Born in 1989, Jamison was the son of William Todd, a wealthy but corrupt chief executive, and Sheila Hanger, a would-be nurse. William and Sheila had met in Miami, Florida, as William had arranged a celebratory trip for his business partners to commemorate their most recent success on a deal and Sheila was working her “then” job as a bartender. After a wild night of flowing drinks, the two had decided to take a walk together along the beachline shore and instantly hit it off — with Sheila decidedly moving to Philadelphia not too long after the two had made it to their six-month mark of dating. They were both young, happy and thought nothing terrible could ever happen to them as they continued to live their lives together. That was until the year of 1989, when Sheila admitted that she’d been expecting a healthy baby boy. Crippled with the stresses that came from owning a business and not wanting to spend any finances on an infant, William slipped out on Sheila during one of her nights as a newbie nursing school student. That was the last time she’d ever see him again.

Despite being a single mother, however, Sheila did her best to raise Jamison. The beginning years of his childhood were perfect, even though Sheila worked often and was constantly exhausted. Jamison was defined by mud pies, tree houses, rollerblades and swing sets; he was carefree, curious, and loving. But while he remained unworried and insouciant, the frays left from severed ties of Sheila’s past came back to haunt her. It developed slowly but eventually, it’d be the cause of her spiraling out of control. The impact of William’s absence had left her so devastated that she’d turn to the only thing that kept her stable and motivated: meth.

By the time Jamison had turned seven, he was used to living in the shadows. It was just his way of life, with his mother strewn about the couch — depressed and penniless from being fired from her job due to negligence and sheer forgetfulness of showing up on time altogether. Days would go by without him eating a proper meal or his clothes being washed. The house became messy, with dishes piling up in the sink and roaches scattering over the floors. But it wasn’t like Sheila cared. In time, the neighborhood became a cesspool of shady dealings and suspicious characters. When Jamison turned eight, the building that the two shared together became completely derelict to the point where tenants were asked to evacuate. Unable to afford moving elsewhere, Sheila condemned them to their apartment and Jamison was forced to turn to a life of petty crimes to make a living for himself and his mother.

He should have been raised to be an honest, hard worker, but the truth of the matter was that Jamison spent a lot of his time alone, filling his days with novels and little stories that allowed him to escape his reality — which was having to take care of his own mother. While Sheila remained knee deep in her drugs, no one noticed him. Jamison wished he could say he was okay with it, but it wasn’t his personality. He cherished his memories from his childhood, remembered how happy he and his mother used to be. He’d tell himself that he liked being alone, but he hated it. That’s when he took it upon himself to wander around his neighborhood, constantly hoping to find a crowded place so that he wouldn’t feel so isolated anymore. It’d end up being his greatest mistake.

When he was nine, he was already an established member of the local gang that hung around the streets of North Philly. For the most part, he’d scrape tires off vehicles or steal cigarettes for people from gas stations and grocery stores. It was during one of these petty heists that he’d gotten caught. When Sheila couldn’t be bothered to answer the call from the law enforcement officer on the case, Child Protective Services were notified. Upon noticing his living conditions and the state Sheila had been in, Jamison was immediately put into the foster care system; where he’d bounce from one family on to the other, having been ruled reckless and too impulsive for his own good. Unable to find a successful home, Jamison was put through schooling from the orphanage, where he’d stay until he graduated at the age of eighteen.

As Jamison got older, things didn’t seem to improve by much. Lacking affections and being riddled with a bad temper and an affinity to stick himself into dangerous and questionable situations, allowed him to frequent juvenile detention more than he’d like to admit. His poor decisions and bad luck never seized to dissipate and undoubtedly enough, it became extremely difficult for him to find decent work anywhere, so he drifted from one odd job to another constantly. Despite it all, he was still a young man that had promise — being inherently intelligent and exceptionally charming when he wanted to be. An anonymous person picked up on the fact and began to wire money into his bank account whenever he was in a time of need, which while he has never complained about, he is weary of to this day. It’s made him a seemingly paranoid person to say the least, which doubles as a negative since he hardly trusts anyone anymore all thanks to the betrayal from his mother. Nevertheless, Jamison straddles the fine line between being untrusting and not wanting to be abandoned again. He is a walking time-bomb that instills a sense of fear and nobility towards all those who cross paths with him. He means well most of the time but it never translates well on paper. He is an enigma, that much is for sure; and all he craves in the end is attention and affection.