This is the raw story of a person who has experienced homelessness for many years. I am most grateful to the author of this featured article for having the courage to share his life experience with us.
In life we are determined to prove ourselves worthy of taking on the everyday tasks at hand as we move through this place called life. Sometimes we fall; sometimes we climb, and even soar through places of endless imagination. We are taught all of our lives to except and expect the unexpected and to know that we cannot sometimes change the unchangeable. As a young man growing up I myself was taught to understand these words of wisdom. I followed them faithfully and lived by them daily. Until one day I broke free of my mind and found that those words of wisdom that I have lived by for so long could be contradicted by my own actions.
My name is of no importance, but if you must know my name, I am only known as misunderstood. For in life, we are understood because we are guided by understanding or we are misunderstood by acts of misfortune. In this article I will tell of a child's misfortunes and how tragedy can sometimes be turned to triumph.
I first must warn you this story is as real as the air we breathe and it is not to be taken lightly.
As I mentioned earlier we are all determined to prove ourselves worthy of taking on everyday tasks. As for me my life begins in the city of Baltimore where I was born and raised. I am the oldest of a twin and the youngest of the four brothers. My mother had divorced my father and both parents lived in two separate locations in Baltimore. My life changed for the worst when I was five. My mother had gotten into an abusive relationship with a man who everyday forced us the to call him the father he could never be. My father was still alive at the time and we only visited with him on the weekends. Many days my brothers and I would endure abuse from a man 's madness driven by alcohol. Soon the result of his abuse would take atoll on our mental status slowly. Who in their right mind could punish a child so brutally and then use the words love and care.
Then again brutal is not the word for the life I have endured, maybe there isn't a word that describes the pain I have endured. I was just a child helpless as one from birth. We are all helpless without proper guidance it is up to us as adults to teach and reach children so that they may grow to know that life has twists and turns and that it isn't always fair. I remember as a five year old walking into my mother’s house after elementary school was over. Before I could reach the door my sob stomach begin to hurt so bad and I began to tremble in fear. Now this was not a once in a while thing, this was everyday. Normally a child is greeted with hugs and kisses and guided in the house to begin homework or a moment of study before dinner. But with every twist of the doorknob I was greeted with a 46 year old mans fist in my five-year-old mouth with no explanation as to why I have to be hurt for my days worth of education. As I have said this not normal for a child of any age, I don't believe it's normal for any human being or even animals to be treated in such away.
Besides my everyday abuse from my mothers boyfriend I myself nor my brothers seem to have felt any difference between my mother either. For what we all seem to recollect she herself seem to always watch the abuse but never did nothing to stop it. In fact I can remember several instances where she turned her head as if she disowned her children. In fact I remember her video taping my twin brother and I being tied up by her boyfriend in the basement and being beaten senseless and afterwards we were thrown in a cage in the basement that he had made. Starved for days and then set free like animals in the wild we return to our so called normal lives wondering what the rest of the day or night as well as days ahead would hold for us. Just when we though things couldn't get worst they did.
I had just turned six years old and the only person that cared that I had a birthday was my twin brother and my father he was such the admirable man, but he comes later. For my sixth birthday I didn't receive cake or ice cream or even gifts. I received a smack in the face by my mother and a punch in the mouth by her boyfriend. And then sent to my room to look at four walls without dinner my twin brother and me. But he always had a trick up his sleeve. He had stolen a piece of cake every time it was our birthday knowing we would never eat it. My mother always baked cake for her boyfriend on our birthdays just so he can eat it in our face and tell us to enjoy it cause we would never going to get a piece. This is the part where I became a pyromaniac. As my brother would always steal a piece of cake I would always steal matches and we would celebrate with matches instead of candles. And before we could finish the birthday song they would burn out. But he was the only one that understood what I was going through. And he always made my birthdays worthwhile and I will always love him for that.
In our bedroom we had one bed that he and I shared cause my mothers boyfriend said we deserve to sleep on the floor like dogs, but said for the laws sake we'll give them a bed. To us it didn't matter cause we were always to afraid to go to sleep knowing that at any given time he would awake us with another brutal attack. So our nights were spent in fear and tears. The only time we felt at peace was when we were with our father. He loved us unconditionally and would always take time to teach us the difference between life and love. He fed us; he clothed us, and never let us go without. That’s until we went back to our mother’s house. My father only lived about 20 minutes away from my mother. As we walked home we always laughed and shared so many smiles. I don't know why, but every time we was with our father I always would see a dove fly pass me. I don't know what it was about that dove, but it made me smile and close my eyes and lift my arms as if I had wings and could fly away like the dove.
