BOO-SHAY’S BEGINNING

The stories that I’m about to put out there for your consideration will be in black and white.  That means Boo-Shay is black and I’m white. We are two brothers from different mothers but somehow came together to tell the damn ugly truth about growing up in the inner-city. I’m talking about any inner-city in America, but this stuff occurred in a couple of Georgia’s inner-cities.

I will use language that may convict me by the world of being a bigoted racist, cause some people either don’t want to be found out or don’t want a white guy speaking into the sickness. Dat’s cool, cause I’m comin fo you!

Although some of you may see Boo-Shay’s stories as shameful, tragic and maybe even contemptable, they are really stories in a journey to redemption.  All of us have our own stories…stories of failures, rebellion, and a whole lot of really bad stuff in our hearts and minds that we’d just as soon that no one ever find out about.

It’s no different for Boo…it’s just in his case, his journey to redemption hasn’t taken any secret trails hidden from everyone.  Nope, just the opposite.

It’s funny how God knows our stories even before they happen.  He knows the beginning, middle and end and knows if we are going to ultimately choose Him and His redemptive plan.  Since He’s a Master at using our stories of guilt, shame and failure for His glory, keep an eye out for the thread of redemption running all through Boo-Shay’s journey.

I grew up in a middle-class family of the dysfunctional kind, sandwiched between two alcoholics that loved to drink more than they loved each other. I started smoking pot when I was thirteen, and was selling drugs at school at fifteen, mostly pot. At seventeen years of age I got into hallucinogens, LSD and mescaline. This gave me a head start before college, cocaine and meth.

So, in the beginning I guess you could say that I was a product of my environment.

A white Boo-Shay!

The life of an inner-city thug may start in a number of ways but many start like Boo-Shay, the baddest of the bad. You hear that crap all the time about wannabe badasses, so you judge for yourself. Would you want Boo in your neighborhood?

Boo-Shay was born in 1970, and that might have been a good year for wine, but not a good year for Boo. When he was six months old his sweet daddy robbed and blew away a couple of guys, one of which was just trying to sell insurance near thugville. Daddy is still serving life without.

When Boo was five years old, he was introduced to alcohol by his bootlegger uncle who would give him malt liquor if Boo danced pretty in front of the bootleg house.

That same year Boo-Shay’s auntie, Bird, killed her husband, Boo’s other uncle, ten feet in front of Boo cause she was pissed off that he decided to get laid by a neighbor woman instead of watching their kids while Bird was at work. His funeral was the first time Boo went to church. Go figure.

Are you starting to get my drift about what it takes to develop a sweet little boy into a teenage thug that when he looks you in the eye could make you wet your pants?

In the inner-city, almost every child is manipulated into thugdom or gang slaves. Some gravitate toward the criminal element and some are just on the fringe doing what they’re told out of fear.

Boo’s career started out innocently as a little boy who just wanted some candy. He was told by his cousin that if he would do exactly as he was told he could have some bubble gum. So, the game started with a little candy.

When Boo was eight, he learned to shoplift, not just a candy bar here and there from the convenience store. After all, any eight-year-old could do that… but try to stuff a box of Snickers in your pants. Boo’s cuz would hold sweet little Boo-Shays hand as they walked around the convenience store stuffing entire boxes of candy bars in the front and back of his pants under a long t-shirt. Then they would walk up to the counter and Boo would fake a stomach ache and the clerk would let them go in the restroom where they threw the boxes out of the window.

The strange thing about this is that my uncle taught me to shoplift when I was about the same age but my mother caught me with my first theft, a flashlight from a local department store. She called the police to meet us at the store and scared the crap out of me! Forty years later she gave me a box of stuff she thought I would want to keep and the flashlight was in it. How sick is that?

Back to Boo’s developmental years, as he was eight when he started smoking dope. After all, it’s stressful trying to eat all those snickers. So, let’s sell some and buy some reefer.

Soon after Boo refined his shoplifting art, his mother screwed everything up when she married a guy in the Navy that was willing to take Boo and his brother in. Boo’s mother was beautiful and that made her attractive to all the men who saw her, but she had a rule… she came as a package. If you want her, the boys come too! So, they soon left for Japan as a family.

Boo basically laid low in Japan cause it wasn’t necessary to steal, he was given everything he needed. But, two and a half years later he was back in the states, if Willingboro, New Jersey qualifies.

He began adapting to a school of mixed races where he tried to be on his best behavior, sort of. So, he and his brother and a few other kids walked home together every day after school. Some were white and some were black.

Now Boo was starting to develop a little bit of an edge about himself as he tried to sort out his identity.

And sure enough, he said something that he thought was funny about a white girl who walked with the group and she took offense. Offense enough to slap him as hard as she could in the face with a metal Wonder Woman lunch box that cut Boo over his left eye, big time. So, Boo exploded on her and beat her… not just any beating, but an ugly beating including stomping her face and breaking her glasses.

Well, as you might imagine, her mother visited Boo’s mother late that afternoon and the meeting was equally ugly but ended without a murder anyhow.

A couple years later, Boo’s mother divorces the Navy guy and heads back to Boo’s home territory, Athens, Georgia. But now she has Boo, his brother and a brother born in Japan. Well, in search of a better way of life, Boo’s mother takes the sweet angels to Atlanta. This is where Boo refined his art living in the “art store” of inner-city Atlanta.

“Why we gotta walk, let’s steal that dude’s car!”

And at the age of fourteen, Boo steals his first car and his first pistol. Now, he is a juvenile felon.

So, congratulations!

Some white kids accomplish this remarkable achievement, but inner-city kids set the record books straight.

You hear all the bullshit about why we are incarcerating so many poor black kids. Well, the reason why is that they will kill your ass if they think it’s necessary to protect their identity when they are stealing your car, robbing you at an ATM, or doing a home invasion. No matter if you are white or black, you’re expendable.

I have met many, many young men in a level 5 prison, who felt it necessary to blow away the victim to keep from getting caught. But, guess what? You can add fifteen to twenty years for a murder charge on a $50-dollar theft.

Makes me sick….

“Yes sir, yes ma’am, we are just gonna look around your house and see if there is anything we need. Just sit in these chairs and I will tape your hands behind your back so you don’t get in the way.”

Once taped, the thug puts duct tape over their mouths and eyes. The elderly couple just sit there trembling. Once the thugs got everything they wanted, they head out the door, except for the evil one who turns and shoots the couple in the back of the head. An inmate told me that story, he was one of the robbers at the ripe old age of twenty-two.

I thank God that Boo didn’t kill anybody on his escapades, as that would have screwed everything up for our future together.

So stay tuned!!

There is much more of Boo’s story yet to be told!

 

THOUGHTS OF THE HUNTER KIND:

Deviants, the masters of poor choices, sick in their sin and totally unremorseful.  Who sees anything but death? Well, it almost seems that the Sinless One has a special attraction to these lost idiots.

PRAYER:

“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?”  John 1: 46

Lord, Boo-Shay and I have asked ourselves many times, how did we escape our heritage to be fruit producers for You. We praise You in everything we do. You get the glory. Amen!