From Tragedy to Homeless to Triumph: A True Story of One Man’S Journey on How He Beat All Odds After Being Shot Stabbed Beaten but Never Broken

FROM

TRAGEDY

TO

HOMELESS

TO

TRIUMPH

A True Story of One Man’s Journey on How he beat All odds after being Shot Stabbed beaten but never Broken

DAMON GILSTRAP

iUniverse LLC

Bloomington

FROM TRAGEDY TO HOMELESS TO TRIUMPH

A True Story of One Man’s Journey on How he beat All odds after being Shot Stabbed beaten but never Broken

Copyright © 2014 Damon Gilstrap.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-9769-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-9770-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013923796

iUniverse rev. date: 03/18/2014

CONTENTS

DEDICATION AND SPECIAL THANKS

PROLOGUE

Chapter 1: TOP CAT LOUNGE

Chapter 2: WHERE I CAME FROM

Chapter 3: THE DEATH AND RAPE

Chapter 4: FOSTER CARE

Chapter 5: BALTIMORE, THE GETAWAY

Chapter 6: MISSING MY MOTHER

Chapter 7: WHEN THE SYSTEM TOOK MY BROTHER

Chapter 8: EDGEMEAD, WHERE IT’S TIME TO MAN UP

Chapter 9: SOMEONE TO LOOK UP TO

Chapter 10: WHEN TO STEP UP

Chapter 11: 17TH AT U STREET, REUNITED WITH MY BROTHER

Chapter 12: INDEPENDENT LIVING

Chapter 13: THE MOVE

Chapter 14: VALLEY GREEN, D.C.’S MOST DANGEROUS PROJECTS

Chapter 15: THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREI

Chapter 16: MY JOURNEY IN LIFE, PART II

Chapter 17: THE FIGHT THAT ALMOST COST ME MY LIFE

Chapter 18: GOING BACK TO WHAT I KNOW

Chapter 19: THE RIDE TO NOWHERE

Chapter 20: THE SYRACUSE RESCUE MISSION SAVES MY LIFE

Chapter 21: 1989 TO 1998, MY DAYS AT THE NEW LIFE CENTER

Chapter 22: MY RECOVERY

Chapter 23: I WAS POWERLESS, BUT GOD WAS RIGHT ON TIME AGAIN

Chapter 24: WHEN I WENT BACK TO WORK

Chapter 25: BACK TO THE BEGINNING

Chapter 26: REVENGE

Chapter 27: THE FIGHT AT SEVILLE MADE MY FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE

Chapter 28: I WILL NEVER BE OUTMATCHED AGAIN

Chapter 29: WHEN I STARTED TO SELL DRUGS AND LOST MY WAY

Chapter 30: POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS: I WAS GOING TO DO WHATEVER I HAD TO FOR MY SON

Chapter 31: THE WILD BUNCH

Chapter 32: NOT GOING FOR ANYTHING AND BABY MOTHER TROUBLE

Chapter 33: BUCKEY, BUCKEY

Chapter 34: BACK IN THE SYSTEM

Chapter 35: THE DREAM TEAM AND A HIGH SPEED CHASE

Chapter 36: I WENT TO JAIL AS A BOY BUT CAME OUT A CHANGED MAN. PART 3 OF MY LIFE; WHEN YOU BECOME A MAN YOU PUT BOYISH THINGS AWAY

