Had gone through a couple of years of problems, um . . . my wife found a boyfriend and moved away to Cleveland. And then my mother just started getting sick. So I came home to take care of her, and we were together for about 8 months, and then she passed away.
And I had just gotten a job with a real estate company where I was gonna do their maintenance with them. And I was in an alley behind their property bringing their key back. Somebody followed me back to the property. Well, these are all fun-loving people, you know, and I thought it was a mistake. I thought it was a joke.
Somebody pulled in behind me and got out and approached me with the fact that . . . um, he thought I was somebody else. He thought I was somebody that had stolen a stained glass window from one of his properties. And I just happened to be working across the street from one of his properties. And I thought it was a joke, I really did, and so I—I really didn’t put up any resistance, and then he slid out a metal baseball bat, and he started to attack me.
I was obviously the wrong person, at the wrong place, at the wrong time. But I backed up. He took out my knee. I went down. He just started beating me like crazy. I never even defended myself, which is the hard part, because all my life I’ve defended my family, my friends. I’ve worked as a doorman at local restaurants and clubs. And I always had confidence in myself, to take care of myself and my friends and my family.
And when he took me out like that, it changed my life.
I’m very angry, and I mean, from time to time, I’ll burst into these screaming fits in my own house! You think I’m talking to myself. I ain’t talking to myself—I’m just mad. It’s tough when you can’t physically do what you want to do. I can’t climb ladders. I have no knee. My muscles and tendons are crushed. And it’s gonna take 4 or 5 years to maybe build up the strength in my knee that I can even climb a ladder.
I’ve been going through a lot of depression. I sit on my couch and cry, and I live like a spider. I mean, I keep my blinds closed. I’m scared to death to answer the phone or answer the door. And, it ain’t right . . . I’m 6 . . . I’m all of 6´3˝. I weigh 225 pounds. And yet I’m scared to walk from my house to my car. You know what aggravates me the most is [that] I was just at the point where I was ready to rebuild my life. I look to the future and I see things, but it’s—I’m not impatient, but I really want to get back to where I was.
