About me
Real Name: Jamaal Glaze
Age: 34
Location: Kansas
Evolution of a Cripple
Where to start? The beginning and the end are always the hardest when writing. How’s this? In the beginning I was born, in the end I lived happily ever after. Now the rest should be easy right?
I was born in 1977. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately I don’t remember much of my childhood. I don’t remember my dad. I couldn’t even tell you his name. There’s also a few other mystery men in my early life I couldn’t tell you a thing about. Like for example, for awhile, my last name was Moaten. Apparently, that wasn’t my dad’s name, and my mother’s maiden name is Allen. So, how’d I get the last name Moaten? Easiest explanation is she remarried. Only there’s no pictures, memories, or talk of this mystery “Moaten”.
My mom is a very mysterious person when it comes to her past. The earliest memory I have isn’t even with my mom, but my godmother Margot who raised me for awhile while my mom was in Korea. Official story is, she was in the army, and was stationed there. Unofficially, from bits and pieces I’ve gathered over the years was, she was there because she testified in a drug case and had to get out of the country. She was definitely in the army, and definitely in Korea, the circumstances of why are still up in the air. I could find out I’m sure, but that’s neither here nor there right now.
At some point, my mom returned and again, I don’t remember anything about it. My next memory is after she has remarried….Wait, did I mention my real dad kidnapped me at some point? Yeah, I don’t remember that either. Just another one of those stories I’ve heard over the years. Maybe in the sequel I’ll do some investigative journalism and get to the bottom of it.
Anyway, my mom remarried. A man by the name of James Glaze, and the only man I’ve ever known as “dad”. He was a divorcee, also in the army. He had 4 kids, but only had custody of 1, his second youngest Damian. He was 3 years older than me. My mom had a daughter, LaCheole(Luh-shell), and me and Damian were pretty close. I guess I would’ve had to have been about 7 or 8 as LaCheole is in the wedding photos. Was a good time. Eventually he adopted us and we now carry his name.
One of my more vivid memories is me and Damian reenacting all the performances of Prince in the movie Purple Rain. Standing up on the living room table, playing air guitar. Getting down with our bad selves. Trying to time our jumps off the table to Prince’s and ALWAYS jumping to early. That movie rocked!
Anyway, did the little league thing. Loved baseball. Was my life for awhile. Was a slick fielding short stop. Even made the little league all-star game…unfortunately I didn’t get to go and that pretty much is the end of this little fairy tale.
My mom again was stationed overseas. This time, as far as I know, for legit reasons. We lived with James for awhile, then we(my sis and I) moved to Germany without “dad”. We didn’t know at the time, that the marriage was pretty much over. Sis was maybe 3 or 4, which would make me maybe 9 or 10. We lived there for 3 and half years or so.I guess you could say this is where my criminal life started. Stealing all the time. Stores, mom, mom’s friends. If I wanted it, I took it. Even if I had the money to buy what I wanted, I would still steal it. Never got into any real trouble as I never got caught except by my mom who wasn’t much of a disciplinarian. Sure I’d get a whoopin’, but in my mind I figured a few minutes of pain was worth it. So it wasn’t much of a deterrent.
Only big trouble I got into in Germany was when I broke into the school on a weekend. See the playground area was enclosed in the center of the school. So they never locked the doors leading into the playground. So me and my friend(and accomplice) climbed onto the school and dropped down into the playground area and entered the school. From there, we destroyed and pretty much ran rough shot over the school. And as little hoodlum kids would do and find incredibly funny, wrote cuss words on alot of chalk boards….It was funny at the time. Well we got caught and was suspended. Luckily and funnily we weren’t charged with breaking and entering…cuz the front doors were open. Apparently, they had a judo class going on in the gym. They just assumed we walked in the front doors.
Only real good memories of our time in Germany was the awesome water slides they had, and their french fries. Good shit. Oh and when Dj Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince came out in 1990, and later discovering the greatness that is the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J. I played the hell out of those records. Also my mom’s boyfriend taking me to get my ear pierced in some seedy looking underground market area despite my mom’s wishes.
