I’m getting situated in Hampton, Va. I was staying with Yusef when he suddenly got called out to an overseas assignment. He gave me $25 to hold me down while he was gone for about six weeks.
I assess the food situation. The few canned goods aren’t going to get me there through this period, so I think fast. He has some DVDs that I decided to pawn to get through the extra stretch. I pawned all of them except one – a Muhammad Ali training DVD. It’s all I had to watch to entertain myself. That is, until I met one of the local lady ballers from the Hampton ladies squad. She told me she was from New York and she wanted to watch Muhammad with me. I was pleased. So I was doing well initially in my new space. Unfortunately for me, Yusef returned home early and didn’t understand that his $25 just didn’t cut it for me. He put me out to a strange new city. A somewhat familiar plot and plan played out once before. He didn’t understand that I got money every month from the government just like he did and that I was just pawning the DVDs, and I was going to get them right back. A move and maneuver I had implemented plenty of times while in Landover, Md., as a survival tactic. Only he didn’t take the time to listen.
I had planned to return those videos. He never gave me a chance which only reinforces my theory of a set-up! I justified my point! Isn’t the military about survival? So how could he not understand? I took it as his clever ploy to lead me away from my known home and to displace me. It was a race and fight for my life! Thus I became homeless in unfamiliar territory, meaning not D.C. I was able to navigate my way around up until where my documentary on Street Sense Media picked up. I get railroaded after picking up a temporary day job while staying in the Norfolk City Shelter on Brooke St. Quite the adventure indeed. I found an Equal Educational Opportunities office there on that city stretch of businesses in downtown Norfolk. It became my only hope and glimmer of light. Now while I didn’t complete my mission to satisfaction, I see that others have succeeded in implementing similar gameplay in which education was the key. I have always called that play my Hail Mary to myself. But a few monkey wrenches got in the way preventing it from being successful for me.
