| J.T.'s Grandma picks up the pieces
"His father went to Hillcrest juvenile home at the same age J.T. is now," said Coleman. She is worried that she is not strong enough to keep up with her grandson. She said she recently got out of the hospital for having chronic ulcer attacks, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. "An ulcer almost ate a hole through my stomach," said the young looking grandmother, as she sat in her Menlo Park home. "I had to have an operation." Coming home with Fs on his report cards, getting expelled from schools and recreational clubs, playing hooky and committing vandalism are all the warning signs that lead to a criminal career. Coleman knows these signs all too well. "He’s just like his father," she said. "Terry did the same thing before he really went bad." J.T.’s 35-year-old father, Terry Coleman, is currently on parole after serving a three year sentence in San Quentin and serving a six-and-a-half year sentence in Angola state prison in Louisiana for transporting narcotics. But J.T. hasn’t seen his father in almost two weeks. "I told him that he needs to spend more time with his son," said the slim grandmother in a dungaree dress. "All he wants is to get his dad’s attention. I told my son he should be ashamed that his mother is taking care of his son." And as the woman with the puffy scar under her right eye explained why her son is attracted to a life of crime, J.T. sat on top of the stairs and listened. She said she was only 14 years old when she first encountered sex with Terry’s father, Joe, on her parent’s Louisiana farm. And she was only 15 when she gave birth to her son Terry. "I met Joe playing house," said J.T.’s grandmother. "We played too much house. We were playing for real." Psychologically unprepared to have a child at such a young age, and emotionally immature, Coleman happily gave the responsibility of rearing her child to her parents. Joe, Terry’s father, wanted to take his son. "I hated him," said Coleman. "I beat him with a broom." Terry’s father, Joe, is now living in Texas and working in a business, Coleman said. Her parents decided to raise Terry until he reached 11 years old, because, Coleman said, "I didn’t know nothing about no babies." Following her aunt to California, Coleman eventually settled in East Palo Alto, received General Assistance and worked part-time as a home-attendant. She thought then she could raise her son. "And when he came I didn’t know how to deal with him," said Coleman. She said she was not prepared to deal with adolescence, nor having the responsibility of being a mother all of a sudden. Terry had to fend for a life of his own on the mean streets of East Palo Alto. From 11 to 15 years old, he found the streets more welcoming than his own home. "Terry was a nice boy until he got around the wrong crowd," said Coleman. "Then he started getting into trouble." But as a rule of thumb, Coleman said she never partakes in drugs and doesn’t allow it in her home. And when she discovered her son swaying into the door from drinking and smoking marijuana, she kept alert. So alert that she even searched his room for drugs. "I found packages and packages of weed in his drawers," said Coleman. "He started selling it ." She called the police and reported her son. The police enforcement confined Terry in Hillcrest Juvenile Home when he was 15 years old. But Coleman realized she had to pay for it and urged for her son to be released after one year. "I didn’t know I had to pay $1200 per month for his room and board," said Coleman. And that’s when Terry dove deeper into a life of crime. He stopped coming home and lived outside with his friends. "He was hiding from me," said Coleman. "Living with dope fiends and doing drugs." Terry eventually moved back to Louisiana when he was 19 years old, but his grandparents had long been deceased. He opted to live with Coleman’s brother and sister — his aunt and uncle — instead. He met J.T.’s mother there and immediately after that meeting, J.T. was born to a mother who already had 13 children. "In Louisiana, Terry robbed a jewelry store," said Coleman. "I had to wire him money to Mexico." Coleman said, however, she had no idea that Terry was on the lam from the police. Though the money was wired to him, Terry didn’t return to his mother’s home in East Palo Alto. "He was pimping girls on El Camino Street," she said. The police spotted Terry leaning against a Cadillac collecting money from his prostitutes. The police arrested him and shipped him back to Louisiana to serve a six-and a-half sentence in Angola prison for burglary in the first degree. J.T. was five years old as he witnessed his father get tangled in the prison system. His father was in prison most of his life. "I am not going to be like my father!," J.T. said, as he leaned back and shut his eyes real tight. "Because I believe in myself." Terry came back home briefly to sleep in the lazy boy chair in the living room. He couldn't communicate with his son because he was in such a heavy nod, said Coleman. And when he woke up, he ate and disappeared. J.T. ran downstairs in the morning to talk to his father, but instead he found an empty chair, Coleman said. One of her neighbors knocked on Coleman’s door to ask for something to eat and Coleman prayed that her grandson doesn’t emulate her son. |
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