I Don't Want Him to Grow Up Like This

“Until the lion writes his own story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

The Soy Autor writing process 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 positive opportunities that nourish the minds, ideas and words of the underserved and underestimated.Through the process of drafting, revising, illustrating and publishing memoirs, the Authors’ Circle develops reflection, critical thinking, camaraderie, conflict resolution and positive self-projection.

In collaboration with:

Chicago CRED

I Don’t Want him to Grow Up Like This Jeremy Berry

I do not want to live my life this way.

I haven’t been wanting to live life like this for a long time.

When I was eight years old, I had to make my own food. My parents weren’t there to take care of me, so I had to take care of myself. I had to figure out what I was going to wear to school. I came in the house anytime I wanted to. I was blessed to have some good friends whose mom cared about me to help me with my basic needs.

Now I would rather be drama free. Why? Cause I got a son that I want to raise to become a man. I don’t want him to live the same life I’m living. I came up, without a father. That’s why I was in all of this negative stuff in life. I aint have a father to tell me right from wrong. My mom was out on drugs. So I was forced to become a man on my own.

I want to be there for my son Brayden and show him how to live drama free. I will tell him don’t go down the route I went. If he do, his life would get harder. He would go to jail and get treated like a slave. He would have people tell him when to go to sleep, when he can eat and most of all it would be real difficult to get a job. Cause one day he is gonna see the big picture after all the gangbanging is over with. He is gonna want to change.

I had only woken up less than an hour ago. I had a rough night sleeping but when the sun came up I felt good. I started my morning by telling God thank you for waking me up this morning and starting me on my way. I went to sit on the porch and saw my friend Deacon Dogface Dave walking down the street.

That day’s routine was like ever other day.

But that day, it wasn’t the right one...

Before I knew it, I was running from the police. I ran inside my homie Jason’s two flat. He stays upstairs. The doors were unlocked. I locked the downstairs door behind me, yelling as I was going up. “Open the door!”

Then I got to knocking on the apartment doors. “Can y’all please open the door?” And I repeat, “Can y’all please open the door?” No answer. I knew it was Jason’s apartment, but nobody was answering the door.

I started to panic. I was running up and down the stairs with no where to go, saying to myself, “I got to get out of here some way, some how!” But I was stuck in the hallway with nowhere to go.

I ran back up the stairs and looked out the window to see like a half a dozen of police around the house. It was a mix of blue and whites and dicks boys.

As I looked out the window, that’s when Jason’s father opened the door. I ran over. I said, “Red I got to get in here or I’m gonna go to jail!”

He replied, “I can’t let you up here. I got my granbabies up here!”

“I’m begging! Can you please let me come in? I would go out the back…”

He said: “No. I can’t have the police run in this house with my grandkids in here.” That’s when he called his wife to the door and made sure she locked it after he left out. He started walking down the stairs.

I put the gun under the gray rug below the radiator by his house door.

I started walking down the stairs behind him. Red was three or four stairs ahead of me. I was acting like I was coming from upstairs with him.

He held open the door for the cops. They busted threw and grabbed me.

“What’s going?” I asked. “I’m coming from upstairs just to see what was going on…”

They asked my homie’s father: “Who is this to you?” He stared, shaking his head at the officers. Said, “That’s him.”

I spent three months in county and three months in the joint.

And when I got out, I knew that jail wasn’t for me. Inside, I’d been stressing. I’d been to jail for the block and the whole time I was in there, ain’t no one send me no money, ain’t no one visit me. I learned to not send myself over the river or not get locked up for nobody else.

They handcuffed me in took me to the police car. “What did I do? Y’all got the wrong person? I just came from upstairs with my uncle! Y’all tweaking.”

Then they shut the door.

“I hope they over look the gun,” I was saying to myself over and over. But within minutes they came out with a silver and black 45. I just shook my head.

I’m ‘bout to go to jail.

After that, I knew that I could be quick to pick up a gun to protect myself but not to protect the next man. At the end of the day, I won’t be mad for going to jail trying to protect myself. But I ain’t going to go to protect the next man. Knowing I’m doing this hard time alone, with nobody in my corner, you feel me?

I could’ve come out and said I ain’t going to touch no gun. But the way I live, I’d rather get caught with a gun than without it. The oppositions ain’t going to care that I’m trying to change my life. In my neighborhood, if they catch me lackin’, they gonna kill me just as well as they kill my homies.

I want something better for my son.