My Name Is River Blue (5 page)

I didn't know
where to go or who to trust, but the answer found me in the form of a young man
who was performing his stretching exercises before his early morning run. He
noticed me first and called out to me. He was concerned to see a boy my age alone
in his neighborhood at five in the morning, and I sensed that I had no reason
to fear him. I trusted him enough to tell him that I needed to call my caseworker.
He found Mrs. Glover's number and dialed it for me before handing me the phone.
Mrs. Glover promised that she would not call Mr. Carver and that she would pick
me up in thirty minutes.

Mrs. Glover took
me to the hospital where I talked to a doctor who examined me. When the doctor
finished, I had to repeat my story to two men from the sheriff's department. I
told them about the night I woke up to find Mr. Carver in my bed, and that I
was so scared that I screamed and woke up Miss Carver. I told them everything,
including what happened at the police station. I spent the night in the hospital
and in the morning, a psychologist talked to me before Mrs. Glover took me to
the boys home.

When I think of
it now, I appreciate how hard it must have been for Miss Carver to go against
her brother to do the right thing. She knew more than I thought she did and
voluntarily gave a sworn statement to the sheriff's department detective who
arrested Mr. Carver. I'm not sure of all the terms, but I know that Mr. Carver
accepted a plea deal, and it was not necessary for me to testify in court. I
was glad because I never wanted to discuss the details again, and I never have.

A few days after
I ran away from the Carvers' house, Mrs. Glover picked me up from the boys home
and took me to see Mrs. Jenkins, a state counselor. The counselor tried a
number of tactics to lead me into a discussion about Mr. Carver. She often
started with mentioning my new behavior problems at the boys home, or the fact
that I had been struggling with my studies in school. She would ask if I was
angry, and why I had changed from a boy who never caused trouble to a boy who
was often fighting. My standard answer for her was, "I don't know." If
she mentioned Mr. Carver, I refused to say another word until it was time for
me to leave.

Mrs. Jenkins,
and any adults who knew about it, believed that Mr. Carver was the reason for
my change in behavior, but he was only part of it. There were many factors,
which had all affected me over a period of years. I had lost a home I loved when
Mr. Abernathy died, and it hurt much worse because his wife blamed me for his
death. I had trusted the police to keep me safe, only to have them give me
right back to Mr. Carver.

At every open
house at the boys home, visitors disrespected me. The boys home staff and many
of my foster brothers treated me unfairly and verbally abused me. What I hated
the most was the unrelenting ridicule that I continued to suffer at school, and
the fact that it had intensified each year as my tormentors grew older and came
up with more imaginative ways to damage my self-esteem.

During my first
few years of school, I never had one single friend among my classmates. In the
beginning, I tried to make friends, but no one would give me a chance. My first
problem was that the majority of the students were white, and their parents had
done a good job teaching them to be prejudiced against kids who were different.
The second issue was that the other students were reminded each day that I was a
state kid. When I rode the boys home bus with the Bergeron County sign on the
door, it always stopped directly in front of the main entrance to the school
where the kids congregated at the beginning and end of the school day. In the
cafeteria, students saw me present my free lunch pass for poor kids. Sometimes
there were assignments that involved telling the class something about our
homes, families, and ancestors. What was a bastard foundling supposed to say to
the class?

I was often teased
at school about my cheap, secondhand clothes, which seldom fit me. I wore
hand-me-down shirts, jeans, and jackets donated by church families whose kids
outgrew them. One of the most embarrassing incidents involving my clothes was the
time when an older boy stopped me in the hall and informed me that I was
wearing his old jacket. He proved it in front of other kids by pulling out my
jacket collar and showing everyone where his mother had printed his last name
on the label with a black laundry marker. They all had a good laugh, and that
night, I used a pair of scissors and cut to shreds the only jacket I had.

The kids kept
teasing me for weeks by asking me whose clothes I was wearing that day, and
some of them spread a rumor that I wore used briefs with old stains. There were
many days, when I had to fight back my tears at school until I could go home to
my room at the boys home. There I would crawl under the covers of my bed and
cry myself to sleep.

When I first
came to live at the Bergeron County Junior Boys Home, I was a naive, innocent
kid who tried hard to be accepted there and in school. After years of trying
but failing to make people like me, I grew tired of the never-ending prejudice
and abuse. After I escaped from Mr. Carver and his friends at the police
station, all of the emotional damage of my short life seemed to hit me at once.
I was a pissed-off kid, and I was finished with taking crap from people. I was
determined that if someone hurt me, he was going to pay double. I took my new
attitude with me when I left the boys home to live with yet another white
foster family needing a check.

***

I was ten years
old when I moved in with the Becks and their son, Nathan. I doubt that I would
have loved Mr. and Mrs. Beck no matter how good they were to me because I was a
very different child from the one who came to live with the Abernathy family
and the Carvers. I no longer believed that if I tried hard enough, I could have
a real home with a family who loved me. I no longer believed that if I were
nice to other people that they would be nice to me.

When I lived with
the Becks, I did my best to obey their rules, but I made no extra effort to be
pleasant. I didn't try to impress them because I meant nothing to them but a
state check. I overheard them when Mr. and Mrs. Beck told Nathan that they
didn't intend to keep me any longer than necessary.

From the first
day, I knew I would not get along with Nathan, who was a year older than I was.
He acted as if I should be his grateful slave and tried to get me to do his
chores and mine. He blamed me for any mess he made and anything he broke or
lost. Since I was not the nice little kid that I had been in the past, I never
covered for him, and I often proved to his parents that he lied to them.
Sometimes the Becks punished Nathan, but just as often, they made excuses for
him that they would have never made for me.

