A Man Named Dave Read Online Free PDF Page B

more my tension disappeared, the more I began to think of how far I had come.
    As a child surviving in the garage of Mother’s house, I had never dreamed of making it out alive. Somehow, I had known Mother was close to killing me, and yet I did not care. I had given up all hope. Yet on March 5, 1973, the day after Mother had thrown me down the garage stairs, my teachers called the police, who immediately placed me into protective custody. I was free. As elated as I was, I sensed that my freedom was a hollow victory. At the county’s court proceedings, I felt that Mother had given me away. I felt as if I was not good enough for her. When my angel of mercy – my social worker, Ms Gold – informed me that I was never to have any contact with Mother or her children ever again, I was crushed.
    It was then that I became obsessed with finding answers to my past. Even though I was still terrified of Mother, who wanted nothing to do with me, I still struggled to prove that I was worthy of her love and worthy enough to be a member of her family.
    As a foster child, I soon learned that I knew absolutely nothing about living in the real world. My former life as Mother’s prisoner had been dominated by elemental needs of survival. But after my rescue I felt like a toddler – learning and growing by leaps and bounds. The simplest things taught to preschool children became major obstacles for me. Because I had spent years in the garage with my head bent backward in a POW position, I developed very bad posture. As a foster child, I had to learn to focus and walk upright. Whenever I became nervous, I stuttered or slurred every word. It would take me forever to complete one simple sentence. My foster mother, Mrs Turnbough, spent hours with me every day after school, teaching me phonics and helping me to imagine my words flowing from my mouth, like water cascading over a fall. Mrs Turnbough’s valiant efforts were perhaps her undoing. Within a few months, I was driving my foster parents up the wall with all I had to say. They had all they could do to shut me up. I wanted to show off my new form of communication to everyone, every minute. But my mouth soon became my Achilles’ heel. Because I was so skinny and awkward, I became easy prey for others, and my only form of defense was my mouth. Whenever I felt backed in a corner, words of intense anger and hatred seemed to erupt before I could analyze what I was saying or why.
    The only way I felt I could make friends was stealing for acceptance or doing whatever else I could to gain recognition. I knew that what I was doing was completely wrong, but after years of being an outcast and totally isolated, the need to fit in was too powerful to resist. My foster parents struggled to keep me on the straight and narrow, and teach me the seriousness of my decisions.
    On the lighter side, they were dismayed at my naivete and ignorance. The first few times I took a bath, I filled the tub to the rim before stepping into it, causing water to spill over the sides. I would then squeeze every drop I could from what I thought was “fancy-smelling bubble bath” into the tub, then stir the water like a whirlpool trying to form as much lather as possible. As much as my foster parents laughed at my water frolics, my foster sisters were not amused and hid their bottles of Vidal Sassoon in their bedrooms. Up until then I had never heard of the word shampoo.
    I thought that in order to survive, I had to work. Early on as a foster child, it was drummed into me that foster kids –labeled as “F-kids” – never amounted to anything, never graduated high school, let alone go on to college. I also discovered that by the time I turned eighteen years old, I would no longer be a ward of the court – a minor that was provided for by the county – and since I didn’t have parents to rely on, I would be all alone. The closer I came to reaching adulthood, the more I became terrified of being broke and homeless. Deep down I feared I