When Tears Fall: An Autobiography - Softcover

Johnson, Verne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1449011802 ISBN 13: 9781449011802

Publisher: AuthorHouse, 2009

Synopsis

there is no question that american youth between the ages of 18-30 are fighting unsparing forces of modern culture related to self, friends, family and society. former addict, drug dealer, and gang member verne johnson reveals the hidden secrets of his past and discloses the dangerous and powerful assaults and oppressions that threatened his life. with clarity and radical truth, he helps us to understand that there is a permanent, lasting hope and recovery to the struggles of drugs, alcohol, violence, incarceration, sexual abuse, poverty and growing up as a bastard child.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

When Tears Fall

An AutobiographyBy Verne Johnson

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Verne Johnson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-1180-2

Chapter One

The Beginning

I was born LaVerne W Johnson Jr. on May 22, 1975, in Rockford, Illinois, the child of LaVerne T Johnson Sr. and Noralynne Champion. I am a twin who came into this world ten minutes before my brother, Nathaniel Travirs Johnson. My mother, a short, dark-skinned lady about 5'4 in height, had my brother and I at the youthful age of eighteen. She did not know what to do with twin boys, being only eighteen and already the mother of a little girl, my sister Brenda. My grandmother tried desperately to keep Mama on the right track, but Mama did not want to do the right thing in life. Instead, she wanted to hang out with boys, partying, smoking weed, drinking alcohol, and coming home as she pleased. While she did her own thing out in the streets, she would keep the three of us at home with Granny, who lived in the Concord Common Projects. Eventually, Granny got tired of Mama's behavior and demanded that she move out on her own. In 1976, Mama got an apartment in the Organ Keys Projects where we would reside for over ten years. In those ten years, she would give birth to four more children, all of us with different daddies.

Mama, as I remember, was a very kind and loving woman. There wasn't anything she wouldn't do for Nate, Brenda, and me; she would do the best with what she had or was given. With the help of her very good friend TT, also a young mother with two sons, she raised us. Nate and I did not know our father. According to Mama, he was often in trouble with the law for crimes ranging from petty theft to drug selling. He and my mother had met in 1974, the year before my brother and I were born, in the Concord Common Projects. From what my mother has told me, my father was a "want-to-be" pimp. She said all of the girls desired him because he was so good-looking, with his light-skinned complexion, green eyes, and long straight hair. My mother said she was crazy about him, and she had to fight a lot of jealous girls just to keep him.

On the other hand, I never knew him. All I have are stories. The only time I remember seeing my father is when I was about five years old. He tried to break into our apartment in Organ Keys. Mama had told us to never open the door for anyone, and that night we did not, not even for my own dad. With my siblings and I looking out of the window, he threatened to "kick our asses" if we did not let him in. Now I cannot help but wonder how our lives would have changed if he were able to get into the house that night. I believe in my heart that he was probably a good man, but he played the hand he was dealt. His entire family was messed up with drugs, and they could not stand my mother, for reasons I do not know.

Growing up, I had to deal with some harsh sh*t. In 1977, when Nate and I were two years old, Mama was investigated by the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) because of complaints made by my paternal grandmother concerning Mama's treatment of us. This led to the worst thing that could have happened to Nate and me at the time-we were taken away from our mother.

In the three months that we lived in our paternal grandmother's home, we were treated like animals. Nate and I were beaten daily, called terrible names, and were not fed most of the time. While our grandma would be out running errands or shopping, my Uncle Tony, who was supposed to be watching us, would molest us. He would make us do things to him while he watched television. Calling us "b*tches", he would tell my brother and I that we were "worthless" and "good-for-nothing." He forced us to walk around the house nude. He would also get my older cousin involved in molesting us. Often, Uncle Tony would tell me that he hated us and wished we would go back to our mother. I myself began to hate Mama for this; I felt she did not fight hard enough to get us home while we were living in that hell.

After much physical and mental abuse, Nate and I finally told Mama about the beatings, barely eating, and name-calling. We were too frightened to tell her about Uncle Tony molesting us because he had threatened to hurt us if we told anyone; he had also threatened that "the white man" would take us away from our mother. After what seemed to be an eternity, Nate and I were able to go back home because Mama got her house in order. She promised DCFS that she would keep the house clean and make sure that there was food in the kitchen at all times. In turn, the DCFS case worker told Mama that she could, and would, drop by the house at any time without informing her. I was glad to be at home, or so I thought. I did not think that living at home could be any worse than living at my grandmother's.

