Scratch Beginnings_ Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream - Adam W. Shepard [61]
In the early weeks, Shaun was enjoyable to work with. Although I never divulged the premise of my project, I felt comfortable enough to offer him bits of truth about where I had come from. Our contrasting backgrounds left us with plenty to talk about. My father received his MBA from George Washington University, worked as an economic developer for the North Carolina Department of Commerce, and taught me how to throw a curve ball. Shaun’s dad served the country in the armed forces and taught him how to kill a man with a toothbrush—not something that Shaun was particularly proud of, but a mastered skill nonetheless. I grew up playing sports and reading whatever I could get my hands on, while Shaun spent his younger years on the streets, fighting and hustling dope. I went to college. Shaun served a seven-year sentence at Sing-Sing in Ossining, New York, for manslaughter, a story that we revisited as often as he wanted to talk about it. It was a typical gangster story, like the ones you pay $9 to see at Carmike Cinemas.
Shaun had been at a nightclub in New York, hanging out with a few friends. They were drinking and dancing and having a good time. One of the guys he was with was celebrating his birthday, so Shaun’s friend had ordered up the VIP treatment—corner booth, expensive champagne, and girls. Plenty of girls. Guys around the club started to get a little jealous and came over to talk to them about it. A fight ensued, one of the guys pulled a knife, and Shaun was stabbed three times in his stomach area. One of the scars he showed me was at least three inches long on the side of his body. It was a miracle that he survived, he told me. He was laid up in the hospital for two months while doctors performed several surgeries. While he was out of commission, his brother asked around and found out who had stabbed Shaun and where he could be found. When Shaun got out of the hospital, he popped the guy who stabbed him.
The State of New York evidently has aggressive plea bargain opportunities, and Shaun said the District Attorney also took it a little easy on him since he had been stabbed first. He was sentenced to ten years and served seven.
But Shaun’s demeanor didn’t suggest he was a felon. Most of the other guys that I had met along the way and would meet in Charleston that had served hard time (many of whom were employed at Fast Company, since they didn’t do background checks or give drug tests) were much more humble than Shaun. They didn’t walk with their arms flailing about, and they certainly didn’t have the mouth that Shaun had. Prison had calmed them down, and, on this side of the gate, they were just happy to be alive and in the free world. Shaun, on the other hand, was invincible, just like I thought I was at the time, but he had a different way of showing it. It would complicate things between the two of us from time to time, like when I would get mad if he ordered me to go uptown to pick up his girlfriend after work, but for the most part we kept things light. Like the time I pulled the truck over to the side of the road after he threw one of his cans out the window.
We had been working together for two weeks, and we were starting to be friends, so I didn’t have a problem