Category: Erik’s Book list

welcome back. Last chapter we were discussing my middle school and I was bringing us to the point where one set of aunt and uncles no longer wanted the responsibility of me and my sisters. Really, they didn’t want the responsibility of me. Since I was no longer going to be at boarding school, I was going to be living at home. It was mutual, I couldn’t stand them and they couldn’t stand me. I couldn’t have been happier to never have to go and be in their existence again when I was leaving. So we literally went seven miles across the street to my other aunt and uncle’s house, my mom’s side of the family. During the summer, it was different. There was no school, so the environment at my new aunt and uncle’s house was really relaxed, there were no responsibilities. I had my basketball and I had football. I was a year older, remember, I repeated sixth grade, I was able to be on the varsity football team because of my size and my athletic ability. 

At the time through eighth grade, I was on three different basketball teams. I was with the school, AAU, then a city team. So me and my buddy, who used to live in the dorm with me, were literally traveling every day and every night. If we weren’t at school practice, we’d be at a different practice. If we weren’t at that practice, we’d be at a different practice. So we were all over. That summer, it was mostly just AAU, we would travel around California basically, The furthest we traveled was to Las Vegas to play basketball.

When I came back from Vegas, it was time to start school. When school something was brand new. They weren’t as sport-oriented as my middle school. When I asked, “Why am I taking a foreign language?” They were like, “Because you have to.” And I was like, “Well, I’ve never taken a foreign language before. I don’t want to.” They’re like, “You have to take a foreign language.” As long as I could play sports in middle school, why did I need a foreign language? I was athlete of the year. 

Well, being an athlete and only thinking that sports mattered affected my life in a negative way. Through middle school, anything I wanted, I got. It did not matter. I was this statistic in the grade and I was an athlete. I was always in trouble, but I always got out of it somehow. 

for three years, I was the master of my own destiny. I lived in a dorm, didn’t have parents. It was weird living at home every night. In the dorm, you have dorm parents, but it’s different. They’re not your parents. They’re not your guardians. They’re just kind of like a glorified babysitter.

But when I moved in with my aunt and uncle, then it was less structure, more rules, if that makes any sense. So the structure was completely different. I mean, I could go to the refrigerator when I wanted to. I could do whatever I wanted, but more rules as, “no, Erik, you don’t get to decide what you want”. 

Physics. So now I’m taking a foreign language, never had to take a foreign language, got introduced to marijuana over the summer. Well, not really the summer. Yeah, it was about the summer, end eighth grade, early summer. When I first started, I was probably really stupid and slow. So physics was not making any sense to me. Mind you, I would smoke right before physics class. 

All the other kids of color. They didn’t consider us smart enough to learn physics as freshmen. got to drop physics for the first year, they could take it later. It was too advanced for us. So I’m like, “Yeah, it’s too advanced. It’s too advanced.” I wanted a study hall.

Study my ass off on something I had no interest in, or go smoke and have a study hall, which one would you choose? Obviously, smoke, study hall. My family was not going for that. They disagreed with physics being too difficult for me. They took the stance of “Erik, you have to at least put in some energy. If you never pick up the book and you never open it, yes, physics is going to be difficult. But we’re not going to let you give up”. And I’m like, “I can’t do it.” They’re like, “Open the book.” I’m like, “That’s an awful idea, but no, I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”

Three years before, the other family, they would have been like, “Yeah, he’s just not smart enough. He can’t do it.” And they would’ve given me a study hall. Would have been easy. Well, this new family, they told me straight out. They said, “Erik, if you do not give 100% effort and show us that you are trying, we’re going to make you take that F. And then you can drop out of that class.”

I’m going to say that again. I didn’t believe them. I did not believe them because it was not up to the school. It was my family who made this decision. The school would have dropped me. My family was like, “No, you will take this F. And this F will follow you forever, this is a decision that you’re making.” Talk about being a kid to being an adult fast.

Now, of course, what do you think I did? I took the F. Well, by taking that F, my family took me off of football. This was the first semester, all the way up until Christmas, this was an argument, so midway through basketball season. Now, they took me off the football team, but they told me they will not take me off of basketball. They will let the school do that.

Now, I wasn’t paying attention. I literally still thought that I could get out of everything. But when I took that F, I was like, “Man, fuck.” So what did that F mean? That meant that now I was on academic suspension for playing basketball. I didn’t know that was really going to affect everything. I could get back on the basketball team, but that means that I would have to increase my grades and show everybody that I was trying.

That was the end of the year. Come January, I had a new perspective. They took me off the team. I was like, “All right, I’m going to start putting more energy into this to try to get my grades up so at least I can maybe play spring sports and get myself ready for next football season.” The cutoff for fall sports was coming up. I mean, it wasn’t like next year is a new year. You could be on academic suspension for more than a season, if you never changed your grades. So that was kind of a wake-up call because they took the one thing that for years, that’s the only thing that schools cared about is that I could play sports. Now I’m in a new school and they don’t care. They literally ripped the sports away from me and said, “Sorry.”

Remember, middle school Harker and my uncle I was living with at the time was very frustrated with the school. He had been dealing with the owners of the school on a personal basis for three years, and it felt like a slap in the face when they just had some random secretary call and say I didn’t get into the high school. All right. So fast forward to the fall. I ended up going to a dance back at the old school. And the dean of the high school, which was my basketball coach, basically seventh and eighth grade. And he was my math teacher in sixth grade. He’s watched me grow up and he had been my coach. The relationship that a young athlete and their coach has is a close relationship. It’s kind of like a father figure.

He said, “Why are you not home? Why aren’t you here?” This is the dean of the high school. I told him, “I didn’t get accepted.” He looked at me like I was just crazy. And he was like, “What do you mean you didn’t get accepted? I’m the dean. How did you not get accepted? I would have seen this.” I was like, “I don’t know. I didn’t get accepted.” that really affected me because it’s like, well, what the fuck? What do you mean? The dean of the high school, my old basketball coach, is asking me why I’m not going to this school. I’m telling him I didn’t get accepted, and he’s looking at me like I’m crazy.

