The Bronson File

Eventually I was taken out of my High School and enrolled in the school for "troubled" kids because of my running away as a teenager. I was in the second semester of the 11th grade when this took place. My attendance was terrible, my grades were even worse. I had given up on school, friends, grades and everything in general other than taking care of myself. Some would say I was depressed - but in a secret reality, I was going through withdrawals.



I was put on ritalin against the Doctors orders at the age of four and a half. By the time I was fifteen, I knew that I didn't like how it made me feel. I stopped taking them all together. Mom started counting the pills every day, so I started flushing them down the toilet. I didn't know what withdrawals were, but I felt like wearing black every day. I went through terrible mood swings where I would lash out for no apparent reason. I would often get angry and scream at my parents for the smallest things. I never got away with that, though.



Convinced I was on drugs (when really I had taken myself off of drugs) my parents started taking me to shrinks on the military base. They prescribed Klonopin, Paxil, Prozac and a myriad of other mind and emotion numbing drugs. I refused to take those, too. I flushed them down the toilet every day, right along side the Ritalin.



One night I got into trouble for something. I don't even remember what it was. I was told to go down to my room while my parents discussed the punishment. Wanting desperately to show them exactly what the drugs would do to me if I ever actually took them, I took only one tablet of Klonopin. Even I didn't know what the effects would be. By the time I was to report upstairs for the punishment, my eyes were fully dialated. The suspicions only grew. They had me pegged as being a dope fiend and searched my bedroom that night for any illegal narcotics. The only things they found were the things they were trying to force me into taking. It worked just as I had wanted to. They got off of my case about drugs. They still wanted me to take my prescriptions just before bedtime so nobody saw my dialated eyes, but I still refused. I continued to flush them down each day, or grind them into dust and sprinkle them in the yard. There were a few happy birds flitting around for a while when I did that.



At the alternative school I started to run into people I hadn't seen in a few years. I had gone to school with some kids in Jr High that suddenly disappeared, much the way I did in the 11th grade. Of course I had few friends the entire time I lived in Utah, so I was used to spending my time alone. That suddenly changed at my new school. All of the Social Outcast kids banned together. We didn't pick on one another no matter what our ailments were. The kid with Coke Bottle glasses was treated with equal dignity as the girl with head gear (me) and the former Football player, kicked out of his school for trying Steroids. We were all equals, standing on equal turf. Nobody was better than anyone else. I was in heaven.



At Washington High, I was voted "Sweetest Girl" in the school, and my dear friend Trent Heckman was voted "Sweetest Guy" so our photo was taken for the year book. I had friends who talked to me in each class. I had teachers that would treat me like an equal instead of like a plague. I didn't realize for a long time what the core difference was between Washington and Bonneville, but when it dawned on me, it hit like a ton of bricks. We weren't Mormon.



We came from all walks of life. We were a collection of Catholics, Methodist, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and a variety of other religions. The teachers were as well. We were Military kids, mostly - brought together in the middle of Ogden, Utah because of the simple reason that we were of a different religion.



I've always been a part of the Majority. To have suddenly been thrust into a Minority group because of the church my family went to (or rather, didn't go to) didn't make sense to me. I learned how to cope with it quickly enough though. I made friends all over my school and became one of the most popular kids there. Nobody made fun of me anymore, people asked me for help on English assignments, teachers praised me and my attendance became legendary.



I ended up making friends with a Bronson Babbit after a couple of months. I had known Bronson for a little while in the 7th grade, but like so many I knew, he suddenly disappeared. It turned out that they had moved, and later on was forced to go to Washington like all the rest. He had been a bit of a nerd boy when I knew him before, but I didn't even know who he was when he called out my name in the hallway one day.



"Amanda," he said, "is that you?"



"Yeah, do I know you?"



"It's me. Bronson."



"Bronson who?"



"Bronson Babbit. 7th grade."



He brushed his long hair out of his face, curled his upper lip into a snarling smile, and squinted slightly. Instantly I knew who he was, even with the eye liner and sweat band bracelets.



The very next time I ran away from home after being violently attacked by my mother in the parking lot of the school, I went to Bronson's house. That time I had decided to take my dog Cookie with me. She was such a lovely dog, I couldn't just leave her behind. My parents had threatened to get rid of her if I ran away again. I refused to let anything happen to her. I smuggled her on the city bus by sticking her inside a duffle bag and carrying her like I would a suitcase full of clothes. She never made a sound.



Bronson's family were kind to me. They lived in a small trailer in a Mobile Home court and were fine with me bringing Cookie with me. She got along with Bronson's mother very well and becamse a member of the family very quickly.



