My First Whatever

It began as a mistake because I was far too young to be with Earl. I met him when I was still living at home, and he was in his early 20s. By the time I left home, I was already somewhat broken, and getting involved with Earl didn’t help any.

I met a girl named Terra in grade 9, who was new to the city. She was from Peterborough. I never really clicked with anyone in high school, but with her being new, we connected and became friends. We found out about an all-ages club downtown called Club Z, which was all the rage in the '80s. DJ Carl Allen used to spin there back in those days.

I only had to ask my mom if I could sleep over at Terra’s place, since her mom always went back to Peterborough on the weekends. We basically had her house to ourselves.

On the weekends, we'd head downtown, specifically to the Eaton Centre, Dundas, and Yonge. It wasn't anything like it is today, but it’s always been the highlight of the city.

The second floor of the Eaton Centre—the clock, Aldo, Le Château—that was the spot back then. To this day, those stores are still there—same floor, same locations. That whole level was actually called the 'meat market.' Guys went there looking for girls, and girls went looking for guys. Along with the arcade on Yonge Street, it was also known as a hunting ground for pimps in the '80s.

That’s where I bumped into Molly after all those years—at the Eaton Centre. I’d see Molly at Club Z. One night, Terra and I were at Club Z, and I saw this tall guy, rocking jerry curls. I fell head over heels for him. I don’t know what the attraction was, but the following weekend, I was on a mission to find him. We walked into the McDonald’s across from the Eaton Centre, and there he was. Earl thought he was funny, and at that age, so did I. He had that Airplane and Naked Gun kind of humor—humor I’ve grown to despise.

I can’t remember how we went from McDonald’s or where we went afterward, but eventually, it got to the point where Earl and I were skipping school, and he was skipping work. I would go to his house, which was just around the corner from the hood where I grew up, and Earl and I would have sex all day long.

Earl was pretty much my first. I had one awkward experience with someone else before him, but it felt stupid and weird, so I disregarded it. Earl became my first. In essence, he was. Everything I learned up until I was 18—which wasn’t much—came from being with him.

He and I were all about sex. Well, for him, it was—I know now that I was too young to know the difference between sex, intimacy, and love. I became attached, maybe even obsessed with Earl. I wanted him as much as I could have him. The feeling I had while we were having sex was everything to me.

When I first left home, Terra and I had a plan to get our own apartment—her mom was paying her rent and was totally cool with her moving out. Looking back now, I think, wow, that’s odd! Terra’s mom was also an alcoholic—a nurse by day, drunk by night. So, there was that. I was working at Jean Machine in the Eaton Centre and trying to get accepted into Danforth Tech. I’d been through a few schools in the west end and didn’t have the best track record. Danforth Tech gave me a chance. We had a little apartment at Woodbine and Danforth, off Cedarvale, and I lived there until I turned 16. I’d already been seeing Earl months before we got that apartment. Terra was there with the whole Earl thing from day one. Everything was rosy, posy—until it wasn’t.

Earl wasn’t the best looking guy out there, but you couldn't tell me that back then. He was calm and had a softness about him. He was safe. Jamaican—he didn’t smoke. He didn’t do drugs. He definitely didn’t have the mentality or the audacity to pimp. He was a fucking square—as square as square could be. I don’t know what it was when I was with Earl, but having sex with him gave me a sense of feeling wanted, even though at times I felt I wasn’t. I was good enough for Earl to fuck all day long, 4-6 days a week, but not to love, date, or ever call me his woman.

He was a free agent. He made that very clear, but I didn’t care. He told me he didn’t want to be in a relationship, and I was okay with that—no problem. That song from SOS Band, Just the Way You Like It, was literally my motto—“I don’t care about the other girls, just be good to me.” But I did. As much as I love that song, it still irks me to this day. Every time I knew or found out he was with someone else, it wounded me inside.

I left home early, and Earl had a lot to do with that. He was Black, for one, and my mother wasn’t having it. I think she and her husband thought some big, Black, Rick James-type pimp was grooming me, but that wasn’t it at all. Earl was pretty much all I had back then and I totally relied on him emotionally and mentally. Him being the person he was—or still is—I’d have to say he didn’t really get it. A big, huge-ass ship could go right by in front of Earl, and he wouldn’t even notice it. That’s the type of guy he is. And back then, I didn’t care that he couldn’t see it either.

