Exodus (eBook)

Chapter 1:
THE HARDEST
HOME PLATE

People never truly “leave behind” their first home, at least not in our hearts, not even those of us who wish we were born in a different place. Maybe it’s because when we first got there, we were too young to run away even if we wanted to; too young to judge and critique it; too helpless and confused to not love it, if only for the comfort of familiarity. As for me, I will never outgrow my first home. I know this because I’ve actually tried to outrun it, again and again. At so many points in life, I’ve attempted to paint over my memories of life in the projects, as if I could hide those recollections behind other, more colorful memories. I’ve tried to write over them with the blackest ink I could imagine, ink that’s been spilling from my pen since I began writing as a child. Yet, even in my most imaginative fiction I can’t write it away; when my own sanity has demanded that I put the ghetto behind me, I’ve always found it impossible to outrun. I think I am finally starting to accept that the most I can do is learn to live with it. In doing so, I guess I also have to accept and admit the fact that even I, at some point and for some time, also loved my first home. It’s a wonder and a tragedy, how harmoniously love and hate can coexist together in the same room, in the same mind and heart.

They called it “The Temp,” my first home, that’s short for Allen Temple Apartments. If you’re from anywhere other than Atlanta, Georgia, chances are you’ve never heard a single mention in your life about the so-called “Temp.” To those who do know about it, however, you’d swear the place was some sacred monument if you heard them talking about it. Like every other ghetto in America and maybe the world, those of us who live and die in places like The Temp find glory in comparing one broke-down community to the other, somehow. Naturally, when we compare one ghetto to the next, we never compare positive elements; like, for instance, the safety of the premises, the beauty of the grounds and landscaping, the responsiveness of the property managers, or the graduation rates of the high school residents. No, instead we fight and argue over who has the worst projects: Who’s got the best dope and the biggest trap? How many people died in your hood? How recently? How wild and heartless are the youngsters in your hood? How scandalous and reckless are the women? How young are your shooters? How unsafe is your community for people who are not from there? It’s sad but true, the destruction and ugliness of the poverty we once yearned to escape as a people, now has become the expectation, even the standard.

For us children coming up in the ghetto, I imagine many of us develop our first feelings of pride while romanticizing about the coldest realities we observe within the corners of our neighborhood on a daily basis. I’m no exception, at least I have not been one most of my life. Being from Allen Temple—being able to say that it was my first home since I walked this Earth—always made me proud for the wrong reasons. I’ve felt more than a hint of dignity when telling others that I ran the streets of the concrete jungle while unprotected and unguided for the most part, amongst the strong, the weak and the wolves who hunted the sheep, amongst the dealers and dope-fiends who never went to sleep, amongst the wild and heartless. Yes, how can I not take pride in being a proven survivor? How can I not hold my head high thinking about the events and experiences that evidence my claim that I can make it out of anything? As if I forgot how miserable I would be if I ever ended up in that place again, even now I smile as I remind myself that I survived The Temp.

In the late 80’s and early 90’s, the projects in Atlanta were a whole vibe of their own, far more than just places of residence for poor people; Allen Temple, however, was on the extreme end of the spectrum in terms of the typical woes and worries common to most ghettoes. During the height of America’s crack epidemic and the government’s War on Drugs is when the Temp earned its reputation; it was the violence that made the place famous. The violence, however, arrived in the same package as the drugs, in the same way the side-effect travels with the pill; they were delivered together by outside forces, individuals and institutions in positions of power, all beyond the reach of those affected most by the strife they created.

The Temp and other ghettos like it were targets, victims of a dark, sinister conspiracy that was carried out to ensure the con­tinu­ation of the status quo in America and the ultimate destruction of black and brown people throughout this country. The violence of the 80’s and 90’s didn’t come out of the projects, nor did it organically develop within the projects, it was farmed, shipped, processed, packaged and then brought to the projects.

I once wrote in a rap verse,

“Born in the forest, then they brought her to the jungle,

where she cracked those project bricks ‘til they crumbled,

showed the world how to turn youngsters into monsters,

Can’t rock cradles, so babies got dumpsters,

Cain diss-Abel and their brains can’t function,

through all the cutting and the cooking and the stumping,

her lungs still pumping, damn she still jumping.”

Yeah, that sums it up to a large extent. But, when you unpack it all, the chaotic realities of the crack epidemic and the crime that followed can’t be placed into lines that rhyme.

Creating an entire industry, fueled by producers, distributors, brokers and consumers, similar to a factory in a small town, the crack epidemic brought what appeared to be “wealth and prosperity” to the hood. The Temp became a place where even a kid could make real money selling drugs from his mother’s front porch. During those days, in an apartment complex like ours, it wasn’t necessary to hang out on the corner in a “Trap” to sell drugs, there were so many addicts coming and going all day. But make no mistake about it, the trap is where the legends of the crack era made their bones.

As if the developers of the Temp anticipated the crack boom was coming, the complex was designed perfectly for anyone living life in the shadows and trenches, anyone wanting to remain under the radar. It was a huge, hilly maze of an apartment complex, comprised of about 50 large, reddish-brown, brick buildings, each with 12 single family apartment units. There were, in theory, two ways in and out of the Temp, one in the front of the complex and one in the rear; but, on most days the back entrance was blocked by a tall, black, metal security gate; this made the front entrance at the busy M.L.K. Jr. Drive Highway the only way in and out of the Temp. That main entry point, Middleton Road, was a skinny street barely wide enough for cars to pass one another without touching; it formed a circle (more like a Q really) around the entire complex and had multiple side streets sprouting out of each side like vessels; dead ends, parking lots, walk-ways, woods and grassy areas, all forming the maze I knew as home. Maybe not while driving, but while traveling on foot, it was an easy place for a stranger to get lost.

Every apartment in the Temp had its own balcony or porch, for the “view” of course, but every resident’s front door was inside of the main building. The buildings were accessible on each side—front and back—through a big, heavy, brown, iron door; those doors would often slam shut and get jammed in the doorframe, then they had to be pried open by someone with “grown man” strength. If there were no grown men around, everyone would have to enter and exit from the opposite side until someone strong enough came along. It was a horrible hazard.

Once inside, each building had three flights of concrete stairs, outlined in rusty black iron trim, and they were the only way to get to the second and third floors. As you can imagine, it was a painful inconvenience moving in or out of one of those 3rd floor units.

The hallways inside the buildings were always dark and dank, especially for those of us whose front door was hidden underneath one of the staircases, like ours was. We lived at 3086 Middleton Road, apartment # 2, in the second building on the right when entering the complex, facing the main street on the ground level. Because of this, I much preferred entering my house through the patio door, but my mom hated the hassle of moving whatever was usually blocking that door—either a sofa or plant—so I usually had to use the hallway entrance like everyone else. The dark corners underneath the stairs were well known hiding places for rats, rodents, giant cockroaches, spiders and sometimes people, those looking to get away from whoever or whatever was chasing them. That made it pretty damn scary coming home each day, never knowing if someone or something would be there to scare the life out of me before I could reach my door. I remember always being on edge when coming or going, knowing that whenever the main door to the building slammed shut, whatever happened inside my building would be unheard and unseen by anyone outside.

Honestly, the insides of the buildings were perfect places for drug dealers, out of view of the police and the public; yet, somehow most of the traps in the Temp were outside, in the open air. When I first encountered one in my complex, I didn’t understand what I was looking at, but I was fascinated without a doubt. I just stood there and stared at the crowds of men, the women and boys, all wrapped-up in a parade of shit-talking, dice-rolling, joking,...