Journal of an Angry Black Man
Eli A. Estes
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.
Journal of an Angry Black Man
Eli A. Estes
It all started on a cool summer night, the year 1993 August 23. A young black male was born at Cook County Hospital. He was a child of a crackhead so as soon as he started life, the odds were against him. And people counted him out.
He was already a black sheep before he could even walk. Him and his mother resided at a rehabilitation center because she was trying to be clean and start a new beginning for her newborn child. After a short, but hard period of time she finally became clean, and she gave all the glory to God.
It was a wet spring night, the year 1999. It was raining so hard you would’ve thought the windshield of the car would shatter. There were five people sitting in the car of a Jewel Osco parking lot.
The boy was sitting in the back, his older sister by two years sat on the right of him. A stranger on the left, his mommy on the passenger and daddy on the driver side. The man in the back said “This shit took.” And three loud shots came after that, BOOM BOOM BOOM! Mommy ran out of the car, screaming for her life while the stranger hopped out the car, trying to catch her, shooting away hoping one of them bullets caught her.
The two kids just sat there, crying, looking at the dead boy's father slumped over the steering wheel. Trying to figure out what just happened? Where was their mother, and was she O.K.?
Even though the kids were afraid and alone that triggered something in the young boy and the first time in his life, he felt anger.
The boy was eight years old now and his mom finally got him out of foster care after two long years. He was mad, but he was grateful because he missed his mother. Especially when his sister’s family on her daddy's side came and got her that night at the police station and he was left by himself because the mama ’ s side of the family didn’t want to raise no more of her kids after taking care of her three oldest ones for 13 years. She relapsed, but she tried her best to take care of her youngest child that no one else wanted.
Even though she tried, it wasn’t good enough, because the drugs had a hold of her. She was never at the house for days and sometimes weeks. The dealers and other feins were there at the house more than she was. Mainly because she owed the dealers money that stayed at the house also which was one of the main reasons. She did stop by the house just to say hey to her baby boy and bye.
The boy took himself to school every day and didn’t miss not one because that’s the only way he was eating. He didn’t know where his next meal would come from on the weekends, unless the fein named John that used to mess with his mama brought food for him when he got off work.
One day, the boy walked to school by himself hungry. As soon as he got there to get his breakfast, he inhaled his food. The other kids started making fun of him and started calling him names because of his appearance, and how he ate his food like he didn’t have no one at his house, loving and caring for him, which was true.
At that moment he felt the same anger he had felt when he was six and he lashed out on the first kid he saw. Both kids got suspended and couldn’t come back without their parents. Since the boy’s mama was never at home, that meant he was never able to get back in school.
So the school tried to get in contact with his mother, but they couldn’t so they called the emergency contact which was his grandma. The school informed her that her grandson had not been to school in over two weeks.
Now the same boy's grandma that didn’t want to take him two years ago was the same way she was worried to death about. So she sent the boy's big brother to the city to check on him at the mother’s house. And when “Big Bro” got to the house, he damn near cried at the traphouse.
He found his little brother and no mama insight. He wanted to lash out at the people who were there in the dirty, cloudy junky house because if you even breathe too hard you might become a kluck. But he didn't. He just got his little brother and they both went to grandma's house with the other brother, sister and cousins.
His grandma enrolled him into school next to her house and one of the first people he recognized at Wilson School was his big sister that was in the car with him that rainy and sad night in 1999. It just so happened that her father's family lived in the same suburbs as their mama ’ s mom. He said “Hey” to his big sister, but she didn’t give him no response.
He didn’t pay no attention and just went off to class because they will have plenty more chances to talk and catch up. While in class he was thinking how nice his sister looked. She had new Jordans on her feet, hair done up, crispy uniform, Baby Phat coat and a new shiny book bag. So life wasn’t all that bad for her after that night. Even though his sister had on everything new and name brand, he was clean and taken care of also . He ain’t have the luxury like Jordans.
He wore Shaqs and hand me down uniforms from his big cousins because grandma was taking care of a whole house full of other people's kids. But he was thankful for what he had because it was a long way from where he came from and things could be a lot worse.
One weekend he was playing video games with his cousins and his sister got dropped off at their grandma's house to visit. When he seen her he was happy but it was different with her. It seemed like she was salty.
The whole time she was there she stayed trying to get her little brother in trouble for no reason. It felt like she had something against her younger brother. That’s when he realized when he seen his sister at school and said "hey", and she didn’t respond, it wasn’t because she didn’t hear him or couldn’t remember who he was.
It was because she was bitter about something. So as the years went by his sister stayed getting him in trouble, and his grandma always punished him, believing her word over his, which made him realize that they had their favorites, and he was the black sheep of the family which caused the young boy to bottle up so much anger over the years.
