MR. PERFECT Ch.1

Fatherhood, family, faith, and unconditional love, are some of the many things I prayed

for as a child. I remember it like it was last night, because even last night, I prayed for

those blessings. I knew the odds would be against me at a very early age. So I began

praying for those things like my life depended on it, because it did. My story is nothing

new. In fact, it’s so common that it has become normal to meet a young black man, who

was raised in a broken home, absent father, poor, hungry, and willing to do the

unthinkable, just to be able to have the basics in life.


I watched my dreams materialize like God had a copy of my prayers in his back pocket.

And I watched my blessings evaporate before my eyes like a raindrop in the desert. I was

sent to prison for drugs and guns in 1999. After sitting in the county jail for almost a year,

I rarely got a chance to see my children. And when I did, it was from behind a thick glass.

In prison you can have limited physical contact. My children were much too young to

understand what was going on. I was so glad to have them all from one woman.





When she brought them to see me, my oldest daughter, D’asia, was about 5 years old. She

was a daddy’s girl and I was her world. We had a great visit and I was so happy to see

Natalie and my children. And for a brief moment, I almost forgot that I was in prison. Up

until the moment that the visitation was over and D’asia, not understanding that I could

not leave and go home with them, grabbed my hand and said, “come on daddy, let’s go”,

as if I could just walk out of prison.

The guard made a gesture that made D’asia realize that I wouldn’t be leaving with her. He must have

seen the look of confusion and utter helplessness on her face so he reached out

to comfort her. And as he stretched his arms out, she began to swing, kick, and fight this

man with every bit of baby energy she could summon at that moment. Erionna stood there

watching even more confused than D’asia because she was only 2 years old. Eric Jr. had

just turned 1 and as his mother sat there and held him in her arms with tears in her eyes, I

felt a pain in my heart that I had never felt in my entire life.


On the streets, I was a ruthless, heartless, thug. I pistol whipped grown men until they

passed out over petty sums of cash. I carjacked helpless women because their boyfriend

owed me money. Rode around with kilos of cocaine in the seat next to me, with a pistol,

and smoking weed like it was legal. Even shooting my childhood friend for setting me up

to be robbed didn’t faze me or evoke this type of heartache.

I couldn’t cry though. As bad as I wanted to, I just couldn’t. It wouldn’t come out. It was

like a child accepting his punishment for doing something wrong. Besides, who was I,

after all the wrong I had done, to think that my life could become perfect?


A wise man once said that no matter how much we change, we still have to pay for the

transgressions of our past. And with that being said, it remains a mystery of why the

mercy of God has such a great effect upon my life. I never felt that I was invincible or

possessed any super powers to speak of. However, I did know that I had I secret weapon

that was more powerful than anything on the face of this earth. Her name is Angela. She’s

my aunt. The most faithful, God Fearing woman I have ever known and she raised me in

the church. She wasn’t much older than me and she took care of me like I came from her

womb. We were so close and I loved her so much that I got jealous when she married to

my uncle Ted. I remember being 2 or 3 years old and taking baths with her at night before bed. She has always been a true soldier for the Lord Jesus. And the bible says that, “The

prayers of the righteous availeth much”. And the only way I can explain the many times

that I have escaped certain death and prison, is because I know that she keeps me in her

prayers to this very day.

September 24, 1994. It was the year I should have been graduating high school and

beginning my freshman year in college. Instead, I was 18 years old and already a 5-year

veteran in the dope game. I had money, several cars with rims, clothes for days, and a

girlfriend for everyday of the week. Natalie and I had been dating for 3 years and she was

my main lady. But there was one young lady by the name of Toshia that attended the high

school across town that I just had to have. I was greedy when it came to beautiful women

with long hair and big round butts. And when it came to looks, I just couldn’t choose

between her and Natalie, but Natalie had my heart. I’d just met Toshia recently and I

pulled her by being real sweet to her and spending that dope money. I would pull up to

pick her up from school in my whip with a dozen roses and candy on the passenger seat.

And it wasn’t even Valentine’s Day. I was cake’n hard and eventually convinced her to

take a trip out of town with me. I told her we were going to St. Petersburg to see my

cousin Rip about opening a carwash down there. The truth was, I was going to pick up

some dope and I figured it would be a good chance for us to get away over night and get

my shipment at the same time. She told her mom that she was going to spend the night

with a friend from her school and her mom said o.k. I got my next door neighbor to get

me a rental car from Budget because I was too young. She was the mother of my best

friend and a veteran correctional officer at the local prison. She was super cool though

and always looked out for me like a mother. I grabbed my lil cousin B1 and the 3 of us hit Interstate 75 that afternoon. We got a room in Tampa and chilled that night. I had never

got the chance to hit Toshia, so I let lil cuz hold the rental for a few hours while her and I

did a lot of passionate grinding and kissing. We started out touching. And then I started to

slowly kiss her on her lips while rubbing the back of her neck. She moaned and kissed me

back as I went down lower with those soft, wet, slow, kisses. I got down to her naval and

she sounded as if she was about to scream with anticipation. I sucked and tongued my

way down to her inner thigh as she slowly opened her legs. I pulled her lace thongs to the

side to give her the business…….. and she stopped me just in the nick of time and said,

”wait”!!! I wanted it so bad, and so did she. I know because her thongs were soaked. She

pulled me up to her and kissed me again and told me that she wanted to wait because she

was a virgin. And being the gentleman that I was, I had to respect that.

