WE MOVED A LOT WHEN I WAS A LITTLE BOY, MOSTLY within a twenty-mile radius and usually every time Mama ran out of rent money. Although we were flat broke, Mama always worked out some way to satisfy the landlord, even if it didn’t last for long.
Not surprisingly, when our landlord evicted us from our house on Vance Street in the middle of the winter, we didn’t move far—just a short distance away to Hanover Street, which wasn’t exactly a step up. Mama negotiated with a landlord who allowed us to live in an empty mill house, but we couldn’t afford to pay the gas bill, so there was no heat. A wood-frame mill house without heat in the winter affects the body much like rigor mortis does after a person has been dead three hours, only quicker. The cold seeps through the floors, walls, and windows into your skin, chilling to the core of every bone in your already cold body.
Pipes burst under the house and kitchen sink. Doorknobs felt ice-cold, almost sticking to my hand when I tried to turn them. Even the water in the toilet bowl froze like a mini ice skating rink.
Mama persuaded some of her Vance Street cohorts to haul our few possessions and what little furniture we owned to Hanover Street. That was the good news. We now at least had blankets and a bed. The bad news? Mama’s shady friends now knew where to find her, and they did. Often.
Eventually Mama scrounged up enough money to get the gas turned on, and almost immediately our house became the favorite party spot, especially on weekends. Mama’s friends brought booze and drugs, and they began piling in every Friday before dusk. They partied late into the night, winding down early Saturday morning, and then starting up again Saturday afternoon. Mama soon began referring to Hanover Street as Hangover Street.
Sloan was a newbie who came around on Fridays, always with a pocketful of cash and some alcoholic beverages to drink. Straight, relatively conservative, and clean-cut, Sloan’s short haircut made him an obvious target for the roughhousing hippies. After they’d all been drinking heavily and smoking pot for a few hours, a few wild and crazy hippies grabbed Sloan and held his arms and legs while another drunk or druggie peeled off Sloan’s clothes. Sloan put up good fight, kicking and screaming, but he was no match for the thugs.
Laughing uproariously and yelling the entire time, between gulps of beer or whiskey, the bullies stripped Sloan naked and then bound his hands and ankles with duct tape. One of them continued taping Sloan’s legs together as the others helped hold his body. Together, they circled that roll of duct tape around and around his entire body from his feet up to his neck, wrapping him like a mummy.
Sloan begged Mama to make them stop, but she thought it was funny. The hippies continued torturing Sloan by tickling him and doing obscene acts to his body parts. Finally, before things turned more violent, Mama yelled, “Okay, that’s enough! Leave him alone.” The drunks and druggies laughed and rolled Sloan onto the floor, where they left him, “accidentally” tripping over him each time they caroused through the room.
At some point one of the dopers had mercy on Sloan—well, a warped sort of mercy, anyhow—ripping the duct tape off his hairy body. Ironically, Sloan came back for more abuse every weekend. I guess he figured a painful acceptance was better than none at all.
ONCE MAMA’S FRIENDS ARRIVED ON FRIDAY, ANY FOOD WE might have had in the cupboards or in the refrigerator disappeared. The freeloaders scarfed up every morsel, regardless of how hungry Patricia or I might be. By Saturday they had eaten everything in sight, but since they were so high, nobody seemed concerned about going out for food. And nobody noticed that Patricia and I hadn’t eaten since our last meal at the school cafeteria through the free lunch program.
With my stomach growling, I came up with an idea of how to get food for my sister and me. I watched Sloan and the others drink until they passed out. When I was certain they were blitzed, I slid my hand down into their pants pockets and removed all their beer money. Saturday morning, while they remained hung over, I walked down the street to a small mom-and-pop convenience store, where I bought hot dogs and drinks.
