Mr. International: Memoir of a Player

By Sunny Perylz

Memoir of a Player on the streets of Richmond, Va... The true hood tale of a boy turned sex addict...

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483519685

Book preview

9781483519685

Up until about seven years old if you had asked me what I wanted to be I would have told you the President of the United States. I wanted to help those in need in all countries around the world. I was as idealistic and naïve as a child could be. I crossed my heart and hoped to die and pledged my allegiance to the American flag. I would place my right hand and raise the left and swear on the bible. But that was all before I was introduced to life and what it has to offer. Up until then I was an every Sunday and at least a two days a week church attendee whose faith had never been tested.

Even though my grandparents would disagree, I grew up in the hood. If you have to fight and deal with crack heads to and from school where else could you be. None of these things ever challenged my belief in me; only saw them as a challenge to be overcome. As with many young black men, not until my parents got divorced did things start to change. Even though my parents were married it was still a single parent home. My dad was a musician and always on the road. So when they got divorced his absence wasn’t the change it was his presence.

As a young boy you try things being curious and devilish but knowing dad’s coming home sooner or later can seem to curve your desire. Dad wasn’t the one to do a lot of talking and definitely not repeating himself, so I learned it was best to get it the first time. You could come crying or acting punk to Pops and a jab to your chest would be quick and hard enough for you to get the point. With that presence removed I learned with Mom there were slightly different rules. I had a little wiggle room when it came to Mom. She worked so hard, as many young single black females do; I found she didn’t have the time to keep track of my every move. As this transition is taking place the worst transition of my young life is only months away.

Keith was my only uncle on my mother’s side. He was the youngest of four so I can only imagine his pain growing up in a house with three older sisters. He was my muse for what has become a quarter century reflection of his nephew’s life. Unc lived in the basement at his parents crib. I didn’t have a clue at first but he was a player. You might be at grandma’s house any day of the week and see a young lady through the kitchen widow walking down the steps to the basement door. And you might not have to stay too long before you see her leave and possibly another one come. The door to the basement was in the kitchen and back then I also didn’t understand why the door was only locked when he had company. It has become more than clear to me now as the years have passed.

Me and my cousin Ed who is a year older than me would love hanging downstairs with Uncle Keith. It was always like sneaking into a log cabin in the woods, you would never know what you’d find. Most of the times I got kicked out of the basement for being too squeaky clean. He would tell dirty jokes, show us inappropriate pictures and I would always be the one to complain or go tell. He sang and played the guitar. He would draw and also dabble in architecture. But the coolest thing he had to me was the hammock he had strung up on the walls. At the age of eight I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. He would always tell us regarding women that you only tell them what they need to know. Once again didn’t know what he meant then but it makes more than sense to me now. He would also make the point that what one can’t do another can.

Although brief, these lessons have lasted a life time and have all been found to be true. Uncle Keith was killed in a car accident when I was eight years old which left a void that has never been filled. From that point on I was left to my own devices to define my own perception of life and relationships, especially those of the opposite sex. With Uncle Keith gone and Dad pretty much out of the picture, I became smothered by my mother and her two sisters. After their divorce, I and my mom moved in with my aunt Jean where I meet my cousin Doe and all his Northside friends. I’d only spent weekends there up until then and we really couldn’t leave out of the house. But now that I lived there it was hard to keep us separated.

Doe was only two years older than me but had at least ten more years of experience. He and his friends would be outside all times of the night. They didn’t have a curfew and it seemed they didn’t have to go to school either if they didn’t want to. Every chance I could, I would sneak outside to the corner to find out what was going on. And they wouldn’t be playing the games that I was used to like basketball, rollie polie or jack rocks. They would be shooting dice or playing hide and go get it. And for those that don’t know, hide and go get it is hide and seek but once you find them you try and get a kiss or anything else you can get. If there was anything unwholesome that I did do at this point it was cursing.

If my father had left any legacy with me up till now it was this, he could curse with the best of them. He had a way of telling someone to kiss his ass that sent chills through my young mind, and the language on this corner was the same. A bunch of Bitches, Niggas and Mother Fuckers made my heart content. But just like the basement I was always sent away back into the house or anywhere but on the corner with them. It was always claimed that I was too young to be involved with what they had going on. A lot of times I would find myself sitting in the living room at the window listening to every word trying to find out what the big secret was. All I saw them doing at the time was being nasty little boys. I would see them throw rocks at cars, throw bricks through windows and even flashing female drivers as they drove by.

Whenever I could catch him alone, I would ask Doe why they didn’t want me out on the corner, he would always say you are a good dude and you don’t need to know nothing about what goes on around here. It might look cool but it’s a bunch of fools out here. You don’t know the rules and I hope to keep it that way. I don’t know if Doe thought it was possible then but I hope he knows now that it wasn’t, we all know you tell someone what not to do and they just want to do it more. Now that Mom and Dad are divorced I began to shuttle to my Dad’s house every other weekend. Since the divorce my dad moved in with his sister in the bottom of west end. And this is where I found out over the next few years what Doe was trying to hide from me and ten times more.

At Aunt Terry’s house the rules were completely different. The dark side of life was hidden at mom’s house, grandma’s house even at Aunt Jean’s house with that element right outside, they still kept me guarded. On the corner of New York and Carver there were drugs laid out on the table, scales, bags of weed and ya-yo. You better not touch it or even ask about it as I quote her "It’s none of