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      PART ONE: I’M Alone In Darkness

      Soul Cry

      (Missing Fathers: The misunderstanding of a fatherless child)

      “It’s never too late to do the right thing”

      —Dad

      -inspired by true events

      A HardDrive Entertainment Production

      Seven out of ten black kids grow up without fathers. There has never been a greater number of voluntary absences by fathers from their children’s lives than there is in the black community today. When dads are not around life gets lonely, hopeless and confusing for the children they leave behind. So for these fatherless kids, the future becomes unsure as they unknowingly are destined to continue the vicious cycle: the cycle of a tribe lost in the shadows plagued by broken homes. No fathers to teach our sons how to grow up to be men. No fathers to show how to respect and treat women. No fathers to teach our daughters their true values and how to carry and respect themselves. No fathers to instill in our daughters what not to accept from boys or men because they’re worth so much more. But most important of all, no fathers to teach our sons how to grow-up and become real fathers themselves. Without a father, a child is left to learn the other side of life on his or her own. So our daughters are getting pregnant by sixteen, while our sons become missing dead beats by age eighteen. So the cycle stays in motion because now the child he leaves behind will never out live the pain of not having a father nor the agony his mother endured. He or she becomes the reason mommy and daddy couldn’t fulfill their dreams. However, nothing in life is gained or discovered without sacrifice. We have sacrificed many generations of black families, and a change has to come. It is time for us as young black men to take a stand and break the cycle of missing fathers. It is time to learn and discover how to be real men; Fathers. We may not begin to change until we are confronted with the reality that we are repeating our father’s behavior patterns that we promised ourselves we would end. “It’s never too late to do the right thing.”

      Chapter 1

      With the last of my stuff in my hands, halfway out the door I replied, “You said you don’t want me here. You called the cops on me and took back your house keys. You even said I wasn’t your son. So I’m gone. Don’t worry about where I’m gonna stay. Just know that’s it for us now. You don’t gotta worry about me anymore mummy. Goodbye. Let me go.” She was clinched on to my arm, “Andre a where you a go, a where you a go? Don’t go! Andre mi sorry don’t go. ANDRE!” I pulled away and slammed the door behind me. It felt good to slam the door and be done with her for good, but the walk to Lance’s car was a hard and heavy walk to take. I was scared as fuck! I had just slammed the door on security and walked into uncertainty. I’m 17 years old, soon to be a parent and now homeless, hundreds of miles away from my family. Here I am running away into a world in which I can’t perceive the future. I felt a new overwhelming feeling of loneliness as I walked to Lance’s car listening to Robin crying behind me. I thought about turning back, as I began my life long journey to where I did not know.

      As the years came and past I lost that drive. Sometimes, I felt like I had lost my will to survive. This is the stress that lives within me.

      Dear Lord,

      This is my confession. It’s so hard to cope I hope you can forgive me for all of my indiscretion. Before I start this session I’m professing, I have learned my lesson. I pray I’m forgiven for every bad decision I’ve made and it isn’t anybody’s fault because I made the decisions I’ve made. I know you might think this is the life I chose, but this is the life that chose me: A life as a black fatherless child.

      My first memory of life was at the age of three, in Silver Spring Jamaica, on my family’s property. By three years old, I already had a taste for independence, so I decided to cross the bridge by the river all by myself. The bridge was made from four round tree logs and I made it half way across before falling off the bridge. From that point onward, I have been falling off the bridge ever since. If you knew my life you would shed a tear yet, I pray that I’m forgiven. If I am not to be forgiven, then all I wish is to be understood. I have grown and am now thankful for the lessons of life given to me.

      On September 17, 1984 in Savannalamore Hospital, in Westmoreland Jamaica, Robin Brown at the age of 21 gave me the gift of life. Growing up, mom wasn’t really around because she went to America to seek a better life for us. Therefore, my grandparents raised me. Life at a young age in Jamaica was happy and good (for what we knew and had). My grandfather, Uriah Brown, gave me everything from candy to his chicken bones. He had me spoiled rotten! See I come from a big family and we all built houses on my grandpa’s 50 to 75 acres of land. At the top of the property was my grandparents’ house. My older cousin by two years and closest cousin Anthony, we were the only two grandchildren allowed to sleep and live with our grandparents. Anthony’s mother went to America with my mother, who was her younger sister.

      Walking down the path past the mango and apple trees by the river was Mervin’s house (Anthony’s father). Behind his house was my uncle Lasie’s house where he lived with my two little cousins whose names I cannot remember right now (they didn’t live there very long) and their mom Jem. Following the path, again by the river, you’ll soon meet my aunty Cibel’s house. She lived with Tommy, her boyfriend and father of two of her sons (Shocka the youngest and Derval who was a year older than me). Her two oldest children lived there as well, Eatan the oldest and his sister Stacia. Across a little stream in their backyard was my aunty Misie’s house where she lived with her two daughters and two granddaughters that she cared for after their mother, her daughter, had died.) Sandra, her older daughter and her sister Marline both had their houses next door. Marline lived with her two sons Davian and his little brother Bobby.

      As kids in Jamaica, we learned to live off the land, survive sand make do with what we had. From chasing chickens until they got tired, to climbing tress higher than 8-20 story buildings just for food so we could quiet the stomach from grumbling. In those days, most people did not have jobs; they gathered and grew what they could which was then sold at market. Therefore, the growing of marijuana or “herb or weed” as it is known in Jamaica was a profitable market. Every Saturday morning after watching cartoons, on the six channels and the only color TV on the property I might add, Anthony and I would make our way down to his father’s house where my other two cousins Eatan and Derval would meet us. After which, we would all go to uncle Lasie’s house where we would bend down and pick the buds off the herb plant for many hours. After which our fingers would become tar black from picking at the THC all day, for free I might add, boy, if I only knew. On some Saturdays, we would climb the mountain up the road to meet Tommy at his ganja field, where we would bring back down, in crocus bags, the herb that was harvested. Damn I did a lot for free. When dinner time would come around I was always well fed because I would always eat at Mervin’s, Dervals’, Lasie’s, and at my grandmother’s house. Anthony was always with me, he was like my older brother, but he didn’t eat much, he was always fussy with his food and I would end up eating his too.

      Come Monday mornings it was time for school. All the older kids went to Sheffield school by themselves, but I was too young so grandpa took me to and from school on his bicycle. That was until the day I decided I was too old and I wanted to go with my cousins. We would all walk together until we come to the intersection where my school was on the left while my cousins went to the right. After I cried and acted up, grandpa said he would never take me to school again. Sure enough, he never did take me again and we never spoke about it again. Now my older cousins would have to walk me to school until I graduated pre-school and started first grade. When I got to first grade, my school was now a lot closer to my cousins. It was not long after I got to the same school as my cousins, when I realized that maybe I did not want to be here.

      See we lived a good 15-20 miles from the school and in Jamaica tardiness is not handled with a pink slip, detention or a grade point deduction. No, At Sheffield when you are late or you broke any rules you are brought out into the courtyard, where you are visible to all the classrooms. At which point Mister Spragga, the principal, humiliates and beats you like a slave at times. One whip, from his thick long and black worn out leather strap, for every minute you are late. Unfortunately

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