Shit all went to hell with Terra and the apartment after the abortion, rape and the suicide attempt, and the thoughts of Earl being with other women, which was fucking destroying me inside. Terra moved out. I ran the place down until I had no job, no money, and school had gone to shit. I ended up having an abortion from Earl when I was 15—one of many. But that first one was before the rape and the suicide attempt. It fucked me up. I was in touch with my mother briefly at that time, and she convinced me to have that abortion, primarily because the baby was going to be Black. I can remember her words, and how I was unsure, that abortion was the right decision for me. Anyway, it happened.

I had nowhere to go. Eventually, I ended up moving in with Molly and her mom. It started with me just sleeping there a couple of nights, and then Molly asked her mom if I could stay. She liked me and said yes. I got a job at Towers, Carlaw and Gerrard, and started contributing to the house monthly. I lived with them for over a year.

Living with Molly gave me easy access to Earl—he lived just up the street on Logan and played ball every Tuesday night at the community center. Us being together was just a known thing around the hood. Who knows what the word on the street was. I was deaf, dumb, and blind when it came to Earl. Instead of skipping school, I was now walking up to the Danforth in the middle of the night, knife in hand, sneaking into Earl’s house at night just to have sex with him.

Earl was a silly jokester. He didn’t take anything seriously... including the fact that he had this underage tagalong—emotionally and mentally broken. I was young, vulnerable and misconstrued what he and I had as love.

Nothing was serious for him—not until he and his brother got into a serious car accident and his brother died. I was living on Dingwall off of Pape when that happened, hanging out with Blair in Regent late nights on the weekends, getting up to all kinds of mischief while Earl was off to Hamilton on the weekends, fucking bitches out there. And he would always tell me—he was honest when I’d ask why, he’d tell me.

I would listen, intently—taking it all in—and my guts would twist and turn inside every single time. And there were many. “That one had big tits. She was Asian. I’ve never had an Asian before.” He always had a reason for every one of them, and I always asked. With each answer, a piece of me would die inside.

Earl never supported me financially. In all the time I was with him, I think he may have paid my $300 rent on Dingwall just once, and that was only because I was renting the upper level of a house owned by his friend's mother, who was off to university and I couldn’t pay it. 

I never knew if, when I walked up to his house in the middle of the night, he was even going to give me five bucks to get home in a cab afterward. Earl had money. He lived at home with his parents and worked construction, clearing a grand a week. I was never comfortable asking him for money, and the one time I alluded to being hungry—because I was fucking starving—he told me to “live off my fat!” I wasn’t even fucking fat!

I was broke, messed up in a big way during those times, grabbing odd day jobs. I would line up on Queen St. at Parliament at 5AM There was a recruiting place there, and they farmed out work daily—only the first few people would get an odd gig that paid about $30-35 a day. Some days I’d get one, other days I wouldn’t.

I’d stay in that apartment for days on end with no food, no money, just sleeping all day, every day, for three to four days at a time. All day, all night until Earl would come around again.

The car accident changed everything. I didn’t see Earl anymore—he was homebound. He had some pretty serious injuries from the accident, and there was a long recovery. On top of that, he and his family were grieving the loss of his older brother.

There was no room for me anymore; he shunned me, and I think it was primarily because he wanted to do right by his family. His mom was old-school, Jamaican. Earl had been sneaking me down into the basement for a few years now on a regular basis. His dad and his younger sister had seen me. It really wasn’t a secret, but everyone knew to keep it from his mom. I’m pretty sure she had an inkling.

Earl was all I had. He pushed me away. I needed him. He meant the world to me. I mean, I was young when we started out. I didn’t know what love was. I didn’t know what a fling was. He was my first whatever it was, and it was falling apart. 

Earl did groom me, even though he had no fucking clue what he was doing, other than getting his rocks off. He ultimately shaped my life, stripping me of my self-esteem, my confidence, and my self-worth. Those three qualities never stood a chance, and there I was, too fucking young to realize what was happening, thinking all of it was OK. It wasn’t OK. None of it was OK.

I wasn’t the type of girl to bounce around or sleep around. I had maybe one or two encounters outside of the rapes. I only wanted Earl. I was loyal. I sort of fell apart for a while after that, I went downhill. 

I ended up staying with someone else I only knew briefly on Bleecker, and that place was no good for me either. I wasn’t doing well. I was a mess. Earl was still there, barely, on the sidelines. That was when my clothes got sliced in half. Earl knew the guy—or rather, the guy knew Earl—and still did that shit to me anyway, knowing Earl wouldn’t do anything about it. Truth be told, I think if I hadn’t been with Earl, that evil motherfucker would’ve done a lot more to me than just rip up my clothes with that knife.

