Once during the afternoon, I saw Mr. Bonner, the boys home director, point me out to a well-dressed white woman who shook her head and walked away from me to talk to Timmy, a blond-haired kid. Later, I saw the same woman nod her head towards me before telling another visitor that she resented "trashy whites mixing with illegals and burdening hard-working Christian taxpayers with supporting their little bastards."
I'm not making it up. She really said those words close enough for me to hear her. At the time, I wasn't sure what the woman's words meant, but I was smart enough to know that she didn't like me.
I was clean and wore my best clothes, a blue dress shirt with khaki pants. Still, I knew that there had to be something wrong with my looks. After carefully observing the white visitors, I saw that they gravitated to white boys with fair skin, and if one of the boys had blond hair and blue eyes, they paid him even more attention. With my jet-black hair, dark chocolate eyes, and brown skin, I obviously didn't look like the kind of boy the visitors favored. I wondered if the home would ever have visitors who were more like me.
I knew that leaving the boys home to live with a foster family or an adoptive family had to be a good thing, or the older boys wouldn't want it so much. During open house, even the regular troublemakers behaved like angels in hopes of impressing our visitors. I decided that I had to know how to make people like me so that I had a chance to be part of a real family. Since Mr. Bonner yelled at us for asking him questions that required more than a one-word answer, I had to talk to Sean.
Mr. Bonner was a tall, thin white man with leathery skin that resembled the parched and cracked ground of a severe drought. He looked ancient to me and moved very slowly as if every step hurt. He needed all the help he could get and that inspired him to start a program that would make running the boys home easier until he could afford to retire.
Mr. Bonner appointed an older boy as a "big brother" to each new, young kid, and Sean Kelley was mine. Any big brother who took good care of his little brother and lightened the load of Mr. Bonner and his small staff accumulated weekly credits that awarded the older boy special privileges such as trips to the arcade, the park, or the movies. One of the most popular uses of credits was to earn an entire Saturday's visit with a school friend, usually a girl. The boy could have a girl come to the boys home, or one of the staff would provide transportation to and from some other approved location such as the girl's home as long as it was chaperoned time approved by her parents.
At the time, Sean was twelve years old and had previously rejected the responsibility of "looking out for a little brat," but that was before his hormones suddenly woke up, and he suffered his first crush on the "hottest babe" in junior high. All the younger kids were already matched with an older boy, so within half an hour of my arrival at the boys home, Sean literally snatched me from Mr. Bonner while promising the old man that he would be the best big brother ever. Sean held me in his arms as he would a football that he was afraid to fumble until Mr. Bonner gave his approval.
In the beginning, I was afraid of Sean because he was always promising me some kind of painful punishment if I made him look bad. With time, I learned that he wasn't mean, just desperate to spend time with his girlfriend. He was usually nice to me, especially when no one was watching.
When I told Sean what the woman visitor said about me and asked him how I could be better, he first called me an idiot and then bluntly told me that I could not make most white adults like me. I hung my head and stared at the floor of the small room we shared. It hurt when Sean called me names.
"Oh, come on, River." Sean raised my chin, but I turned my head away from him. "Get your little butt up here with me." Sean sat on his bed, lifted me onto his lap, and gave me a hug. "I'm sorry, buddy. Sometimes I forget that you're just a little guy. Forgive me?"
"Yeah, okay." He always forgot I was little, and I always forgave him. At the time, he was all I had in the world.
"Listen up. In this town, most foster parents are white and so are the people who adopt. Both of them want white kids who look like them, and you're not purebred white. A white family might take you in if they were desperate for the state check, but don't ever plan on a white family adopting you."
"You're white, Sean. Why don't white people want you?"
He snorted and sprayed me. "Cause I got red hair and freckles, and some white folks think I'm ugly, but I still got a better chance than you do. My parents were drug addicts, but they were married and Americans, so I'm American too."
"Ain't I American? My teacher says that if you're born here, you're American."
