Sorry about the lack of images, this post is soooooooo long steemit refused to let me post it. It took over two hours to get it to post and then only after stripping all the images and splitting it into two posts, which I was later able to combine them into this one.

Sadly, though the fact that I am here is a bit of a mystery or miracle depending on how you want to look at it.

Before I was born:

My mother, and to a lesser extent my father, was an alcoholic. In my mother's case she was also heavy into drugs and I do mean heavy. If she couldn't find/buy them she would cook up Crystal Drano (that old stuff you used to use to unclog your pipes) and shoot it up like Heroine. Needless to say it was a damn miracle I survived 9 months inside of her. You would think that after 9 months of being exposed to every illegal substance known to mankind (and few that weren't none) that I would have came out of that Vajayjay like a Tomahawk Cruise Missile....but nay nay....I was holding on for dear life. After 18 hours in labor mother finally gave birth to me, of course I brought her insides to the outside along with me.....serves her right if you ask me.

The first 6 months:

It turns out that I was addicted to some serious messed up shit, hence the reason I didn't wanna leave. So as a result of being born, I had to spend the first 6 months of my life on full life support being detoxed, fed through a tube, having my wasted pumped out and who knows what else. Sadly, that was one of the few times I was ever properly cared for; or treated nicely by my mother.

The next 18 months (or so):

I don't know much about the next 18 months other than this. Every Friday when my dad would come home with his paycheck my mom would start a fight, call the cops and have him arrested. She would then go whoring around all weekend spending most, if not all, of his pay. Come Monday if she had anything left she would bail him out of Jail so he could go back to work.

At two years old:

So, as the story has been told to me by multiple sources, I contracted some "Mystery Disease" that the doctor's couldn't identify or treat. I wound up spending another 6 months or so in the hospital, again hooked to every machine in existence. Truth be told, I think my mother poisoned me trying to get back at my dad for something; but no one will tell me the truth and when the subject comes up it quickly gets changed.

My earliest memories:

At three years old I had started to remember the fights between my parents. I had developed a deep understanding of right and wrong, or at least I thought so at the time. You see, I would always take my mother's side and demand my dad stop screaming at her.....even after she would take a cast iron skillet to the side of his head I would still believe he, somehow, deserved it. It wasn't until years later that I finally realized, that she was bat-shit fucking crazy."I know I know, I shouldn't talk about my mother that way, but trust me by the time you finish reading this you will call her even worse."So anyway, sometime between 3 and 4 years old my dad left for good. I remember running out into the street, as he walked away with nothing but the clothes on his back, and screaming for him to not leave me with her (mom). To which mom flipped her shit in a royal fashion and said it was my fault he was leaving at that I better go bring him home or she would kill me. Needless to say I took off running down the middle of the street, screaming 'stop daddy, stop' over and over again. When I finally caught up to him he told me he had to leave but that I needed to go back to my mother.So like a good little son, I went back to mommy. As soon as I was within arms reach she back handed me so hard I went flying like a toothpick in a tornado. Broke my jaw and knocked out several teeth. To add insult to injury the second I started crying she proceeded to kick me and beat me until I could no longer cry.

I don't remember much after that beating for about a year. Somehow my dad had gotten remarried and moved to Dauphin Island, AL with his new wife. He ran the Marina on the Island (where all the fishing boats docked at the time) and his wife (Linda) ran the C-Store @ the Marina. Anyway, he tracked down my mother and moved us to Dauphin Island into a Mobile Home directly across the street from the Marina.

I am not sure how long I was there for but I remember going out to the docks every afternoon, grabbing the biggest fish I could off one of the boats and dragging it back to the scales. The fisherman loved me and would decide who had the biggest fish and have it ready before they ever hit the dock. I remember one day they came in with a 12' Hammerhead Shark and when they flopped it on the dock, I grabbed the tail and took off....they were in shock that a 30 pound kid could drag a 400 pound shark, in fact it took 3 big guys to hang it from the scale and hoist it up.

After they would weigh their catch they would clean the fish and the dolphins (the mammal not the NFL team) would come to the docks and eat. The fisherman (and I) would feed the smaller fishies to them by hand. Once the boats and fisherman would leave I would jump in the water and go swimming with the dolphins. You see I had a unique gift as a child, I could lower my heart rate to only a few beats a minute.

Now that may not sound extraordinary but trust me it is. When your heart is only beating once or twice a minute you can hold your breath for really really long periods of time.

** There is a great Wiki about Free Diving which requires people to have this ability. **

Needless to say, every day, when the dolphins would bring me back to the dock or boat ramp my father would be there waiting to tear my ass up. Not in an abusive way, but in a corporal punishment break a leather belt on your backside kind of way. At some point, my step-mom had had enough of my mother's shit.

The constant whoring around, the draining my dad of money, the late night calls to drive 30-100 miles away to come rescue her from some bar or jail. So they sent my mom home to Atlanta, but I staid on the island and it was the happiest few months of my life. Some time later, my Dad and Stepmom decided to drive me to my Godfather's house in Atlanta, GA to visit with my mother.

The visit was a disaster. My mom and step-mom where at each other's throats from the get go. When we went to leave and head back to Dauphin Island my mother asked me who I loved more, her or Linda.....like a blooming freaking idiot I told the truth "Linda, she is nice to me!". Well that put a stop to me going back to Dauphin Island for good.Almost as soon as my Dad and Linda left the beatings and abuse started. I was 4 years old at the time but over the next 9 years I would endure a living hell that will be difficult to put into words.

Daddy's Gone:

From the age of 4-5 until 11 I rarely saw my mother, she would disappear for weeks and sometime months at a time. I always knew she was shacked up with someone new but rarely knew who it was. Eventually, she would feel guilty and come home promising things would be different that she was going to be a good mother.I guess it was around the age of 5 when I learned the truth, the reason my mother was bat shit fucking crazy.

I came home (to my Godfather's) from school one day and caught her getting fucked by some dude who kept calling her Sandy. It was right then I knew she was multiple people. Although I didn't know what Multiple Personality Disorder was at the time I knew she was sick. My mom lost it when she realized I was home and hit me, so the dude hit her back. In the process his glass eye went flying across the room.

He was actually pretty cool, he picked it up and showed it to me and then put it back in. I never saw him again after that but it didn't take long I was wishing he had taken me with him.Over the years I learned that there where at least 3 people living inside my mother's brain. Deborah was a beautiful, kind hearted woman that would give the clothes off her body to a complete stranger.

Sandy was a ravenous nymphomaniac that thought she was the greatest thing to ever have a vagina. The third person, whom I don't recall ever knowing the name of, was a terrifying psychopath that would as soon rib your dick off and shove it up your ass as look at you.I am pretty sure that the 3rd personality was the most dominant one and strongly suspect it was a man; although I really have no basis for that other than I saw that personality in more than a few fights and it didn't act like no woman I have ever met.

Summer Vacations:

At some point around the age of 7, mother decided she was gonna find herself a boyfriend in Florida so we could go down there on vacation in the summer. The very first summer we did that I was 7 or 8 years old. The guy seemed nice, but he was a hard core alcoholic that drank from the time his feet hit the floor in the morning until he went to bed (and by went to bed I mean passed the hell out) at night.

I can still picture his house like it was yesterday. It was in a wooded (pines I think) area and was several acres in size. It was on a narrow road but was only a few miles from a boat launch into some large body of water. Not sure if it was the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean.One day he decided to take me, my mom, my mom's girlfriend (yes that kind) and the girlfriends two sons all out on his boat. The day went pretty smoothly and everyone was having fun and getting plastered, including us three kids.

When we got back to the boat ramp there were a gazillion tiny sand crabs everywhere and them little fuckers were hungry. So in a brief Gentlemanly way he said he would go get the truck/trailer and mom could drive the boat on it, once he had us out of the water he would stop and let us get out of the boat. Sadly, by the time mom drive the boat on the trailer he forgot all common sense and took off towards the house.

When he made the 90 degree turn into his driveway the boat flipped off the trailer and the pass-through window landed on my left leg and shattered. It damn near cut my leg off completely, had my mother not managed to catch the edge of the boat with her feet when she landed it would have.The girlfriend and her two sons came and lifted the boat so that mom and I could get out from under it.

When I crawled out my leg was severed to the bone and almost 3/4 the way around. I had seen some first aid before so I quickly took my shirt off and made a tourniquet around my leg. By some miracle it pushed the femoral artery down but didn't cut it. I was in shock almost immediately, and as a result was crazy calm. It was a good thing too because my mom was like "its just a scratch, walk it off".

After much raising hell my mom finally agreed to take me to the hospital. Of course as soon as she sat in the car she passed out. I was afraid I was going to loose my leg or die so I wasn't waiting. I pushed her over to the passenger seat of the car and hoped behind the wheel. Fortunately I knew where the hospital was and made it there just in the nick of time. After a 20+ mile drive to the nearest hospital I parked and walked into the ER and promptly collapsed.

