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Taxes and fees extra. Speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy. See terms. This is Our American Stories and one of our favorite stories year in, year out, day in, day out. are redemption stories and faith stories.
The next one comes from the documentary The Father I Never Knew, a movie that tracks the lives of former gang members that were raised without a positive father figure. in their lives. The director Don Albert graciously gave us the interviews to tell these stories. Joey Cortez brings us today's story. The STORY OF CARL MONTGOMERY I didn't have the traditional loveby-dubby household.
My mom was an alcoholic and a drug user. and my father as well. My father would beat on my mom. Regularly, they will have people over the house. partying, drinking, listening to music, and they left me and my brother.
be by ourselves. As long as we didn't interrupt them, they wouldn't interrupt us. Maybe I was eight, eight or nine years old. when I started not trusting my parents. I never forget it.
It was on Christmas. I wanted a Batman cape. Batman capes was very... What you want to have at those times, eight years old. And they took me to the mall, sat on Santa Claus's lap.
Santa Claus, yeah sure. I'm gonna give you a Batman cake, sure. Come Christmas. No Batman cake. Got some socks.
Hey, what's wrong with that? You know? My mom said, you know, Santa was going to take care of me as long as I be good. Fine with that.
So I got some socks. I didn't get nothing. And I didn't think nothing of it.
Okay. We live in a bad neighborhood. Maybe Santa Claus got scared. We didn't even have a chimney. You know, I'm rationalizing.
I'm figuring everything out.
So a year go past, and I'm nine years old, and I still want my Batman cape. I still want it. My mom, when they take me to the mall again. And it looked like a different Santa Claus, but I still ask them, hey, what happened to my cape? Oh, you know what?
I apologize. I'm going to bring it to you this year. Make sure you're being good and stuff like that. And okay, fine, no problem. Come Christmas.
I got some underwear. Didn't get no Batman cake.
So I'm mad. I'm so mad. I just can't believe it. Why don't I have my Batman cake? You know, that's all I wanted.
I was good and everything. My brother, he got some socks. Last year, I got the underwear. He got the socks and it was reversed.
So we go to school when school starts back. And that's when I realized we was poor. I didn't realize we was poor until some kids told us they bought all their little toys and stuff to school and they was wondering where our toys and stuff was at and we had socks and underwear.
So they said, oh, y'all poor. That's why y'all didn't get it. And I said, no, Santa Claus just didn't come to our house. They were like, no, no, Santa Claus ain't real. I said, no, my mom wouldn't lie to me like that.
No, she wouldn't. No, uh-uh.
So They like, no, yep, she lied. Y'all poor. That's why y'all didn't get it. And I'm like, poor? We're not poor, we're not Ethiopians, we eat every day.
You know, that's how I'm thinking. We eat every day. How can we be poor? We can't be poor. No, we're not poor.
So we go I go home and uh Come to find out, we are poor. I asked my mom, hey, they say you lied and Santa Claus not real. What happened? You know, I barely seen my father though. You know, he was there.
He was around until they died. My dad died a year after my mom. This was a couple years after. This incident happened.
So I was around nine years old.
So they passed away. My mom passed away in my early teens, maybe like 12 or 13. She, my dad died first from kidney and liver failure due to substance abuse. They were addicts. They shot.
and uh drinking. The wine back in the days, Night Train, Red Rose, the stuff they got now is different from what they had. They had potent stuff.
So I guess my mom couldn't handle it and she died a year later. After my father did. But I was ran away from home by then because once I found out that they was lying to me about Santa Claus, I didn't trust them no more. And I Had fights with the kids at school because I thought that they were telling me the truth. My parents was, but coming to find out they were lying, we were poor.
Santa Claus is not real. And for some reason, I thought Santa Claus and God and Jesus was the same people. You know, a white man, because I seen the white man of Jesus, you know, on the picture, and I seen white Santa Claus with this red suit. But for some reason, I thought they were together.
So when I thought Santa, when I knew Santa Claus wasn't real, I thought, well, God ain't real either.
So at that age, around nine or 10, I didn't believe in God because I knew Santa Claus wasn't real and I thought they was hooked up together.
So I started just hanging out in the streets, stealing candy, doing things that I knew I shouldn't do because I wanted what everybody else had. I wanted candy, I wanted toys, I wanted a bike, I wanted a big wheel, and I knew we were poor. I knew I couldn't ask my mom and dad for it because, for one, my dad wasn't around, and for two, my mom, as long as she had her night train, she really didn't care. And why would I ask her? And she lied to me and say, I'm going to give it to you on check day, because I found out we were on welfare, then she don't give it to me.
I'm hanging out in the street, I'm going back and forth to youth homes, juvenile centers, and things like that. Normally when you are a kid, if you get arrested, you can be released as long as your mom or dad come sign you out. If they don't come sign you out, they pull you into custody. Otherwise, they would release you from the police station.
So I had a lot of times I would have to go to the juvenile center because my moms and dad was nowhere to be found.
So At that point, I got attracted to a gang. Gang members was coming to school. You know, they was dressing nice. They had food, you know. All the girls was with them.
I maybe was around 10 or 11 at this time. And one of my friends, his uncles, his cousins, his people were gang members.
So I hung out with them and we hung out with them all together.
So we was part of them. They would feed us. We had a place to stay. They would protect us and things of that nature. And I trust them.
For some reason, I believe if they say, hey, we're going to buy you some food, they bought me some food, some french fries, some hot dogs, some chicken, whatever. And I basically started living at one of the hangouts, which was owned by one of the gang leaders. Basically, I was on the payroll, narcotics, drugs, and things of that nature. When you're a part of the gang culture, Whatever game that you're in, you basically pledge your alliance to them.
So my alliance was no longer with my family, but my alliance, my loyalty was for the gang because they provided the food for me, they provided the protection for me, the household for me, and I believed that they was out for my best interest. The gang lifestyle. May seem attractive, but it's a lie. It's a big lie that the enemy feed these little kids today because it tricks them into believing that it's going to be glamorous. But the only outcome is death being shot in a hospital or prison.
And prison is not fun. Overall, all together, with six months here, 11 months here, a year and a half there, eight months here, all together overall I spent maybe around 10 years, around 10 to 12 years in jail, and I'm 44 years old now. Um During prison, Carl found the father figure in his life that he was always looking for. God. And now out of prison.
He's trying to live. A Life Anew.
Now, the Lord has put on my heart to reach back. and help those who have went through some of the things that I went through. I have lived that lifestyle. I've been shot. I've shot.
I understand what it is like to hold a gun, to carry a gun. To have a gun be used on you. I know what it's like to be in the IDI home, the prison, jail. I know what the understanding that would take for a person to be able to overcome some of those different challenges.
So now the Lord has put on my heart a desire and a passion to be able to share Jesus with some of these kids who have never been exposed. When I was 13, 14, and I thought Santa Claus and Jesus was fake, if I had somebody who would have shared the love of Christ on me, I really believe that my life would have been transformed.
So I believe God is going to use me now to go share with some of these individuals, some of these kids who need to know about God and how real He is and His desire to love on them. and have them be saved. And great work as always to Joey on that story. And again, thanks to Don Albert. for graciously giving us The access to the interviews from his documentary, The Father I Never Knew, which is again available on Amazon.
And what words! of wisdom. What beautiful words. The story of Carl Montgomery. Here on Our American Stories.
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