My step-dad Eli, who lived with our family from 1977 to 1986, was a monster! I hated him more than anything in this whole world! He was a coward. Mama was so afraid of him that she would let him do whatever we wanted to us. For no reason, this man would beat me on a daily basis; the beatings he gave me I would not give to my worst enemy. He would make me lie over the bathtub, my belly touching the top of the tub and my elbows touching the insides. When I was in this position, he ordered me to not move. If I moved, I would endure more hits. He would then take a two-by-four and strike my bare butt. I would use the bathroom on myself, and this would make him hit me even more. Truly, there were times that I just wanted to die!

I did not deserve half of the sh*t that this man did to me. I believe that he really hated kids, even though two of my siblings were his. When we would do something that he did not like, he would lock my brothers and me in a very small closet only big enough to hang a few coats. He called it "jail". I hated being in there! If I was in "jail," I could only come out to use the bathroom. If I was in "jail," I had to eat all meals there (that was if he did not forget about me). I could not go to school if I was in "jail". "Jail" was not a fun place to be, for roaches crawled on me, and even a mouse or two would make its way under the door. I could not scream or cry out loud, or I would get a beating. So many nights I wished for death to come, but I was afraid to die.

Not only would Eli incarcerate my siblings and me in our home, but he would deprive us of food, so we had to steal food from the kitchen. Many times we got caught, and the punishment was very harsh; the beatings were a hundred times worse than usual. I began to think about ways to kill Eli. Often, I wondered why this man would not just go to sleep and not wake up.

During this time, I did not understand my life. Mama was so terrified of Eli that she did not know what to do, and if she tried to help us out or tell him that that was enough with the beatings, he would get mad and beat her. Plenty of nights we would hear Mama get beat for no reason at all. This man was the devil himself! Sometimes now I feel that I still hate him. I can still see his face in my dreams. I can still remember the beatings. Even to this day when I see myself undressed, I am reminded of the pain he caused from the scars on my body.

One day I was in the utility room. The utility room was another room in our home that Eli had made a "jail". In this room were the washer and dryer hook ups, the hot water heater, and the furnace. There were also piles of dirty clothes all over the floor, which I would use to make a bed.

On this day, Granny came over to the apartment, and from the utility room, I could hear her talking to Mama in the kitchen. I heard Granny ask Mama if Eli was still beating her. Mama lied so very well. Granny then asked about her grandkids, and Mama continued to lie. I started faking a cough, just so I could let Granny know that I was in the utility room. She heard me. Mama quickly tried to lie, but it was too late. Mama said that it was "Eli's doing." She admitted to my grandmother that he was putting us kids in the utility room and the closet to punish us. Granny then began cursing at Mama. She told her to get her grandbaby "out of there" and to never put any of her grandchildren in there again. She stated that if it happened again, she would "kick" Eli's ass herself, and Granny did not play games. Eli would not cross the line when it came down to Granny.

The very next day the whole house was smoking. Unknowingly, a few hours earlier while sleeping, I had knocked off the cover from the water heater, and the utility room had caught fire. Granny had saved me from that fire.

I was always hoping my dad would come over to kill this coward. I came to hate my father for not being there, and for allowing this man to hurt me and my siblings at will. Why was no one trying to help us from this madness? Where were the police? Where was the rest of the family? Why were they letting this happen? Why was God allowing this to happen?

Chapter Two

Growing Up Without You

I was never the type who wanted my father in the stands watching me play some type of ball game. No, that was never my personality or style; I never liked to play sports, although I loved watching them on television. What I wanted was for my dad to teach me how to be a man. I wanted him to teach me how to survive out in the streets-basically, I wanted him to teach me how to be a reasonable human being.

I say this because all I had ever known in my youth was the street life. Like most of the kids I grew up around, I was raised in a fatherless home, but I was different from these kids: my father resided on Death Row in California's San Quentin Prison. When life would get difficult at home, despite Mama's best efforts at keeping the family together, I would often think of my father. My siblings and I had countless "step-daddies," none of whom we were ever able to call "Dad." While Granny was always there to pick up the pieces for Mama, it was not enough to make up for the absence of a true father in our home.

Particularly when we were living with Eli, I grew very afraid. I was terrified of him! I always wondered as he beat mom and us children how a man could do this to a woman and her family. How could a man say, "I love you," to a woman while keeping a straight face, and then turn around and slap her, or her child, in the face? I was very confused. If my biological father were here, I thought to myself, would he beat me like this? Would he beat my Mama like this?

I wondered, but I will never know because my father was not there. I wanted to ask my father, "Would you have hurt or killed the man who hurt your children? Where were you when we needed you to protect us from all the hurt, harm, and danger?" I sat many nights listening and comforting Mama as she cried because she needed someone to really love and help her. My father was not there, so I had to play the role of a man. I had to take on adult male responsibilities, and as a result, I grew up too soon.