It’s 2005 now, the boy is in sixth grade and after so long he finally knew why his sister was so bitter towards him. She felt like he got the better end ordeal out of the situation. That he got to stay with their mama and she had to go to her daddy family she ain’t no like that. Then he got to stay with their grandma when she had to stay with her strict auntie where she couldn’t be fast at.
She ain’t know he was in foster care for two years before he could be with his mama and when he did, it felt like hell. Even when he got to his grandma's house, she still had it better. He had to share a room, clothes and shoes with three other people.
While she had her own room and new clothes. She didn’t even know how it felt going to school. And the kids saying that y ’all not brother and sister just because they dress different. That even made him more coldhearted not because she was naïve to the facts, but because she was selfish in her own ways, and not once considered what effect it had on him.
The boy is 13 and he living life at a fast rate now. He’s breaking into houses and selling drugs. Doing anything to make a fast dollar. He got tired of kids clowning him because of the clothes on his back and the shoes on his feet, so he took matters into his own hands since his grandma couldn’t afford it.
To get his first pair of Jordans he sold someone else’s TV to buy them, and he sold hella jabs to get his first Coogie outfit. At the end of the day he was proud of it because he didn’t have to fight kids every day for talking about him even though that made him popular in the hood as lil Mike Tyson, and gave him respect from the big homies, but it took so much anger out of his heart, and gave him a little piece of mind. I guess you can say he adapted to his environment.
He was moving so fast while his grandma was growing old. The first time he got in trouble with the law, his grandma gave him to his auntie in Bolingbrook to finish up his eighth grade year. And from his auntie house to his uncle's condo in Lorton, Virginia to start high school. But he held onto so much anger and hurt. He fucked up and his uncle sent him to Decatur, Illinois to the boy’s oldest brother who saved him from the trap house in Chicago.
Since he moved in with his big brother, it wasn’t so strict. He went to school when he wanted to but when he did he treated it like a fashion show, car show and hide out instead of a place to learn. Then all together he just stopped going to school because he thought the money he was getting was way more important than the education he should've got.
After so long of not going to school his big brother kicked him out. That made the boy feel angry again, because after going from house, to house, to house, he would never suspect his own brother who been through the same pain and struggle would kick him out. Especially with his girl and his newborn baby with nowhere to go. But his brother never made him go to school. He just told him I’m your brother, not your daddy. I'm not gonna make you do nothing, you are your own man so you gotta make your own choices because in this world you was only given two things when you was born. That is the right choice and the wrong choice and it’s up to you what you choose because life is about choices.
Now the boy is 16 years old, homeless with his girl and a newborn baby boy and with a heart full of anger in his Bubble Impala SS on 26’s with no license parked on a hot street. He’s so angry he wants to do something to his brother but the steaks are high now. Because it’s not just him no more, he got a newborn and a girl that’s dependent on him and without him they gonna be lost. So he can’t rob and get caught or get caught selling because it’s gonna hurt his family the most so he starts hustling in more than one way.
He started cutting lawns and trimming bushes being a cleanup man on construction sites. He painted people's houses, cleaned cars, any way to make money the legal way he was doing it. He still dib and dab selling every now and then when he was short but mainly legal. He made enough money to rent a hotel room for a whole month to stay in for him and his family.
Then while his whole family was staying in the hotel, he was able to save money. He put it on a house to rent to own. With the extra money he had left, he bought the mother of his child a minivan to go back-and-forth to work for her first day on the job. Two months into their new home the boy, who is a grown man now got a drug charge for manufacturing and delivering at the hood gas station. He took six years at 50%.
Now while I’m laying on my bunk bed at 17 years old, looking at these for sale walls, playing bits and pieces of my life in my head, I realize I’m blessed and highly favored first and foremost. I learned to forgive others and don’t hold that hurt and anger in your heart because it will make your life more difficult than what it is. And if you still have anger in your heart channel it into something positive, because that will give you enough motivation to make anything you want possible for the better good and that is a blessing within itself.
I Am From
Eli A. Estes
II'm from Chi - Heights where they break in your house,
If the flat screen TV boxes in the garbage can.
From expensive designer clothes and $40 hoes.
And from Grandma house where it's always a full house,
And the smell of pork and beans and hot dogs fill the house,
I'm from where you trying to make a dollar out of 15 cent
To selling glass, to even selling ass.
I'm from my mama Virginia and my daddy nut sack
So you can say the streets raise me.
From going to Markham skating rink and starting trouble with gang ‘ nem,
And from stand for something, or die for nothing.
I'm from you do more listening than talking,
And from don't wear your emotion on your sleeves.
I'm from I believe in myself and control my destiny.
I'm from Chicago Cook County Hospital.
From good soul food and barbecue.
From my big brother who was a role model and a father figure.
I'm from a ruthless and hated place where it’s still a lot of love there
Until the lion learns to write their own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter - African Proverb