Chapter 37: TRYING TO MAKE IT WORK FOR MY KIDS

Chapter 38: ON THE GROUND AGAIN, FOR A SHORT TIME

CHAPTER 39: THE SICK OLD MAN

Chapter 1: THE STORY BEHIND THE GLORY GOD WON’T GIVE YOU NOTHING THAT YOU CAN’T HANDLE

CHAPTER 2: BET AMERICAN GANGSTER

CHAPTER 3: ANGELATHE LOVE OF MY LIFE THAT HELPED ME CHANGE MY LIFE

CHAPTER 4: THE CAR CHASH

DEDICATION AND SPECIAL THANKS

First and foremost, thanks go to my God that brought me through all my tragedies in one piece and guided my footsteps when I had no idea where I was going. Secondly, thanks go to my mother: who died much too young in life. I will love her forever. Next, thanks go to my beloved brother Shawn Gilstrap who was a man even though he was only a boy. He helped me put boyish things away to become the man that I am today. I also need to say thank you to my Aunt Louise and Uncle Buck who are gone but never forgotten. I would like to say thank you to Greg, Debbie and Gary Tyler for their generosity and letting me and my brother into their home and while providing a safe and loving atmosphere.

Thank you to Angela Wilson, my beautiful fiancée who stuck with me through the good and bad times of life and for showing me what real love is. Her father Kurt Frazier, Denise Jackson, Alex Frazier, Tashiko Melendez, Renee Washington, Dottie Russell and Michelle Works are all people who gave me unconditional love and support when my life depended on it.

Thank you to Mary Austin and Evalyn Frazier who are the only grandmothers that I ever knew in life. They both nursed me back to health when most people counted me out.

A real friend will help you in need. With that being said, I would like to say thank you to a few people in particular.

Sam Johnson was always there when I called him or anything. He has been a true friend to me. I would like to thank Dexter Green for all the encouragement and building of my mind during this process. He was there every step of the way.

I need to thank Greg Odom for coming to my aid when I needed someone to care and teach me how to rehabilitate my body and for taking me to the gym. Will Hadley, Darryl Johnson and Boo Green have given me amazing support during a time when I needed them more than they will ever know.

I can’t thank the Rescue Mission of Syracuse, NY enough for saving my life when I first came to Syracuse after leaving Washington, DC. I thank everyone for being there to help me in my time of need.

Special Thanks

Special thanks go to Mrs. Hillary R Clinton for calling me up to the stage at the US Capitol Building to receive credit for the part I played in the capture of a serial kidnapper. That was a very special day in my life.

Special thanks go to Oprah Winfrey. I started writing journals after watching her talk show. This book was started by daily journal entries.

Special thanks go to Dr. Guy Thomas Fisher for sharing his story on American Gangster. He showed me that it’s not too late to change.

Special thanks go to Dr. Phil McGraw for letting me know that I wasn’t crazy. I could have a mental health problem with everything I been through by watching his show on Post Traumatic Syndrome Disorder.

Special thanks go to Sugar Ray Leonard for inviting three little hoodlum boys into his house in the late 1970s

And showing me you don’t have to show everyone you are a tough guy. He gave me a gift that would last a lifetime.

Special thanks go to Ms. Sarah Higginbotham for taking her time to teach me what I know about education today.

Special thanks go to Dr. Jones for always giving me tough love when I needed it most.

Special thanks go to Pastor Joel Osteen for all his encouragement every Sunday. The messages are always tailor made for me.

Special thanks to my patient and professional editor Mark Bialzak. I hope that we have more projects together in the future. I also thank Bryan Scott Wilbur who helped me during the beginning of the journey.

I’m sorry if I forgot to acknowledge anyone. Please forgive me and charge it to my head and not my heart.

My special message to all the haters is thank you because if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have the nerve to write this book.

My name is Damon Gilstrap, I was born in Atlantic City, NJ in 1966. I started to write after watching the Oprah Winfrey show. When Oprah said everyone should keep a journal, I started writing and couldn’t stop which turned into my autobiography. I knew that I had more tragedies than most people. I discovered that I had so much pain. I kept it inside of me for all those years which guided a lot of poor decision making in life.

I found out that I was on the police radar, rightly so because of my past life. The law didn’t know that I was a changed man. I was trying to help fix some of the damage that I caused over the years. So I had to go back to my past life and get some tough love from the only one that was like a father to me. The director of a group home I was in the 1980s named Dr. Jones advised me to get a hobby. I chose to write as a hobby even though I had no formal education just a 5th grade education.

