What Do You Know (You’re Just a Kid) Ch. 26

I know all about pointing fingers.
I’ve had a few of them pointed at me too. I know about being the so-called bad one or what it means to be marked or labeled. And this is more than my fascination with my choice of artwork, which I have on my skin.
This is more than an entry about tattoos or tattoo culture. Yet, there is a definite misconception about this life. But that is not what this is about.
This is not about looks or anything like that, nor is this about our choice of fashion or the culture behind our music or its genre.

This is one about the “bad kids.” This is about kids who are seen as a behavioral problem.
Like I was . . .
This is about young ones or the wild ones or the misunderstood ones and misleading assumption that somehow, they are hopeless or unreachable, or that they’re losers, or that they are otherwise irretrievable and not worth the time.

This is about kids who were counted out or considered to be lost. More to it, this is about the ones who were told that they were a lost cause.
Like I was, or so I was told.
But more anything else, this is about the beauty behind some of the best people I have ever met. This is about the loving heart of young men who I knew well enough to call my friends.
And sure, they had marks. They had strikes against them.
They had a record and a past and all the reasons for people to shrug them off as losers.
Absolutely, they did.
This is about people who lived and died and about people who I knew, who no one took a deeper look at because of their background or their family, or because they had a mark on them or a stigma or because of their mistakes or behaviors.

I remember a day when I was walking towards the subway.
There was a blind woman who was walking with her seeing-eye dog but the dog was new to her and new to the route.
She was screaming for help. She was screaming for someone to help her.
This was the kind of scream that sounded out like an older woman in pain, or to me, this was a sound that was similar to when Mom was a month before her death bed, and she was screaming in pain.
Meanwhile, hundreds of citizens passed her by without caring, without looking at her, or even acting like the blind woman existed.
I ran over to help.
I, the so-called “disturbing” one with a so-called checkered past, was the only one who approached the woman.
I was able to help her over to where she needed to be.

It was amazing enough to me to share about this in one of my jail presentations.
And this is what amazes me –
Perhaps not everyone in the room but most of them lived brutal lives and were considered to be “bad people” listened enough and shook their head. Some of them mouthed the words, “Fuck that!” when I said how nobody cared.
I’m not sure why this brought out emotion in the room. Perhaps, like me, they know what it feels like to be helpless and have no one around you care enough to help, regardless of how loud or painfully you scream.

This is about people who we have signed off and sworn that they are incapable of rehabilitation.
I know a few of these people.
And sure, they were called the bad kids. They were the wild ones. They were the kids in the town who everybody knew and yes, they were the ones with the bad-ass reputation. They were the ones who ended up in the newspaper or they went down in a supposed “Blaze of glory.”
They died on their sword.
They were the kids in the town who gained both a sense of notoriety and popularity. At the same time, this is about the depth of them or the truth about them.
This is about the other side of them, which was more beautiful and more righteous that the typical person can handle.

This is about the unseen or unknown and the undiscovered beauty and talents, which I was lucky enough to say that I have seen this, firsthand.
This is about the young adults who I had the opportunity to run weekly presentations within a county jail.
I knew what they did.
I knew why too.
I also know about the revolving door that spins constantly which was hard to see people return. It was sad to hear about their fall from grace. Even more sad were the stories of how they left and died on the very same day of their release.
This hurt me . . .

I can say that I knew some of them.
Perhaps I didn’t know them any better than anyone else. However, I can say that I knew some of these young men, and I knew them well enough to know about their dreams.
I knew a little about their history of the years of their abuse.
I was granted access and shown a little preview into their lives.

I knew about their shame and their habitual mindset. But above all, I suppose the hardest was to know about their belief system.
This is what happened when they assumed that who they were (at the time) was all they could ever be—that this was all they were; and sadly, some of them truly believed this was the best they could ever be—a crook, a junkie, a dealer, a scar or a stigma or a label. No, not all of them were good people and sure, I saw people who I could say that I hated. I saw people who would probably never change or choose to.
There were people who I met and did not like because I saw them for who they were and what they stood for. I assume they hated me for the same reason—only, the reason why they hated me was because I was on the opposite side of the table.
I was an enemy and a reminder of their life, which they were throwing away and a reminder that their excuses were wearing thin.

I have met with kids who could not do well in a classroom setting.
Neither could I.
I met with kids who had stains on their records and spots on their brains from the dosages and chemicals they chose to use to satisfy their time.
I met with kids who chose the wild path to have a good time.
I know what they did to find an alternative to a stale or unhappy (or unwanted) existence.

I met with the bad kids.
I listened to them and on several occasions, I was lied to.
I admit that I took the bait and fell for their manipulation—which is not to say that this is what makes them bad at all.
No, it’s not.
This is their life and their way of living.
So, with me being on the opposite side of the table, or with my way being opposite from theirs, I knew why they lied. I understood why they looked to use me or the system’s vocabulary, to say the right words, and this way, they could escape their wrongs or to get out of trouble.
I get it.
I did the same thing too.

I remember hearing from parents telling me their kid was lying to them.
They told me that their kid lies to me, to which I asked, “Wait a minute, you mean to tell me that a kid on drugs and drinking alcohol or who keeps getting in trouble, or that some kid who was caught and is looking for a way out of trouble, lied to get what they wanted?”
No . . .
Say it isn’t so . . .
“You mean, you knew they were lying to you?”
I always answered the same way.
“No one lied to me. They lied to themselves.”

I am a firm believer that the world turns on a continuous basis, and no matter how fast you run or however long you run away, no matter how evasive someone is—eventually, everything catches up.
That goes for everybody.
No one can run away forever.