The family lived off of Hamburger Helper at almost every meal. They were all fairly heavy set, including Bronson, but their hearts were good and they took care of me. I was free to come and go as I pleased and continued going to school each day. My attendance remained steady, never missing a class.



Finally, and quite suddenly, Bronson's family had to move and I was forced to move on alone. Without anywhere else to go, I finally made the long trek home to my mother and father. I hated no having options.



Cookie was happy to see my mother, but I certainly wasn't. They had cleaned out my room, getting rid of everything I owned except for a mattress on the floor and the clothes I was wearing. I didn't even have a door on my bedroom anymore.



That started another jouney for me - one that would take me over a state border and over 600 miles from home... but that's another story. That's the story of Byron Miller, a story I've never told to another living soul. I'm not proud of it and I did a terrible thing, but I'm ready to tell the truth.



Stay tuned.

First Date

I was a teen run away.

I started at 16 years old and never really stopped until a few years ago. Finally, after spending almost half of my life running from the monster under the bed, I got tired of it. I ended the pattern with a new approach to life in general. It was a gradual change, I suppose. Though to me it seems to have happened almost over night, almost like I simply... woke up.

The first time I ran away, I was only 15 years old. My parents were coming down on me really hard and accusing me of things I had never even thought of doing. I had been accused of being on drugs since I was 13 years old and didn't even know what marijuana looked like. By the time I was 15 all of my parents friends thought I was sleeping around with anyone and everyone. In reality, I was still a virgin. More than once my mother threatened to take me to the doctors to verify that fact, but my parents never followed through with that threat. I wish they had.

I stayed with a male friend of mine the first time I ran away. He lived just down the street and his mom was out of town for a couple of weeks. I stayed in his room and he slept on the couch during that time. I always thought that was very kind of him. I had a huge crush on him at the time, but that never became an issue. We never so much as held hands. I knew what people would say and think if it became common knowledge, so we did what we had to in order to prevent people from finding out. That was the moment I knew I could trust Steve with my life.

I was working at Wendy's in Roy, Utah at the time. It was easily 3 miles from Steve's house, and I walked to work every single day while I stayed with him. I would work my entire shift, then turn around and walk back down the hill toward my temporary home. For the first time in my life, I felt a taste of freedom and I loved it. I couldn't imagine life any other way, and from that moment on, that was all I wanted. I wanted to have a chance to go to work and go home, to take care of myself, come and go as I pleased and know that I never once had to sacrifice my morals in order to accomplish my day to day life.

One night while working the change window at the Wendy's drive thru, a guy from school came in to the restaurant. He knew that I looked familiar and asked which school I went to. Right off the bat I knew who he was. I was amazed he even looked my direction. The Libby's were popular kids in school, and I was scum in the bottom of the tank of small fish in the big school. When he asked for my phone number and invited me to go play miniature golf, I thought it must be a joke!

We had a glorious time that night. We played miniature golf for the first time in my life. We stayed out until around 9:30 at night and then went over to his cousins house, where we sat in a group of 5, watching a favorite Disney movie. I was tired from work though and ended up falling asleep on the couch, my head leaned back against a very soft pillow. When Andrew woke me up later on to drive me home, I was incredibly embarrassed that I had fallen asleep in the first place.

I kissed Andrew on the cheek and for some reason I expected a call from him the next day. The call didn't come that day or the next. Nor did it come the next week, and by the time I had gone back home to my parents, I had all but forgotten about Andrew. I could only think that perhaps he didn't have fun with me, or he simply didn't like me.

When school started back up, I passed Andrew in the hallway one day. I said hello, he looked in my direction and simply nodded. He didn't say hello, he didn't smile. He didn't even really seem to recognize me at all! I was crushed. I had actually had a lot of fun, and Andrew Libby was my first date.

There's a strange unspoken rule still very much alive in the small town in which I lived. I wasn't a part of the religion, and I wasn't willing to convert. To many people (not all, but many) that was like having a swastika tattooed on my forehead. Andrew Libby found out somehow that I wasn't a member of the same religion, and because of that simple fact, was told not to speak to me again.

Steve remained my best friend for many years. When the world turned its back on me, he was my brother. When things went well for me, he was there to pat me on the back. There were times that Steve was more of a family to me than my own family was. I'll always love Steve for that.

Steve's little brother was another story though... Dan and I were involved in Breaking and Entering a private property. But that's another story.

C-L-A-S-S

Something I've learned in all of my travels is that everyone has a story. From the little girl down the way that got exited over finding a penny on the floor in the milk aisle to the homeless man sitting on the bench outside. Sometimes all they need is a chance to be heard.

