A New Kind of Hustle
Resident recalls how his street game led him to Samaritan
House
Part
one
Part two
Part
One
Jerry has lived more in his life than most people ever will, or probably ever
care to. He considers his current role as a leader among the residents at
Samaritan House to be a blessing, especially compared to the hell he faced
before he came.
Escaping the
street life he knew as a youth, he became the head orderly in surgery at Hendricks
memorial hospital for twelve years. Jerry found stability and satisfaction
in his work. Following his work in the operating room, he worked for General
Dynamics
for eight years. His wife of twenty-one years worked for an insurance company,
and together, they enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle. Jerry says he got used
to the way of life he, his wife and six sons shared. They bought a brand new
house, drove a new car, and wanted for nothing. But fortune soon cast a dark
shadow, and he was laid off. To make matters worse, his wife quit her job
when the home office of her company relocated to another state.
Jerry tried his hand at the clothing business, receiving his license as a tailor and opening his own clothing store. Business was modest, but Jerry admits that he had gotten used to the lifestyle he had known before. No stranger to the street from his youth, he began to hustle drugs to turn some easy money. “I went back to my street ways,” says Jerry. “Robbing, shooting, selling drugs, you name it. I did it.”
The money rolled in, but Jerry became enamored with his own game. He started using the same drugs he would sell, smoking crack and injecting drugs on a daily basis. His habit, at its peak, cost upwards of $1,000 a day, and Jerry became less focused on financial comfort, and increasingly obsessed with his next fix. “I would do anything to get what I needed,” he says. “I was the guy in the alley way you didn’t want to come up against. It ain’t no game out there. No game at all.” In the meantime, his entire family turned their backs on him.
As if to emphasize his point, Jerry lifted his shirt to reveal two bullet-hole scars in his ribcage. He carries a mobile oxygen system with him every day because of the damage the injuries caused. But Jerry was still undeterred. Perhaps to his detriment, his hustling skills drove him to run two crack houses at one point, until he was finally run out of town. “The police busted in, took me to the edge of town and told me to never come back,” he says of one incident in Carrollton. Fortunately, for him, the house was free of incriminating evidence at the time. But it also meant that he felt even more unstoppable; that is until one day when his body could not take any more abuse.
Part
Two
“I woke up in this bed with two or three women who weren’t any
good for me,’ he recalls, “then I stumbled outside and collapsed,
right there in the street.” The police were close by, most likely monitoring
his next move, and they promptly took him to the hospital, where he remained
under close watch for a month.
Jerry had contracted HIV from a contaminated needle he had used to inject
drugs. He was weak and emaciated, having neglected care of himself for far
too long. While in the hospital, he met Sharon Stults, chemical dependency
counselor at Samaritan House. Jerry had been introduced to Samaritan House
once before, and had no interest in getting on such a straight and narrow
track. At first, he took his resistance against recovery out on her.
“Mostly I was scared,” he says, recalling those first meetings
with Sharon, “but that woman is a Godsend. She (confronted) me, cried
with me and held me. It took a long time to get me right, but I’m never
going back to that life now.” Jerry, now 54 years old, has been a resident
of Samaritan House for almost five years. He has had the chance to transition
to his own apartment through the Genesis project, but he chooses to stay where
the daily support and security remind him that his recovery is of paramount
importance.
Whereas he once worked to serve a merciless habit, he now sees his mission
as working for God and Samaritan House. He acts as a Resident Advisor to new
or struggling residents, and he is the president of the Resident Council.
He coordinates trips to the store, and even helps manage Samaritan House’s
annual trip to Galveston for a week. Jerry is also in his second year as a
board member on the Samaritan House Board of Directors. He has advocated for
such donations as a new pool table, and he coordinated resident efforts to
have a garage sale, the proceeds of which went toward their trip and a big-screen
television they now share in the common area. His next project is a series
of city tours to educate the residents about activities and resources available
to them around town.
When Jerry is not hustling to fulfill his duties at Samaritan House, he enjoys
relaxing by a local lake to fish. He recently saved up enough money to take
a deep sea fishing trip on the coast, where he caught seventeen fish, some
as large as twenty-seven pounds. Reunited with several of his family members,
he’s planning a cookout at his son’s house soon to celebrate his
adventure.
“My grandbaby sent me a shirt that says ‘grandpa’s lucky
fishing shirt,’” he says. Jerry attributes his good fortune to
the luck bestowed upon him by his family. He finds similar fortune in the
love and support he finds at Samaritan House. He talks to his ex-wife of twenty-one
years only occasionally, and often regrets the loss of her companionship.
However, he spends little time living in regret of the past these days. Instead,
he is too busy counting his blessings and sharing them with others.
“If I can help some other people along the way, then my whole life wasn’t
in vain,” he explains as he glances at his watch, late for his next
appointment. “But as far as I’m concerned, this is it. We’re
living like millionaires.”
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