. When I told him he had it in him too, he said “I know”. When I tried to press the issue, he said “I’m always going to be me”. And that was it. End of discussion.

We momentarily talked about our kids and our families but I immediately realized how much I had changed. The trivial talk that once sustained me no longer was enough. We said our Goodbyes and they left.

A few minutes later, my baby cousin gave me her phone. G said he wanted to catch up with me some more and asked if he could come back over after he finished some business. I told him, No. My cousin lost her damn mind.

“Do you know how much money he has?”

I wanted to slap her. Good thing the rest of my family jumped on her because I was in a foul mood. Before I left, I pulled my cousin aside and kept it short and sweet. “If you keep worrying about what that man is doing you will never have time to focus on what you can do.” She didn’t want to hear it and I was tired of talking to her.

Then I found out how to get her attention. My daughter asked her to walk out to the car with us and she did. Guess who was waiting in the front yard, her baby daddy with a 89 Nissan Sentra just like I used to have. Now she would have transportation to find her a job.

Before I could pull out the yard, she ran to me with her phone. It was G. Seems he had a little conversation with her baby daddy. The fucked up thing is, he told him that with money being slow he should want his baby mama to have a job so she won’t ask him for money all the time. That’s the only reason he decided to get her a car.

Our conversation didn’t stop there but the rest is rather personal, so I won’t share. Let’s just say there is still a drug dealer I used to know back in Richmond. And one day, some one is going to tell me he is dead or in jail. He knows it and I know it. But until then he will continue to destroy the lives of the people that come in contact with him. For the first time in years, I’m glad I’m no longer 16.

My baby cousin took that $20 that was supposed to be for her daughter and went out with her friends. My Aunt had to end up buying diapers for her daughter. I doubt my aunt will even bring it up the her. And I’m sure she’ll be back to arguing about the needs of a child she doesn’t even take care of.

And me. Left to wonder what can you do to make the streets not sound so sweet. How can you connect with kids that could go to college but would rather hold down a corner? How do you reach daughters that see the struggles of their mother’s and still have babies way to early? How do you convince life long friends you talk to them because you know they hold more inside?

More than that. How can you reach the one’s that know they are wrong and continue on? How can you look into their mother’s eyes at a funeral and not shed a tear? What kind of heart does that take?

From personal experience, I know that takes a heart that is afraid to cry. But not only that, it takes a total understanding of knowing they knew it would end that way and they did it. Not looking back blaming the police or the rival, but a glimpse back at who that person was. It makes it alot easier not to cry.

Is that what we’ve become. Communities with an inability to cry. Yes, we can yell and scream but can we heal? Yes, we can blame and point fingers but can we uplift? Yes, we can mourn but can we also remember? Or are we afraid? Are we scared what the people around us would think if we were the first to shed a tear?

I wonder how long these questions will go unanswered.