Even at seven and eight years old, I knew that if I didn’t do something, Patricia and I would not eat until we went back to school on Monday. So as I grew more street-smart, I also became more skilled at relieving the drunks and druggies of their excess cash. Sometimes, I intentionally bumped into one of the inebriated bums while he was still awake. He’d think it was an accident and throw his hands in the air. I’d run around him a few times, and before he realized what was happening, my hand was in and out of his pocket.
Duct-taped Sloan was an easy mark. He foolishly carried an entire week’s worth of pay in his pants pockets. Usually by about three in the morning, whatever money he hadn’t spent on alcohol was mine. I’m not proud of stealing, but it was a means of survival.
Getting robbed and duct taped didn’t deter Sloan from coming back to Hanover Street. But one night after the dopers taped Sloan, one of them punched and kicked him as he lay on the floor. Another jumped on him and did worse. Sloan squalled from the floor, begging Mama to stop the abuse, but Mama couldn’t help him. Another druggie placed a piece of duct tape over Sloan’s mouth, and the bullies continued beating him. When they had satisfied their bloodlust, they left Sloan lying on the floor, still taped, tears streaming down his face. It was sick.
I felt sorry for Sloan and guilty that I had taken his money, but it was too late, and there was nothing I could do. I had spent his beer money on food. I thought about trying to pay him back, but after that humiliating beating, Sloan never returned to our house again.
PATRICIA AND I ATTENDED WOODHILL ELEMENTARY. I WAS a slow student, not because I wasn’t bright but because I had too many other things on my mind besides learning about Dick and Jane. To me, school was just another place to eat a free lunch and play dodgeball.
One day my second grade teacher made me stay after school but wouldn’t explain why. When she finished her duties, she told me to get in her car; she wanted to drive me home. On the way to my house, she lit a cigarette and took a few draws.
I spoke up and reminded her of what she’d said earlier that day: smoking is harmful to your health.
She looked over at me and rolled her eyes. “You’re right,” she said. But she continued smoking.
When she pulled in our driveway, she snuffed out her cigarette, got out of the car, and walked to the front door with me. She asked if she could speak to my mom. I opened the front door, invited the teacher inside, and yelled for Mama.
The moment Mama saw the teacher, she assumed I had done something wrong. “Whatcha done now?” she yelled at me, her eyes flashing, right in front of my teacher.
The teacher intervened. “Jimmy hasn’t done anything wrong, ma’am,” she said flatly. “Look at his shoes.”
The three of us simultaneously looked down at my feet. The entire front of my shoe was torn open, and my dirty sock was exposed. I had been wearing those shoes for several months, and the kids in class had been making fun of me. I had become oblivious to their comments, but the teacher had not.
She glared at Mama and said, “Go buy your kid a pair of shoes.” The teacher turned on her heels and walked out of the house. I didn’t realize the significance of the teacher’s words, but Mama recognized that the teacher was not making a suggestion; she was issuing a warning.
I’m not sure where Mama got the money, but a few days later I got a new pair of white tennis shoes with black stripes on the side. I thought surely those shoes would make the kids stop picking on me. When I showed up at school, wearing my new shoes, one of the kids pointed at them and started laughing. “Those aren’t real,” he told everyone in the class. I didn’t understand what he was talking about; the shoes felt real to me.
But apparently my new shoes were Adidas knockoffs. Some of the kids who were sitting near me got up out of their desks and ran to the other side of the room, as if my new, cheap shoes had cooties. Ironically, most of the kids in my class were poor, so why they would make fun of my shoes never made sense to me.
But those knockoff Adidases did one thing for me that none of my detractors could deny. Perhaps to help ease my pain at being teased by our peers, Anne, a fellow second-grader who lived next door and was the love of my young life, laid a big kiss on me.
She and I were playing inside a cardboard box I’d found behind a factory near her house and dragged into her front yard. We had gotten inside the box and were just sitting quietly, staring at the walls. Anne leaned over and put her lips on mine. When she finished kissing me, we sat there again, awkwardly looking away from each other. I couldn’t believe what had just happened, but I knew I wanted to do it again!