Taniki Richard - Candy Stripes: Rise in the Fall

 

My six siblings and I hustle candy for my drug addicted parents. Every day coming home from school, I drop my backpack and pick up a couple boxes of fruity swirl peppermint sticks to go out and hit the streets. There were four teams. They got older one and a younger one and then the middle child. I mean, he was old enough, so he basically with eyes distance, he would keep an eye on him. Four productive teams. I'm 14, the second oldest of seven, but I'm the leader. I know how to get it done. They depended on me to make sure that these boxes got sold. Everyone got three boxes each and trust and believe om average we were making about $180 to $250 every couple days. 

 

And life was good, because we were able to eat. And we had a good scheme going, too. It went something like this. “Excuse me, sir. Would you like to buy some candy for our church?” “What church?” We didn't have any church. It didn't exist. And if they said no, then we would say, “Would you like to donate?” I came up with that idea. You had to maximize the sale, right? That was the type of person I was to get it done. And we did that, because if we didn't sell, we didn't eat. And in my mind, because I was afraid of my father, if we didn't sell, we might get beat. 

 

So, we did that day in, day out, till about 14. I went from 14 to 15 years old. And then, the guilt set in. Why would these people keep giving us this money? They know we come here every day. They say, “God bless you, child,” and give the money or the donation. And I'm like, “God can't be happy with this. We're liars. This is a scam. Why am I doing this?” It would eat at me, tearing like the fibers of my soul apart. I knew I just couldn't do this anymore. I came home from school one day, and my parents were up, surprisingly, and dressed. I looked in the corner, and there were at least 25 boxes of candy waiting on me. One stack had more than the other stacks, and I knew that was probably mine. I was the most productive. 

 

And I said while looking down on the ground, the red carpet flat, dirty and nasty, I looked down and I said, “Daddy, I can't do this anymore. I don't want to hustle candy anymore.” Now, my mom, she chuckled. I slowly looked up in my dad's face, and I could see his eyes just squinting at me with his chapped up, beady, just ashy lips. And in his Caribbean voice, he said, “Taniki, you're going to sell the candy. Don't mess with me.” I knew what that meant, too. It meant cruise it or bruise it. So, I kept selling the candy. We went on like this. 

 

I started to rebel passively. I'd come back and I wouldn't sell the boxes of candy. He would yell at me, spitting, just call me names, pushing me out the door. And even at night, he would make me go back out there and sell that candy. Now, since I was a leader, my brothers and sisters, they picked up on my rebelliousness. They started to rebel. My sister would throw away perfectly good boxes of candy. My brother would hide the candy money and take it to school for lunch and not turn it into my dad. 

 

The teams were falling apart. And my dad knew it. He knew that I was the culprit, he had to get me up out of there. So, he came to me one day and he said, “Taniki, go ahead, you can get a job.” I was like, “Yes, I made it. I have an opportunity to make my life better. I can relieve myself of this guilt that I felt by hustling these kind hearted people who were so willingly giving us their money, and knowing that we were lying, knowing that I was a liar. I would be relieved of this and I would have a respectable job.” 

 

So, within a month, I went and got myself a job as a cashier at the first fast food joint down the street. I was so proud of myself. Three weeks later, I got a check, my first check. So happy. He shows up at my job and he said, “Taniki, give me the check.” Now. I'm not going to lie to you. I was disappointed. I handed over the check. I knew. I mean, my parents are crackheads. You really think that I'd be making a check and they not going to get it? Come on. But I expected that. But what I didn't expect was what he said next, what he would make me do. He said, “Your brother's waiting on you. Go over to the gas station and sell the candy.” 

 

The blood in my skin started to boil. I was so angry. “You lied. How could you lie? You said if I got a job, I wouldn't have to hustle no more.” But I went. While I was walking, I said, “Can I at least go back home and change my shirt?” He said, “No.” One day, I got my work clothes on and I was heading out. He was sending the rest of the teams out, too. Because I was working, they weren't as productive as they used to be. And he needed that money right then and right now. So, he told me, “Taniki, you're not going to work. You're going to go out there and help them hustle this candy.” 

 

And this time, instead of looking down on the carpet, I looked him up in his face and I said, “No. No, I'm not.” And he's laying down on the little mattress in the living room, and he looks up at me and said, “Yes, you are.” And I said, “No, I'm not.” And he jumps up and he blocks the front door. I told him, I said, “You're going to get me fired. I got to go.” And in front of my brothers and my mother and my sisters, I told him, “I'm not hustling for you anymore.” He slapped me, and I fell to the ground, and I started crying, and I screamed. I said, “I'm going to work.” He said, “No, you're not.” He grabbed me by the hair and drugged me from the living room into all the way into the back room. I'm screaming and crying out in pain. He slams in and locks the door.

 

Now, I'm sitting there kicking at the door, screaming, “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.” I started looking around. I took my hands and dried my face, and I looked around for a solution. I saw the window. Now, it got quiet. So, my siblings came in there to check on me. When they found me, they saw my hands hanging over the windowsill. They ran over to the window and was like, “Taniki, you're going to get in trouble. Daddy's going to get you. You're going to get in trouble for this. Come back in.” I said, “No, I'm not. I'm going to work. Let my hands go.” 

 

Now, the windowsill was digging into my palms at this time, but I still had enough energy to pull myself up. I could. But I said, “You know what? At this point in time, if I'm going to be in trouble for something, I am going to be in trouble for something I stand for what's right. I'm not going to gain the approval for something that's wrong,” and I let go.