"Yeah, but you look like you're at least half Mexican and to some of the retarded rednecks in this town, you won't never be American."
Sean helped me understand the whispered remarks among the visitors and the reason the staff treated some of the boys better than they did me. It all made sense. It was the same reason that purebred dogs cost more than stray mutts did. I wasn't a purebred white boy, so people didn't treat me as well them.
Sean explained "prejudice" and told me that to some snotty white people, I was a mixed-race bastard who wasn't as good as a white orphan whose parents had simply passed away and left him with no living relatives to care for him. He explained that the mothers of most throwaway kids were unmarried and didn't want or couldn't afford a baby. To the white majority in our county, my parents were sinners because they mixed races and had a child outside of marriage. Even worse, the same conservative "Christians" were outraged that their tax dollars were used to support me after my mother abandoned me to state care.
Sean told me that Bergeron County was one of the most backwards, racist counties in South Carolina, one of the most conservative Southern states. Harper Springs had a population of only twenty-two thousand people, but it was the biggest town in the county, and it was also the county seat. He said that when I grew older, I would understand how boring Harper Springs was, and why people had plenty of time to gossip and cause trouble.
"It's like this, River. In our county, white people control everything. Most of them are Protestants and Republicans, and if you ain't one of them, you don't get any respect. The only exception I ever see is a black kid who can help the high school team win football games. In his case, the bigots will tolerate him and even treat him like a hero until he graduates from high school. If he's lucky, he'll get a free ride to play college football, and if he's smart, he'll learn enough in college so that he never has to come back to Harper Springs."
"What about Mexicans?" I asked.
"Some whites here hate black people, but they hate Mexicans more because they think most of them are illegal. They don't want them taking up jobs or getting any government money because they don't pay taxes. It don't matter really, because they hate the Mexicans that were born here too. You don't hear many people in this town calling them 'Mexican-Americans' even when they were born here with the same rights as any other American."
"I don't ever feel white or Mexican. I just feel like me." Sean made me wonder, and I had to ask. "Sean, do you hate me cause I'm part Mexican?"
"You think I'd let you sit on my lap if I hated you? Don't I help wash your hair in the showers to keep the soap out of your eyes? Don't I let you sleep in my bed when there's a thunderstorm? Don't I give you hugs when you have bad dreams?"
"I thought you had to take care of me, so you could see Sylvia."
"Yeah, at first, but now it just feels right to be your big bro. I don't mind it so much."
"Even if I ain't as good as you?"
Sean grinned. "Even when you're a pain in the butt, you're the only little bro I want."
I wrapped my arms around Sean's neck and hugged him. I liked him better when he wasn't yelling at me and swatting my butt.
"Thanks, Sean. I'm glad you don't hate me."
"River, none of that shit matters to me, and it shouldn't matter to anyone, but that's how things have always been around here. When I was your age, other kids made fun of me just because I
was a redheaded orphan. My teacher told me that in small towns like ours that sometimes all you have to do is be different for people to pick on you. She told me it was wrong and not to let it get me down when people act stupid. She said if I studied hard in school and did the right things, one day I could be someone they had to respect."
After my talk with Sean, I began to see the boys home and my life there in a different light. The majority of the kids were white, as was most of the population of Bergeron County. I noticed that the white kids had the best rooms, bigger portions of desserts, first choice of any donated clothes, more help with schoolwork, and the easiest chores. The African-American, Mexican-American, and mixed-race kids received what was less desirable to the white boys.
Even though many of the white kids broke more house rules than the rest of us, the staff punished them less often, and the punishment was less severe. If a white kid my age broke the same rule as I did, Mr. Bonner would usually give him a time out in his room, but for my punishment, he would spank me. His spankings didn't hurt much physically, but they hurt me emotionally. While I was still bawling, he would give me a time out in the recreation room. I would have to stand in a corner and lean forward with only my nose pressing against the wall while the other boys in the room laughed at me. I remember how my nose would go numb, and I had to breathe through my mouth with snot running into it.