When I came too there was a team of doctors and nurses and surgeons repairing my leg. You remember that femoral artery I mentioned earlier.....well it burst on the way to the hospital and I didn't know it because I had a towel wrapped around the wound.When I got out of surgery everyone was like "how did you get here", knowing the absolute hell I would get in if I told the truth I told them that my mother drove me, but that she was sick and waiting in the car. Like complete morons they released me a few hours later and I drove myself home. My mom slept in the car until early the next morning. When she finally came in the house she beat the bejesus out of me because she didn't believe my story, even after I showed her the surgical bandages and the 168 stitches and staples holding my leg together.

Once we got back to my Godfather's in Atlanta, GA I don't really remember seeing my mom for the next year. It turned out to be quite nice too. However, just as I was starting to think she was gone and I could have a normal life she shows up out of the blew; ready to take me on another Summer Vacation to Florida....different boyfriend this time.

So down to Florida we go again, I reckon I was 8 or 9 at this time. I don't remember ever meeting this dude, which is probably why the next part of this story will churn your stomach and enrage you to no end.We had been there a few days and no boyfriend in site. Sandy (mom's #2 personality) was getting madder by the second. Finally, on a Friday (I think) night she puts me in the car and drives to a bar, telling me to stay in the car....It is hot as "two rats jacking off in a wool sock" in Florida in the summertime, especially in a car with all the windows up and no motor/ac running; but I did as I was told.

At some point I passed out from the heat and didn't wake up until late that night/early the next morning. Apparently, Sandy couldn't find anyone to fuck because she had her "kid" with her so when she came out of the bar (hammered like a railroad spike) she was the maddest I think I have ever seen her. I was expecting the beating of my life when we got home; what I got (or rather was forced to do) was far far worse than any beating she ever gave me.

As soon as we walked into the house she went and grabbed her loaded 357 (actually my dad's but he had to leave with nothing) and ordered me into the bedroom. When I walked in she was in bed, as naked as a newborn with her legs spread as wide as she could get them. While staring at the gun cocked and pointed at me I was informed it was my fault she didn't get laid and that I had 3 seconds to get in the damn bed and satisfy her. I was a smart kid, but even I had no fucking idea what would "satisfy her".

After what seemed like days (actually only hours) I had had enough and reigned myself to death by gun at the hands of my mother. I raised up and told her "no more" and started to get out of the bed. Before I could get out of reach she backhanded me with the but of the gun and knocked me out cold. When I woke up I was shoved down between the bed and the wall (bed was in a corner) and being screamed at not to "move a damn inch or I will get my brains blown out". So I waited until she fell asleep and then I slid under the bed and then sneaked out to my bed.The next thing I remember, we were back in Atlanta. Mom was around a little more often and for longer periods of time now. When she was around she was dragging me to every bar in Atlanta.

Learning to Drive:

Of course as soon as she started dragging me to the bars with her things went from bad to worse in a hurry. Now I not only had to worry about getting the hell beat out of me by her, but I had to worry about what else she would do or allow others to do. Among other things she had me learn to shoot pool (I was really really good) and as soon as she saw how good I was she started demanding I hustle money for her alcohol and drugs. I was 9 motherfucking years old and was paying for my mom's booze and drugs, out of sheer terror of what would happen if I didn't.

When I wasn't able to find someone to "hustle" she would sale my body (rent me out) to whoever for whatever. Most of the time it was rather benign and I was just tasked with running errands, fetching drinks, cleaning puke out of drunk bastards cars, etc. There were, however, the occasional "other times".On more than one occasion I was sent into the bathroom to find "friends of my mom" there waiting for me.

I don't remember any guys, but I know there were more than a few women. It would seem that even at that young age I had other gifts if you know what I mean. I had no damn clue, mind you, but they seemed to enjoy themselves.The real adventures started when we would leave the bars. By the time they kicked us out I was having to carry mom to the car. She was always bound and determined to drive and was convinced she was capable of doing so.

Usually with in the first couple miles or half dozen red lights she was out like a burned out light bulb. It never seemed to happen while we were stopped, either. Needless to say I learned how to hold her upright with one arm and drive with the other while sitting in the middle of the car.

During one of these adventures we lived almost 70 miles west of Atlanta and I was way too tired (been bar hopping for 3 days straight) to drive that far....especially considering she kept waking up and fighting with me. So I was heading to my Grandparents house on the Southwest corner of Atlanta when mother wakes up, grabs the wheel and swerves down a side street (with the intent of going back to the bar); of course she does this right in front of a cop, almost hitting him head on in the process.

By the time he recovers and pursues us I am already pulling over. He arrests my mother on the spot, but much to my surprise allows me to follow him to the East Point police station in the car, which happened to belong to my Grandparents. When my grandfather finally arrived to pick me up the officer told them to "bring me back tomorrow morning". I was shitting bricks the size of Buicks all night....convinced that cop was trying to figure out if he could arrest me for something. Then the next morning we walk into the police station and the officer immediately escorts me to Booking.

I had seen enough jails by this point to know exactly what the hell happens when you go to Booking. I am shaking so bad they can't get my picture, after about 10 tries they finally get one that doesn't look like I am demon possessed or shifting out of phase with this reality. He then escorts back to the lobby to "wait" with my grandfather. About an hour later, he walks out with something in his hand....as he reaches out towards me he says "here you go young man, be safe out there" and hands me a Driver License. It was a hardship license but it was a drivers license....at 10 years old.

I found out later that he had seen me driving earlier and had circled around and was coming back to see if he "saw what he thought he saw".Not long after that my mom started her disappearing act again, only coming around when she needed something from my Godfather or Grandparents (ie - money). She would routinely threaten to take me away, kill me or worse to get what she wanted. My grandparents wound up buying her a Horse, Horse Trailer and Pickup truck around the time I was turning 11. I had spent quite a bit of time around Timberridge Stables in Douglasville, GA when my mother was around in the years prior and had learned to break, train and compete horses.

Mom's trying to be normal:

So we are starting to spend more and more time together, and she is Mom more than anyone else. We begin riding together and I even trained one of her prized horses (who later won 7 National Championships and went to the Olympics). However, at the age of 10, while training a pony for Mr. Mac (the owner of Timberridge Stables) the horse got spooked and took off so fast I went sliding right off his ass. I had always been told, "never let go of the reins" so I held on for dear life.

In the process of trying to pull myself back on the horse the reins got tangled around my right elbow. My elbow was shattered in over 100 pieces by the time they got the pony stopped almost an hour later....yes I got drug around a 1.5 acre arena for an hour.Mom took me to the hospital in Douglasville, which at that time was barely more than a Walk-in Clinic. When they couldn't help she took me to another, much larger, hospital in Lithia Springs, GA. They wanted to replace my elbow but mom refused, even though my grandparents would have gladly paid for it.

She demanded they put a cast on it so I could go back to work (breaking horses - especially ones that she wanted or already owned).So for the next 6 months my arm was in a cast at a 40 degree angle from my shoulder all the way to the tips of my fingers. When they cut the cast off and took xrays of my arm they said it had healed back fused and they had to re-break my arm and cast it for another 6 months.

The day I got the cast off the second time I went back to Timberridge Stables and Mr. Mac asked me if I would finish breaking that pony, it turned out no one else could even get on it, much less ride it. So off to the barn I went, I opened the stall door and stepped and as soon as I did that pony spun around and kicked me in the collar bone so hard I flew through a double 2X10 oak plank wall. I got up, walked back to Mr. Mac and with tears running down my face and a big shoe print on my shirt said "give me your damn pistol". He had never heard me cuss, but did not hesitate to hand it over.

I walked back to the barn and shot that damn horse right between the motherfucking eyes. Now I am not condoning cruelty to animals in anyway, but that horse was about as off in the head as my mother and since I couldn't shoot her (legally) I shot the horse. Before I could even walk back to the main arena to give Mr. Mac his gun back he had already found Fred (the stable hand) and told him to go dispose of the dead horse in the long barn. He, like me, knew that if I couldn't break that horse no one could and that sooner or later it would kill someone. We never spoke of it after that and no one ever told my mother what I did that day. Oh and just so everyone knows, that was 33 years ago and my collar bone is still broken, I couldn't get it fixed because that would mean Mother finding out what I had done; so I hid the pain and never said anything.

So much for normal:

Not long after that I am back staying with my Godfather and mom is, who the hell knows where. A few months pass and she shows up one day in her pickup, so drunk she can't even get out of the truck. She just sits there blowing the horn at 6 am on a Saturday until my godfather and I go outside. She demands I get in the truck with her....I think she was planning on "renting me out" again.

My godfather was trying to talk some sense into her when she back handed me with the keys in her hand. It laid my forehead open almost from temple to temple. She then pushed my head down into the floorboard and sat a cup on my back and told me it better be still sitting there when she came back. Well as soon as I heard the front door of the house close, I jumped out of the truck and took off running down the street. I couldn't see a damn thing and was soon grabbed by a man about 2 blocks away.

