Bobby’s Story

My name is Bobby. And I’m in recovery. I’ve been sober since March 17, 2025.

I’m 51. I grew up in Lynn. I started smoking weed with my friends, in ‘87 or ‘88, somewhere around there. I was just smoking weed. And tripping on LSD because that was a thing back then. I was addicted to pot. But then it started making me paranoid. 

One day, it might have been my 16th birthday, I had a bunch of money and I was gonna buy cocaine ‘cause I had dabbled with it a little, you know, powder. I had five or 10 grand in my pocket.  I had gone to the bank and wrote fake checks in my aunt’s name, my uncle’s name and I had someone else clean out a couple of drawers.

I went to get the powder at the crack house but all they had was crack, freebase they called it back then. So I bought the freebase and that was it. Lift off. And I was gone.

I stayed out that whole week without ever going back to my uncle’s house. But my uncle’s an alcoholic so he doesn’t notice. Also I was stealing cars back then. I knew a chop shop. So I would sell the car, get the money, then run off and just spend it. Spend, spend, spend. I should have been saving it, ‘cause I’d be rich. 

Anyway we used to be able to pull right into the junkyard and the guy would give me two grand upfront if it was a nice kind of car, like a Camaro or a Cadillac or a pickup or a Jeep Cherokee.

So I would do that, like twice a week. But then it got out of hand when I started getting more and more into freebasing. So I would bring a car in like every day, driving the guy crazy. Then a friend of mine started doing it on his own without me and without telling me and the guy at the chop shop was like, you can’t have people coming around here with the stuff.

So then I found a place in Chelsea. And I started doing it there. But the same friend started doing it, too. Didn’t tell me. So one day I think I was in Revere Beach.  And me, that kid, and another person had a brand new Mustang. It was a Saleen. It had the big wing. It was hooked up. So I stole it with the keys in it. And I called the place in Chelsea, but just like the place in Lynn, they told me that was it. So there goes all my ways and means of getting high, you know. The money for it anyway.

I was living with my uncle again, but he booted me. His wife’s daughter wanted to live there, so they got rid of me. I went to live out on the streets. I was 16. My parents were out of the picture. I was adopted when I was six months old.  My uncle’s the one who adopted me. But my uncle was an alcoholic and my aunt, she did not like my mother, because she lost me.

It’s weird. I have a twin brother who lives in New Mexico now. So she got to keep him but they took me away. It’s kind of shady. But you know it was ‘74.

So now I’m out on the streets. I’m doing crack. And I’m drinking, too. So I started going to liquor stores in the Highlands up in Lynn, hanging around, acting like I was gonna buy gum or something, grabbing a six pack or anything, a bottle, and running out. So I started doing that. You know, take it, see you later.

I’m living on the streets with the hobos and the homeless, wherever, in the shelter, in and out. But back then who wanted to be inside, you know what I mean? I used to walk the streets at night. That’s why I’m not really bothered by the cold now.  People would offer me places to go, and I tell ‘em I can’t, I’m used to being outside. I want to be outside. Like most homeless people do. 

One time I’m at the Lynn Yacht Club. My uncle was a barback at the yacht club. That’s why he drank so much. I was drunk, walking around on the dock, and there was a… Chris-Craft running. Just tied up. It was a cloudy day. So I stole the boat and took off. The harbor goes around to the causeway, and you know there’s like all rocks and stuff like that in between. So on the other side of the Nahant Beach, I ended up getting stuck. And it starts raining, and some people were like, come on, you know, get out of the boat. I was like, I can’t see the bottom. I’m not jumping in. That’s how I am in the ocean. If I can’t see the bottom, forget it.

So the harbormaster arrested me. That was the first time I got arrested for stolen anything.

I got sent to the Farm. The Lawrence Farm.  When I was in there, there was an item in the Lynn paper about me being the skipper of a boat.  You know how they would sometimes put something funny like that in the paper.  So my uncle cut out the thing because it was on the front page and he sent it to me. I hung it on my locker at the Farm and everyone at the prison started calling me Skip. And to this day, there’s always people from the Farm that remember and still call me Skip.

But then when I got out after six months it was right back to the same old stuff. Smoking crack, drinking. 

