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with a Christian Scientist family. They had a big white house in a small town in a rural area somewhere outside of Redding. The house was on two or three acres, and one of the acres was all lawn. I remember a black dog playing on the lawn. There were five or six kids in the group home, plus the mom and pop who were in charge of it. The kids were all boys of varying ages and backgrounds. The parents were loving and kind. The man was very strong in his faith. I was interested in what he believed and I loved to read, so he gave me some books. Before, all I had known was the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Now I started consuming information about Christian Science. The man and I connected over that. I was studious and took it seriously, and we had long talks.
    My information about the Jehovah’s Witnesses was a little spotty. I knew that we didn’t have holidays and we didn’t celebrate birthdays. The deal was we were chosen to work for God, and we were lucky to be chosen, because the world was going to end—any day now, the world was going to explode in a terrible fireball. Then Jesus would rise and we would all be in paradise. After that, we would live together and the animals would talk to us.
    I don’t think this is exactly what Jehovah’s Witnesses believe, but I didn’t know much else about it at the time. I heard someone say we were just “jack J-dubs,” which probably meant we were Jehovah’s Witnesses in name only. But I remember thinking, as I got older, that some of it didn’t make sense. I remember wondering, “If we are all together living with the animals in paradise, what will the animals eat? Will they stop eating each other? Will the lions stop killing other animals and start eating grass, like the cows?” But when I asked questions, I was told to be quiet. At this home, though, there was a man who believed something different, and he was happy to talk to me about it.
    But it didn’t get me to straighten out. I had a regular life with these nice people and these other kids. We went to school. We had activities. We were well fed. We were loved. But I kept getting into trouble. I got into a fight on the football field with a kid who tried to bully me, and there was zero tolerance for violence at this place. The dad at the home went to bat for me. He said he would smooth it all over, but I’d have to mow the lawn—the whole lawn, the whole
acre
of lawn. I did that, and everything was forgiven.
    One of the activities at this home was boxing. Thursday night was boxing night. The boys would put on the gloves and everyone would box. Most of us were just goofing around, but there was one kid who really knew what he was doing. One Thursday night, he kicked my ass. He hit me really hard and gave me a bloody nose. It hurt, but more than that it was embarrassing. I was so humiliated.He made me cry! It was the first time it had ever happened, that I was embarrassed by an ass-kicking. It made a huge impression on me. Maybe it made too big of an impression, because soon after that I did something else stupid at school. I don’t remember what it was, but it must have been pretty serious. Suddenly, after I had been there for three or four months, I got sent back to juvenile hall.
    I saw all my old friends. I was with the kindly counselors again. I stayed a month or so. I was happy to be back. But I got a reevaluation. The thing that got me sent back must have been serious, because my security level went up a notch. When I was sent to another home, it was a higher-security one.
    These people were also Christians, but they were more mainstream—not Jehovah’s Witnesses, not Christian Scientists. They were a husband and wife, with a young baby girl, in a different rural area. They were very kind and sweet, and when they took us to church it was full of other people who were kind and sweet, too. We were surrounded by kindness.
    The house had a fence around it. The