Have you ever forgotten what the sky looked like? How the sun felt on your skin? The way grass moved in the wind? I did. I was ten years old when I was released to a place called Childrens Home of Detroit. It was a village inside a city so to speak. That was the first time I had been let outside in five years. Released into a campus type gated community for the damned children of the state. My companions we're a shade lighter then what I was accustomed to. Children who set thier house on fire with thier family inside 'just because' and such. Thugs, wannabe thugs and just plain 'odd' kiddies. I guess the state thought I would fit right in there. I did, for the first hour. I put two kids in the hospital after being shown my living space, which was one of the many cots in the house. I remember that day pretty vivid, as I broke one kids nose and lodged a lincoln log into anothers kidney. I was transferred to another mental hospital immediatly.
My bittersweet taste of freedom motivated me to be on my best behaviour. For the next year I walked the walk. Yes sir, no sir, yes ma'am, no ma'am. I was a model student and resident in my concrete holdings. This earned me a new foster family at age 11. Though, it didn't last long. I was marched off to a public school the first week in my new home with a clean slate. The first day was the usual, new kid new school new problems. Catching the eye of the local bullies, the clicks and so on. A little harrassment of course. I restrained myself, I did not want to mess up my new chance with a new life. Well. I tried too.
My second day of school wasn't as pleasent. I wasn't the biggest kid or anything, I just didn't give a fuck. The first hour before school and one of the local bully clicks decided to harass me. I sidekicked the biggest of them in the knee at the right angle to drop him to the dirt. I should have stopped there, but I proceeded to set his hair on fire with a bic lighter I stole from my stoner foster brother. That horror was enough to make the rest of them run and get teachers or anyone they could find as thier friend was rolling on the ground with his hair on fire. I just stood there looking over him with contempt. I was whisked back to my familer ground by noon.
