I don't remember too much about my mother or my early childhood. Everything is a blurr. I do remember my grandmother Essey owned a big blue three story house right across the street from Wainwright Park. That house was perfect. There were carnivals in the park. That house was the full of family all the time. And grandma was always cooking. She was my savior from many ass whoopins. I was her Bug and I could do no wrong. I can't say the same for my twin brother's Ron and Rick and my older sister Goose. They resorted to stuffing their pant with a little extra padding to soften the blow of the belt. And anyone could hand out an ass whoopin. In that neighborhood everyone was your momma. You could get three ass whoopins in one day from three different people!! We were family like that. My sibblings and i had different fathers.They all had the same father except me. That didn't bother me much cuz my dad was always around. My mother and father split when I was about 5. But he always came to see me. He was an ex Boston police officer. He worked at Woolworth and had various other jobs I never asked about. All I knew, was that he loved me and everywhere he went everyone showed him love. Even the kids. He was the kind of guy to give a kid 20 dollars for taking out the trash. And everywhere we went together they showed me mad love because I was his daughter. Free pizza, toys, clothes. You name it I had it. My father made sure he came and visited me every weekend. He always made sure I came home with a big bag of candy and other shit to share with my brother's and sister. Most of the time I split it with my cousin Shanon aka Shaney. She was my best friend. My other half. Where there was Bug there was Shaney. And where Shaney was I was. We spent most of the time with my aunt Roney, Shaney mother. She was always turning up. If she wasn't drinking and partying she was fighting with uncle Kurt. They would drink and fight together. Most of it was funny to us. And they would always get back together. 20 years later. Same shit. I kid you not. They like booby and Whitney I swear. That crazy kinda love.They would bust each other up bad one day and be throwing back 40's laughing the next day. Auntie Roney always babysat me and my siblings for my mom. She would sometimes leave for weeks at a time. It wasn't until I got older that I found out about her addiction to crack cocaine. It got so bad one time that me, Goose, Shaney, and and Shaney sister Shanon left aunt Roney s in the middle of the night to find her. We needed up finding my mom, my aunts, and my uncles at a wild party at my grandma's house a few blocks away. I saw my mother and my aunt Janet across the street. She didn't even look like my mom. She was smelly and her eyes looked like they wanted to pop out of her head. I was so scared i ran in the house to my uncle Curt. Who offered my a swig if his 40. Even at the age of four I knew better. So I declined. I locked myself in my great grandmothers room. It was always quite in there. She never spoke and required round the clock care from grandma. She spent most of the time in her big chair on the porch or closed up in her room watching stories. Normally I would hate to be in that room alone and bored but tonight it was my safe haven. It was after that night I started to have nightmares about my mom. She would always hide in my dreams and then come out of no where and chase me. But she never looked like the big bosom, pecan color warm mom I knew. She was someone else. She always looked the way I saw he that night. Things were never the same after that. My mom hardly came home after that night. About a month later a nice dressed white woman kept coming by asking questions about my mom my siblings and I. But my mom was no where to be found. A few weeks later after several attempts to reach my mom, the white lady showed up again but this time there were police with her. They asked my grandmother who was crying hysterically to step back as they escorted me and my siblings out of the house. Down stairs there was an endless line of black cars and police. I grabbed my sister Gosses hand tight as we walked outside. The white wiman who had been by weeks before put us in the back of one of the black cars. We were confused and crying for our mom. Then out of no where my mom was there. She came running to the car but as she ran to us the police restrained her. We kicked and screamed for our mom as the white lady who I found out later was a social worker for what was known as DSS at the time held us in the car. They wouldn't let us talk to our mom and they didn't explain what was happening. As the car pulled off I wept fiercely looking at my mom out the rear view. It was the last time I would see my mom for years.
