My big short story
I was born Marquis De’jon Wright. Long Beach Memorial hospital was the first building I slept in. My name was supposed to be De’jon Marquis but my mother switched it in spite of my father because he was late to the delivery. My mom was a young 19 year old beautiful young lady from Long Beach, California. My father was a local crack dealer out of Compton. My father was a lady’s man and my mother was one of many. According to my mother, I was the apple of my father’s eye; seeing how I was both their first child. Early in my life, my father was in and out of Prison and due to the fact the my mother had to work to support her and I, I bounced around a lot. From aunts to uncles, grandmothers to great-grandmothers. I saw a lot of faces in my early years. Being the oldest of my “litter” of cousins, I was picked on a lot by my older cousins. I believe that’s how I learned how to fight and developed my anger issues. With all my cousins at least 4 years older than me, I grew to be a loner in order to get out of fighting them.
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I felt like my mother stopped ‘baby-ing’ me at a too early age. No fault of her own, I never felt the nurturing, motherly mother from my Mother. In my head I always attributed it to the fact that she was young and perhaps not ready to be a mother. She did a really good job with what she was given, considering who my father was and Still is. As an adult looking back, I see that my mother was a serial dater. There was always a male figure in her life. ‘Step-Dads’ were common throughout my childhood. Often substituting for my own father. I wanted my real father.
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My real father had a family. A wife and an eventually 4 kids with her. His living in places like Norwalk, Baldwin Hills and Beverly Hills was exotic to me. My mom’s ‘humble’ apartment buildings seemed suffocating when I would return from visiting him. My father was very dominant. More concern with us being men when we were boys that he is now that we Are men. I never felt at home anywhere. My mother was working and couldn’t exactly give me the attention I needed. And on top of that she was to eventually have more children of her own before I exited elementary. Me wanting to be around my father and his ‘Family’ drove me as a child. His wife, Serena, was a housewife. Fully capable of giving me the attention I desperately craved. But with her being a 16year first time parent, the last thing she could do is identify what was going on within a child that wasn’t hers. So I sought refuge in myself. Often building imaginary worlds to dwell in. According to my imagination, I’ve lived numerous successful lives. From rap artist to basketball player, and in full detail. Stats, sales numbers. I even remember verbally conducted interview aloud at the age of 8 years old about my upcoming album. By the time I hit middle school I was a Jedi in my own mind. When my mother would argue with her boyfriend waking me up, and it sometimes got physical, I would leave off to an award show or allow myself to be whisked of to some post game interview about me winning the World Series. I would eventually prefer this world over the everyday reality I set my eyes on. The reality I wanted out of.
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Throughout school I was bad. Always test good. Always deemed ‘very smart’ by my teachers. In hindsight, me acting out was most like me fishing for attention. Fist fights over early morning tetherball games before the bell rang was seemingly an everyday occurrence. My mother couldn’t afford the good clothes and shoes I saw all the other older kids have so it made me more upset. It made me want to be with my father and his family more. He provided all that to his other children. I always hoped to get a little of that shine whenever I would visit him. My mother granted him summers with me. The best times of my life. Although I was still far from being mothered and nurtured, I was still aloud to be a kid. Rock fights, jumping off of buildings, riding the back of the ice cream truck around parts of Compton we know nothing about. It was fun. It stick with me. (310) 632-3133 was the house number to 301 Nestor Ave, Compton, California. There I was provided with plenty Aunts and Uncles to simulated a ‘village raising a child’. Even with my father I was never around him. He was Zeus to me. No force nor man could ever strike him down. Tall, Black and aggressively opinionated, I wanted to be him. I was smart enough to not want to be a drug dealer when I was young, but I wanted to be seen like he was seen. Well respected within the family and throughout the neighborhood, he was borderline Feared. He was the archetype African American Man to me growing up; I knew no better. Before Mike, Deion and Bret Hart, I looked up to my Dad. I always felt like I was the closest thing to him and his attributes that admired. Much like Kobe to Mike. I mirrored him. The way he talked, walked, smiled. How he projected his voice and how he could beat someone into submission by just speaking to them. I tried it all on like a young boy putting on his father’s oversized work shirt. Half way through middle school, I had mastered being a 12 year old him. The most used tool of his I inherited was my approach with females. Throughout middle school I experimented with Love.
