Chapter 4

February 2, 2013

It has been pretty quiet around here lately. No drama, no violence, everything has been really quite.
But for some reason there is still no sigh of Malik. Last time I saw him he was walking out of the classroom in handcuffs. I hope he is okay. If he is in jail I already know what he is doing; talking up a storm on how he has killed people and how he is an official Crip. I really hope he doesn’t get himself hurt in there. If I had the money I would bail him out. But maybe jail is something that Malik needs for a while. He needs to know that this world isn’t a game and you can’t do and say whatever you want. One day Malik will learn. I just fear that it’s going to be the hard way; and the hard way is when he will become a victim of this society. But as a matter of fact he already is, he already is a victim of this society and he doesn’t even know it.
But other than that everything has been quite. But this is the part I start regretting; because that’s when everything goes wrong.
I can tell something is coming, and it is not going to be good. I keep having that dream. That dream of me in a dark room. That dream scares me to no end. What does it mean? What is it telling me? What is about to happen? I’m scared that that the little boy crying in the room is me. Im scared that this dream is foretelling my future. But something new has been added to my dream; at the beginning I hear gun shots from a gun fire past by me. I hear people scream and yell and that’s when the usual dream starts to come in. So now this has me wondering even more. What do the gun shots mean? Am I going to shoot somebody? Am I going to watch somebody get shot and just stand there?AM I GOING TO GET SHOT?!
I have to stop writing about this. All I’m doing is scaring myself. But I just have to know, what does it mean? What does this stupid dream mean?!
I just have to put this pencil down and rest. That’s all I have to do. Put my pencil down and rest.

February 7, 2013
I had to stop writing the other day. All I’m doing is scaring myself. But I just have to know, what does it mean? What does this stupid dream mean?! I just had to put this pencil down for a minute. That’s all I have to do. I just needed to relax.
But life is back to becoming stressful again. That little quietness all around my life that was going on earlier, that’s all gone now.
My dad and I got into an argument today. He just made me so angry. He always trying to act like that my mom and I are the reason he’s in the position he’s in. He has made his own decisions in life. How dare he try to blame anybody for the decisions he made.
I hadn’t heard from him in a while and I wanted to see what was going on him. So my mom and I cruised around the east side of San Bernardino for a while until we saw him crossing the street. He wasn’t really in the mood to talk; he said he was on his way to the bus station. He seemed pretty happy to see me though; that was surprise for once. I watched my mom and him talk for a while but then he just started talking stupid so my mom got up and start leaving.
For some reason that made my dad mad and he started to scream and yell at my mom. “You stupid woman! You always cause me all this heart ache and pain. You aint never cared about me and that’s why I’m on the streets right now.”
“What are you talking about Eric?” Replied my mom as tears rolled down her face. “Have you ever cared about us? When is the last time you bought Ladanian a pair of shoes. When is the last time you came and come with us to a parent teacher conference? Stop trying to make yourself a victim Eric. Nobody out here is causing this to you except yourself. When are you going to take some responsibility, when are you going to say “I’m Eric Frenchman and I am the one that put my life in this position?” More tears started to roll down her face now, but as my mom was getting into the car my dad had more to say. He always does. He loves getting in the last word.
“What about me? You aint never let me be a father? I have always done the best I can and you have never been okay with that?
This is the part where I started to get mad. He has never been a father, especially to me. What makes him think it’s okay to blame my mom for everything? I had to say my part in this whether he liked it or not. “What do you mean you have done your best? There has been time when I have gone days wondering where you are. While you was on the streets I was trying to figure out what my dad is doing. Your nothing near a father. I remember I had to go somewhere and cry because the kids would make fun of me and say that I didn’t have a dad. When really everybody knew that you was in prison. Where you trying to be a father then? If you’re really a great father, if you really have done the best you can, why is it that my best friend dad is my hero? He’s my inspiration. I told him I want to be just like him when I grow up.”
My mom instantly shot me a furious look. “Get in the car Ladanian and lets go right now!” as we got into the car my mom drove off and left my dad just sitting there on the curve. She kept staring at me so I knew a lecture was coming along. “That was no way to talk to your father you know? He deserves more respect than that. I raised you better than that.”
“I was speaking the truth.” I said suddenly.
“Sometimes the truth is not meant to be said aloud Ladanian. Sometimes you have to keep it inside and only know it for yourself.”
“So my dad doesn’t deserve to hear the truth? He doesn’t get to know the truth about the lives he has affected because of his mistakes and stupid decisions in life?”
“Trust me Ladanian, he sees what he has done; and it hurts him deeply. He really does care too, especially about you. But he just won’t do anything to make better decisions, he is to scared to face his own life and take responsibility for it, and if you’re not careful Ladanian, you’ll end up just like him, angry; bitter, and mad at the world. You will look at your life 30 years from now and realize that you’re mad at everything and everyone. That’s the state your father is in right now; he’s mad because he is 47 years old and has nothing to show for it. He doesn’t have one thing that he can call his; so he takes all his anger out on everybody else.”
“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t to deserve to hear the truth; especially from his own son.”
“Just sit back and hush Ladanian; soon you will realize the true ways of this world and how everything works. You will know that you are the only one that controls your destiny.”
I decided to put my head back and rest. I watched the city as we pass through the buildings and its people. This is my city, San Bernardino, it may not be much but it tells a story; and I feel as if I’m the main character in it. My dad grew up in this city. I was born and raised here. I have watched people die on these streets. I have seen miracles happen. But this city is nowhere to play games. You’ll say something or mess with the wrong person and end up dead.
San Bernardino is slowly falling apart. Our world is falling apart. Everything is falling apart. We are all just slaves to this society. It’s not the white man fault, but it’s our fault. There is no solution to the problem that we have going on here. Nor do we want a solution; we are all just sitting back and watching us loose everything that we have worked for. It is very easy for me to say that the Black Race has a very dangerous disease; and we are just sitting and not even trying to find a cure for it. We are all just sitting here and we literally look at each and every one of us; and we all just sit there as well each of us individually fall victim this society. We just don’t care anymore.
As for my dad, he’s always going to be in the predicament he is in now, maybe one day he will wake up and realize what he has done. But as for now, I just want him to stay away for me. I hate him.

