So Angry It Hurts
L.DAVIS
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.
So Angry It Hurts L.Davis
Anger is a natural emotion and there are healthy ways of dealing with anger, but left unchecked, anger can turn into rage, which can lead to a path of violence and other destructive behaviors. If unchecked too long, it becomes cancerous, destroying everything in its path. A person can become “So angry it hurts.” Not only the person or situation it's directed towards but yourself in the end. I know from experience and this is my story.
“Stay away from him, his ass crazy.” “You are always mad, why are you always angry?” That’s the shit I keep hearing. I’ve always wondered the same thing. As I got older the question surfaced more and more.
“So angry it hurts.” I’m so confused even now, I don’t understand. Some days I just want to ball out, but I'm out of tears, I've been ran out of those. Besides, real men don’t cry, do they? Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in this cycle. I want answers and I can’t get them. This shit hard to explain, but I’ll do my best.
I had good and bad experiences growing up. I had some family that loved and cared about me, but they weren’t my mother and father. It was always an uncle or aunty or Granny nem. A lot of times it was the older guys, but I never listened to them because it was always only for a day or two, a weekend, a summer. There was no constant discipline. I was always bounced around and left to fend for myself.
People used to always say, that boy gone end up dead. You are destructive. You need your ass whooped. A hard head makes for a soft ass. But the worst thing they used to say about me was you gonna be just like your father. Yeh, that’s the worst thing they could say. You see, I hated my father and he hated me. At least that’s how I viewed our relationship. He was a selfish man. He and my mother were both selfish people. I felt like they never showed me love and I hated them for it. My grandma saw early the hurt and hostility that brewed in my heart towards them.
So she used to always ask me to forgive them. She used to say things like Ron-Ron, my dear, forgive them. They were too young to be parents when they had you. Which is why I think they hated me. My mom had to drop out of school and never ended up graduating from high school because she was 17 years old and pregnant. Having a baby will sometimes mature a child right on up to an adult. Not so with my mom. She had been through her own abuse and abandonment issues herself, so she was busy chasing what she thought loved her, what she was missing at home, so she took to the streets.
I later come to find out that my mom was abused and neglected as a child from her own parents. I was born 11-6-79 so yeah I’m a 80’s baby and the drug of choice then was heroin. So yeah both of my parents were hooked on drugs, from the time I was born until I was into my 30’s. That’s why I say they were selfish people. They chose drugs over me. In fact my father chose to be so selfish that he OD’s on February 2019 on his birthday.
I was in the joint when I got the news. It didn’t even affect me. I never even shed a tear at the time. That’s how much I hated him, I wasn’t happy. I didn’t feel better. In fact I was more confused. I was lost, I was hurt. Not as a child hurts losing his father, I was hurt in my own selfish way. I felt he had won.
I’d never be able to prove that I wasn’t like him. That I would be a better person than him, a better father and son. You see, ever since I can remember I hated my father. I don’t have any good memories of him.
I can't remember him ever providing for me. He was never there when I needed him. The only thing I inherited from him was his violent ways and what used to be uncontrollable anger. The only memories I have of him is him beating me and my mother.
This dates back to when I was 7 or 8 years old. Yeah, that’s about when I started hating him and it wasn’t just because he whooped me. I always got whoopings with belts, switches, extension cords, wooden spoons, you name it.
Yeah thinking back on it I probably had it coming. I was bad, but he was on a whole nother level with the beatings. Back then we stayed with my grandparents in Englewood. One day for reasons I don’t know, my father and mother was arguing in the kitchen. My father slapped my mother, she tried to hit him back or maybe she did. The next thing I remember seeing is him punching my mom with a closed fist punch, knocking her to the floor. Then he got on top of her and continued to punch her in the face.
I tried to stop him, but what’s an adolescent to a 6 foot 5 250 pound enraged man? I jumped on his back and he just easily shook me off and slapped me down. Damn near blinded me. By this time my Grandparents broke it up. I remember looking at him telling him that when I got bigger and stronger that I was going to kill him. That made him furious and he slapped me up some more. I hated him for that and from that point on me and my father never spoke more than a handful of words. In my heart he was dead to me.
