The War From Within, James Anthony Love [e textbook reader .txt] 📗

At the time I preferred the Miss Nikki in my fantasies, rather then the real one. Soon that would change.

I was not the only one in the apartments that looked forward to seeing Miss Nikki. Every time she came outside she was surrounded by men. This, for reasons I could not explain, made me angry. These men would evade my time with her, taking away one of the few joys that I received. They would be all over her trying to talk to her, whispering in her ears, putting their arms around her shoulders, and rubbing their hands on her backside. It made me so angry that I had to remove myself from their presence. It sicken me to see them touching her, it made her seem dirty, not because of her actions, because they were polluting her by gawking over her like she was a slab of meat and they had not eaten in months. The only thing that gave me joy was the fact that she would reject their advances each time leaving them all upset and looking disgruntled.
As time passed my obsession with Miss Nikki lost some of its luster, even though it still lingered deep inside. It became old, like all fantasies seem to do. I began to focus my attention on other females that I would see on a daily basis.
My fixations with sex worsen when I found out about pornography. Pornography pushed all thoughts of Miss Nikki out of my mind. I would steal, what we called, dirty magazines from the store and keep them in my room. There was no need to bother with hiding them, because by this time Emma was barely paying me any attention. All of her focus was on achieving her next high. Added to the fact that she was never at home, left me free to do what I wanted without the fear of repercussion.
I was enthralled by those magazines. They show me my first view of a women’s body. I studied them more than any of my texts books at school. All of my free time was absorbed by these magazines. They bought Emma’s and her friend’s words to life. Instead of imagining about something that they said, I could see the act in living color.
Surprisingly, my fascination with pornography made me shier around the girls of my age. I had become an introverted person without even realizing it. I did not know it then, but I now think that it was the shame of my acts that caused me to recoiled myself away from others.
Though no one knew about my mania towards sex, I felt that they did. I thought that I could see it in their eyes whenever they looked at me. They looked at me like I was foul. I could not blame them though, since I always felt dirty. Every time that I would take pleasure from looking at one of those magazines, I would get a tainted feeling afterwards. So going by the way that my young mind worked, I thought that if I saw myself like this, then others viewed me the same way.
In this way the enemy was slowly gaining control of my mind, by causing two of his trademark actions, destruction and confusion. He was destroying my mind by feeding my lustful thoughts. By giving me access to pornography materials, he caused confusion because although I wanted to stop, and I knew that what I was doing was wrong, he made me felt that I could not live without it.
The enemy was winning the war, while I was still oblivious to the fact that I was even fighting. Even when I unknowingly rebel against him, by refusing give into his lustful temptations, I tossed all of my magazines and stopped thinking about sex because I knew it was destroying my mind. Still he did not falter, but instead he up the ante by reintroducing something that he knew that I still yearned for.
All it would take was one implanted thought to relight that flame and to ignite confusion in my heart, mind, and most of all soul.


