by Mack Mama
I started pulling his suitcase up the stairs and he pulled my hand away from it. That was it! We started tussling and, of course, I had no wins against his big ass, so I stopped. He wasn’t being aggressive. He was trying to restrain me, which made me even madder. At that point, I just said the hell with it, and told him that the police in my neighborhood would lock him up for trespassing, so he had to leave my building. He was just standing there like a zombie. I realized that he was high, because there were no getting through to him, and he wasn’t leaving. That’s when I left, figuring once he saw me drive off, he would go to the train station like any normal person, and head on back to wherever his ride took him. There was no such luck. While I was driving, I get a call about twenty minutes later from my ADT Security system operator. She told me that my alarm system had been set off and there was an intruder in my home. My heart dropped and I told her to call the cops. By the time I got back, the police were there, but my godson was nowhere to be found. After explaining the situation to the police, they had a clear understanding that he was obsessed with me and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I wanted him arrested. Plain and simple! I didn’t trust him. I had to protect myself and my daughter, or I would be back in prison for killing that maniac.
The police started a manhunt for him and canvassed my neighborhood. It wasn’t going to be hard to find a dark-skinned male around 6’2”, who dressed in all black in my predominately white neighborhood. Sure enough, he was spotted about twenty minutes later. He had the nerve to come strolling down the block like nothing ever happened. I knew right then and there that homie was a problem. He lied to the police right in front of my face, and told them I let him in my apartment. I spazzed hard on him, right in front of the cops. “B***h, I let you in!? You lying piece of shit! LOOK ME IN MY EYES AND TELL ME THAT!” I roared. It must have registered to him that I was just as crazy as he was, because he dropped his head and admitted that he climbed through my window to put his bags down. That was his lame excuse. He stated that he didn’t take anything, and he just wanted to put his belongings back in my house; even though I told him that he couldn’t stay. ‘Ain’t that a b***h? I had had enough of his demented behind. I told the police that I was pressing charges and I wanted him arrested. Call me a snitch, rat or whatever, but that negro was going to jail. See, I had to do what society required me to do, because I have changed my life. I will always be an O.B.G at heart, but my mind is matured. I knew that if I didn’t have him locked up, I would have done something to that boy. I would have been the one cuffed in that cruiser instead of him. That’s real talk. I had to get an Order of Protection against him, and I pray that he doesn’t violate the order.
He did sixty days in jail and was released. The D.A. on his case contacted me before his sentencing and asked me did I want him to do a year followed by three years of probation. My bleeding-heart self said no. I made a plea for him to come home because I thought that he learned his lesson that NO MEANS NO! Unfortunately, his love for me turned into hate, and now he threatens me daily. He stalks me on all of my internet sites. I block him, but he finds a way to pop back up. I changed my phone number, but he got the new one. He texts me and leaves me menacing threats on my voicemail stating “I’m going to burn you and your grandmother’s house down.” That really bothered me because why my 86 year old Nana? What did I do to him to make him hate me this much?
I asked him that and guess what he said? He wants me to buy him a Protools program so he can make music, but I’m hating on him, and I don’t want to see him become successful. Go figure! The lesson I learned from this experience is you can never do enough for a person. They will always forget about all the times you said “yes”. It’s the first time you say “no’ that defines you. I also learned that I can’t personally help people anymore. When I want to help a cause, it will be through my charities. I will have my handlers deal with the people, because I seem to attract the crazies. If it’s not a child or a senior citizen, I will not let them into my personal space. I have a genuine fear of humans from all of my negative experiences.
I am a recovering addict. My addiction is money and violence. Any sort of negative situation, like the ones I have described in length, will trigger my thirst for revenge. It’s best for me to live in peace and harmony, while staying away from people, places and things that bring me harm. I see why celebrities don’t hang out with people who are not in their circle. It’s so hard to get into their loop because they have to be very wary of people. It’s always a hidden agenda or a motive behind someone’s intentions, which makes it hard for the few humans who are genuine and sincere to infiltrate the successful society. You have to really prove yourself. I never understood that until I realized that it is impossible to “keep it real” with the hood, because if you don’t have what I have, then nine times out of ten, you want it. So, when you get in a certain tax bracket, you have to move and hang around folks who got it like you do. My only problem is that I love the ‘hood. I love my people, and I find a lot of phoniness in the Industry. I also suffer from a bleeding heart complex. I want to help the world, but I always wind up helping the wrong folks. I can’t win for losing!
My entire life has been full of pain and negativity. I just want to be happy. I control my own destiny and, as long as I stay focused, I will win. I am a product of my choices, not my environment. I chose my path in life, and I got the hand that was dealt to me. My sister had the same addict for a mother, and her father was a dope fiend just like mines. He also died from cancer when she was younger. He was never in her life, but through all of those adversities, she became successful. She graduated from two Ivy League Universities: Hunter College and Columbia University. She obtained a Master’s Degree in Social Work, which proves my point that it’s the choices you make in life that will make or break you. Let my story be a lesson to the children coming up, who want to live that glamorous, hustling lifestyle, along with the children who have addicts for parents, or no parents at all. Don’t be a victim of circumstances, be a champion by choice. I still have a lot of living to do. I won’t spend it by trying to beat the system, because I’ll only beat myself. I pray that my career takes off and this book is the catalyst to my success. Most of all, I pray that someone who needed to read my story gets a message from it. I wrote it to save a life not to glorify mines.
