My name is Deshawn Greene, but most people call me by the name Train. I was born in Boston, Mass. I am the second youngest out of four other siblings. I grew up in a household without a father figure around. And though my mother thought me what was right and wrong. I still needed that male figure to look up to. This led me to the streets at a young age. From then I met up with the wrong crowd. I started sneaking out, disobeying my mother’s orders. From there, it progressed to robbing and dealing drugs at 12 years old. My mother saw how my life change and she did what she thought was best to try and save me. She sent me down to her home state of South Carolina to live.
This only made things worse for me because, as a city kid, I thought I was way too advance for country life. I had already experienced things kids my age have not. I even had older guys who was in their 20’s looking up to a 14-year-old kid from Boston. I am pretty sure you all heard the saying before…” You can take a kid out of the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetto out of the kid”. That was my life back then. Even though my scenery had changed, I did not. I brought that same Boston kid to the south with me.
I wasted no time showcasing my criminal thinking. Which landed me in Juvenile at the age of 15 in 1993 for stealing a car. I did 6 months, and when I came home, everyone was treating me like I was a god to be feared or something. This only fueled my appetite for attention and fear. I started becoming more of the person they painted me as when really I got a heart of gold. After getting released in 1993, I kicked my criminal lifestyle into high gear and found myself back in juvenile the following year for 18 months for some weapons charges and burglary, I think.
As you can see, these juvenile stays taught me nothing but how to become more rebellious. They called our juvenile center’s gladiator school. Because all we did was fight. And you had better know how to fight, or you learned, or you became prey. So when my release date came in 1995, I got out worse than what I was. To make a long story short. I robbed a federal bank because o cracked under the pressure of the recession and made a stupid choice that got me 30 years.
I am the proud father of a girl Brooklyn who was born after I got locked up. I have watched her grow up through pictures. It pains me to know that she is hurting because of my stupidity. Although she respects me she hates me because I am not there. I let so many people down with the lifestyle I chose. So I have been going head first into reprogramming the way I think.
I have spent time understanding character-building, decision-making, critical thinking, and doing things that are productive. Because I see a lot of people spend their time idle, thinking they can make it back into society, only to return to prison. Why? Because they did nothing to change their thinking and develop ways to live a productive life. This is why I am in the situation that I am in now. I was one of them.
But even if I never make it out of here. I still want to be that better man. That can share my story and knowledge to help better the net person who may not know how to change. I am currently studying real estate, trying to learn the ins and outs of it. And I am in the process of writing a novel. Anything that I can read that will educate me on financial investing, character building, or business ventures, I am all in. I owe it to society and to my family and myself to improve my life to be productive so that I can give back to the same society I once played a part in destroying.