Colton sits outside every day of his life. He brings his wheelchair everywhere he goes. Every possession he owns often sits in the seat of that wheelchair when he isn't in it himself. His thick red beard shines in the sun over his rawhide, leathery skin. I don't think Colton owns shoes. Instead he dons dark blue corduroy slippers every time I see him. His smile is filled with rotting shards of teeth, but he lights up everything around him when he does smile. His blue green eyes are full of pain and misery, but also life, joy and adventures past.

"You wanna know the definition of class," he asked me today as I shared my standard greeting with him. His eyes instantly turned bloodshot and began to water. Fearful of what he would tell me, I couldn't help but be curious about his story. I've long been a believer that everyone had a story. Being a story teller myself, I was curious about his.

"Sure," I responded, almost reluctantly. The conversation we had before this was about suicide 1-800 callers. It had been a rather serious talk. Was the definition of class actually a touch of sarcasm?

"I'll tell you about class," he said, and smiled weakly. "If I can keep myself from crying." He wiped at his eyes as they were beginning to trickle down his face a bit like dew streaming from tall blades of grass. As they mingled with his beard, the color of the hair darkened to resemble that of a western sunset.

"My wife was an amazing woman," he said, as he wiped his eyes again. "I came home from work one day to find her waiting for me. She told me to get changed because we were going out. Let me tell you, Honey. Don't ever tell a man that you're going out and not tell him where you're going. It'll drive a man crazy. If you want to drive a man crazy, just do that to him, it works every time." He smiled, the shattered picket fence teeth glowing the color of a ripe papaya. I smiled back.

"Anyway, I told her that I needed to know where we were goin' because I didn't know what to wear. She told me to dress nice 'cause she was takin' me some place nice. I got dressed and we left. She still wouldn't tell me where we were goin'.

"She took me to a really nice restaurant. From our table we could see the cliffs and the ocean and the waves crashing. It was really nice. I'll never forget it. We both ordered Strawberry Margaritas. We sat there for a long time just talkin'. God, I loved her. She was so beautiful.

"You know how Margaritas separate when they've been sitting for a while? The ice starts to float at the top and the liquid all goes to the bottom? Everyone stirs their Margarita with the straws, right? So I started to stir my Margarita. I heard something in the glass go 'clink' and I asked what the Hell it was. She looked just as surprised as I did.

"I cussed a bit under my breath and told her to flag down the waiter if she could. I tried to fish out the piece of glass from my drink by working at it with the straw I had. I thought it must be a piece of a beer bottle, because whatever it was, it was a darker color and I couldn't see much of it. The Margarita was really thick.

"Do you know what it was," he paused, looking up at me. His eyes glistened with fresh tears. My heart could only guess, but I allowed him to tell me.

"What was it," I asked.

"A wedding ring." His face crinkled into a painful grimace. "It was a damned wedding ring." He sobbed once. "That's class for you. C-L-A-S-S." He spelled the individual letters out, his voice breaking on the second S. My heart went out to him. Against my better judgement, I asked the question I was dying to know.

"What happened to her, Colton?"

"She killed herself."

It's the first time in many years I was so moved by the story of a homeless man that I did something for him. When I went inside to purchase my case of bottled water, I bought him some soup and gave him one of the bottles from my case. As I walked back outside and handed him the gifts, he smiled at me once more. His eyes were dry, his heart had healed and he was the same Colton I had known from before.

"You're a sweetheart," he said to me, his picket fence teeth showing broadly. "Thanks, Honey." I said goodbye and walked back to my car. As I drove away, I waved to Colton. He shouted after me, "I love you Honey," and laughed.

Everyone out there has a story to tell.... all we need to do is listen. Sometimes it can change the whole world for someone else.

Cousin Kyle

Kyle, my cousin, was a troubled kid. He was my fathers’ sisters’ son. I don’t know why he was troubled, and I don’t know what he did, but I do remember the summer I met Kyle.

He came to stay with us for a few months. I was so excited to have a new body in the house! “Someone new to play with,” was the first thought in my mind. I didn’t realize that my cousin was 16 and I was 5. He wasn’t interested in playing with me. He wanted to go smoke nasty smelling paper things out behind the bushes. I stayed away from him when he went there. I remembered those bushes all too well. I knew what people did when they went to hide behind bushes.

I wanted to impress my cousin; make him think I would be fun to play with. Maybe then he wouldn’t want to hide behind the bushes with his burning rolls of paper. I loved the swings. I played often on the playground and had calluses that would make a professional gymnast proud. Still, my favorite things at the playground were the swings. I used to lie on them on my stomach and swing back and forth, pretending I was Superman. The day I decided to impress my cousin, I really did impress him, but not the way I had planned.