The next day, I was talking to my aunt. Mind you, I wasn’t at the family that I’d been living with for three years. This is the new family. This is my mom’s side of the family. Well, I told her the story about the encounter I had with my basketball coach and now the dean of the high school. And she told me, “Oh yeah,” and she said this nonchalant like it was like everyday news. She’s like, “Yeah, the school wanted your uncle to donate a lot of vans and your uncle said he wasn’t going to do it. And so, you didn’t get accepted.”

I’m going to say that one more time. The response was the school wanted to bribe my family in order for me to go to school. But my uncle did not accept the bribe, so the school did not accept me. So when my uncle on my dad’s side of the family got the phone call and was like, “Well, that’s weird. I’ve been talking to the owners of a school for years. Why are they just basically brushing me off like I’m a nobody?” Well, because the owners of the school had been negotiating with my other uncle as well, the entire time. And when he shut the money off, they kicked me out.

So let’s go back to sixth grade when I was like, “How did I end up going to Japan?” Because my family paid for me to go to Japan. And they probably paid for the only other black person, because I told my uncle I wanted him to go too. That is a very important thing for y’all to remember, because my family has done this on more than one occasion when I was older. They all tend to manipulate situations through finance. When you have something that other people want, you can kind of dictate a situation more than you should be able to.

I mean, years later, I have extreme trust issues with everything nothing in my life has been what it seems. There’s always something being a puppet master. something as large not accepted into a school because my uncle didn’t want to donate cars, that’s below shitty. But whatever, abandonment again.

All right, move forward. Now, during this time, this large argument with my mom’s side of the family over physics, caused a strain on the relationship, obviously. So during this time of the argument with my family, they had three little kids. They would fly to Utah, we were in the Bay Area, California. They would fly to Utah because their kids were on the ski team. So every weekend, they’d fly out to Utah. They were little kids, so it was okay for them to miss school. And they were way more advanced, so it was fine.

My grades were terrible, so they were like, “Uh-uh (negative), you’re not going, Mr. you want to fight us over physics. You’re not getting any perks.” So I wasn’t going. Well, since I wasn’t going, they had to send me somewhere. So at this point in time, during the week, I’d be with this family. During the weekend, I’d be back at my other aunt and uncle that didn’t really want me there, and I sure as hell did not want to be there. I was basically living in a divorced family’s house because on the week I’d be at one house and, on the weekend I’d be at a different house, switching back and forth. My sister was a senior at the time and I was a freshman. 

So February, Super Bowl Sunday, I’m at my aunt and uncle’s house, my dad’s side, the ones that I didn’t particularly like. So I’m bored. I am extremely bored. By this time I’d been smoking a little bit of weed. I had some weed, while waiting for the Super Bowl, I was like, “You know what?” I mean, I was such an idiot. But at my mom’s side of the family, I could hide somewhere on the property, smoke, and change my clothes, wash my face, and no one would know. But at my dad’s side of the family, I couldn’t go on a walk unless I had permission. And then when I came back, it was more like a Nazi camp. I had eyes on me at all times. I couldn’t do anything. So the night before, I was taking a shower and I smoked a bowl in the bathroom and nothing happened. There were people walking in the hallway and nothing happened. So I was like, “Okay, okay, well, I can smoke in the bathroom.” Not a smart idea. “I’m going to smoke a quick bowl and then come back down, play some video games and wait for the Super Bowl.”

I go upstairs to the bathroom, I pack my bowl, and smoke a little bit. out of nowhere, bam, bam, bam knocking on our door. I open it, and I’m a“deer in the headlights”. My uncle said, “Give it to me.”I almost had a heart attack. He scared the shit out of me, I was too high to process anything.

I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I do remember he called the police, they weren’t going to take me to jail, but the police offered this place. I remember they were talking. I was grounded as usual, stuck in my room. they called every member of the family, like I had just murdered somebody. This is just marijuana. I know, it’s crazy. Marijuana is legal and used for post-traumatic distress syndrome, it’s good for you.

They called the police, told everybody in the family, police gave them this idea for troubled teens. And then when my uncle on my mom’s side came, he picked me up because they were getting back that night. My sister had already gone home, but I had to wait. My uncle picked me up by myself.

You would think he’d be yelling, screaming and all this kind of good stuff, he didn’t. We went home and he said nothing. He brought me into the room and he started crying. And I mean, this is my uncle. This is the person I’ve been looking up to. And I would have never thought that he would cry at all. And he said, “Erik, you don’t know what you’re doing. You are throwing your life away. And there’s nothing we can do about it.”

That affected me more than anything. It would have been easier if he had just yelled and screamed at me, but that tactic, I was not ready for that. not much I could do either. So the next day at school, everybody knew. I was kind of popular now in a weird way because everyone was asking me what happened.

Don’t forget, my sister was a senior. I was a freshman. So even seniors were coming up. And also at that time, it was really difficult for me because I played varsity football. So all my friends were juniors and seniors, but I was a freshman. I knew a lot of people in my freshmen class, but I wasn’t really close to any of them. Plus they were all a year younger than me. So the natural age group I was, was a sophomore. So all my friend group were sophomore, juniors and seniors to where those people, they’re more advanced. They’re older kids and I was an older kid. I was turning 16 in my freshman year. I was in the age group of the grade above me. It was just more natural I hung out with them.

Wednesday, February 2nd, I remember that day very well, I was getting in an argument with my best friend at the time. At the time, we were young entrepreneurs. So we were trying to figure out how we were going to make a little bit of money. Now, of course I was in trouble at home, but I figured it would be in a couple of weeks and everything will go back to normal and whatever. As long as I could get my grades back up, by summer time, this would be in a distant memory. So back to business as normal.