One day, when we
were supposed to be going to the park, I went out the door ahead of Nathan. When
I took the first of six brick steps downward, he shoved me in the back with
both of his hands. I fell hard on my knees, tearing holes in my jeans and
cutting myself badly enough that my blood ran to my white socks. When I looked
up at Nathan, he smugly apologized for "accidently" bumping me. I
knew he would tell that story to his parents, and that they would never punish
him.

I charged up the
steps and punched Nathan in the mouth, knocking him off the porch to the
ground. I saw that his lip was split open and one of his front teeth was
chipped, but I wasn't done. In a rage, I kicked him, stomped him, and then sat
on his chest while I pummeled his face with blow after blow until Mr. Beck came
out and pulled me off him.

Mrs. Beck took
Nathan to the hospital, and Mr. Beck ordered me to go to my room and stay there
until Mrs. Glover came. I don't know why he didn't call the cops when he called
my caseworker, but I gave him much more to add to his complaint when he did
talk to them.

After I packed
my things in a shopping bag, I used the bathroom between Nathan's bedroom and
mine to check the cuts on my knees. When I pulled off my jeans and saw that one
of my knees had an open gash that would need stitches, I grew so angry I was
shaking.

I felt like there
was a stranger inside me, and he was the one who decided that I should stomp
through the bathroom to Nathan's room and use my foster brother's shirts,
shorts, and jeans to soak the blood from my knees. Nathan had beige-colored
carpet in his room, and even though it was painful, I knee-walked across the
carpet, leaving as many bloodstains as I could.

I found over
$200 in allowance and gift money that Nathan had saved in his sock drawer. He
would often show me his money, and brag about how much he had. I tore all the
bills to shreds and waved to them as I flushed them down the toilet. I broke
his baseball trophies by hurling them against the wall where they gouged the
sheetrock, and finally, I stood up on his bed and drained a full bladder on his
comforter and pillows. I was still standing on Nathan's bed when Mr. Beck came
in to stop me before I destroyed anything else. When he tried to pull me down,
it didn't sound like my voice when I threatened to come back and burn down his
house if he touched me.

In family court,
no one was interested in hearing my side of the story. Judge Merlo never
bothered to ask me anything about the incident because he already knew all he
wanted to know. He believed the Becks' story that Nathan did nothing to
instigate my meltdown. According to them, I went nuts after I accidently tripped
over my own feet and fell down the steps.

I listened to my
court-appointed lawyer and Mrs. Glover, as they explained to Judge Merlo that I
was a good boy who had been experiencing anger issues because of Mr. Carver. The
judge said that he was placing me on probation, and if I appeared in his court
again, he would send me to juvie detention. He asked if I understood and when Mrs.
Glover prodded me, I said, "Yes, sir."

I didn't fully understand
what probation and juvie detention meant. No one there explained it to me, or
gave me an opportunity to ask questions. I didn't know that I was close to
going to juvenile prison until I spoke with Sean, who told me that I had to
learn to control my temper and walk away from trouble.

I went back to
living at the boys home, and my individual counseling sessions with Mrs.
Jenkins were increased to twice a week. Once a week, I attended a group
counseling session at the mental health center where, if they were in the mood,
pissed-off kids discussed their feelings. Usually, they just misbehaved while
the old counselor kept looking at his watch. It wasn't unusual for him to have
to break up a fight or two, or call security for the incidents he couldn't
handle. I hated going there where most of the kids were crazier than I was.

I remember one
particular two-hour long group counseling session because of what occurred that
afternoon in the restroom during the break at the halfway point. I was washing
my hands at the sink, when I heard Corey Boyce, a black kid from the group enter
the room. Corey, who was about my age, but smaller, never stopped talking in
the sessions or during the breaks. He was obnoxious and always making a
smartass remark to one of us. I had already told him twice not to speak to me.

Corey stood
right behind me and began talking in my ear. I hated his whiny voice, and I
don't recall anything he said until he bumped into me and asked, "Are you
a wetback?"

Quickly turning,
I kicked Corey's legs out from under him and dragged him across the tile floor to
the first stall. The toilet bowl was full of dark, nasty liquid and smelled as
if it hadn't been flushed for days. I held my breath for the fifteen seconds it
took to dunk Corey's head in and out of the water a few times. After I washed
my hands, I left the wet, sobbing boy on the restroom floor and rejoined the
session. I was strangely calm when I took my seat.

To my knowledge,
Corey never told anyone the truth about why he was soaked and stinking when he came
out of the restroom. When the counselor saw him, the old man only glanced at
his watch again.

Corey stopped
coming to our group counseling, and I never saw him again.

***

On the first
Sunday of October, about two and a half months before my eleventh birthday on
December 19, we learned that an important man would pay us a visit during open
house at the BC Junior Boys Home. In preparation, we had to clean the entire
home and listen to long lectures about proper behavior. I didn't want any part
of it. I didn't care about seeing the celebrity who would join the normal crowd
of adults, and I hated the idea of coming downstairs just to be bored while the
visitors ignored me.

Mr. Langston, the
new director of the boys home after Mr. Bonner retired, was determined that all
of us boys would cooperate for the VIP visit during his first open house as
director. Mr. Langston was easy to anger and quick to use his paddle excessively
to encourage us to follow his orders. There were strict guidelines for using
corporal punishment at the boys home, but Mr. Langston made his own rules and
dared us to say anything about it. As much as he hated kids, I didn't
understand why he took the job.

During his first
week at the boys home, Mr. Langston, a fat, middle-aged white man who
constantly smelled like fish, had to come to my school to meet with my principal
because of my involvement in a fight. The incident was the only time that I can
remember striking someone first with no justification.