My First Criminal Experience

I was born in 1987, the second of five children. Three girls and two boys. I couldn’t stand my oldest sister Melina. My two sisters under me, Tara and Ally, were my road dogs until my little brother Johan was born.

We had it hard growing up. We practically raised ourselves because our mother worked so many hours. Of course, our fathers weren’t around. My mother had children with three different men. Me and Melina had different fathers, and my younger siblings all had the same father. My mother was still with him. We called him TB, which stood for Teddy Bear. Man, I couldn’t stand him. He cheated on my mother, and I would always promise myself I was never going to be like him.

My mother had a funny way of showing love when I was younger. When I was around seven or eight years old, she had this old ass Cadillac that she called Betsy and she talked to it every day to cox Betsy into starting. My mother had the same routine every time she tried to start Betsy. She would smash the pedal and yell, “Come on Betsy, come on you can do it! Come on Betsy!” The engine would groan tiredly. After repeating this ritual several times, Betsy would finally start up with a growl. 

One night my mother was cursing into the phone, saying she was going to fuck somebody up. I was a night owl and I was up watching the most boring shows in the early 90’s; Star trek, M*A*S*H, Matlock, and the dullest of all, Heat of The Night. It seemed like nothing was on TV at night when you didn’t have cable.  So, when my mom asked me to go out with her and said she’d buy me some White Castle burgers I hurried up and put on my favorite Nike coat and my Grant Hills that my grandma bought me. I was ready, standing by the door waiting on my mother, who appeared looking like a ninja.

We lived in Highland Park and we started driving toward North Westside Detroit, which seemed to take forever when I was younger. I recognized my stepdad’s apartment and the block he lived on, so I knew we were right around the corner from him. My mom cut Betsy’s engine off, and said to me, “When you see me come running, turn the car on. You know how to do it.” I just nodded my head. She grabbed the red brick that was under her seat and got out. I scooted over in the driver seat and started to pretend I was driving, until I heard something like a window getting busted. Shortly after, I saw my mother hit the corner running fast as hell. Her breasts were flopping everywhere, and she was trying to hold them down but that didn’t help one bit. My mother was wearing all black and if it wasn’t for the streetlights I probably wouldn’t have seen her. I tried starting the car repeating the same process my mom had did earlier. Even talking to the car. “Come on Betsy, you can do it!” I chanted as I pushed the gas pedal. My luck was better than my mom’s because she started up after two tries. When the engine came to life, I was so happy, but that joy was soon interrupted by, “Boy getcho ass out the way fa’ the police take my ass to jail and you to child protective custody.” I moved and my mother put the car and slammed on the gas up the street.  

I thus became my mother’s partner in crime every other weekend, wreaking havoc on my stepdad’s windows.

Christopher Clark