A neighbor lady had already seen me running down the street and called and ambulance. Thankfully it arrived before my mother found me. The police arrived at the hospital within a minute or two of me, before they had starting drugging me or stapling my head back together and when he heard what had happened from me he called a judge at home and got a temporary custody order issued.

A few hours later my grandparents (with the blessing of the court) picked me up from the hospital.I was only with them a few days before mom showed up, drunk with guns loaded, demanding I tell the court it was all a lie; or else "she would kill my grandparents". So a few days later when my granddad took me to court I perjured the shit out of myself and was immediately released back to my mother.Sometime after that, it wasn't long though. I get suspended from school and don't tell mom.

When the school catches me hiding on the playground they call her....even after I told them the hell she had put me through they called her. Before we even made it out of the school I was being carried because of the beating I got. Of course, as soon as we got home I got more beating, for hours and hours and hours. When she tired she called my grandparents and said they had one hour to come get me and bring $5,000 or I would be dead when they arrived.I am not how they did it, because my grandfather never got into a hurry but he made it in time. They had to carry me to the car.

They wouldn't take me to a hospital for fear of what my mom might do if the courts got involved again so to there house I went. I was in such bad shape this time I didn't move off the couch in the family room for 3 months without help....wasn't by choice either....I couldn't move, stand....hell I couldn't even sit up leaning back on the couch...I was so weak every time I tried I face planted into the floor. When I finally did recover they had to put me into a private school (Southern Baptist Christian School)....I could learn more standing in the middle of a busy intersection watching cars go by and don't even get me started on the "God did this" and "God did that" they forced down your throat.Other than the school things were pretty good with my grandparents for about a year.

My grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher at a small church in Fairburn, GA. One day during Sunday morning service a black family walked in and sat near the middle of the Chapel. He immediately stopped preaching and just stood there staring at them til they got up and left. A few minutes later they snuck back in and sat in the otherwise empty back row. Other than me, my grandfather was the only one that saw them so he kept preaching.

As soon as the service was over, I did what I always did and went and introduced myself and thanked them for coming. My grandfather chose that moment to let me see him get mad, the one and only time I ever saw him get mad. He grabbed me by the arm and drug me to his study, locking the door behind me and began beating the "devil" out of me. The deacons of the church had to break the door down to stop him. I think he was intent of killing me and I was glad they rescued me. He wound up loosing half his congregation that day.

Ward of the state:

By the age of 12 I was back living with my mom on a Pig/C0w farm near Dallas, GA. We had several horses and she had gotten into Competitive Horse Racing....where you race other horses/riders through the woods and get judged on you, your horse and how well you work together.

So while training for a ride she decided I wasn't learning fast enough and took a 12' horse whip and beat me until I ran my horse in a perfect figure 8. Just to spite her I won't the damn horse race that weekend which lead to another beating when we got home. I turned 13 that weekend so Monday when I went back to school, during home room I got a pass and went to see my Counselor. As soon as I walked in her office I started undressing and stating "you won't believe me if you don't see it".

Before I could finish getting undressed she had the police and local judge called. Thirty minutes later I was undressing in a court room. The judge asked me what I wanted and I told him that I was now 13 and that I understood at that age I could sign myself into State Custody, he affirmed that was correct on a 30 day temporary basis and had the clerk draw up the paperwork. That afternoon I went to my first foster family.

So later that afternoon my case worker, Linda Crew took me to meet my new foster dad at his transmission repair shop in Dallas, GA. Gene Neathawk (the new foster dad) was covered in grease from his nose to his toes but seemed rather likable. After a brief introduction she left me there, I had nothing but the clothes on my back at this point.

Gene immediately called his wife, Diane, at home and had her go out and buy me some clothes. She stopped by the shop on the way to the store to confirm my sizes, I don't think she trusted Gene to get them right.Later that evening I arrived at my new home, Gene & Diane had a son (Craig) and another, younger, foster boy named Cody. Cody and I would share a bedroom (bunk beds - yuk!) but he was a cool kid.

Craig on the other hand was a few years older and thought he was a bad ass because he had a dirt bike. I am not sure how long I was there, a couple months I think but it did get interesting.About the time I thought I was finally "home" and "safe" the Neathawk's petitioned the state to Adopt me.

Before the ink had even dried the state yanked me out of the house and began a year or so, we ain't letting you get comfortable again, bonanza. I was constantly moved from one group home to the next, from foster family to foster family and from Emergency Shelter (for runaways - they were even more fucked up than me).

Finally, I landed at Murphy-Harps Vashti United Methodist Children's Home in Cedartown, GA. This place was cool, it sat up on a hill and was an old university or reform school or something. They had a huge swimming pool, arts & crafts, Boy Scouts, on-site counselors, doctors, nurses, etc. They even gave you an allowance to buy clothes and other stuff with every few months.

It isn't a real home, but "it will do just nicely" I thought.Well that dream didn't last long either. Within a few days I was getting tormented and frequently beat up by other kids at the group home. Kids, that the staff members where so scared of that I got the blame and punishment and they got commendations.

Needless to say this pissed me the hell off, so I started going to the counselor to complain. On my 3rd (or so) visit he proceeded to make a pass at me. I was only 14 for fucks sake!Not knowing what else to do I kept going to the Therapist. By this point I was convinced the problem was me and that all these bad things were happening to me because of who I was or how I behaved.

The counselor of course encouraged this belief until I was so weak minded he could do what he wanted to with me. When I realized what was really happening, and regained a little strength, I started hiding out at the group home. That's when one of the maintenance men found me and he proceeded to molest me as well.Feeling like I had no other alternative, I went back to the staff that had allowed near daily beatings and told them.

They quite literally laughed in my face. So I began running away, 38 times in a few months. Thirty Seven of those times I went straight to the police and reported the abuse and all 37 times they didn't believe me, they just loaded me up and took me back to the group home. On the 38th time I hitchhiked almost 100 miles to my grandparents house.It didn't take the state long to figure out where I was and when they did they told my grandparents to bring me to a meeting at DEFACS (Department of Children and Family Services) in Dallas, GA the following Wednesday.

We arrived to the meeting and Linda Crew (my case work) took us into a conference room. We talked and she seemed really concerned for me and acted as if she believed me. It was just a ruse to get me there long enough for the police to show up. At which point Linda told me she was sending me to the Hospital for a checkup.That lying fucking cow sent me to Northwest Georgia Regional Medical Center (a funny farm). As soon as I realized what was happening I started screaming I wasn't crazy or making it up, but she said she didn't believe me.

The same day I was admitted the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI) came to the hospital and talked to me, then went to the group home and shut it down. They arrested a dozen staff members on the spot.I found out the next day what the GBI had done and called Linda Crew to get me out of there.

She told me she would have me out Monday. Monday came and went so I called back and she said Friday. Friday I called and it was Wednesday. Wednesday it was Monday and so on and so on. Well after about a week, the librarian at my last high school, the one that got me into writing and got several of my short stories and poems published, found out where I was and came to see me one Saturday.

The staff locked us in the cafeteria for 2 hours.The very next weekend, she came back to see me and brought me a roll of quarters (for the payphone), some cologne (Polo), some candy and a condom. Yes she brought a condom. The cafeteria they locked us in had no camera's. I had been flirting with her for months and finally she decided to give me some.

For 1.5 hours we screwed on a dining table like it was the end of the world.After that, every Saturday she would come see me, fuck my brains out and then leave money, candy, clothes, etc. she had brought for me. During this time I used the quarters she would bring me to track down my dad. He was no living in Texas. He agreed to take custody of me but the State of Georgia wouldn't give it to him, he had to become a foster parent in the State of Texas and then petition Georgia to transfer me to Texas CPS (Children's Protective Service) custody.

So for 3.5 months I sat in the Mental Hospital....my only saving grace was the Saturday visits with the hot 28 year old librarian.Finally, Linda Crew shows up to take me to Atlanta, GA and put me on a bus to my dad's. Of course everything I had when I was in the group home was now lost or stolen so she said we had to stop by her house to pickup some money so she could buy me some clothes and give me money to eat on during my bus ride. I sat in the car about 30 minutes waiting on her, finally I walked into the house (front door was open) and she was sitting on the couch butt ass naked with the biggest fucking vibrator I had ever seen between her legs. Before I could even say anything she chirped "its about time".

I knew that was my cue and before she got the vibrator out I was naked and between her legs. Although, I had never flirted with her I damn sure had more than a few wet dreams thinking about her. She was in her 30's, married with kids and still fine as could be.After we finished we got back in the car, went to Kmart and I picked out 3-4 changes of clothes and a backpack and then she takes me to Atlanta. Once we arrive at the Greyhound bus terminal she hands me $100 and goes and buys my ticket. I never saw or talked to her again after that, although I think about that day more than I probably should.

Daddy's Home:

Two days and the biggest damn blizzard to ever hit the south later I arrived in Dallas, TX at the bus station. I got off the bus and walked into the terminal and saw dad sitting there. When he realized who I was he said "let's go". No hug, no I missed you.....just "let's go". As we where climbing in his pickup he told me "There is something you need to know about me son, I am the horniest man alive....so whatever you do don't tell Linda".

