Red Tape Day
This story was submitted to us online by Jesse.
Most people are born with none to very little baggage; I was born with a sack of it. I came out of the womb covered in red tape. June 4th 1992 is the day I like to call the “Red tape Day”, But you can just call it my Birthday. But this story starts before that, nine months to be exact.
My biological mother, “Robin” was a prostitute among many other things. Adopted when she was a baby she never knew her real parents. Her grandfather raped her when she was a child, so she continuously ran away from home. She ran away to a little town in South Carolina called Loris, but I’d prefer to call it Home. She met a boy there by name of Eddie. They started dating, and she became very good friends with his mom, Mary, The woman that I call my mother. Well she was found a few months later and token back home. Many years later my mother met a man in Boone NC, and he got her pregnant. The baby was promised to his mother, my biological grandmother. But one day my grandmother came home and caught her drinking while she was pregnant with me, and they got in to a fight and she left. She called up Mary (my mother) and told her she was pregnant and didn’t have anywhere to go. At this time Eddie was in jail for armed robbery and kidnapping.
Mary told her that she could stay with her, and that’s what she did. She finished her pregnancy out there and I was born In Loris. Robin decided she didn’t want to keep me so she gave me up to Mary. In order to keep my biological family from taking me they put Eddie’s (Mary’s son’s) name on my birth certificate as the father. Robin and Eddie signed all their rights over to Mary to be my legal guardian. This was all a lie because Eddie was not my father. He was in jail when she got pregnant. Robin was going to continue to stay and breastfeed me, until one day my Mother came in and caught her drinking alcohol while she was breastfeeding me and kicked her out.
My mother never treated me any different than she treated anyone else in her family. As a matter of fact she treated me a lot better. I was her baby, her world, and she spoiled me. Maybe that wasn’t the best thing she could have done, but she did it. I was the type of child who wouldn’t spend a night away from his mommy; I was a mommy’s boy. She raised me as a single parent, I never had a father. We weren’t rich; As a matter of fact we weren’t even middle class. We lived off of a 500$ a month government income check, food stamps, And when worst got to worst a couple of illegal side jobs. I remember nights when we had nothing to eat in the house but bread we got from the local Angels ministries and peanut butter and jelly but we survived. I remember kids at school would pick on me because of the clothes that I would wear. I never had the best, But it wasn’t so bad at the time, because I had my mother, she had me, and that was all that mattered to us.
My biological grandmother found names and numbers in Robin’s old house from the stuff she left. She started calling around to see if she could find me, and she finally got a hold of Mary. They set up arrangements to visit me when I was 6, and we kept in contact every now and then, up until the point where my mother got really bad off sick, and we didn’t have a phone anymore.
My mother had a massive heart attack when I was 10, and things started going downhill from there. Her kidneys failed when I was 11, and she was put on kidney dialysis. It got to the point where she couldn’t take care of herself anymore, and we had to move in with my older brother Charlie. Charlie was a bad drunk who wasn’t even their most of the time, and when he was there, he was drinking and abusive. My mother didn’t know about the things he used to do to me because she was sick in the bed. I remember he would get mad and jack me up the wall at the slightest word said because he was drunk and angry at life. I was stuck 13 years old going to school, Taking care of my mother, and dealing with his abusiveness.
One night I woke up to my mother screaming my name, I ran to her and by the time I got there she had stopped breathing. At the time we didn’t have a phone because we couldn’t afford to pay the bill. It was 5:00 in the morning no one was awake. I ran to my neighbor’s house and pounded on the door for at least five minutes before anyone answered. By the time I got 911 on the phone and the ambulance got there it was too late. The revived her but she was already brain dead with no hope of recovery. I remember it felt like my whole world was ripped in pieces. She was all I had. Even now I can hardly think about what I lost.
It was decided that I would go and stay with my adopted aunt, Debbie. To shorten this a bit I’m going to stick to the basics. I started cutting myself and acting out in school, also I came out of the closet, and told everyone about my homosexuality.
