Nobody Cared, Then They Did Ricky Taylor
The ConTextos Authors Circle was developed in collaboration with young people at-risk of, victims of, or perpetrators of violence in El Salvador. In 2017 this innovative program expanded into Chicago to create tangible, high quality opportunities that nourish the minds, expand the voices and share the personal truths of individuals who have long been underserved and underestimated. Through the process of drafting, revising and publishing memoirs, participants develop self-reflection, critical thinking, camaraderie and positive self-projection to author new life narratives. Since January 2017 ConTextos has partnered with Cook County Sheriff's Office to implement Authors Circle in Cook County Department of Corrections as part of a vision for reform that recognizes the value of mental health, rehabilitation and reflection. These powerful memoirs complicate the narratives of violence and peace building, and help author a hopeful future for human beings behind walls, their families and our collective communities. While each author’s text is solely the work of the Author, the images used to create this book’s illustrations have been sourced by various print publications. Authors curate these images and then, using only their hands, manipulate the images through tearing, folding, layering and careful positioning. By applying these collage techniques, Authors transform their written memoirs into illustrated books. This project is being supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number ALN 21.027 awarded to Cook County by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Nobody Cared, Then They Did Ricky Taylor
My name is Fatboy, I grew up on the west side of Chicago, out west 290. Me and my five brothers lived with my auntie Honey in L-town. It was all love, all my mother’s kids in one household living together, being good and bad all at the same time. That was until one day we were so bad that my auntie Honey split us up; my little brother stayed with my auntie and my oldest brothers went their way.
My third oldest sibling and I went the same way to stay with my auntie C and my other little brother went his way with his mom and dad. The third oldest and I had the same dad, but he passed away when I was born and my mom was somewhere out there.
So that left me and my third oldest to stay with my auntie C, her man, and son who was my big cousin aka “big brother.” It was all love that I can remember: going to school, getting into fights, coming home from school and doing homework, then getting ready for dinner, then taking a shower, getting ready for bed, then waking up and doing it all over again. I used to get in so many fights in school because of my brother, it's crazy. I don’t know if he was starting them or not, but either way, right or wrong, I was riding behind him. Holidays were the good days; we got whatever we wanted, but on one particular holiday, I decided to be grown and smoke a cigar.
I heard somebody coming and dropped it in the bed where me and my brother were lying in, and lit the bed on fire. Somehow the fire was put out and I don’t know who did it as I remember. But I went to sleep, woke up the next morning and saw people that were all dressed up.
I thought they were her family but it was DCFS coming to take me away. I was so young and didn’t know what was going on, so I went with them without saying anything. I got in the van and never came back to my brother n’em. But my brother at the time was asleep when I left, but when he heard what happened, he and my auntie got into a fight and he ran away and never came back.
It hurt my soul when I heard that because in my mind I thought where can he go, we didn’t have any family, but somehow he was staying with my daddy and mother. Before I knew that I was getting into fights every day because I didn’t know where my brother was at.
But one morning/afternoon, I got a visit from a lady I had never seen before. When we sat down, she told me her name was Linda Alexander and she was my daddy’s mother. But as far as I knew, I had never met my daddy or seen him in real life, so how would I know if she was telling the truth? When she told me she had my brother, Akeem, I knew she might not be lying. So we talked more and she told me that she was going to fight to get me out.
I asked her how long would that take and she said that it was going to take some time, but it's going to happen. I said “ok,” then I asked how my brother was doing and she said fine. I told her ok and to tell him I miss and love him and I’ll see him soon.
She said ok and that she loves me, I said ok because I didn’t know how to say I love you to a person I just met, and the visit was over with. I went back upstairs to a place I didn’t know and I didn’t want to be.
I was getting mistreated and taking medicine that was making me crazy in the head. So I took the medicine and went to sleep. I woke up in the morning with a plan in my mind that I really didn’t think about all the way through. But my plan was to run away, so after we ate we were waiting to go outside around 1:00.
So I was thinking that I was going to run, but I didn’t know where I was. At 1:00 we went outside and around 1:10 I decided to leave the line, go out the gate and go for it. But as I’m running I see one of the staff running behind me. But like I said I didn’t know where I was running to.
So I stopped running. I was on jail watch for 90 days. So after my 90 days were up my visiting pass starts with my grandma, going with her for the weekend and seeing my brother for the first time since he had ran away from my Auntie C. We were happy to be with one another hanging out and talking. They let me get to know everybody and my cousins, not all of them though. Some of them were staying with my grandma, so she had an 8-person household, which was 6 of my cousins, me and my brother, and my grandma and grandpa all together in one household. I loved my weekend pass with my grandma. I was getting whatever I wanted since I was the baby of the household at the time, so I loved it.
Holidays were the best when I’d go see my grandma and she would have something for me. I thought I’d never see my mother again. I was so happy to see my Mom but I was fucking around like I didn’t give AF but I did.
I was just trying to see how you could have me and then leave me in a fucked up city like Chicago, and not just me but your 5 other kids as well, but I never cared about all that. I just wanted my mom in my life.