I didn't remember it at the time, but back when I was living on Dauphin Island with my mom, two trailers down from my Dad and Stepmom I came home and caught mommy and daddy doing the nasty. I immediately ran and told my stepmom....I really did love her more than my own parents and still to this day do.I kind of knew right then that things just were not going to work out with my dad. Almost as soon as we got to Fort Worth to his house he started in on me.

Immediately my stepmom jumped his shit, which made things even worse between us, but it earned my respect of her. At the age of 15 I had taken all dad's crap I was going to take, and all the ass kicking too. So I packed my shit and left. Having no where to go I decided to go back to Georgia to my mom....I know "What the hell was I thinking". That lasted all of two weeks and I was out on the street with nothing. I literally was ran out of her house with nothing but a pair of shorts on....no shoes, no shirt, no wallet....just a pair of shorts.By the time I made it from her house to Atlanta I was fully dressed, had a full belly and a pocket full of money. Being a kid on the road had it's advantages....but it had its disadvantages too.

By the time I made it from her house to Atlanta I was fully dressed, had a full belly and a pocket full of money. Being a kid on the road had it's advantages....but it had its disadvantages too.

15 and Homeless:

So I find myself with no where to live, no identification, very little money and absolutely no fucking clue what to do now. Initially I hung out around the truck stop on the West side of Atlanta. To be honest I can't remember if it was a Petro back then or not (it is now).

One day while I am begging for a meal, a driver offers to let me unload his trailer when he gets to the Consignee (Receiver) and offers to pay me $300 for doing so. I really needed the money so I rushed at the chance. When I didn't know at the time was the the Consignee was in Tampa, FL Oh well, I will make some money then go to the beach, I thought!So we get down to Tampa with little fuss, he even fed me on the way down (real food you sicko's). When we got to the Consignee it took me about 4 hours to unload and breakdown his load.

For those that don't know 'breakdown' is when the pallets of product are not stacked the way the Consignee wants/needs them to be or when there are multiple products to a pallet that require separate pallets. As soon as I was done he said he would take me to the Truck-stop (near the junction of I4 and I75) and cash a Comcheck to pay me. Without fail, he did exactly what he said.

As I walked out of the truck stop with $300 worth of nice crisp $20's in my pocket I got an idea. "I wonder if I can do this all the time" I thought. So I started walking towards the mall (was going to Radio Shack) but before I made it a mile I found a Pawn Shop and guess what they had nice and cheap like ($40) a Handheld 40 Channel CB Radio, so I bought it.

On the way back to the truck stop I saw a CB Shop so for another $20 I got the radio Peaked and Tuned so I could talk to drivers at all the Truck-stops in the Tampa area. Then right next door to the truck stop was a Motel. So I went and got a room for a week. I still had around $100 left to eat on so I was happy as shit and just chillaxed for a minute.

That was about as long as I got to enjoy it too, as I soon discovered every fucking hooker (prostitute) in Tampa lived in that damn motel. Everyone of them wanted something, usually drugs or money to buy drugs and it was a non-stop parade of door knocks 20 ours a damn day.So I was like screw it I will find some more work, and that is what I did. I got on my CB Radio and started harking my services.

Before long I had multiple trucks to unload all going to the same Consignee. I wound up making $1500 that day. Thankfully, when I returned to the motel the hookers had gotten the hint and were leaving me alone. So I slept for like 3 days straight. When I finally awoke I got back on my CB and started harking my services again. Much to my surprise though, every time I tried to talk some black guy would get on the radio and undercut my price.

It wasn't long before there several black guys doing it and within a few days they found where I was staying and started threatening my "cracker ass".So back on the road I go again, this time I have money in my pocket so I just found me a ride. I don't really remember much about the next year or so as there were a lot of sleepless weeks hitchhiking around the country. Hopping from one semi truck to the next.

16 & Homeless:

I remember at 16 I had hitchhiked into Jacksonville Beach, FL. I was beyond f'ing broke by this point and hadn't eaten in several days. So I went to Baja Beach Club, it was a bar/restaurant on the Boardwalk. Within minutes I had a job as a Dishwasher working in the evenings and a free meal a day.

The boss even let me eat then, even though I wouldn't start work til the next day. So after a nice meal, I walk down the boardwalk and on the other end I went into the motel to talk to the manager. Within a few minutes I talked him into giving me a second floor room (no ocean view) in exchange for washing the linens for the maids in the mornings.I was still hungry and had no money so I was walking back down the boardwalk to go panhandle and the guy that owned the local Pizza joint on the boardwalk stopped me and asked me my story.

When he heard my situation he gave me a couple slices. Every morning I would go by the Pizza place and help him setup, then to the motel and do laundry and then to Baja Beach Club to wash dishes. When I got my first paycheck I went to KMart and bought a nice pair of slacks and shoes. Within a few days I was filling in as a waiter when they needed me to at Baja.

I thought things were finally looking up and I was going to get a normal, happy life. Boy was I in for a shock. A few weeks into my stay in Jacksonville Beach the Indian (from India) that owned the motel fired me. He said I wasn't washing fast enough, but I think he just wanted to rent my room as it was the busiest part of the year. So I walk down to work, way early, with my backpack and ask if I can store it there somewhere. My boss, realizing I am no homeless, fires me on the spot and tells me to come back in a few hours for my final paycheck.When I go back for my final paycheck I am in utter shock that he tells me I owe them money.

He went back and charged me for all my meals, the ones I was supposed to have gotten for FREE when I was working. So I am now homeless again and have no damn money. I walk a block away and literally collapse on the street corner.

The weight of my situation is unbearable at this point. Like a ton of bricks falling out of an airplane it all hits me at once....my life fucking sucks!As I sat there on the sidewalk crying my balls off a short, 30 something, man approaches and says come with me. A mile later we had walked to his Apartment where he proceeds to wash my clothes while I take a shower.

As soon as I get out of the shower (with nothing but a towel cause he was washing everything) he gives me a meal. By the time I finished eating laundry was done so I started getting dress and repacking my backpack. I figured, he was just taking pity on me and would ask me to leave. I wished he had done that.As soon as I get the backpack repacked I sat down on his couch to rest, and wait for the "get the fuck out now" speech. I am not sure if I was just overly tired or if he put something in my food or drink but I passed the hell out almost as soon as my ass hit the couch.

When I awake several hours later my pants were off and he was between my legs blowing me like his life depended on it. I was so fucked in the head by this point I didn't know what to do. Part of me was screaming "get out of here NOW" and another part was like "damn that feels good". The "damn that feels good" side won out and I just sat there in shock until Junior erupted like a pissed off Mount Saint Hellens.

I wound up staying with him for a few weeks, cause what man doesn't like a good blow job 3-4 times a day. However, when he started trying to make me his bitch (boyfriend) I got the hell out of there. I wound up walking all the way to Jacksonville to the closest truck stop and went back to trying to Lump Loads (find trailers to unload). I hadn't eaten in almost 2 days by the time I finally got to the truck stop and it was night time.

But a driver was nice enough to make me a sandwich. While I was sitting in his truck eating my sandwich he was on the CB trying to find me some work and a place to sleep.Then in pulls a 20 something young woman with a set of doubles (two trailers). Every parking spot at this truck stop was a back in parking. She tries for like half an hour to back into a spot while most of the other drivers sit there and laugh at her on the CB. When she responds she is claiming to have been driving for 10 years. Finally, I get on the CB and say "lady I ain't even a truck driver but I can do better than that." so she pulls her parking brakes and responds "then come prove it". Needless to say, I got the truck and trailers backed into the spot on the first try. About 20 drivers were like "holy shit" and she was furious.

Turns out that it is impossible to back a set of doubles more than a few feet.....well I guess nobody ever told me cause it wasn't. When I got down out of her truck, I was standing there talking to her, she was very beautiful and I was very horny. After she calmed down she invited me to take a shower. I expected us to have separate showers, but she wanted to make sure I was nice and clean. Once we got into the shower and she started getting undressed Junior stood in attention like the Queen's Guard.

You could have hung a rack of lamb off him and he still would have been standing in attention. Well one thing leads to another and we wind up screwing in the shower, then going back to her truck and screwing for the rest of the night. I never did get her name and when the sun came up she told me to "get the fuck out" and away she went.One of the other drivers, a nice late 20's black man, was curious about what went down so he offered me a ride to LA and was going to let me unload his trailer when we got there.

We didn't make it 20 miles down Interstate 10 before he got out of the drivers seat (at 70 mph) and said "you drive, I need some sleep". I had ridden in hundreds of semi trucks before but never driven one. I thought to myself, it can't be that hard so in the driver seat I went.I am pretty certain that he was out cold before he even hit the bed. So I drove and I drove and then I drove some more......until the low fuel light started flashing at me.