Henry, a boy my age, who was a mix of white and black, became my only friend in the home besides Sean. To most of the boys, Henry and I were social zeros. Even the black kids and Latino kids looked down on us for being half-white, a race that they grew to despise because of the preferential treatment given the white boys by the all-white staff. Henry and I had other marks against us. Everyone knew we were foundlings and tagged us as bastards because they assumed that married couples would not anonymously throw away their children like bags of garbage.
The other foster boys never let us forget that they were better than we were, but they were too afraid to hurt us physically. Jonas was Henry's "big brother" just as Sean was mine. They were two of the toughest boys in the house, and the rest of the guys didn't want any part of having to fight our "bigs."
For the next few years, I continued to endure emotional abuse from people in my foster homes and schools. Although I tried to hide the hurt, my anger grew more difficult for me to control, and I gradually changed into a boy who was not willing to be a passive victim of bigotry and bullying.
***
When there was an opening with a foster family, Mr. Bonner and Mrs. Glover selected one of the boys they thought might fit well with that family and moved him on a trial basis. If it was a good match, it freed up needed space in the boys home for those boys with severe behavioral problems that no foster family wanted. I wasn't one of the wacko boys, and Mrs. Glover was successful in finding a few families willing to take me, but none of the placements ended well.
I was almost eight years old when Mrs. Glover took me to live with the Abernathy family. On the long ride to their small farm in the country, my caseworker casually mentioned that Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy and their two teenage children were African-Americans. She hoped that I was okay with that because she had no other options for me at the time. I told her it was fine with me, if it was fine with them, and she informed me that they already knew all about me and really wanted me. I gave her the biggest grin I could, and she visibly relaxed her pale, chubby face. I was so excited that I began giggling and soon, Mrs. Glover was giggling right along with me.
The Abernathy farm was so far out in the country that I had to change schools and I still had a long bus ride back and forth to an old elementary school building that the county condemned two years after I left it. I'm not sure how close the nearest neighbor was, but I remember that I could not see another house in any direction, and we had to ride several miles towards town before I saw anything but woods or farmland.
Mr. Abernathy owned a small general repair business in the Grovetown community. On his farm, he grew vegetables, most of which he sold to regular customers and to people driving by his roadside stand next to the entrance to his long driveway. There were plenty of vegetables left over to feed his family, and I learned the difference between eating fresh vegetables and the crap I had eaten at the boys home. Mrs. Abernathy was a great cook and homemaker in addition to helping with the garden and the vegetable stand.
The Abernathy children were Marcus, who was eighteen, and Tasha, who was fifteen. Marcus was a senior in high school and a huge, standout football player who would be attending college on an athletic scholarship. Tasha was a freshman whose favorite activity was talking to boys. Both of them had daily chores to do, and when I moved in with them, Mr. Abernathy assigned light chores to me that he thought I was old enough to handle.
After only a week, I wanted to stay with the Abernathy family and make the farm my permanent home. I felt that I belonged there, and not only because everyone was kind to me, but because I enjoyed the country. Living on the Abernathy farm was the beginning of my love for the outdoors where every day was an adventure for a little boy. As much as I explored the farm and the surrounding woods, I was lucky that I never lost my way.
Usually a foster kid would have his own room, but the Abernathy home was an exception. Since they only had three bedrooms in the house, I shared Marcus's bedroom and slept on a single bed across from his double. He also had his own bathroom that he allowed me to use. Sharing was easy because we couldn't have gotten along any better than we did, and I quickly developed a case of hero worship for the big football player.
Mr. Abernathy gave Marcus the opportunity to learn more responsibility when he told his son that he was in charge of me. My new big brother supervised my homework and chores. He made sure that I took a bath every day, got to bed on time, and was up early enough in the mornings to dress, eat breakfast, and make it to the school bus on time. Marcus took the job of caring for me seriously, and I think he liked having a little brother.