My mom had to leave and me and my sister was asked to choose where we wanted to go. Of course we chose to leave with my mother, even though my mother tried to convince us to stay and she would be back for us. I couldn't understand why. But my mother was getting
high at the time and she knew that my grandparents’ house would be more stable than our other options at the time. Our other options was CHA or the projects. At that time most of my mother’s family lived either in Cabrini Green, on 39th or the Calumet building 51st. I can’t remember where we ended up that night, but I know in the end we stayed at my Big Momma’s house in Austin. Big Momma was my Great Grandmother, my mother’s grandmother.
Things were really good for a while. We stayed with Big Momma until her passing away. But I used to spend summers at my grandparent’s house, my father’s mother. It was awkward being around him, hating him. He was a big man, mean and I not only hated him but I feared him. Once my Big Momma passed away, it was back to struggling. My mother had a new boyfriend that ended up being my lil brother’s father. I didn’t like him either and I hated my father even more for how he turned his back on us. I hated that my father never cared to have a relationship with me. It seemed almost like I never even existed to him. I hated that my mother was still on drugs. By this time I was 10 years old and a deep hatred had taken root in my heart.
One day my lil brother’s father hit my mother and she wasn’t having it. She had enough of being beat on. She stabbed him in his chest with a pair of scissors and damn near killed him. When he hit the floor, she told me to grab her gun from under her mattress, I did. She took it out of my hand and said, if you ever see someone hitting me or your lil sis again, you better kill they ass. My mother was no joke either. She was abused as a child and anger had taken root in her heart as well. My mom taught me to never be afraid or back down from nothing. Like even as a kid I was always taller than most kids my age. I was always bitter on the inside, so I fought a lot. A lot of times I used to get jumped on and I would still fight. But a couple of times I got jumped on by like two brothers and two cousins. I ran and my sister told my mom and my moms cursed me out and told me that she would beat the shit out of me if I ever ran from someone again. That people bleed like me. Pick up someting and fuck em up.
From that point on, I told myself I would never back down from nothing and no one. Once Big Momma passed away we moved to another family building on North Avenue, 1730 N. Luna to be exact. This is where I would grow up at. It was home. Everybody use to be over there. My Aunty and her family were downstairs on the first floor and the basement, and we was on the second floor with Grandpa and my Aunty “Sugar Bae.” Almost the whole family use to come over every weekend. The grownups use to drink, listen to dusties, play cards and eat weird stuff like coon. Whenever we (the kids) came around, my people use to start talking pig latin. That’s slang for old people if they were using English. They would usually tell us to go catch up with your crowd.
My Aunty downstairs (Mary) or Aunty Koot as she was affectionately known, had a big bunch. 7 kids, 5 boys and 2 girls. All were older than me. The oldest boy, Big Kevin or KMac, was like my big brother too. He was heavy in the streets. He didn’t grow up in the Austin area. He grew up in the Cabrini Greens. He had like 9 kids himself, 7 boys, but I was older than all them. I looked up to him. He taught me a lot. Everyday I would sit on the back porch and talk to him. He was on house arrest. I was just talking to him. In fact I had just ran an errand for him. One of his sons’ mothers came thru to see him. I went outside. When I came back home cuzo was dead. He had passed away in his sleep. It kind of messed me up. Everybody was sad all summer.
That was my cue. I hit the streets around this time. It was like 1991 Summer. My neighborhood was insane. Vice Lords and Conservative Vice Lords, but being insane was the thing to be. They had all the $, the nice cars and all the women, so I got with them. I was 10 or 11 years old then. I was a pee-wee insane at the time. It was 1991 and Mafia just hit the streetz, and the main man for them was from my block. I wanted to be just like him. He was young at the time and he ran the whole mob and he actually cared about me. I remember when he found out I was hustlin, he was pissed. He bolt out the car and went crazy on the older guys. “What the fuck is this kid doing out here hustlin?” You know cats was like “shid, he wanna work.” But Big Dawg was like “naw, the next time I catch him out here yall ass in violation.” So now when I came around dudes would be shaking and scared. “Ron-ron you got to go. You can’t be out here, you gonna get us fucked up.” But I needed $ so I would be “whoopin,” you know selling fake crack, usually soap or dry wall.
