Chapter 2
When I was fourteen-years-old, a boy named Ryan arrived at the boys’ home. He was nine-years-old, the same age I had been when I arrived here. He was skinny for his age and real dirty. I noticed him as soon as he got off the bus because he was crying and was easily the smallest kid out of the group. I saw Captain Johnson slap him across the face and tell him to shut up. I felt bad for the kid because I knew he had no idea of the kind of place he had just arrived in. We had one last bunk in our room and Ryan was placed with us. The first night I could hear Ryan crying. I remember how I felt the first day I arrived here. Soon after Ryan arrived, the kids started to pick on him because he was smaller than the rest of us. When it was recreation time, the kids would push him down in the mud and kick him. One day an older boy named Cecil was pushing Ryan around in the yard. Cecil was just a bully that needed to be put down like a rabid dog. I walked up behind Cecil and grabbed him from behind in a chokehold. He didn’t see me coming.
“Don’t ever touch him again, or you will have to deal with me! You got it?” I snarled.
“Yeah! I got it,” he quickly answered.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that, speak louder!” I yelled.
“Yes, I fucking got it, dude! I can’t breathe,” he choked out.
“You fuck with Ryan again and I will crush your fucking skull!”
As I let Cecil go and he hurried away, I noticed he had peed his pants.
“Thanks, Jason!” Ryan said.
“You know my name?” I asked.
“Duh! All the kids know you! Why did you help me?” Ryan asked.
“I had my reasons. Come on, let’s go sit over here,” I said.
“Okay.”
Ryan and I went and sat on some benches next to the basketball court where some boys were playing.
“So, Ryan, what’s your story?” I asked.
“The judge sent me here after my parents died in a car accident and no relatives would take me in. I really want to know what happened to my little brother, Tanner,” Ryan explained.
“How did the two of you get separated?” I asked.
“When our parents died, we both went into foster care, but they put us in two separate foster homes. I only was able to see him once with my social worker, but he was moved recently, and I don’t know where. I was sent here because my social worker thought this was the best place for me to have a chance of getting adopted,” Ryan’s voice began to shake and a tear rolled down his face.
“Hey Ryan, I understand what you are going through, sort of. I had a younger brother once, but he died several years ago. I wish him and I were still together, but I’m glad he’s not here in this place.”
“Thank you, Jason. For talking to me.”
“Don’t worry I won’t let anyone else hurt you.”
From that day on I looked out for Ryan just like he was my little brother. When I was on kitchen duty, I would often take food from the lunchroom and hide it under my shirt to share with Ryan later. The Warden never gave us enough food to eat and a lot of the boys were malnourished. Boys would go to the infirmary with illnesses but would never be seen or heard from again. The night I finally decided to run away from that horrible place was the night one of the guards came into our room and got Ryan out of bed to take him to the Warden. I knew what he was going to do to him. I didn’t want him to go through the abuse that I had endured. That night, I got out of bed and followed closely behind in the shadows as Ryan and the guard walked across the courtyard. I snuck up behind them with a big rock I’d picked up and yelled, “Get the fuck away from him!” and hit the guard over the head and he fell to the ground. “Come on Ryan it’s time for us to leave this place.”
Ryan was in shock, but I grabbed his hand and we began running toward the fence. I looked up at the towers where guards were usually on the lookout for boys trying to escape, but tonight they were empty which was odd to me. Once we got to the fence we heard the sirens, and the dogs began to bark. I knew I could get over the fence because I had been practicing my rope-climbing skills during our recreation yard time each day. I also knew if they caught us, we would be killed for sure. I climbed up the twenty-feet high fence first then Ryan followed. As he got near the top he started to slip, so I reached down and pulled him up.
“Don’t worry I would never let you fall,” I said. We climbed the rest of the fence as quickly as we could, but on the way down Ryan fell and hurt his knee.
“Ouch, Jason. It hurts!”
“Come on, Ryan we can’t stop now. We have to get somewhere safe.” I picked him up in my arms and began running through the woods. It started to rain. We found an old abandoned shed and hid until it was safe to keep moving. I pulled a dusty tarp off an old abandoned car and wrapped Ryan and I in it. We held each other, shivering while we waited for the storm to pass. I could hear the dogs and guards as they shined their flashlights outside looking for us. I was hoping the heavy rain had washed away our scent and threw the dogs off our track. While Ryan and I sat under this tarp shivering, all I could think of is that I would rather die than go back there ever again. Before I knew it, we both had fallen asleep.
The rays of the sun woke me the next morning. “Wake up Ryan, we got to keep moving.”
We came upon a highway and saw a late-model minivan coming toward us. I ran out into the road and began waving my arms hoping they would stop. As the minivan approached I saw a middle-aged woman with sandy blonde hair driving.
“Hi boys! I’m Ms. Virginia! You need a ride?”
“Yes, please,” I said.
“Where you boys headed? Where are your parents?” she asked.
“That’s a long story Ms. Virginia, but for now we need to get as far away from here as possible because we are being chased and our lives are in danger.”
“Okay, get in boys!” Ryan and I climbed into the minivan.
“I’m so grateful Ms. Virginia you came along when you did. What brought you out this way anyway?”
“Please call me Ms. V. I was coming from visiting my parents who live in Pittsburgh. My husband, Robert and I live in Dallas, Texas. Robert is stationed there in the United States Army.”
Eventually Ryan fell asleep in the backseat. Over the next several hours I began to tell her about our terrible ordeal at Graveyard State Boys Home. I never told her about what happened to me but, I did tell her about what happened to the other boys at the home, and what they were going to do to Ryan that night. As it began to get dark Ms. V. pulled off the interstate and into a small motel in Lexington, Kentucky, with a gas station next door.
“Okay boys, I’m exhausted and I’m starving. We’re going to stay here for the night and I’m sure you boys are hungry as well.”
“Let me check in and get the key to our room for the night and I will be right back,” she said.
Ryan looked at me with a look of concern.
“What’s wrong Ryan?” I said.
“I’m scared Jason. What if the Warden finds us? Can we trust this lady?”
“Don’t worry Ryan. We’re never going back there.”
Ms. V got the key to the room and came back to the car. We all walked into the room and Ms. V put her bag down next to one of the beds.
“Alright boys, you two are filthy. I’m going out to go get you some clean clothes and some food for us all. Stay here ‘til I get back. Jason lock the door behind me when I leave.”
When Ms. V returned, Ryan and I showered and changed our clothes, while Ms. V put our old clothes in the trash. We all sat down and ate the burgers and fries before we turned in for bed. The next morning, we were all up early and back on the road headed toward Dallas.