2155 words (8 minute read)

Chapter two

My bag was packed and I caught a bus using some money that I had saved from potato picking. I managed to get the address from a letter that I had received. I spotted them all in the living room through the glass as I approached. They were all in their new clothes with Christmas presents surrounding them. I felt very out of place in my ragged battered clothes. The family was very surprised to see me at the front door just before dark. I thought that they were going to tell me to hit the road at first but they invited me in and managed to find me a present that somebody was not wanting. The evening was somewhat awkward but at least I was not getting beat up. My uncle reluctantly gave me a room in an outbuilding behind their posh house. I think that it was the servants quarters. My uncle had remarried and had two step children. Their mother did not want me in the house around her two children. I stayed there a couple of weeks and my uncle took me to the Optimist boys home in Los Angeles. He was a lawyer so he managed to get the paperwork done very quickly and that became my new home. I was told to get something to eat and that a councillor would take me my to dorm room. The other kids were all black and hispanic. I was the only white kid there. It was not long before the other kids began antagonising me by intentionally bumping into me in the hallway and then punching me. These kids were closer to my age however and I had learned to fight a little by that time. I would fight with them everyday and sometimes I would win. The school was very poor and we were not allowed to take the books out in case they were damaged. They would take us out to clean up on construction sites and would pay us nine cents an hour. We were not allowed all of the accumulated money however in case we tried to escape. It was very much like a prison with a thirty foot fence around it. We were very closely supervised when we were out on the work sites. Most of us did not have the means to go anywhere anyway. The councillors eventually told us that we were not allowed to fight in the hallways anymore as things were getting broken. They boxed the television in hard plastic in the TV room and told us that we could fight in there. We were told that we would be taken to juvenile hall if we were caught fighting in the hallway and turned a blind eye to the TV room. It was understood amongst us from that point on that whomever had a beef during the week with somebody would settle it on a Saturday night in the TV room. I had a beef every week and would be fighting every Saturday night. Sometimes I would have two beefs and therefore two fights, one after the other. That was a bit more difficult but those were the rules that we all made up and accepted. We would all stand around in a circle in the TV room with the fights in the center. It would go from one guy to the next so if you had two beefs then you would have two fights. If you lost the fight and were unable to continue then you would fight the second guy on the following Saturday. I spent the next Christmas there and we were all taken into the giant food hall. They had a big Christmas tree set up and had presents underneath it for us. It was mostly some cheap sweaters or maybe a pair of socks that would soon get stolen by the other kids shortly after arriving back at the dorm room. The local politicians would show up on the catwalk above the food hall. They would all be up there with their expensive suits congratulating each other on the donations they had given us. I was getting to be a much better fighter and was winning most of the fights that I was in. The other kids did not like losing though and I knew that it was only a matter of time before I got stuck with a knife and killed. Other kids had been stabbed and killed, mostly in gang related fights. They tried to stab me once as well but I managed to block the knife and get free with only some miner cuts. It was at that point that I realised that I had to get out of there. I had some money saved from the work that I was doing on the construction sites only they kept most of it for me in the office. I began watching the councillors in the office and noticed one that appeared to be a bit dodgy. I thought that I might be able to bribe him with some of the money in order to get more at one time. I waited until nobody else was around and approached him with the idea. He agreed and gave me the full amount minus his cut. He went back in the book to make it look as though I received small amounts earlier in the year. I had not taken much money earlier in that year as this was my plan and I knew that I just needed a councillor to go along with the idea. I was not learning much at school but was beginning to learn something about human nature. I knew that some of the kids in a gang occasionally got their pals to cut a hole in the fence and shove some cases of beer underneath it. The word was that this was going to happen on the following Saturday night. I made sure that I had my bag packed and ready and waited in my dorm room until I heard the distinctive sound of people getting drunk. That was my cue to grab my bag and head for the fence line. It took me about ten to fifteen minutes to find the hole and crawl through. The temporary feeling of freedom felt good. I had planned to go to my fathers apartment in Reno. He had separated