Big bro found out I was wooping. One day he pulled up on me like “Ay shorty, so you insane? Hop in, we going for a ride.” I thought yes, I made it in, but to my surprise he told me to stay in school, start playing football or basketball, don’t worry about $. “Every Saturday morning come down to the crib and I would just give you $ to buy clothes so you can go to school fly, but if I catch you hustling, I’ma have you fucked up. And if you get caught outside on a school day during school hours, you getting fucked up. Deal?” I had no choice but to agree. I made the deal.
Shortly after K-Mac died, his son, my little cousin Dantrell Davis was sniped in the Cabrini Greens. A 7 year old boy shot in the head on purpose by some grown ass men walking to school with his mother one morning because their buildings were into it with each other. These dudes took it out on my little cousin. I was 12 years old. I didn’t care about anything at the time. I hated the dudes who shot Danny even though I didn’t actually know who they were. I knew what they gang was, so I hated them. All of them.
Our house was the spot. One day I was upstairs sleep and the police was chasing a guy from the neighborhood. He ran into the house thru the front door and out the back. I was upstairs sleep at the time, but the police ran in behind him. I guess they thought he was still there. I heard a lot of noises and screaming coming from downstairs. When I went down I seen the police handling my Aunty wrong, so I helped her and started fighting him. They locked me up and sent me to the Audy home. That was the first time I spent a night in jail. I had to sit there for a few months. My old G was still getting high but she use to catch the bus up there to come see me. I loved Mom Dukes for that. I ended up getting juvie probation so I was out and back home.
I was going to Douglas at the time. I used to catch the school bus from Young Elementary. I needed $. It was a lot of pretty girls at our school and it was young cats that had money, cars, clothes, and all that in 7th and 8th grade, so I was trying to keep up. Douglas was located around my big momma’s house. It was still in the Austin area but a different neighborhood. The gangs that dominated this area was 4ch, 4s and Mafia didn’t get along. Their beef was kind of like Crips & Bloods. It was stupid, but it was forever. You had to fight everyday. That’s what gang bangin was back then, “fighting” who would get the deepest march to somebody else’s neighborhood and fight. For the most part I made it thru just fine. I had my fair share of fights, but nothing more than anybody else until my 8th grade year. My best friend started to go there with me. He was the same age as me, but he was way littler than I was. In his head, we could beat anybody fighting. I guess he thought that because I was bigger than most people, he always started trouble. Now it wasn’t just me fighting to defend myself, it was like we were picking fights. So we started to get jumped more and more. It got to the point where older guys were helping them. They used to be waiting on us at the bus stop, 30 deep sometimes. There was no way we could win.
I was always taught, never run and I didn’t want to run. I wanted to fight, but really I wanted to win, and I would do it at all cost. So one day I took a gun to school. Yeah, I was that bitter and angry. Well I never actually made it to the school. I met this mob at the bus stop, and when I was confronted, I pulled the gun out. I didn’t have to use it because once the crowd seen it they all ran. Some kids told their parents and some parents told the school and the school suspended me for the remainder of the year. I was told that I wouldn’t be allowed to walk across the stage at graduation, but I wouldn’t be held back either. So they told my mother to come to the school one day around the time everybody else would be graduating to pick up my diploma.
Once my probation officer found out I was taken back to jail. I thought the judge would just let me out, but he didn’t. I was sent to the DOC where I would really have to fight everyday. Anger had blinded me. I couldn’t see that my life had taken a turn for the worse. In fact, anger had taken over me so much that I loved being angry. It’s the only mask I wore. I lived off it. I fed the savage beast.
