2 December 2008, 2:19 pm
Chapter 1: Thrills And Chills Have you ever felt as if you were broke? Poor as in a way of having no house no money, and no one. No one who understands you and who you really are. Even if you hold up a sad depressing sign saying, “I’M HOMELESS! I’M HUNGRY! HELP!” people ignore you as if it’s all a stupid lie. Well, after what’s happened to me, I know what it’s like to feel like a stupid lie. I know what it’s like to be poor. Even though I may have had money at the time. That morning, the urban Manhattan culture was sparking people’s imaginations. Especially mine. People strutted the streets, living their lives the way god had told them to. Nothing could stop them. Nothing could stop me. Except I was a tiny pin dot out of all of them. I was the pin dot that life’s mysterious ego had plans for that day. All was calm in New York that morning. But something was going to happen. Something strange. To me. But there was one thing in that city that not many souls were noticing. It was the puzzling legend of the homeless people roaming the streets. No one looked at them. No one cared for them. It was a lost cause. But that morning was the beginning of something that I will never forget. No one knew what was going to happen. Not even me. Fate was about to take over my life. And that doesn’t even begin to cover it. It’s something that I now call “my side of the story.” It’s something that I am slowly but surely trying to show the world. But at some point, I would emotionally end up like a poor person. One day, I would feel like I was all a stupid lie. This is how it started. I observed the action of New York as I sat in the back seat of the car. “Daddy,” “Yeah?” “You gonna help that poor person with the sign?” “No.” “Why?” “Because it might be a lie.” “How could it be a lie?” “Because some of them are millionaires and just dress up to make themselves a fortune, while others are homeless and hungry. You never know what the real truth is.” This was the day my life flipped. This was the day that without knowing, I set out on some sort of quest: “What’s the truth to life? Not a stupid lie?” The poor people on the side of the streets of New York set a good example of my thoughts and feelings, starting that day. I didn’t know that in the Bronx, I would find a bunch of poor people sitting on the side of the road, holding sad depressing signs. I didn’t know that I would see them stealing Poland Spring water from the venders selling it. I didn’t know that they had to suffer through life in order to survive. I looked at my mother who was lost in a People Magazine. I just sat there and why New York was considered a confusing world of lies. Then I thought, “What does he mean by chills?” It all started a month ago, when my father was sitting at the dinner table. He started talking about Yankee Stadium like it was some lost Egyptian pyramid. He was saying, “I just get chills walking into that place.” I wanted to feel the chills too. I wanted to know what he meant. I wanted something to happen. Maybe some sort of drama would happen that day. That was what I wanted. I wanted something to happen that would make the day interesting. Maybe it was because I was never too interested in baseball. But my father was a diehard Yankee fan and my little brother, Liam, was too. And then there were all these jocks that walked through the hallways of my school, saying, “I’m gonna be like Derek Jeter when I grow up.” But to me, Derek Jeter was a nobody. I just knew that the guy had a lot of secrets behind him. But no way was I ever going to care about Derek Jeter. I guess he just didn’t appeal to me when I heard his name. I thought, “Oh yeah. Isn’t he that really urban looking guy who plays for the Yankees?” But none of this was the point. The point was that on that day, my life was going to change. And for just a second, at that moment, I felt that “chill” tear through me. I just had to look beyond everything. That day, I wanted to find something that I would never find anywhere else.... Read More »
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