It was on January 16th 1990, my eleventh birthday, when I next spoke to Miss Nikki. It had been three years since the incident in the store. Mr. Pearson’s store was no longer opened, I guess he got tired of us “Niggas”, because on day he just up and closed down.
The Hall was still the same most of the people inside the gates had been so all of their lives, very few moved into or out of our apartments. So you knew who was a thief, who was a career criminal, and you knew who dealt the drugs and who used them. In my age group we all knew each other has well. We knew who the local gang was and who was the leader of said gang. We knew who the bullies were and also who were their targets. We basically knew who to align ourselves with to be able to survive. Still, I had an alliance with no one.
Again, it was my birthday and I celebrated alone. Emma was gone for what was supposed to be a couple of hours, however those hours had evolved into two days.
Before she left she had promise to take me out to eat for my birthday, for which I did not hold my breath. When I was younger she would get me all rile up on her promises only to let me down. At eleven I already knew the routine; I just counted it a privilege that she still knew when my birthday was.
So alas, I was a child spending his birthday alone. This did not bother as much as one may think. I like the peace and quiet that solitary brought, but still on my birthday like every other child I wanted to have some fun. No money and no parent killed that idea, but I still did not want to be in the house, so I decided to go outside to find something to get into.
It was also the last weekend of my holiday break, so I wanted to have a little fun before school started back up. My holidays had consisted with me sitting at home by myself. So I thought that I deserved to have some fun.
It was a cold winter day, but I remembered thinking that at least it was not snowing, which it normally did on my birthday. Still the wind was blowing extremely high and it was blowing icy cold air. So I put on my Salvation’s Army used winter coat, which had very little linen on the inside, so wearing it was mostly to trick your mind into thinking that you were being protected.
It was seven p.m. and it was dark outside, but the good thing about the cold is that it kept everyone, even the criminals, inside so I had free roam of the apartment’s grounds basically to myself.
I wandered around aimlessly for about an hour before I was in front of her apartment building. This was not my final or even a planned destination, yet in still I was staring at the doors that she would come out of each day. I did not know what I was doing there I just felt like I needed to be there at that time. I had no intentions because again I, myself, was lost to my purpose.
All I could think of was the words that she had whispered to me three years ago, “You gonna have to come see Miss Nikki when you get little older. Ain’t that right?”
I was there and I was a little older so I guess that I figured tonight was as good as any to pay Miss Nikki a visit.
I stood about ten feet from the door that led into the building, contemplating my next move. I did not know where her apartment was and like my own building it was three stories high and it housed twelve different apartments. Our apartments were not the place to go knocking on doors trying to find someone, because you might find more than what you were looking for.
I did not know what to do but I knew that I could not leave. I was there on a mission even if I did not know what it was. The cold air ran through my bones as I waited for a plan to enter my mind. I searched my brain for an answer to my problems however I could not find a solution.
Without realizing it, I had stood outside the building for about forty minutes. I was rooted to the same spot as if I was a frozen statue. I might as well have been because all of my extremities were numb. I realized this and knew that I should go home and get out of the cold, but I kept thinking that the moment that I left Miss Nikki would come out of the building and I would miss her.
Anyone that saw me that day, standing in front of the building, would have either thought that I was lost or insane. I was probably a little bit of both.
Just about the time that I was about to leave, because I had given up hope, the building’s door opened. My heart stopped beating and I started thinking to myself that had to be Miss Nikki. I thought that all of my waiting had not been in vain. It was destined that we would meet that night outside of her apartment’s door. I readied myself for my fantasies to finally come true.
My hopes were crushed as soon as I saw that it was an older black woman not Miss Nikki. The lady had her coat pulled up high over her face to shield herself against the furious blowing wind. She paid me no mind as she passed by me.
Recovering from the initial feeling of defeat and not giving up hope. My mind began to swirl as fast as the wind and I yelled out the first thing that came to it.
“Excuse me ma’am, do you know where Miss…um…Nikki lives?” I said over the wind, my voice barely audible to my own ears.
The woman stopped and looked back at me. She was clearly startle, being that she did not even see me when she walked by. She was looking at me like I just appeared out of the thin air when she yelled back, “What did you say?”
I noticed that she was clutching her purse and I could not even be mad at her. I would have done the same thing if I was her.
“I SAID DO YOU KNOW WHERE NIKKI LIVES?” I replied this time a little bit louder.
She walked up to me to get a better view of my face and said, “What yo little behind want with her?”
The question caused me to become a little perturbed. What did this woman care for? Because it was none of her business, I wanted to tell her that but I did not.
“She is a friend of my mother.” I stated, not totally lying.
The woman gave me a face that said “humph” and then she reluctantly said, “She lives in apartment five twenty three.”
I thanked her and made my way into the building, but as I did I heard the lady mumble something like, “She ought to be ashamed of herself. A grown ass woman, I tell ya the world is going to hell in a hand basket.”
I heard her comment but I paid her no mind as I ran to apartment five