Marcus made me feel wanted and worthy, and he always had time to answer questions and teach me. Had I been older, I would have understood that he knew a thing or two about prejudice and that it was important to him to help me build my self-esteem.
The Abernathy house was old, and although Mr. Abernathy had modernized some parts of it, Marcus's bathroom still had a huge, claw foot tub with no showerhead. I was used to taking showers with Sean in the big communal bathroom at the boys home, but I thought using the tub could be fun.
The first night that I took a bath, I stood in the bathroom watching Marcus run the water for me until it was deep enough and warm enough. Since the tub was the old-fashioned, deep kind, Marcus had to lift me over the side, but he promised to find a stool so that I could get in the tub without anyone's help. I told him that Sean washed my hair, so I didn't get shampoo in my eyes, and he agreed to help me. The difference was that he showed me how to do it and expected me to learn to be independent. That's how Marcus did things. He helped me when I needed it, but he taught me to do as much as I could on my own. Mr. Abernathy made a stool for me, and I was proud that I never needed Marcus's help with my bath again.
"River, don't you ever forget that knowledge is power. Learn everything you can, so you can always be your own man." I'm sure that Marcus was passing on the wisdom that his father shared with him when he was a young boy. It sounded very much like Mr. Abernathy.
The best I can remember, Marcus was the first person who told me that the birthmark on my chest resembled the state of Florida. Sadie explained that I had a birthmark, but she never mentioned Florida. Marcus had to show me a map of Florida before I understood what he meant. He was certainly not the last person to make the comparison.
After my bath that first night, Marcus helped dry me with the biggest, softest towel I had ever used, and he tied it around me before he watched me brush my teeth. When he was satisfied that I did a good job, we left the bathroom and met Mrs. Abernathy, who gave me a new pair of cartoon pajamas. I remembe
r how proud I was to have something new, and how important I felt when she told me I looked good in them. When she took me to the family room to show me off to Mr. Abernathy, he tried to convince me that he liked my pajamas so much that he was going to buy the same kind for him. I knew he was joking, but he enjoyed teasing me until he had me laughing as hard as I could.
While Marcus was using the bathroom, Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy tucked me into bed and each of them gave me a kiss on my cheek before saying goodnight and leaving the room.
When Marcus finished in the bathroom, he ran to my bed, pulled up my pajama top and blew raspberries on my belly. I giggled until tears ran from my eyes, and I was a very happy boy when he gave me a strong hug before crawling into his own bed for the night. I will never forget how gentle and caring that big black giant was to a little kid who badly needed to be loved.
While my experiences that first night might have been routine for a regular kid with a good family, those simple things brought me great joy, and I had never been so happy. I had only just met my foster family, and I already loved them.
As the days went by, I became comfortable with my daily routine. I woke up early each morning so that I had time to eat a hot breakfast before I ran down the long clay driveway to catch the school bus. I wished that I could ride with Marcus and Tasha, but Marcus had to drive his old truck for miles in the opposite direction to take them to the high school.
When the bus brought me back home in the afternoons, I did my chores and homework, and then ate dinner with the whole family. Afterwards, I was free to play until time for me to take my bath and go to bed. I enjoyed doing all the normal family things I heard my classmates mention, even the chores. It became so easy to pretend that I was a regular kid with a real family.
I filled most of my playtime with roaming around the farm and watching Mr. Abernathy and Marcus do the farm chores. They often let me help them and took time to teach me. Sometimes, I would volunteer to help Mrs. Abernathy, especially if she were baking a cake or cookies, and just as the others did, she always explained what she was doing. None of them ever made me think that I was bothering them except Tasha. I didn't spend much time with Tasha, who always told me she was busy with homework. When I told Marcus how much homework Tasha did, he laughed and explained that she was really talking on the phone with her boyfriend.
My Name Is River Blue Page 2