Chapter Fourteen
I MISS YOU MAMA
It’s obvious what this chapter is about. I miss my mother so much that it physically hurts sometimes. I would take her back right now, cracked out and all. It’s nothing like having a mother to depend on, to share your problems with, and to love you like no other being on this earth. I always feel like she is reincarnated inside of my daughter. I based that on the little signs that I’ve noticed when my baby was younger. My mother used to suck her thumb sideways, which totally embarrassed me whenever she did it in public. One day, when Velvet was about one year old, she suddenly stuck her thumb in her mouth sideways. She did it exactly how my mother used to do it. Up until then, Velvet had never sucked her thumb. Plus, it was no way for her to have mimicked another baby, because I had never seen another person suck their finger in that odd manor. In addition, she used to grab my mother’s picture and kiss it. She had never seen her in person, and couldn’t even talk, but she seemed to know that was her grandmother. She also has my mom’s eyes. The way she loves me, along with our close bond, makes me feel my mother’s spirit is in her.
Since the death of my mom, it has been very hard on me. The pain never stops. The day she died, I received a call from her mother, my nana, informing me that I needed to come to the hospital because my mother was dying. I had been absent from the hospital for a couple of days because my mother was dying. I couldn’t take seeing her like that. The AIDS virus had weakened her immune system and her T-cell count was nonexistent, meaning her body had stopped fighting the virus. She was 88 pounds and looked skeletal. I didn’t want to remember her like that. Back then, the doctors would make visitors wear scr
ubs and surgical mask to protect the patient from whatever germs we may have. It made my mom feel like she was an alien and very contagious. I hated it! I made her feel good because I was never afraid to touch her. She knew that people were terrified of catching the dreaded disease. Back then, no one knew enough about it, so they were weary that it would spread easily. I was fiercely protective over her, and would go ham if people acted funny around her. I put ointment on her lesions and bathed her. She was my mother and, as far as I was concerned, I wasn’t scared of what she had. I wanted to die with her. I felt so sorry for her, and would put up a brave front for her, but I would cry my heart out when I wasn’t around her. It broke me to see her in that condition. She had every infection that was associated with that disease. Her mouth was always filled with thrush, which is a yeast infection that develops in the mouth of people who are infected with HIV or AIDS. It was a very disturbing sight, but she was my mommy, and I didn’t care. That’s why I am so health conscience. I encourage the young people who I speak with to use protection if they are sexually active. I saw the effects of AIDS up close and personal. It is horrible. Today, people have a chance to live with the disease due to all the new and improved medications, but when my poor mother contracted the virus, it was deadly.
Kids today are having sex at a very young age, just like I started out, so I know what I am talking about. You can’t rely on a boy to protect you, so it’s important for females to have condoms available; that way, you can protect yourself. In a perfect world, girls would wait until they were married to have sex, but realistically, it’s happening at very tender ages. My daughter is eleven years old, and she knows everything there is to know about puberty and sex, because I don’t want her to learn anything from the street. She knows how her grandmother died, and that made her very aware of the Sexually Transmitted diseases that can destroy your body and possibly kill you. I have a lot of tattoos, but I make sure that I watch the artist change the needle. My mother could have possibly contracted the disease from an unsanitary needle that she shared with another heroin user. I do not want to die like my mother, who was riddled with disease. It was inhumane. In all reality, it could have been avoided if she had simply protected herself. On her death bed, she used her last breath to tell me to always take care of my sister. Her regret in life was not being a good mother to us, and especially not bonding with her youngest daughter. She always told me, “I lost Rocki, but I still have you, Toki.” I would try to convince her that my little sister still loved her, but she just didn’t know her like I did. The first year of a child’s life is the bonding period, and my mother did that with me. However, she gave my sister to my godmother too early, and the bonding wasn’t complete. Simple as that! I didn’t have this wisdom when my mom died, so I actually made my sister feel real bad at the funeral. I accused her of not loving our mommy. I wigged out because I felt she didn’t show enough grief, and I took all of my pain out on her. That is something that we never discuss to this day. I am taking this opportunity to apologize to her, because she dealt with the pain her way. I know that my sister loved our mother. Unfortunately, she wasn’t around our mother as much as I was, so she didn’t have an opportunity to bond like I did. I cried for my mother all the time.
After she died, it was like a piece of my heart was ripped out. She died, on the 4 of July and, up until this day, I don’t like the celebration and fireworks. It disturbs me that everyone is so happy on what was the saddest day of my life.
