Idon’t know Lord; I guess I am a little angry at you. Here I am trying to do it Your way and I still feel empty. One day I’m happy, the next day I’m pissed. I lose my girl; I don’t hang out with my friends; I try not to be tempted. I mean, it’s just one thing after another. It’s a circle that I am sick of being a part of.
I don’t know why I was so angry. We were in the middle of Spring ball and on the field I was throwing down, but the reporters were all in my face, talking about how much of a screw-up I was. I wasn’t even legally able to drink, how could the media think that college guys could handle all of their negative criticism? The fact that Coach Red wasn’t taking up for me wasn’t making me feel any better. Though he wasn’t on the bandwagon with the press, he certainly didn’t take a stand and have my back. All I knew was to show up on the field. But when Saxon showed up to make those same cuts, either he wasn’t fully healed from his injury earlier in the year or the guy just didn’t have it anymore. I couldn’t believe it when he got up in my face and I was just doing my thing.
I didn’t know what his problem was. Did he still have a beef with me or was he upset with his poor performance? Maybe it was both. I didn’t want a confrontation, so I left. I got in my car and just wanted to drive. I had no particular destination, but I headed east on Interstate 20 out of downtown Atlanta. My cell phone rang and it was Payton. We hadn’t talked in a while even though she’d been trying to reach me, and a big part of me didn’t want to talk at that moment. Honestly I didn’t have anything to say, but if she was calling then maybe she did.
“Hey sis, what’s up?”
“Awh! I’m so glad I got in touch with you.”
Sometimes when she had panic in her voice it just was annoying, I mean was it really all that or was she just exaggerating? And without just getting straight to the point, she talked round and a round about how many times it took her to get in touch with me.
“Look, I have football practice. I know Tad is up there working out too.”
“I know, I know. I’m just saying it seems like if you saw that I called you that you would get right back to me,” she said with an attitude. When I didn’t respond she said, “Okay, okay. I’m just stressed because it’s Dad.”
I’ve always known my father to be a rock. So never had I known my sister to say that.
“What’s going on with him?”
“He won’t go get his colon checked.”
“WHAT? Girl, you trippin’.”
“No wait, Perry. This is serious. This is a big deal. He just turned fifty and he’s supposed to go get it checked; actually he should have had it checked at forty. So he’s already ten years behind and he won’t go. Colon cancer is the fastest growing disease among African American males.”
“Girl, you know how strong Daddy is. And isn’t that thing hereditary?”
“That’s my point. Granddaddy had colon issues.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“So anyway, will you just call him and talk to him?”
“I can’t convince him to go see no doctor, you know how stubborn he is.”
“This is our father and I know you’re at Tech and life is great and all, but take your head out of your butt and care for someone else for a change. You need to be focused on Dad’s behind, okay?”
“Wait, why it got to be all that? You trying to make it seem like I’m something special or whatever. You know me better than anybody. Why you gon’ front on me like that?”
She was quiet, and the more I thought about it, the more pissed I got. “Well, shucks. If you going to accuse me of having a big head and all of that stuff then why don’t you just handle all of that then? Keep me out of your scheme to get Dad to go to some doctor.”
“Perry, wait, wait,” she said, but I hung up.
For real, I had my own issues. My dad was a grown man. If he didn’t want to go to the doctor then that was on him. I’m sure he was fine. He didn’t have any signs of having an irritable bowel, and the way mom talked about him stinking up the bathroom didn’t seem like he would have any problems with his colon. Though I didn’t know what the symptoms would be like, being that I wasn’t that educated on the disease. I just was feeling a little bit overwhelmed. I had never hung up on my sister before. But shoot, you grow up and you grow apart. I pressed harder on the accelerator and instead of driving at 70 mph like the sign had requested, I was going 90. My sports car could roll, and I started weaving in and out of Atlanta traffic. One guy put his middle finger up at me and that just made me press the accelerator even more. Was I losing my mind? Was I trying to crash? The clouds ahead were dark, and in two miles I was in rain. The traffic ahead of me was backed up. All I saw was red lights. I was going too fast to brake effectively and my car started skidding to the left. I grabbed the steering wheel tighter but lost control and went over to the right. To avoid hitting the eighteen-wheeler in front of me I skidded off the median and down an embankment. I opened my eyes, I took deep breaths. I couldn’t believe I had come away unscathed. My car had stopped literally inches from an oak tree. I wasn’t even stuck in the mud. I gained my composure and drove down to the left, which put me on some side street. I was in Covington.
I realized I was near the cemetery where my grandparents were buried.
In my mind the Goodness spirit said, Alright, do you want to end up here now?
Then Mercy came on the scene and said, I thought you wasn’t going to say anything to him. Obviously that is what he wants. Let him be stupid.
I couldn’t even remember where we put my grandparents. I hadn’t been back out here since we put my grandmother in the ground, but as the raindrops hit my face I found their place and dropped to my knees, remembering when my father had his dark night and wanted to take his life. Maybe depression was hereditary.
Stick with God! Goodness said.
He don’t think God cares, Mercy replied.
I looked up at the sky and pictured my grandparents way up over me holding hands and saying, We know this ride of life is crazy boy, but just hold on.