There was also what they call a volksmarch. You have a choice of a five kilometers, ten kilometers, or fifteen kilometers walk and at the end, once you complete the walk, you get a prize of some sort. Little trinkets, candles, medals and what have you. The walk was always in some nice village. You go up the hills, up the mountains, you have beautiful sights, and every now and then they have some kind of a food stand with a band playing, and it’s just a whole lot of fun. Easily the most beautiful place I’ve been. Loved the architecture.
Anyway, we made it back to the states. Belton, Missouri to be exact. One big incident happened there involving me. I kinda almost burnt down the school. I swear to this day, it was an accident. Boneheaded move on my part, but accidental none the less. During track practice(I was a speedy fucker), me and some guys went inside to get a drink or something, I don’t remember. Anyway, somebody had some matches and was playing with them. I took the pack of matches, lit them and placed them in a cooler and closed it. I assumed they’d just burn out. Not alot of oxygen in the cooler ya know. Then I stepped out of the room and pretended like I was just gonna leave it. Closed the door…and click. It locked. So I panicked and left it, praying and hoping it’d burn out. It didn’t. Instead the room was destroyed and toxic fumes were released. Someone snitched on me and I was suspended for 2 weeks…yep only 2 weeks. Other than that, I was pretty good in Belton.
My mom on the other hand, met her biggest loser to date. Xavier Liggins. Just writing his name, gives me the creeps. I didn’t like him from the start and we clashed. Abusive, domineering, and knew how to impose his will. During the worse of it, he nearly killed my mom. Something I didn’t find out until years later and also caused her to be honorably discharged from the army. To this day, I still don’t know all the details. Getting info…honest info from my mom is like trying to get a blind man to see by throwing holy water in his face…impossible. As far as we know, he’s in prison somewhere.
So we moved in with my grandparents for about a year. The only black people in the entire area and surprisingly the least racist place I’ve ever lived. Did I mention I was mixed, mulatto, an oreo, half breed, 50/50, etcetera. My mom is white, and my dad’s apparently black. Same for my sis. Anyway, no problems there. One of the best times of my life…so you knew it couldn’t last.We moved to Pittsburg, Kansas at the beginning of my first year of high school. Horrible time. Due to all the problems Xavier caused, we were now flat broke living in a college town with a bunch of uppity white folk. My mom was working all the time and I was caring for my sister. We lived right off the college campus so there were NO kids our ages around so we became each other’s best friend. At this point, there were only 3 or 4 black people in the school. I didn’t get along with any of them. Or anybody for that matter.
We ate bean burritos from Taco Bell(they were extremely cheap at this point), and cheese omelets almost every night for dinner. I started skipping school alot. I’d walk my sister to school then “miss” the bus to the high school and walk back home. My mom, I think was feeling guilty at this time because of our situation, so she’d let me stay home and we’d play video games. Eventually, that stopped and I had to go to school and I also got into the big brother/big sister program. That was alright I guess. Got me out of the house now and then.
We eventually moved into some low-income apartments where things got better and worse at the same time. Better because, I finally made some friends. Worse cuz I slowly began spinning out of control.
Well, I made some friends finally, slowly phasing out my “big brother”. In all my life, I never had more than 3 or 4 good friends at a time. I’d make two or three good friends and we’d become inseparable. Brotha’s from anotha motha. Same rings true here. Those two friends, Marcus and his cousin Brian. When I met Marcus, he was a church going goody two-shoes. By the time we went our separate ways he had become the yin to my yang in my short-lived life of crime. But I’m getting ahead of myself now. For awhile, we were your average teenagers. Loud music, girls, and sports. We’d walk a few miles to the YMCA everyday to play basketball and more importantly pick up on the girls.
I don’t know how or when things changed. But I started skipping school alot. Hated it so much. Hated the teachers, and the teachers hated me. I’d get up every morning, ride the bus to school, eat breakfast, pick up some friends/acquaintances then walk home and chill until about 3. Then I’d walk to the middle school and ride the bus home to keep up the appearance of going to school.
At this point my group of friends/acquaintances had grown dramatically. I’d say at it’s peak, our little gang of hoodlums had as many as 11 people. Different people for different reasons. I had the friend who’s mom worked nights, so I’d crash at his place when I didn’t want to go home. The friend who had access to getting alcohol. The friend with the vehicle. The friend everybody took advantage of. Then there were guys who were just kind of there.In the end though, it was always me, Marcus and Brian. I began drinking alot. Even selling my video games to pawnshops to get money. Our favorite drinking place was this old rundown church. We’d go there and just chill for hours. We never got completely shit faced. We’d get our buzz on and just kinda shoot the shit. My beverage of choice, malt liquor. Old E, Colt 45, I didn’t care as long as it got me fucked up and it was cheap. Also drank vodka and OJ alot.
