DURING THE FIRST NINE YEARS OF MY LIFE, MAMA BOUNCED in and out of jail on numerous occasions for varying lengths of time, most often incarcerated for shoplifting or other misdemeanors. While Mama served her time in jail, Patricia and I lived with Grandpa or friends or relatives until she returned. Increasingly, her bipolar personality produced more erratic behavior, sometimes even violent. When I was still nine years old, Mama was committed to Broughton Hospital, a state-operated psychiatric facility. Since the doctors expected her to be there for quite a while, Patricia and I were sent to a foster care receiving home in Dallas, North Carolina, which at the time felt like the loneliest place on earth.
In the foster care system, a receiving home is a house set up to accommodate the daily living needs of any number of children, depending on the size of the facility and the number of staff members. In most receiving homes, kids are housed two to a room and eat their meals together in a family-style dining room. The kids go to a public school and take part in activities meant to simulate an ordinary family. An abandoned child or a child whose parents have been killed, incarcerated, or otherwise indisposed is placed in a receiving home while he or she is waiting for an available foster parent or family willing to provide a more permanent home. The receiving home is meant to be a temporary situation, but sometimes, if foster parents aren’t readily available, the time can be extended.
The receiving home in Dallas actually comprised two houses facing each other, one home for the boys and another for the girls. Myrtle and Clyde Edgewood were the house parents, and when we first checked in, Patricia and I were the only two kids there. Since we were siblings, we were allowed to stay in one house together.
Myrtle and Clyde often invited their friends over for dinner. I hated these dinners because, for some reason, Clyde felt compelled to demonstrate in front of his friends what a great disciplinarian he was and how much authority he had over me.
One evening we were sitting at the table with guests, and Clyde ordered me to “Eat that,” referring to some food on my plate. I had eaten most of my meal, but I didn’t care for whatever it was that Clyde wanted me to eat, so I said, “I don’t want it.”
Clyde interpreted my refusal to eat as rebellion, and he was having none of that—especially in front of the guests to whom he wanted to show off. He yelled loudly from across the table, “You’ll eat it, or I’ll knock your teeth out!”
I was quickly learning that there are good, kindhearted foster parents and staff members working within the system—and then there are others.
PATRICIA AND I SPENT MUCH OF OUR TIME OUTSIDE DURING our stint at the Dallas receiving home. Sometimes Patricia simply sat on the swing, neither talking nor swinging. She would stare at the ground and rake her foot across the sand. I could tell she was sad and depressed, and I was concerned for her, but I didn’t know how to help.
It was thirty days before Patricia and I were finally sent to a foster home. I know now that thirty days is not an exorbitant amount of time for the system to find appropriate, approved foster parents, especially for two siblings. But at the time, a month with Clyde constantly on my back seemed like forever.
Pat and Don Miller, our first official foster parents, were just the opposite of Clyde and Myrtle. They were wonderful! Don was a tough US Navy veteran, and Pat was a schoolteacher of British descent. She spoke with a strong British accent. They met in England while Don was in the military. Prior to Patricia and me, they had taken in at least six other foster kids over the years.
Pat and Don Miller also had a daughter of their own, Tina, who was about the same age as Patricia. The three of us became inseparable, and the Millers treated us as their own kids; they did so many kind things for Patricia and me.
Don took the entire family to Sims Ball Park to watch baseball games. We ate hot dogs and drank Coca-Cola. He taught me how to target-shoot with a BB gun. Pat made hand-sewn dresses for Tina and Patricia to wear to a special event; she joked that she was going to make me a matching shirt, but she didn’t. She gave us cookies and milk every night before bed. We attended church together every Sunday, and Tina invited us to the horse stables every time she went. It was an ideal foster home experience.
Nevertheless, despite the Millers’ unconditional love and kindness, I was still an angry nine-year-old boy inside. I was in the yard one day when I caught a frog. I put that frog inside a can and began kicking the can around the yard. When I finally opened the can, the frog was dead.
A profound sense of sadness overwhelmed me. I knew I shouldn’t have treated that poor frog like that. The frog was just trying desperately to survive; he did not deserve to die. Worse than that, I realized I had killed that frog for probably the same reason Mama had drowned our puppy—it was all about exerting power and control over something. I felt awful.
