[ITS GONNA BE A REVOLUTION] PART ONE
THE MUSIC FOR THIS BIOGRAPHY OF A FREEDOM FIGHTER... THAT MEANS SONDTRACCCKKKKKKK!!!
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL24cV6IIynrYeNM8W64Xhwm-P-FF9LwGM
As I sit and listen to the man sitting across from me I quickly start to realize that he is telling the truth.
That everything he says is something I better believe. Even though he is in his sixties and is a little stocky his movements are fluid and smooth.
He moves with purpose. If you ran into him on the street you might not even look two times. Pass him by and forget him.
His eyes though are another thing, they are a blend of primality and intelligence at the same time. A lion of a man. To look in them is to lulled into another time. Another state.
He sits across from me and sips at his coffee and starts to tell me his story and I turn on the recording device that I brought along.
" I grew up hard, my mother was hard cause she had to be, cause times were hard.
She whupped ass and didn't take names. I once saw her punch a man in his stomach and put her knee in his face cause he ripped her off. My mother was also very intelligent and she demanded that of her children. To be intelligent, You know what I mean?"
I nod my head and he continues to talk.
" She demanded that we be strong and to not take shit off of anyone. She taught us of our African roots as best she could, stories of our glory. When I was 5 she made me sing in the chorus so that I would grow used to crowds and she would play the radio and the T.v and make me read at the same time. She said that I had to be able to pay attention to many things and she would ask me questions about all three mediums as I studied.
I grew up dirt ass poor, three pairs of pants and about 10 or 12 shirts, yet I was always clean.
My dad was about the coolest man I ever knew, he often rescued me from my mother and her rigid world. He was smart in another way, I mean he was book smart but he also saw things that other people didnt see, I often think he would have made a great judge.
He taught me of nature, how to live off of the land. He drank and when he drank he talked to me of things as he saw them. He knew where an animal would run across a trail and he taught me to see it as well. He taught me how to kill and when to kill.
I never saw him kill but I have seen him lay a man flat with one punch for insulting a woman.
I never doubted that he would fuck someone up.
He never trusted white people and he always seemed to be tolerating them.
He took me to the bars with him and he showed me the ways of man and woman. By the time I was seven I had seen men die and women fucked in the alleys and on the sidewalks where I waited with the other boys whose fathers were in the bars.
When I was about ten my parents divorced and we moved into the projects.
The life that I used to see only on the weekends became my life and I realized that these were a different people, their world was hard and you had to be hard to survive.
When I first moved into the projects I had to fight everyday I had three sisters and dudes tried them but in reality they were trying me. Seeing if I was a punk or a man. I showed them I was a man and was accepted.
In time I became the criminal mastermind of my little gang of thieves and we started to wear better clothes and eat more and we grew thick and strong. I always planned the way that we stole from the malls and stores and we always got away. At school we were the ones to be feared if you got us wrong and we ran the halls with a strong hand and choke chains which we would wrap around our fists as we beat a bitch down.
Eventually we came under the attention of a program which was ran by an old militant black man who had multiple sclerosis. Everyone called him Cave Man but to us he was a miracle. He brought in revolutionaries and children old freedom fighters and they told us of our glory and it seemed to meld with what my mother had told me as a child.
For the first time in many years I left the projects... I mean mentally.
I also left physically, these people had connections, they taught us African dance and Karate, meditation and physics.
They took us on trips to great monuments and told us their true origins. The lies of the society that we lived in.
We spoke in front of city council meetings and in the governors office about life in the ghetto and soon the program that caveman had grew to include even more projects.
There was a lot of tension but Caveman kept us from killing each other and we learned.
It was at this time that I came into contact with the Nation of Islam and some people from the islands called the Rastafarians.
These brothers were more militant than anyone that I had ever seen before and they wore their black with much pride... They told me of Hannibal and Shaka Zulu, they gave me book which broke down the Bible and Quran and the system that we live under.
I began to realize that something had to be done and I started to study in earnest.
One day woke up and something hit me. I was about nineteen at this time and I had been hearing a story about a white man who rode through the neighborhood and lured young boys into his car, he would entice them with candy and money and friendship and eventually he would have sex with them.
For weeks this story had resonated in me and I knew that something had to be done.
I started to watch the man.
I learned his route and one day I put my plan into action.
I put on a tight t shirt and some jeans and started to walk his route, I knew that I would run into him, creature of habit was he.
I walked a couple of block before I looked around and saw his car at the corner behind me.
I heard it as it pulled up and he looked at me and said "You want a ride?"
I said that I was not going far but he said "Don't worry I will take you there."
I walked to his car and climbed in he drove away.
He asked me where I was going and I gave him some story about being mad at my girlfriend.
He asked me if I wanted to drink some beer with him. Smoke some weed.
I acted like I was thinking and then I said "Sure."
I asked him where we were going to go and he told me that he knew somewhere we could pull and drink and talk. I said okay and he drove to the place. It was behind a city pool and since it was fall it was closed. it was in the city but it was pretty secluded and he pulled in and started to talk to me. I pretended to sip at the beer and I really pulled the joint. I had been smoking for some time by then.
I guess he thought I was tipsy then and he tried to touch my thigh.
It was at this time that I pulled the gun from my waistband and put it between his eyes and pulled the trigger. His brains splattered across the door frame and out of the window. I pulled the typewritten note from my pocket which explained what had transpired here and threw it on him and wiped the car down.
I walked away as if nothing had happened.
He was the first man that I killed but he would not be the last.