February 10, 2013
My dad went to jail today. My broke the news to me. She was in tears more than I was.
The story is that my day went and robbed a liquor store on the east side of San Bernardino. Fortunately nobody was hurt. He was able to get away with some money but the police caught him about a hour later.
What was he thinking? This man is more stupid than I thought. This is the man that has always been the best father he could be right? What am I supposed to look as this man as? I don’t have any respect for him anymore. I’m sick of this life. I’m sick of trying to figure out where my life is headed. I’m sick of being so confused because of this man. He’s made me feel as if there is something wrong with me. I look around and everybody is doing great. I’m sick of acting like I’m dealing with this situation, like the history that my life has had no longer affects me. I deal with the hurt and sorrow of my life every day. I look up in the mirror and try to identify myself. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know where I come from. All I know is that I have a loser for a dad and a mom that has struggled all her life.
All these black people try to identify themselves with Africa and make stupid sayings like “we are all brothers and sisters” men all that talk is stupid. I know what race I’m from, I don’t need anybody to tell that, I’m trying to figure out who I am, why did got put me on this earth? Was I an accident? Am I even in Gods plan in life? Am I ever on his mind? Is everybody meant to go to heaven? Were we all created to serve God. My whole life I have searched for him and my whole life all I have gotten is disappointed.
I look all the time, trying to find some hope. Trying to find something or someone that will give me some motivation in life. I look at the people who preached hope; who led marches and died for hope that something good will come. Those are the people who are looked upon as heroes. But hope is a long way from me,I doubt we will ever find each other, but then again it’s not like my families story main theme is hope.
On my mother’s side, she grew up in a child hood of her parents constantly arguing and fist fighting. Kind of like mine. My Grandma was an alcoholic; she would get drunk and stay drunk all day long. Leaving my mom all by herself sometimes; she gave a lonely feeling towards my mom, giving her issues that she is still dealing with till this day. At the age of 18 my mom’s parents got divorced; so she left into the real world with all these issues that were never resolved. But when you have issues, they don’t just disappear, they go into the next relationship you have until you finally have to deal with them. So now I have to put with my mothers childhood issues, along with the issues that I have for myself.
As for my dad, his childhood is a long story. He grew up in the east coast for a while until he finally moved out here to San Bernardino. When he was just a little boy his parents got divorced and he lived with his mom for a while. He bounced back and forth between his dad and mom until he lived with his dad for a couple of years. Those were some of the worst years of his life, his dad would come home so drunk that that he would beat my dad till he was a bloody mess. One time my dad said he hit him so hard that he peed on himself. After years of abuse from his dad; my dad went to go live with his mom again. But eventually his mom met some guy in the penitentiary over some dumb pen pal program and decided that she was moving out of state. She left my dad with his sister and eventually my dad found himself homeless on the streets because of conflict with his sister; and the streets of San Bernardino have been my dad’s stomping ground ever since. My dad was left all alone in this cold world with no one left to care about him, that’s probably why he doesn’t care about anything now, nobody ever cared about him. That’s probably why he is the father he is.
So that’s my family history, my mom came from a broken family that fell apart and my dad never really had anybody that cared about him. In the result is left a 15 year old boy who is too scared to face the world because he doesn’t want to end up like his parents. Not really a big story of hope. Not a lot of optimistic feeling to it. This is why I feel lost. This is why I am scared. I don’t see no hope, no bright future, no opportunities, just darkness. Just like my dream.
But as for my dad, I fear that this is a wrap for him. If he goes to jail this time he is not going to get out. A black man in this society is not going to just rob somebody at gun point and just walk the streets again a couple months later. If you slip up in this society, if you let this twisted and corrupted so called “Justice System” get their hands on you, they’ll throw you in the cell and let you rot for the rest of your life.
My mom said he has a hearing in a couple of days. She asked me if I wanted to go see him but I told her no. I don’t want to see him. What would be my reasoning for seeing him? I’m trying to find something positive in my life, not look at what causes my depression. My dad deserves whatever is coming to him.

