— Grit Memoir $100 BILL — Part 3 By S. A. Shriner —Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

It’s not uncommon for people to pair up to survive. Whether it’s rooming with your aunt, splitting a slum rental with your brother, or moving in with a potential significant other to split costs — we do what we must. Sometimes we do it for fun, or because we’re down on our luck. Other times, it’s in high hopes. And sometimes, it’s simply because we’ve come to acknowledge that we can’t make it on our own just yet.

We charge forth with the greatest intentions, often putting ourselves in a deeper hole than the one we were in before. Almost everyone has a story about the hidden costs of coexisting with someone less responsible. And there were times when others carried us while we were the burden. It’s a heavy breath to take when we recall the hard times — but it’s a lot less heavy than having to relive them.

My mother bought me my first house when I was sixteen. Her friend had gotten on the bad side of a city inspector who loved to torment poorer families. He often paraded his entourage of code enforcement, abusive police officers, and a social worker from child services along with him when he locked onto a family that needed help.

A single white woman with six kids in a bad neighborhood was as appealing to him as a steak to a predator. We all knew him by name.

My short-lived treehouse got his attention. He sunk his teeth into our family every few months like clockwork. Our porch was too ragged. The bushes were too high. My project car didn’t have a license plate. The wine bottles in the alley from the bums became our responsibility.

It wasn’t long before he was forcing his way inside, wanting to count the sheets on our mattresses and inspect the pipes in our basement. A church replaced our front porch. I nearly cut my left index finger off trimming the hedges. The wine bottles multiplied faster than the grass, and my Camaro got done quicker because it finally had a plate on it.

My mother had an open-door policy. If you were hungry, we fed you. If you were cold, she’d pour you a cup of coffee. If you were a kid, you were part of the Morgan Clan. That was the rule.

One day, the inspector showed up with his imperialistic troupe of Nazi-like city officials while my mother babysat her friend’s granddaughter. They couldn’t find anything wrong, so they demanded to know who the parent was. Within months, they condemned her house and took her children.

I’m not saying it was or wasn’t justified. But I will say this: the day my mother sat in the Canton CPS lobby trying to petition for emergency custody of that little girl, she spoke with dozens of people in the waiting room. Most were friends or relatives of case workers, getting paid extraordinary amounts of money to take in little blue-eyed, blonde-haired children. Specifically.

My mother took the story to a local news reporter and was immediately punished for it.

Meanwhile, her friend’s house sat vacant. My mother paid a few thousand and it became my project.

I started fixing it up while mostly using it as a hangout one street over. My mom preferred knowing where I was — better to have me close than roaming the city. She was tired of having to drive to another town to find me after I’d skipped school for weeks.

My cousin and I would smoke weed, drink, and listen to music. For a short time, I was free to live my life.

My mom also spent on a down payment for my sister and her boyfriend on a land contract across town. The parties there were constant. After they stopped paying, all eyes turned on me.

“For the babies…” I still mock my mother in Janis Joplin’s Cry Baby tone.

I had to give up my first home and walk away with nothing — because my sister needed a home “for the babies.” When the mayor came out at 3 a.m. to condemn the property a second time, he told me it was the worst nuisance property in the city. The neighbors had made over fifty calls that night about the loud music, the cars, the fights, the underage drinking.

And that was just that one night.

I had lived like a ghost there. I went mostly unnoticed. But when my mother sold my house to provide yet another down payment for my sister’s new place, it had already been painted purple and tagged for demolition. Three months later, it was back on the market.

But I was just a kid. What did I need with a house? Any sense of fairness went out the window. I felt like I was shoved into the backseat of my own destiny.

It took another twenty-five years before I owned another home. This time, it was truly mine. It took strategy, pure luck, and a friend who let me have it for next to nothing. It also came with two pages of violations, fines, back taxes, and an impending demolition order thanks to the previous tenants.

Two and a half decades. Just to get there.

Five years of hell with an unfaithful girlfriend. Ten years with another. I spent time alone between relationships to decompress and try to find true love.

During that time, I met a girl online from Cleveland who targeted me. She tried to fraudulently use a domestic violence shelter to get a free apartment. She pursued me heavily for months and almost had me jailed just for letting her move in. Yes — I had to defend myself in court and prove my innocence in a case where I was deemed guilty before I even walked into the courtroom.

Had she not felt guilty and bragged to so many people about her scheme, I may have become a wrongfully convicted felon. She had me do thousands of dollars of free car repairs, then stole half my furniture and household items when she got her apartment. A huge contrast for the ordained minister I am today.

I only knew her for six months. In the end, I learned that you should be careful about who you try to give your heart to.

I didn’t learn well enough. I hooked up with an ex who I had been head-over-heels in love with when we were teenagers. I ignored the fact that she had a boyfriend and tried to make her mine.

I spent the next ten years trying to domesticate something that was never mine.

She went on lavish vacations with her family, took another guy, and left me sitting at home — completely in the dark. At first, she’d tell me we couldn’t afford for me to go. Then I found out the truth. I’d tell her to take her stuff and leave. She would never take everything, and that became her excuse to keep coming back.

She would buy me expensive gifts: a new phone, a new Xbox, car parts for my latest project. Then I’d find out she had been shacking up with her coke-dealing ex-boyfriend the whole time.

“You knew I had a boyfriend when you met me. Technically, I was cheating on him with you.”