I took off running toward the swings, arms over my head as if in a diving position. Suddenly, about 2 feet from the swing I was aiming at, I soared into the air. For a split second I felt like I was flying. Then I landed. Not with my stomach making contact with the swing, but rather with my head making a stunning, sickening thud when it contacted with the sand underneath. My legs hung limply over the swing, my butt in the air. I had soared right over the swing completely and landed on my skull on the other side.

Kyle and my brother both came racing over, asking me if I was ok. Once I could get the dirt out of my mouth, I grunted that I was all right. I claimed that it didn’t hurt at all, and even got up to show Kyle the cautious way to do the Superman, forcing back tears the whole time. Kyle marveled at how tough I was not to cry at landing directly on my noggin.

Kyle had to suddenly go home one day. I remember coming in the house with my mom yelling at him. I wanted to stay out of the whole thing, so I tip toed upstairs to my room. On the way I smelled a funny odor coming from the bathroom. It smelled like the funny smell my nose sensed every time Kyle went behind the bushes. I had never smelled it in the house before, except on Kyle’s clothes. I figured that was why mom was mad a Kyle. Years later, I found out I was right. Kyle never came to visit again.

The Wreck

"... and here we are, going round in circles, wondering if the lie will be discovered. I’ve told some big ones, but never really on this grand of a scale. And to what end? Actually, strangely enough, it covers her tail end in several different directions. She’s a crazy one. Perhaps someday she’ll let more people in on the secret, but for now it’s only me. For now she won’t even tell her own family. For now, nobody knows. Nobody but herself, me, and the driver of the small pick up truck that crashed into us..."

Exerpt from my book three days before Heathers death.

Windy the Pony

The first gift I can really remember ever wanting very badly I had to lobby for night and day. I begged my mom and daad to buy this silly little toy for me! At the time it was the most important thing I could think of. I wished on stars every night, and every morning my wish hadn’t come true yet. I didn’t have my precious toy. Still, every night, I wished on a different star, thinking maybe I had wished on the wrong one the previous night. I don’t know if there was any special reason, like a birthday or Christmas, but one morning I woke up to discover my wish had finally come true.

Mom and Dad had paid attention. They found Windy at a store and brought her home for me. I loved that purple My Little Pony. She had a decorative pattern on her flank depicting wind. I thought she was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen. Then again, I was 3 years old.

I played so much with that pony! I loved her hard plastic purple body and multi-colored flowing mane. She was beautiful in my eyes. I cried inconsolably when I lost her on the playground near the house. I begged for another pony, but to no avail. My mom and dad said that if I lost her, I would lose her again. I never saw her again.

In my youth I had many My Little Pony toys, somewhere nearly numbering 50 to 60, I'm sure. I never saw another “Windy” pony for many years though.

Though I no longer have Windy, at one time I ended up with two of her. When I originally posted this story on my Myspace blog in 2004, two of my biggest fans found my PO Box and mailed me Windy toys they had managed to find somewhere. One even came with the hair brush and accessories that would have been in the box at the time of purchase.

Sadly, the two Windys went the way of the uHaul - but it's not the end of the Windy story. Someday I'll have another. I displayed Windy prominently for as long as I had her. She was always a reminder of simpler days when the only things in the world I wanted were a popsicle and a little purple pony.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Not long after posting this blog, I got a message from a friend on Twitter... you've got to see the Seranading Unicorn they sent to me! It went so well with this blog that I had to share it with you.

"Seranading Unicorn"

Lost in Prague

For many, many years I had a terrible sense of direction. I would get lost walking from my house to the bus stop. It didn't help that the house was situated at an odd angle on the corner of a 5 way intersection. I wouldn't know my North from the West if my life had depended on it. I knew how to get home and how to get to school, but for all else, I depended on others around me. In the middle of the night, in a foreign country where English was barely spoken, I had a rude wake-up-call at 23 years old and to this day I have a hard time realizing how lucky I am to be alive.

Bill and I had gone to Germany for Stefan and Barbara's wedding. It was the first time I had been back to Germany since we moved away in 1982. I hadn't remembered anything about the beautiful Country in which I was born except for the briefest of flashes during that moment I found myself reminiscing over my life with my grandfather while stuck in that layer between death and life. Even then it was too limited to really know anything about where I had been born. All I could tell anyone was that I was born in Kaiserslautern.

I had dreamed of going back to Germany for many years. For my 16th birthday my parents bought a VHS tape about tourism in Germany and took me to the only German restaurant in Ogden. It was a birthday worth remembering. So when I found out that there was a chance to go see where I was born, I jumped at it, eager to see the world.

We flew into New York City with the aspirations of seeing a Broadway show with some other people who were also headed to the wedding over seas. I couldn't believe it - this trip was going to give me two of my greatest dreams! Next to Germany, my other top item on my 'bucket list' was to go to a Broadway show!

