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I Don't Want to Die All Alone
Joseph Henderson
Authorhouse
Category:
Memoir
Publisher: Authorhouse
ISBN-10: 0759613184
Pages: 349
Copyright: Nov 6, 2007
ISBN-13: 9780759613188
Joseph, the sixth child of nine children, describes a sad but shockingly true story of growing up on the streets at a young age. After a life filled with crime, drugs, money, cars, and women, Joe realizes that life and time is catching up to him. He shares with the readers his days of living in below zero temperatures in Michigan with no heat; nightly pit stops through ice and snow to raid the supermarket garbage dumpsters; and feasting on goldfish, turtles, and mallard ducks, from the neighborhood park pond.
Journey with Joe as he tells an all out, no holds barred tale of physical, mental, and sexual abuse. He tells of living in a household where discipline consisted of holding encyclopedia’s in each hand while balancing on one foot, and whippings with electrical cords, brooms, two-by-fours, and garden hoses. After being shot on a street corner, later escaping a drive by shooting, then the subsequent brutal murder of his sixteen year old brother, feel the passion with Joe, as he explains several suicide attempts his family never knew about.
Ignoring the stereotypes, read why his controversial thoughts have lead him to an almost recluse lifestyle.
Feeling he would ‘die all alone,’ Joe makes a desperate and emotional attempt to apologize and ask forgiveness from family, friends, and foes that suffered during his reign of torment.
Do the mistakes of your past have to dictate the course you will travel in the future? Can a person who is offered his first can of beer at six and spends his childhood on the streets become a responsible, upright member of society? Can a man, first arrested at 11 for a train robbery and the intended target of a drive by shooting live to tell his own story-soberly?
Joseph F. Henderson III has lived the life above and much more. In his
captivating and heart-wrenching memoir I Don't Want to Die All Alone (now available from Author House Library), Henderson holds nothing back as he tells his sometimes horrifying story of living, almost dying, and finding forgiveness for a life unlike most people could ever imagine.
Henderson was only six when he was given his first can of beer. Three years later he was buying beer with food stamps or on credit from local supermarkets. While living in Jackson, Mississippi, Henderson was arrested for a train robbery and put behind bars for a time-at the age
of eleven. At thirteen he became the target of gunfire for the first time.
Fearing for her son's life, Henderson's mother moved the family to BattleCreek, Michigan, but things only got worse as he joined a nationally known street gang as a source of pride and belonging.
Henderson is soon given the street name "Hustler" and has no problem living up to those low expectations. Henderson says, "Journey with me as I tell an all out, no holds barred tale of physical, mental, and sexual abuse. I tell of living in a household where discipline consisted of holding encyclopedia's in each hand while balancing on one foot, and whipping with electrical cords, brooms, two-by-fours, and garden hoses. After being shot on the street corner, later escaping a drive by shooting, then the subsequent brutal murder of my sixteen year old brother, feel the passion as I explain several suicide attempts my family never knew about."
Excerpt
I know what it was like out there on the streets, so there is no need for me to continue being out there now.
Kids don’t know what it is like to make it on the streets. They join a gang, get a sack of dope, and get a gun. That’s all they know.
That is not survival.
Survival is when you have to eat out of garbage cans for a meal. Digging through ice and snow, for food or looking for bottles and cans all day for a few dollars.
Pilfering through dumpsters for meat and other rubbish we considered food.
Who knows, someone could have done something to the meat or goods that we were eating. The food could have had all kinds of bacteria in it. We didn’t care, because we were happy to eat.
Going to the Goodwill or Salvation Army and put on clothes or shoes to keep from looking ragged. Coming in from the streets and going in to a home with no heat, when it was thirty degrees below zero out side, and thirty-five below inside. We all are sitting on the inside with our coats and gloves on to watch TV, or try to keep warm.
Having to dress at night, in the cold, with the clothes you were going to wear the next day. Then we had to lie down on a cold bed, and hope you could have a good night worth of sleep. Every night we were sleeping in coats, hats, and shoes to stay warm.
And when we did iron the bed to go to sleep, the warmth didn’t last long.
Anyway, that is survival.
Put the average kid on the block, and take what he calls his survival kit, from him.
Take his gun, his dope, and his gang initiation from him.
Then set him free, and tell him to survive. He wouldn’t last a day. He’ll be asking, “What do I do now?”
He would be too proud to eat from the garbage for a meal, or walk miles and miles for bottles and cans. He wouldn’t know how to defend himself without a gun.
See all of that was known by me by the time I was thirteen years old being on the streets.
Long before it was decided enough was enough.
Kids today think because they only know how to sell dope, be in a gang, and carry a gun, that there is no other way out.
Kids, I’m here to tell you, it is a better way out. Kids are tripping over the material things in life, when I knew nothing of it. Yes with the stealing and the hustling, a few things were bought at a young age. But look at what the kid’s wants today. They don’t know any other way to think but materialistic.
Just think of the days like me, when you had two black and white TVs. One you could not see, and one you could not hear. Put them side by side, and enjoy.
One TV with a half of picture tube, and that was still fine. You didn’t like it, but you had no choice.
We didn’t have Nintendo, and Sony Playstation. I’ll even go back to the old school. We didn’t even have Colleco-vision or Atari1200. We didn’t have Air Jordan tennis shoes, or Boss jeans. No Fubu or Karl Kani to sport.
Kids have went from playing dodge ball to dodging bullets.
Some of those trinkets were bought when I was older, but the rough days are not forgotten, and no dope will ever be sold by me, to get them. People will tell you little crackpot stories to get you off the streets, and quit selling dope.
I’m not going to tell you to listen to those that don’t know anything about the streets.
How can they tell you what’s out there, when they never been out there?
That’s like me telling you how to fly a plane, and I’m not a pilot.
You have these probation officers and counselors, telling you how to behave and leave the streets alone.
Notice a lot of them have nice jobs, live in nice neighborhoods, and have a future. Ask them if they were in a gang, or sold dope, or ever carried a gun illegally.
Most of them will tell you no. My daddy was a lawyer, my mother was a nurse, and we had all the finer things in life.
Kids don’t need to hear things like that. They need to hear about how you were in the ghetto, living rough, made some bad choices in life then changed.
If kids knew about that, then some of them may think they have somewhat of a future.
Pay attention to the news sometimes kids.
They are building concentration camps all around America, and they know who the tenants are going to be. Jail is the only place that can be over crowded, and you can still make a reservation. Call any hotel, anywhere, anytime during a major event. They will be booked up, and you couldn’t make a reservation for the bathroom no matter how much money you have.
Commit a crime anywhere, anytime, and it doesn’t even have to be an event going on. They will tell you, we’re over crowded, but we can still make room if we have to place you in a closet.
They know in a little while, your house will be finished being built, and you can close on the deal at anytime. The jailhouse is what I’m referring to.
Now you don’t have to worry about a home, because you’re stuck there, for the rest of your life.
Don’t you see they are making laws that you would be locked up for the rest of your life. The three strike laws were made to lock you up, for the rest of your life that they will never have to be bothered with you again.
Imagine the cost to house an inmate for a year. Now imagine if society took that same money and sent an inmate to college. Then help him get a job with the education he has just obtained. Chances are, he won’t go back to criminal life, now that he has one leg up on a future.
Do you think they will do that, probably not?
What I’m getting at is brothers quit waiting for something to be given to you.
Go get a life, an education, a job, and live peaceful. Believe in GOD, and all that HE can, and will give to you if you have faith.
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