My aunt apparently had enough of me and kicked me out of the house to go stay with my older brother who worked on a hog farm. Well along with staying with came the responsibility of working on the hog farm with him, and cleaning his house. It got to the point where I was at the hog house till 1:00 at night, and getting up to go to school at 6:00. When I would go to school my clothes would reek of the farm because you couldn’t wash it out of your clothing, and I was always getting picked on because of it. I got tired of being there, and dealing with all the shit, so I started searching for the names of my biological grandparents on the internet. I searched for months, and I couldn’t find them. I remember it got to the point where one night I go down on my knees and prayed for help. Believe it or not I printed off a list of names at school, and called every single one of them until I finally got the right one.
We made arrangements for me to come and visit for Christmas, and I never went back. I started school In the mountains of Wilkesboro Nc. Things were Really Good at first. My grandfather was a Baptist preacher so I had to keep my homosexuality undercover. It was easy at first, until I started hanging out with gay people at school, and people started talking.
My grandmother found a letter from another boy to me, and she showed my grandfather. They kicked me out the house. So I went back to Loris to stay with my aunt Rachel and my cousin Ashley. Ashley was 30 years old, And still living with his mom. He was a pot head living off of the system. He drank a little too much, a little too often. While I was there I picked up the habit of smoking pot. I got tired of living my life the way I was living it, I got tired of being put in situations with him I didn’t want to be put in. He was an angry drunk, and everything got took out on me; which it always seems to be done. I know I’m not perfect but I didn’t deserve to live like that.
I met this girl at school and she introduced me to these boys who lived a couple hours away. We started talking a lot, and decided we were going to run away together. So 4 days after I turned 17 I called my friend and packed my stuff, and when no one was paying attention I ran. I ran through the woods, it seems like I ran forever. I didn’t have much time to get away before they noticed I and my stuff was gone. She picked me up, and we met the boy (Jordan) at the beach.
I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into; at this point I didn’t care. I was tired of my life, tired of being alone. It turns out Jordan didn’t have anywhere to stay at the beach. We were sleeping in a tent in the woods behind the local food lion, until a bad storm came through and we got flooded out. For five days we lived homeless on the beach, sleeping on hotel lounge chairs. Finally he broke down and called his mom, she came and picked us up and brought us to her house in Kershaw. Well she let me move in and come August I started school there, after having to call The governor because they wouldn’t let me in because I didn’t have proof that Tammy was my guardian, And I didn’t have a legal guardian after my mom died because of the way they did my birth certificate. We had broken up in July.
I didn’t have a job or money so I had to do illegal things to buy school clothes and supplies. Even though it was wrong I was making good money doing what I did. I finally had nice clothes for the first time in my life it felt like I was doing well for myself. Tammy (Jordan’s Mom) used me as a house slave, at the time it didn’t matter because I finally had a feeling of self-independence. It did get to after awhile. I met a boy at school. We started dating but things didn’t work out, it seems we worked better as friends. To make this long story short, I ended up quitting school because I couldn’t stay there anymore. I moved to Charlotte with 4 gay boys, but things didn’t work out so I had to go back home to my aunt and abusive cousin.
It got so bad their I feared for my life, Because Ashley kept threatening I would disappear and he would make sure no one would find me if continued my “Gay Acts”. I called Tammy and told her my situation, and she told me to come back, and things would be different. At this point it was too late for me to go back to high school, so I signed up for job corps. I went but they didn’t have a teacher for the course I wanted. So I ended up quitting and I now stay with my friends mom, the boy I met at school. I’m slowly peeling away the red tape they wrapped me in. I finally got my license a couple of weeks ago, and I’m scheduled to take the next two parts of my GED test on July 14th, And I’ll start my RN class in spring, after I complete my CNA course. It feels like the things are getting better. But it hasn’t been easy. I’ve had so many obstacles that I’ve had to overcome, But I’ve done it, and I’m alive. That’s enough to be thankful for I suppose.
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