“I don’t know if I can,” I said honestly and then placed my head in the grass. I wept.
God’s grace got me back to my apartment and even though I was emotionally drained, when I got in the door Lance and Deuce got all up in my face. It reminded me of when my dad got home and Payton and I would out-talk each other, both trying to get his attention. Whatever they were excited about destroyed my foul mood. I had no time to be bitter. I had to hear them out. So I said “Okay, okay. One at a time,” almost laughing at their jovial expressions.
“Don’t talk too loud,” Deuce said.
“Yeah, yeah. He might hear us,” Lance said.
Now both of them were acting real weird. Only the three of us lived here, and I did not feel like fooling with anybody. I had told them both to talk one at a time, but they kept talking to each other and talking to me at the same time. So I turned around and acted as if I was walking back out the door and Lance pulled me back into the room.
“Alright, alright. Deuce, you tell him. You left early from practice, man.”
“I didn’t leave early from practice. Coach dismissed us.”
“He dismissed us from practice but we had meetings. You weren’t the only dude who left so he wasn’t tripping or nothing. You’ll never guess who walked out on the field and showed everybody that he was back in full form.”
“Back in full form,” I said, completely confused. All of a sudden a dude that I hadn’t noticed came forward from the back of the room.
“Collin!” I said, real excited.
“Perry, hey!”
I shared an embrace with Collin. The last time I had actually seen him in our place he was fighting for his life. He had left Tech after being released from the team. Lance, Deuce and I never thought we would see him again and here he was. I stood back to stare at him and then said, “So what, what you doing here?”
“I don’t know, I just thought about a lot of the stuf
f we talked about. Never quitting, always finishing a job. I went to Alabama and thought about my life.”
“So, what did you find?” I said, placing my hand on my hip and looking at him sternly. He choked last football season and then because of his poor performance he wanted to take his own life. Now he was back.
“I know I haven’t come full circle and Coach Red hasn’t given me my scholarship back, but I’m here as a walk-on. I went out there and he started me from the ten—and I went out there and kicked it through the upright. I moved back to the twenty—through the upright. Moved back ten yards until I got to the sixty—and again I kicked it through the upright.”
“Yeah, Perry. He kicked it through every time.” Lance came over as fired up as he could be to tell me the story.
Deuce came over and said, “Man you should have seen it. We all were tripping, none of us could believe it. The boy has been practicing down there in Alabama. He is bad!”
“Though the semester is almost over I’m going to be going to school this summer, but I can continue training, so since nobody lived in here…”
“We’d be glad to have you back; you don’t even have to finish it. Dang man, it’s good to see you.”
“It’s something, Perry, when you get a second chance,” he said to me. “Trust me, I know what you’re talking about. I just want to do it better this time.” Collin looked at the three of us and confessed, “I don’t want to let any of y’all down, but I don’t want to let myself down either. I felt like the only way to go forward in life was to face my past.”
The four of us decided to go down to the Varsity to stuff down some hamburgers and French fries to celebrate. When Lance and Collin got up to go, Deuce got up out of his chair and said to me, “What’s up, man? I’ve been seeing Savoy out with the basketball dude. You put her down? You know Jailyn’s been talking.”
“Just cause everything is alright in your camp doesn’t mean I can keep mine together. Be excited things are good for you, it is what it is for me and Savoy, you know?”
“Whatever, man, play that on somebody who don’t know you. I know you like that girl, and her brother is so hot about her hanging out with the guy who sexually assaulted her.”
“I don’t have nothing to do with that. I tried to check her on that and she put me in my place. You only got to check me once, you know what I’m saying?”
“Come on, Perry, if you was doing your thing with her she wouldn’t even be tripping like that. Why you be pulling away? You do the same thing with me. We supposed to be boys and yet you keep this thing sea level, we ain’t going ocean deep no more, it’s like that?”
I bit my lip. I was real uncomfortable Deuce had called me out. I didn’t know why I was pulling away from everybody I cared about—my sister, my girl, my boys—but before I could get on the defensive Deuce lightly jabbed me in the shoulder and said, “But you know I’ve been praying for you, right dog?”
At that moment I was all choked up with emotion. He was praying for me. Maybe prayers are what allowed me to get back home. Maybe our prayers for Collin are what allowed him to get himself together and come back to Tech and show out. Maybe praying more was what would help to straighten out all of my insecurities. I just shook my head.
“It’s cool man, why you think I was hitting the bottle? To be honest, man, I know where you are. You’ve got a lot going on, Perry. It’s hard to walk in my shoes, but I couldn’t imagine what it would be like trying to run around in yours. There’s a God up there that loves the both of us and if He can help me keep it on the road don’t stop giving Him a try.
Sometimes it’s just like I’m going in circles and nothing gets better, but that’s just it. You’re going and you haven’t stopped. He’s the wind that is pushing you forward and when He gets ready, He’ll straighten your course out. You’ve just got to trust Him.”
I bit my lip again. I couldn’t even look at my friend, but his words of wisdom ran deep, and silently I said, Yeah, I’ve just got to trust Him.
