“My Childhood”

Being the pawn in a game for two as a child under four did not benefit me at all. Both my parents had no clue how to be parents. My mom already had two been married twice and had a son from her second marriage. My dad was 24 with no job, no direction and could not have cared less about me when I was born. I had been the cutest little boy, I really was full of life and energy, wanting to learn everything and do everything. As soon as I could as “why?” I would, I just wanted to learn. Originally my father was not in the picture and it  was just my mom and I and my half brother occasionally. He’s my brother, that’s that, no halfs about it. Obviously I don’t recall the first two and a half or so years of my life, that’s pretty normal. After that, it’s all vivid as hell, so the first two years of my life were told to me by two different parents. I was abandoned by both parents at separate times in my life and it has affected every relationship I have ever had in my life. After how I was treated it is amazing I ever wanted to stop using drugs at all. My soul deserved more though, so I fought for it. 

 I was born on 9/11/1987 at 6:02 p.m. in a house on Murray St on the Eastside of Milwaukee.The first two years of my life are told to me through the eyes of both parents. The issue with that is my parents remember the past much different. There are plenty of things my mom says about my dad and my dad says about my mom. Both should never have said anything to me about the other, but I hear things. Sometimes the stories match up, like how they met, sometimes; it is like why are you telling me this. I was going to put examples but I’m not picking sides. They both should of been better. No excuse for using drugs, but I was so lost without guidance, the drug life was fine, at first.

When Amber Hagerman was abducted in 1996, she was America’s first broadcasted emergency response for a missing child. Her case has not yet been solved so if you have any information please contact Arlington(TX) Police. I was kidnapped by my mom towards the end of 1991, and there was no emergency response at the time. 

        My mom and I were on the run from around September of 1991, until the beginning of 1992. We had gone across state lines and no one knew where we were, and the age before cell phones, was much harder to locate people, I remember having my fourth birthday at McDonald’s in Austin Minnesota because that’s where we went to live. we ended up getting an apartment and we were starting over. Mom.always liked having birds and then we got my first dog. A Beagle, named Muffin. Lol. Muffin ran away…. 

         This is where my memory starts to get very clear, right around this age. My mom worked so I was at her friend’s house who babysat me a lot of the time. Moms friend had three daughters, one was a few years older, one was my age, and was one younger. We must have had little adult supervision because the older girl would make us get naked and go under the bed and hump. Obviously I was four, so not much going on, but simulating sex at such a young age as well as having those interactions with all three of the girls and this happenened more then on time. I guess at the time the adults thought there wasn’t anything wrong with that kind of behavior and it just was nothing.

Obviously at such a young age I was not able to really know the difference between what was supposed to be happening and what was happening. I was so young and my mom left me with these people so it really was not my fault at all. I remember we were all in the bathroom naked the only time I remember getting caught. Most of the time, it was under the bunk bed if I remember correctly and that was just how it went for a little while.

Then into 1992 I had not had any contact with my father in months, not sure if he was looking for me or ever really had a thought about where I was.  I know he did take a motorcycle trip across the country to California for a woman and was gone for at least a month. I guess he didn’t know where I was but it still seems odd.

It was about two o’clock in the morning and the cops were knocking at my mother’s friend’s front door. My mom had been arrested and told the police my dad was dead. The cops were able to locate me however because some guy my mom was with had snitched on her about being on the run with her young son. Once the cops were able to locate where I was the showed up at the residence. I remember this part like it just happened, and it was 29 years ago now. I was four, and I didn’t really know what was happening, but as I pretended to be asleep like a four year old does, I was lifted up by an Austin Police officer and his partner and carried off to the backseat of the cop car. That was my first time in the back of a cop car, but definitely not the last. As I fake slept in the back seat of the car I remember hearing the cop radio going off and that the drive was not that far. I ended up in foster care because mom was in jail and my dad was dead.

My foster care experience is not a bad one. I slept in a crib which was not ideal for a big boy at four years old. I had grown out of the crib, “it was for babies”. lol. The older couple who were the foster parents had two sons that were about twenty and one had a Trans Am so he threw me in the backseat and would fly around doing donuts somewhere that it was semi safe to do that. I just remember getting tossed around the back seat and I thought it was so fun. Then eventually, the Austin Police were able to verify that my father was not dead like they thought and he was contacted to come pick me up.

Picked up at four years old, if my father had been part of my life before that, I would have remembered him. My son is two and a half, and if I was in a coma until he was four, he would still remember me. I had no clue who he was or what to make of what was happening. It had just been mom and I for so long with my brother when it was her turn.  Now it was just this guy, I was supposed to call dad.

My childhood after that was almost normal. I have a lot of people who never had to walk in my shoes, tell me how I should be when it comes to everything I have to say about my past. My dad did pay the bills, and I had food, and clothes and a place to live. Much more than a lot of people and I am thankful my dad was a chef before he got me because I had real meals to eat. The problem was I wouldn’t eat until 9pm or later pretty much every day.  Granted our days were long, at daycare by 6am and home after 6pm, but not eating until 9pm is not the best for a young boy. Especially when I had friends over, how embarrassing to not eat dinner until 9pm, but that was my normal.  My dad wanted to be in the garage working on motorcycles and he thought as long as I was fed at some point, that was good enough. As a kid, I loved everything, I was interested in everything, and I asked why about everything and I really loved life. My passion at a very young age was football, I knew everything about football, still do and it was my dream to be around football, even if I sucked at playing. I did get hurt young, but everyone gets hurt in football and I had no support to continue. I really had no support to do anything I liked, if it wasn’t my dad hobbies, they came second. Slowly all my interests got plucked from me one by one. At ten years old he wasn’t too keen about my friends, we were ten. Regardless of what became of some of them, I actually ended up worse off than all of them.