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The difference between my father and I was how I emotionally gravitated to girls. The fell in love with me instantly after giving just a spoonful of myself. I’d smile and do my best to make them as comfortable around me as possible and I’d always get what I wanted. At the very least, another female interaction aka hugs. Hugging girls was importing in middle school. It should everyone else how socially important you were. They were like Gold Stars. Girlfriends we gold medals. My first girlfriend was born Lissette Martillo. I still remember her house number. About once a year I call and run my mouth to her. I never tell her who it is. She was my first love, Sex, and heartbreak. I loved her. And She was my little piece of reality that I gravitated to when the rest of the world was falling around my ears. When I was 13 and Living with my father. I had all the Jordans. All the Avirex, Pelle Pelles and Platinum Fubus and young kid could ask for. Along with a balanced household with little brothers and sister, my stepmother and my father. I was as complete and as confident as I ever felt during my childhood. One afternoon coming home from school. I walk in to see boxes, every closets and cabinet open. My stepmother had had enough. The emotional, spiritual and PHYSICAL abuse my father put her through had finally pushed her to leave. With him out of town on illegal business, she took the opportunity to save herself and her children. I asked what was going on, my brother just told me “we’re moving to Louisiana’. My intuition told me I wasn’t going but I immediately ignored that (something I do a lot). I purposely put out a positive energy in hopes I was wrong and that I was apart of this rescue mission. I’ve grown as attached as anyone could get to their younger siblings, I was apart of that Clan as far as I was concerned. As I watched the oldest of my littler brother pack his (and some of my) stuff in bags and suitcases, my stepmother knelled down in front of my. Me being 13, I was pretty tall so I was still a hovering over her. She looked me in my eyes and told me she loved me as much as her own children and that I held very special place in her heart. All the most beautiful words I had been waiting to hear and feel for 13 years, coming out of a woman I shared No blood with. Sincere and with tears in her eyes, she told me she couldn’t take me with her… That was my first death. She continued to explain why but my ears just rang, raw due to the sound of rejection. I just nodded numbly and offered to help her pack. She hugged me as though I was the same 7 pounds and 8 ounces I was entering the world and she Stated she loved me. Somewhere in my young self, I said ‘Thank You’ at the sound of that. After taking their already packed bags and belongings to the taxi van in front, I said my goodbyes and didn’t even watch them leave. As I saw it, my had provided and then demolished my favorite family. I went back in the house and went to sleep. I woke up the very next day and went to school as though nothing had changed. My father had called and told me “We don’t need that bitch, we have each other” and that helped me sleep that night. But all throughout school, I didn’t talk. Lissette knew it. She kept asking me what was the matter. I kept lying, avoiding and acting. I was never the type to allow my off energy to alter anyone else’s; its selfish to do so. Everyday, I went home to an empty house with no bed nor other furniture, living off the stash of money my dad instructed me to pull from atop his closet.
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Everyday I called Lissette. I leaned on her. I didn’t want to have to recreate a world in my head, she gave me a reason to participate in this one. Overly deep for an 8th grader but its me. One by one, everything got cut off. 1st was the cable. Didn’t matter because I was always outside of the house. Even in my mini adolescent depression, I still found time for my friends. After that went the telephone. There was a pay phone in my complex that I walked to all the time. I had to call my dad everyday after school and before I went to sleep, which was often at midnight. I mostly called Lissette. Did the little phone time hokey pokey bullshit we all do. I rode that regimen for over a month, only to have my father tell me over the phone that I was going to live back with my mom. Even leaving the rubbles of my young paradise was more attractive than going back with my mother. I’d rather live alone. I even suggested that over the phone to my dad, “can’t I just stay?”. He laughed and told me that he was going to be out of town for a while and no one was going to watch me. My mother picked me up the next day. I didn’t talk to her in the car ride back to her house. I regret doing that to her. Me being so young and mad, I wouldn’t even let my brain register how different her house looked from when I last was there. I ignored ‘her kids’ aka my little brothers.
