FatherHoodlum: Chronicles of a Prison Dad by Michael B. Jackson

Author:Michael B. Jackson [Jackson, Michael B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780970743657
Amazon: 0970743653
Publisher: Joint FX Press
Published: 2014-10-03T04:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

When I went to prison for the first time back in 1970, my son LJ was only a few months old. When I got paroled in 1973, he was two.

Carla, LJ’s mother, was only 15 years old when she got pregnant with him. She was too young, too fine, and much too sassy, to be a mother. Like most sassy fifteen year olds girls, she wanted to party and hang out with her girlfriends. None of her girlfriends had kids then. Carla lived there in the same apartment with her mother and LJ, but Pricilla did most of LJ’s mothering.

I had just turned 17 when LJ was born. I was using drugs and semi-homeless. Raising a kid was the last thing on my mind. I would go see him, and he knew me, but that was it. As teenage parents, Carla and I were a sorry mess.

LJ was the apple of Pricilla’s eye. She loved him to death. She would coddle and spoil him rotten. She was getting up in age, and her health was not good. Plus she had already raised eight children of her own, and chasing a two year old around was too much for her. LJ’s mother was the next to last of eight children that Pricilla had raised. She was old and tired. LJ was becoming a little more than she was able to handle.

I remember back in 73, the first time I made parole from GSP, Carla’s younger sister told me that Pricilla wanted to see me. I had been home on parole for two weeks then, but I had not yet made it over to visit my son. I expected Pricilla to give me hell about not visiting LJ, but when I got to her apartment she went right to the point. “I’m putting LJ up for adoption,” Pricilla said bluntly. “You and Carla ain’t doing shit to help me and I can’t do it anymore.”

Pricilla told me there was a woman who lived downstairs in Pricilla’s building, Mrs. Lincoln, who wanted to adopt. LJ.

I was speechless, but in all honesty there was nothing I could legitimately say. To that point I had never done anything significant toward raising or caring for him, since most of his life I had been locked up. LJ's grandmother, Pricilla, and aunts raised LJ his first two years of life. I had not paid for any of his mother’s prenatal care. I didn't have to pay the hospital or doctor bill for his birth. I didn't have to pay for any of his postnatal care. Welfare did all that. I guess I expected things to keep going the way they were.

I had recently been paroled from prison and Carla and I had not been together since he was two months old. We had not spoken since I left for GSP in 70’ and had been doing her thing in New York City for the past 18-months.

Mrs. Lincoln was an older woman who had raised two adult children. She lived alone in her 4th floor apartment.

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