I hooked back up with Ken, Kilo, and Q when I was supposed to, and we got with some other guys to do what we was used to call the Creep. It was nothing more than driving by all of the high schools in the area, being about five of six different cars in line playing follow the leader. You could tell when there was a Creep going on because all of the cars in the group would have their headlights or parking lights on…
Anyway, we was on out last leg of the route when I told them that I needed to leave because I had to go pick up Tina. But I just learned that my help was needed elsewhere. There was another car that was stolen, but for some reason it wouldn't start and being that I was the only one in the group that knew his way around a car I was needed to get the car started. I was thinking cool; I could do that, and then I'd burn off to get Tina…
I had gotten the car started and was about to leave when one of the guys in our little group wanted to know who the drop top belonged to; we made a deal for him to buy the interior. And as I turned to walk back to the baby Cadillac I saw a cream colored car drive up and the back door on the drivers side swing open with a dude getting out with a gun in hand…He ran towards the drop top shouting for everyone to get out of it and shooting at everyone who ran. I knew what time it was, and figured that if I didn't run he wouldn't think I was involved…
I got behind the wheel, and as the car was already running all I need to do was put the car in gear and drive off…But for some reason it wouldn't go into reverse. The gearshift wouldn't move! I heard him telling me to get out of the car. He shouted, "Come here, come here!" Yeah, like I'ma come to you while you are shooting at me…Pow!!! One shot hit me in the jaw. I paused for a minute knowing that I was hit. I've heard most people who have been shot claim to feel a burning, or claim that it hurts. Getting shot for me was like getting hit while in a fight: You know that you are getting hit, but it doesn't hurt. Maybe it was the rush of adrenaline, I only knew that I needed to get the hell out of there…
The car finally slipped into reverse and I did a 180 turnaround, threw the car in drive and took a fast right, a right, and then another right. That's when I saw Kilo running in the middle of OST near where Grigs and OST cross. Not knowing if the gunman was behind me or not I slowed just enough for Kilo to jump in through the back window of the drivers side. I hooked a left, and then another right and was in a small neighborhood. I took a few more fast turns and when I felt like I had lost them I slowed down and set my sights on heading home…
Kilo was still in the back seat begging me to let him drive, telling me that I was bleeding too much and that I was going to lose consciousness. But I wasn't trying to hear it. I wanted to go home and that was all that mattered to me right then…I felt something tingling on my back, so I leaned up and asked Kilo to check my back to see if I'd been shot in the back. He told me that there were two bullet holes in my back, and then he went bugging me some more about letting him drive. He was still in the backseat so I slid over and allowed the car to coast for a minute on its own. Once Kilo got in place he asked me where I wanted to go. To the hospital? Hell no! Going there was to risk going to jail. I wanted to go home to see if I could get the bleeding to stop, however on the way home we made up some story about me getting shot walking down Reed Road in a drive-by. At this time, drive-bys were becoming so common in Houston, so it was a believable story.
When we made it to my place, I told Kilo to be sure to dump the car before he left. He ran ahead of me and got my cousin to open the door; I went straight to the bathroom to see if I could stop the bleeding and she went straight to call 911 and then my mom. I could stick my finger in the hole that was in my jaw and the bleeding still wouldn't stop, so I got a towel and pressed it to my face to slow the flow and went outside to wait for the ambulance.
My mom showed up first, and we went at it. She wanted me to sit in the car, but I needed to be up and moving. I think she must have smoked a whole pack of cigarettes in the time it took for the fire truck to show up. They laid me out on the streets and began asking me questions and checking my wounds all at the same time.
Kilo showed back up right around the time the cops came, and they started asking all types of questions. I listened to him tell the story we had come up with, and then they started asking him questions about details that we hadn't even considered. So I paid close attention to the responses he gave as I lay there in the streets. Finally the ambulance showed up and took me to Ben Taub Emergency Hospital…
I lay up in a bed still bleeding, waiting for the doctors to get ready to take me into surgery. I had my eyes closed while talking to my mom when I heard someone ask her if I was Ronald Ray Howard. She told them yes and asked what they wanted with me…I heard the voice tell her that I might be under arrest for attempted murder and grand theft auto. Attempted murder!!! I opened my eyes and saw two HPD officers standing there…"Man, I don't know what you're talking about," and I gave him the same story kilo had given the other officers. Or maybe these were the same ones. I could see where they got the grand theft auto, but where in the hell did this attempted murder come from…
The doctors were ready for me. They took me into this room, put me on another bed, and started stuffing this bigass tube up my nose. I operation lights are bright white…And that's the last thing I remember seeing, those bright ass operation lights…
I woke the next night with monitors attached all over my head and chest, and tubes running from everywhere! My mouth was wired shut, but I was feeling fine…The wanted to keep me for another day, just to watch me they said, but before they could let me go a detective wanted to talk to me about the shooting we had told them about. We talked and I promised that when I felt a little better I'd go down to the jailhouse and look through their books to see if I could recognize the guy that shot me, and he left. My dad showed up and with him there the doctors told us both that I had flat lined twice while in surgery, and that they couldn't remove the bullet from my neck because it was in between two main blood vessels which would kill me if they removed it. As for my back, one bullet had made both holes.
My mom and grandma were there to take me home that night. I had planned to go live with my mom already; no one was going to look out for me like she would. The whole right side of my face was swollen, and when Yolanda saw me, she told me that she didn't want me to be around her as she said something about being around me while I was like that might scar the baby she was carrying. So in a way we broke up. It was nothing new; she and I would break up all the time. Plus I could see where she was coming from: I had a scar on my face that was fresh, and they had stapled me closed. Plus, like I said, my whole right side was swollen. So I went to live with my mom.
I learned how to talk with my mouth closed, to drink and depend on Ensure, which got old after a while. My friends came by the house to wish me well, and one of Yoland'as friends came by to look after me. I think between her and my mom giving my neck and my face warm lotion massages is what helped my face and my scar heal up…
I had gotten shot in the face with a .38 pistol, and I was well on the road to recover when I started thinking about things again…It wasn't six days passed that I had made that promise to God, and I took my shooting as a tap on the shoulder from God saying, "Remember me!" After all, I never experienced any sort of pain from being shot. No, I take that back, every now that then my bullet moves and it locks my neck and stops me from breathing. But I didn't have to deal with the same pain that I've heard about from others…
My mom found out how I really got shot, and she started letting me use her car. Now I didn't have any reason to be out messing with anyone else's car. The police was looking for me to come to the police station to look through their books, but I had a feeling that I better not go. Plus I heard on the streets from 'Lil Shit that the dude who had shot me thought that he had killed me, and I wanted to keep it that way. I have to admit that I had intentions to give him a little payback.
Kilo, Ken, Q, and I was riding down the street in my mom's car. I think I'd been out of the hospital three weeks on this day, when we spotted Danielle and Denise walking down the street. They didn't know my mom's car, so when Danielle heard Kilo calling her she came over by herself to see who was in the car. Seeing me, she told Denise that I was in the car…Word on the street was that I was dead, which is why she was so surprised to see me alive and driving…I still had the staples in my neck, but I had taken the wires out of my mouth.
