Studs
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Do you remember the seventies? Days of the platform shoes, bell bottom pants, designer jeans, converse all-star tennis shoes, and the afro? If you were cool you wore the pick in the back of your afro. Most of us wore the one with the fist, for black power. The way we walked, talked and dressed defined us. We would greet each other by saying things like what's happening? Gimmie five, or can you dig it? Our music was real, we had real singers and musicians like the Ojays, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, the Ohio Players, Earth Wind and Fire, the Isley Brothers the list goes on and on. This was real music! “Oh you don't know nothin about that.” Some of the dances we did like the bump and the rollercoaster not to mention the slow dances or slow grinds like I used to call them, you should have been arrested for doing that in public. The story your about to read is true, this story takes place in the 70's. The thing I mostly remember about that time was not just the music, or the way we walked, talked and dressed. It's the people and one in particular. His name was Mark Anthony Houston we called him Studs. It was October 6, 1979 around 10 O'clock in the morning; I remember sluggishly getting out of bed and using the bathroom, than brushing my teeth. I remember going into the Den and turning on the radio I set it to only play in my room I didn't want to disturb or wake up my mother or sister. I tuned it to the Big DM 101.3 FM and listened to my man Tucson the Capricorn I didn't pay close attention to the news but when I herd the opening line, it immediately caught my attention when I herd the female newscaster say “No one knows why Mark Anthony Houston” and that's about all I can remember as soon as she said his name I knew it wasn't good I remember her saying “when it was over there were 2 dead and 5 wounded”. T his took place at the Bates West Social Room on the University of South Carolina campus 1300 Whaley Street. I knew the place well I had just DJayed there about a month before. I remember sitting on the edge of my bed, stunned I couldn't believe what I was hearing, not Mark I said. Not Studs! My mind drifted back to when we were in the 8
I remember the look on Marks face I couldn't hear what he was saying but I could read his lips all he said was, “fuck em up, fuck them mother fuckers up” over and over, While we beat the hell out of every white kid that went to our school. Not only because of the movie roots but because some of them had the nerve to jump on and beat up a black student the day before. Now I'm here imagining that night, Visually seeing Mark with that chrome plated 32 caliber, pistol in his hand, running through the Bates Social Club shooting people at random, I can see him holding that gun sideways in his hands.
Shooting and killing Terrell G. Johnson, Patrick M. McGinty and wounding John L. Aiken, David L. Simmons, William T Langston, Michael K Lawyer and Randy McCray. It's just like a movie it keeps playing in my mind over and over and it ends with a telephone conversation that Mark and I had many years earlier. When we were interrupted by his step-mother asking him to get off the phone I will never forget when he said “that bitch makes me sick, I just want to kill her”. And that's usually how it goes, these memories from the past first it's the 8
"Fuck them all up” than the shooting at USC that left 2 dead and 5 others wounded as he ran through the Bates Social club shooting people at random and finally the phone conversation. Where he wishes he could kill his step-mother. Man I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I just shook my head as I got up from my bed and once again begin to paint my room.
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About the Book
Long before Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold embarked on what is now known as the Columbine High School massacre that left 12 students and 1 teacher dead there was Mark Anthony Houston we called him Studs.
Studs, is a True story that took place in the 70's, it's about an incident that happened on October 5th1979, on the campus of the University of South Carolina at the Bates social club. On this night our lead character (Studs) shoots and kills two people and wounds five others.
Studs, is organized by year. From 1972 when I moved to South Carolina until 1979 when this incident takes place. This story chronicles my life and the life of the lead character (Studs)along with many of the classmates that we grew up with in the 70's. It takes a close look at black on black racism, and deals with growing up as a black male in the 70's without a father.
About the Author
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