Published in the 2019-2020 Limestone College Candelabra, here is a research essay I did based on my then, college roommate! Amazing and touching story!
“Earl
Johnson Jr.”
by: Aaron D. Able
Twenty.
Some
people like to believe that everything happens for a reason. It’s not every day
that someone gets caught up in talking to their college roommate if it’s not
about the next big party happening on campus. Especially if their roommate is
anything like me; an introvert in their final year of college who rarely tries
to make new friends but, one day I decided to test this notion. I was sitting
on my side of the room and my roommate, Antonio Williams, was sitting on
his. Before I got to know him, Tony was
just a twenty-year-old college student who loved playing video games. He was a
tall, skinny cross-country runner who didn’t talk much until he was sitting in
front of a T.V. screen yelling at his online friends in a game of Fortnite. I
had never talked to him about anything serious, but I inquired about this
person that I would be cohabitating with for an entire school year. So, one day
we began to have a casual conversation about how we both ended up at the same
school. We talked about our past years in high school and about all the sports
and activities we participated in. He mentioned that he was from Missouri and I
proceeded to ask him, “how in the world did you end up at Limestone in little
ole’ South Carolina?” He explained to me how he was offered a full scholarship
and how his parents wanted him to go to school to continue to better his life. Then
the conversation took a turn to the left – we began talking about his childhood
and an unexpected life story began to surface. Tony began telling me about this
crazy life that sounded like it belonged in a movie. In the midst of him taking
me through the intense timeline, I stopped him. He immediately felt vulnerable enough to share
his story with me; I felt so moved that I stopped listening to what he was saying,
and while his words became a blur, my heart became heavy. I began to think
about how I could translate his story to paper so I told him that we would
reconvene at a later date. I needed time to mentally and emotionally prepare myself
just to write a miniscule version of the life he actually had to live.
Twelve.
By the time Tony was fifteen, he was living his life in
fear, especially when moving to a new home because he never knew what could
happen next. He suffered from bullying within the homes, depression, and even
child abuse. He talked about having to go to the hospital because a group of
kids at one of the homes jumped him. When his guardians at the time came home
to see what had happened, he blamed it on himself by saying he fell down the
staircase. I thought this was the worst of it but the more Tony dove into his
story, the harder it became to bare.
Tony
moved around a few more times until he was at his eighth foster home. At this
new home he finally felt he could live a life of comfort. He enjoyed life just
as an average kid and participated in all of the activities he could only dream
of doing before. He never thought it would happen but, he loved his new parents
he was blessed with. His mother, Dr. Campbell, was also the principal at the
school he attended, making him even more motivated to do well in school. Still
with this family, he is finally at peace with his life and feels nothing but
unending love from them. At the time, he was unknowingly on his last chance; risking
the fact that he could’ve been stuck being raised by the system until he turned
eighteen – barely slipping by the cracks of being amongst the twelve percent of
children who are forced to turn the members of a group home into their family. Two
months of living at his new home, he found out he had to go to court to testify
against his previous family in Fort Linardwood, Missouri. He began to explain to
me how it was complete hell living with this family that destroyed him the
most. It was a married couple that had never had a foster child until Tony.
They tormented and abused him during the time he spent there and on his way to
the courthouse he began having flashbacks of what those people did to him.
Flashbacks of him being beaten with a wooden two-by-four and being locked
inside of a room without food for hours. He had nothing but his wondering mind
and the four walls that barricaded him. There were times when his guardians
would leave him at home for extensive periods of time, just to come back and
beat him some more and make him do military workouts without any reason at all
as to why they were treating him with such hatred. They would send him to school,
hungry, with barely anything to eat in his lunch bag. Because Tony walked to
school every day, he would pass by the community center to get food that, of
course, he had no money to pay for. Every day he would sneak to the vending
machines just to steal enough food to suffice for the day. He had gotten away
with it countless of times until one day the building janitor caught him on
camera squeezing his arm up the opening of the machines, grabbing whatever he
could that was in arms reach. The next morning, Tony went to fulfill his daily routine
and what happened next, I feel, was the best thing in his life that could’ve ever
happened to him.