PROLOGUE

I was being judged by the actions that I took to protect myself. I decided not to be anyone’s victim. I have seen in my past and present life. I wanted to tell my story the way it happened to me and at the same time ease some of my pain by writing an autobiography. I needed an outlet to express myself in a positive manner.

I currently reside in Syracuse, N.Y., with my family. I am 46 years old. There were plenty of times I didn’t think I’d make it to half this age.

I came to Syracuse in the summer of 1989. I was a boy looking for some direction in life after being in juvenile homes and lock-ups my whole life. I got hooked on drugs in Washington, D.C., just before my 18th birthday. I thought that I could escape the pressures of events that happened earlier in my life with drugs. I couldn’t cope anymore, even with the drugs that I was using. I became an addict. Life became too much for me. I was beaten by the police while trying to visit my newborn daughter in Prince George County, Md., in the 1980s, by some racist cops. Finding my mother dead when I was 9, in Baltimore in 1975, it had already taken its toll.

The drugs I was using helped me deal with my problems at first. Then I needed more and more drugs to cope with life. I went from experimenting with drugs in 1983 to becoming a full-blown addict and homeless in 1989.

I think I got off easy because I got a chance to change my life.

A lot of other kids that were in some of the same facilities with me weren’t as fortunate. Some of them died. Some went to jail for life, for killing someone or other crimes. I went the other route, the lesser of the two evils. I didn’t like where the drugs were taking me. I knew I was lucky when I got on a bus searching for a better quality of life.

I never did fit in as a boy with my peers… until I discovered drugs. Yet it turned out that drug use wasn’t the way to fit in for me. It took me down a road so, so lonely road that I knew I had to leave. I had to try to start over and discover to who I wanted to be, because I sure didn’t like what I had become.

I was put on this earth to become something else in life, not a drug addict and not homeless. I had to make a change. I got on a bus looking for the help I needed.

My first change in fortune came from a stranger. While panhandling in Washington, D.C., somebody I didn’t know bought me a bus ticket out of town.

I thought I was going to Baltimore.

My mother found happiness there in 1973 when she kidnapped my brother and me from an institution that our grandparents had put us in. I didn’t know anyone in Baltimore, but I was going to try and find happiness just like my mother did when she went there from New Haven, Conn. I just knew I was headed in the right direction. I knew no one could judge me anymore because of my past unless I let them.

I was trying to start over because I made some major mistakes around my 18th year, a lost soul who’d lived through more tragedy than most adults suffered in their whole life. Yet I knew it wasn’t anyone’s fault but my own that my life had turned out the way it did. I had to choose again. I did not want to stay in Washington, D.C., and be a drug addict and a criminal. That would have proved that everybody I knew was right about me.

Something deep in my soul told me I could do better, that life could be so much more than the way I was living. So I made a decision to venture out of my comfort zone to get help. I was determined to find help. I would go wherever I needed to. I made a choice to leave because I was tired of living one day at a time, sometimes even one second at a time.

I left D.C. that summer night on a Trailways bus from the station near the U.S. Capitol, just down the street from where I was shot a couple years before trying to get out of the way of a gun fight. I made some mistakes in my life. I had run into too many situations where I thought I had no choice other than to act like a fool. I was headed to jail or even death.

This is what I had to escape.

I got off the bus in Syracuse and searched for the nearest shelter. I found refuge at the Rescue Mission. I had found help.

If only it had been that easy.

I forgot why I left D.C., and ended up back in jail in 1999.

Going to jail was nothing new for me. I had been in and out of jail my whole life. As I approached 21, I had a chip on my shoulder. I felt the world owed me something. That made me want to fight anybody that crossed my path. I thought there was no such thing as a fair fight. My life had been full of people jumping me, so I armed myself with any weapon I thought necessary to protect myself.

Once I was in jail, I met people who told me about