Unfortunately things happen and my dreams of seeing the show were dashed upon the rocks like a ship lost in a storm. With Richard and Gloria, things often "came up" at the last minute, so that trip we never made it to Broadway. We had a quiet dinner in a restaurant with a 2 hour wait for a table. All I kept thinking was that we could have spent that 2 hours at Broadway, Damn the meal. The next day we were boarding a flight to Germany though, so I didn't let it dampen my spirits.

We flew into Frankfurt on a 14 hour flight with me stuck in a broken seat that wouldn't recline. Gloria's snide condescension drove me up the proverbial wall. I'd never truly liked her very much anyway, but I had always been good at being 'pleasant' to her in social situations. I grabbed out my ear buds and popped them in when the movie started with the intention of drowning her out. My in-flight head set didn't work right for the movie though, and by the time we got there I was so bored with word search puzzles that I never wanted to see another for as long as I lived and it was all I could do to restrain myself from knocking Gloria unconscious - but we were THERE. We had made it to Germany!

My nerves were a bit frayed at this point from lack of sleep and the occasional condescending blast from Gloria. Society cant pin that many people into a cramped space with screaming kids and falling hat boxes without expecting those who know one another to be cranky with one another. We're constricted by social graces to be kind to strangers, but with people we know, we can be our cranky selves. By the time we loaded up in the rented diesel station wagon, the four of us were snapping like bears in the salmon run. We were each out for blood and we knew it.

Even the ever-patient Richard grew testy. I was ready to claw Gloria's eyes out with just one more snide comment about how I was too young to know about this or that, or that I didn't know about a particular social grace because I didn't "grow up with money" as she put it. I couldn't help but think to myself that she most likely didn't either. Due to the way she spoke to those around her, I guessed that I had more class, dignity and grace in my little finger nail than she possessed in her entire body. There were certain things I'd never understand according to her because she was a nurse and I wasn't. There was something about Gloria that I truly despised. Later on I discovered what the underlying reason was for her condescension and knew that I was justified in my dislike of the woman. I'll save that story for another day.

Gloria had been rude each time she thought even for a second that it couldn't be overheard by the men. I wasn't the type of person to complain, so when some of her remarks were overheard inside the car, Bill started to realize there was something going on. He knew me well and could tell when I didn't like someone, but he didn't say anything to me about it. He thought it was all in my mind, most likely. She proved that it wasn't all in my mind, Gloria really did NOT like me. She made that trip almost unbearable for me, but vindicated me at the same time.

We drove from Frankfurt through East Germany and straight in to Prague, only getting lost once or twice on the way. We got there late at night and settled in to a Bed and Breakfast where we would be staying for the next few days. Before even 10 minutes passed, we were settled into bed for the night, exhausted from the long journey. Each of us felt as though we either had a plane or a car growing out of our buts.

The next day we found ourselves wandering Prague. We visited the famous sights, took tours of castles far removed from the city and purchased typical "tourist" items like watercolor paintings of the famous clock tower. We watched the fire eaters and sword jugglers on the Charles bridge, we peered in awe at the blue glass in the shop windows along every street. The church was stunning. Prague was one of the most beautiful cities I'd ever seen in my life. By the time we stopped into the bar for a quick meal though, we were starving and tensions were high once more.

We drank fresh Pilsner beer, marveling at the massive difference between that and what we get in the States. With the beer, lips became loose and we all began to have words. Gloria had pushed me to the limit, and when Bill said something to me, I took in a negative way. Honestly I don't even remember what he said, but tempers were flared and I was more frustrated than I let on.

Without warning, I snapped. I walked out of the bar leaving the three of them sitting there. Gloria huffed behind me, complained about my being so immature because of my age, and sighed in complete impatience and ignorance.

Bill thought I would be right back. My own stubborn pride refused to allow me. I stayed outside for a few minutes, but Bill came out and I couldn't handle a discussion right then. He strode out with purpose and told me that he wanted to talk to me. He didn't sound happy and I really didn't want to start screaming at him in the middle of the crowded street. I walked away into the crowd and didn't look back.

If I were to guess, I would estimate the time was around 5 in the evening. I was hungry and angry, a dangerous combination for a redhead. Had anyone messed with me right then, they would have had the fight of a lifetime on their hands. I didn't stop walking. I walked past familiar shop windows, my face steaming. I practically sped across the Charles Bridge, striding with purpose past the stunt performers and street dancers. I blazed past the musicians with open guitar cases. When I passed the station, I dug into my pockets. I had no money so I couldn't take the train anywhere - I just kept walking. By the time the sun went down, I strongly wished I hadn't left my jacket at the table. It had been hours since I walked away from the table and my hunger was getting the better of me. I told myself to remember the Saltine crackers, and I just kept walking.