The memory of killing that frog has haunted me to this very day. Even now, I have a brass frog that sits on my windowsill in memory of that innocent frog. I see it every morning, and it is a reminder not to take out my problems on others.
Years later a woman working with foster children in Wyoming told me that she collected trinkets of frogs and gave them to kids. “Why?” I asked.
“Because FROG means to Fully Rely On God,” she explained. I liked that and vowed never to take my anger out on someone or something else; instead, I choose to fully rely on God.
PATRICIA AND I LIVED WITH THE MILLERS FOR NEARLY SIX months. Although I missed Mama, when Pat and Don told us our mom was out of the hospital and wanted us back, it was a terribly sad day. We had no choice in the matter; we were going back home.
As I was packing my clothes, I spied the Bible that had been sitting on my dresser. I hadn’t read much of it, but I placed it in my bag. I knew it was stealing, but I didn’t think Don and Pat would mind.
A female social worker soon arrived, and after patiently waiting as we exchanged tearful good-byes with the Millers, she took Patricia and me to reunite with Mama. The social worker didn’t stay long when dropping us off; she made sure Mama was home and asked her to sign a few papers.
Mama’s faded yellow house on Second Street looked dingy and dreary with beer bottles and other garbage strewn everywhere, as though a disaster had struck. It smelled damp and musty and reeked of kerosene, exactly as it had before Patricia and I were taken away by the state and placed in foster care. Old blankets were nailed to the woodwork and draped over each bedroom doorway where strong wooden doors once hung. Where the doors had gone, we had no idea, and Mama wouldn’t say. After living in clean, comfortable conditions with the Miller family, coming back to Mama’s dump was depressing. It was like stepping back in time. It all looked the same, just as filthy as the day we left it.
The only thing different was the new man in Mama’s life.
MAYBE IT WAS HER WAY OF SEEKING SECURITY, OR PERHAPS it made sense to her that she must first arrange some means of feeding Patricia and me, but retrieving her children was not Mama’s top priority when she was released from the psychiatric hospital. She had to find a man.
And she did. While we were living in foster care, Mama met and married Robert Davis. Patricia and I disliked Robert from the moment we met him because we felt he monopolized Mama’s time. No doubt we were right, but I’m not sure it would have mattered.
Soon after we were reunited, Mama and Robert decided we were moving a short distance away to Stanley, North Carolina, a town of about thirty-five hundred people in Gaston County, in the southwestern part of the state. The per capita income of the town was around $17,000, and more than 10 percent of the population lived below the US established poverty line.
During the 1700s, a prospector named Stanley came to the area, panning for gold. The creek and town were named after him, but ironically, he didn’t stay in the area. During the Civil War, the town’s railroad depot, Brevard Station, was a major departure point for soldiers leaving for the war and for sending supplies to soldiers in the field. People were leaving Stanley from the beginning—and for me, leaving Stanley could not come soon enough.
But living there was cheap, so it appealed to Mama and Robert, neither of whom had a job or wanted one. We moved into a small, two-bedroom duplex, with thin interior walls between us and our neighbors and a wood heater in the living room.
It was a low-income community much like Vance Street and the other rundown neighborhoods where we had lived, and similar to them, this part of Stanley had its own identity. The railroad tracks ran east to west through the center of town, and being a young boy living south of the tracks had big disadvantages.
Once you get picked on and don’t stand up for yourself, you are more than likely going to become the neighborhood punching bag. I learned that the hard way.
It seemed like every kid in that neighborhood, including one of the boys’ oldest sisters, wanted to take a swing at me. One day a kid called out my name, and when I turned around, he punched me in my nose so hard it made my eyes water. Blood poured from my nose onto my shirt.
Mama saw the kid hit me, and she came running out the front door of our apartment. Instead of taking up for me, she started yelling at me, “Hit him back!”
I looked at her, somewhat dazed.
“I said to hit him back,” she hollered again.
I didn’t really want to punch the kid, but Mama kept yelling and repeating her command over and over. She was probably right; she understood the survival-of-the-fittest mentality much better than I did. Unlike most parents who want their children to avoid fighting, my mom actually became angry at me because I wouldn’t hit the boy.
