Uncaged Read Online Free PDF Page B

mom visited me once, when I was first in juvenile hall in Redding, I guess to say good-bye or make sure I was OK. But I never saw Joe or my brother or sisters. After I was sent to the first group home, I never saw my mother. They were doing their thing. I wasn’t part of that anymore.
    That was hard for me. I always loved my mom and now I really missed her, and I missed my brother and sisters. But I didn’t want to go home. If I had been given the choice of moving back with my family and Joe or staying at the facility on Red Bluff, or going to a group home, or staying at the juvenile hall in Redding, I would have chosen
anything
except moving back home. I never wanted to go there again.
    I was happy in the Red Bluff facility. I really enjoyed learning, reading, going to school, and hanging out with people my own age. But soon my term was up. I had to go back into the system, back toRedding. I started being interviewed again to be placed in a home. Now, though, where I could go was classified differently. It wasn’t just moms and dads looking for a few boys. Now it was camps and ranches, higher-security places, people who were in the business of running group homes.
    I had a few interviews, but nothing happened for a while. I stayed at the juvenile hall in Redding. Then one day a guy came in and I was sent to interview with him. He had a boys’ home outside of Susanville, California. His name was Bob Shamrock.
    This guy was incredible! I had never met anyone like him. He wore a bright, flowery shirt and rings—tons of rings. He was very polite, very gentle. He smiled and shook my hand, and then he asked questions and actually listened to the answers. He seemed to have strong opinions about things, and he was very passionate about the work he was doing. He gave me a big spiel about his ranch. He made it sound like summer camp, like the Hardy Boys.
    So I made my usual pitch, too. I told him about how I had been having a hard time, but I wanted to do better. I had made mistakes, but I now was—he just cut me off. He said, “That’s all fine, but I don’t want to hear any bullshit. This is about doing things differently. This is a home where you can change, where you can build yourself up and live differently.”
    It was a fatherly pep talk. He called me on my bullshit, but he wasn’t angry. He was just telling me how it was.
    I liked him instantly. I wanted to go with him. I would have done anything to get into his ranch. But I felt sure he wouldn’t take me. I had screwed up too much. When he left, I just knew I’d never see him again.
    But two weeks later, one of the counselors took me aside and said I had been assigned to Shamrock Boys Ranch.

3
SHAMROCK BOYS RANCH
    Bob Shamrock came and got me a couple of days later, and he drove me from Redding to Susanville. He was dressed up nicely and he had a big Cadillac, one of several: he had a ’56 and a ’57 and a ’62, all of those beautiful and shiny Cadillacs from the grand sweeping years, with the big fins.
    The house was a huge compound, out in the country a few miles from Susanville. There was one main building and lots of little outbuildings surrounded by fields and trees. Across the street was a golf course.
    Bob lived in the house with his staff and about twenty boys of all ages and sizes and backgrounds. The staffers were all men, helpful young guys, former military or group-home kids who had graduated from the youth system. The boys slept two or four to a room all over the compound. For meals we got together in one giant dining room. Places were laid at the table and we had pewter goblets. Bob would preside over these massive meals, huge productions put on by an old woman we called Granny. She lived in town with her husband, T-Bone, and she loved Bob and she loved the kids. She was very sweet, and I saw right away that everyone treated her withrespect. No one ever talked back to her. It was forbidden. She would