Marcus Jerome Boyd Jr.

This "blog" reminded me of someone I knew who, though it has never been confirmed, most likely took his life.


Marcus was (literally) one of my first clients at my current job. He was three years younger than me and while he shared traits with alot of my clients he was someone I could speak with and get through to. Marcus most was the type of cat you could be cool with until he started drinking. I don't believe I ever saw him drunk but the stories where something bad happens to him always involved him drinking. He had two daughters when he became a client so he was at a point where he was thinking about life differently. This was one of my clients who gave me a reason to shoot down the administrators who loved to bitch about seeing me outside smoking. My office is small so to have an indepth conversation with someone you can't really be in the building. Instead of saying, "Hey let's talk about how your life is going." I just say I'm going to have a smoke, come on outside. Once outside most clients just start spilling the beans. Anyway Marcus was the main one. I knew he wanted to talk about something because he would say, "Yo you trying to go smoke?". The other thing I loved was Marcus liked to play chess so this gave me a chance to participate in "youth development activities" (translation: Escape from paperwork). One thing I will always remember about Marcus was being at a Believe campaign and he was trying to get the number of another client (who I will admit here is fine, for work purposes I wear my "older brother glasses" when looking at these girls). He was intrigued because she said she her man would have to vote. I loved the fact that he was interested in a woman who was pushing his perspective. Things began to break down with Marcus in '02. He couldn't live with his parents anymore and he got beat up by his baby-momma-boyfriend (he was drunk at the time). He moved in with his sister and his younger brother and there was some drama over his niece. He came in to the center one day and before I knew who it was I felt the tension coming off of him. I asked him to smoke with me and I saw the signs of a fight on his face and arms. He went through a story about how his niece is passing notes with some boy about having sex and he got mad. The bad thing is he was the only one bothered by it and drama ensued, ending with his little brother and his friend jumping him and pointing a tool at him. At the time he was in a training program so I told him we would help him find a place to stay and he should focus on his training. He said he didn't understand why bad things happened everytime he was making progress and I dug into the quote bag and pulled out, "If something is in your way it means your going somewhere." I added on my if you weren't doing shit nothing would be able to hold you back. We worked out some logistics and I encouraged him not to give into negative feelings. Before he left he told me that he was glad I was his advocate (one of 7 times someone has expressed appreciation for me at this job - the pay should be better as well). Instead of living at the place we arranged, Marcus went to live with his aunt close to my neighborhood. He started doing well with his training and just seemed happier overall. I remember him giving some money to another member who was having payroll issues. It made me feel good to see him trying to help someone else out. A few weeks later he began to start having trouble getting to the training on time and he eventually got dropped. I worked with him and tried to help him get back into security but as is the case finding a job can be hard, especially without an inside connect or alot of experience. Some time passed and I didn't see Marcus for a minute. I was told that he had gotten drunk and basically kneeled down in the middle of the street, yelling about how he didn't want to live. The next day I was told that his parents checked him into a mental hospital, a few days after that I heard he had escaped and no one knew where he was. Just a couple days after that another client called me and said they had found his body in the habor. There was some debate as to if there was foul play but I doubted that after another client of mine and a friend of his said Marcus had suggested they "jump of the bridge and end this". He was broke up because he hadn't taken him seriously and said he should have talked to him about it. One of the hardest things I have done was to watch his father cry as I thought about the fact that Marcus had two daughters who would not see their father again. I felt like I had failed. There had been so many problems and I had always seemed to be able to say the right thing to help him stay on track or to shake off feelings of despair. I always wondered why he didn't come to see me. I thought maybe if I had worked harder for him he would't have done such a thing. This is one of two subjects that can bring tears to my eyes. I recently had a training about grief where we were asked to write down the names of 4 people close to us, living or dead. We seperated the names and then had to throw them away and tell everyone why we could let them go. Marcus was the first one I threw away. He taught me that despite everything I do I can't save everyone. All I can do is put forth my best effort and in the end I have to be able to let them go. Marcus was a measure of my growth at this job in more ways than one. His death was turning point in my life. I have had family and people I knew die, but he was the first death of someone I really talked and spent time with. He was also the first of my clients to die but he wouldn't be the last. He died a few days before I turned 24 and the night of his vigil I meet my ex-girlfriend for the first time. I won't forget Marcus but I can let him go.