Dark, shady cars filled with dark, shady faces slowed down to look at me. Taxi's offered me a ride, but with no currency there wasn't much I could do. I ignored the young men making eyes at me. When the three men carrying hand guns down the middle of the road with the large, scary guy carrying an assault rifle walked past me, I refused to make eye contact. Prague turned out to be a little frightening at night.

I tried to tell myself that I was going the right direction, but I wasn't really sure. Some of the streets I wandered down started to look familiar, like I had seen them once or twice before. I walked past the Prague clock tower at least three times. I walked back across the Charles bridge no less than three times, too.

The smiling faces of the flame throwers became the grimacing mugs of tattooed fire eaters as the sun set. The sword jugglers became the night's assassins, out for my blood. The shops with the lovely blue glasses were suddenly dark and empty recesses filled with sinister shadows. Around every turn I found something waiting to swallow me into this strange world.

When finally I found the main street leading out of Prague, it was nearing 11 at night. I was all alone on the streets of a foreign country where I didn't even speak the polite words like please and thank you in the native tongue. Even if someone were to attack me, I couldn't beg for my life properly. Not that I would do something like that. I couldn't cry out for help. I didn't know the streets, so I couldn't even run away. I had no allies. I was stranded and alone in the dark night of a dangerous land.

In the year 2003 the Czech Republic had some of the highest crime rates for several of the surrounding nations. When the sun goes down in Prague, girls get kidnapped and sold as sex slaves. I couldn't believe as I wandered the frightening streets of Prague at midnight that I had once again put myself into that position.

I was certain that by now Bill had gotten Gloria and Richard to agree to look for me. I was lost, cold, alone and frightened. I was hungry and tired. But I knew that since I was finally on the main road, it was only another 2 hour walk back to the Bed and Breakfast just outside of town. I could see a possible shortcut in front of me to cut about an hour off of my travel. The scariest part would be having to walk parallel to the railroad tracks, trying to avoid eye contact with the street bums. I was no stranger to that tactic, so I decided to go for it.

The industrial section of Prague spewed black smoke into the air, making the dark night even darker, enveloping the stars in a thick soot that settled on everthing around me. Flames spat into the air from the chimneys, allowing brief glimpses of my surroundings. I stumbled once and fell on my hands and knees. When I stood up to dust myself off, I looked to see what it was I had stumbled over. There behind me was a leg poking out from under a blanket. It was cold to the touch, like ice. The blanket wasn't wrapped around the body at all, but rather just tossed on top. I wondered if the body was even alive. The chimney vomited more flames and black soot, and under one corner of the blanket I saw the face.

His eyes were dark, hollow shells. He stared off into nothing, vacantly resting on a pile of broken wood and shattered bricks. Even staring straight into his face I couldn't tell if he was alive or not, but I strongly assumed he wasn't.

I bolted. I ran for all I was worth, tearing up the ground beneath me with each foot fall. I clinched my teeth together to avoid screaming. Bones were littered here and there; I couldn't help but wonder if they were human or not. The chimney kept belching out black, ominous clouds over bright flashes of evil flames. The world had never seemed so dark.

I shivered, partially from cold but mostly from fear. I stumbled my way down the tracks. Dogs howled and barked in the distance and I suddenly had flashes in my mind of running from a pack of German Shepherds as they tracked me down and ate me for trespassing. I splashed through an open sewer and up the side of the embankment, scrambling and clawing at the hill side for something to pull myself up. The dogs sounded closer with every second. I grappled my way over the chain link fence and fell in a heap on the other side.

An hour later, I realized I was damn lucky I made it all the way back.

Bill was rightfully angry at me when he found me at 3:30 in the morning snuggled up in bed after a hot shower, sound asleep, I don't remember what was said or for how long he said it, but looking back on that frightening night, I'm sure I deserved every moment of it. What I had done was incredibly impulsive and ridiculously dangerous. I don't know exactly what I was thinking that day, if I was thinking at all.

I had been so scared and cold that night wandering around in a strange city thousands of miles from home that I didn't care how long he yelled at me, I was just happy to be back.

Until now I never told a soul about the train yard of Prague. Not even Bill.

 

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5 Saltine Crackers

Dinner tonight:

1 half sized can of Bushes baked beans, heated for 1 minute

- cost: .89

1 can of Spinach, slightly salted and heated for 1 minute 30 seconds

- cost: .39

1 glass of Skim Milk with an expiration date of 4-26-10

- cost: too long ago to remember.

Total cost: $1.38

Taste: simple, not at all complex.

Nutritional value: Better than my average meals of junk food and hot dogs.

Thing Most Appreciated: No Saltine Crackers in sight.