If I could have I would have, but I can't. My brothers and me were told by our mother that we couldn't tell our fathers of the suffering we had endured through the week and if we spoke one word we would be severely punished for it. But my father seemed to know just about everything. As we approached my mother’s house he would squat down and hug us a block away from the house and say" I know that you kids feel pain and I am sorry that I cannot do anything about it. I cry night after night knowing that my sons are hurting and the one person that can stop it isn't doing nothing about it. I am ashamed to tell you this, but I gave you to your mother because she would have fought me till my death. I want you all to know that through life we all make sacrifices, but that doesn't mean that I love you any less. When you get older you will tell that man do you remember how you use to beat us? Well you will never do it again. I am older now and I will protect my self".
This is what my father said to us as six year olds and we have never forgotten it. We finally were at our mother’s door and we began to cry. We just knew what was waiting on the other side of that door. But we faced it. As the doorknob turned slowly our hearts raced vastly. The moment it turned and the door opened the moment of pain began. I watched as my brother was hit in the face first and knocked unconscious to the floor and then I was hit and knocked unconscious to the floor. When me and my twin brother had awakened we were tied up and inside of the cage in the basement of my mothers house. We had awakened by loud screaming and yelling. It was my mother and her boyfriend. We were so use to her silence that we had first thought it was another woman and my mothers boyfriend. She was yelling at him because he was pointing a gun at my mother and was threating to shoot her and us.
I held my brother and prayed to fly away like the dove that passed us. I didn't want us to die without seeing our father one last time. My brother cried and I trembled in fear. We heard the basement door open and we began to cry more. To our surprise it was my oldest brother. He sneaked into the basement and saved our lives. He told us to run and run far away. God heard my prayers we may not have stretched our wings to fly but we sure did stretch our legs to run. At this moment in my life I knew that if we were going to live we must run and never turn back. We ran until our legs hurt and then we walked. We begged for money and people gave it to us. We begged for food and people fed us. We were too afraid to run to our father. We somehow knew he would only give us back to my mother and her gun wielding, psychopathic boyfriend.
We watched the sun go down from downtown Baltimore. By the end of the night we came across a whole crowd of people standing near a stadium I would later find out it was the oriole’s stadium. We were amazed by the vast number of people. We had never seen such a crowd. As we stood amazed we were also scared to get separated. People approached us to find out were our parents were. In an instance when they asked out of nowhere we began to lie in a manipulative way. Soon we would find that manipulation would become a defense mechanism and a bad habit that would take us places we had never dreamed of being at. As I stood in the crowd I held my brothers hand tightly in fear of him getting lost in the crowds. He was smiling and laughing and people were waving to him. After all we had been through he still managed to smile. It was as if he let go of fear and embraced happiness. He had asked me how do we go where the crowd is going? I told him to allow me to ask other people. Now we were not uneducated children. In fact we had more knowledge than the average five year old should have. We educated ourselves while being locked in our rooms for days by my mother’s boyfriend. My oldest brother had a variety of books and college education materials. We taught ourselves how to count, read, write, and understand English literature and its proper terms of definition and speech.
So as we approached the crowed and asked for info they freely gave it to us as well as gave us tickets to this event. We walked in with these unknown people and they were friendly. We were taught by schoolteachers not to talk to strangers, but growing up in the city even for a six year old you seem to see so many crazy people and things you get an understanding of who's who and what's what. When we entered the stadium it was so loud and people were screaming orioles and Yankees. The people we were with asked us if we wanted food and of course we were hungry. We hadn't eaten in a day. We had left our father on Saturday and we awakened on a Monday. So we were starved. When we sat down we saw a real live baseball game. We use to sit on our fathers bedside with him as he listen to a radio. I'll never forget the station he listened to, it was WBAL radio he loved the orioles and the Yankees. Every time the orioles would hit a home run he would scream. And if the Yankees hit a home run he would scream and we would laugh and he would tickle us until the next batter was up.
Now we were able to see the real thing. And event though we were at a real game I still wished my father was with us to see it. As we watched the game my brother went to the bathroom and never returned. I ran everywhere to look for him I thought at first someone kidnapped him, and then I thought the police had grabbed him. I ran out of the stadium and looked everywhere. I asked people even though I knew it was a long shot if they had seen him. Still no brother. I ran to all of the nearest restaurants, hotels, bars, clubs, stores. I looked everywhere and then I gave into my own fear that he had been kidnapped. I walked for hours into the night crying listening to people yelling for others imagining that my brother was yelling for me to wait for him to catch up, but it wasn't him. I watched stores close, train stations shut down and the last bus ride by me. I watched crowds slowly disappear and traffic become late night store runs. The streets were quiet but not completely empty and the air grew colder. I watched the drunk and the crazy move along as it gotten later. My legs was tired and my throat was dry from running. I gave into my thoughts and hopes of ever finding my brother. So I went to the one place I didn't want to go and that was the police station.