My friend and I were embarking on a new business venture “mushrooms”. We wanted to see if there was a market to make some money. He knew where we could get them for cheaper, and then we would try to flip them. So we were in a heated argument about who knows, because it’s not like we’re arguing about lots and lots of money. We were probably arguing over about $50 worth of mushrooms or something, not very much. I don’t remember exactly what the argument was about, but we were arguing. That was the last time we would talk for years.

So what happened? There’s two places you can be picked up. You get picked up at the back or in the front. It was typical for me to meet my sister in the back. This was my sister’s first day of work. She was working at Starbucks. During football season my aunt would pick me up from the back as well.

A weird thing happened. I was called to the front of the school, “Your uncle’s here to pick you up.” I was like, “My uncle? Why would my uncle come and pick me up?” I had no idea why he was picking me up. This was probably the first time ever he stopped doing what he was doing, stopped working, and came to pick me up from school. I knew something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t connect the dots.

So I get in the car and we’re driving, he’s in a good, cheery mood. So I’m almost like, “Yeah, this was faster than I thought! A couple days and he’s already over it? Alright. This is easy.” We pull into the gate, there’s no cars, so I can’t tell what’s about to happen. I go in. I’m about to drop my backpack off and I kind of turned the corner a little bit and my aunt is like, “Erik, come here.”

When I turn the corner, I look in the room and both sides of the family, mom’s side and dad’s side of uncles are sitting down and they’re like, “Erik, sit down. We have something to talk to you about.” Now that brings us to the next chapter. 

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Welcome back, where did we end? We ended with mom coming out of the hospital and rejoining the family at home . My mom is having to walk with a cane, not doing superb. She’s doing very well at all. But then we got word that her mom had died. My grandmother had been sick. She had cancer, leukemia I think, I don’t remember what kind of cancer, her dying, wasn’t random, but it also wasn’t the best timing. All right.

It was less than a month after my dad died, then my grandmother died.  we had to go to Ohio, I don’t really remember how we got there. I just remember we got there. And, once in Ohio, that’s where my mom was from, a little itty-bitty town in Ohio. That was kind of cool. I mean, mind the funeral and everything, as I learned how to play chess, I also learned how to tie a tie. 

Back to Asheville I Was in 5th grade, I don’t remember very much. Well, I don’t want to foreshadow too much. But before middle school, life after my dad died was different. My mom changed, she wasn’t… I mean, mind you she was… If you remember, she was always kind of high strung a little bit and she was more the loud and yelling one, and my dad was more the relax, calm down.

But after my dad was gone, my mom, towards me, she changed. not in a negative way, more in like, “Erik, life’s about to get fucked.” Right. “So, I need to teach you everything that you need to know to survive.” I don’t think she trusted much of anything and she was taking a handful of pills everyday just to stay alive. I think she knew that she was going to die soon, or life was never going to be the same as it was before my dad died.

After we got back from my grandmother dying, things went back to “normal”. back to school, all that kind of good stuff. like I said, my mom changed. what she was teaching me, (she was alone, you would think that people would be really supportive, right?) But most people turned their back on my mom, or not just my mom, on us. 

My dad was a doctor and had just opened a practice (partnership). They didn’t want to help my dad died too fast, So it would bring up the insurance premiums for all the other doctors. So they were against the million dollar payout or whatever it was to my mom, because they said my dad hadn’t contributed enough to the practice. you learn, everyone wants to say, “Oh yeah, so sorry,” and everything, but once everyone’s tears dry, then that’s how they really act.

My mom became isolated so we became isolated. I could tell, but not tell she was really stressed. she would give me another… I would want to say fucked up life lesson, but it’s not a fucked up life lesson if the things she told me during this span of time, I still keep in my head. And I’m still alive, doing well for myself

She has three kids, one of her kids is black. When there’s a mom and a dad, when there’s two parents trying to raise a black, it’s a lot easier. When there’s just a female, there’s more snickering like, “What is she going to do with him?” all that other kind of crap. people’s true opinions come when people are in need. You would think that people would be more sympathetic, but that’s rarely ever the case. mom sensed this and I’m pretty sure she’s seen, my life was just about to go to fuck. Not even shit, it was about to go to fuck.

she told me how much money I had, she told me what was supposed to happen if she died. she opened up to me more than anyone else. At least, I would think she did because she told me things that my sisters are like, “What?” And I’m like, “She didn’t tell you this?” And they’re like, “No.” So that’s why I’m thinking she opened up towards me.

October comes, almost a year since my dad died. My mom got sick, remember she had to take a handful of pills every day. I’m in 6th grade, 6th grade was different. My teacher was my mom’s friend so I couldn’t get away with anything.  My sister was in 8th grade. all the 8th graders knew who I was because I was my sister’s little brother. So it was completely different, right. It was a different environment. But again, that changed rapidly come October. When we got home the ambulance was at the house, we went into my mom’s room, she’s crying and screaming, in excruciating pain. Like, “It won’t stop hurting. It won’t stop hurting.” they have to take her out on a stretcher. I was 11 at this time, so she had an 11 year old, a 13 year old and now a 15 year old. So they took her to the hospital and everything was kind of normal. I mean, she was just going to the hospital so I didn’t think anything too bad of it. I didn’t think any good of it either, but I didn’t think that was going to be the last time she was ever going to be home.

So we stayed at either my aunt and uncle’s house or my neighbor’s house those first couple of days. I think it was my neighbor’s house because they were just nMy sisters and I got an intercom call Thursday during school. The principal calls the Johnson kids to the office. She told us that we needed to go to the hospital, that something had changed and we needed to go to the hospital.

