LIFE IN THE GHETTO CAN CATCH UP BUT I STAY SQUARE

LIFE IN THE GHETTO CAN CATCH UP BUT I STAY SQUARE

I always had depression and anxiety attacks. It started when I was 16 and I got a therapist. But it stuck with me way long. Growing up, it was a tough place to live, almost everyday I was scared. You could get beat up. That’s how it is. I started boxing at 17 to keep the bullies off me, but my younger brother, Harry, was a lot better than me. He was Diamond Belt champion for California 5 years in a row.

 

So how did I keep from getting hooked on heroin and ending up in a life of crime? I went over to my brother Harry’s apartment one day. My girlfriend, Carlena, had broken up with me and I was very despondent and doing a lot of drinking.

Harry had some brown Mexican heroin laying around the apartment and I asked if I could have some. At first. he agreed. Then he thought about it and changed his mind – he told me he didn’t want me to go that route. I was kind of a square. Maybe he wanted to keep it for himself.

Most of my friends were square – guys who didn’t get in trouble. I never hung around with thugs, except for Josef who was my white friend. When I first met him we were both 11 years old. I met him on the playground and he didn’t speak English much at that time. He spoke French. But we got along great and became good friends. He was always in trouble. He became a bank robber and several times he asked me to drive the getaway car for him, but I never did. He’d disappear for a while in some prison then show up again. But I guess my squareness and desire to keep going to school kept me out of this.

I would go to the library to read. After I first went there, from that day on, I just lived in the library. That’s where I first found the Somerset Maugham books. Every kind of book.

I was depressed so much and the books helped me get out of that. I have a curious mind, even now, and so that was a big part of it. I used to read all day.

My grandmother would bring me lunch. You might have thought it was a job. I’m serious. I would read all day and this eye, I’m getting blind in it. Because I would get sleepy at night, I’d be so interested at night at what I was reading, I would lay on the pillow with one eye open and just read and read and read.

I was an avid reader until about 18 or 19 (years old). Then I decided I’d read too much and I stopped reading. But I didn’t completely stop reading.