The janitor was awaiting him, ready to call
the police. The police arrived and put Tony through a series of questions and
eventually asked about his parents – he was calm until that moment. When they
asked about his parents he began to cry hysterically, screaming to the officers
that his parents were going to beat him if they told them what he had done. He
started showing them the scars and bruises he had covering his body, giving validation
that he was telling the truth. Because of the severity of the marks, the police
immediately took him to the station and took photos of his body. They took Tony
to his home and started an investigation, collecting evidence to match
everything that he told them. He remembers the police finding the pistol belt
that matched the welts on his body, but they couldn’t find the two-by-four
until weeks after, finding out that his guardians threw it in the woods behind
the house when they noticed the police pulling up in the driveway. That’s when
Tony was transferred to Dr. Campbell’s home. He had always felt that everything
was continuously being taken from him but this time, he didn’t mind.
Five.
There were over 500,000 children
waiting to be adopted in the year 2006. What Tony didn’t know is that he was
soon to be an addition to that statistic. When he was a little boy, his roller
coaster life had already begun. He lived in Rolla, Missouri with his parents
and three older siblings, but had no idea about the true life he was living. At
the age of five, his dad was very sick. He was too young to know what was wrong
with him, but he remembers his parents being separated; causing his dad to move
in with his sister, Tony’s “Aunt Mi Mi”. His aunt cared for her brother until
he eventually became too sick to endure life any longer. By this time, the life
of Tony’s mother was consumed by drugs and the death of his father made it even
worse. Tony and his siblings eventually moved in with his Aunt Mi Mi and stayed
there for the next two years. After he turned seven, his Aunt that became a
mother to him passed away from a sudden death. Tony was then taken away and put
into foster care while his two older siblings got to stay home and live with
family members – a decision he still questions today.
Once he was in the system for about a year, he got moved
to a temporary foster home. He remembers being taken in by a white, single
mother who already had a set of adopted sisters. She was very loving and made
him feel comfortable in this home, but when he turned ten things changed for
him. He found out his biological mother was trying to reconnect with him. She
had supposedly been clean from drugs for the past few years and was trying to
regain custody of her children. There was a case worker that came to talk to
him at his home, asking if he wanted to live with his real mom again. Of
course, he said yes so, they let him visit her for a week. Four years had gone
by and he finally got to see his mom. He felt nothing but joy and excitement
being able to hug her and finally be in the presence of the woman who birthed
him.
When
Tony was at his mother’s house, he noticed that a man would come over as if he
were trying to act in secrecy. His mom would be paranoid and make the man park
his car behind the house so that it couldn’t be seen from the roads view. Eventually,
a week had passed and it was time for Tony to go back to his foster home. On
the last day, he remembers his mother acting weird, coaching him through what
he could and could not talk about while he spent time with her. She made him
vow that if anyone asked if he had seen a man over her house, he would say no and
he promised her he would keep his word.
Tony got back to the foster home where the foster mother
and case worker were awaiting him. They acted as if they were excited to see
him again and welcomed him in with open arms. They were happy he was home but
knew they had work to do. The case worker brought Tony into an empty room in
the house, shut the door, and locked it behind her. That’s when the
interrogation began. She began with a series of generic questions, asking him
to explain his week’s experience. They got to the end and she asked the question
that was haunting him the entire time. Tony didn’t know how to respond and sat
there in silence, timid and afraid. He finally parted his lips to deny what he
had seen with his mom but, the caseworker wasn’t taking no for an answer. She antagonized him until she felt he was
being honest with her. He finally gave in, bursting out with aggravation, he told
her yes, he had seen the guy over his mother’s house. Tony didn’t know at the
time that the guy was his mother’s drug supplier and once he gave in and broke
his mother’s promise, he immediately felt a sense of remorse. That was the last
time he would ever see her before she died six years later.
July 24, 1998.
Answering
question after question, we eventually came to an end of this journey. Captivated
in that moment, I carried a feeling of despondency until he began to smile and
nod his head; giving me the assurance that he’s not defined by what he’s been
through. Because I was simply curious to know, I asked him one last question: “Have
you ever had another name besides Tony?” In a calming tone, he replied, “Yes. I
was born named after my biological father, Earl… Earl Johnson.”
References
Able, Aaron D, and Antonio N Williams.
“Interview with Tony.”
data-technology/statistics-research/afcars.
“Foster Care.” Children's Rights,
2018 Children's Rights,
www.childrensrights.org/newsroom/fact-sheets/foster-care/.
Lee, Mary. “Six Things You Should Know
About Growing up in Foster Care.” The Huffington
“This New Federal Law Will Change
Foster Care As We Know It.” The Pew Charitable Trusts,
federal-law-will-change-foster-care-as-we-know-it.
