Never Knotice Before
David Johnson “Born A Star” Young Hungry Artist Central
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 selfprojection 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 image 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.
Never Knotice Before David Johnson
Lessons, losses, and blessings... It’s a lesson for everything, and lessons continue for life. We take losses all our lives and the times we actually do win, it’s a blessing. It’s life’s cycle for everyone, but it’s the change we take from it and how we decide to let it alter our lives. Sometimes making a link with past memories or stored information may be what we need in order to progress towards new potential when seeking. The before is important.
The Family I can’t actually remember the year of living this poor life with my family sleeping in my mother’s “G 20” van. It was around fall or winter because the van was always running to provide heat, and I was never warm stepping out of the van every morning to go to school. Most nights we would get woken out of our sleep and were forced to move by the police, which is why most days I was always tired and sometimes, only if we got lucky, we would get a full night of rest.
Waking up early before school to wash my body with wipes and rinse my mouth out with mouthwash was considered doing my hygiene. Then when I was done, I would go right back to sleep. I got four siblings and it wasn’t enough room for us all, but we had no choice. We had to make it enough. I was always ready for school because most of the time I was always hungry, and I could get two meals from school, hot or cold. Some nights my mother would get one of her friends to let us stay over, and I knew if anything we were all grateful for a warm place to sleep and a nice bath. We were in this stage of living for a couple of months until my mother found an apartment before that arriving summer, and I’ll tell you nothing feels greater than having a place to call your home.
Raymel My oldest brother Raymel was an athlete, artist, and the most independent life learning person that I believed was the key to my family’s success. He played basketball, ran track, and played football. He could have drawn the whole world if he could have seen it through God’s eyes. Blessed with pure talent, he used to play in the basketball tournaments that was held at Tilton Park on Kostner and Fulton. Between with the cross over, nice with the step back, cold with the floater, shooting form outstanding, and if the ball was the world in his hand, I could say it would be handled correctly.
Running track he was fast on his feet, winning first place medals, even if it was just walking. My mother would give us bus fair to get to school every morning when we were staying on 13th and Avers, and school was on Maypole and Karlov, Marconi Elementary school. He would leave out a bit early and start walking while we waited on the bus. By the time we got on the bus and got off on Madison and Pulaski, he was always there crossing the street, headed towards Karlov and Madison. Clucking it. He had a good heart, always enforcing my mother’s rules. He would always come in the house with a bag full of snacks, and me and him always had our one on ones. Maybe I was too young to understand at the time. But now I wish I could have a one on one with my mother’s oldest son, who we lost to natural causes, the family star and key. Rest in Peace, Raymel.
Ayanna. My sister Yanna is the second oldest in the family. She’s also the fighter. I honestly think when she steps a foot on the block in the hood, everybody be like “Debo coming!” but with the Rocky theme song playing in the background. LOL. I love my sister, though, the public persona and the private in house persona. I know life didn’t always throw the best her way, because she always had so much anger and frustration built up inside ready to be released. I believe a pinch, pop, or poke could put her over the edge.
One day staying on Kostner and Fulton, I was in the house bored out of my mind, running around and around with so much energy. Being so young, I had so much joy and innocence, and I didn’t know when to stop playing until I learned my lesson. So like a bad little brother, I spotted my sister sitting in the kitchen at the table on her phone, making her my target. I headed over to her, hit her, and ran away hoping she gave me the attention I was seeking. “Stop touching me!” she said. Warning number one. Me repeating the same action and her delivering warning number two “David! Stop touching me, ugly ass little boy! Mamma! Come and get your son!”
Me not knowing what she was going through or what type of heated conversation she was in, texting on the phone. Because she already looked frustrated, I pushed past the speed limit. When I hit her again, she got up and chased me through the kitchen and on to the enclosed back porch. The enclosed back porch had a window that led back into the house and directly into her room. So when I made it to my escape route, the window, I stopped, turned around, and had a standoff with her.
She said “You jump through my window, I’m throwing this knife at you.” Pause. She must have grabbed the knife when she was chasing me through the kitchen. Plus she’s my sister. She’s not going to throw that knife at me, and she knows I’m just playing. This is what I was thinking in the moment. Play. I pump fake, acting like I was going to jump through the window, testing her. The next thing I know, I felt something hit my head. We both paused. I wasn’t crying yet. I was just looking at the “Oooh!” look on her face. Then I saw thick, light red blood flowing down my face.
“Aaaahhh!” I started trying to run to my mother, but my sister stopped me with the smartest idea ever. “Don’t go tell my momma.” I fought her off and ran right to my mother where she sat doing my sister Kaela’s hair. “WTF!” It’s like a switch went off that made her younger again. She lost it. Ooohh! Like the look on my sister’s face. Somebody ‘bout to get it. While that was going on, I waited with a towel on my head with my head tilted back until the ambulance arrived.