I ended up going back to Lynn and I’m at the Lynn shelter, and this is where I first met my kid’s mother. She was coming to bring clothes to the shelter. Back then I was hot, I was only 18. And she said you wanna come live with me? You don’t belong here. So I was let’s go.  So I ended up moving in with her. And the biggest mistake I made that day was I pulled a straight shooter out of my pocket and she looks at me and says that’s my addiction, crack, free base.  So she said give it to me and she was off and running. There was a stipulation.  I mean, I  didn’t really want to be with anyone like that, but I loved her, know what I mean? It was good for like a couple of days.

She ended up being pregnant.  So I have two kids. Twins. One in Manchester and one in Londonderry. A boy and a girl.

It was a complicated situation. Because a lot of people were like, she’s just selling her body. But no, it was just me and her. I wouldn’t let her go out and you know, do what prostitutes do. So I ended up being the one, screwing chicks. But she didn’t mind. Once she started showing it was like no.

So one day, I think it was in ‘93, before the kids were born, I was drinking real heavy one day. And I thought she was gonna leave. And I was talking to a guy in the apartment next to me and he said if you don’t want her to leave or go do something stupid, tie her to the bed. Oh, yeah? He’s like, yeah. I was like, well, you got any rope? Handcuffs? He says, no, but I got cords, extension cords. I was like, yeah, get me one or two. So she was taking a nap, obviously resting. Like a knucklehead, I wrap the cords up around her wrist and the bed.  She wakes up, starts bugging out on me, yelling and screaming.

So my next door neighbor calls the police because he thinks we’re going at it. But we’re not. Well, it was actually my fault, ’cause I tied her to the bed. Strapped her to the bed. So I see the cars pulling up, the police cars outside the building. I knew they were there for me, obviously. So, I undid the cords some, but I was drunk. For some reason a cop ended up in between us, I think she let him into the apartment.  I was still arguing with her, and the cop was standing between us, and holding me. But then he grabbed my neck. I went to hit him but he moved out of the way, and I hit her on the nose. So I got arrested. For domestic. 

That was my only domestic. I learned my lesson. After that I never touched a woman again. And not too many people can say that, but it’s something that leaned on me, that I thought about. You know?  You protect a woman, you don’t hit her. Plus, it was by accident. You know what I mean?

So, all right, I go in and I get out on bail. I don’t even remember who bailed me out. To this day I still don’t remember. I was so drunk.

So when I get out I started doing carjackings, because I was so strung out by then. I was out on bail. So I was still going to court every month. One day I was in court and I was smoking crack in the back of the courtroom. And everyone was looking at me. And I was like I’m out of here. So now there was a warrant out for me.

So I ended up going to jail again. For violating bail. Yeah, They gave me like, a year. So now I’m back in prison. Middleton in Essex County. She ended up giving birth while I was in. It was January ‘94.  I remember the CO came up to me and said, two. I was like two? He said yeah, you have two kids.

I got a phone number for her room at the Children’s Hospital and when I called they said she wasn’t there. She took off. I said what are you talking about? They said she just left so they were just worrying about the kids. She had left them at the hospital. I said, oh man, this ain’t happening. She was out smoking crack, she wanted it so bad. She was like, ok, the kids are gone, I’m outta here.

During my time in jail, I worked on keeping my kids together because they were twins. I tried to get my own family to take them, but that wasn’t happening. DSS ended up taking the kids. 

I never heard about them again, ‘til about 2015.

I was in the hole at DDU in Walpole I ended up meeting my real mother. I never saw her when I was living with my uncle. You know? And, um, she started telling me things, you know what I mean? Like, why I got taken away and this and that. I was more worried about, well, why'd you keep end up keeping my brother?  But you had to get rid of me? I guess I kept falling off the changing table. And one time I hit my head on the iron heater. That’s why I got the scars.

And I had fluid on my brain and had to have an operation. That’s why I got taken away.

The next thing you know, same year, I get a call from my cousin that lives in Rochester, New Hampshire. saying that my son got in touch with her, and I was like, Are you sure? Yeah. So I guess he sent in his DNA and was using research to get names or something like that. And he used Facebook. By then everyone had Facebook.

But I was in for the last 20 years, until July this year. I had 10 years for extortion, assault and battery, and all the stupid stuff you do when you’re on the streets. One time when I was in the DDU (that’s solitary) I had broken a CO’s arm. They were giving me a loaf three times a day. For breakfast, lunch and dinner and the guys were saying they still give you that crap? You gotta do something about it. So, I was young, know what I mean? Back then I didn’t really care. So I was all right, you know what? I’m gonna pull the guy’s arm in and try to break it. What did I do? I pulled it in and bent it and it snapped. 