Yes, somewhere in Lousianna, I found a truck stop and coasted up the ramp, through the turn and into the truck-stop. Keyword being coasted. This truck was an old B model Mack (Dump Truck) converted to an Over-the-road semi. It had 3 damn gear shifts (Quadraplex) and I hadn't the foggiest idea how to work them.Once I got the truck stopped at the fuel island I began the process of trying to wake the driver up. It wasn't happening, a nuclear bomb wouldn't have woken this dude if it went off a mile away.

He was down for the count! Well I had been around trucks long enough to know he probably payed for his fuel with some kind of fuel card, so after a quick search I found his wallet and grabbed the fuel card out and filled the truck. Then found an old-timer (trucker that had been driving for decades) and asked him "how the fuck do I shift this truck". After a brief tutorial I was in gear and making my way back to the interstate.It is important to note that on a Quadraplex (two gear shifts for the transmission and 1 for the multi-speed rear differential) there are no syncro's.

Meaning if you miss a gear you are coming to a complete damn stop and starting all over. So I hit the ramp to the interstate to continue on to Los Angeles. It took me over 100 miles and about 30 complete stops to finally get that damn truck up to 70 mph. So drive I did, then drove some more and then even more. Wait, what's that: the low fuel light again....crap.....so I whipped into the Triple T truck-stop in Tuscon, AZ and wouldn't you know it I still couldn't wake the driver up. At this point I was honestly wondering if he was dead; but I grabbed his fuel card and filled the truck up again.

Back on the road I finally cross into California. I am just coming up on Thousand Palms when the driver finally wakes up and asks me "where are we at". I replied dude you been asleep for two days, we are in Thousand Palms, CA. He jumped in the front screaming "how the fuck did we get here" and I was like "umm I drove and oh by the way here are your fuel receipts". Once he was fully awake he was happy as hell and I drove us on into the delivery in LA.After I got his trailer unloaded we headed over to his next pickup and then off to the truck-stop in Ontario, CA so he could get some money and pay me.

He wound up paying me $1,000 for driving all the way to LA and unloading the trailer. Then asked if I wanted to stay on with him. At the time I didn't so I got out of the truck and staid at the Union 76 (TA truck-stop). A week or so later, he shows back up and I still haven't found any work or a ride out of there.So I am back on his truck and we are headed to New Jersey. From Jersey down to Jacksonville, FL then back to LA. I do this run with him for a few weeks and make crazy good money. When I finally got off his truck in LA I had several thousands dollars in my pocket, a backpack full of new clothes and a full belly.

Seventeen and Stupid:

At some point I wound up living with my dad and stepmom again in Venus, TX. While living there I started dating the girl (Tammy) that lived two houses down with her parents. Needless to say I was a horny teenager but she flat wasn't gonna give it up. So one day I was down at her house visiting with her mom and her sister came into town. Her sister (Beverly) was 28, married and had two kids. Within 5 minutes of of Beverly arriving we were in Tammy's bed fucking like banshee's while Evelyn (the mother) sat in the living room and cheered us on. While I didn't know it at the time my dad was messing around with Evelyn and that was a large part of the reason she pushed Beverly and I together.

18 and getting dumber:

On my 18th Birthday, Beverly loaded the car, grabbed the kids and left her husband. She came and picked me up and we headed to Las Vegas for a new Start. Almost immediately upon arriving in Vegas (actually Henderson, NV) my wallet was stolen off the dashboard of the car. That made it very hard for me to find any kind of work, but I eventually got a job at a local grocery store in the evenings and Beverly got into Dealer School during the day. We where living in her car along with her two young kids but life was good.

Or so I thought. Eventually, I got my ID back and got a permit to work in the Casino's and went to work in the restaurant of one in Henderson. Beverly and I had moved in with some friends she made in Dealer School that lived just 2 blocks from where I worked and 4 blocks from Beverly's school. Life was really starting to look good.Now I wasn't a smoker at the time and I really didn't care that Beverly was.

However, she told me she had quit knowing full well I could read her mind like reading an open book. Yes I had a telepathic link with her, one of only two people I have ever shared that with. Well when she started lying about smoking (she was smoking at school) we started arguing. Then one day she tells me that her husband will be there on Friday to take her and the kids back to Texas.The husband was a gigantic Australian that was a massive 7'+ tall and over 400 lbs.

When he arrived to the house, he got out of the car all huffy and puffy and started towards me. With out even thinking, Beverly jumped in front of him and told him he better get back in the car because I would likely kill him. I wasn't a violent person, per say, but I was downright brutal when forced into a confrontation. Anyway while she is trying to get him back in the car, both kids latch on to me and refuse to let go.

They repeatedly state they rather stay with me than go with their mom and dad.....funny thing of it was I was strict with them while their parents let them get away with anything....and they still chose me over them.As much as it pained me I knelt down and told them they had to go with their parents, but that I would always love them and think about them. After some time, I finally convinced them to get in the car. That would be the last time I saw any of them for a long time.

Not long after they left I got injured at work, I was a busboy and tried lifting and turning with an overloaded bus pan. Needless to say I exploded the last two vertebrae in my spine and nearly severed it into in two places. A couple coworkers carried me (probably the reason my spinal cord was nearly severed) to the workers comp. hospital which happened to be next door to where I was living. After a few hours and a few dozen X-Rays the doctor came in and told me "Mr. Colbert, I am sorry to tell you this, but you will never walk again!" and then he proceeded to showing me the damage.

Well I was 18 and knew everything so in a huff I screamed "You fucking idiot, I bet you $10,000 I walk again with a year!". He instantly responded "You're On!". An hour later I got up and walked the hell out of that hospital. I made it all the way to my couch, with the doctor behind me crying like a little bitch while writing out the check. I was the one in pain, but he was crying.....it was beautiful to witness.Once I laid down on that couch though, I didn't get up (under my own power) for 3 months.

A couple of the nurses from the Workers' Comp hospital would come by and help me in the morning and evenings (before and after work) and it was a good thing cause I couldn't fucking move anything below my arms. Even my dick wouldn't work and trust me one of those pretty nurses checked it every day for a month.....it was as limp as an overcooked Noodle!

Finally, after three months I couldn't take laying there any longer. I was determined to either walk again or crawl my ass to somewhere to get a wheelchair. Plus I had to take the most epic shit of my life and had no one to help me to the bathroom. So I grabbed the coffee table and rolled myself face first into the floor. I then drug myself to the bathroom and used the edge of the sink and back of the toilet to pull myself upright. I stood at the sink for a good 10 minutes, then worked my way over to the toilet and sat down.

Then came the trouble. I had nothing to pull on to be able to lean forward to wipe my ass, or get standing again. I eventually used the edge of the tub as a handle and spun myself around a little bit so I could take care of business. Then I had to literally flop down in the floor, pull my pants up and drag myself back to the edge of the sink to pull myself upright again.After a few minutes I realized I had enough strength in my legs that using my arms as counter-balance I could stay upright. So with that new knowledge I grabbed one leg with my hands and moved it to the side, then grabbed the other.

Within a few minutes I had managed to make it outside my front door. Now come the steps, they proved to be very difficult because I still had no control over my legs, which meant I couldn't bend them to go down 3 steps. I did have a hand rail though so I turned my body facing the rail and then picked up one leg and set it down a step, then the other and finally I made it down the steps. It probably took a good hour to get from the bathroom to the bottom of those three steps.

Now I am ready to go, so I start moving one leg then the other, with my hands. I did this all the way from my house to downtown Las Vegas, then to the end of "The Strip" then back downtown and back to my house. For three and a half days I walked, I didn't sit down, I didn't sleep and if I got tired I staid standing and leaned against something to take a short break or nap. Most of the time I had to bear hug light poles to keep from falling down when I would stop for a break.

By the time I made it back home I could once again move my legs on their own. I wasn't really sure how but I found out years later that I had retrained my brain to work my legs using the nerves in my skin (which is actually a giant organ and a giant nerve). My spinal cord eventually healed, partially, so I could work my legs again using the Sciatic Nerve instead of my skin nerves. However, if I sit wrong or sleep wrong still to this day I will go to get up and my legs will be like "fuck you, I am taking a break" and I will have to wiggle around to un-pinch my spine so they start working again.

After three months of being unable to move I lost my job. When I finally got home from walking til my legs worked I found my shit sitting in the front yard all boxed up. I went and got me a cheap duffel bag and repacked my stuff and caught the city bus to the truck-stop.

I wound up hitchhiking to Denver, CO. The first ride I got was with a couple "Good Buddies" in a cab over pulling a moving van. On the way there we stopped to fuel and a girl was on the CB also needing a ride to Denver. We picked her up and her and I shared the sleeper while the dudes drove. When they decided to stop for the night we got in the moving van (trailer) and made a bed out of moving blankets.

At this point I hadn't slept in 3 days and was dead ass tired, all I wanted to do was sleep. The girl (hitchhiker) wasn't having no part of that shit, she was horny and I was going to satisfy her one way or the other. Don't get me wrong she was good looking, I was just tired. Well when I refused to fucker he she got on top of me and forced herself on my.

