AC Phoenix. March, 1992, Page 11
Brothers Are Letting Their Dreams Go Up In Smoke
Change always brings a person to
some personal crossroad. The big
ger the change, the more major the
intersection of available choices
becomes.
Nowadays, many people are
facing major decisions because of
the country’s depressed economy
and resulting layoffs, business
failures, and manufacturing shut
downs. Personal bankruptcies and
foreclosures on the ultimate Ame
rican dream - the family home -
have proliferated at an alarming
rate.
It’s sad to see whole families
forced to lose the one thing they
have worked years to attain and
maintain because jobs are lost. That
is an issue which has enough merit
to be worthy of further discussion.
But, the story I want to tell now is
that of a black man - single, no
children, approaching 40 - who has
become a homeless victim, not
because of the economy but because
of the Black community’s worst,
plague: drugs.
Jim’s story is tragic for many
reasons. It hurts terribly because he:
is very close to me. I remember his;
very frail, premature beginning,
when he was tiny enough to be held
in the length of your hand.
Growing up, his physical needs
were met. He had plenty of food,
nice clothes, a home in a lovely East
Viemam opened a tiny chink in the
emotional armor he had placed
around himself. It took almost 20
years for the crack to widen and the
Crossroads
by Patricia Smith-Deering
Phoenix Managing Editor
Winston subdivision, toys, a dog, a
good Catholic school and church
where he was an avid altar boy, ^d
a two-parent family with two loving
sisters. It was all there, everyone
thought - that real American dream.
Because Jim tended to be sickly,
he was not physically mistreated a
lot at home but the psychological
abuse he suffered and the physical
abuse he witnessed were un
speakable. Not very good
academically, he became adept in
automotive mechanics and in
electronics. Jim escaped his home
environment as soon as he was 18
and enlisted in the.Army. A tour in
^. Atlantic City, New Jersey i
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dam to break.
Jim came home from service and
began to work as a mechanic at a
prestigious but very racist white
foreign car dealership. He bought
his own dream - a lovely new three-
bedroom trailer - and moved into a
trailer park on the north end of
town. When he wasn’t working, he
rested at home or did a little deejay
work and light-and-sound shows
for area bands. He was low-key,
hardworking, and deeply troubled.
But, he kept plugging away at a job
he loved in a place he hated, leatfing
a secret life that not long ago took
its toll.
Drugs create their own economic
boom and bust. If you deal or sell
them, you can live like a king for a
while. If you succumb to their
allure and use them, it becomes a
no-win, nightmare situation. I
watched a man who endured abuse,
' injustice, and mistreatment, let his
dreams go up in marijuana smoke
and disappear in the momentary
euphoria of alcohol and rock
cocaine. He left his 15-year job
after paying off his trailer and
“retired” from life. I watched him
go in and out of mental health
centers and alcohol and drug
rehabilitation programs from here to
Butner when he wanted to escaj^
the reality and consequences of his
excesses and irresponsibility.
When he couldn’t escape any
longer, he went to jail for bad
checks he had written to support a
habit he declared he could do
nothing to stop. His sisters got him
out and attempted to keep him out.
Jim had to sell his trailer - his dream
that over the years came to mirror
the shambles he was making of his
life. Just when he should have been
at rock bottom, his sisters “enabled”
bim again after he disappeared for
Continued on Page 12
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