And another time, when I was on probation, I was living in a halfway house in Somerville. My roommate, back then, was doing crazy stuff, like, getting donuts out of a dumpster and giving them to me. There was an instance where my family had got me a brand new coat. It was, like, $250. He went out and found a dog on the street, and he used my coat as a dog bed. I was like, you know, why would you do that? Oh, I love this dog, he says. And I was like, my aunt just spent two bills for that. And it was a nice Nike coat. It had the inside that zipped out.

One day I wake up, I hear clinking, and my roommate was clinking some handcuffs. He bought ‘em in a joke shop. It was, like, 5:30 in the morning. All right. You wanna, you know, I just... I just got out of prison. Can you stop? Oh, don't worry. But it went on. Every day. So I just... I grabbed a hatchet. I was gonna drop his head off, but the top of the top of the hatchet flew off. It broke, because it was loose. So I just grabbed a bat, started hitting him with the bat in the head. I was messed up on Klonopin.

So I get sentenced to 35 years for assault and battery and intent to murder so now I’m a habitual. So the sentence is mandatory. But I had some friends who were into the law and they figured out the charges were wrong, there was no intent.  The court ended up overturning that case, and I only ended up with 15 years, but I could get good time because the 15 was not mandatory. I had to go back for another whole trial because they do that separate. 

So when the charges got dismissed that’s how I got out. In July. And that’s the first time I was face-to-face with my son. And my daughter. I met her a week or two ago at the Lawrence bus station. It was real quick because she had somewhere to go. Whatever. She just wanted money. But I found out I had grandchildren. But those were the only times I’d been face to face with either one. 

So I got out in July. And I feel good. I got sober on my own. I’m not on probation. I’m doing it myself. I’m living in a sober house. It’s a big change. I’ve been in and out of jail since I was 16. But you know, it’s not my thing anymore. I’m tired. Tired of living that life.

I haven’t got a job. I had interviews but then they found I’m not that good with people. I have social anxiety, from being institutionalized. And I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD which I picked up in prison. 

In 2020 two COs got beat up in a block in Shirley Max. Charlie Baker gave the prison tons of money to take the prison back. So they put guys on one side of the block and gave them screens and computers and put their enemies on the other side. They made it so we would fight each other.  

The COs had all kinds of military gear and dressed like they were in Iraq or Afghanistan. One day I asked to see mental health. They came down, opened my trap, turned me around and cuffed me and then they were gone. Next thing you know doors were opening and these dudes in military gear come running in. They had me against the wall, ripped my religious chain off my neck, and ended up beating me to the floor. Then I look up and see a red light. I see him holding a gun. They were shooting us with pepper balls and stun guns. I ended up filing a lawsuit against them and won.

The hardest thing now is just being around people. Crowds. It’s PTSD. I was in Burlington or somewhere, at a mall, and the speaker came on and the sound triggered me. I could have sworn they said lock it down.

But there’s other things that stay with you. Back in the 90s when I was using coke and all that stuff. I mean, I've been around, like, abandoned houses, and a lot of people, men and women who OD’d, died.  You know what I mean? You couldn't really dispose of them. Like, we'd have to leave and then call the cops. But there was a couple times where I had to roll somebody up in a rug and put them in a dumpster. So you know, it just, it stays with you. In prison I've seen people kill themselves. You know, take their own lives. Die from drugs. Stupid stuff. So a lot of that, I think, goes along with the PTSD, from what I know. Plus being attacked by the cops and COs.

I just got engaged. When I first met Catherine, Katt, she helped me with emails and other stuff. But for some reason I had this feeling inside, like, she was the one for me. Yeah. You know? And that's keeping us together.

With the lawsuit that happened, I ended up getting a certain amount of money, so that's what I'm basically living off of right now. Because really, I don't know how to work. I don't know if places will even hire me anymore. 

But I have goals. I have a lot of goals. I mean, first and most important, is to stay sober. Stay clean. Live a normal life. Um, the second goal, stay out of prison.  And then just keeping this relationship. I’m hoping everything keeps going like it should.