I was so tired I couldn't (or maybe didn't want to) wrestle this little 90 pound woman off of me. After about 2 hours of her having her way with me I started enjoying it. Is it technically rape if I enjoyed it? That is a question I have wondered ever since. Needless to say I didn't get any sleep at all that night cause 8 hours in the drivers came and got us and told us it was time to roll on.

When I finally arrived in Denver, I was broke, homeless and had no job. I went to the one and only shelter in town which had a lottery every day for any open beds. My first try I got in and staid there for several weeks. I had called my mom and told her where I was staying and not long after getting to Denver she called the shelter and left me a message that my grandmother had died. No one in my family, none of the churches or charities would get me a bus ticket home to Atlanta for her funeral. By the time I finally hitchhiked back to Georgia she had been buried for several weeks.With mother's encouragement I decided to go get my GED and go into the military.

So one day I went down to an all black college in Atlanta (Moorehouse I believe) and took the GED exam. I took the entire 8 hour test in 45 minutes. When I scored in the top 90% they were convinced I cheated. So the test administrator and college Dean took me into a private room and gave me a different test. Again I did it in 45 minutes and still scored in the top 85%. The Dean immediately offered me (a white kid) a full scholarship. I turned it down, mainly because I wanted the fuck out of Atlanta and even though I wasn't racist the thought of being the only white kid at that college was not appealing to me.

20 and in the military:

For a year and a half I tried getting into the military. I wanted the Air-force but no one was taking people without College Credits because it was during Desert Storm and everyone wanted to go fight the terrorists. Finally, the US Navy took me in and I arrived at boot camp in Orlando, FL on January 9, 1992.Of course boot camp was rife with problems.

Almost as soon as I put on Combat Boots both big toe nails became ingrown. Three separate operations on both of them during boot camp and I still graduated on time. As soon as I graduated I walked to the PX and bought a pack of Marlboro Reds (I had never smoked before this).

By the time I crossed the base to my barracks, I would stay in during Fireman School, I had smoked the entire pack. Before I could even get unpacked in my new home I got called to the Hospital. They had forgotten to pull my wisdom teeth during boot camp. In a hurry to get it done they wound up breaking my lower jaw on both damn sides and didn't use enough Anesthesia. Before I could even make it to the pharmacy it had worn off and I was howling at anything I thought would listen.

The pain was absolutely fucking unbearable.Eventually, I got Oxycodone, Tylenol 3 (with oxycodone) and some other drug, I think an anti-inflammatory. By the time I made it to the barracks again I wasn't feeling SHIT!. So I went in, unpacked and took a shower. On my way out of the barracks on the hunt for something I could eat I saw they were playing volleyball. So for about 4 hours in 100+ degree heat. When there was no one left to play with I went and took another shower and got in my dress blues and headed to the E-Club (bar for enlisted personnel).

On my way out of the barracks I met the woman who would become my fiance a few weeks later.I knew from the instant I met her she was the one. Two weeks later I asked her to marry me at the e-club and she said yes. Of course a few short weeks later the military separated us, placing me in Little Creek, VA and sending her home to NAS North Island in San Diego, CA.

To add insult to injury it was war time so the military wouldn't give either of us leave.Now after that things get a little hinky. You see I lost a year of my life, almost no memories except for an occasional dream I usually don't remember by the time I wake up. I remember making the military kick me out. For years I thought it was in December 1992 that they did.

However, I didn't arrive in San Diego to be with my fiance until December 1993. By the time I got there she hadn't heard from me in over a year and well, she had moved on. I always thought something had happened after I got out of the military. But after 14 years of yearly request for my military records I finally got a Texas State Senator involved and got them. I got 5 copies of absolutely fucking nothing. I mean nothing. The records show me going through Meps (twice), arriving at boot camp and then being discharged; with absolutely no record of anything in between. It is now quite obvious to me that my records were scrubbed clean and that the year I lost was most likely during my service. Sadly I have no way to prove it or find out what the hell really happened.

Post Breakup Blues:

Needless to say shortly after arriving in San Diego my fiance and I broke up, officially. In my distraught faze I did something I thought I would never do. You see I had a room at a hotel in Downtown San Diego, right above the Greyhound station. One of the other young guys staying there had been taunting me to come with him one evening. After the break up I was so off my rocker, I went. Within seconds of getting to the Corner where he worked, I was in the car with some guy getting my dick sucked for $50.

At this point I didn't even care. I went almost every night for a few weeks and worked that corner.Finally, I decided to head up to LA. I arrived in downtown LA around midnight and the bus service out to Hollywood/Santa Monica had stopped. So I asked for directions and took off walking. I wound up walking right through the heart of South Central (bad directions) at 2 am. The Crips and Bloods were literally lining each side of the street getting ready for a gang war.

I think I actually stopped it cause none of them could believe I was there. I mean what non-gang member white boy gonna walk through South Central at 2 am??? Thankfully, I still looked military, hair cut and all so they escorted me to Hollywood. By escorted I mean a couple Crips and a couple Bloods got into the same car and drove me to Hollywood.I thought for sure I had stopped a gang war so they could take me and maim and dismember me somewhere. However, they actually were very nice and respectful. In fact by the time I got to Hollywood they had all given me a little money. Enough I was able to get a room for a month at one of the dive (hooker) hotels.Between the noise, fucking, fighting and all night partying I couldn't stay in the hotel.

After a few days I checked out and said fuck it I will sleep on the streets. I started hiding my bag at a nearby Church/Soup Kitchen where I would eat lunch every day. Within a few days someone stole my bag along with all my identification. Well now I am fucked again. After a few months of picking up cans and bottles trying to get the money to get my identification back I said screw it and hitchhiked back to Georgia.

22 and home again:

By the time I made it back to Georgia I had a little money saved up from truck drivers giving me money or paying me to unload their trailers. So I immediately went and got my Birth Certificate, Social Security Card and Driver License back. I was staying in a dinky hotel in downtown Atlanta for the two weeks or so it took to get everything back.As soon as I got my ID back I went to the truck-stop and starting trying to hitchhike back to California. I liked it there and wanted to return. The first ride I got said he was going to LA and would take me all the way there. I had been up for days so as soon as we got on the freeway I laid down and went to sleep. I woke up several days later in a different semi truck in a parking lot in Key West, FL. I have no memory of those three days.

Stuck in Homo-Central:

When I awoke and got out of the truck, I was dying of thirst, the truck was off and it was over 100 degrees so I was dehydrated, broke and sweating my balls off. Thankfully, I still had my wallet and identification, all though my backpack with a few clothes was no where to be found. The first place I saw was a titty bar so I went in to see if they would give me a class of ice water.

The stripper who noticed me first came to talk to me while I drank the water. She quickly got the story out of me and took pity on me. She told me to come back at 5 pm when she got off her shift and she would take care of me.It turns out she actually just felt sorry for me. She took me to her apartment and let me take a shower and get cleaned up. She had some clothes from an ex-boyfriend that were my size so she packed me a backpack with a few clothes.

As she was walking me to Duval Street (the main drag in Keywest) she told me to come by her work everyday at 11 am when they opened and she would give me money so I could sit and tip her when she danced.....you know to drum up business from the other patrons. So for a few weeks I did and every few days she would let me come to the apartment, she would bath me and do my laundry and sometimes even screw my brains out and cook me dinner.Then I found out that Fantasy Fest was coming to Key West in a few weeks.

After some discussions with locals I learned that Fantasy Fest was the biggest homo celebration at the time. They informed me that upwards of 100,000 gay and lesbian people would descend on the island. Having heard that I took what little money I had and hoped a Greyhound the hell out of there.I only had enough to make it to Fort Lauderdale, FL. Once I got off the Greyhound I started walking towards Fort Lauderdale Beach.

About halfway there this nice Bentley stops and asks if I need a ride. I guess I was still a little naive at the time so I said yes. On the way to the beach he found out my story and decided to take me to his Luxury Condo and get me cleaned up, fed and my laundry washed. As soon as he had all my clothes in the laundry I went to shower. Once I exited the shower with nothing but a small towel on he offered me $500 if I let him suck me off. Holy shit, I had never been offered anything near that so I accepted.

When he finished, or rather when I finished he folded and packed my laundry and drove me to the beach with $500 in my pocket. On the way to the beach he told me about a Gay Bar I should check out, he said he wasn't the only one in town that would pay me that kind of money.I was heading to get a room on the beach when I found a new hotel being built and decided to crash in it for the night. I wound up sleeping in that under construction hotel for about a week.

Then something told me I needed to move, I wasn't sure what but I just had this feeling. The next day I headed to the Gay Bar he had told me about and no sooner than I walked in I saw on the TV that one of the construction cranes at the hotel and collapsed taking down half the building and killing a few people....I should have been one of them.By now I had spent most of the money I got from the dude in the Bentley and had no where to crash. So I decided to hang out in the gay bar. The gay couple that owned it immediately took a liking to me and offered me a job as a stripper.