It’s like I had this man in my life with whom I was exclusively sexually involved. But he wouldn’t take ownership of me; he completely used me, yet somehow, at times, protected me—just his presence, him being the guy in my life during those years, saved me a time or two.

I went through a whole bunch of shit. It would take over 500 pages just to describe every detail in that short time all I went through, so I’m gonna fast forward to the part where I was pregnant, again. I wanted that baby. I set out to get pregnant. It wasn’t to ‘trap’ Earl. I wasn't that person otherwise I would have done it long ago. I was messed up. I needed love and I knew that by having a child I was creating someone to love who would ultimately love me back.

There I was, pregnant, with nowhere to go after my clothes were all ripped to shit. Earl wasn’t supporting me. He wasn’t offering any ideas. He wasn’t helping me at all. He wasn’t even thinking about me. I never thought about it back then—how fucked up all of it was.

I was navigating through the fucking streets late at night—knife in hand, doing drugs—crack, getting raped, for fuck’s sake—doing all kinds of things, and this guy had no fucking idea. Clueless, all the way around. Concerned with only himself.

I always said he was fucking dumb because I could pull the wool over his eyes so easily, every fucking time. It was disappointing, and it eventually made me lose respect for him. I started with Earl at a very young age, and by the time I turned 18, I had surpassed that man’s mentality and maturity by a long shot.

As a last resort, I ended up moving into my mother’s apartment which was close to TiAmo, where I worked on Spadina. Talk about desperation! After a week my mom didn’t want me there anymore, I had to go. I was 6-8 weeks pregnant with Kayla and I had to go. It was too intrusive for her, me being there.

That’s when I hooked up with Kayla's godmother. She’s the one who saved me. She provided shelter for me, put money in my pockets—she had me. Even though it was a fucked-up track she was on, I was on a track too—get the fuck out of poverty track!

During my pregnancy, Kayla’s godmother and I were constantly on the move, making money. Earl wasn’t my life anymore. While he was finally catching feelings, my feelings for Earl were dissipating. My focus was my baby and providing for my child.

Earl came in handy those days, though. We used him a few times as a driver. He drove, had a car, and was simple as fuck, so he was perfect for the job. I remember one time we got pulled over by the cops. We had a trunk full of gear, and they were asking him questions since he was the driver. He just stood there sucking on a Slurpee, saying he didn’t know anything. Because, in fact, he really didn’t know anything. He had no clue what was in the trunk! Daft. "OK, have a safe night." He got back in the car, and we were off.

While I was pregnant and living with Kayla’s godmother at that time, Earl and I were together constantly, he was practically living with me. He was excited about the baby, and I was getting sick of his shit, sick of him. I had been introduced to a new life, and all the Scotian men were around—lots of them. They all knew Earl and again, Earl had a presence. I was protected.

Earl fucked someone else while I was eight months pregnant with Kayla and contracted an STD. I looked at the dick one day and was like,”This shit looks sick—go see a doctor!” Sure enough, he had Trichomonas. How I managed to not catch it was beyond me, but thank God, I never did. 

That was it for me, I actually started resenting and dismissing him… basically waking up every day thinking to myself what in the actual fuck am I doing with this fucking guy? I packed up all his shit and put at the fucking door and when he came to the apartment he was like what’s this I was like “What the fuck do you think it is— get out!”

“OK.” De de daa with his daft self went on his way. He didn’t care—took everything and left. He and I had broken up so many times it became like fucking bacon and eggs in the morning! He didn’t care because, a couple of days later, he knew he’d be back in and he was.

I gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl. 8lbs 14oz, Kayla Victoria Sherry. Head full of hair. It was a long birth, and Earl was there for it, all of it. And so was my mother at the end! I did not want her there at all! She pulled the “I’m the mother” card and forced her way into the delivery room while I was pushing. I remember looking over at her—she was laughing at me. Three days in labor, in fucking pain. I was exhausted, and there was my mother on my right side of me, with her hand over her mouth fucking laughing at me.

That was all Earl was good for—he gave me a beautiful daughter. The rest of it was one big fucking mistake. I’m sure he’s got other baby mamas out there who would agree with that first part.

I looked like shit after those three days. I remember Earl kissing me and telling me he loved me—that was the first time he had ever said it. He had a big problem committing to me or being in a relationship with a white woman. His mom didn’t like it; it wasn’t acceptable. Earl liked me, obviously, and I knew he did, but he wouldn’t allow himself to feel anything more for me until I had Kayla.

As the story goes—too little, too late.