Being in JDOC or lil DOC, I learned pretty quickly to use my anger as a weapon. I noticed a couple things right off the back. First, nice guys finished last in jail. If you didn’t stand up for yourself, you would be beaten up, robbed, extorted, left hungry because people would take your food; and if you fall into the wrong situation you might even be raped, even in juvenile DOC. Secondly, it was easier to be feared than liked. Most people run away from what they feared. Third, you had to fight no matter what. The person that fought the most was feared the most. You was just treated different. No matter where you went, people didn’t fuck with you. And by this time I loved fighting. I’m not saying that I won them all because I didn’t. I was jumped a lot. I lost a lot of fights growing up, but by the time I was in lil DOC I was good at fighting. I was physically bigger than most guys so I had the size advantage, but what set me apart was that I loved it. I was use to it. I embraced it. I spent the next couple years being destructive, making a name for myself. When I turned 15, I was paroled out.
Back in the world, no plan. I wasn’t educated. I was incarcerated and jail then was nothing about programs. I didn’t learn anything that would return me to society ready to contribute. So I got with the guys and started hustlin. It was going good. I was making plenty of money until one day right before my 16th birthday I was shot in the back of my head. The bullet burnt out a nerve and I was instantly paralyzed on the left side of my body. I fell on my face and knocked out two of my front teeth. At first I was scared. I thought that I was gonna die. But once I woke up in the hospital my fear turned into anger. Revenge was the only thing I could think of. Anger was my go to emotion. My father never visited me in the hospital and it made me all the more angrier. It clouded my judgment. It consumed me and twisted my heart. It had me thinking that I didn’t need a father or a God or anybody else and that I could take care of myself. That I always have and that I would take care of this.
By the time I was 17, I had been shot 2 more times. Once in my leg and once in my back. The bullet nicked my kidney and settled against my spine. The swelling it created caused me to be temporarily paralyzed again. While I was in the hospital the police raided my house and found some guns and connected me to a shooting. The guy I call my father, which is the same guy that wouldn’t allow me to sell drugs when I was 12, bonded me out. When I got out, I again carried a gun and was caught with it which violated my bond. I would spend the next 10 years and 9 months in jail. At that time jail was still somewhat controlled by the people they housed and I had made a name for myself so I was kool. I had to go to school because if you didn’t have a GED or highschool diploma the guys made you go to school. Back then I had a full fledged criminal mindset. Jail was a joke really, a training ground, a place where I learned to be more devious.
The time flew by fast because at first I was in trouble so I would be getting shipped from one joint to the next. The jails started getting more stricter, so I started to realize that it was in my best interest to stay out of trouble. Getting shipped all over the state makes it hard to keep support coming in from family and friends. I stayed out of trouble long enough to get an industry job. That’s one of the coveted positions in jail. They pay anywhere from $100 to $500 a month. But that didn’t last long. Then I started working the midnight shift in the kitchen and I was still making good money hustlin. Shortly after that my time had come and gone. I was on my way home. I had survived the joint. I was a grown ass man now, so I thought. But the truth is I was the same hurt, angry little boy looking for love and attention in all the wrong places. The only difference was I had a grown up body.
The world had changed in the 11 years I was away. There wasn’t much fighting going on. Everybody seemed more angry. I noticed that everybody had guns now. I tried to look for a job but I never had luck. I would have the interview and never get the job. I was still doing good though, job hunting trying to stay focused until I started back smoking weed. That led to hanging back with the old crowd, back hustlin, and back carrying a gun and committing crimes, which landed me back in jail. This time the people that were in my corner was very upset and I was mad at myself. After all that time locked up I still hadn’t learned to make better decisions. I couldn’t believe that I was that weak, that I had let my anger control me, and again stop me from thinking. Once again my anger consumed me, and I had all on my own tricked myself off the streets, back into these very same concrete and steel prison cells that had for so long suffocated my spirit.
