Writing My Wrongs

by Shaka Senghor

  In prison, there was a negative stigma attached to the guys who attended Muslim services. The administration didn’t like the unity and saw the Muslim brotherhoods as covers for gang activity. On top of that, the more predatory inmates didn’t like how the brotherhoods provided a safe haven for some of the more vulnerable guys. Muslims have a reputation of sticking together and taking care of their members’ problems, not unlike any other family, where the individual’s problem becomes the problem of the group. Unfortunately, however, there are inmates who take advantage of this dynamic. Some need protection, others are opportunists who seize the chance to have their basic needs met, and others are in search of the acceptance they didn’t get from their own family.

  Because of this stigma, I was very careful about my decision to attend Melanic services. But after reading several more books and talking with more of the members, I decided to check out one of their Saturday morning services.

  It was unlike anything I had ever experienced in a church. The brothers wore neatly pressed blues, black fezzes, and polished shoes. The podium was decorated with a large flag and a picture of Nat Turner, who I would later learn was the organization’s prophet. At the beginning of the service, while prayer was being held, the brothers stood until they were given instruction to be seated. The brothers stationed at the door wore stoic expressions as they directed guests to their seats at the front of the room.

  We stood as the program began. The brothers formed a ten-man prayer pyramid, moving in a counterclockwise motion and calling out to our ancestors. I was impressed by the precision of their movements. It was an awesome display of power, respect, and spirituality. In an uncompromising display of solidarity, the brothers paid homage to those who had come before us while praising the Creator for a chance to do something meaningful with our lives.

  After that first service, the brothers asked me if I would come back and visit again. I told them that I wouldn’t make any promises, but I’d consider it. I visited over the next couple of months, but only sporadically. (This was mostly because I was spending most nights reading until two or three o’clock in the morning, and the last thing I wanted to do was get up at seven o’clock in the morning to get ready for service.) Despite this conflict, I kept reading books of Black history and building my relationship with the brothers.

  —

  MY SPIRITUAL AND intellectual growth was one of the most important things that had ever happened to me. But that winter, as I sat counting away the days in prison, something even more important was manifesting in my life.

  It was late December, and Brenda’s due date was approaching. It had been a few months since I saw her last, and we had only been talking occasionally. The cost of phone calls had long ago taken their toll, and Georgia couldn’t afford to pay for us to speak on a daily basis. Brenda did what she could to help with the phone bill, and I did my best not to call too much.

  But on January 7, 1992, I stepped outside of the unit for some fresh air and fought through the frosty winter air to dial Georgia’s number. When Georgia answered the phone, her voice cascaded over the line like the music of a symphony, and I knew that my son had been born into the world. As I listened intently, my eyes watered with tears that froze as soon as they hit the air. I was happy to hear that he had been born healthy and that Brenda decided to name him after me, but my chest felt like I had swallowed a cinder block. It hurt like hell knowing that I wouldn’t be there to guide my son through life.

  I was terrified that my son would get caught up in the cycle of violence, drugs, and crime that had claimed so many from my generation—including me. I didn’t want him to join the long line of young Black males who became statistics, and the more I thought about it, the angrier I became.

  When I returned to my cell, I lay on my bunk and thought about my son. I imagined what he looked like. I wondered which characteristics he had inherited from me and which ones he had inherited from his mother. Brenda was a beautiful young lady, and I thought I was a decent-looking brother, so I was pretty sure that our son would be a looker. As I thought about him, my heart began filling with an unbelievable joy. I knew I had to find a way to be a part of my son’s life.

  I vowed to find a way to be a father, even though I was in prison. This meant that I had to change my thinking. There could be no more settling for less in life. I could no longer think destructively about other Black males, and I could no longer justify shooting, beating, or selling drugs to those who looked like me. I had to reclaim my humanity and soften my heart so that I could be a voice of reason and wisdom for my boy.

