In spite of my last report featured on my Street Sense vendor profile, my student loans have been forgiven. I had hopes of returning to school someday, especially since I am constantly in a school setting around American University.
The fact remains that I’m still in a bit of fear that I’ll have a repeat of the oppressing events that I experienced when I first attempted to return to school. That was back in 2006 when I was homeless down in Norfolk, Va. I was staying at the Norfolk shelter on Brooke Avenue when I first got the inclination that I could get out of that bad situation by going to school and completing my degree.
I walked past the Educational Opportunities Center almost daily. I was familiar with the organization since they were the ones who initially helped me enroll in school down at South Carolina State University. So I stepped in again, this time in a different location, to plan out and pursue my future. Shortly after setting myself up with that long-distance, futuristic touchdown bomb, I was offered a job by a guy in a car who directed me to All-Star Temp Agency. I thought sure, I could use the extra money to get through the month. The manager there was named Walter, I remember, and he sent me right out on a light construction job at a Ruby Tuesday they were building and preparing to open.
Anyway, around about the third day in, or out, I stopped for a bite of breakfast that morning before work at the gas station along the way. The attendant accused me of stealing a pack of 50-cent doughnuts, and I replied that “You couldn’t have because it didn’t happen.” I ended up tossing my 50 cents at the window for a bag of sunflower seeds and stormed out in anger at his accusation. I got about a block away from the job when police pulled up on me and asked me to return to the gas station for something I didn’t do, and I refused!
The first officer called for backup since I was being resistant about a crime I didn’t commit. I did offer him to take off his utility belt and fight me for the right to take me back. I was just trying to get to work that day and continue on my way. The second officer, Cooper, who must’ve been patrolling the parallel street in pursuit of me, arrived on the scene, parking crookedly, and immediately hopping out of the car screaming “Get on the ground!” He extended his blackjack and proceeded to strike me with his wand, breaking my forearm on the first blow, leaving me with no choice but to get down on the ground as I was cuffed.
I exclaimed, “You broke my arm!” but it made little difference as an ambulance was called and arrived half an hour later, but merely to put a band-aid on my broken skin and not to treat my broken limb! I spent that whole half hour cursing the officer as he sat there in wait playing solitaire on his cruiser’s computer. My bag was never checked, being dismissed as “He probably already ate and discarded it by now.” I sat for a week before I could see a doctor about a cast. I was given 30 days. I was eventually released whereupon I returned to the scene of my arrest where I discovered why my glasses were never retrieved. They had been stomped on and destroyed, scraped across the concrete.
I left for Maryland at once, where I was expecting to receive my college funding and complete my mission of enrolling in classes once again. In all of the commotion, I forgot which schools I had sent my financial aid off to, and ended up at the University of Maryland University College since they were offering waived admission fees.
I got about two months’ worth of school in before I was again falsely arrested. Campus police followed me around campus, issuing citations for trespassing only to have them rescinded by the schools’ administrative offices three times! I only got through that period of having no home, no glasses and a broken arm with some help from some fellow students. They took mein and accepted me at the school’s radio station, and allowed me to come in out of the cold and spend time with them doing
something that I love! Playing music!
After a night of warmth and lodging provided by the student body, I was arrested following a janitor’s inquiring “Do you belong here?” He asked a second time not being satisfied with my answer of “Yeah!” He immediately bolted out with the words, “I’m going to get the police…” Being caught up in the moment, I failed to run or find an alternate escape route due to being captivated by the brand new, Jay-Z video, “Show Me What You Got!” The arresting officer had promised to arrest me before if he ever came across me again. I reminded him, so he did. I got another 30 days for nothing. I ended up getting jumped in prison for getting a drink of water from the faucet rather than the sink in my cell as suggested. So he called in the emergency response team, AKA the “goon squad”!
After I spoke with them calmly, they began making their entry into my cell where the cowardly backstabbers of about seven to nine goons began jumping and stomping on me inside the small cell after the ringleader had maced me for no good reason at all, other than protocol and procedure! The attack continued all the way down the corridors, in the medical shower and into an awaiting cell. I just took the assault, bearing in mind that one of my younger cousins died from blunt force trauma to the temple, to the dome, and it occurred to me that these fellas were playing for keeps! I ended up in the “hole” traumatized by the fact that they did that. I was left there sore sulking over the events that had just taken place. I was in the youth housing unit and they let me know that it was a regular occurrence there as far as they knew. They comforted me, but at the same time, it troubled me even further considering I’m a man with a very loud voice as a poet and these were just defenseless children and kids. I could think my way out of the box, but what about them? They depended on their parents, and their parents weren’t there for them.