My middle sister lost it. She asked the question, “Is my mom going to die?” The principal told her, “No honey, she’s not going to die.” We just need to get you guys to the hospital. So they packed us up, and we went to the hospital and spent some time with my mom. By this time, they had attached the heart monitors so we could see her heart beating. She couldn’t really talk to us, but I knew it was important for us to be around. My family had been called, Her dad and her brothers, about 11 o’clock at night, they told us we could go home, she looked stable and they didn’t think anything was going to happen.

We went to my aunt and uncle’s house and we went to sleep. Around five o’clock in the morning, we were woken up and told we had to go to the hospital immediately, that something had changed and my mom needed us to be at the hospital. We went to the hospital and the first thing we saw was my next door neighbor. He was a doctor as well and he came out, crying. He said, “She’s not going to make it.” we were with her, holding her hand, my family arrived and we watched her go.

Now, my heart hurt so much at the time because everything that my mom was warning me was now coming true and I hated her for it. I hated her so much as she was leaving me. I couldn’t cry. I told myself you could save her if you just tell her that you love her and hold her hand and give her a kiss. I couldn’t do it. I watched my mom die, everything in my life changed the second she died.

Right after she died, war began, back at my house, my home a couple changes were happening.

My mom told me we were going, if anything were to happen and she died, we would be moving to California to be with her oldest brother, he was financially able to take care of us. Well, the State of North Carolina disagreed with that. They said that, yes, he is financially stable so we will give your estates to him to look over. But since you have family in the Carolinas, they will be responsible for your wellbeing. Since our house was bigger than my aunt and uncle’s, they moved into our house. So last night this was my house, tonight this is no longer my house. It looks the same, my bed’s in the same place, matter of fact, some of the food that was there yesterday is still there. But this is no longer my house, it was their house. No longer my rules, it was their rules. it does not matter your mom let me do this yesterday, those were her rules, these are our rules. See how that poses a problem? It was not fun. It was actually miserable. I felt it was worse than jail. I mean, I’ve been to jail a couple times, not for long or extended periods of time, but it was worse because every day was just miserable. Just being yelled at, all the time, being threatened with punishment on a daily basis it was just horrible. It was so miserable to this day I have nothing to do with that family and I never will. I do not want to hear anything about them, I don’t care. If they were on fire, I wouldn’t pee on them. That’s how much I do not care. It wasn’t just because of this small situation. This was the beginning years of straight shit.

It was a miserable living situation. Everything I was accustomed to my entire life changed in my own house, so I was no longer able to do anything that I was able to do before. All the music my mom bought me, they didn’t like so they confiscated it. Anything they did not like, even though I might have had it for years, they confiscated video games, confiscated… being locked in my room was a common thing. So that’s why I’m used to being stuck in a room. I was stuck in a room all the time, under their dictatorship.

After my mom died, school changed as well. They took me out of normal classes in the morning and gave me a personal tutor because “they said” I was too disruptive in class. They made me go to some kind of psychiatrist a little bit but that didn’t last very long because I didn’t want to talk to anybody (my thinking was and still is, can anyone bring my parents back? No! So why worry about things I cannot control? I have problems I can control best to focus on those things.) I just basically felt like my parents were on an extended vacation, maybe that wasn’t the best thing to do. But that’s what I did.

Remember, when my mom died the state said that the money can go to my uncle but we cannot. Well, the family that moved into our house had no money and no job. So we ended up moving to California anyways, so that my uncle that had the money and was able to take care of us and could give my other uncle a job he could take care of us. It would have been a world of difference if what my mom wanted happened. For this reason, that family (my moms brother) was more open and more advanced. Technologically advanced, socially advanced as well a different mindset. When you’re raised by the owner of a company or even the daughter of the owner of a company, it’s a different mentality as being raised by an employee of a company. Does that make sense? My mom came from a family of people that owned things. My dad came from a family of people that didn’t own anything. Two very different worlds. So when I was raised, my mom raised us, the only way she knew how. In the way of an owner, that type of way. Well when she died, the state thought it was more logical for us to go with a family that had nothing. Opposed to a family that was the same as my mom. The best way to put it, if we went with my mom’s side of the family, we wouldn’t have had to use our own money to survive. But with my dad’s side family, we had to use our own money for everything. The house we bought when we moved to California was 25% my house. The car was 25% mine. So basically everything was 25% mine. Part of the reason I have nothing to do with my dad’s side of the family is one day, in middle school, I don’t remember what year, it might have been in 7th grade. I repeated 6th grade. I was looking on a computer. I had to do something and I saw how much money my sisters were paying per month and how much money I was paying. Now mind you, I am at school, I’m not living at home, I live at boarding school. However I’m paying $500, my sisters are each paying $250, but I’m not even living in my own house, I’m living in a dorm. I’m living in a dorm but my sisters are paying half the amount that I’m paying. Is that fair? No. After I saw that, I truly lost all respect for this family. You’re robbing me blind, locking me in my room like a jail cell (in a house I am part owner) and there’s nothing I can do about it. I can do nothing about my own money.

When we first moved to California. I was told I would have to repeat 6th grade because my grades weren’t good enough, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I was like, “All right, whatever.” They first took me to this little rinky-dink middle school that was a Christian school, everyone there was like half my size. Coming from North Carolina and going to California was a culture shock to say the least. In Asheville at the time, there was like maybe one Asian family and I knew them, it was mostly just black and white. Then moving to California, I got to meet an Indian. Like not a Native American, like someone from India. I didn’t even know that half these countries even existed, but I got to meet a whole bunch of them because California was a little bit more diverse than Asheville was when I was growing up. I noticed they were all kind of small compared to me, they were a year behind but they were tiny, there shouldn’t be that big of a difference, but they were just little people.