So we kissed and spooned and fell asleep until cuz came back with the rental. The next

morning we woke up and drove across the bridge to the Burg to get that work. I mean see

about the carwash…. We met up with Rip but he didn’t have it so we had to cop from

another connect. After we got the work and got back on the interstate to head back to

Gainesville, I decided to let her drive and we switched drivers at one of the rest areas. On

the reentry ramp she merged to the left lane and ran off of the road a little as a semi truck

shot past us. It wasn’t too bad but I jokingly told everyone to buckle up because she

seemed to be kind of reckless. We picked up speed and began to cruise at about 80 mph.

The radio was playing something lame so I changed the station. She slapped my hand and

took her eyes off of the road and again ran off of the road median of the left lane. By the

time she looked up again from the radio, half of car was off of the road and she snatched

the steering wheel as hard as she can to the right…… The car started to slide sideways while headed directly towards a 20 foot embankment. I looked up to the right as I sat

helplessly in the passenger seat, and all I saw was a huge red semi truck headed directly

towards my door. It was a gas tanker truck hauling fuel. I tried to grab the wheel but it

was too late. All I could do was close my eyes and pray.

The impact threw us into a violent spin and we flipped off and over the embankment at

80mph. The car flipped over 10 times and landed in the woods. The gas tanker truck

flipped over also and landed not far from us in the woods. We were upside down when it

finally stopped and I looked over at Toshia. Her limp body seemed lifeless as it dangled

in the safety belt. I was stuck in my safety belt as well, but I as I turned to see about lil

cuz in the back seat, he wasn’t there. He had been ejected out of the car at the top of the

embankment when we started to roll. I was surprisingly calm under the circumstances.

The car was nothing more than a crushed soda can. I could barely move, but I managed to

release my seat belt and crawl out of the passenger side window. The opening was so

small that I could feel the glass ripping at my flesh as I squeezed my body through the

tight passage out of the car. I didn’t see the gas tanker truck because the woods were so

thick. But as I limped around to the other side of the car to help Toshia get out, I looked

up the steep embankment and saw cuz standing up yelling out to me ,”to come on, the

truck is gonna blow up,”!!! I yelled back,”man come help me get the girl out the car,”!!!

He yells back to me,”cuz leave that ho,”!!!! Because apparently he could see the semi

truck had also flipped and thought it was going to blow up at any second. But I just

couldn’t leave her like that. I crawled back into the car and began to take her seat belt off

, when she began to come to! After a few seconds she was free and I was pulling her out.

Amazingly, she was beginning to fight against me to go back into the car and I ask what she was doing? And she says,” I need to get my purse,”. When we made it up the

embankment where lil cuz was at, he had a gash in his knee about 6 inches across and 1

inch deep. I took my shirt off and wrapped it around his leg. Cars began to pull over and

help us. Toshia had a broken arm and I suffered only a few minor scratches. By the grace

of God, most of our injuries were minor compared to the driver of the gas tanker truck.

The entire skin from his forehead got pealed back to the very back of his head. He lost his

right eye and the hearing in his right ear. The interstate was shut down from Ocala to

Tampa and he was airlifted on a life-flight to a hospital in Tampa barely clinging to life.

And the police found the dope. A week later the state trooper called us to come down and

get our belongings that were left in the rental car. I went alone with my mother and

Toshia went with her mother. When I got to the impound and seen the car, it sent a chill

down my body. It was crushed on every side like an aluminum can. I know that God

protected me. The state trooper said that we flipped 7 or 8 times. I didn’t have a seatbelt

on and I had the dope under my seat. I was almost certain that the DEA was going to be

there to arrest me for the dope. The state trooper opened his trunk and put a clear plastic

freezer bag on top of the hood. “Do you know anything about this”? I put my face real

close to the huge bag of crack he was holding and pointing at. “That’s looks likes drugs

sir”!!! I could have been nominated for an academy award for that performance. The

state trooper replied, “that’s crack”. It was 5 ounces of straight drop crack cocaine. A dark

tan. We called it butt naked because it made the crack heads take off all their clothes and

run through the streets butt naked when they hit it. I gave him a puzzled look. And said,

“That’s crack? Sorry sir, but none of us around here smoke crack. We say no to drugs”.

He looked at me with a ,nigga please face and said they found it under the seat on the passenger side

where I was sitting at. But I stuck to my story. “Sir, we had about 10 to 12

people in an out of the car that day. I’m not sure who could have left it in there”. He said

that the DEA was investigating and would be in touch with me. I was 17 years old. I had

been selling dope for the past 4 years and I didn’t have any charges on my record. When

he let us go, I knew that it was over with. And I was right. The only thing I ended up in

court for was all the lawsuits that the gas truck companies and the rental car companies

had against one another. Other than that, the police never questioned me again about the

drugs found in the car. However, I did find out that my name was put on the radar for the

feds.