WARNING: THE CONTENT YOU WILL BE READING HAS STRONG LANGUAGE. NOT SUITED FOR YOUNG TEENS

Behind the life story of a store manager….

His name is S.M. (for security purposes). He was born in Harvey Illinois but was raised in Markham Illinois. When he was about sixteen he moved to Chicago and had been living in the city since. He worked for Walgreens Company for about fifteen years. He is now thirty two years old, married, and has two little boys; one is nine and the other is two. This is his story.

When I was growing up, I never had a stable family. My parents were never married, so my dad was never around; therefore I lived with my mom. When I was about 8 years old, my mom had a boyfriend named Doug, and he was a biker man. We used to always go to those biker rally shows. Then, one day Doug was fucking around and blew his own head off. So my mother went and dated another guy that sold a lot of weed. Yea, you can call him a drug dealer. Well, the cook county sheriff and the DEA raided the house and my mother was locked up for two years.

Why was she locked up?

She was selling dope with him and I ended up living with my grandparents. When she got out I moved back with her. My mom ended up seeing a guy named Greg. He was very abusive. He had always beaten my mom. My mom had been in the hospital many times with broken jaws, concussions, shit like that. One time when I was ten years old, I saw him beating my mom and I could not take it so I took out a gun and almost killed the man. My mom could not face the fact that her boyfriend was the problem and she end up putting me in the Madden Mental Health Institute for two years. Well guess what? She ended up marrying the guy and now I have two step sisters.

So how do you feel about your mother now? Do you still speak to her?

Well let’s just say I haven’t spoken to her for seven years.

By the time I was thirteen years old, I was gang banging hard. I became one of the Gangster Disciples. As the only white kid in the group, I had to gang bang harder than the rest of them. I was known as ‘the shooter,’ because that was the only way for me to get some respect. The shooter’s job is to shoot anyone or anything that is asked of him. I was always getting into trouble throughout high school. I was thrown out from three high schools and I been to juvy like forty times. When I was about sixteen years old, I started to work at a restaurant and I lived with my friend named Bee. We were selling heavy dope. I would help him sell at night and worked at the restaurant by day. Well, there was this one kid that Bee had sold dope to, and the kid was caught. He flipped out and tricked on my friend. Therefore, it leads the cop to go undercover. One day I called off worked and stayed home with my friend. An under cop came to our door and bought dope from Bee. (Chuckled) Yea it would happen on the day I called off. The girl left the house and then came back to ask to use the washroom. Well once we opened the door, our apartment was raided by the cook county sheriffs. They took us down to the Markham Court house. The cops had never seen me before and asked a lot of questions. As the good friend Bee is, he took all the heat on himself. After that, I moved to the city, Chicago and lived with my aunt. I began working at Walgreens and moved out of my aunt’s home after six months. I had my own place in Bridgeport and that was where I met all of my crazy friends (Chuckled). We used to get into a lot of troubles. We would always sell dope and have gun battles in the back yard. By the time I was twenty one, the case of Lenard Clark came about.

In 1997, a black teen, Lenard Clark, wandered into Bridgeport and three white teens allegedly shouted racial slurs and brutally attacked Clark, who was then left unconscious. The case had brought a lot of controversy about racism. The only eyewitness, named Michael Cutler, was willing to testify against the accused, but then he was killed six weeks before the trial. Police said he was a random victim of a robbery. Five years later, the FBI is taking a look at the murder, which, according to one former state legislator, had the characteristics of a 'classic mob hit.'

Well, one of my best friends’ little brother was at the incident when Lenard Clark was brutally beaten. He was supposed to testify in the case of Lenard Clark. His named was Michael Cutler. He was a good kid. He had a full scholarship to a college in Kentucky. One day he came back one spring for the testimony of the Lenard Clark case. Well, he decided to take his girlfriend out. He was then on his way home, and while he parked his car and a guy came up to his window and shot him one time in the heart. The week after his funeral, my best friend, Michael Cutler’s older brother and I went to a party. It was 3 AM when we left. We decided to head to a restaurant. While we were walking there, a house party just let out. There were about twenty dudes rushing us. We all started fighting and then the police came, so everyone ran off. My boy and I went looking for our friend and found him stabbed on the floor. I winded up holding his intestines until the ambulance came. That was not the worst part. I had to be the one telling his mother her son is in the hospital for being stabbed just a week after her first son was killed.
Well as time goes on, I was still doing knuckle head shit, like fighting and doing couple shootings. During those times, I was still working at Walgreens. I was then sent to work at a Walgreens up north. That was where I met my wife. Because of her, I was able to keep my life back on track. I stop doing stupid shit that I usually do and settled down. We then got married.

How long have you been married to your wife now?

Well we been together for twelve years but married for ten years. She was my little stalker (Laughed).We ended up having two boys, one is nine years old and the other is two. If it wasn’t for my family, I would probably been dead. Many people said that I wouldn’t live until I am twenty, but I proved them wrong. I am now working at Walgreens as the store manager and volunteering as a coach for the kids’ football league. I want to give my kids the life I never had. Yea, you can say my wife and kids saved my life.