I knew the pick-up line My Life Began In A Wal-Mart Parking Lot When I Was A Twelve Year Old Rapscallion would pique your interest. After all, curiosity is human nature. Therefore, you could not help yourself.

If I opened up a book, and read that vaunted line, I would dern well want to gain an understanding of just what the heck the author is muttering about. I assure you what I claimed is the absolute, unabridged, truth. Allow me to tell you the details beginning with this chapter.

"I'm beginning to think I get my kicks from being hurt" - Johnny Rodriguez and Tom T. Hall, Track 1 from his 1973 Mercury Records album Introducing Johnny Rodriguez.

Saturday, June 9, 1973. Co-written by Johnny Rodriguez and Tom T. Hall, "You Always Come Back (To Hurting Me) ran the gamut as the Number One song played on the radio. At that time, the tune made Johnny Rodriguez, all of twenty-one years old, the youngest Country Performer to place a Number One Hit on what was then called the Billboard Hot Country Songs Chart. The song was Johnny Rodriguez's second appearance on this chart and became the unofficial theme song of the legion of miscreants who dwelt in Hermitage Hall, myself included.


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I YEARNED TO BE INCARCERATED BY THE FREEDOM OF THE ROAD AND ESCAPE THE "PRISON" THAT CONFINED ME. Though it was strictly against the repulsive taboos of the known, and unknown world, more times than not I strolled away from the five-and-a-half acres of dust that encircled Hermitage Hall.

Getting caught breaking such insidious rules resulted in an immediate session with Big Bertha, the Superintendent's lethal well-worn strap. Should I get graphic with what his favorite implement of torture did to young, tender flesh? Maybe, I'll leave that imagery up to your vivid imagination.

Cocooned snug away from where I possessed no desire to be, I envisioned life would be grandiose on the trifled highway to terra incognita. There, I could venture through its unexplored territory, or anywhere else, except where I was forced to exist. An unattainable, illusory pipe dream? Perhaps.

I'd heard mapmakers of long ago labeled such uncharted regions as "HIC SVNT DRACONES," the Latin form of here are dragons. Though I did not believe in such imminent creatures, the thought of encountering Puff, the Magic Dragon intrigued me.

I often considered this perspective and came to the same fateful conclusion. This recalcitrant vagabond would ramble the forbidden journey, with a strong inward conviction of impending misfortune, long past the time Hell froze over solid and loosed its vile furies.

Maybe they would devour Hermitage Hall with vengeance and retribution for its crimes against the natural order that pertained to us misfortunate boys who resided there. With any good serendipity, the dive would be nothing more than a long-forgotten nightmare. However, at the time freedom was not my forte. A few years later, in 1984 to be exact, a tornado and fire answered my prayers. Bye-bye Hermitage Hall.

The cards I'd been dealt bellowed, "You don't hold the winning hand, you pathetic L-O-S-E-R!"

Try as hard as I may, it became harder and harder to build anything on the grit shifting through my outstretched fingers. I stared down at the splintered cracks in the dirty sidewalk, and made my way to nowhere in a syncopated rhythm of movement. A crumpled Arby's bag, once white, but now grease-stained, littered the tiny patch of grass in the median. I couldn't resist the temptation. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Kick!

A half-filled Pepsi cup, mostly partially melted ice, sailed out from underneath my scuffed Tony Lamas, a donation from the local chapter of the Salvation Army. The boots presented chipped uppers and holes that began to peek through. These formed the unique shapes of mouths that exposed my dirty toes. The soles of those boots had also begun the separation process from the uppers and flapped with each bit of movement. I know you are familiar with that click-clack click-clack sound. And no, I was not a horse prancing around on cobblestones.

In the world of Hermitage Hall footwear, mine reigned supreme among those in the worst condition. Never one of King Tubbo's favorite short-statured lilliputians, they were the only pair I owned. What could I do but wear them, when I wore shoes at all? I much rather preferred to be barefooted. Still do, as I find shoes much too confining. Were you born with them on? No, and there is not one good reason to be forced to have to wear such discomforting atrocities.

The alleged to be low-fat, and good for growing adolescents like moi, imitation, pasteurized, kamaboko, I'd been served for dinner the night before did not sit well in the pit of my churning stomach. These sliced hooplas are nothing more than processed, pureed, and deboned white fish, with man-made additives and flavorings tossed in for good measures. Formed into loaves, they are steamed until fully cooked and firm.

Danger lurked. Because on top of everything else, I felt I could go postal.

(TO BE CONTINUED:)

*****Coming soon, Chapter Six will provide a looky-loo into what my life on the streets was like.