In 2019, Reggie and his sister Janine went to a high school reunion. It was going great...until it wasn't. Janine had to pull him off the dance floor when she started to see the paranoia and aggression signaling a bipolar episode.

That’s how it was with Reggie: a few hours of him being happy, calm, collected – followed by a steep slide into paranoia and distrust. That’s when Dark Reggie would emerge. And increasingly, Dark Reggie was running the show.

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Reggie's time as a sports editor at the Grambling student newspaper suggested he had it all in front of him. He was a gifted rider with a ton of talent and street smarts. But after a violent encounter at the school, Reggie got on a bus, which was a two-day ride home, and something in his head snapped.

When he got to Oakland, his family met him at the bus station. And the person who walked off the bus left them stunned.

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In 1989, Reggie Payne became a local hero when he overcame the hardships of Oakland’s 69 Village to attend Grambling State University. Yet college life some 3,000 miles away is anything but easy. While he dives into journalism as an editor at the student newspaper, Reggie becomes a first-time father and endures an alleged beatdown via a fleet of Tiger football players that changes his outlook—and messes with his mind.

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