I was at that school for a week, then one day I don’t know, my mom’s side of the family came with us and we were headed off to a different place. And, that other place was Harker and when I got there, I don’t remember if I left or what happened. I just remember once I got there, it was like, “Erik, you’re going to this school. What do you want to do?” I was like, “All right, yeah. This is great. I’ll take Japanese,” “Are you sure Erik?” “Yes, I am. Let’s do it.” yeah, not a very good idea. But this school, compared to the little rinky-dink that I was just at, the religious place, this was massive. It was immaculate. It was better than in North Carolina, I was in heaven, they had rows of basketball courts outside. They had soccer fields I mean, it was a beautiful piece of property. The catch was “You have to live here.” At the school. Weekdays in the dorm and weekends at home. “All right, whatever. I can do that. That’s not bad at all.” I was a bigger person so I had authority in the dorm. They left me alone. That’s where I learned to like waking up very early because when you’re in a dorm and there’s only a finite amount of water, I learned that if you’re the first person awake, you get the hot water. Not very many people spoke English. It was an ESL (english as a second language) boarding school so almost everybody was from Asia. There was one white kid, but he was from Russia.

That first year living in the dorm was an experience. Everybody was brand new, no one spoke English. And the culture, coming from North Carolina to basically living in little Asia was very different. It was fascinating, learning about the food and culture. Remember I was trying to take Japanese which was stupid. I didn’t do well at all. I got like a 6% or 13%, something like that.

Eric Johnson:

However, the school was going to Japan. They were opening up, with a sister school Tamagawa, an exchange program. So for 16 days you could go to Japan and then the Japanese kid would come and live with you for a little bit. That sounds awesome. So at this point in time, I was known as a statistic. So there’s white privilege but then there’s also black privilege.Black privilege is when a white school has one black kid, they want to include the black kid in as many things as possible so then it raises the numbers, and gives great opportunity for pictures.

If they had just sent all of one nationality to Japan, then we’re not a very diverse school. But if you were to send the two black people that were in the grade, oh wow, now we’re a very diverse school. Now, you can believe that if you want… That had a lot to do with it. The other part had a lot to do with my uncle. I wanted to go, for someone that’s failing at Japanese, going to Japan makes perfect sense, right? How much did it cost my family? How much did it cost me? In all actuality, who knows? But the reason I say that is because what happened at the end of the Harker story.

I am in detention every other week, the rules in California were much stricter than they were in North Carolina. In North Carolina we had known each other since we were kids. He had been with each other for the last, what? Maybe five years? 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, 6th grade. Yeah, five years we had known each other. We had grown up together, there was only 36 kids in my grade, so we all really knew each other very well, we didn’t snitch on each other. It was kind of us versus the teachers more or less. But in California, the other students were not as loyal. if I were to do something, then they immediately would go tell on me, and then detention. this one kid he was a little brat, we were in dance class, he was being an asshole. so I stepped on his foot, he went and told on me. Detention. Like what the fuck dude? You little cry baby. So everything that I did, I was always in trouble, I never could get away with anything. If I looked at somebody wrong, detention.

Now the other black kid, he was the smart one. He was trying to take French and could always articulate his words and he was the nerdy one. I was more of the troublemaker and he was the nerdy one. But turns out, we ended up both being in the dorm. So his family had gone through a divorce or something like that and so the best place for him was living in the dorm. He didn’t have anywhere else to go. So he had joined me in the dorm. We ended up becoming more than friends, it was more like we were brothers because when you literally spend that much time with somebody, they’re your brother. we basically lived together.

We woke up at five o’clock in the morning together, so we could both hog all the hot water. And then, we would go eat together, eat our breakfast because when you’re the first people there, the food is hot. You get to choose, It’s the best food when you’re the first one there. And then we’d go back and we’d get to do whatever we wanted to do until school, play basketball or anything, go to school early. So we did that basically for two and a half years because I think he moved in halfway through our 6th grade year, or it could’ve been the beginning of 7th grade, whatever. And we were the only two black kids in our grade, so naturally we became best friends.

Japan was awesome. Well, I was 13. For a 13 year old, it was amazing. I have absolutely no reason why I haven’t gone as an adult, I just haven’t gotten on an airplane and gone. But when I was a kid, it was just amazing to see the technology they had compared to America. They were just so much more technologically advanced than we were. And then, learning the culture and then going to their school and seeing the discipline. Like us in America, we had basketball practice after school. this is middle school, this isn’t like high school. These kids had to be at school at five in the morning. They had to be up and ready, not just up, up and ready at five o’clock in the gym practicing before school. 

I mean, it was cool and we got to travel around Japan, taking pictures and seeing the temples and all that kind of good stuff before we went to the school. But when we went to the schools, just seeing the way they learned was completely different. So that was fun. During 6th grade, we also went to Yosemite National Park, again. The outcasts. the outcasts = the black kids and the fat kid. Everyone else had little cliques and everything. Well me and my buddy, we had our clique and then the fat guy, he was on his own so he roomed with us.

they gave us little cabins, it was three per cabin. We ended up shutting the whole thing down because we had a party over at our house. I don’t know how we did this, but we ended up getting in trouble. Not like in serious trouble, just probably a couple hours of detention. Couple more hours of detention for causing trouble.

In 6th grade, they allowed me to drop a foreign language. So after Japanese, I never had to learn anything, I got a study hall. So education never was really important to me. No one ever told me that I needed to learn. It was always, how do I figure out how I don’t have to do something? Or, in the easy class. So they would put me in all the easy classes. They would put me in study halls as long as I could play sports, that’s all they cared. Every year I was there, I was at risk of being kicked out.

I remember one time they were having… My uncle was there, it’s funny that he’d come for that but no one ever had time to watch me play sports. That’s crazy. I didn’t think about that. Yeah, I just thought about that. That’s fucked up. You couldn’t come and watch me play, but you could come and talk to the school. Well, it doesn’t matter. I was playing football or something, in the meeting, they’re talking about me being expelled for behavioral problems. in the middle of the game, I’m sweating, dripping sweat everywhere, they call me into the office and they sit me down and they’re like, “How many points have you scored?” “I’ve scored two touchdowns man, and I’m out there destroying.” They’re like, “All right Mr Johnson,” this is home. And I was allowed to stay, as long as I could play sports I could stay. It makes sense, they were opening a high school.

