Clear your mind and embrace this story. Internalize it and realize that maybe, just maybe, the family problems you have really aren’t all that bad. If you can relate, however, or are experiencing worse, I still urge you to read on so that you know that you are not alone. This is the story of a 19-year-old young man stuck in a cycle that becomes a mental hell. This is Maze’s story…

“Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, LITERALLY, my parents used to argue,” he said. What is the result of such a situation? A youth who is hoping that he never becomes the very person he seeks not to become: his father.

Currently, his mission is to block the ignorant tendencies and the potential to be “explosive” – all traits of his estranged father. Therefore, every day he must mentally isolate this “other side,” while those who fear it (his mother and sister), though trying to prevent it, in fact fuel his urge to become what they dread.

To understand Maze, we must understand his father, and to understand his father, one question must be asked: What kind of person could have such a deep-rooted fear that he becomes paranoid, thinking of his son as the potential “heir” or the duplicate of this said oppressor? Ironically, it’s a very reserved man.

However, what differentiates him from other quiet individuals is the fact that he was the head of a hold (his children and wife eventually left), but he was so antisocial that he would get agitated around people, his family included. Therefore, according to Maze, “His room was his life…he wasn’t no kinda father figure.”

Knowing what his father is, why then does Maze possess traits and habits of his father? According to Maze, “My mother, sister and father were in their own situations, so I was basically just by myself.” However, he escaped this loneliness and frustration with the constant banter between his parents through smoking weed – another trait of his father.

Why follow in his father’s footsteps, you may ask? “When I was small,” he began to recall, “I remember this scent would blow through my window…I didn’t know then, but when I started liming with smokers, I realized…aye…this is a familiar scent.”

Then, after what he deemed the result of “eight idle nigg*s experimenting for fun,” he started smoking for “recreation,” eventually becoming reliant on the substance. “You see,” he explains, “for that half hour or however long…F%$2# the past, present and future problems…I can control my mind, and it’s just me an’ ah couple ah nigg*s talking real s**t and not thinking ’bout problems.”

So what is his stance now? “I don’t care, I just don’t care,” he repeats in laughter. Although he holds his family situations responsible for his current state, he does not blame them. “I eh no angel, yuh understand? At de end ah de day, ah doh like dem, but dat’s my family, dat’s my blood, I have no choice but to pick up where my father left off.”

As for changes in his strained relations with his immediate family, “I wish things could change, but wishes doh come through jus’ so. Statistically, I’m not suppose to live to see 25, so I cah think too far in the future right now. All I can do is handle my scene and leave them to handle theirs.”

After interviewing Maze for this piece, reality hit me. This is not just his story. This is the story of so many young men who must hold down households and learn how to be men through different means than are normally expected. As Maze commented himself, “My father didn’t teach me how to be a real man, or a good father. Instead, he taught me how NOT to be a real man and how NOT to be a good father. Therefore, when I realize de timing, I realize, when de time come, I jus’ have to do the opposite.”

And as he struggles to do the opposite, I applaud him, because the point is, he IS struggling, he IS fighting, and despite his situation, he still says…

“Life’s a bi*ch, but God forbid the day that bi*ch forsakes me!" – Nas

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