Now I was more afraid of Mama than I was the kid who had decked me. I thought for sure that Mama was going to whip me if I didn’t punch the kid, so I finally hauled off and smacked him in the jaw as hard as I could with my fist. The look on his face reminded me of how I had felt when he’d hit me. I just stood there and stared at the boy, feeling sorry for him. He didn’t swing back, so I turned around and walked home. At least there would be one less bully to bother me after that.
Seth and Brice were the only two good kids I found who lived near the apartment complex in which we lived. Seth’s dad was the associate pastor at the church where Mama took my sister and me. When I met him at church, Seth and I instantly became friends; he later introduced me to his friend Brice. The three of us spent most of the summer goofing off at the water treatment plant, walking along the edge of the reservoir walls, throwing debris into the dirty water below that had been stagnant since the plant closed many years earlier. We played war in the fields near the apartments and had sleepovers in Seth’s living room, where we would stay up late at night, watching television and talking loudly.
Unfortunately I had to walk through my dangerous neighborhood to get to theirs, which meant a bully challenged me nearly every day along the way. To avoid conflict and the likely possibility of being beat up by the bullies, I ran to my friends’ apartment complex and back. I became a fast runner, too, but not nearly as fast as Brice.
Unlike Seth or me, Brice was a quiet kid, very humble. I once asked Brice, “How are you able to run so fast?”
“My mother is in a wheelchair,” he replied, “and when she calls for me, I need to run to her quickly. So I’ve developed some speed.”
Brice’s unselfish example really touched my heart.
VIOLENT INCIDENTS HAPPENED SO FREQUENTLY IN OUR neighborhood, few people bothered to call the police. Conditions continued to deteriorate around our apartment complex. And though I could live with the external corruption, what affected me most was internal hypocrisy and conflict.
For instance, when I was at Seth’s one evening, I overheard his dad tell his sister to take off her roller skates while indoors. Seth’s sister was slow to obey.
A few seconds later Seth’s dad yelled, “I said take those [curse word] skates off!”
Hearing Seth’s dad curse shocked me. I had grown up with profanity; I’d heard profanity in our home, in my school, and on the streets. But I couldn’t believe the associate pastor had just taken the Lord’s name in vain. It was terribly disillusioning. I ran outside and never went back to Seth’s apartment.
Not long after that Seth and his family stopped attending the church within walking distance from our apartment, but I continued going to services nearly every Sunday and Wednesday. Church was the only place where I felt safe.
After each sermon the pastor encouraged the congregation, “If you want to give your life to God, come down to the altar area at the front of the church.” As the preacher implored, a woman softly played the piano, enhancing the mood.
I stepped out of the pew, walked down the aisle, got on my knees, and bowed my head almost every time the preacher extended an invitation. Sometimes I’d be the only person kneeling at the altar, but I didn’t care. I felt a strong connection with God, despite my disillusionment with people who claimed to know Him, and going down to the altar and praying was my way of staying connected.
NEITHER ROBERT NOR MAMA HELD A JOB THE ENTIRE TIME they were married to each other. They depended on the government to provide food for the family and pay all the bills. At the beginning of each month, Mama received a welfare check along with food stamps, so the whole family walked to the grocery store in downtown Stanley to stock up on a month’s supply of groceries.
There we were: an able-bodied family of four, slowly following a shopping cart up and down each crowded aisle, staring at the name-brand foods but having to choose the generic brands because they were cheaper. Finally Mama eased the cart up to the checkout lane and unloaded the mountain of free groceries onto the conveyer belt. The cashier scanned each item, and the bag boy placed our groceries in brown paper bags. I watched intently, carefully checking that the cereal got into the bag, knowing that for Patricia and me, the two large boxes of cornflakes and powdered milk would be the staples of our meals for the next month.
Sometimes I finished my box of cereal before the month was over and another stash of food stamps arrived. When I did, Patricia shared the remainder of her cereal with me.
The cashier rang up the total, and Mama counted out the food stamps while Robert, Patricia, and I grabbed the bags of groceries and prepared for the long walk home. Rainy days and winter evenings were the worst times to go grocery shopping, but the wet, brown paper grocery bags were the least of my worries. My biggest concern was how fast we could get out of town before another bully from Kiser Elementary, where I attended, saw me carrying groceries down the sidewalk.