  I knew that “nigga” in me had to be subdued by the African warrior I was destined to become. I had given up on myself, my parents, and my brothers and sisters—but I would be damned if I’d give up on my children. I was determined to fight against the side of me that didn’t think I could be anything more than a thuggish criminal or a predator to my community. I knew I was in for the fight of my life, but I was prepared for the battle. No matter how many times I got knocked to the ground, I would get up over and over again, until I could stand strong as a proud African man and father.

  But as much as I wanted to change, it would take eight years for me to have a true awakening and begin to grow into the fullness of my potential. Until then, my desire to change would do battle with the old instincts, angers, and fears I had carried into prison. True to form, chaos ensued, and for the first time during my incarceration, I would learn the true meaning of hell on earth.

  PART TWO

  11

  FERGUSON STREET

  West Side Detroit, Michigan

  1987

  The thought of killing myself smashed into my consciousness like a drunk driver. Images of my tattered life boiled and raged inside my mind, and a deep, piercing pain shot through my heart. It felt like someone had plunged a fiery sword through my most vital organ. I clutched my chest, struggling to reclaim control of my mind, but it was too late. I had already welcomed into my most sacred space the thought of ending it all—the pain, the fear, the sense of loneliness and abandonment.

  I looked around Ralph’s basement, hoping that one of my new friends would notice what was going on inside of me, but they were lost in the merriment of the forty-ounce bottles of Olde English that we had drunk that night. Instead of alerting them that something was seriously wrong, I decided to crack a joke about the pain I was feeling. With a sinister grin, I asked Ralph, Jamal, and Mike what they would do if I blew my brains all over the walls of the basement.

  “Nigga, you trippin,” Mike responded before taking another swig from his bottle. Ralph let out a laugh, and Jamal glanced at me for a moment before losing interest and turning to light up a cigarette.

  Despite the fact that I grew up around guns and violence, suicide was something we never talked about. Back then, I didn’t understand the power of depression, didn’t understand how it could cause someone to end his or her life, just to get rid of the pain that person was carrying. I didn’t understand that the thought of painting the walls with my brain was a cry for help, one I should take seriously. What had happened to us that allowed us to laugh away a question like that?

  We continued to drink for another half an hour before Ralph decided it was time for us to wrap up the night and head home. Mike lived one block over on Murray Hill, Jamal lived two blocks over on St. Mary’s, and I lived a block in the opposite direction on Ferguson. We exited through the side door of Ralph’s basement, and when we reached the corner of Midland, we exchanged pounds and parted ways.

  I turned and walked toward the block where I had been staying with my father and his family, my feet growing heavier with each step. It felt like the weight of the universe was on my shoulders. I was tired of searching for love and happiness. I felt unloved and unwanted at home, and I didn’t fit in at my new school.

  When I first moved in with my father, stepmother, stepsister, and nephew, they had shown me my makeshift bedroom in the basement with such pride. There was
a bed, two reclining chairs, and a floor-model TV. I had a space I could call my own. But instead of feeling safe and warm in the space they had made for me, I felt cold and cut off from the rest of the house. In my mind, being in the basement symbolized my standing in the family—I was a burden, and they had dealt with me by stashing me out of sight.

  I decided that when I got back home, I would end it all. There was a sawed-off shotgun beneath my mattress, and I had plenty of shells. A smile crossed my face as I thought about the guilt my parents would feel when they found my bloody, headless body in the basement. Maybe then they would stop and think about what they had done when they tore our family apart. Maybe for once, my mother would feel the pain that I felt when she decided to push me out of her life and ignore me. Maybe she would cry as she remembered all of the times she told me she wished I had never been born.

  I fumbled with my keys, struggling to open the side door. The house was quiet when I entered, but I knew that my stepsister Vanessa would be awake, talking on the phone. A twinge of guilt shot through me as I thought about her and my nephew Megale—how hurt and confused they would be if I went through with this. But I inhaled deeply and descended the basement stairs, stuffing those emotions down where they couldn’t impede my progress toward death. I didn’t bother to turn on the lights; I knew the layout of the basement like the back of my hand.

