Why I Believe In Jesus (Chapter 5)
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Chapter 5: “Paranoid”
Just when I thought things were going to get easier that summer, fast forward a little over a month. It was the night of Thursday, July 12th. In the middle of the night I woke up to what sounded like a bicycle being thrown down the steps. I heard moaning and I went and saw my dad face down on the basement floor. Our stairs are right near the entrance to the kitchen, so my father fell down the whole flight of stairs. I helped him up and he got in bed and tried to nap it off. In the morning, my father’s back pain increased so my sister told him to go to the hospital. We took him to the hospital and the doctors ran some tests. After about a day or two he was released.
Fastforward a week later, Friday night, technically Saturday morning July 22nd around 2 am. I had arranged to meet the girl I had been seeing, after she got home from the club. It was around 2 in the morning when I left. I pulled up to my friends house and one of her friends was dropping her off. She told me she was going to go get something from inside. I waited in my car, then all of a sudden, a a guy comes up to my car saying “get outta here nigga”. I recognized his face, it was the father of her kids. I got out the car and we both started talking trash to each other. He went to his car and started reaching under his seat. I remember knowing exactly what he was reaching to pull out but I was frozen. I was wrong, I assumed it was going to be a gun, but it was a machete. He started running towards me with it and I took off running. After running a few steps I noticed he wasn’t chasing me anymore.
He put the machete down and I used reversed psychology saying he was a “bitch” for having to use a machete. My friend told me a few months before, that he had trained in boxing growing up and that she had seen him knock out dudes way bigger than me. I figured that you can’t “box “ a boxer, you have to try to wrestle them. I waited for him to charge towards me so I could get him in a head lock. I told him to “come on”, so he charged at me and I was able to get him in headlock and we started wrestling on the hood/ or a trunk of a car. I took a few hits but all I was focused on was trying to keep him contained. My friend comes over and breaks it up. He started walking back to the car as he taunted me with words, then got the machete , and this time he started to running after her with the machete. The machete flys out of his hands after it nearly swiped her purse which was on the trunk of her car, and the machete drops on the ground. I eventually ran towards him with the thought process of hoping to wrap up his legs to bring him to the ground, but he kept backpeddling. I swung at him but he dodged it. Things settled down and her friend that dropped her off, got him to calm down and he got in his car as if he was going to leave. I asked my friend if she was okay, then he put the car back in park, got out and got the machete again. He went to my car and shattered the back window of my car with the machete, then hopped in his car and drove off.
I told her to get in my car, and let’s leave. She said “no, he has a gun and knows where you live”. He knew where I lived because I spent the night over her house and left my wallet, which had my ID in it, there one night. As we know, your ID has your address on it. A few months prior he had screen shotted her a picture of my ID to her. I was thinking he could be parked down the street waiting for me, so I kept heading home, hole in the back of my window, paranoid that somebody could be following me. I got home and stayed up for a few hours thinking about how I’m going to tell my father and sister. I finally tell them later on that day. My father tells me right away that I should press charges. I decided to call my older cousin, for a different opinion. He was able to get his life back on track , get his degree,and is now is married with kids. Since he grew up and spent time in the streets I wanted to see how I should handle the situation. I told him what happened and he said “You know where he stays?… we can go over there in ski masks and rough em up.”
My cousin then told me, “hey man you aren’t a drug king pin you have no loyalty to the streets, go file a report.”
I had talked to my friend earlier that day and she said he told her that he wasn’t going to pay for the damage to the car. I filed a report and they stated he was possibly looking at around 5 years in prison. It turned out he already had a record and warrant out for his arrest, for putting his hands on her. I found out that one time she tried to move on, he brought one of his friends and followed her back to the house of the guy she was trying to move on with, in an attempt to fight the new guy she was seeing. Based off the records, that new guy she was seeing at that time put a restraining order on him.
I talked to her later that night about the charges and she told me how she was going to file a report as well. She then expressed her concern for pressing charges,
“If I press charges, his family is going to come after me” I ask her what family?”
She told me he came from a big family who are in gangs in DC and I said, “well thanks for telling me now”
A few days later she comes to drop something off for me and I come out to the car and we talk then go to 711. On our way back we started smoking and then, suddenly she asks, with a concerned look, “Is that a suv?” Mind you I’m already paranoid as it is from the incident, then add weed to it. I’m telling her to speed up, but instead she starts slowing down. At this point all I can think about is that scene in “Get Out” where the black dude is trying to leave and she pretends to not find the keys and he is “yelling Rose! Give me the keys Rose!”
Since she started slowing down, I imagined about a car full of dudes , him and his cousins she mentioned, hopping out the car behind us and just opening up fire.
She finally starts speeding up and we get to my house. She would wish me happy birthday about week and a half later and then a a few weeks later I get a call from her saying the U.S. Marshalls were looking for him. She got upset and blamed the whole situation on me and implied that if she were to testify she was going to take his side. As I stated she was there for me when my mom passed and through everything that year and was my best friend. I remember just being surprised on how, I could meet somebody during such a vulnerable time and then they turn around act like that.
To read chapter 6, please click the link below.