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For the rest of the school year, I ditched, stole from ‘treasure hunt’ by the house and overall just didn’t listen. I didn’t care. I felt no one else did. I didn’t return to my mother with a triumphant welcome, I was reintroduced to her schedule and had to get in where I fit it. I built a wall and stayed in my own head. High School hit, Lissette cheated and I was forced to make new friends. Transferring through seven different Elementary Schools and 2 Middle Schools taught me how to make friends and make them fast. High School gave me to perfect platform to rebel. Experimenting with drugs for the first time, big attention grabbing fist fights on campus and ditching class was the only thing that woke me up out my self induced trance. It got me nothing but court cases and negative looks from my family. I exhibited all my father’s bad traits, giving those close to me a not so welcomed déjà vu.
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After two years of doing my best to break girls hearts as bad as my first did me and doing my best 2Pac impression, my stepmother took my father back, me too. I quickly moved back. A three bedroom apartment in which I slept on the floor of. Anything for to be back with favorite family. I remember teachers being surprised at my improving grades, complementing me on my scholastic efforts. Maybe I though a F would chase them away, I don’t know. But for sure, a D would find me waking up in a pool of blood after a conversation with my Pop. My step mom had earned her Bachelors and had outgrew the apron my father glued on her. She earned a say so within the household. I never knew how to act around her after her leaving. I’d nervously play air basketball around her all the time. But the reunion was short lived. Instead of going back to my mother, I was moved the notorious Jungles to live with my Aunt Nancy. My father’s baby sister, she always had his back welcomed me. However, due to her own misfortunes, she developed a talent at verbal abuse. Not a day went by that I wasn’t told how neither of my parents wanted me and how I’m lucky she accepted me in. All this mad me fight harder, and cuss and talk back more frequent at school. For the first time, I had completely abandoned my imagination and involved myself with All the ills of the neighborhood. At 16 years old, I sold weed just to say I sold it. The venture just made me enough scratch for Fruitopias and Hot Fries and Pizza Hut at lunch. It was perfect seeing how my aunt never gave me lunch money. Pro Club white Tees where in so all I needed was 2-3 pair of shorts and another 3-4 pairs of jeans along with a couple of hoodies to show the school I wasn’t poor. I ever contemplated selling candy, but I had an eye for capturing a Top “Light Skin” (a girl) so that look wasn’t something I could do.
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Me being bad led to me meeting my eventual baby’s mother, Kendra Cox. She would copy the work I copied off of for homework. She would seldom attend school for some strange reason. Only to find out that her father abused her and allowed her stepmother to do the same. After making my rounds, dating a few girls at school, I stopped on her. She fit the then me. We had endured similar struggles. For some strange reason, the universe had put me in charge of taking the virginities of every girl I involved myself in in high school, Kendra was no different. She quickly became my girlfriend, giving me a reason to attend school at all. After her father found out I had deflowered his princess, he did all but put a hit out on me. Prohibiting her from having any contact with her. He even checked her out of school. Me living in Compton and her living in West LA, I still made time throughout my purpose-less day to see her. All the sneaking around led to her getting pregnant. She hid it her 1st three months. I knew the first week. I never told her to abort it, and I never told her to keep it. I left it in her hands. With her being in love with me, she did what most 17 year old girls would do, she kept and concealed it as long as she could.
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June 18, 2007, she gave birth to my Noah. I named him. Her parents kept in contact with mine (my mom) and was even aloud to attend her baby shower; I wasn’t invited. I didn’t see my son in person until he was 3 months. Within a week of seeing him the first time, I stole my first car and took it to kidnap the both of them. The look on my mom’s face, along with her then husband was priceless as I walked them in. He father was furious and borderline disowned her. From then on, I sold weed and ecstasy 100 miles an hour up and down my block. The county gave Kendra nearly $400 in food stamps a month but no cash, that left me to provide. Over a dozen times I was picked up and let go in opposing hoods after getting caught with weed on my. I was lucky to never get arrested. After finally getting really picked up, the judge over my case granted me Probation and forced me to enroll in ROTC (I think it was called). The judge was a prior Master Chief of the Navy and thought that me joining could help me. I was told the program was just something that would give me discipline and not force me into service. I feared the service as much as I did jail then. I accepted and got right back to slanging. Kendra encouraged it because it made her feel like she was apart of a family. But her frequent outburst of anger, jealousy and sometimes just Craziness often made me regret just bringing Noah home and not her. A few visits with Navy sailors, I found out I actually had enlisted as apart of my agreement. *I told them niggas NO. I refused. My step dad along with my mom pressured me to do it for Noah and Kendra. Kendra joined in on the song. I ignored both of them. I took me getting picked up in Inglewood with drugs along with a scale to wake me up. The officer knew my mother somehow and called her with me cuffed in the back. He drove me to the red line and advised me to go home. And told me if he ever saw me again I’d get to see with the inside of the County looked like. I was a long was from the paradise of my Favorite family and new jordans and new love.