When me and my mother arrived at the hospital, the doctor said the wound was too deep for stitches and that they would have to use some type of surgical glue. So they put the mask on my face to put me to sleep. Then I woke up. I never was mad at her or treated her differently. We actually got closer. That “Oohh!” look on her face gave me a glimpse of the most vulnerable side of her no one has ever seen but me.
Keanta. I don’t know how, but the third oldest, my brother Keanta, who’s also Kaela’s twin, always found ways to make money. One day he woke me up. “Wake up,” he said waking me up at 5:30 AM early in the morning, about three to four weeks after our oldest brother’s death. “Brush your teeth and put some clothes on,” he said. Wiping the sleep from my eyes, I got up without question, still feeling a little tired and did what I was told. “We bout to go make some money,” he said walking out the back door of my godmother’s three bedroom apartment on Maypole and Kostner.
We started down the stairs. The morning streets were clear. The wind blew lightly and felt calming. I was enjoying the moment of relaxation for a minute until the sound of a shopping cart on the alley ground snapped me out of my moment. Then I finally asked “Where we going?” “To make some money. We gon collect cans, scrap, etc. and take it to the junkyard,” he said. “Ight,” I said, but whole time I was worried about being seen by somebody we knew, and the last thing we needed was the whole hood talking about us. But it was money and a chance to spend time with my last brother, so I wasn’t about to say no.
So we collected junk until about 9 or 10AM, then we went to the junkyard. But you had to be 21 and older to cash in, and neither of us was near 21. So we asked someone to do it for us. We waited until they brought the money to us. It wasn’t much, but it was something and we would split it 50/50. He said, “It’s just to keep money in your pocket so you won’t have to keep asking for dollars. We gone do it again tomorrow”. “Ight,” I said. The more we did it, the more we felt like
the person we sent in would take some of our money, but we saw it as paying for their service because we always watched the scale.
Kaela. A couple of years before, I can’t really remember how me and my sister Kaela, the fourth oldest, and also Keanta’s twin sister, was able to get to school on time whether it was by walking or taking the bus. We was living with my Auntie Mattie on Monroe and Sawyer right on the dead end by Marshall High School. Mattie had three kids and my mother had five. We used to sleep on the floor on pallets, all eight of the kids. My mother and my auntie had the only two bedrooms in the basement apartment.
I don’t know how my mother and auntie maintained a roof over our heads, but they did, and I was grateful we didn’t have to go back to sleeping in a car. Food was coming and going, but once it was gone, it was gone for a minute. Most days on my way to school, my uniform would still be a little wet, because it hadn’t dried fully after washing them the night before by hand. So walking to school was mainly us hoping the uniform would be dry before we get to school and have to sit at a desk in a chair.
School was about twelve blocks away from Matty’s house. Every day after school, I would wait for my sister to exit the building so we can walk home together. I was hungry and I’m pretty sure she was too. There was no food in the house, and I was tired of stuffing my face with sugar bread and dry bologna sandwiches and still not getting full.
I remember me and my brother Keanta used to go to the outlet mall across the street from White Castle on Madison and Springfield and beg people for money or go to Aldi’s to help with people’s bags so that we could get ten pieces of chicken for twelve dollars from Sharks. No matter how long it took us to make enough to reach our goal, we stayed because I guess we both knew we would be starving for more hours than it took to make the money.
So when my sister Kaela came out of school, we had to walk past that same outlet mall. Then I asked her “You want to get something to eat before we go home?” She said “How?” I said “We can ask people for money. They gon’ give it to us.” “I’m not begging for money like a hype,” she said. “Me and Keanta used to do it. That’s how we used to get that chicken from Sharks.” The look on her face was priceless. Then she said, “You do it then.” “Ight. Wait for me, okay.” Then I started on my mission.
She would just watch. When people said no, she would laugh. When people actually gave me money or the little change I asked for, she was surprised. It was moving at a different rate until I convinced her that it was just asking them for money so we could get food. I told her what to say. She then started her mission. It got better. About an hour or two later we had enough to get two foot long Subway sandwiches, a drink, and a bag of chips. We was so hungry we ate the sandwiches on the way there. Then I asked her “You want to do it again tomorrow?” “You doing too much now. But yeah,” she said.
It got to the point where one of us would ask for the money for food for that night and the other for snacks and lunch to hold us off through school until we made it back to begging for “a little change.”
Reaching for my family. We've been through a lot, all of us. I can see the world through their eyes and sometimes can feel their emotions and how it affects them, but I can’t wonder if it hurt them as well as much as it used to hurt me. I build myself and enforced principles. I stay healthy, educate the mind, feed the spirit, and genuinely give to keep my heart beating and to produce my happiness. I want to show them how to heal and expand, and I would be prepared for the battle that is ahead to lead them to self care success, because I know what it’s like. I am an example and a guide. That would help them to their true destiny and a beautiful future.
I CAN DO IT!
I Am
David Johnson
The World is a Disaster Folds of Wonders Bad and Good Great followers Forged into Great leaders Unbeknown of What’s in the Wild On the other side Of the Closed Window.
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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