Why:

As I sit here drinking the rest of my milk before it goes bad, I think back on other times when food was such a rare commodity that I was lucky to get one meal a day that included anything green or that contained protein. Tonight, though I didn't have much to accompany my milk, I had both of those things.

It's no secret, I'm broke. Since I was robbed last year when my uhaul was stolen while I slept in a cosy hotel room, I've been fighting an uphill battle. I had to put gas in my car this morning, and that left me with a total of about $2 in the bank. It will actually get me by until I get paid again in another two weeks, but things are tight for now. I'm saving the freezer burned Lean Pockets and two Lean Cuisines for a special occasion at this point. I've challenged myself to see how long I can make my household items last.

I have plenty of soups, I have a couple of pita breads, a quarter loaf of stale wheat bread in the freezer, a can of chili, some frozen hot dogs, powdered creamer for my coffee (I just polished off the expired milk) and a box of unopened granola. I have plenty here to live off of for the next two weeks, no problem!

I know my cupboards sound a little bare to most of you out there, but at one time I was FAR worse off than I am now. At one time in my life, I lived off of a handful of Saltine crackers at every meal coupled with a glass of water, (if I was lucky) three times a day. That was living the good life!

I was 18 and had just escaped an abusive relationship with a 21 year old alcoholic man who never remembered the night before.

Things got bad... He made me give him every cent I made from work, or so he thought. He wanted me to just sign my checks over to him, but I told him that I could just get them cashed at work. My job actually did that for us. I would get them cashed each week and then take a single $20 out of my pocket. I trudged the stairs in the back hallway to the ladies room on the second floor of the Safeway on Bell Avenue in Scottsdale, AZ, and locked the door behind me when I went in. Then I would take the fake plant off of the top of the hand drier and set it on the bathroom counter. I had one particular spot in the plant I would pull on and Pop! the whole plant came out, attached to a square Styrofoam base. Then I would slide out the stick in the side that held the little trap door on the bottom in place. I stuck the $20 safely up inside the sticks of the fake plants, tucked safely into the hollowed out Styrofoam, placed the trap door back in place with the wicker sticks, put the Styrofoam base back in the pot, and placed the pot back on the hand drier. It took me a total of 4 weeks to find somewhere else to live. Since I got paid weekly, that was a whole $80 I had saved up!

The day I left, I went to work just as I always did, as though nothing in the world was wrong. I had been doing a good job at work and had even earned the right to move into the bakery from the bagging stations while they needed temporary help. I went to the ladies room at the top of the stairs, made a little withdrawal, and went back down to work. About a half an hour later I went on my lunch - and never returned.

They wondered where I had gone. I was always such a loyal and dependable employee. I had done so well, everyone liked me. I was eager to learn, willing to work hard and ready to take on the world. Then, POOF! I vanished. Nobody knew about the $80 I had saved up, even Phillip. It was guessed that I had just decided to quit, so nobody at work bothered to call anyone to ask where I was. When Phillip went to pick me up from work that night, I had a good 4 hour head start on him. There was no way he was ever going to find me... or so I thought. He was eventually my first stalker.

I searched and searched for work and couldn't find anything. I spent most of my money on interview clothes instead of wearing my shabby t-shirt and wranglers. The rest of it went towards food and my roommate for giving me a place to crash. I was staying with a Cerebral Palsy girl who needed help taking care of her companion dog, Scooter. I got to know the neighbors around us in the Superstition Apartments there in Tempe Arizona, and one of the guys in particular was a Supervisor at a place called QSM. Another neighbor who was looking for work decided that he would give me a ride down there as long as we could interview together. Away we went. My roommate had gone to visit her ailing father and there was no food left in the house. I needed money!

I didn't know what to think of Dan at first, but quickly grew to love him dearly. He and I were both hired right away, we didn't even care what the job was. We turned out to be telemarketers. What's the one thing people hate more than telemarketers? How about Door-to-door salesmen? I did that for a while a few years ago - but I digress.

I was young and eager, not yet jaded to the world. I attacked everything I did with fervor; a sense of urgency and purpose, constantly eager to do more. It just so happened that QSM didn't care how many hours an employee worked, just so long as they worked a minimum of 40 a week. I would OFTEN work 16 hour days, 7 days a week. At QSM we got paid twice a month, and when I was hired, a pay period had ended the day before. I was going to have a long wait for my first check.

Dan had borrowed the car from his girlfriend the day we went to interview. It wouldn't have done us any good to show up at the interview covered in sweat and red faced from heat exhaustion. QSM was only about 6 miles from the apartments, but in the Arizona summertime, that might as well have been 100 miles if a person were on foot. There were days it felt like that exact thing. Other than the interview, any time we traveled to QSM it was always on foot.