So I waited until I knew she was there and his actual girlfriend was at work. I slipped into her DMs with some eye-opening information. She called me a liar. I told her to go see for herself. That night, my girlfriend sat in my living room and said, “Well played.” I thought I had ended it, but I was just a fool.

She would take the rent money, spend it along with her credit cards, and come back with nothing. I didn’t know about the harder drugs — only the weed she demanded I go find for her at 2 a.m. during her raging fits.

The rent would be due, and I’d have to sell something I loved. My motorcycle. A project car. Toys from the garage. Eventually, my everyday car. I’d bust my ass to replenish what I lost, and then the cycle repeated.

Not All Gold Glitters

Long before I learned that you can’t change someone no matter how much you love them, I learned that desperation makes you a target. I would try to sell a car, price it below value out of ignorance, and get low-balled until I practically gave it away. I felt at the mercy of buyers and lucky just to have one.

It wasn’t until I saw my fully custom, lowered Chevy truck listed for five times what I sold it for that I realized I was an idiot. Another punch came when my brother spotted my Honda Civic at a GameStop, the kid laughing because he basically got it for free. Both buyers had trash-talked my vehicles and nitpicked everything. I felt so low that I just gave up and let them take them.

I got scammed. My desperation and honesty made me a prime target. I realized the huge deficit between what I invested and what I got back. I saw how they lied about issues I had disclosed and got full price for what I practically gave away.

I vowed not to be like them.

The next car I bought was an old Cadillac that had sat in a barn. A few small parts and brand-new tires and I was driving a mobster’s beautiful piece of machinery. In true local fashion, someone hit the rear quarter and ran. I found out who it was, made it known, and let it go. Too much time had passed. I had already sold the car wrecked for more than I paid, because I learned to value what I owned.

The next motorcycle I bought, I fixed and rode until that cold day in October when an old man turned in front of me. I was on my way home from college with forty pounds of engineering books strapped to my back. I was out of the city by then, but it goes to show — it’s who you know. The responding deputy knew him by name and told him to leave. I was left to call a friend and trailer my GSXR home or be cited for pushing for a report.

The deputy later claimed he didn’t know him and didn’t know why his dash cam shut off right after he greeted him with, “Hi, buddy!”

I had to call my ex at work and have her leave to take me to the hospital. My kneecaps were bleeding, one with exposed bone. A tattoo on my forearm looked like it had been shaved off. I had holes in my palms from the asphalt when I tried to stop myself from going under his wheel. The bike dragged me ten feet, dislocating my shoulder and ripping the rods and screws out of my spine.

It wasn’t until I could barely walk that a doctor was sent to my home to review X-rays and determine the spinal surgeon had lied. I was not “okay.” It took more years before my arm was rebuilt. The pain is permanent.

The charades with my ex continued. By then she was angry, violent, and controlling. Everything was hers. She didn’t like me having anything — even my own car. I wasn’t allowed friends over. She would stomp around screaming in a monstrous tone with sharp pitches that made you cringe. She called my Great Dane, Yolandi, a “little whore.”

She threatened to take the house, everything in it, and even mine and my son’s dog, Levi. When she got physical — throwing things, punching my surgical spine, dumping drinks on my head — she’d hold up the phone and threaten to call 911 and lie that I hit her.

She was the source of happiness and despair. I just wanted her to be happy.

By then, I cheated back when she cheated. I hid nothing. She once laughed and said, “I knew when I was with him that you were with another girl. I didn’t even do it with him that time until after I knew.”

Not long after, I walked back to the old barn I used as a garage with my gun and live streamed my intention.

The unbearable weight of that relationship and the PTSD from Basic Training had pushed me past my breaking point. I smoked a joint, put the gun to my head, and then I had a revelation:

This is bullshit.

My phone rang nonstop. I didn’t want to die. I wanted change. I wanted escape — not death. I was calm… collected… in control. I knew I was in a trap, but freedom wasn’t gone yet.

I took deep breaths and picked up my phone. My friend Lee said, “Bro. You’d better call your mom. Everyone is tripping.” I deleted the video and called her.

“What in the fuck are you doing?!” she yelled.

I wasn’t seeking attention. I was in mental anguish. But if you ask for attention — you’re gonna get it.

We came to an agreement: I would seek professional help and be honest. I told the truth about what happened in the Navy. I was no longer misdiagnosed. No more wrong meds. I finally admitted that my relationship was toxic. I acknowledged the torture I endured for six hours by a sadistic naval doctor. Most of all, I realized I needed to value myself.

The day I gave the screaming monster a 3-day eviction notice was humiliating — for us both. Three days later she “borrowed” things that weren’t hers, including my car. I later found out she sold it for crack. Luckily, it wasn’t in my name. I only lost a grand or two, but I got kicked out of college for missing too many days due to lack of transportation.

Conclusion

A lot of the suffering I endured could have been avoided if I had learned to value myself and what I owned. Bad things happen, but they shouldn’t stop you from reaching your true potential. Your past should refine you — not define you.

“The greatest injustice is for a cocoon to never become a butterfly simply because it believes freedom is impossible.”

When you break free from the darkness of your past, you begin to see a brighter future. It may take time and effort — but I believe in you.

I quote Amber Garibay when I say, “The Life You Live Is A Choice!” It’s true. We can’t always choose where we come from, but we do have a say in where we’re going. We choose who we are, and we project that image to the world. Whether it’s our work, our title, our attitude, or the traits we admire — find your ground, choose your footing, and put your best foot forward.