Grocery shopping was the hardest work Mama and Robert did the entire month. Occasionally Robert chopped a load of firewood, but once he learned I could chop wood, he laid down the ax.
When a new load of firewood arrived in the backyard—apparently, someone from the church had donated the wood along with more groceries—Mama yelled to me, “Get out there and chop some wood.”
I lifted the heavy ax in the air and brought it down hard, driving that blade through the heart, splitting a block of wood in half. I then split the halves the same way. Once the block of wood was cut into quarters, I loaded Patricia’s arms with each piece of fresh pine, and she carried the wood inside the apartment, where she let the wood roll off her arms onto the floor beside the wood heater, and returned for another load of kindling that I had chopped. Meanwhile, Robert and Mama remained in bed.
I LOOKED FORWARD TO GOING TO KISER ELEMENTARY EACH morning for two main reasons: free lunch and Nicole Lindsay, the prettiest girl in the world. Nicole had big blue eyes and long black hair, just like Wonder Woman. From the very moment I saw Nicole, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. I was too bashful to express my feelings for her, but wherever Nicole went, I went, too, following her around like a puppy follows its owner. Surprisingly, Nicole never said a negative or rude word to me. She didn’t encourage my affections, but she tolerated me. She just pretended I wasn’t there, in a nice way.
Shadowing Nicole as closely as I did, I naturally heard her conversations with her friends, many of which centered on a new Steven Spielberg movie about an extraterrestrial. It would be many years later before I finally saw E.T. and understood why Nicole and her friends were so enamored by the movie; by then it had already become a classic.
Extra money for movies was not available in our household. I did, however, earn two dollars once by doing an odd job while we were living in Stanley. Instead of spending the two dollars on a movie, I decided to give it to the church. To spread out my joy of giving, I traded the two dollar bills for eight quarters. My plan was to take one quarter to church each week for eight weeks and drop the twenty-five cents in the offering plate.
The first week, I took one quarter to church, but I foolishly left the other seven quarters in a Band-Aid can sitting on the stereo in the living room. When I returned from church, the can was gone, along with my seven quarters.
Robert didn’t go to church that morning, but he swore he didn’t take the quarters. I looked all over the house, but I never found the quarters or the can.
I was devastated. I felt as though I had let God down. I cried for several days.
Mama had borrowed a small black-and-white television from the preacher so Patricia and I could watch The Wizard of Oz. She promised to return the television right after the movie aired, but she didn’t. About a month later the preacher came to our apartment in search of his television. Mama answered the door, but before he got a sentence out of his mouth, Mama cussed him out and threatened to fight him in the front yard.
The kindhearted preacher was stunned. So was I, along with being embarrassed. The preacher didn’t get his television, and Mama never took us back to his church. Instead, Mama tried to remain “in the Word” by watching Jimmy Swaggart, an evangelist she had discovered while watching that little black-and-white television. She made Patricia and me watch Jimmy, too, every time he was on. The fellow playing the white grand piano seemed like a rascal to me, but I enjoyed his music, and Jimmy could sure preach up a storm.
Mama still demanded that my sister and I read Scripture to her at night by her bedside, as she’d pray and cry and then pray again. These prayers went on for what seemed like a half an hour, as did the beatings when we mispronounced words.
I believed in God, and I had embraced the message of Jesus, but as I encountered the cussing preacher, the soon-to-be public scandals surrounding televangelists, and Mama’s confusing combination of faith and foolishness, I was becoming increasingly disillusioned with religion. If God really loves me, I thought, He sure has some strange ways of showing it. Unfortunately, staying away from church was not the answer and resulted only in a total spiritual decline for my entire family.
We stayed only a short time in Stanley; then we moved a few miles away, back to Dallas, North Carolina, where Mama found us a house with no electricity. We lived there for two weeks before moving back to Gastonia. Again. I was thankful that Mama didn’t try to take us back to Vance Street; instead, she found some people vacating a house on Walnut Avenue, right behind R.O.’s Bar-B-Que restaurant.
I should have known we were in trouble when I noticed the cockroaches carrying out the furniture!