I started to realize that my life, my real life was in danger, and not from anything other people might do but from the hatred I carried in my own heart. But I still didn’t know what to do. I was depressed a lot, throwing myself pity parties, blaming everybody but myself. Even though I didn’t have a relationship with God, a miracle happened for me. A lot of the charges were dropped, and I took 8 years for the ones that remained. So I was back in the joint doing the same old things, gambling, hustling, pretty much any and everything that wasn’t productive. One day I was sitting in the cell and the chaplain was walking by, so I opened my window and started mocking him. I don’t know how he knew but he came to my cell and told me God had a calling on my life, and that my life would be a testimony for others. You know me, I told him to beat it. I didn’t trust white people because at that time, I had all negative encounters with white people. The only ones I knew or had known was police, judges, state’s attorneys and COs, but he wouldn’t give up. He gave me a job as the chaplain assistant. I started just cleaning up, stacking bookshelves and organizing his office. He slowly started to talk to me about the Bible, praying with me. Eventually I started attending service, studying on my own.
It was hard learning to love myself. I had developed trust issues. I was very apprehensive, especially of white people. I didn’t really believe in God and I was taught that white Christians were racist and it was only used to control blacks. I can’t explain it but this white man, Chaplain David Vaugn, became like a father to me. He planted the seed in my hardened heart and God began to water it. The journey was long even after Chaplain Vaughn had tried to teach me to love myself. I still didn’t know how. I was still doing some of the same things. I was still holding all that anger in, resenting my father, blaming him for the way my life turned out. I had been a very emotional person, holding my feelings inside, being ashamed of my parents. I was so hurt on the inside that I couldn’t realize that I had turned into the very person that I swore I’d never be. I had become my father in more ways than one.
It wasn’t until writing this memoir and talking about my anger that I was able to fully heal. I remember how shameful I was reading it in front of the class. Crying like a lil girl, but it was much more than tears released that day. It was hurt, shame, and all that bottled up hate that I held on to for over 30 years, but a great burden was lifted off my shoulders then. I had forgiven my father, but more importantly, I had forgiven myself. I realized that God had been within me the whole time, that my life had purpose, that I was loved, that I am God’s son. The first half of my life had been hard, but it had been necessary. Everything I went through had purpose. I looked at the world different. For the first time I felt like I had a soul.
I felt like my life in so many ways mirrors the youth of today, so for the second half of my life, I want to spend it as a testimony to God to help identify with so many lost souls. I want to be what I needed, a father, a brother, a friend, a shoulder to cry on, a son, an inspiration, an example, that it’s never too late to change, but the change has to come from within. So many men try to get even instead of getting ahead. But before you can forgive anyone, you have to forgive yourself. They say experience is the best teacher, but a wise man learns from everyone’s mistakes. If you take one thing from this memoir, learn from my life, my mistakes. Don’t let anger take root in your heart. Let it go and let God.
What happens when anger is multiplied by rage Add the circumstances, subtract the love Divide the growth, it equal something resembling me It’s sad I know I live with that burden so long, but it’s time to let go. For years I’ve been so angry it hurts How else am I supposed to feel after putting loved one after loved one in the dirt? Low income living, poverty stricken, countless days in prison Living with the heartache of love Someone, something that can’t or won’t love you back. Living inside a constant spin cycle in the world feeling trapped. I was seeing red but feeling blue Feeling stress, but saying I’m cool Thinking why play a hand that meant to lose Man I’d go from 0 to 100 because this built up frustration had me feeling insane Point the finger because in my eyes everyone but me was to blame Believing pain was weakness leaving the body, But what I really needed was somebody Somebody to vent to, somebody who wasn’t looking to rent space in my mind For they own personal gain Someone to show me real love the unconditional way
See behind my anger the other emotions they hide Living in this concrete jungle This how I survive through those lonely dark nights When tears would come to my eyes Secretly wishing to die, cause it so hard to get by But God kept me alive I guess he built me to strive To conquer this anger inside me Because my anger consumes me Because my anger cripples me Because my anger hurts me Because my anger needs to leave me Because for so many years I’ve been so angry THAT IT HURTS Kendall X
Until the lion learns to write their own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter - African Proverb Copyright
2023 ConTextos