I also miss my godmother tremendously. She loved me so much that she tried to protect me from the outside by preventing me from going out there and having a normal childhood. I was so resentful that I couldn’t go out and play with my friends that I held a grudge against my godmommy, but when my baby needed me most, I was there. She suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. I was able to take care of her for five years before she died at the ripe old age of 92. She was a feisty old lady, and I loved her dearly. She no longer knew who I was, but she felt my love. After fighting with her to bathe her in the tub, she would always hug me and say, “You’re a nice lady. Thank you.” Those simple words of gratitude would let me know that she felt my love for her. I will never forget the one time, out of five years, when she had a moment of clarity and called me by my name. I burst into tears of joy and smothered her with kisses. I couldn’t believe it! Just like the scene in my favorite movie, “The Note Book”, I had a few moments to speak with her, and she knew exactly who I was. I kept telling her over and over that I loved her and appreciated her for taking care of me and my sister and that I would always take care of her. Then she was gone. Again!
Caring for a person who suffers from Alzheimer’s requires a lot of patience and love, because the patient reverts back into a toddler. They have no idea how to feed or bathe themselves correctly, and they need twenty-four hour care. When I had to go out, I would hire personal friends that I could trust to care for her. I want to take the time to thank Margaret “Poochie” Monroe for being one of those people who loved my godmother, and made sure that she was cared for while I was in the streets making money to supply all of her needs. She didn’t have insurance, so there was no health coverage to hire a home attendant.
My girlfriend, Goldie, who I was dealing with at the time, also took care of my mommy (what I called my darling) for me when I had to do seven months in jail. I love her to this day for that, she made sure she was straight, and I didn’t have to worry about her. The conditions I found mommy in when I came home from my first bid were horrifying. She was literally sleeping in her own feces. She was left alone in her apartment to fend for herself by her daughter. I immediately moved in with her, and renovated her place, and brought my darling back to life. I know in my heart that I am blessed now because of that. She is an angel on my right shoulder, and my mom sits perched on my left one. Both of them guide me through life and protect me from harm.
I will never forget the day I needed my angels the most. I was in a night club. I went to the bathroom and in walked this dude named Money. He was Larrel’s cousin. Not only was he related to the guy who I shot, but he thought that I had him shot up while he was holding his son. A few weeks after I shot Larrel, my homie CB, my friend Pam and I went to Farragut. I was selling some clothes, while CB and Pam were chilling with me in my car. I saw Money and asked him did he know anybody that wanted to buy my merchandise. He loved to crack jokes and started kidding around with me. I let my guard down. He took me to another booster’s crib, which I thought was very strange. Of course, she didn’t buy anything, because she got her clothes for free the same way I got mines, so that made me wonder why Money wasted my time taking me to see her. I found out when I got back down stairs. CB was fuming when I got to the car. Him, and Pam had been robbed. They got jacked for their jewelry and all the stolen goods in my trunk. I immediately put two and two together. Money had us setup. CB and Pam were casualties of the Jack, because the heist was only intended for me. It was in retaliation of Larrel getting shot. We found out later that Money was related to him. So naturally, CB being who he was wanted revenge. They basically messed up when they involved him and his girl.
The next week, Money got shot up in broad daylight, while holding his son. He was almost killed, and fortunately his son wasn’t harmed. The night in the club was the first time I bumped into Money after a year, and it wasn’t a family reunion.
I came out of the bathroom stall and, there he was, standing in the woman’s bathroom with a sinister look on his face. I almost shitted on myself, but I played it cool. I thought to myself, this nicca is gonna’ clap me. I regretted getting caught slipping (without my gun). “What’s up, Money?” I said coolly. He had his hands in his pockets and gave me a head nod. I put my hands in my pocket, bluffing like I had my gat on me, and stared him down. “That’s fucked up what happened, but you should have never got involved in that shit with your cousin. Niccaz ain’t playing out here. It’s real in the field!” I said, rationalizing the street justice that went down. I was sca
red, but he didn’t know it. I was acting like I was ready for whatever. I didn’t know if I was going to leave that bathroom alive, but I wasn’t going out like a coward. It worked because he started copping a plea (explaining his version of what happened and denied any involvement in the robbery). He told me that he didn’t want any problems. He had almost died and he wasn’t involved in the madness. “Whew!” I realized that I had the upper hand. He only wanted to talk to me, hoping that I would relay the message to CB that he didn’t want any beef with him. I don’t know if he had a gun on him and just had a change of heart or whatever, but I am blessed. I could have been a goner, but I was prepared to meet my maker, along with my and my mother. I lived my life recklessly and lawlessly; therefore, I felt that whatever happens in that bathroom that night was repercussions of how I lived. The fact that I am still here to talk about it is proof that I’m here for a reason.
Now that leaves me with one more memory to share. I can’t close this chapter without talking about my father. Coydine Mackie was absent my entire childhood and teen years because of his drug addiction and periods of incarceration. When he came home from his last bid, he made the choice to find me and apologize for his faults. He wanted to make it up to me. At that time, I was nineteen and incarcerated in Bay View Correctional Facility. I was very bitter towards him. To be honest, I had no interest in meeting him, and held him accountable for his actions. After I realized that he was persistent in his attempts to visit me, and he wasn’t bullshitting, I let him come visit me. We had a long conversation. He explained to me about his life and the things he had been through. He didn’t know how to be a father, mainly because his father wasn’t around for him or his eight other siblings, leaving his mother to care for them alone.