Manhood: How to Be a Better Man-or Just Live with One by Terry Crews Page B

Big Terry said.
    Marcelle nodded at him, even though we all knew that wasa lie. Big Terry never paid him back, and he never stopped taking Marcelle’s money. And so I learned another lesson from Big Terry early on: If you work hard and save your money, somebody is going to come in and take it, so you might as well spend it all.
    BY THE TIME I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL, I’D HAD ENOUGH. I was getting out, and that was that. With Coach Lee gone, I started looking around for anyone else who might help me in my goals, or at least support my dreams. Things had gotten beyond weird at our old church, and we’d finally convinced Trish to join a new congregation. I had high hopes from the beginning. Our old church had been a whole lot of shouting loud and saying nothing, whereas our new pastor was more of a teacher. I decided I needed to have a meeting with him to talk about my life and my plans for the future. We met in his office one day after school. I got right to the point.
    “Pastor Brown, I want to play football,” I said. “I want to be a football player.”
    “Oh, no, no, no,” he said. “Football, that’s not good. That’s evil.”
    “Wait a minute, you play basketball on Friday nights,” I said.
    “We play basketball at the church,” he said. “But, in basketball, we’re just trying to get a ball in the hoop. Football, you’re intentionally trying to hurt people.”
    I’d spent my whole life trying to be good, except for my one secret habit, which I swore I’d never do again. And now, my pastor was telling me that my ticket out of Flint was evil. I was devastated and collapsed inside. He had no idea that, for me, this conversation meant everything. He just kept shaking his head.
    “Yep, basketball is cool,” he said. “Football, I would never recommend that.”
    I knew I wasn’t intentionally trying to hurt anybody when I was playing. I was just trying to tackle them. I was just trying to be a good athlete.
    That day changed everything for me. I still went to church with Trish and Marcelle, but I was hatching a plan in my mind.
    I’ve got to leave
, I thought.
I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to get a new life. There has to be more for me than these true lies I’m hearing
.
    It was easy enough for me to bide my time at church, but it wasn’t so easy at home. Trish and I didn’t agree on anything, and neither of us was quiet about it.
    “You hate me,” she said. “I don’t know what your problem is.”
    Well, there was our crazy church, for starters. And then there was the fact that she wouldn’t let me date. Here I was, fourteen, fifteen years old, and of course I had an interest in girls, but she shut it right down.
    “No,” she said.
    “Why can’t I?” I asked. “Why can’t I just go on a date or something?”
    “Because you’re stupid,” she said.
    I rolled my eyes at her and that just made her gain steam.
    “Yeah, you’re stupid,” she said. “You’re going to get somebody pregnant.”
    She was afraid, because she’d gotten pregnant at sixteen, and again at eighteen, before she was ever married. She saw Marcelle and me as little boys still, and she was sure the girls out there were going to take advantage of us and tie us down. She didn’t know that she was a lesson for me of all I didn’t want my life to be.
    ———
    AS THE EIGHTIES PROGRESSED, THE CONDITIONS IN FLINT grew more and more dire, and I became more and more determined to get out by any means necessary. All of the auto plants were closing. People were getting evicted and leaving town. Schools were shutting down. Homes were falling empty and becoming increasingly decrepit. Then the crack epidemic hit. With the drugs came more violence. Every time there was an event in the neighborhood, people got shot. Let me tell you, I lived
Roger & Me
. Whenever someone asks me about where I grew up, I tell them to watch that movie. That’s exactly what my high school experience was like.
    Our school was a magnet