I carried on with him for the next few months. Kayla’s godmother and I ended up moving into another apartment, and not long after, he didn’t come home one night. That time was different. Ever since the car accident happened and his brother died, I had been genuinely worried about him—worried about him driving back and forth from Hamilton. Not just some "fucking around" shit. I was afraid for him.

The next fucking day, around 6 or 7 PM, he came bouncing through the door. I was like, “Where the fuck were you? Actually, I don’t care where the fuck you were. Kayla is here—you’re on! You stay—I’m fucking gone.” And I left.

Kayla’s godmother and I went for drinks at a friend’s house. When I got home, the next day, I told him I wanted him the fuck out. “Where are you gonna go? Go back to wherever the fuck you were last night. I don’t care where you go—just get the fuck up out of here.”

I was cold, I was mean, and I had every right to be. I was not the same person anymore. I had grown up. I started questioning all of it. My heart toward Earl had gone cold. That was the last time we broke up—no more off-and-on shit. I was done, done. He didn’t think so. 

Kayla’s godmother and I moved again—this time into a three-bedroom house on Oak Park, near Woodbine and Danforth. Earl thought he’d be back in by then. Nope. That night he didn’t come home, he took my focus off my daughter. I spent hours worrying about him driving back and forth, afraid something had happened. I swore that would never happen again.

He would come around to the new house, thinking—expecting—that we’d get back together. Once it finally kicked in that wasn’t fucking happening, he didn’t like it too much. I remember being in my room. Kayla’s godmother and I had three separate phone lines in the house—one in her room, one in mine, and the main house phone.

Earl came in one day, finally realizing, Shit, she might actually be serious this time. He was in the kitchen talking to her, and suddenly, he started roundhouse kicking the kitchen cupboards with his Taekwondo legs.

She called me from her room and said, “Hey, you better talk to him. I ain’t never seen him like this before.” Neither had I actually, I definitely wasn’t afraid of him. I came down the stairs—no eye contact. I told him flatly, “We are done. All I want from you is fucking money! You got any money for your daughter?!” I had never asked this man for a fucking dime until then.

Now, I wanted it all—retroactively, for my time spent with him. My wasted youth. I didn’t even need his money back then; I just wanted to take from him whatever I could—just as he had taken my youth.

He stared at me blankly. He’d never seen me like that before, or heard me talk that way.

If I’m being honest, I fucked a Scotian dude after we split up, and my world was fucking rocked! Up, down, and fucking sideways.

I had been fucking one dude—Earl—the same dude, over and over again since I started fucking. A very selfish lover. In all that time, I only learned how to give. I didn’t know any better. I had more sex in those four years of my life than some women would have in a lifetime! Not some—many. I had been missing out and realizing that made me despise him even more.

Earl was a good dad back then—I’ll give him that. He loved Kayla deeply. She was his firstborn. Well... until an older daughter from a previous relationship—a woman he had been fucking off and on the whole time we were together—popped up. One of many I threw hands with back in the day.

Kayla was christened at eight months. That night, after months of being apart, I slept with Earl. By then, he was asking me what it would take to get back together—he was willing to go all the way. I thought maybe there could still be something there. But after that night, it was clear: I didn’t want Earl anymore, not at all. Whatever I had for him was long gone—the well I had for him had run dry.

Earl would take Kayla to his parents' house in Mississauga every weekend, and he’d flip me a few bills here and there. It was a great arrangement. He eventually got used to us being apart and we were amicable. Kayla was his pride and joy back then. She grew up with a full, loving family on her dad’s side.

When Kayla was maybe one or two, Earl had another baby on the way from yet another woman. When he told me, I felt sad—sad because I knew damn well once that baby was born, things were going to change for her, and monetarily, for me. I can’t even describe the contempt that grew inside me for him. Sure enough, it did. The money lessened, and so did his time with Kayla. Now he had three daughters to take responsibility for.

I was pregnant with Trent when I took his ass—along with Trent’s dad—to fucking court. Trent was still in my belly—fuck ‘em both! I went through hell during that pregnancy. Kayla had to go back on tube feeding, money was tight, and Earl—or his family—were nowhere to be found. That was shortly after we came back to Toronto from Vancouver, with the promise of help that never came.

Trent’s dad was a fling—a two, three-nighter sprawled out from August to October. We never talked much. I had his number and used it exactly twice: once to call him over one night—the last time we were together—and the next time to tell him I was pregnant with Trent.

Listen—I was under the impression I couldn’t get pregnant again after that emergency surgery, nor was I trying to. But there I was, pregnant again, and the timing couldn’t have been better.

