Ups and Downs

If I am nothing else, I am an honest dude, completely transparent. There are a few reasons for this, but the main reason is memory; I haven’t got one.

I mention that because last month I wrote about what water has meant to me since starting the magazine. Well, as I write this, crickets are chirping, water is gently pressing against the grass as the tiny waves feebly attempt to make the shoreline and bullfrogs are serenading me on a warm spring night.

I’m back at my favorite pond with the weight of the small world I have created on my shoulders.

This is a heavy gig. Lots of directions to be pulled in, lots of folks need something from me, lots of places to go. The bulk of the folks I deal with are well established at this point in the game but I do interact with a lot of current foster kids and alumni who haven’t quite shaken foster care out of their hair yet. It’s these interactions that remain the toughest.

It’s no secret: I want to save everyone. I’m completely aware that this is an impossible task. Doesn’t lessen the fire to try. When I can’t help, it crushes me. When the person I want to help is someone I know, it kills me.

Last week I found out some good news followed by some devastating news. Turns out, my very first foster brother, Jaime, had been released from jail. I didn’t know he was in jail, Jaime and I lost touch when he aged out a few years before I did. I liked him. He seemed like a good kid with a bit of badass in him. A lot like me. We got along. We lived together for a few years.

Jaime was sad. Not just sad in the sense that he knew his life was going to be tough but sad in a way you can’t put into words. He’d already been defeated when I moved into his room. Desperate quotes from desperate bands lined his wall. He’d lost his hope.

I can say with 100% certainty that Jaime only smiled a dozen times in our entire time together. We’d found a set of abandoned apartments in the heart of our tiny borough’s downtown. I don’t condone this type of behavior, but I’ve always been a curious person and nothing satisfies the curiosity like exploring an abandoned building. While we explored this apartment that seemed to be left in a hurry, maybe a drug raid, rifling through boxes and drawers to find pictures and cool trinkets, he let a smile slip.

I asked him a few hours later about the smile, what got him so happy? He replied, “Pictures of the family, they looked happy”. That’s about as deep as we got, conversation-wise. He was a quiet kid. Most sad kids are. He had a way of drawing people in though. Whether they wanted to take care of him or just be around him, he had a kind of quality about him. But the things I remember most about him were the sadness and the wanting to be free.

Jaime WANTED to be a street kid. I know a lot of people like this now but back then it was a foreign concept. He didn’t like being told what to do or where he could go. Maybe that’s a life in the system or maybe it’s the sadness but Jaime’s thinking was; if I have to be stuck here, I’m doing it on my terms. He was a cutter, a way to combat all that he couldn’t control. And the scars were everywhere. Everyone tried as hard as they could to reach him. He was grateful but had no desire to be reached,

The sad saga that was Jaime’s life continued when he left care. He got his wish, he was a street kid. As I understand it, after a few years on his own he met a girl. They fell in love. They had kids. As it was told to me, he loves his kids but the relationship with the mother was a toxic one. Jaime went back to the streets. Then jail.

After his release, I’m told he took back to the streets. This doesn’t surprise me. I’m told he made a friend. I’m told his friend is a little slower than most. She’d let him clean up in her apartment, shower, laundry. They became better friends. One night, according to the police report, things got out of hand.

That’s where I’m leaving it. I don’t know the story, there will be a trial.

I delivered a Birthday gift to my foster dad and this is the news I received.

I finally caught up with Jaime. I’d been trying to find him for years. When I’d hear he was in a nearby town, I’d make it a point to take the long way home through that town. I’d drive slowly under bridges and highway overpasses. I’d ask friends to keep an eye out in those towns. But I never found him.

What a shitty way to find someone.

I don’t know if Jaime would hurt someone or not, too much time has passed, he’s not the same and I’m not the same. My only hope now is that he accepts some help. That’s all I can do.

I didn’t realize that I was going to write all that. I had a cute funny column about not lying all lined up for this issue. The water has a way of opening up my brain. But on the topic of lying and transparency…

THAT is how you switch topics, folks!

Before care, I was a pretty lost kid. I stole (mostly hoagies and ice cream bars). I gambled (the local pool hall had pinball machines that would payout). I hustled (too many hustles to list). And, I would lie. Oh, how I would lie. To this day, I still don’t know why I did it. I was an achiever, I was athletic, and I was a Boy Scout and Alter Boy for crying out loud!

Maybe that all seemed boring. Maybe lying was how I’d spice things up. Whatever. I lied. I lied a lot and I was good at it.

I don’t remember it every being malicious or anything of substance but I remember lying all the time.

I was the kind of kid who lived in his imagination. At some point I lost sight of what was real and what was the fiction I’d created. I rarely blame anything but myself for my actions but in this case, I’m blaming Ritalin. A giant chunk of my memory is missing, blurred or intermeshed with lies. I call these years The Ritalin Era. Though I functioned like everyone else, I was a zombie. If lying became as big a part of my life as it did, those damn pills were to blame.

When I got to care, my prescriptions never followed me there. I didn’t get into any trouble and I had passable grades so the issue was never brought up. Those pills took a good chunk of my memory too. Might be the reason I seem so scattered or aloof.

So there’s the reason I don’t lie. I’m laughing to myself as the rain starts to come down now. This column when completely off course but I like it too much to rewrite it. That’s no lie. (See what I did there?)

Enjoy the issue.