“Why didn’t you say that you knew they were lying?”
I did . . .
But again, this does not make someone bad or irredeemable or beyond improvement.
No, this means that they’re running for a reason.
This means that person is not ready to come to terms.
And I get that.
I really do.

I think about a young man named Richie.
He was a good kid. Good looking.
All the girls loved him.
He had a child. He had talent.
He was just a young kid.
He had a heroin addiction too.
This is what ended his life, shortly after his release from jail.
That one hit me hard.

I have heard from parents who tell me, “My kid would never do anything like that!”
Adversely, I have spoken with parents at wakes and after funerals who looked at me with tearful eyes and said, “I never thought my child would ever do anything like this.”

I have met the so-called worst of the bunch and sat with them and talked to them.
I have met people with gang ties who have done terrible things. Although they have done terrible things, even them, I can say that many of them showed me a beautiful side of their truth.

I remember speaking with a young man with gang affiliation.
He approached me on his last Sunday before release.
He told me that he liked what I did.
He was honest too.
He told me, “Look, you and I both know that I’ll probably be right back in here or somewhere else.”
He told me, “But your group was the only thing I ever looked forward to while I was in here.”
“It would have been nice to know you outside of these walls,” he told me.
“Maybe I’d have been someone different.”
“You still can be,” I told him.
“Maybe someday,” he told me.
But that “someday” never came.

I never believed that I could ever be anyone other than me.
I was that kid.
I believed what the teachers said about me.
I believed in the labels that I was given.
I believed in my habitual nature.
At best, I believed the life that I lived was the only way for me.
However, I did not believe in my ability to change.
By the way –
I am not here to say that everyone deserves more chances.
No, there are people who have burned bridges.
I understand why people cut ties and whether I wish for someone to improve or not, toxic people exist, and I have no control over these things.
None at all.

With all of my heart, the one thing I know is that I do not have the right to condemn anyone.
I do not have the right to say who can change and who cannot.
No one believed in me.
Well, almost no one.

I remember sitting in a chair on my last day at a treatment facility.
I overheard people talking about me.
None of what they said was good.
They said I would be dead before I got down to the end of the road.
They laughed at me like I was a joke, said I was incapable of rehabilitation, and said that I would either be dead with a bullet in my head, lost somewhere on a methadone line, or in prison for the rest of my life.

I can say that I have made countless mistakes since then.
I have certainly made bad moves and yes, I have done bad things.
Yes, I have.
But, that last morning in a treatment facility was back August of 91.
I have not gone back to “that life”.
I am not in prison.
I am not lost on a methadone line somewhere.
And more importantly, or as your special narrator for this journey, fortunately, I am not dead either.

I have been fortunate.
I was blessed by some friends and loved ones who literally saved my life.
I have had the great opportunity to have great people who were there for me at the worst of times, who placed their hand on my shoulder, and somehow, as if to be healed because of them or their love touched me and their support meant everything, I was able to make it to where I am now.

I am not perfect, by any means.
I am certainly not a Boy Scout.
I have secrets and sins and a private life.
I have things which I keep to myself, that I don’t even share here—and if you think about this—I tell you everything here.
So in this case, yes, I have things in my heart which have weighed me down for a long time.

At the same time, I am not sure why I am allowed to be where I am or why I have the position I do.
I am not sure why I am blessed to have certain people call me their friend.
I don’t know why I am blessed to be loved by people so great and so pure, or so beautiful; and more, I am not sure why I have the honor to know you or some of the greatest people in the world.
Yet, I have what I have—somehow, and I am lucky.
I am blessed.
I am fortunate because I see you.

I see how far you have come and what you have accomplished.
I see your pain as well. And this hurts me.
It hurts me to see someone as amazing as you are, yet you have no idea who you are yet.
Then again, I’m not so sure that I know who I am yet either.
Maybe we can both figure this out – together.

There is so much out there for you…. just waiting.
But rest assured, I will never tell you that you’re just a kid.
I will never minimize your pain or your worries or your fears.
I will never talk down to you and say, “What do you know,” because I have learned one truly valuable thing—when it comes to life, no one has the right to corner the market and no one has the right to say they know it all—including me.

All I know is that as a fan and as a friend and as a man with a heart; you have touched the paternal instinct in me.
I cannot take away the bad memories or the pains of an absent person.
I cannot explain why things happened, when the truth is, life happens without explanation.
But when it comes to us or when it comes to our thoughts and feelings and our emotional content, saying to someone, “it just wasn’t meant to be,” does not explain the weight of emotion nor does this take away the pain, and nor does this help.

I was never a good fit for most of my life.
I struggled with crowds.
I was never comfortable in social surroundings and, above all, I have lived with anxiety, medicated-resistant depression and different emotional challenges for as long as I can remember.

I known that I am not an authority.
No one is.
But, I do care.

I have never seen anyone as amazing as you are—and so you know, this brings pride to my heart and a tear to my eye.
I couldn’t be prouder of who you are—even if I was your father.
It amazes me what the human mind can endure and what we can live through. It amazes me how inspirational people can be to one another, just because they shared a little piece of their truth.
Oh, and as for the person who believed in me . . .

Dear Mom,

Each time I hear a story or meet a young person and they let me in their life, I think about the things you saw and the times I put you through.
Man, what a life.
You never abandoned me though. You never stopped believing in me.
And maybe that’s why I ran so much.
It’s not that I was mad or hated you or that I was angry. It was more that you knew I was capable of more—and so did I.
You were the reminder that I gave up on myself.
And Ma, just so you know . . .
That reminder was lifesaving for me.
So –
I want to try to do the same thing for others—just like you taught me
So I can pay this forward.

Love always,
Your son
B—