Dan, knowing how broke I was, sold plasma one day in order to buy me a box of Saltine crackers for the apartment and a bottle of Iced Tea to drink on the long, hot walk home. The sun was blazing overhead like a lighted torch, burning and scorching my flesh until each step would jar my skin into feeling like it would split open as a ripe melon would when struck with a hammer. I nursed that tea the entire 6 miles. By the time we got to the apartments, the tiny bit left was so hot I couldn't drink it anymore. I put the bottle in the fridge, waited for it to cool just enough, and finished the last 17 drops, one at a time.

I filled the glass bottle with horrible Phoenix tap water and popped that in the fridge. Then I opened my box of Saltines, took out about 10, and wolfed them down like I hadn't eaten in weeks. I grabbed 10 more and did the same with those. I picked the crumbs off of my shirt and licked them from my fingers. Anyone watching from the outside would have thought me to be a starved prisoner of war. Truly I had never known such hunger before that period of time in my life or since.

Smartly, I folded the cracker package and slid them back into the box. I stored the box in an empty desk drawer where I knew nobody would look. I resisted the temptation to eat more. I knew I had to make these last for another 3 weeks before I got paid. It wasn't going to be easy, but I knew I could do it.

I took a small sandwich bag of 10 crackers with me to work each day, tucked safely in my pocket. I ate 5 when I got there to keep up my strength and another 5 for lunch. Then I would walk home the 6 miles and eat the last 5 of the day. All day long I would drink water to give myself the false feeling of being full. Most of the time it worked, but sometimes I could feel the water slide all the way down my heated neck and make a massive knot when reaching my stomach. I learned in those few weeks not to drink cold water. Even now I'll ask for my water with no ice. The cold water not only hurts my teeth, but reminds me of the starvation I had to endure and the hard lumps that would take far too long to go away in the pit of my intestines.

Each day I walked that 6 miles to work, and each day I walked the 6 miles home. Each day I ate a total of 15 crackers (with a couple of exceptions on the days I would eat 20 or more) and drank close to two gallons of water. I went from being an already skinny 115 lbs to being a mere 88 lbs. Undressed, my ribs poked out, my knees wouldn't touch, my face looked tight and hollow, my fingers looked long and bony and my hair started to fall out in small putrid chunks. Sores began to develop on my scalp from malnourishment. My skin dried up, my freckles grew dark in contrast to my sunburned, scorched skin. Still I made that daily trek. Sometimes I would work 18 hour shifts just so I wouldn't have to walk home while the sun was still up. It didn't leave me much time to sleep, but back then I could survive on a little less than an hour, and often I did. Once in a while, on my days off, I would resist the driving force to walk to work anyway. I took two days off for that entire month.

At the end of three weeks, on the day the checks were supposed to arrive, I was a hollow shell of the person I had been when I arrived there a month before. They passed out the paychecks to everyone at work - except for me.

I welled up in tears. I had run out of Saltines the day before. I had nothing left to eat. I had carelessly dropped my iced tea bottle on my way to work, smashing the glass all over the road and loosing the precious water into the street. Without a check, there would be no replacement! There would be no rent or food. My roommate still wasn't back and Scooter was almost out of dog food. I went to the supervisors office and asked what had happened to my money.

"Are you on drugs," he asked me.

"What?! No!"

"I couldn't help but notice you've lost a lot of weight and you haven't been working here for very long. Are you in trouble?"

"No," I replied, "but I will be if I don't get paid!"

"Oh?" He asked, arching an eyebrow at me. "What kind of trouble are you in? Do you owe someone money?"

"I'm broke and I have no food. Please, I just need to get paid."

Seeing the desperation in my eyes, he pulled one last paycheck out of his desk drawer and held it across his desk, smiling with yellow jags that reminded me of a dirty picket fence. I reached for it and he yanked it back over his shoulder.

"How about this," he smiled a sinister grin, "I'll take you out for a good dinner and then I'll give you your paycheck."

"That's illegal" I said without hesitation. I knew exactly what he was doing, this 56 year old man... I wasn't going to have anything to do with it. I wasn't about to sacrifice my morals and my dignity for a quick meal and a one night stand. Instantly panic set in, though. What if he didn't care that it was illegal? What if my check 'accidentally' fell out of his hand and directly into the paper shredder behind him? What if I couldn't eat for another 3 weeks? I knew I would survive somehow, so I didn't bend. I took a breath and let my patience and clear mind kick in. I settled back in my chair, calling his bluff.

"I was just kiddin' Honey," he said in a snide, sarcastic manner. He held out the check again, I snatched it from his hand and walked out of his office.

"Hey," he called from behind me, "can I at least give you a lift?"

I liked him even less than I liked Saltines after that. Both had a way of leaving me with a dry mouth.