Having spent most of my childhood living in fear and confusion because of the decisions my father had made, I came to wonder if he cared about Nate and me. Wanting to have a strong and wise man in my life, I turned to the gang chiefs. It was not only I who got involved with gangs; my entire family would become gang members, too. After all, we all had to learn the game of survival.

All I knew about my father was based on someone else's story. From others, I learned that he wanted to be promiscuous and that he "did not have time" for kids. There were allegations that he was a "murderer" and a "monster." People would tell me that my father "could not do anything right." Troubled by the stories I had heard about him, I desired to learn the truth from him. I wanted to know my father for myself, but he was not there. In his absence, I got involved with gangs, drugs, and alcohol at a very young age.

I am like most young black men who have grown up in the filthy streets of Rockford; we all share the same story. We have all heard terrible things about our fathers a thousand times over. At this time in my life, I want to reach out to those who have shared my fate. I want to talk about the pain, bitterness, sorrow, loneliness, lack of love, lack of knowing how to give or receive love-in short, the brokenness that we all share. We share a similar history, and in order for us to move forward into the future, we must confront our past. Personally, I have had to dig through the layers and layers of pain and meet it head-on. I have had to recall those things that nearly killed me a thousand times over. I have had to go to the men and women in my life and tell them how much they have hurt me; I have also had to allow them to tell me about the hurt that I have caused. At this time in my life, I cannot lie, sugar-coat, ignore, or withhold the truth.

Chapter Three

Inside Pain

Have you ever smashed your finger in a door or stubbed your toe on the edge of a bedpost? As the pain begins to surge up and down throughout your body, you want nothing more than for it to go away. You wait all the while, sweating, cursing and holding the area that is causing the throbbing pain, and most of the time, after a few minutes, the pain goes away.

Now imagine that this pain continues for five, ten, fifteen, or even twenty years, and you never take any medicine for it. Could you live with that?

My heart has lived with pain for years: I have felt great pain from my father not being a part of my life. In my youth, I had not been taught how to express my feelings in an appropriate manner, nor was I given the opportunity to confront the man who was causing me this internal pain. Eventually, my pain grew into bitterness, and then into hatred.

The first time I was given an opportunity to confront my father, I was seventeen years old. We had a phone conversation. During this conversation, we didn't actually talk-instead, we yelled and cursed each other out. I became very angry with him, and we did not solve anything in that fifteen minute exchange. When the phone minutes expired, the situation between us was as bad as it had always been. I did not know what to do. I remember feeling that I hated this man! He was not my father, and I knew absolutely nothing about him! So why was I angry with him?

In my heart, I had wanted him to be a father. I needed him to know how much I wanted him to be there for me. But I also had no respect for him, and I could not look up to him as a father figure. He was just a man who had helped my mother bring me into the world. I wanted to tell him all about myself, but I could not trust him.

After that phone conversation, we did not talk for six years. During that time, I figured it was up to him to pick up the phone or a pen to try to re-establish contact with me. After all, I reasoned, it was his fault that we were in this situation.

Later I would learn that it takes two to begin a relationship. In order for this to happen, both parties have to be involved, and both have to want the relationship. I did not want a relationship, but my father did. At the time, I wondered how it would be possible for me to have a relationship with a man that I hated so much, a man I did not know, nor wanted to know. Bitter in my heart, I felt that he owed me something. And I would ask myself, "What did my family and I do to deserve this?"

In the late 1980s, years before I was to have this encounter with my father, my Mama moved our family to Beloit, Wisconsin. During the time that we lived in Beloit, I had got so fed up with being the talk of the town and school that I wanted to kill myself.

Every day since childhood, it seemed, I had been forced to fight just because people did not like me. In Rockford while attending elementary school, I had no friends outside of my brother, Nate. Perhaps we were disliked because we did not have many clothes: my brothers and I had to share three shirts and two pairs of pants. I can recall feeling ecstatic to get my cousin's second-hand clothes and shoes, and even though they were too big for me, I wore them anyways. But by wearing them, I was talked about even more. Kids would call my siblings and I nasty names; one that stuck was the "Brady Bunch Chumps," given to us because there were seven of us.

When we would walk home from school, my brother and I had to fight nearly the entire walk home. Then, upon getting home, we had to fight with the kids in the projects. These kids would not leave us alone! Why did they think they were better than us? They lived in the projects just like us, and their mothers were also on welfare, but in their minds they were superior. I could not understand how they thought this.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from When Tears Fallby Verne Johnson Copyright © 2009 by Verne Johnson. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1449011802
• ISBN 13: 9781449011802
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 104