to be continued . . . 2nd segment
I walked for an hour to the police station in downtown Baltimore. When I arrived at the police station, I begin to feel that awful feeling in my stomach. It was as if I was about to make the biggest mistake in my life since we were runaways. I walked into the police station and was immediately greeted by voices and eyes. I walked to the counter stricken with fear. The officer behind the counter approached me and I began to tell him everything. The police officer told me to wait in the spot I was standing in. he came back and took me to the police garage. He placed me in the back seat of his car and drove me home. As we came onto the street I was living at, my stomach began to hurt so bad I though I was going to vomit. The officer was talking to me the whole time but I was in so much fear I could only think what would happen to me after he had left me. I was hoping he would stay and watch over me and the other officers would find my brother. I thought about him a lot and wondered if he was safe or if he was in trouble. The officer got out of his car and knocked on my front door. My mother’s boyfriend answered and I was still in the back seat. I watched them talk and then the officer pointed towards me. The officer then came to me and opened the back door and walked me to the to my home. The officer asked my mother’s boyfriend if he could come inside.
When the officer asked, I watched as my mother’s boyfriend face looked as if he was deeply disturbed. He told me to wait in the dining room and not to move. He talked to the officer and then the officer left the house. I was shaking extremely bad as he walked over to me. He knelt to me in a calm fashion. He asked me “ do you know were your brother is”? I couldn't talk and when he stood up he slapped me into the floor. I bled profusely from my mouth and in an instant I was unconscious.
When I woke up, I was in the bedroom with my brother. He was bloody and unconscious, I tried to wake him up but he wouldn't get up. I shook him but he didn't answer. His mouth was busted badly and his face was swollen and his head had severe cuts and bruises. I held him tight and I cried because I believed it was partially my fault since I did not protect him enough, I should have gone to the bathroom with him. If I had been with him, he and I both wouldn't be in this home. I should have protected him. At least that is what I believed, but surely it was bound to happen regardless of my actions.
As the day had gone by, I sat inside of our room with no water, food or bath. My brother still hadn't awakened from his brutal attack. His blood coagulated and began to form scabs in the every wounds inflicted upon him. I had no way of cleaning his wounds. I don't know for sure how long I was out, and I didn't have a way to check. I looked around the room and tried to see if there had been changes since our disappearance. As looked out of the window, and I noticed that the window had been nailed shut so that my brother and I couldn't escape again; God forbid there was ever a fire. I watched the sun go down. Just as nightfall hit, my brother slowly moved. I called his name; he couldn't speak. He needed medical attention for his wounds. I soon heard foot steps in the hallway that led to our bedroom. It was my mother. Instead of her tending to my brothers wounds she asked if we had to go to the bathroom. I looked at her as if she was an animal. I would say at this time I believed she deserved the same treatment that my brother and I was getting for watching it happen to us.
I went to the bathroom and sneaked up a wet washcloth; I just felt that my mother would somehow alert the animal that I was washing my brothers wounds and he would surely inflict us more pain. Now need I remind the readers that this was in 1990-1992?at that time, child abuse was not an issue to the law. Mothers and fathers could beat their children senselessly and get away with it, and call it discipline. So if I were to contact the police they would do nothing about it. At least, this is what I thought.
Few days later, my brother had regained full consciousness, and was fed and bathed. I remember it like it was yesterday. The first day he was allowed to bathe. He was put into the bathtub that was filled with very hot water. He had cuts and bruises from head to toe. He screamed so badly I just wanted to jump out of the window. My mother’s boyfriend made me watch my brother scream in pain, and with every scream he was threatened to receive more beatings. I couldn't take anymore and I went to strike this monster. He then grabbed my neck and threw my head into the marble tub. I was a little dizzy but regained consciousness. I then ran to him and I ducked his punch and bit him in his leg and ripped a chunk of meat out the size of a meatball.