In 7th grade, where did we go in 7th grade? We went to Alabama, Space Camp. Now Space Camp, I do not know exactly what happened but yeah, we all got in trouble, like all of us. My whole crew, we basically made the staff cry. Like we were just terrible. I don’t even remember what we did, I just know that… I didn’t go home. I didn’t go back with the class, I went to North Carolina after. But it was told that when we all got back, the entire school was not very happy with me and my crew which… I don’t remember exactly what we did. But not very friendly, we didn’t win very many friends.

I went back to North Carolina for some memorial for my parents. There were so many people meeting us, so many people I didn’t even know, celebrating my parents. That was the last time I saw Asheville for years. So 7th grade, living in the dorm, I went home less and less every time I went home, I got in trouble.

My Uncle found a porno under the bed and I’m all hell broke loose. I was grounded for the entire summer, not allowed to leave my room for the entire summer, that was fun. The only thing I was allowed to do that summer was sit in a room, if I wanted to earn TV time or earn time out of the room then I’d have to read books. Well that would be great but then they’d give me a book, I read it and I read it so fast then they told me I was lying, that I didn’t read it. So then I read it and had to write a paper, so I read it, wrote a paper and they still thought I was lying and cheating.

Going home was miserable and towards the end I never wanted to go home. I never wanted to go home. No matter what happened, it was always my fault. I remember this one time I had just got home, literally just got home. Hadn’t gone to the bathroom, anything. Hadn’t been home for more than 30 minutes. My uncle comes yelling and screaming at me. He’s like, “There’s piss on the toilet seat.” I’m like, “I haven’t…” Like, “Why are you telling me?” “I know it was you.” “I haven’t even gone to the bathroom. It’s impossible for it to be me.” Now I was a liar, all this shit all over pee on the toilet seat that… I hadn’t even gone to the bathroom but I’m getting berated. Just, “You’re a liar. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And, “You’re grounded now.” So here I am, back in trouble over something I didn’t even do.

I liked Skittles when I was growing up, here’s another example of just get grounded, be trapped in a room. Just get home from school, mind you I was only in this house two days out of the week, all right? So two days, the rest of the time I was at school. Two days out of the week. I come home on Friday. Hadn’t even been home. Skittles are in… Mind you, there were little kids living in this house. There’s my two older sisters and then my two little cousins. Little kids in this house. And there’s a Skittle in a printer. “Eric, I told you no Skittles by the computer,” blah, blah, blah. I’m like, “I didn’t.” “You like Skittles, so I know it was you.” I’m like, “Was not me, and yes I do like Skittles, but it was not me.” Whatever. “Get to your room, you’re grounded.” Locked back in the room.

When I was younger he used to try to show dominance by grasping hold of me and things. But then 7th grade all that stopped because one time he was trying to show dominance and it didn’t work and I flipped him. So after that point he was a little less aggressive towards me because I would’ve fucked him up. Those times were terrible, it got to a point, in 8th grade, I don’t think I even went home. I had no desire to be around any of those people.

In 8th grade, we went to D.C. for our spring school trip. We came back from D.C. my uncle picked me up. He was frustrated, pissed off. And he was like, “After all these years talking with these people, I got a phone call from somebody I don’t even know telling me that you did not get accepted,” in the 9th grade. And he was pissed about this and he was like, “I have known the owners of this school for three years on a personal level, And now I can’t get them on the telephone, no explanation.” I didn’t find out until later why that was. There was a reason. 

During 8th grade, they had just opened up the high school. That entire year they’re giving me jerseys, they’re giving me stuff. Anyways, they were taking me to sporting events. One of the dorm parents was one of the football coaches. The athletic director, he was all about it. It’s illegal to recruit, so they were more or less recruiting by giving me free shit and taking me to the games and by doing all that. Once they didn’t accept me, I actually had a meeting with the athletic director he was like, ” you know that we weren’t promising that you were going to come here. I just want you to make sure you know that,” just covering their ass, they were preparing me to go to the high school to play sports, but I didn’t end up going. 

During high school everything changed again, after 8th grade, I was no longer going to be living in a dorm. I was going to go home. Well the family I was living with, they were like, “Oh, fuck no.” And I was like, “Ah, this is going to be miserable.”. Because I already hated these people. I didn’t like them and they didn’t really like me, I distinctly remember my uncle telling me I don’t have to like you, you don’t have to like me we just have to live together. They were like, “We feel like we need some time as a family, we just can’t handle you guys anymore.”

So we move over to my mom’s side of the family and you’d be like, “Well wait a minute, I thought your mom’s family was supposed to get you in the beginning?” Yeah, they were. But my dad’s family wanted to milk us as much as they could before they sent us over to that family. Or milk me, I don’t know what they do with my sisters, but they wanted to milk me for as much as they could.

So then later, we get moved over to my aunt and uncle’s. Now, this was a completely different change. Wow, I mean I felt relaxed. It was more like I was back living at home. The rules were more familiar like living with my mom, the conversations were more like living with my mom, my aunt reminded me of my mom. So it was much better but then also much worse.

The next chapter we’ll discuss high school and all the fun and interesting things that happened in high school. Now remember this, I had repeated 6th grade so I’m a year behind my regular year. I ended up graduating high school six months before I was supposed to, I only did two and a half years of high school and graduated with a 3.3 something GPA, got accepted into the University of Seton Hall, but I didn’t end up going. But how did I do that? Tune in. And a lot of other shit happened, like… 

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Before I become unmotivated and decide I don’t want to do this, I’m going to start. today we’re going to talk about the Cayman Islands. So the reason I’m starting off in the Cayman islands, I’ll start when I’m nine. That very first vacation shaped the future of my life.

