Be The Mogul
Brian Anderson, the son of a Marine and Baltimore hustler. It’s funny to even think I am writing blogs about traveling the world because I had no real intentions of doing so. I literally just wanted to get out the hood (East Baltimore, 24th and Greenmount). My exposure to perspectives outside of Baltimore started at a young age traveling to basketball tournaments every weekend during AAU season with Cecil Kirk. My first major experience traveling was to Memphis, Tenn for 13U AAU nationals when I was 11. These trips were like my weekend getaways from the hood. On this trip like many others, I was tied to the hip with our team mom and was blessed to be able to visit museums and historical landmarks, which were different then some of the other kids' experiences. Those exposure moments in life challenged me mentally to look beyond my home situation and inspired me to want more for myself and for my family. The rest of the team, win or lose, would be ready to head home after a long weekend, but I never wanted to come home. I can count endless times coming home Sunday evening to news of somebody getting locked up, robbed, shot or murdered. It never failed. Thinking in the back of my head, “It could have been me.” My mova was known all over East Baltimore as a hustler, fiend, scammer, booster, whatever you want to call it; she did it all. She would scramble up whatever she could, $20 - $25 dollars, walk with me across Greenmount down Cecil and send me on my way, knowing I was safer away, than being home.
At the start of sixth grade, I attended a new all boy school, Bluford Drew Jemison STEM Academy (RIP Dr. Gaddy), which was a great opportunity that challenged me academically, athletically and socially. It was an all boy middle school that went from 7am to 7pm with boys from rival neighborhoods all over the city, but felt like a jail to me. BDJ was hosted inside a building connected to Madison Rec on the corner of Caroline and Biddle. A 11 year old kid from up the hill had no business catching the 8 to the 21 to and from school everyday. I was fighting at least twice a week in school or on the bus stop and I was the chill laid-back kid. The last day of school, I fought for my life on the bus stop and got chased home by a few kids trying to stab me. Fast forward, I had class with one of them my first day at City, 3 years later.
My mova saw this new school as an opportunity to try and keep me out the streets all day, as my older brother De’Andre got killed the previous year and my other older brother Brock was doing a bid for shooting De’Andre’s killer. Ironically, Councilman Carl Stokes owned a house on my block and was fond of my mother who would work his campaign; cold-calling and setting up street teams for marketing. He helped my mova get me into the BDJ, to keep me off Greenmount, but sadly Baltimore is just a vicious city where I couldn’t duck violence, but had to face it head on.
My mova showed me the bus route the first day, and the second day of school when I returned, my godmova was outside my house waiting. Lost for words, she gave me a greyhound bus ticket and a notebook saying that my mova was gone. Back to rehab as usual, but this time in Philadelphia. The book was for me to write my mother letters, but that was the start of a one way conversation that never ended. I had issues with my father and grandmova that caused many fights between my father and I. During my 7th grade year, one fight ended with some bad injuries, which led to a concerned teacher calling CPS. This resulted in me taking the money I had saved and running away to Philly to be with mom dukes. “The grass is not greener on the other side”, is what my grandmova said when I left, and boy she wasn't lying.
Those 3 years in Philly taught me a whole different way of survival and way of life in general. I loved my mother dearly throughout her struggles, but she could never communicate her feelings and talk to me. Our relationship developed purely out of a sense of dependence on each other for survival and figuring things out as they come. Poor wasn't even the word. We were literally one bad day from being homeless, with no family within 2 hours. I remember walking through my apartment building scanning the floor for loose change, like a fien on tester day. My mom used to use my school transpass and obnoxiously claimed to still be getting her GED if a bus driver bucked at her. The best days were when I would sit outside of random apartment doors to steal wifi to download that new Flamers 2.5 or CM7 on limewire and come home to a hot stir fry, instead of cereal.
When you thought things couldn’t get any worse, my older brother Brock was killed, a few months into me staying in Philly. That was a nightmare that continued to replay in the my mother’s head too. Two sons dead, in a matter of three years will drive anyone crazy. That was a cold winter alone. I remember catching the K bus home from school everyday for two weeks on Chelten ave and seeing her car parked near Jamaican D’s and just wondering where the hell she could be.
I still remember the exact moment she came home with bloodshot red eyes, devastated she left her 12 year old son alone, distraughtly explaining to him how she relapsed and was locked up. My mother’s decisions and lifestyle prior to Philadelphia, was similar but never put me in harm's way. I can’t imagine the pain she was in to have to admit to her wrongdoings and apologize to her son (The first and only time this ever happened) . Ironically, this situation strengthened our relationship, knowing that I had to step up. Taking care of myself for two weeks alone, already put clear expectations in my head of not having no blanket or support. I never put my mom on a pedestal to be perfect, but I saw her as a human struggling with addiction in dear need of help. As an adolescent, I couldn't do much to help her, but continue to focus on my own survival and not be a burden.