  I plopped down in one of the La-Z-Boy chairs next to my bed and lit up a Newport. The calming influence of nicotine circulated throughout my body as I closed my eyes and thought about how things had been since I moved in with my father.

  On the surface, everything about my setup looked good. The house sat in the middle of a pleasant, unassuming street. My stepmother’s cooking was spectacular, and a genuine sibling connection had sprung up between me and my stepsister. My father and stepmother both worked for Lafayette Clinic at the time, and they gave us an allowance whenever they got paid. I had enrolled in Cooley High School, made a few friends in the neighborhood, and had a couple of girlfriends who skipped school with me whenever the mood struck us.

  But I didn’t feel at home, and I wasn’t happy. The longing to be loved and accepted by my mother ate at me, and the memory of her rejection made me feel unwelcome, even in the loving home my father and stepmother had managed to provide.

  I knew that my father had concerns about my behavior. Prior to moving in with them, I had been arrested a few times for various crimes. I was no longer the honor roll student I had been. I rarely attended class and had lost interest in learning. I made a routine of getting kicked out of school. My father would take me back to sign me in, but as soon as he would leave, I went right out the back door.

  Looking back, the most troubling thing about this part of my life is that no one ever stopped to ask me what was wrong. They never questioned how or why I had changed so dramatically in such a short span of time. Years later, during conversations with my father, I would learn about the struggles he had been facing at the time—those of being a recent divorcé and a father to three biological children and three stepchildren while trying to make a new relationship work.

  As I sat there puffing on my cigarette, I thought about every beating I had suffered at the hands of my mother. I thought about the day she hurled a cast-iron pot at my head after I asked her if she wanted to see the good grade I had gotten on my test. I thought about how my brothers had never stood up for me. I thought of everything I could think of to make myself more miserable, until I had worked up the courage to reach beneath the mattress and grab the shotgun.

  I held the heavy steel in my hands for a moment, then sat back down in the chair, caressing the barrel as tears began streaming from my eyes. I remembered telling my mother that I wanted to be a doctor, and more tears fell. I had told her things like that all the time—I wanted her to love me and be proud of me more than anything in the world. I couldn’t summon the words to articulate why she had been wrong to abandon me, so I knew that the problem had to be with me.

  I then started to think about my father and his role in the drama. I tried to make myself resent him for not being stronger as the head of the household, for not intervening when my mother beat my ass for nothing. I tried my best to make myself dislike him—to find a reason why all of this was his fault and not mine—but I couldn’t. My father had his shortcomings, but he was a good man, and I could never accuse him of not loving me. I thought about how things were when it was just me and him, and more tears came. My death would break his heart, but I had to end the pain.

  I checked the shotgun to ensure there was a slug in the chamber before taking off the safety. I inhaled deeply and prepared to place the barrel in my mouth, picturing the flash of pain I would feel. I wondered if the heat from the barrel would melt my lips when I pulled the trigger, wondered how much of my head would spread across the basement. I wondered how loud the gunshot would be.

  This final thought stopped me cold. If I fired the shotgun, the sound would startle my nephew from his sleep. I imagined my stepsister trying to console him, and the image made me put the gun back beneath the mattress. There had to be another way.

  I lit another cigarette before climbing the stairs to the top floor. As I walked through the house, I absorbed all of the details for the last time: my father’s mesh air force baseball hat on the table with his house keys, lighter, and pack of Kool cigarettes. My nephew’s tiny Air Jordans at the foot of the stairs.

  When I reached the bathroom upstairs, I tiptoed inside and closed the door. I opened the medicine cabinet, not even bothering to turn on the light, and began eyeing the different bottles of prescription medicine inside.