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I was full on spiraling down and becoming something possibly worst than my dad. A close friend of mine, Theodore, sat me down and asked me what I was doing with my life. I embarrassingly defended all my actions to him, acting my age. I never let him know that he had convinced me to leave drugs alone. Although he wasn’t to hot on me going to the military as well, he still wanted me to save myself somehow. He saw my mistakes too long I guess. He told me he’d rather me do music.
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That summer, I let my mother win and went to boot camp for the Navy. I quickly found the Navy Me would be no different from the high school me. At 19, I fought my very first day. The Petty Officer never saw it coming. In my head I say him gearing up to throw a punch at me amidst all the yelling all the Petty Officers doing, though he was probably not. I hit right in his mouth, looked at him for a second and hit him two more times. That one second between to punches seemed like weeks. It only took 2 seconds for the other Petty Officers to tackle me down. There were rough than any Cop had ever been to me. I was almost kicked out the first day. For whatever reason, they allowed me to rejoin the line. That one Petty Officer never said too much to me afterwards. I connected with a lot of the other kids in boot camp. Nearly everyone came from the same background as me, everyone else was just military nerds there to embark on their “journey to save the world!”; I never took them types seriously.
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After boot camp I was moved and stationed in Lemoore, California. Just 15minutes south of Fresno. There Kendra and I had our second Child, Daijon. There our relationship worsened. The isolation brought out the worst in her, that brought out the worst in me. Our relationship grew sour. She often suspected me of cheating, though I never had. I admit I was very verbally abusive to her. That only heightened her Crazy. That stress at home along with being a very young father of 2 and being in the Navy did all but break me. That stress leaked over to the Navy duty and I again began to act up. My rebelling eventually got me discharged, leaving me in Fresno with a family and no job. Luckily I had saved enough money to semi-function like a normal family. With my first car and living in my first home (a house), I was still doing well for a 20 year old. Eventually I would get back to selling drugs. Pills or thizzles we’re both easier to come by and easier to sell in central Cali. Meeting new people was my forte so I seamlessly got right in the mix. I would eventually get arrested, again.
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While being held at CCU Kings County (NOT the county jail), I made the full one decision to do music for real. I’ve writing raps since I was 8 years old, and battling in High School I had made a name with the young LA rappers at the time. That life changing choice came with a set back that still haunts me today. My ever confrontation Baby’s mother and I had an argument during on of my calls. During my 10 minutes allowed, I would call her, my mother, and my best friend Julien. All the sounds of yelling in the background of course. I was accused of taking my mother’s side over my baby’s mother’s side. The phone call got heated and I was hung up on. So angered and distraught by the conversation, she (Kendra) got in a car accident. She walked away from the accident without a scratch, so did the children. However, she literally walked away. Leaving my to Princes in their car seats as she walked the 30 minute walk all the way home. The police who responded to the accident took the children and found her and placed her under arrest for child endangerment. She fought the cops. She was sentenced to do a year. My 2 boys was in the car of a foster parent for a full month as I was still in my own legal trouble. I cried as often as my eyes let me during that time. As soon as I was released, I moved myself and my boys back south to LA.
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Living in Compton in a house my great-grandfather had rented out to me, I did the single father thing. Doing music, I still wasn’t fully done with drugs but I paid extra attention. With my situation as delicate as ever, I couldn’t afford another mess up. Eventually moving to Inglewood, I continued to chase music and raise my boys full time. I couldn’t get a job. Not because of my past, I just had bad luck. I had a hard time getting a job in high school so I was used to the whole “just fill out an application” schpill. Eventually, she got out. Getting a job her first week out, I allowed her visitation with her children. If anyone understood the value of 2nd chances it was me. Up until then, I had literally lived off of second and third and fourth chances. With ever additional opportunity, I got further and further away from the my favorite family, the adolescent paradise I held on to in my head like an address to a party. And that was all just Two years ago…
(Source: hope1st.com)