It used to hurt me when I saw all the other kids and people call their Mom or their Mom came to pick them up, or even if they had someone to call Mom, and it had me always wishing I had my Mom around to do the same. But one holiday I got my wish after all those years. I got to kiss my Mom, I got to hug my Mom, I even got to sleep with my Mom like the third child that she had.
But once that was all over, me and my brother got into a fight the next day and night and my Mother was on my side helping me fight my brother and I saw him push her. You could see the red in my eyes and I hit him with a vase, and after all that I saw my Mom in a place that I have never seen her before. This is where my pain begins. There are two types of pain I went through in my life: emotional pain and physical pain. Well, all my life I’ve been hurt and going through an emotional pain. I always felt like I was being targeted, mistreated out of the family and that made me feel some type of way and made me go through the darkest emotional pain. It was pushing me further and further into wanting to hurt someone. So the only thing that I thought would work at the time was drugs. So I started using them to stop the pain.
But it didn’t do shit but make me have physical pain. That pain just turned into anger and more anger because that’s really what my pain was. If you don’t release that pain and anger, the rage just keeps adding up and the more it adds itself, the worse the outcome becomes. So don’t feel afraid to vent to people or write it down or cry about how cool it is to cry but only a real man cries. All you have to do is ask them what type of pain they have been through in life and what they are going through. Because pain doesn’t really end. It’s just substantial to the worst pain like death or being taken away from your family for years and depression brings more pain.
It sometimes comes out the blue. What makes me feel like I was mistreated and targeted by the family? It was when they showed favor at family events. They acted like I didn’t have a phone or like I didn’t exist or something and that made me feel like they didn’t really care about me. But the types of things that were going through my mind, it was a whole lot of bullshit that a child or even a teenager shouldn't be thinking, especially about their family. But I was by myself and to help me I took drugs!
The emotional pain that hurt the most was being locked up for years. Everybody who said they would be here for me, they left me high and dry when I needed them the most. So I had to find another way to take the pain away because the fake love was killing me emotionally. So this was my way for controlling my pain, by writing it down on a piece of paper. I’m tired of fighting pain with pain and pain with drugs and pain with struggle. This way let me release the pain and let people know why I am the way I am.
When I was a kid growing up, my dad passed away, then years later my mom did. It left me with so much grief and pain that I could not hold it in. So I got into fights with people at school and even fought with my friends I was hanging out with. I just wanted someone else to feel my pain. So that’s what I was doing, I was lashing out my pain. 2012 was the worst year for me because I was in so much pain.
I didn’t want to tell anybody anything I was doing. I didn’t want to vent to anybody at all. The only thing I wanted to do was take pills and smoke weed every day to stop my mind from going in different directions. I blocked everybody out of my life and started going downhill at a fast rate. Then 08/16/13 my first child was born and it helped take some of the pain away.
I’ve always been told that life’s a bitch and then you die. If that’s true, then I should’ve been dead a long time ago. But yet, here I was, still standing. But why? Because I was on a mission driven by my need to demolish the one person who thought he was bad enough to outsmart me. I’ll admit, the tables have been turned and it wasn’t in my favor. But see, I had been left for dead on more than one occasion. My lil homie had died in my arms or so I thought - and my uncle had been ripped out of my life. So this shit right here was nothing to me. Because like my man, Jay Z says, “Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week.” Yeah, what I had to accomplish might take a little longer than that, that's for sure.
Becoming a word of the state of mind is like stepping into a different realm. Having to have supervised visits with my grandma like she was a criminal, or a danger to us was painful. It was those visits and hugs from her, my BM and my son that gave me hope. Hoping to be home as a family again and there’s always something that could snatch that little bit of hope that could mean so much to you away from you. For me that’s driving away at the end of our supervised visits. All I have to do is hope they see me for who I am and I hope God hears my prayers. Words of encouragement were all I needed to push through the situation.
They’re like gas for hope and purpose. Purpose is the tank that holds hope. When you are all alone, you find something to live for. For the first time ever in a state of depression, I told my grandma I was irritated. Taking a jump to get a feel for her mental support and to see if I could get some words of encouragement, gas of hope, she asked me, “why?” I said, “I'm alone and I'm tired of being strong.” She replied, “You gotta stay strong, you're going to catch your blessing.” That was the gas for my hope.
Being different from the rest of your family comes with a lot of new emotions in a different light of things. That light gives a different purpose. My grandma in my family said, “You're not alone, I’m here with you.” They said that I have to stay strong. I’m going to catch my blessing.
I’m not ungrateful or selfish so I took it and put it to my purpose for hope. Smiling to myself, noticing the difference of light. My grandma did what her light taught her. I knew my purpose needed more gas. We hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
Ricky Taylor I Am From I am from the city of Chicago From grief, lost, and pain From making mistakes and disappointing the ones that love me From making the wrong choices for all the wrong reasons I am from loving family but a hateful world From never giving up no matter how many times I fall From where ignoring one problem leads to five more I am from proving to myself that I can accomplish anything But still prone to make a mistakes I am from a mindset that empowers me To keep striving to be the best I can be And to allow me to speak my mind Until I'm the loudest in the room Even if my opinions go against the grain I am Ricky Alexander and I refuse to give up I am a loving father And a loving husband to a queen named Stacy Ellison
Until the lion learns to write their own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter - African Proverb Copyright
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