Stepping in any club around Flint, especially the hood ones, you have to be prepared to encounter some bullshit. It’s really that serious. Anything can break out.
That tension hangs in the air to this day. It’s a weird line that I have to walk—between downtown corporate Flint and where I was raised; between night and day; between the two different identities I’ve formed. There’s that side of me that likes to live on the edge and then there’s the responsible father that excels in his career. To keep it plain and simple, I try to resolve that tension by using Tay as an example of when I feel that I’m going overboard.
Growing up in the Fifth Ward of Flint, there weren’t many places around town where I didn’t feel comfortable. When you aren’t bothering anybody or involved in illegal activity, why would you be afraid of going anywhere? But in Flint, trouble can still manage to find you if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Tay was like me. He went out a lot. He drank lots of liquor. He messed around with women. Life was fun for Tay. He lived single and carefree.
I still remember walking into the newsroom the next day after Tay was shot. Somehow, I kept my composure and didn’t mention it to anyone on the job for fear of them asking me to connect a reporter with the family. That was way too far beyond my comfort zone, to assist anyone with sources for that. The headline on the article written by one of my close coworkers read: “One man in critical condition after shooting at Flint bar, suspect in custody.” Later in the week it was updated to: “Man dies after being shot outside Flint nightclub.” To them, Tay’s death was just one of fifty-two homicides in 2013. Four more folks were murdered after him in the city that year. Flint’s death toll was actually at its lowest since 2009, but all it takes is to lose one person and the statistics go out of the window.
As sad as it was for me and my family to lose Tay to senseless violence, it also taught me a valuable lesson.
Sometimes life isn’t fair and when it’s your time to go then it’s your time. You can’t beat death. Tay wasn’t bothering anybody when those guys gunned him down. Being fresh to death in Flint could literally be your cause of death.
Rest in peace, Deonta Blackmon.
BEN GWIN
Rust Belt Heroin Chic
SUMMER 2014
At the far end of the West End meeting room there’s an old disco ball hanging above the coffeepot. The meeting that’s about to start is listed as one about alcoholism, but maybe half the people in attendance are recovering heroin addicts, many of them from halfway houses and renewal programs. A few kids sit at folding tables, puffing on e-cigarettes and vapes. Little clouds of mist rise toward the ceiling fan. When I got sober in 2005, you could smoke in there. The walls are still stained nicotine-yellow.
SPRING 2009
When you’re involved in a custody case in Allegheny County, one of the first requirements is parenting class. The class Gracie’s mom and I are assigned takes place in an East End elementary school—a gray stone building with a fenced-in playground. Before class starts, I stand in the shade with my coffee, smoking a cigarette. Across the street, kids play home run derby with a metal bat and tennis ball. It smells like last night’s rain.
Inside there’s a projector and a bunch of tables set up in the cafeteria. I grab a pamphlet and sit. Seats fill slowly. No one says much. Jane shows up in sweatpants, stuffing a half-smoked Newport back into her pack. She sits next to me and smiles as if I were a friend she just ran into at the supermarket.
Class will run for two hours with a break in the middle.
We watch a slide show that teaches such salient points as: Don’t hit your child, don’t hit your co-parent, don’t fight in front of your child. Get your child to school every day. Feed your child every day. Bathe your child. Do not use drugs around your child.
At break, when I go outside to smoke, the shade is gone and so are the kids playing ball. Jane looks high, but I probably do, too. My eyes itch and they have dark circles beneath them. Jane pulls the half-smoked Newport from her pack and asks me for my lighter, which I hand over and stare at until she’s finished lighting her cigarette and I motion for it back. She tells me she can’t afford court. I tell her I don’t care.
AUGUST 2009
When I start graduate school, Gracie stays with me two nights a week. I have three night classes and two dinner shifts at the restaurant. I’m living in Avalon.
My lawyer tells me calling Children and Youth Services is a last resort. Avoid confrontation, he says. Write everything down.
I make lists on envelopes and use them as bookmarks.
FALL 2009
Jane is six hours late for agreed drop-off time.
Jane is two hours early for agreed drop-off time.
Jane asks for money for diapers. I bring diapers to her grandma’s house. She already has diapers.
Jane says she needs money for gas to get to her shift at Eat ‘n’ Park. I put gas in her car.
Later, I stop by Eat ‘n’ Park, and the manager tells me she was fired months ago. I get pie and coffee.
SUMMER 2014
Outside the meeting room, in the lobby, there’s a vending machine and a Big Buck Hunter video game. The woman behind the counter is wearing a T-shirt with wolves on it and an ankle bracelet with a blinking green light. She gives me a coffee, I drop a dollar