At one point, Brian stole about 6 ziplock bags of weed. Not the little sandwich sized bags but those big fuckers. My mom was staying with a friend who was having some problems of her own, so we had ourselves a little weed party in our apartment. We was smokin’ like Cheech and Chong. I had only smoked weed one other time and it didn’t affect me much. I almost fell over kissing some chick but other than that nothing. This time though, we all got FUCKED up. We was rolling up notebook paper trying to smoke that shit. We must have went through two bags that night. Just me and 4 other friends. Last thing I remember was sitting in my room watching Ogre play some role playing game while I drank some kool-aid. I woke up in the living room with no recollection of how I got there. The second and last time I got high by the way.
As you can probably guess, me and my mom was not getting along. She’d kick me out, I’d break in. We’d be cool for a couple days, then we’d explode at each other and start all over again. Eventually and shortly after the weed party she kicked me out for good. I slept in people’s garage’s, under big rigs. Wherever I could find shelter. Meanwhile I had a small bag of weed in my room in my ball glove (ironic right?) and some various stolen goods. While cleaning my room out she found it and called the police. I showed up shortly after to grab some of my shit and we got into it a little as she tried to stop me from leaving. I crawled out my window and was picked up by the cops about 2 blocks later.
So I went down for possession, burglary, and theft. Had me for breaking and entering but I talked my way out of that. My mom’s didn’t want me back, so I went into the system…
So I went to Parsons for a few days while I waited for my court date. I think it was only like 3 days. Nothing eventful happened. Went to court, was placed in R.C.Y. in Pittsburg. Get this though, they placed me there, because I was a “high risk” to run away. So they placed me in a place where they had no policy of stopping anybody from running, and in the same city I lived…Genius.
Things was ok early on. Refused to talk to my mom. She DID turn me in, jeez. Very structured environment. Woke up same time everyday, had chores, very jail like. We got alot of freedom as well, well as much as could be expected. Had a foos ball table, pool table, video games. If you were a high enough level, you could go out and play basketball without staff. Wasn’t too horrible.
A few weeks in, an annoying girl kept pestering me. “Just talk to your mom. She really misses you.” Blazay, blazay. Every time we were in the same area, she’d come at me with this shit. She apparently was being sponsored/counciled by my mom and and was using her to get to me. I wasn’t hearing it…at first. I eventually gave in…she was very persistent. Somehow in all this, we became pretty good friends.
Anyway after about 3 months and my case worker fucking me around, I decided to run. Me and about 8 people. We just chilled out for a few days. Eventually came back. Just needed a little freedom …and some ass. I didn’t get any. Everybody else sure did. Me and this other girl, Ternangela just kinda chilled out. Wasn’t really interested in her, despite her interest in me. Like I said, we eventually came back.
Around this time, me and the aforementioned “annoying girl” had started seeing one another. We became extremely close. She was THE one. Loved her with all my heart and soul. Everybody tried breaking us up for whatever reason. Some of it I know was jealousy. As a couple of the girls there wanted some of my sweetness. Things were good for awhile again…then my girl ran. To this day, I don’t know why. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I don’t like to ask questions. I didn’t really care. I just knew she ran, and I was pissed. When she returned, I let her know it was over. Then those same bitches who tried their damndest to break us up was suddenly worried to death. Begging and pleading for me not to break up with her.
“She might do something to herself”, they said.”Should’ve thought of that before she took off.” I said.
“But she might kill herself!” I hear them say.
Me, “Guess she’s one dead bitch then.”
I know, cold thing to say. If you’ve never been that upset before, you’ve never been in love. Well she didn’t kill herself, thank God, Buddah, Allah, or whatever the hell deity you may worship. We eventually patched things up. I’m sure some tears were involved. I’m a sensitive man damnit!
Then one night, me and this guy Phillip decided to run. This time for good. We didn’t know where we were going, but we knew we weren’t coming back. Packed all our shit, ran across to the girls side, got Shawnee(my girl) and we left. Right away I should have known things weren’t gonna go to well.