When I was nine years old, my mom’s birthday was January 5th. So Christmas, my dad would just make it like my mom’s birthday for us to travel, because we all had school off, my sisters and I, I have two older sisters, it was perfect. I wasn’t raised Christian, I was raised Baháʼí. We all got Christmas presents on Christmas just because it’s Christmas, but we also got presents in February, after my birthday. it was like my birthday, then it was presents, presents, presents, presents. I used to love that, that was awesome.

However, when I was nine, my dad surprised my mom for her birthday and he was going to take us all to the Cayman islands. Now I don’t remember how long it was. It seemed like a couple weeks, but it was probably just a week. That first trip, we had an amazing time. We’d had such a great time that my parents signed up for a timeshare in the Caymans. So that is something that they want to do on a regular basis, go down there. That’s how much fun we had. I don’t have very many stories from the first trip. This small, little story, it was at one nice restaurant and we ran out of money on the credit card. So we had to go back and go get cash, but that’s not really to the story.

So fast forward a year later. So that first year, if we had a horrible time, we probably wouldn’t have wanted to go back. My parents wouldn’t have bought into a timeshare. So we invested heavily into the Cayman islands. So again, the Caymans were going to be one of our yearly trips. We got our timeshare, and it was beautiful. upstairs, downstairs, a beautiful condo. It was two bedrooms. And then the downstairs, had a pull out couch. My parents had one bedroom, my sisters had the other room, and then I had downstairs. Which was cool because I had downstairs. I had the kitchen. I had TV. I had everything that I wanted. The bed wasn’t the most comfortable, but whatever.

The second year, it was great. The resort had like everything you can think of pools. It had different beaches you could go to, different activities that you could go to. So one thing that my mom would love to do is go snorkeling. Well, that’s one thing that we did first year, we went snorkeling and we fell in love with snorkeling. And then my mom and dad, I guess this is where I get it from, it was probably my mom because my mom rubbed off on me more, whenever she gets an idea, she’ll just go all the way in and not think, and not put the two feet in, and jump in. And not even put the foot in, and she’s jumping all the way in.

So that first year when we enjoyed… Now, wait a minute, what are we doing at home? So before the Cayman’s, we had just remodeled the entire house. My mom wanted a bigger kitchen. So we moved out. I forgot all about this. We’ll rewind a little bit. Because you have to realize, everything in life was going amazing. We had just remodeled our house. We added a sunroom. And my mom wanted to have a laundry room upstairs, because it was closer. we added a pool and then we added a little shed. This is what reminded me about the shed. After we went to the Cayman’s she loved snorkeling, we bought every piece of gear, for all five of us, known to man, known to snorkeling. If she thought it could help us, she bought it. So we’d have big duffel bags and we stored them out there. That’s what triggered that memory. And then, because everything switched right after, so I’m trying to think, what year did we start remodeling the house. So I’m guessing eight, nine years old is when we started remodeling the house. Why does the remodel of the house matter? Because at that point in time, my dad had been promoted, he was a doctor. my parents were about to shoot up in the economic world. This is the beginning of the internet] and my dad was all tech. So I guess my mom would jump into new things, and my dad was all interested in learning new things. At least that’s kind of what I remember, at least. Wow. Kind of going on a tangent.

The fact that we remodeled the house, we had just put a pool in, put a brand new room, remodeled the kitchen, and did everything on the house. So when you’re picturing a picturesque family, that’s what it was. I guess my mom had a temper, but other than that, my dad knew how to deal with it very well. He was very calm and slow, even with me, I have tempers too, he would always calm me down be like, “Erik, you have two choices in this situation.” He was always the mediator. if my mom was on a rampage, then he would pretty much just tell all the kids to go downstairs, “Mom’s just really mad,” and diffuse the entire situation. Now, which would piss my mom off sometimes. But it was a fun situation. My dad adored my mom. She was everything to him. 

After the first year, again, my mom was happy, so he was happy. we invested in going to The Cayman Islands a second year. The second year, we went snorkeling even more. My dad and my sister wanted to go scuba diving. Now, it’s something that I wanted to do as well. I was bigger than my sister, but when they told me that I wasn’t allowed to go scuba diving, it really frustrated me. With that frustration, I was very passive aggressive. No one seemed to pay attention to how pissed I was. So I was plotting and scheming, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re 10 years old. Right? So all day long I’m going with the suba people. I’m going with them to go swimming in the pool. my plan was, if they allowed me to do all the stuff, all the preparations, then hopefully there’ll be like, “Yeah, he’s good. He’s ready to go. He’s big enough.” And bypass my age. Mind you, to this point, I’ve never been scuba diving. So I’m still kind of frustrated about this situation, because I would have loved to go. I still would love to go. I don’t know why I haven’t gone.

So as an angry little ten-year-old, I wanted to get my sister back. I was jealous and I didn’t know how to get her back. My mom and dad were going to go on a date after my sister and my dad returned from scuba diving. they made us some stuffed shells, the pasta with some cream cheese or whatever is in it. My eldest sister was going to babysit us. Sandlot was turned on. my mom and dad set out. you know when you say goodbye to everybody, we were still kids so we were saying goodbye to our parents and walked them out to the car.

Remember, I was pissed at my sister. Well, not really pissed at my sister, pissed at the situation. I ran back into the house and locked them out. when I did that, they’re older than I am, but they were females and they’re a little bit more dramatic than probably they needed to be. And my mom and dad, I think they had a reservation or something, they weren’t too happy about the situation, about me locking my sisters out of the house. So my dad and my mom proceeded, well, mostly my dad, I don’t remember my mom very much, my dad proceeded to yell and scream at me and basically said, I’m always joking around and I needed to be serious. I need to stop playing, basically. So that’s affected me a lot, because if you wonder why I am very serious most of the time, because what happened after.

