From teen mom to comedy icon: Inside the turbulent life of America's Patricia Williams
America's comedian Patricia Williams (Ms Pat). She grew up in crime-infested Arkwright Place in Decatur, Georgia.
What you need to know:
- Ms Pat’s tumultuous childhood fuelled her transformation from crime-survivor to outspoken, resilient comedy star.
- From Decatur's streets to comedy’s spotlight, her raw journey proves triumph emerges from adversity.
America's outspoken comedian Patricia Williams (Ms Pat) grew up in crime-infested Arkwright Place in Decatur, Georgia. Her mother, Mildred, was an alcoholic single parent of five who could barely count change while buying herself bottles of Schlitz Malt Liquor, Seagram’s Extra Dry Gin and a nickel bag of marijuana.
Pat lived with nine relatives in a big yellow house owned by her granddaddy. They included her mom; her mom's boyfriend, Curtis; her sister, Sweetie; and her three brothers: Jeffro, Andre and Andre, who had been mistakenly given similar names by Mildred while she was in her plastered drunken condition.
The house had bedrooms in the back and a bar situated in the front within the living room. Whenever Pat awoke, she'd find strangers in the living room floor covered in their own urine and puke. When her mom was intoxicated, she viciously assaulted Pat with an extension cord, referred to her as ugly and forced her to pick the pockets of drunk customers who had collapsed on the floor.
After Pat’s granddaddy was arrested for attempted murder, Mildred moved with her children to a new home and bought a .22 pistol, which she used to intimidate her children. She once shot at Pat, narrowly missing her head. Mildred's financial survival revolved around a few hundred dollars in Welfare cheques and food stamps that arrived on the first and 15th every month from the federal government.
One hunger-stricken night, she took her children to Curb Market late at night to forage for food in dumpsters. Out of empathy, their neighbour, Cynthia, informed Mildred that the congregation of Greater Springfield Baptist Church had a pantry that donated free meals to impoverished congregants who were baptised. Mildred briskly took her children for baptism and developed a contingency plan to access charity from other churches as well.
She took her children for baptism at the neighbouring Mount Zion Baptist, New Jerusalem Baptist, Bethel Baptist, Shiloh Missionary and Free for All Baptist. Pat narrates in her memoir, Rabbit: The Autobiography of Ms Pat, how her mom led them to two or more services on Sundays and they'd attend baptism with their hair still wet from a previous one.
The cover of Patricia Williams' memoir, Rabbit: The Autobiography of Ms Pat.
While in search of validation during the summer of 1984, 12-year-old Pat conformed to the advances of a 24-year-old called Derrick, who endlessly confided to her that he loved her. Having grown up in a violent household where her mother persistently mistreated her, Pat's self-esteem was broken and she dwelt on Derrick's persuasion that was camouflaged with insidious intentions.
Shortly after her 13th birthday, Pat discovered she was pregnant and was devastated to discover Derrick was married and had simultaneously impregnated other women. He disappeared from Pat's life for weeks for fear of incarceration, after Miss Munroe, a caseworker from the Fulton County Department of Family and Child Services, stated that he had to be arrested for statutory defilement because he slept with and impregnated Pat who was a minor.
On August 9, 1986, Pat gave birth to Ashley at Grady Hospital. She had no diapers, formula, blankets, baby bottles or clothes. She had noticed that nurses were as easy to steal from liquor addicts. When she was discharged, she left with two trash bags, stuffed with dozens of bottles of pre-made Enfamil, baby clothes and diapers.
When food was scarce in her mum's home, Sweetie, who had also had a baby, would hysterically call 911. One of Pat's Andre brothers would falsify an asthma attack, and an ambulance would rush him and his sisters to Grady Hospital where they'd be offered free sandwiches. That underhand scheme became Pat's temporary starvation-coping mechanism, until Miss Munroe explained to her how to access her own monthly public assistance of $235 in welfare and food stamps.
When she started receiving her welfare benefits, Pat packed her belongings in a black trash bag and moved to her own apartment, far from the tyranny and oppression of Mildred. Two weeks later, Derrick started visiting her and six months after giving birth, she was pregnant again and delivered her son, Nikia, in November 1987. At 15, she had two babies under the age of two.
In the spring of 1988, Pat started buying cocaine from Derrick's cousin, Markee, before she'd cut, cook and process it into crack cocaine on her kitchen table. She subsequently packaged and sold them in drug-infested locations of Techwood, Baldwin and Ashby Grove. By the winter of 1988, Pat was making $6,000 a day in profit. She moved to a new three-bedroom apartment along expansive Cleveland Avenue and bought a 1983 Chevette hatchback, a 1982 Cadillac Fleetwood and a dark-green station wagon.
She was then shot in the chest by Theotris, a psychotic client, but fortuitously the bullet evaded all her vital organs when it tore into her nipple and exited from her back. A few days after her 17th birthday, Pat was arrested and sentenced to Fulton County Jail for a year. She was released in January 1992 and her gullibility led her back to Derrick's abusive hands as their relationship digressed.
On one uneventful occasion, he visited Pat's apartment with a giant hickey on his neck. An altercation ensued and he picked his loaded gun off the kitchen table and smacked her across the face with it. It went off and the bullet grazed Pat on the skull. He ran off, leaving her bleeding on the kitchen floor.
The writer is a novelist, Big Brother Africa 2 Kenyan representative and founder of Jeff's Fitness Centre (@jeffbigbrother).