As we ran by the skating rink, my sister is coming out. She was 9 at the time. I stop to talk to her, let her know everything is alright, when my mom comes out…we run. I goto my best friends house(Marcus) and get mugged by his little sister. She’s 2 years younger than me. We had an odd relationship, me and her. We never actually dated but made out…ALOT. Marcus unfortunately wasn’t home, but I get a hold of him and he gets us somewhere to stay in the apartments next door. Of course, that goes to shit as well. Same night a guy in the apartment above us, robs a gas station. Police are going door to door searching for him. Find us instead. We convince ‘em I live in the next apartment over, Shawnee’s my girlfriend who is staying over, and Phillip is just a friend. So they let us go.
We went to mom’s apartment, tried convincing her to let us stay. Told her we’d go back to RCY in the morning. She wasn’t buying it. Talked with my sis for awhile. We were pretty close despite my erraticness. Tried to convince her everything’d be alright. Don’t think she bought it either. Anyway, we were denied lodging and ended up staying all night in the lobby of a 24 hour Wal-Mart.
Next day, we procured a ride. We went to Phillips hometown of Columbus, KS. Our first stop was to a friend of Phillip’s who hooked us up with a tree house for the night. Don’t know if I mentioned that it was winter during this time, January or so. It was fuckin’ cold. Was even colder naked. Oh yes, I was naked and it was glorious…and cold.
Next morning we stopped by the high-school there and picked Phillip’s girl up. She was in Elm Acres, another state run facility only they got to goto school with the other kids. So we get her and one of her friends(we’ll just call her racist bitch) and go chill at Phillips house awhile. He had a key and his mom wasn’t home. Hung out there awhile, trying to figure out our next move.
We eventually left and ran into a mutual acquaintance. Shawnee knew him well. I never told her, but it always bothered me. I was pretty insecure, but nobody really knew it. I was very good at hiding my issues. Anyway, we ended up staying at his place for awhile. At some point during all this, I realized I had forgotten a ton of shit back at RCY. Becomes important later. So we chill there for about a week. Planning our future. We decided California was a likely destination. Shawnee had family there.
So the plan was, get back to RCY to get all our shit then we were out next day…
That plan fell through. We got back to RCY, Shawnee was shipped out early the next morning. She was gone before I even woke up. Phillip and I were gone within the week. Never saw or heard from him again. Before I got shipped out, I did find out where Shawnee was. Which helped my sanity a little. I meanwhile was sent to Emporia, Kansas. Things didn’t go well there.
I guess you can say I went a little crazy. The place sucked. All you could do was watch TV. Nothing else was allowed. I couldn’t even draw cuz the markers might get me high. Atleast that’s the reasoning I got. Which was odd to me since I wasn’t the type to get high and especially not on some fuckin markers, but anyway. It was kind of a big deal to me. Drawing for me was like an escape. I wasn’t great but I was pretty good. After 3 days I ended up barricading myself into my room with two other kids. One of which, wanted out but if I let him out, that would mean staff could get in. He ended up jumping out a second story window to escape. I finally gave myself up only to get in a physical altercation with the staff. Again I was arrested and moved to a temp foster home ’til they could find a place to take me.
That lasted a week. He was a cop, and I made the mistake of trying to steal his gun and about $230. It wasn’t his “work gun” but a gun he had sorta hidden in his closet in a box. I didn’t have any plans to use it, I just thought it was cool. So again I was moved for one night cuz they didn’t feel safe with me there, and rightfully so. He surprisingly didn’t press charges. He was a good guy, as was his family. I still feel bad about it to this day.
Then by some miracle, fate, what have you. They sent me to Parsons…where my girl was. It was apparently the only place short of complete lock up that would take me on such short notice. Needless to say I was ecstatic. Things started looking up after the move. I was with the girl of my dreams. Got along with all the staff. Enjoyed school for the first time in years. Then that fucker fate showed up and destroyed my life. In a moment of utter stupidity and uber macho-ism, I tried doing something to showoff for the ladies and broke my neck. Instantly paralyzed from the neck down. The last image I have of Shawnee is her over me crying and the tears hitting my face as we kiss for the last time. The dream was over.