from his second wife and was living in a quaint little apartment by the river. He was a little surprised to see me but allowed me to stay for the moment. He seemed a little bit troubled by my being there. He was dating and felt as though I was in his way. I didn’t see much of him for the next few days and I would go for walks by the river. It was summer time and the freedom felt good. I had forgotten what it was like to have a place where I could be on my own and have some peace. It took me a little while to learn how to use the appliances. I had never been allowed to adjust the heating or the thermostat on the wall. It felt like a pleasure to be able to control my own heating or to have some of the food that I wanted to eat. I had forgotten what it was like to have some time to myself as well. This was also a pleasure despite this huge growing sense of loneliness. It was not more then a week however until my father had the social services around and I was off to my next foster home. He had gone to them this time rather then them coming to us. I went to a foster home and then on to another and another. The first home had their own boy around my age. I think that her idea was for me to keep her son company and she made it clear that I was a second class citizen so to speak. Her son knew this as well and would treat me as such. I was told that I should never eat the last of something in the fridge and that if we ever had any cookies on a plate that I was to eat the ones off of the back of the plate and not the front. So take from that what you will. The kid got to wise with me one day and I knocked him on his ass and I was off to the next foster home. This foster home jumping went on for some time and I was back and forth between California and Nevada. Some of the homes were okay and others were not. I became a little bit withdrawn and was doing drugs when I could get my hands on them along with drinking. Sometimes I would run away and other times the families would just get rid of me. I would eventually end up in juvenile hall when I ran away. It was always for something miner like stealing food or fighting. They would keep me in juvenile hall for awhile and then send me to another foster home. I was beginning to get somewhat of a rap sheet with the authorities however miner. The courts were telling me that I was looking at a lengthly stay in juvenile hall if this continued. I was finally taken to a foster home in Golden Valley Nevada which was not far from the first home that I went to in Sun Valley. The man worked at a PVC hose extrusion plant and the woman was disabled and in a wheel chair. They had a boy and a girl that were younger then me. I liked the family because they were very down to earth. The man and woman were called George and Loretta. George allowed me to drink beer and he liked me because I was a very hard worker. We would drink beer together and have a few laughs. My life began to get a little bit more stable. I was going to a school that was dedicated to working with kids with problems. I liked the school and began to get focused on my school work again. There were jobs to do when I came home along with my school homework as well. I would work with George doing jobs around the house and I would sometimes work on my own. George always told me to turn around and look at a job after I completed it and give myself a little pat on the back in my mind. George also told me that if I was going to do a job, to do it well or don’t do it at all. I took pride in that and my work. They had just purchased a new house with some land and there were lots of jobs to do. It was in what is known as the high desert however and the ground was rock hard. George asked me if I could bury the footings of a swing set in the yard one day. I was out there with a pick and shovel and eventually buried the footings a little bit. I came in the house and George said that it was not good enough. This kind of upset me because of the pride that I had in my work so I went back out and did some more. I spent the entire day out there and did not stop until I had buried the legs of the swing set about four feet in the ground. I came in all dusty and dirty with blisters on my hands and told him that I was finished. He went out and had a look and started roaring with laughter. We came in and had several beers together and I slept well that night. This was the first time in my life that I had some stability. I wanted to make the most of it. I was way behind in my school work but I was doubling my efforts. George had a cousin that was a blackbelt in Karate and we began sparring together. This helped me to stay focused. George had friends from back east where they were originally from. They came over and had dinner with us on occasions like Christmas and Thanksgiving. I eventually discovered that they were mobsters. The newspaper would sometimes print articles where they had been involved in certain activities. One of the mobsters sons came and stayed with us for awhile when his father was facing some difficulties. I liked the mobsters as they seemed very down to earth to me. They were not the type to hold something back. They said what was on their mind. I was really wanting to make some money as I was coming up on fifteen. I was to young to work for the mobsters but I would gone to work for them if they had offered me a job.

Next Chapter: Chapter three