The week flew by. After all of the hard practice learning the new schemes the offensive coordinator had planned to incorporate next season, it was time for the Spring ball game. The only things that I had been focused on were my studies and the trio combination that proved to be a deadly one for the defense. Not only was I studying my playbook, I was acing my courses. But the biggest thing that proved to be powerful was getting into the Bible. My mind was starting to clear up. I really claimed the passage, Greater is He that is in me than he who is in the world. Every time I took my eyes off of God and started focusing on myself and my problems, my drama things spiraled out of control. I kept Him first and I was able to keep my eyes on the prize and be an overcomer. I was running circles around the defense. Coach Red had me running from the slot, running from the exposition and the Y. Wherever I was posted I was dominant. The throws from my roommate, quarterback Lance Shadrach, didn’t hurt at all either. Deuce had even run an eighty-yard play. When the game was over I dropped to my knees. Too many cameras were on me but I prayed, not for show but because I was thankful.
You haven’t given up on me. I know I take You through it giving You the praise and then doing stupid stuff, but Your Holy Spirit lives deep inside my soul. Some way, some how, I always find my way back to You. I appreciate this ability You have given me to dominate in athletics but show me what You want me to do with it. I’m tired of being blind doing it my way; Lead me, please?
As soon as I got up my teammates mauled me. The pile was so deep you would have thought it was the real game and we had just won the Super Bowl. Once we were all up Markus, the defensive lineman, a fifth-year senior, came up to me and said, “You are definitely the man, Perry Skky Jr. You are definitely the man. Let’s do something tonight, man. What we gon’ do?”
“Yeah, let’s have a party,” Saxon said as he came over to us. Both of them knew I wasn’t feeling it. Saxon turned to Markus and said, “I’m throwing the bash.”
Later on that night while I was relaxing in my room, Deuce came in and said, “You going over next door or what?”
“Man, there ain’t nothing going on across the hall that either one of us needs to be a part of. There is going to be a bunch of alcohol, a bunch of females.”
“Come on, man.”
“There’s nothing but trouble over there, right.”
“Come on, we can pop our heads in for a second—dang, can Christians celebrate?”
I couldn’t believe he was asking me that question. It wasn’t a week ago that he was in my ear encouraging me to do the right thing and put God at the forefront of it all. Quicker than the blink of an eye he had switched. I had jeans on and a T-shirt. He threw my shoes at me and motioned for me to follow him. As soon as I walked into Saxon’s, the smoke from something other than a cigarette consumed me.
“So this is what you wanted to be a part of?” I said sarcastically to Deuce.
“You ain’t kidding, half these dudes in here look like they on something.”
“Look like?” I said to him. “Let’s be truthful now.”
When we walked into the room a little bit more I was somewhat relieved because most of the guys were not our teammates. It was a room full of brothers and a bunch of honeys but some of the guys looked unfamiliar. Then the more and more I stared at them I knew ’em. I wasn’t trying to be overtly rude or nothing but this one guy I recognized. I had seen him before, and it was like my mind was playing tricks on me, seeing flashes of something horrific. I remembered seeing that dude that Mario shot down, and another car drive-by that scared the heck out of both of us. T-Money’s crew was up in Saxon’s place! They had admitted that they were excited that their leader was gone. The illegal drugs that Mario was a part of were now right across from where I lived and they brought that mess up here. I wished I had a siren and could scare them all into thinking that the cops were on their way, but I didn’t have the balls to say that that stuff was messing their lives up. The guy with the dreads that I kept looking at
walked over to me with an angry face like, You got a problem with me? My arms were folded and I didn’t flinch.
“Mario told us to meet him here. He said the party was here and we got invited. It wasn’t like we bust up in here or nothing. You looking at us like only the college dudes can be enjoying the honeys. We don’t sell no more.”
This was my chance to be used by God, to stand up for what was right, when the guy pushed me back a bit, wanting a response from me. He snapped his fingers in the air and his crew gathered round.
Deuce said, “Hold up now.” As the football players gathered behind me, I wondered how I was going to play this out now that I had the attention of everyone in the room. Could I keep my promise to God now that He had put me on a stage to make a change? Could I reach down deep and give them all a dose of reality? Drugs, booze, promiscuity. They’d all be headed straight to Hell if they wouldn’t stop circling the wagons.
12
Spreading God’s Word
The dude took the joint out of his mouth and then shoved me again. I knew everyone was staring at us intensely. I knew my football teammates had my back. Quite honestly, looking at the crew’s scrawny out-of-shape tails I knew we could beat them, but I didn’t know if they were packing a piece, and for me the last thing I wanted was for violence to erupt. I put my hand firmly on his chest and said, “Man, get back.”
“Straw, man, you gon’ let him handle you like that?” someone said.
We knew his name on the crew finally.
Markus, my boy on the team, said, “Shoot man, he the straw, we the bricks. Y’all don’t want no piece of us.”
I turned to him and said, “Man, I got this for real.”
Somebody yelled from the back, “Fight in the house!”
“No, no. It ain’t gon’ be no fighting.”
Markus leaned into me and said, “Man, please don’t preach. They need a beatdown.”
Promise Kept (Perry Skky Jr.) Page 11