February 17, 2013
I ran into Malik today. He told me he was in jail these past few weeks. He got put on probation and he has to go to court every 3 months for the next year. If he gets in trouble again, he will be going to jail for a long time probably.
But what I don’t understand is, why he was in jail so long. He has been in jail for almost a month. What could he have possibly done to be held in jail for a whole month? All it was a big misunderstanding between a teacher and a student. To be honest, this scares me. If you go to jail for something as bad what Malik did, what happens when you did something serious like my dad? That’s how I know my dad will probably never see the light of day again. The government is not about to let black people commit a crime or make a mistake and just do a little bit of time for it. When black people pay their debts to society, they’re just basically giving time to the government, sometimes it’s their whole lives. But this is the second thing that scares me, Malik never did anything. That teacher lied on him; he never threatened her, he as just joking. But the police never cared about that. They never care about anything we have to say. They see us all as criminals.They kept Malik locked up as long as they could.
When that judge tooked his first look at Malik, I wonder what he was thinking? Does he just see a black boy and already makes up his mind about him? Or does he look at Malik and try to learn who he really is? Malik honestly is a good kid. He just does stupid stuff and makes dumb decisions. I just fear this won’t be his last time in jail, he just refuses to learn. But this jail system sure will help him learn. I doubt that is something to brag about though. Pretty sooner or later, it might just happen to me.

February 19, 2013
My dad had a hearing in court today. My mom went but I decided not to go. I felt as if I already knew what the outcome was. My dad was going to be in jail for the rest of his life. I more than likely wasn’t going to see him no more, and that would be that.
But surprisingly, my dad will only be spending about six months in jail. I guess they couldn’t connect my dad to the robbery. But when the police did find them they found him with a very sharp knife. Which he is not allowed to have. It’s against his probation rules.
Why my dad had a knife is a question that I don’t have an answer to. I don’t even want to know the answer to that question. It’s not my problem anymore, nor is it anybody else. If he wants to live that kind of life let him live it.
I really am starting to grow a true hate for him. He’s the reason I’m in the life I’m in. He has just done his own thing his own life and let everybody else deal with the consequences. It’s time he suffers some consequences for the stuff he has done. So I hope he rots in jail. I hope he realizes that everything is not about him.
But to be honest my dad got lucky this time. Next time might not end out so great. But everybody already knows my opinion about luck. There is no luck in this world, just God’s grace. For some reason, God has had his favor wrapped around my dad his whole life. My dad has been in so many ugly situations, but then came out alive. I’m talking about the kind of situations that can’t nobody get you out of, and when you do find your way out, you can’t thank nobody but God.
I remember one time he was about to get in some serious trouble over a triple homicide. This happened about 7 or 8 years ago. My dad had been living with this one family for about a year but conflict started to arouse between my dad and the family’s two sons. It finally came to the point where my dad and the two sons came to blows and they jumped my dad to the point where they can barely walk. My dad was barely able to find his way to a phone and he called my mom. My mom and I found him lying on a side of a curb with blood all over his face.
After about a week of healing my dad left for a couple nights but for my mom and I, that was a regular routine. We were used to him leaving for days at a time. But after about the fourth night the police came banging on our door at three o’clock in the morning. They said they were looking for Eric Frenchman. My mom quickly responded saying how we had not seen my day dad in about a week. She quickly asked what was going on and the police said he’s a suspect for a triple homicide. Later that night the police found my dad lurking around in an alley. Just to his luck that alley was right across the street from the house where the 3 people got murdered, and to make everything else better the 3 people that got murdered was the two sons that jumped my dad a week prior. The other one who got killed was the dad. All three of them had several knife wounds to their back. The police found no type of weapon on my dad but they still arrested him.
At this point I felt as if it was all over. My dad was going to get charged guilty with triple homicide, and I was never going to see him again. I honestly thought he did have something to do with it, everything was pointing at him. They police had a motive and they found him near the scene of a crime. But out of nowhere, two days before my dad’s hearing, somebody came and confessed to the murder. He said the two sons had owed him money so that’s why he killed them. The dad just happened to be watching everything go down.
So this is what I mean when I say God has had my dad’s back a lot in his life. Till this day I my dad refuses he had anything to do with the murder but I just find that very hard to believe. My dad is a very lucky guy. But this won’t be the last time my dad gets in trouble. I know that for a fact.

