by Wayne, Jimmy
The class continued threading beads and twisting wire while the teacher explained how the nails were driven into the hands of Jesus and how a crown of thorns was cruelly forced onto His head. She emphasized that, by giving His life for us, Jesus paid the penalty for all the bad things we had done, and He did that because He loved us.
Mama had taken Patricia and me to church periodically throughout our lives, but I’d never heard the story told that way. Mama tended to emphasize the fear of God rather than the love of God. She knew she deserved to go to hell, and she was determined to keep us on the straight and narrow path by scaring the hell out of us. But as I listened to the teacher in Vacation Bible School, I was inspired to learn that Someone actually loved me, that Jesus loved Mama and my sister and me so much that He would die on a cross for us.
By the end of the teacher’s story, we all had made crosses out of the beads and wire, and the craft was ours to take home with us that day. But I couldn’t have cared less about the handmade cross we had just made. I wanted to learn more about Jesus—the One who didn’t smell like Pine-Sol.
WHEN I GOT HOME, I GATHERED A FEW PIECES OF SCRAP wood left over from the tree house I had built several months earlier. I positioned the wood into crossbars and nailed them together. I dropped the bottom of the cross into a shallow hole in the backyard and tied a piece of rope to each end of the cross, forming a loop where I guessed that the nails would have been driven.
I backed up against the cross and slipped my hand through the rope on the right side of the cross and then my left hand through the other loop. I stood there, roped to the cross, thinking about what the teacher had said earlier. I had always thought that Jesus must have been angry at those who had hurt Him so severely, that He surely must have been bitter toward even the people for whom He was dying. After all, it was their sins that drove Him to that cross. But the way the teacher had told the story, it seemed to me that as Jesus was dying to make a way for us to go to heaven, He didn’t feel like hating anyone; He felt like forgiving everyone.
I stood against the cross for quite a while, thinking about what Jesus felt. After a while I tried pulling my hands out of the ropes, but my hands were stuck, the ropes like handcuffs around my wrists. I raised myself up on my tiptoes and lifted the bottom of the cross out of the hole and began dragging it to the front yard, calling for Mama to come outside and help me get my hands out of the ropes.
Mama had been standing in the kitchen, watching me through the window above the sink the entire time, and to my surprise she was already on her way out—but not to rescue me. Oh, no! In her hand she wielded a large leather belt.
The moment I saw the strap, I knew exactly what she was thinking. She thought I was mocking Jesus. But before I could explain why I was on the cross, Mama began hitting me with the belt. All I heard between every powerful swat was, “Don’t . . . you . . . ever . . . make . . . fun . . . of . . . Jesus . . . again!”
“I wasn’t making fun of Jesus, Mama!”
I tried to run from her with the cross on my back, but it was awkward moving, and I couldn’t get away. My feet must have gotten tangled up with the bottom of the cross because, suddenly, both the cross and my body tumbled backward toward the porch, landing hard against the steps.
Mama continued beating me with the belt, swinging it as though she were some kind of modern-day Roman soldier. She finally stopped, mumbled a few words I couldn’t understand, and then marched back inside the house, leaving me still attached to the cross. I was stuck, with my legs side-saddling the cross and my hands still trapped in the ropes. I squirmed every way possible but could not free myself from the cross. Then after a few more minutes, I looked up and saw that a car had stopped in front of our house. Thank God!
An elderly woman stared at me from inside the vehicle. She was crying, but she made no attempt to help me. Whether Mama saw the woman or not, I may never know, but for some reason, Mama came back outside and pulled my hands out of the ropes. I slumped down on the porch, glad to be free of the cross.
IT WASN’T LONG BEFORE MAMA STEPPED OFF HER JESUS soapbox and down to eye level with the devil. Soon the usual assortment of unusual men appeared back in our lives, followed by the debauched partying and violence.
Not surprisingly, Mama’s food stamps disappeared, along with the electricity. Mama was too broke to buy kerosene and too hungover to build a fire in the wood heater.
The bitter cold North Carolina mornings made getting ready for school without heat an enormous challenge. In an attempt to warm my school clothes for the morning, I placed them in the bed with me every night. Trying to stay warm as long as possible, I dressed under the covers in the morning.
I’d lie there until I heard the bus coming up the road, then I’d jump out of bed really fast and run out the front door down to the bus stop.
I WAS SO HAPPY TO SEE THE SPRING BUDS APPEARING ON the trees. Warmth would soon return to our home. But, unfortunately, with the coming of springtime Mama’s already erratic behavior grew worse. One spring afternoon I walked into the bathroom, where Mama was standing in front of the sink, washing her hands.
She looked back over her right shoulder and screamed at me, “Git outta here!”
I obediently started to turn and run away, but when I heard Mama crying, I turned back around and quietly eased up behind her. That’s when I saw Mama wasn’t washing her hands. She was drowning our newborn puppy in the bathroom sink.
“No, Mama! No!” I screamed and cried for her to stop, but she continued holding the pup under the water, yelling all the while, “He’s sick, Jimmy. He’s sick!”
I was old enough now to know that it wasn’t the puppy who was sick. It was Mama.
Nine
FOSTER KID
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—esp
ecially 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 fr
iends; 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.