I knew Colin—Trent’s dad—was sad, broken... whatever you want to call it. And sadly, that very well may have been part of the attraction. Colin was very tall, good-looking, definitely had issues. Like I said, we didn’t talk much.

I called him up early November, told him flat out that I was pregnant—not knowing what the fuck to expect on the other end of the phone.

He said, “Ughhhh... not good.”

I said, “Yeah, well if I thought I needed you, I’d have a fucking abortion!” And I hung up.

Kayla and I were super tight back then—it was just us, finding our way, with a baby boy on the way. I kept her close; I never wanted her to feel any type of way about the new baby coming along. But I know she did, and that shit was always on my mind. Kayla and I slept in the same bed throughout the entire pregnancy—actually, ever since I left Chet. She was even there in the delivery room when he was born—she cut the cord. I included her in everything.

After we moved out of my Uncle Gary’s house and into a two-bedroom at Walpole, my Uncle Randy showed up for me—much to my surprise. I never expected him to step in the way he did, but there he was, ready to help in a way I hadn’t seen from anyone in a long time.

He and I had never been really close. My mom and he were close, and Randy was always around throughout my childhood, but he and I never truly bonded—not until then.

Randy and I became very close over the past 22 years. He’s a late August—Leo, occasionally tipping into Virgo. We share the same type of common sense and intuition as I do with my other two uncles and my two cousins. The way Randy stepped in for me felt more like what I imagine it would feel like for a little sister—or possibly an older daughter—having a caring big brother or dad. There was a deficit, and he jumped right in.

My three uncles—Gary, Kevin, and Randy. It’s like I was Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz! They each showed up for me at significant times throughout my life. I dare to imagine what my life would look like without them. Gary is Jen’s dad and Randy is Sam’s dad—my first cousins.

Earl’s true colors showed when we moved back from Vancouver and he took the apartment that was meant for Kayla and me. Only a selfish motherfucker makes moves like that! He’d already stopped supporting her financially long before, and at what I felt was her greatest time of need, he stopped coming around, stopped visiting, stopped taking her. I don’t know if Kayla felt it, but I felt it for her.

Three daughters turned into—shit, I don’t even know how many kids he has now—five, six, seven? No clue. Earl moved to B.C. for work about a year before I did, and then back to Toronto before I had. He had mouths to feed, and he was doing that—until he wasn’t.

Earl had too many kids and too many women on the go to keep up. I truly felt like Kayla got lost in the sauce, and it broke my heart—especially after she was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. I loved that she had a dad, and at one time, a special one-on-one bond with him.

Earl was daft as fuck—but he could fertilize the shit out of an egg!

I remember Earl coming around long after Trent was born, while Kayla was in remission. He’d drop by to see her every now and then. We didn’t exchange many words, and when we did, I was always rude to him—I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t even stand to look at him. Child support was handled through the courts, so there wasn’t really much to say.

A few years ago, I watched the R. Kelly documentary. I immediately felt sick to my stomach as I resonated with it in the most disgusting way. A grown-ass man taking advantage of young, naive, vulnerable girls—Aaliyah and Sparkle’s niece.

They were captivated by R. Kelly, just as I had been with Earl. No one could tell those girls anything about how they felt or to stay away, and nobody could tell me anything either. Sex can be a very powerful, addictive drug.

I'm pretty sure I saw that documentary differently than most. I saw a full-grown man—Earl—manipulating those girls (me) sexually for his own desires, with zero regard for them whatsoever. Right then and there, the fucking lights came on. I felt sick. I couldn’t even finish it. That shit curdled my soul.

But I also couldn’t help but wonder if R. Kelly was just as daft and immature as I believed Earl to be. Earl never saw anything wrong with what he was doing—that I was far too young for him, that I was naive and vulnerable, just the same. He was out to lunch—not just while we were together, but forevermore.

He used me for his own sexual needs, unaware—or maybe not caring—that all the while, he was damaging my soul. Breaking me, fucking me up mentally and emotionally.

That documentary set me off. It opened my eyes and made me realize, after blaming myself for all those years, that it wasn’t on me.

I called him out on it. I’d had a few drinks one night, got all emotional and shit thinking about everything with him, and called him up—bawling.

I told him exactly how I felt about what he did to me. Ya, I said “to me.” For years I’ve made excuses for him, my brokenness, the age difference—my wanting it.

I didn’t fucking know any better! I wasn’t mentally or emotionally mature enough to be having sex for 5-6 hours at a time, all the time.

The fact of the matter is—I was 14, and he was 21—he was a man!

He should’ve walked away and never fucked with me in the first place! Bottom line.

Fuck excuses.