  I read a few of the labels with hopes that they had a warning sign on them, but I didn’t find any that said something like WARNING! MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS. Once I had read each label, I began searching again, until I came across a bottle that had a lot of pills in it. It didn’t have a warning sign, but I figured that if I took enough, they would do the trick.

  I removed the bottle from the cabinet and opened the top, then poured out a handful of pills as I looked at myself in the mirror. My face had a ghostly appearance, and my eyes were heavy with the sadness of an orphan. I looked like I was already dead.

  I took one last look at the pills in my hand, inhaled deeply, then swallowed them greedily. When the last pill snaked its way down my throat, I left the bathroom and hurried back downstairs to the kitchen, where I gulped down some water to make the pills stay down. I then slunk back down to the basement and waited for death to claim me.

  All of a sudden, I was struck by the thought of how unfair it would be for me to allow my two-year-old nephew to find me dead in the basement. Each morning, I would lie in the bed and listen to the pitter-patter of his little feet as he navigated his way through the living room, dining room, and finally the kitchen, where the stairs to the basement began. He would crawl backward down the stairs, stopping periodically until his eyes had fully adjusted to the dark, and when he reached the bottom step, he would stand up, come over to my bed, and stare at me. Sometimes I would watch him through squinted eyes as he tried to assess whether I was awake. Finally, he would tap me on my face and call my name.

  “Uncle Jay! Uncle Jay!” he would say as he tapped my face. “I want some cereal!” He would continue tapping me until I got up and fed him.

  The thought of him coming down the next morning and not being able to wake me caused me to jump up from the chair. I was dizzy, but I made it back up the stairs and went straight to Vanessa’s bedroom. When she let me in, I sat silently on the floor beside her bed for a minute.

  She asked me what was up, and I explained to her that I was trying to kill myself. I told her that I was letting her know because I didn’t want Megale to find me dead in the morning. She was silent for what felt like an eternity, and when she finally spoke, I could sense the uncertainty in her voice. She asked me what I had done. I told her that I was going back to the basement to die, and she snapped into action, telling m
e that she was going to get my father. I begged her not to, but deep inside, I was happy that she was taking action. For the first time in years, I felt like someone cared about me.

  I left Vanessa’s room, walked back down to the basement, and lay across my bed. A few minutes later, I heard the heavy footsteps of my father coming down. He hit the light switch, and the bright glare from above caused me to scrunch my eyes into tight balls.

  “What’s wrong?” my father asked as he sat on the bed beside me. He placed his hand on my head and checked my pulse.

  I told him that I didn’t want to live any longer. He asked me what I had taken, and when I told him, he stood and walked upstairs. To this day, I don’t know what he did up there, but when he returned, he was carrying a cup of coffee. He held my head gently and urged me to drink it. I sipped the bitter liquid as I listened to him breathe deeply.

  For the next hour, he continued to talk to me as we drank coffee and smoked cigarettes. He told me how much he loved me and how smart I was. He told me that I shouldn’t feel unwanted, and as much as I was hurting, I knew that he meant everything he said. When we realized that the pills I had taken were harmless and I wasn’t going to die, my father sat in the La-Z-Boy chair and watched me until I fell asleep.

  —

  THE NEXT MORNING, nobody said a word about what had happened the night before. There were no discussions about enrolling me in counseling, no questions about why I had decided to take my life. There was no call from my mother. I knew that I wouldn’t attempt to kill myself again, but I was still carrying around the pain that manifested itself in my body like a malignant tumor, and I had no idea how to cope with it.

  Things spiraled downward from there. I began dabbling in the dope game again, hanging out with my older brothers in Brightmoor, a gritty neighborhood at the far west end of the city. We were selling weight and feeling like we were back in the old days, but the good times were short-lived. In the span of less than a year, I would see both of my brothers sent to prison—Alan for retaliating after someone broke into our house and stole our safe, and Art when a beef with some guys in the neighborhood escalated into violence.