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anymore. I lived a life of constant motion. I just kept moving and never looking back.
    I soon met a young woman named Annie. Annie had two sons and a good job as a dispatcher with the police department. Annie was good for me at first. We moved in together and she tried to keep me straight. Keeping me straight wasn’t something someone else could do though and, in 1985, I began snorting cocaine.I knew I had let her down.
    When I needed to get away from the stress of the home, I escaped to the harness horse races at the Maywood track in Cicero, Illinois, just north of Chicago. I found my escape about four times a week. I wasn’t home often and, when I was home, I was usually messed up.
    One day when I was on a high, I told Annie that she wasn’t good for me and I wasn’t good for her. I asked her and her sons to move out. She agreed. Right after they moved out, I brought in Homey’s girlfriend’s sister, Barbara, to live with me. Barbara taught me how to sell
big
drugs like cocaine and heroin.
    In 1986, I moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a month. From there I went back to Milwaukee and discovered that someone stole my disability welfare check. I pulled a pistol on the people living downstairs from Homey and his girlfriend because I thought they stole the check. They swore they didn’t; I didn’t believe them.
    The downstairs neighbors called the cops, who arrested me for carrying a concealed weapon. Because I was a convicted felon on parole, I was sent back to the Milwaukee County Jail, then to the Milwaukee County Psychiatric Ward, and finally to the House of Corrections in Franklin for one month. Judge Frank Crivello gave me two years’ probation. I found out later that Homey and his girlfriend had actually stolen my check.
    When I got out, I moved back in with Barbara. That only lasted for a week because I started back on my path of destruction. My parole officer put me in DePaul Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Milwaukee, for rehabilitation for thirty days. Rehab gave me hope that I could change my ways. I promised myself that as soon as I got out, I would be a new man.
    When I got out of DePaul, I was in a car accident and the insurance company paid me $3,000. That’s a lot of money to a guy like me. I moved back in with my old girlfriend, Annie. I felt bad about letting her down before so I gave her most of the money to pay the rent, buy food, and help with her kids. It felt good. It made
me
feel good. I was happy to be helping her.
    To use the cliché, old habits are hard to break. Not long after, my lifestyle began repeating itself and I found myself yet again in the House of Corrections. Istayed there from November 1986 to February 1987. After release, I landed in the DePaul/Bellevue Halfway House on the east side of Milwaukee until May 1987. No matter what I resolved to do when I was incarcerated, I just couldn’t seem to keep my life under control. I was all over the place.
    Annie came to visit me at the halfway house and dropped a bomb: she’d quit her job as a police dispatcher the previous year. Now, without any money coming in, her utilities had been turned off. Somehow, I felt I owed her. I really wanted to help her out. I didn’t know what to do so I made a decision. I simply walked out of the halfway house.
    The next month, because I had violated parole, my parole officer had me jailed. About the same time, I found out Annie was pregnant
again
. On February 16, 1988, Annie gave birth to my third child, my daughter Shan’elle.
    I wanted to help Annie and the baby. I wanted to be a father and help my baby’s mother. After my release, I found a job working for the company that put food in the airplanes at Mitchell Field in Milwaukee. My job was to clean out the trays that kept the food warm. I got that job under my real name, Herman Martin. Working there was really tough on me; I had co-workers who were blatantly racist. After two months, I walked out. Racism is one thing I have a hard time