What happened after is, it went in one ear and out the other. So I was like, “Yeah. Okay.” So I let them in, and it was all right. And then they left and things went back to normal. But when things went back to normal, we were watching The Sandlot and ate our food, and then we got a phone call. And it was someone we’ve never heard before. We didn’t know who it was, and they said that they would be over. I think it was my eldest sister who answered the phone. I don’t remember those details very well. my eldest sister said, “There’s people coming over. We need to clean up.” at the time we thought it was going to be people showing the house. We didn’t know why people would be coming over. My eldest sister was like, “Let’s clean the house.” So we spent the next, I don’t know, I was a kid, just felt like forever, cleaning the house. And then once we were done, I was back sitting down, watching my movie.

Well, when the people came over… Now, I’m frustrated still, to this day, about this situation. When I was older… Well, no, let me explain what happened first. When we got to the Cayman Islands, the second time, my dad being a doctor and always wanted to be safe, had rented a safer car. Well, they didn’t have the car that we were looking for. So we ended up having a little rinky dink car. Didn’t have seat belts. ’91or ’89 Nissan Sentra, maybe. Don’t quote me. I know it was one of those small, little cars. So foreshadowing, the car.

The ladies came over and they told us to come together, they had something they needed to tell us. We were under the understanding that they wanted to see the house. Because that’s what my sister said. They didn’t give us any fair warning about why they were coming over, so we only had to guess. I was 10, my middle sister was 12, and my older sister was 14. We were in a different country, on vacation, and we’re all kids. Just thinking of a 14 year old right now, it’s just crazy. And looking at a 10 year old, Oh my God, you’re a baby. But the ladies, there were three of them, I think. I only really remember two, but there could have been three. They told us there had been an accident, and my mom was in the hospital, in critical condition. they didn’t say anything about my dad. And I think it was my middle sister who asked, “What about my dad?” And they said he didn’t make it. Then they told us what happened, that when they were driving, it was a small two lane road, when they were driving, we were in the Cayman’s, so I’m American, so we drove on the opposite side of the road. I wasn’t in the car, so I’m not sure. What I was told is, when my dad was going around a turn they veered on the wrong side of the road and hit a van head on.

When I was 22 I was in Tacoma. I finally got the pictures and I got to see the accident. And the pictures still had the blood on the seats and everything. And it was heavy. Because one, they didn’t let us see it when we were younger. So I wanted to kind of open that chapter and close that chapter and see what happened. It was one of those accidents you see on the road and you’re like, “Yeah, no one survived that.”

So back to the ladies, just telling us that my dad didn’t make it. My middle sister went crazy, walking up and down the stairs. I think my eldest sister went crazy. I don’t really remember what I did. Before we went to the hospital, they had us call friends and family. we made some phone calls. Then they put us into the car and they drove us to the hospital to go see our mom. Like I said, when we passed the accident, they wouldn’t let us look at it because they didn’t want to traumatize us. So they pushed our heads down. I tried to look, but they wouldn’t let me. it was bad.

We got to the hospital and they brought us to our mom, she was in really bad condition. She had tubes all throughout her nose. She couldn’t talk really. If you’ve ever seen the tubes in their nose after an accident, there’s blood and everything is coming out of them. It’s not the clean stuff that’s coming out. And she was in bad condition, but she was able to tell us that our dad didn’t make it. And I think she said that we were going to be okay or something…

Then the nurses took us into the next room where there was a curtain. They opened the curtain and there was my dad. We had to identify the body. there was one person on the Island who was a Baháʼí, as well. And he met us at the hospital. How in the world, they got… How they got someone to talk to us, I don’t know. But we were, just the three of us, in a world that we don’t know. Mom’s in the hospital, and dad just died. Now, the Baháʼí came and he said prayers with us and things… And he did the best he could to reassure us that everything’s going to be okay. But what are you really going to tell a 10 year old, a 12 year old, and a 14 year old who’s just lost their dad and their mom is in critical condition.

we made it through that night. The three ladies, I’m guessing, I remember three on the way back, so the three ladies brought us back to the condo. All three of us slept together, my sisters and I. there were two beds upstairs, they put the beds together and the three of us slept together to be close. The next day, family started to arrive. the management of the condo, the owners of it, they basically took care of us for a little bit. They gave us Christmas presents, And they just watched over us until our family came.

My first aunt and uncle came, they were the first ones to arrive. They were also the closest, they were in the Carolinas. They lived in the same city we did. So they got there first. And then my mom’s side of the family started creeping in. And my uncle that I’m named after, I’m pretty sure he came as he was very close with the family. He was there for us often.

No one was really prepared for what happened. And I don’t think anyone in their right mind, if they were to tell you that this would happen, that they would have believed it. So what happens to us? We go see our mom. for the next week, she’s slowly but surely coming back to life. I forgot who left the island first, whether it was my mom or my sisters and I, they chartered my mom back on a private plane . Because she was still in terrible condition. my grandfather was still alive at the time, he wanted her back in America. he chartered a plane with nurses, it had to be with nurses, and got her back home. Once back home, she was in the hospital.

When we got home, we had some family, friends come, which was really nice. Just because my dad and his dad were best friends. My mom, his mom were best friends. And then the two of us, we’re the same age, so we were basically best friends. So it was really great having my best friend come down, or one of my best friends, my next door neighbor was also my best friend from when I was growing up. But it was a little different, because that was my next door neighbor, he was more like my brother. we didn’t stay at our house, we stayed at some other people’s houses. So when my friend came it was cool, having someone with me and not being alone. And then we moved home. And my mom finally came home. She was in a wheelchair for a while. And that’s that. That’s the Cayman Island story.

Now the next story, we’ll talk about my mom coming home and what happened in middle school, because I was in sixth grade… No, I was in fifth grade. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was in fifth grade. Because then the next year, I was in sixth grade. Yeah, I was in fifth grade when this happened. Wow. when you think of it like that. I was in fifth grade. That’s crazy. But I will talk to you later and we’ll discuss middle school.

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