They even fronted me the money to go buy some g-strings. My first night I made like $500 and was like hell yea, I can do this. So I went and bought/had made a few costumes. One of them being a sailor uniform (Dress Blues) with full velcro in the seems so I could rip them off like those Famous Strippers do.Within a few weeks I got invited to dance at another strip club in Fort Lauderdale and then a few weeks later I was also stripping in the busiest strip club in Florida, down in Miami. Of course I was constantly getting propositioned and occasionally they would offer enough money I accepted. Within a couple years I didn't look like a kid anymore and the dancing stopped and shortly there after so did the propositions.

Becoming a geek:

I am now broke and homeless again and stuck in a Gay Lifestyle. One of the friends I had made turned out to be a composer of symphonies and had just gotten a 486 computer and midi keyboard. He wanted to start composing that way but was lost. He told me if I came over and learned how to do it that he would then pay me $25 an hour to teach him how to do it.So for 4 days straight I sat at his computer, learning everything I could about Windows 3.1, PC Architecture and Midi Keyboards.

Finally, I was ready to teach him. What took me 4 days to learn took me a week at about 6-8 hours a day to teach him. By the time I finished teaching him I had enough money that I though fuck it I will start my own Computer business.So I went and bought a beeper, then went to Kinko's and bought some computer time to design a Flyer. I then paid to have 5,000 flyers printed out and bought a shit done of packing tape.

For the next few days I went all over Fort Lauderdale putting flyers on every damn street post and light pole I could get the tape to stick too.Then I went back to the Gay Bar (Johnny's) were I hung out and shot pool and waited. A few days later I was passing out flyers in the bar and a Doctor (Brent Whitley) told me he needed help with his computer.I wound up moving in with him that night and spending a few weeks trying to teach him how to use his computer.

He bought me all the parts to build myself a Pentium computer and I spent weeks learning it and trying to get Windows 95 to run on it. It was a dual Pentium 200 motherboard and Windows 95 would not work on Dual Processors. I hated NT4 so I was determined to make it work. After several weeks of 21 hour days I finally managed to hack the NT4 kernel into Windows 95 and get it to work.Needless to say the doctor and I wound up becoming lovers, until he started wanting way more than I was willing to give (still claimed to be straight at this point). So eventually I left and went back to hanging out at Johnnny's. Within days I moved in with another guy, a broke ass fucker named Richard Barboza.

Of course it was mainly about getting my dick sucked and having a place to sleep with him as well.I still loved computers and had started learning Website Design (HTML 2.0) so I applied for a job at a Website Mill and got hired. They only used Microsoft Frontpage and the sites they designed were intentionally shit. In fact I got fired for using Dreamweaver and Notepad++ to do the sites faster and look better.So I applied for another job doing website design and was hired by a Hosting Company that provided VOIP technology and also did web design, mainly for porno sites.

The first site I was tasked to build was Farmsex.com which I knocked out the front end of in a few days. They then asked if I knew how to do Search Engine Optimization and I lied. I had no clue what that was but I had a high speed internet connection and knew I could learn. I picked it up so quick that I wound up writing a program (my first coding project) that would do the work for me, automated and scheduled out over a day, a week, a month or longer if you so desired.

Within a week of launching Farmsex.com it was #1 in the major search engines of the era for most keywords. Although I don't remember exactly what happened they wound up firing me and keeping my program, claiming it was their property since I wrote it while they were paying me to. They wound up making millions off of that program and I got jack shit.A few months later I got hired to build computers for a company that only sold them at Computer Shows every weekend.

The guy liked me because I could build 10 computers at one time while his leading tech (before me) could only do 3 or 4 at a time. In fact I could do 10 at a time even if they had different specs because I had learned how to build a Windows 95 drive with no hardware in the registry but with a shit ton of drivers pre-installed so that I could clone the drive to any configuration and it would work. Man was Norton Ghost the bomb!Well now I am completely addicted to computers, web design and the internet.

So I bounce from one job to another for a few years. Eventually getting hired by a young kid that owned a small business. He sold Cigar Humidors online and wanted me to build websites for him. As soon as I started I also found out he did bulk emailing but wasn't very good at it. With in a few weeks I had learned how to harvest millions of email addresses and check that they were valid. In fact I had AOL's entire user database at one point. I then started writing programs to filter the email addresses, randomize the lists and bulk email millions of emails a day. I got so good at it that I wound up having 5 DSL lines installed in my house and had 13 computers running 24/7 mining email addresses, cleaning the lists and blasting out emails for numerous customers.

I was making a freaking killing, then the Senate started talking about making it illegal so in 2000 I quit cold turkey. At the time I quit I was one of the most notorious spammers on the planet and was sending out over 10 million emails a day. See this article about me in the NY Times!Well once I quit spamming I discovered that the Computer Repair market had gone to shit and there were tons of software and websites that made Designing Website easy enough for almost anyone. Needless to say I couldn't make money doing computers anymore so I moved to Texas and became a truck driver.

Becoming a Truck Driver (The uncomfortable truth about being a professional truck driver in the USA):

When I decided to give up computers and become a truck driver I wanted to go to work for a company that would pay for my school. What I found was that most of the companies (at that time) wanted a 1-2 year commitment. Meaning I had to promise to drive for them for 1-2 years in order for them to pay for my school. If I left before my commitment was up then I had to payback all or part of the school (depending on the company).

After roughly 2 months of searching I stumbled across Lisa Motor Lines, Inc. based out of Fort Worth, TX (I lived in Venus, TX at the time). They only required a 6 month commitment so I jumped at the opportunity and within days they had me in school at C1 Driver Training also in Fort Worth, TX.I thought I was finally on my way to a new and successful career, boy was I fucking wrong.

Upon graduation from the school I waited for over a month before they found me a trainer to go out with. But wait I just graduated school, why do I need more training? Oh yea, the US DOT (Department of Transportation), Texas DOT and FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) all required additional Over-The-Road training with a qualified Instructor. This was supposed to be a 2-3 week ordeal but quickly turned into 3 different trainers taking over 2 months to complete. Most of that time I was sitting at home waiting on another trainer and not getting paid.

When I finally did get in my own truck things didn't get much better. One week I would only get about 1500 miles @ 24cpm (24 cents per mile) which meant after taxes I made less than shit. The next week they would expect me, a solo driver, to run 6000+ miles which is illegal in so many different ways I can't even write them all here. Okay, I got used to that and planned accordingly so I would have money every week....or so I thought! Turns out the company sucked at math and started charging me 2 and 3 times for advances, most of which were not even Personal Advances.

You see when you drive a truck most companies will send you money (advances) for living expenses, parts you buy for the truck/trailer suck as lights, scale tickets (when you weight the truck/trailer/load), tolls, etc. They would then deduct all of those advances from my pay, two or three times. I wasn't supposed to pay for things like scales, tolls, weight tickets, etc. but I wound up getting charged for them repeatedly. After almost 2 months without a paycheck (living on $100 a week in personal advance).I finally walked into the President of the companies office and went Postal.

I walked out with $2000 in estimated back pay in my hand and within 24 hours they had everything fixed and had sent me the rest of what I was owed. Finally, things are looking up.....except they weren't. After that I couldn't get more than 1500 miles a week, EVER! Apparently they didn't like drivers who expected to get paid! But then just before my 6 month anniversary I got food poisoning in Dodge City, KS. I called them immediately and informed them I could not drive that I was hurling every few minutes and dashing to the shitter between vomits.

They said it didn't matter I had to deliver the load....the load I just sat at a Meat Packing Plant, with no food in the truck, for 4 days waiting on. So I took off driving, I made it into Oklahoma and pulled into a truck stop to go get some Powerade as I was dehydrated to the point I was loosing consciousness and passed out in the parking lot. When I woke I was in the store being told an ambulance was on the way. I talked them into going and getting my phone out of the truck and locking it before the ambulance showed.

On the way to the hospital I called the company and told them what happened and they basically called me a liar and told me to get rolling. Needless to say I let them have it, then told them to call the truck stop if they didn't believe me. Eight hours and about 10 bags of fluids later one of the nurses took me back to the truck stop, she had to get a couple drivers to help me into the truck as I was so weak I couldn't stand up. Once in bed I called the company and told them I was going to be unable to drive for 3 days because the hospital had doped me up, apparently I hurt myself when I fell but I have no memory of that. They kept on and on and on calling me demanding I deliver the load.

Finally, they tell me I have to drive back (the wrong direction) to Oklahoma City, OK to swap with another driver so he can deliver my load. When I refused they told me I would be fired and charged with abandoning the load (never get another driving job) so I went back to Oklahoma City (about 100 miles). Now keep in mind I was drugged out of my damn mind on Dilada's (or however the hell you spell it). Once I swapped with the other driver they started calling every 2 hours wanting me to go pickup a load.