Had surgery. Doctor says my C6 vertebrae exploded into fine dust which ended up being the cause of my paralysis. All the tiny fragments damaging my spinal cord. I started rehab shortly there after. I decided early on that it was over between me and Shawnee and made no attempts to contact her. Selfish on my part, yes. But at that time, I didn’t want her to feel burdened by my injury. I didn’t think it was fair to her. There’s alot of “I’s” in this paragraph, but that’s how I felt. We were only 15, and she had a long life ahead of her still. No need for her’s to be fucked up as well.
I only felt sorry for myself once. I cried, I cursed, I blamed God. To this day, me and God don’t quite see eye to eye. A horrible night. Every sound that night made my body twitch and spasm. And every twitch and spasm hurt. Eventually I calmed down and never looked back. Did the rehab thing for 6 months. Spent my 16th b-day in rehab. My family and friends all came down to brighten my day. Sunday’s were the best. We didn’t do much on those days, and my Uncle Tom (yeah, I know), Aunt Joyce and their kids came down and saw me. Bringing me a chocolate malt and just hanging out for awhile. Made things alot easier on me. I never have thanked them for that and it makes me a little sad as we’re not very close anymore.
I regained some movement in my arms and hands. My left hand is pretty functional, though far from normal and my right hand, only my thumb works to any real degree. Also got a lot of feeling back. Mostly a numb dull feeling, but feeling none the less. My feet are hyper sensitive. Almost everything hurts them especially my right foot.For the longest, I couldn’t do much of anything for myself. Couldn’t feed myself, couldn’t brush my hair or teeth. Nothing. I eventually got a bit more independent.
Went home finally. To a family I didn’t much recognize. My mom was dating this guy, same guy she was with before I got busted. I forgot to mention him. I didn’t like him then, didn’t like him when I returned. In my current condition I learned to adapt. I smiled, made like everything was fine. As I said, I was good at hiding my issues. I became a pro after my accident.
I tried going back to school. At first it was for like half a day, but I didn’t see the point of it. So soon switched to full days. I was treated like I was retarded. Had me in classes with all the trouble makers and slow people. Pissed me off, so I quit. That began my slow and steady climb into extreme laziness and becoming as anti-social as I could. I eventually stopped calling my friends. Stopped going out and eventually stopped getting up at all. I claimed it was me taking a break, after all the hard work in rehab. When I look back, I can see as maybe it was some depression going on there. Only it was an odd state of depression. I didn’t feel sorry for myself, didn’t wanna die, I just sorta stopped living.
I stopped living for 15 years. Living in the past. Thinking of the good times I had, instead of making new memories. I occasionally thought of Shawnee. Wondering how she was doing. Looked her up online a few times but never finding anything concrete. Just curious I’d tell myself then. I’m over her, I’d just like to know she’s doing ok. Then one day out of nowhere, through the greatness of myspace.com I check my email and see I have a message from a Shawnee. Mind you, this is 15 years after I last saw her. My heart stopped for a moment as I thought of the possibility that maybe it was just some spam. I got alot of it, since my profile was public. Always from “hot, horny girls in my area”.
Lo and behold, fate has reared it’s ugly, misshapen, head again. It was the girl of my dreams, but fate is a fickle creature. She was now happily married, with 4 kids. Either way I was happy. I messaged her back and we talked for like a week. Through talking with her, I realized how much of my life I’ve wasted. And everyday my old feelings was creeping back…I had to end it for my own sanity.
Another selfish act by me? I hope it’s not seen that way. Suffice to say, she’s happy and I’ve got alot of personal growth I need to work on so I can be a healthy part of her life…as a friend.
So not the happy ending everyone was probably expecting and I was wanting…unknowingly. But in my mind it’s as happy an ending I could hope to have. Shawnee’s doing great, and after 15 years of a wasted life, I plan to get back in the saddle and hopefully live life to it’s fullest.For now, small steps. First my GED. Do I need it…no, but it’s something that I’d like to finish up. Eventually, I just wanna travel. Japan and Australia being my first choices, but we’ll stick with the states at first. Maybe visit a few of my long time online friends. Got them all over the country, coast to coast. Mom’s been wanting to go to California for years. Alot of family there and because of me she hasn’t gotten to go. So it is a happy ending, just not a traditional happy Hollywood ending. The guy doesn’t always get the girl in the end.