February 24, 2013
This guest speaker came to my church today. Her name was Ms.Juney, but we all just called her first lady. I go to a very small church, there are only about 200 members. It’s majority black people, I know know anyone there. I really honestly don’t like most of the people there. They’re all just rich people thinking
February 27, 2013
I actually had a conversation with my mom today. I don’t know whether I would call this conversation good or not. I just think that we look at each other differently now. I look at my whole life differently now.
I saw her sitting on her bed so I decided to start the conversation for once.
“Hey mom”

“What do you want Ladanian?”

“Have you spoken to dad?”

“Nope. Have you?”

“Nope.”

“I just don’t get it. How in the world did this man free himself from this situation? I just knew that this was going to be a wrap for him.”

“Haha. Well you know dad has always been able to free himself from very sticky situations.”

“Don’t talk stupid to me Ladanian, you know I don’t like being talked stupid to.”

“How am I talking stupid, what did I say?”

“You know what you remind me of your father a lot. I’ve been noticing that lately. Everything, he does your starting to do. Every day you become more and more like him?”

“What you mean? I’m nothing like my dad, how can you say something like that?”

“You are acting just like him. If you’re not careful with me Ladanian, I’ll send you to go live with him. I’m tired of this. I’m tired of always having to run behind you Ladanian, your almost an adult now, you’ll be sixteen next month. You think I’m going to put up this for another two years.”

“What exactly am I doing mom? I just don’t get why your even mad. I don’t do anything.”

“What about this situation with Alaina huh? You think her Uncle is playing with you? You think he is just going to let you do whatever you want and get away with it. I had a long talk with him the other day. He said you and Alaina got into an argument in the hallway. Can you explain to me why you are still getting into arguments with that girl?

“She bumped into me on purpose and made me knock all my stuff down. So I asked her what her problem was and if she had something wrong with her. Then her stupid little friends jumped in and said that they were going to tell Alaina’s uncle if I didn’t get out her face. I’m not scared of her or Mr.Jackson mom, she’s always trying to threaten me with him, like he has the power to destroy me or something. He’s not anybody.”

“She wouldn’t be threating you with him if he wasn’t somebody Ladanian. Alaina is smarter than that, Mr. Jackson could get you in some serious trouble if he wanted to; he’s the president of the whole education board. If he wanted you in trouble, you would have been in trouble Ladanian, trust me on that.”

“I don’t care mom! I’m not scared of him or Alaina. I’m sick of both of them, I can’t deal with this situation along with the other situations going on in my life. I just can’t do it anymore! I’m sick of this! Plus mom; me and you, we could take them right? Mr.Jackson has been talking getting a restraining order against me right? We could fight that mom, me and you. Like it has always been”

“Ladanian there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“I went to the doctors the other day and umm; Ladanian I’m dying. Doctor said I have breast cancer and I don’t have much longer to live. Ladanian it’s time for you to grow up. You need to realize that mommy isn’t always going to be there for you, one day you are going to get yourself into some trouble that I won’t be able to get you out of. You need to start using your head and drop that whole falling victim bull crap of yours. Only person that is going to fall victim is yourself; and it will only be your fault Ladanian, only yours.”
“Mom how am I going to do this? How am I supposed to go on in life without you? My whole life you have always been by my side and now what am I going to do. Where am I going to go, who’s going to take care of me? Am I just supposed to go live on the streets?”
“Don’t you worry about that right now, you just worry about going on with your life and making yourself useful in this world.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“By getting out of here Ladanian! Get out of this city, get out of this country, get out of this life. Go to college; explore the world, or something. Leave this place, because all this city will do is keep you were you currently are. They don’t care about us, nobody does. That’s why you have to get out of here, so you can make people care about us. So you can make San Bernardino a better place. You have always had something special about you Ladanian. But you act to much like your father, and that’s not a good thing. You need to stop using him as an excuse for your life being where it is. Stop letting your past tell your future. Stop letting your dad define who you are. You are special Ladanian, you’re a gift from God, you just haven’t realized it yet. Now go to bed sweetie, you have to get up early tomorrow for school.”

As I was walking down the hallway I had felt something inside me. For the first time in my I felt important. I felt as if I was going to do something in life. I felt like I was wanted.
But I had to get my mind off of that. My mom is dying; and I don’t know what I’m going to do. She’s the only person that I’ve ever had. The only person I’ve ever truly had; and now she’s about to be gone. Be gone forever. I just don’t know what I’m going to do. I need my mom, I need her. Without her everything I had ever had would be gone. God has already given up on me. I don’t even try anymore to talk to him anymore. My whole world is about to change, and it’s about to happen soon. Not like the about to happen in a couple months soon, I mean like about to happen in the next few weeks soon.