Finally, when the drugs wore off I drove back to Fort Worth, TX (empty) and told them to stick that truck and job up their fucking asses.Now I am back at my Dad's in Venus, TX and out of work. Lisa Motor Lines will not give me my certificate of graduation for Truck Driving School and they are telling everyone I am a horrible driver and not to hire me. Well shit, I am screwed now. Finally, after months of being unemployed I get hired by US Xpress, Inc. out of Chattanooga, TN.

They put me on a Greyhound (the worst form of transportation on the damn planet) to Chattanooga, TN. They are supposed to have someone there to pick me up when I get there, but NOPE no one there. After repeated calls and several hours waiting in a bad neighborhood someone finally shows up to get me. During my 3 day orientation I find out that everything the recruiter told me was a lie and they try and fire me 3 times.....with no way home! I raised hell and went to the Terminal Manager repeatedly and finally got put in a truck.

Two and a half years later (most of the time still broke) they forced me to quit over a bullshit Sexual Harassment claim filed by someone I had never even spoken too at a Terminal in Fontana, CA.Back to Dad's house I go. After some time trying computers again and taking a 4.5 month trip to Europe (see previous post) I was back in Georgia at my mom's looking for another driving job.

Finally, after months, I get hired by Super Service, Inc. out of Somerset, KY. During my first day of orientation I hit it off with a KY native named Evelyn. Later that night she comes to my room and badda-bing badda-bang we hit it off. Two weeks later I move in with her and her kids in McKee, KY. Months go by and things aren't working out at Super Service so we both leave. I wind up working for Air Ride, Inc. out of Toledo, OH.So I am now at Air Ride, Inc. in Toledo, OH and hauling stuff and making descent money.....for a few months then Air Ride, Inc. goes bankrupt.

I call home to Evelyn in KY and tell her I am headed home and she informs me to wait until Saturday because she just got married (with the $300 she borrowed from me 2 days earlier) and that her and her new husband will be on their honeymoon then. So I drive to Berea, KY and spend the night in my rental car, then Saturday I go to the house to get my stuff. I find her and her new husband at home and most of my stuff either broken or missing.

After a few hours of "what the fuck is happening" I was loaded and on my way to my Step-Sisters house in Venus, TX (she lived right behind my dad).Months later my "sister" (close family friend) who was a dispatcher for an Oversized Load trucking company in Fort Worth calls me and tells me that she sent all three of their trucks/drivers to the JRB base in Fort Worth to pickup a load and they all got arrested at the gate. She asks me if I will go recover the three trucks (and the load) and bring them to the yard. So one by one the owner drives me to the base and I bring back truck after truck.

At the end of the day the owner says thanks and starts to leave....after a brief bitch fest he pays me $500 for my efforts. A couple weeks go by and my sister calls again, this time she needs me to haul an oversized load from Texas to Virginia and tells me I will make $1500 for a couple days.So I go to the terminal and she hands me directions and a set of keys and tells me to haul ass. I had no clue what I was doing, never hauled oversized or even touched a RGN (removable gooseneck trailer).

But away I go. I get up to the factory to pickup my load and no one could tell me what to do or how to do it....even after explaining the situation. After hours in the boiling hot Texas sun I finally figured it out and was loaded and rolling....but not for long. The load shifted on me about 100 miles away when I slammed on the brakes to keep from hitting a low bridge. So hours more on the side of the road ratcheting the load back into place and figuring out how to properly chain it.

Then I had to back 1.5 miles down the shoulder with a 14'6" wide load (that I couldn't see around) to get to a spot to turn around so I could take an alternate route around the low bridge. Finally, I get to Virginia and get unloaded and sis tells me to go to nearest truck stop and wait, she will call me when they find me another load. I sat at a Flying J on the Virginia/West Virginia line for a whole damn month before I got that call. After about 18 months with this company, that was going bankrupt in a hurry but I couldn't afford to leave I finally said screw it and quit....but not before I had another job with a company called Gator Transportation out of Brookville, FL.

So on a plane to Florida I go. I had a friend who previously worked for this company, which is how I got the job, so I knew that Kenny the guy they would send to the airport to pick me up was a major pot head. So I asked the owner before I ever got on the plane if I would have to take a Drug Test and he said no....even after I explained why I was asking. So when Kenny picked me up at the Airport in Tampa, FL he did exactly what I expected and fired one up, before we even got out of the damn airport. Three joints later we arrive in Brookville, FL and I go to my hotel.

The next morning Kenny picks me up and takes me to the terminal (the owners house) and we pull in while Kenny is smoking a, you guessed it, joint! Before I can even get out of the pickup Lynn (the owner) comes and tells me I need to go right then and take a Drug Test....I look at Lynn then at Kenny and say "really"! But I go and by some freaking miracle (after 4 joints in the last 15 hours) pass the damn test....So off to work I go. This was the first load I ever hauled (see pic below) for them, it is a super load of epic size.

The entire load (counting both trucks and all the trailer) weighed almost 500,000 #'s. Oh and yes it had one truck pulling and one pushing. Guess what my job was? You betcha driving the push truck with no experience and no training.After only a month with Gator Transportation I am let go with no way home and almost no money. Fortunately I had bought an old pickup (during that month) off one of the other drivers and proceeded making my way back to Texas.

Months later, I am living on my "sister's" (the close family friend) couch in Arlington, TX and out of work. When one day, while on Facebook, I stumbled across my ex-fiance from when I was in the Navy back in 92-93. We hadn't spoken in 16 years but within two weeks she had moved to Texas and was living with me (unemployed) on my sister's couch. I got a job almost immediately after that doing Windshield repair for Chipfixer Auto Glass.

A few months later I went back to doing computer repair and was working as a FSR (field service repairman) for 5 different companies. So, Angela (the ex-fiance) and I got an apartment in Richardson, TX and got married. The honey moon phase didn't last long and she refused to work (at home or otherwise) and we wound up moving to Salt Lake City, UT (where she lived when I found her on Facebook) to live with some friends of hers.

I tried getting back into Computers in Salt Lake City and even got her and her friend, Corey, work doing computers (and they didn't know shit). But again she refused to work and I couldn't make enough doing computers to support us so back to driving I went.I got hired by James H. Clark & Sons out of Salt Lake City and went to work.

Things were good, for a while, then they got new (smaller) trucks, governed everyone down to 62 mph and dropped everyone's pay (to pay for the new trucks) so I quit. By then my sister (the one I lived with behind my dad's) was driving for an Owner-Operator that had 10 trucks with US Freightways, Inc. out of Bolingbrook, IL.So now I am working for an almost all Bulgarian company but I am making GOOD MONEY, finally. Then the truck starts breaking down constantly. The owner won't pay to fix it right and I don't get paid while it is broke down.

Then I get a call from a brand new (startup) trucking company out of Atlanta, GA (where I am from) and after a few weeks of talking to the Owner he offers to make me a partner (25% of the company) after 6 months if I come help him get the company running. So off to Atlanta, GA I go.I am now working for OE Trucking, Inc. in Atlanta, GA and making descent money. Six months go by and he makes me a partner. What I didn't know at the time was that I would wind up doing all the damn work because he was a lazy procrastinating son-of-a-bitch. After two years with the company and losing almost everything I owned I shut down the company in October 2015.

I bought me an old ragged out 1983 RV and moved to Robertsdale, AL.Well shortly after I got to Alabama I ran out of money so back to driving I went. This time for Seminole Express out of Seminole, AL. They were a great company, but I couldn't make any descent money because they only did short hauls and I was through the house several times a week, normally, and off most weekends. Then I get a call from an owner operator that had two trucks leased on to Diamond Transportation out of Racine, WI.

He tells me about the hole he is in and the hell his last 4 drivers have put him through then offers me 30% of the load to come to work for him. So I quit Seminole Express.That was 6 weeks ago this past Saturday. I was supposed to be in the truck with him the next day on the way to Racine, WI for orientation. But when we got over to Louisiana to pick up the truck where the previous driver had left it, it was destroyed inside and out. So a week in the shop there, while we staid in a motel, and we finally head towards home with the truck. We make it to Baton Rouge and the truck breaks down.

So another week in the shop there, this time though we come home and I drive my pickup to Wisconsin and go through orientation, then drive back to Alabama. We finally get the truck and I go get my first load, the Friday before the 4th of July. I wound up spending a week on a military load because of the holiday. But oh well, then I get a short load from South Carolina to Mississippi and immediately a reload from Livingston, AL to Fort Riley, KS....I am hauling ass to KS trying to get this military load off on a Friday so I won't be stuck under it for the weekend when BAM a tired explodes on me in Sikeston, MO and takes out the entire right side of the semi.

It ripped off the fuel tank, busted my air lines, it even ripped the suspension out from under the rear of the truck. That was 12 days ago and I am still sitting here in Sikeston, MO waiting for the truck to be finished and ready to go.As of July 19th I haven't broken down again, but I haven't made any money either. In two months working for this guy I have been paid less than $1,000 USD.If it wasn't for the wonderful world of Steemit I would have starved and or lost what little I have left in this world. So Thank You fellow STEEMIANS for giving me a new lease on life. I hope you enjoy this, life story, of mine.

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Feel free to follow me:
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