I felt like the hunter had now become the hunted. I loved the blood of this animal dripping from my mouth and I wanted to kill him, even though I was just as a six year old kid. At this particular moment I knew I had to become an animal to fight until my death with another animal. I stood thinking of this for a moment. Then I regained my composure and snatched my brother from the tub and ran with him to the bedroom. I tried to get him dressed so fast that I forgotten how to put a shirt on him. My mother’s boyfriend limped to the bedroom bleeding badly and I was thinking about inflicting more pain on him. I did the only thing I could think of. Because I couldn't get my brothers shirt on fast enough, I used it to break out the glass in the nailed window. I used a piece of glass so long and sharp and I stabbed my mother’s boyfriend five times in his chest aiming for the heart. He grabbed me, but with all of my might, I pushed him back. Then I stabbed him in the palm of his right hand. He then grabbed me again, and I stabbed him in his left hand palm. With no warning and no reason as to why I did the next thing, I looked him into his eyes as I put the sharp piece of glass to his neck and then instead of me cutting his throat, I told him: “If you ever put your hands on me or my brother again, I will surly kill you” My brother then screamed “no! Its not worth loosing you!” I then ripped a chunk out of his right ear with my teeth. Then my oldest brother came into the house and pushed me away from him. As I fell to the ground, the only thing I was thinking about was to save my twin brother, even if that meant for me dying form so he could live. I hit the floor and with all the damage I believed I have inflicted the animal, he still tried to grab me. My oldest brother caught wind of his attack and kicked him into his throat knocking the wind out of his chest. My brother grabbed my twin and me and took us to our father’s house. He then cleaned my brother up and used sewing needles and thread to stitch his deep wounds. He feared to take him to the hospital and to be released right back into the same abusive situation. My oldest brother lived with my father. He to was being abused earlier, but he fought back, and social services first placed him into a foster home. He experienced abuse there also. He saw his foster brother get kicked down a flight of stairs for saying “no” to holding and caring for a baby; It was the foster father that kicked him down the steps.
Thanks to our bio father’s love, my older brother was released at age 14. Now, my father through this whole ordeal was absent and after the smoke had cleared for a few days, I sat down and told him everything. My father was a very wise and old man. When my twin brother and me were born he was already 65 and my mother was 21 years old. So his age also played a big role as to why he was absent and not involved in our lives, and he also was sick. I guess that is what he meant by my mother fighting him to his death. He was just a mere breath away from death. As I finished the conversation with him as to what has been going on, I was anxious to ask him why he was never around. My father revealed that he has been in the hospital. He wouldn't tell us why because he said it was too big of a burden to place on our heads at such young ages.
So we lived with my father for 2 months. Everything was so peaceful. But there was still something wrong; something was wrong with me. I noticed that I had become very defiant and very out of control with my anger. I ignored it for a month and a half until I went to school and I saw that my brother was getting bullied for his lunch money. To some it hurts, but for me it struck a nerve. I waited patiently for the day to end. We didn't have school buses because all the kids lived right near the school. Now mind you I was a 6-year-old seeking revenge. That should not be on my mind. As he walked down the street I followed at a distance sending my twin and my oldest brother in a separate way. I then grabbed the bully and snatched him into an alley where I brutally attacked him. I did this terrible deed viciously and consciously. I didn't understand why I am doing such a mean thing, but it somehow felt justified. I stomped this little boy so badly, he could no longer walk or speak. I think he was killed in Baltimore in a bad drug deal or something. But this memory is one of the millions that still haunt me everyday.
I met back with my brothers and I gave my twin brother back his money and I also gave a little girl back a book bag that this bully had stolen from her. Through the rest of the day I played my actions in my head over and over to get an understanding as to why this attack felt justified. I ask myself a million questions as to why I would do such a thing knowing what I have endured. But instead of coming up with an answer I reasoned with myself. I said to myself " what goes around comes around". I made myself understand that I need to except and expect the same treatment by the hands of another and that I couldn't question it no matter how bad I am hurt. I could have easily used words like I was taught; instead I decided to seek a vendetta against another child. So if his family decides to gang up on me and beat me to a pulp it was what I had coming to me. And I believed for some reason that my mother’s boyfriend had every right as well, just as a universal law. My brothers and me always lived by that law. That’s why we didn't steal or hurt people cause we knew that it could be done to us.
Have you ever stolen something that wasn't meant for you to have? And when it breaks or gets lost or stolen you can't be mad? Or taken money that belonged to someone else and instead of holding on to it you immediately spend it to get rid of the evidence and you are doing all of this unconsciously. And when it is all done you can't be mad, because it was never yours in the first place to get mad over. The same rules apply when you hurt someone. It comes back to you when you least expect it and it hurts, but somewhere deep inside it is understood because you did it to someone else. I say all of that to only say this. I finally tasted the reality of life outside of protection of mommy and daddy. I felt like I was an adult and these are the many decisions that adults face daily. And I felt like I was one of them for a change. It felt good to understand, but it felt bad as to what I was getting and understanding for. So I chose to live with my decision and moved forward.
A note from Bernie . . . 4/26/2007
The twin brother of this story has just been made aware of this monograph. This gentleman is still homeless, 2 years after his release from incarceration.
“I was deeply moved by this biography. I was touched so deeply that tears streamed down my face. I felt the words as if the mental depiction were re-enacted in a life size motion picture like a reeling movie being played out by my personal being. I felt the pain of every word of every letter in every sentence. I have to tell you that this is a best seller. You must ask the writer to publish his biog. I know that there are many who need to read the words written in every line. I know the severity of situations like this for I am the twin brother of the writer as written. My name is Damico (last name will not be given to protect the writer's privacy). That’s right I am who I say I am”.
to be continued . . .