Charles E. Martin
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.
The Realist
Charles E. Martin
And here I am sitting, now daydreaming of moments I never had with my kids. Wishing I could take it back and go back in time to take advantage of the time I did have with them.
Let me go back a little and give you more information about myself so you better understand my story. Lemme start off by saying I had wonderful moments and I don’t regret any memories I have made during my lifetime. I do have choices that I have made that I regret.
Having all this time sitting here in jail and taking all the classes that have been offered to me has been the best of a bad situation that has happened to me. Don’t get me wrong, I hate it here, I don’t wish this upon nobody, not even my worst enemy.
I don’t know if me being Hispanic or being a man had to do with the thought that was implanted in me at a young age. But I was taught to be shut off to the world, not to talk about problems at home with the outside. Any emotions are to be kept inside us because men are the foundation of many things and are not supposed to be flawed.
How I wish I hadgrown in a normal householdwith loving and caring parents who expressed their love to their children
unconditionally. I said I would always do better for my kids than the household I was raised in.
My childhood wasn’t screwed up, At least that's what I thought but it wasn’t the best one either. I’m the second oldest child my parents had. It was three boys first then three girls and last up is my little brother. All from the same father and mother.
When I was young living in Indiana, my parents were constantly busy. We didn’t need anything, we were living comfortably except I had to take care of my younger brother and sister. At the time I was only 11.
I knew my parents loved me. I seen it when they would go to work and come back to go to their second job. They just wouldn’t say it. I would say that’s when I felt and grew independently.
At age 12, I started drinking & smoking. At thirteen I started serving the next level drugs while working and going to school. I was big for my age so they would sell my vegas and swishers like nothing.
I was raised in a religious home, every night from seven to nine we were always at church. On Sundays we were there mostly all day. Maybe that’s why I disliked religion in my youth because it was shoved down my throat. That is until I got incarcerated. I told myself while incarcerated that maybe this is why I’m in here, for walking away from “the righteous narrow path.”
My family was very religious. We were constantly going to church..Monday-Sunday 7-9pm and Sunday there was a morning service from 9am to noon.
At an early age I knew I had anger issues. But iI was young so I didn’t see it that way I seen it as energy to plow over obstacles that got in my way. I felt unstoppable, how young and naive I was back then. I wished I had someone I could talk with in a deeper feeling or understanding.
On my last day of sixth grade, I got expelled. All because I trusted a stupid person. This guy was one of my guys but he was affiliated with a crew. He asked me to get him something, which I did and sold to him but I told him to wait until after school so that I can give it to him. He was impatient and I gave in and gave it to him at the beginning of school. By last period officers had arrested me because goofy guy wanted to be showing off. At the end they couldn’t prove anything legally so they ended up just expelling me.
That's when I got the beating of the lifetime. till this day I carry the scars on my back of what was carried out that day is discipline.
When I went back to school, they told me I needed to repeat the grade. I was blue when they told me that. They said, “ or you can take an evaluation test and see where you score. ” So I said, hell to it, “gimme that test.” I ended up being put in eighth grade because of my scores.
This was all for nothing because two months into that school year we moved to Chicago. Back to square ONE!!! I ended up moving up and around that year, I had to go to summer school to graduate. And here is where in my youth it’s going up but in my whole life it’s spiraling down to the ground.
At age 16, I was the black sheep of the family, I was the rebel. I was so bad, this was the point where my parents said they wouldn’t force me to go to the services, but I had to be home and alone by the time they came back.
Ever since I can remember, I always wanted to enlist into the Service. I think maybe it was the movie Saving Private Ryan, I can’t remember. My mother knew I was going to join the Army when I was old enough. Once I got into high school that changed. The Marines was the way to go. There was a program called ROTC. I loved it. Went all the way to even going to Paris Island, North Carolina for two weeks to get first hand experience of what was to come once I graduated.
I was going to school from 6:00 am to 10:00 am, serving and doing ROTC. From 10:00 am to 2:30 pm, I was all around Chicago, always with a group of people. Never knowing what was in store for us. I had my girl or my side chick with me. When I was tired of the main, the side became the main and so on and so on until I got with my WIFE!
At the time I got with the wife, she was the side but the main was known from a neighborhood I didn’t like or got along with. So wife became main and from that point she became LOML (Love of my life).
But happy stories don’t exist in my life, at least not for very long. Two weeks after my seventeenth birthday I got locked up. Me being naive to the laws, I didn’t really think nothing of it. That is until I went to Cook County Jail Courts. I was charged with armed violence for a gun and white girl. At age 17, I was facing 21-45 at 85%.
While incarcerated in Cook County for the seven months, I broke off my relationship with the wife. For the first five months while incarcerated, I really thought I was going to be gone for at least twelve years. She didn’t deserve waiting on me that long and if it’s something that’s yours, it’ll come back. Or so I thought.
Some friends I kept in contact with end up telling me she was messing around with my closest guy. I could’ve even called him my best friend, even a brother. He explained the situation to me but it still hurt the same and I couldn’t get mad because I let her go. That hurt stuck with me the rest of the seven months incarcerated, even after I came out.
The first thing I saw landing on my deck is someone jumping off the second floor balcony with a sheet wrapped around their neck. Til this day I don’t know if he lived or died, and I don’t wanna know. I ended up fighting seven months and then the case was taken to trial. I was found guilty only on gun possession and was given four years behind the four months of out-of-state boot camp.
