Troy Gorham - Fighting Nightmares

Fighting Nightmares

Troy Gorham

Copyright 2016 by Troy Gorham.

ISBN: Softcover 978-1-5245-4543-7

eBook 978-1-5245-4542-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/15/2016

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

750434

Contents

Round 1

LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE

When they finally found me I was bloody, wet, exhausted, and scared to death. I had a broken left arm, most of the left side of my scalp was hanging down against my ear and cheek, and for some reason I still couldnt move. As they rolled me over to put me on the backboard, I remember looking at the faces of the EMTs, some of whom I knew, and seeing the same look of fear in their eyes that I was feeling inside. Thats when it hit me, This may be even worse than I thought.

This is a story about a fight. This is a story about a tragedy. Can I confide in you? Can I keep it real with you? Can you handle it? Some cant. Some are in awe. Some get angry when they hear it. But regardless, this isnt fiction. Its not sci-fi. This is my life, and right now Im willing to open up to you if youre willing to listen. It goes a little somethin like this

This is a story about love, trust, hope, and dreams. This is a story about a young mans life and a glimpse at how that lifes twists and turns have turned him into the man he is today. That man is me. I want to, no, I need to get some things off my chest so I can breathe. I need someone to lend an ear and be there for me and listen to me as I vent. Im asking you to let me lean on you and trust you with my inner-most thoughts, fears, and beliefs. I need you to be in my corner and to want me to win. Heres my story.

Before I get into more details, allow me to briefly set the scene for you the best I can. I was adopted as a baby and raised in a small town in Missouri. I had been born in St. Joseph, Missouri where my parents found me in a foster home. I didnt even have a name until the little six year old daughter of the foster mother named me Troy Anthony, so when my parents adopted me, they kept the Troy Anthony and added their name for my last name. So just like that, I became Troy Anthony Gorham. Troy Boy had arrived, look out world. Growing up, of course I wondered from time to time what my life would have been like, or where I would be had I not been given up by my biological mother, but Im sure thats normal for most adoptees. Regardless, I was home, and I was a pretty happy kid. I would say I was fairly sharp as a young child. I kept my eyes and ears open and my mouth shut in public, but was more open and outgoing at home or in my comfort zone, normal for a youngster I guess. I was inquisitive, but I liked to learn on my own from what I saw and heard and the things I experienced as opposed to being the, Why? But why? type of kid. At a very young age I fell in love with sports. Back then I felt much more comfortable at home alone in my room watching Michael Jordan and the Bulls while bouncing a basketball off the wall until I heard the dreaded, TROOOOOY by my mom from the other room than I did around other people, and definitely people I didnt know well.

I liked school, and was a good student, but I didnt feel what I would call comfortable there. Braymer, the town Im from, is a very rural, isolated type of place. There are a lot of hard working, blue collar people. A lot of people there had always been there. It is very conservative, very opinionated, and very set in its ways. My school was 99% white, so being a multi-racial kid with skin a little darker than theirs, hair curlier than theirs, and who looked nothing at all like my parents, I got teased. Not by everybody, and not just by other kids my age. The elementary, junior high, and high school were all in one building. I remember the worst part of my day as a grade school kid always being when my class had to go anywhere in the school where the older kids were. A lot of them said horrible things, mostly trying to be funny, and I usually played dumb like I didnt know what they were saying or that they were talking about me, but I knew. Oreo. Nappy. As you know, kids are mean. Part of me always wanted to lash out, because it really did bother me, but I was level headed enough to know that they were just ignorant and had never been taught any better. A lot of times I went home from school thinking I would rather run away from home than have to go back the next day just to be called little nigger boy again. Now that I look back, I think its kind of ironic and a little sad that a lot of the kids at the school spent all that energy pointing out that I looked a little different, when I spent all my energy just trying to fit in. At the time, things were extremely confusing to me. I didnt look like ANYBODY and my parents werent even exactly sure what my full ethnicity was. Since then, some very vague information about my biological mother and DNA testing have determined that I have white, African American, and Hispanic (Brazilian) blood in me, at least. Some may think it doesnt matter, and obviously in the grand scheme of things it doesnt, but I wanted to know where I came from. Havent you ever asked where you came from? Thats all.

Those who know me, know that being somewhat quiet and shy didnt last past my young childhood. As I got older I started feeling more comfortable with who I was, and by junior high, like most kids, I was starting to realize who I wanted to be. By that time I realized I could be a good athlete if I wanted to be, and I wanted to be. By about the end of my seventh grade year I had grown pretty tall, lost my baby fat, and organized sports became a big part of my life. Naturally so did girls, and I started worrying a lot more about getting a pimple than whether or not my homework was done. I was pretty mature for my age and had begun to grow up too fast. I was hanging out with the older crowd, had older girlfriends, and always had people telling me I needed to slow down and enjoy being a kid. But wait, wait, waitI was being treated well now. All those times people made me feel bad when I was little were far from my mind. Why would I change a thing? I was enjoying it. I liked being popular. I didnt care if it was just because I could play ball, or because I looked a little older, or because I gave into the pressures of needing to be cool at any cost. I may have sold out and gotten sucked into the same type of circle of people that didnt accept me earlier in my life, but it didnt matter because I was well liked by them now.

YoungdumbnaveI realize now that at that time in my life I was all three and then some, but then I was so hard headed theres no way you could have convinced me of it. Why would I listen to anybody when I knew it all? Why would I want to be a kid, which I really was, when older people wanted me to hang out with them? Why would I want to be a good student now? Why would I want to apply myself in the classroom when I was the popular, handsome athlete who was going pro anyway? Like I said, youngdumbnave. If I only knew thenyou know the rest. Later I would find out just how important it is to slow down and enjoy being a kid while you can, but well get to that soon enough.

When I started high school, it was more of the same. I was kind of known as the young kid with older friends, who played, and played well, on the varsity sports squads, was girl crazy, and I had also developed an ornery streak. I wasnt a bad kid, and never did anything malicious or cruel or anything to hurt anybody, I was just ornery. I had begun to think I could get away with pretty much anything, and to be honest, because of the fact that people of all ages liked me and didnt want to see me in trouble, for the most part I was right. By my junior year I would show up to school late about everyday, and never served a detention. Instead of being in class when I was supposed to be, I always found a way to end up in the coachs office watching game films, the weight room, or in the gym shooting hoops. I had maybe one or two books gathering dust in my locker that never saw the light of day. When I was in class, I usually either snuck in some nap time or let my mind wander about anything but class, but somehow I still usually ended up getting decent grades.