Danielle Gray- Percoats

I was so happy when my mom felt as though we

were old enough to be dropped off at home after

school by my granny. I think I was like 11. We

would watch Kiara sometimes too until my mama or

Darrell got home. One day my granny was there and

Kiara stuck a bent up paper clip in the electric socket

and burnt her hand all up. We had to rush to the

hospital.

Darrell always wanted us to be very careful with Kiara. I could

understand seeing that she was his first and only child. We used

to try to get Kiara up when she would fall out on the ground.

Danielle pulled Kiara's arm out of socket twice, due to yanking her

up off the ground. I remember Kiara crying and so was Danielle.

She felt so bad. We had to go to the doctor so that she could get

her arm popped back in place. It had to have been painful. Darrell

was really upset and stressed to us to be more careful with Kiara. I

didnt know it back then but my mom said that she was questioned

about abuse from the doctors. I know that must have been scarry.

I remember me and Danielle were in our room, in our

bunk beds when Darrell tried to explain to us that

Andre had been killed. Danielle and I were a little

confused. I got hit with the reality of it all at the

funeral when all of the family were crying and looking

at the news at my Aunt Claudies house. My Uncle Jr

was crying and he looked funny crying so Danielle,

Brian and I were laughing, but stopped shortly after

realizing that it was real, Andre was gone and we'd

never seen my Uncle Jr cry before. So it must be

serious.

When we would go to my Big Mama's house. Donald

and Andre lived there. I would always argue and fight

with Donald. Andre would always stick up for me and

have my back. Donald used to make fun of Brian for

playing with us girls, but he would never get into it

with Danielle.

I remember Danielle falling on her face on the drive

way and it left a scar on her face that you could still

lightly see up until she passed away.

We used to go next door, to kick it with our cousin

Trent. We used to play Tenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

on his Nintendo.

I remember getting a woopin in my Big Mama's house and Trent,

Danielle and Brian were outside, looking through the big window

in the living room laughing at me.

We used to be hella hungry at my Big Mama's house. We came up

with all sorts of food that kids could make. Toast with butter and

sugar, toast with butter and honey, Microwaved bologna and

cheese sandwiches, fried egg sandwiches, all kinds of stuff.

One day outside we found a baby bird that must have fallen out of

a tree and we buried it and had a little funeral for it.

We were playing in the backyard and a bee stung

Danielle. I cut my leg from a piece of glass back there.

One day in Trents backyard Donald and I got into a fight and I

accidentally grabbed and broke his watch and he slapped me. I

told on him but he didnt get in trouble.

Danielle, Brian and I used to spend alot of time in Uncle Wesley's

room. He had a bunch of half naked women from Jet magazine all

over his walls. We used to like his room though. We would sing

and talk. One night Donald and I told Danielle that we had a bible

and she had to swear on the bible if she liked this boy named Earl.

She put her hand on the bible and said "I swear on the bible I like

Earl." She started crying when we threatened to tell mama that

she liked a boy. We didnt tell though and it was funny because it was really an old enclopedia.

We lived at my granny's house with my mom for a short period of

time when our mom and dad split up. I remember when we met

Darrell at my granny's house. Shortly after our mom and Darrell

moved us to some apartments in Pinole. We started going to

Ellerhorst Ellementary School.

 I remember learning how to cook at that apartment. Making french

toast and eggs. Me and Danielle made some friends there too,

Rona and her little brother. Mom became good friends with her

mom.

 Our cousin Brandy and her family moved up the street from us,

our Aunt Lessie moved in the same apartments as were in and

our Auntie Debra moved in the same apartments with Uncle Main.

We had a swimming pool, in which we learned how to swim. We had

goggles and all kinds of swimming equipment to learn how to swim.

 Their was this one kid, a boy named Nicholas who was bad as

hell, around our age and was always in trouble. One day at the

swimming pool, Danielle, Brian and I were swimming and the boy

kept dunking Brian in the water. Brian almost drowned. Another

day Nicholas and I got into it and I was so upset that I just started

swinging on him. I gave him all that I had and then I took off

running to my Aunt Lessie's house.

 I remember me and Danielle getting into a fight in the apartment

and she pulled a plug of hair out of my head, about the size of a

golf ball and right in the front. I was so upset and sad because my

mom still made me go to school.LOL.

 I remember one day we were going to the park and my mom said

that she was about to wash our hair. We figured that we could get

our hair covered in sand because we figured she was washing our

hair anyway. I mean we buried our heads in the sand. We got a woopin

when we got home.

 It was really hard going to Ellerhorst at first. It was hard to fit in

being one of only two or three black kids in the class. Danielle,

Brian and I were in different grades. We saw eachother on the

playground during recess. All the kids thought Danielle was the

best at tether ball. Brian and I were good at kickball.

Back then it was kinda wiered because Brian, Danielle and I spent

everyday after school together, but we really didnt even

acknowledge one another at school. I feel bad thinking about how I

was kind of embarrassed to have known them at school. I dont

know maybe because they were younger than me or my friends. I

feel bad that we didnt spend that extra time together at school back

then.

 My Uncle Wesley used to take us down to the beach by the

apartments and we had so much fun. It was like an adventure.

Climbing over rocks and getting dirty, just to reach the beach.

When we got there we saw little crabs walking in the sand and

climbing over rocks.

 We used to go to these apartments right by ours. It had a soda

machine in them and we figured out how to rig it to get the sodas

out for free.

 Danielle, Brandy and I fell in love with the group TLC. Tina got us

into them. We swore that we were them and we always danced to

their music. I wanted to be T-Boz, who was the cool one, Danielle

would imitate Chilli, who was the sexy one and Brandy wanted to be

Left-Eye who was the Crazy one. Its kind of wiered  because each

role was really our personality even once we got older.

When my mom and dad lived together...we used to

have both good and bad times. We went to Bayview

Ellementary School with our cousin Brian. We would

have the yellow school bus pick us up in front of our

house. After school we would go to the park down

the street and play baseball and there was a little

clubhouse there where we would buy penny candies.

We really enjoyed getting out of the house after

school.

There was a beach around the corner from our

house and we would ride our bikes to the beach with

our dad. Sometimes we would bring our dog King.

He was a german shepard. When we first got him he

was my dog and we also had his sister, named

Velvet who was Danielles dog, but she died.

I remember us building castles in the sand and we

would get our feet wet in the water. We wouldnt go in

too far because at the time we didnt know how to

swim. I remember our dad being scared thinking that

the sea weed was a crab biting his toes..hahaha.

I remember we used to have really good Christmas's.

We used to get bikes and light brights alot. We had

alot of presents. Our mom and dad used to wake us

up at 12am, Christmas morning and open one gift.

Danielle and I used to share a bedroom. We had

bunkbeds. I was on the top, she was on the bottom.

We would be tired, but excited at the same time to

open our first present.

We used to go to our granny's house alot after school. She had so

many people living in her house which always seemed so dark

and cluttered. We used to cry when my mom would drop us off

because it was so boring over there. We would walk to the store

and get pickles with cherry kool-aid. We would climb granny's side

fence, pass by Jeri-curl, who was my uncles yellow and black

german shepard and go in the backyard and climb her huge

cherry tree. We used to play in that tree alot, collecting cherries

and eating them. We would play in mud and with worms. Brian

was always there too. We came up with alot of things to do,

because it was so boring.