Those four months went by so fast I didn’t even feel them, especially being on work detail during the week, but just because it was boot camp didn’t mean it didn’t have the jail mentality. I fought twice while I was down there. The second time I fought was with a big thirty year old man. Oh man, he whooped my ass, but then again, I was still seventeen. I did get a swing or two in it.
After my four months of boot camp, I came home on parole for two years. My first year of parole I was also on house arrest. My only movement was to school but I was okay with that. I wanted to stay out the way. It all worked so well for the first year of parole. Until I was removed off of house arrest.
Once I got out of prison I realized my dreams for the Marines were over. I had a felony on my background and they wouldn’t take me because of it. I was devastated.
I was damaged goods that felt I could be better but because of my history, I was afraid and didn't know where to look for the right help to better myself.
I paroled at my parents’ house, but while I was gone the environment at home changed. My father was distant and different. I eventually got into it with him. I had to leave if I didn’t want to jeopardize my parole.
I ended up moving in with the wife and her family but at the time we were somewhat together, and she didn’t know I knew the details of her and my guy.
I helped out with her siblings and her family. Shit I felt more a family with her people than my own. And for that I will forever be thankful and grateful to them. If they wouldn’t have taken me in, I definitely would’ve turned to the streets and been worse than how I ended up being.
My father ended up leaving the house. So I ended up returning home eventually but at this point I was bouncing from house to house. Never really felt at home with my real family especially after he left. Only reason I came back around was for my younger siblings.
I didn’t know at the time, but that was a big deal in this world. But I think it would’ve been better not having my father around. In the end he did more harm than good to us. I see that now, I guess that’s what happens when you ’ re a kid.
After I graduated high school I went for my other career job. I wanted to become a chef. I ended up going to Le Cordon Bleu, a culinary school that would align me with a job at a high end establishment. It took a year and nineteen thousand to graduate. It was going all according to plan, but halfway through my journey I decided to go out on my bike. I ended up tipping over a curb and a watch I was wearing shattered my wrist. There goes this dream. I no longer could cut precise and they had no job aligned for me in the end because of this. I could’ve had surgery but I would’ve lost 85% of my hand mobility.
Two dreams down. I just lost it and gave up trying to do good. No happy endings happen in my life. Why would I think otherwise? At least that was my mentality at that moment.
That percentage was always in my life 85%. The percentage of my hand mobility I lost. The time I was gonna do in prison. But at this time the only 100% I seen in my life was just misery. At age seventeen my soon-to-be-wife and I had the first miscarriage. We lost it but I couldn’t show it. We lost two during the first five years together.
At age eighteen my addiction to other substances and alcohol was strong, but I didn’t know or care for that matter. I was young and it was okay for me since when I got older I wouldn’t want to do it anymore. Or so I thought. It got worse when my wife had a miscarriage. I lost it and had no one to talk with. In my family emotions was for the weak and men didn’t cry or break down, so I bottled it up.
That's why even if you feel there's nothing wrong with you, talk with your doctor or specialist about what's going on and see what they recommend for you.
After six years of being together, I end up tying the knot with the wife officially. We bicker with each other, but we thought that was normal since ever married couple bickered and argued with each other. Our first born we had was a girl. To me, probably my wife too, she was our miracle child, so we called her Angel.
Shortly after my daughter was born we split up. She left the house but my daughter stayed with me. I just couldn't handle it right. I seen my wife in our daughter and every time I carried my daughter I would get emotional and my daughter would cry. I couldn’t keep dealing with this.
During her pregnancy and after I still mistreated her with all the cheating I was doing. We didn’t last long after my daughter was born. I was broken not because we broke up but because I broke up my daughter’s family.
From that point on it was life in the streets, go party here, go serve there. Go downtown and get fucked up, chill with the guys and go be young, wild and naive. I disrespected the wife in many ways and forms. Til this day I don’t know why she stood with me all those years of mental abuse and neglect. Maybe I treated her like that because deep down I had rage against her for what happened while I was gone. No, it was because of that, and to this day I can’t do nothing that’ll make up for that.
I tried to move on with my life and job, I was doing good too, but my addiction slowly but surely tightened his grip around me. I don't know where I just started doing it every day and more of it.
One night I ended up walking to the bridge on Archer and Ashland. I sat on a platform under the bridge ready to end it all. I was tired of all the pain, but an image of my siblings and my daughter changed all that. I decided to do better and keep pushing through life for them.
How did I end up here again? It wasn't supposed to be this way. Let me give you a little word of advice: it's okay to take care of your well-being and mental health. It's okay to cry sometimes or search for helping life, or professional help when you feel down. What's not okay as holding it all in yourself. No matter what your race, religion, ethnicity, or sex is you will always need help one way or another.
Mental Health is a serious issue, but it doesn't necessarily mean you ' re crazy or a boat is loose in your head. all over the world people live with mental illness or mental health problems. there are many types of mental illness and mental health problems such as social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, drug addiction and personality disorders. Those are just a handful of disorders that I can think of.
I Am From
I am the colorful vivid Pilsen
Charles E. Martin
From Don Pedros Carnitas and An Atonoticos Atonoticos
I am from nature preserves
From the open and tree spirited wild
I’m from my brother Felipe and My mama Lupe
From drinking and cooking out til the sunrises
And from if I eat we all eat from biggest to small
I’m from no metas la mano te va peor
And from No quieves comeo? Come caca pues
I’m from The Holy Trinity
I’m from Los Angeles
From menudo sabado’s to omelets Sunday’s
From Phillip, puppet, Lil puppet and Frankie
I am from the proud to be brown
Until the lion learns to write their own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter - African Proverb
