Chapter 1

The man sat on the beach, confused, sad, and disoriented - oblivious to the blistering humidity and heat of the FL summer and the sand accumulating in his running shoes. He had arrived along the quiet paths of Boca Raton’s A1A in an attempt to make sense of all of the thoughts, questions, and guilt that racked his mind during his fast paced and self beating ten mile run.

Many times before he had arrived here under the same circumstances, but this time was different. The confusion was greater, the resentment toward his parents new, and the longstanding will to always be better had left him. It was not the recent failure of another relationship that had gotten to him, he had many of those before, but instead it was the loss of hope in finally realizing his dream of building his own perfect family.

The sudden chill on the boy’s pruney feet had prompted him to quickly roll down his ill-fitted jeans, lace up his worn-out shoes, grab his bucket, and begin to descend from the caboose he had climbed atop to watch the sunset. For the past several hours the boy had been wading in the slow-running concrete canal just across a large area of perfectly groomed grass at Highline Elementary School.

As the boy crossed the street and entered the Park Place Apartment complex he and his father lived in, he began to feel a pit in his stomach and the dread of going home. For a moment, while walking up the stairs to his third floor one-bedroom apartment, he thought of going back out and spending some time at his favorite hiding spot, under a wooden pedestrian bridge that crossed the High Line Canal on the other side of the apartment complex. The boy had done this many times before, lighting a small fire to stay warm in the frigid CO night, but today he didn’t want to risk trouble.

After opening the door and setting his bucket down on the soiled carpet in a nearly empty living room, the boy caught a glance of his father staring at the door while sitting at the dining room table. The boy avoided eye contact, or even looking in that general direction, for he knew he was in big trouble. He had expected his father to still be passed out since he had consumed over twenty-four beers no less than five hours earlier.

“What’s in the bucket, boy? You fucking around in the canal again?”, the father asked in a raised voice. “Didn’t I warn you about leaving this house? Get your scrawny ass over here and sit down.”

The boy walked over, with his head down, and sat on a metal folding chair placed at the worn out card table that served as their dining area. It was then that he noticed a steak knife on the table, just within reach of his father’s right hand.

His father began his usual tongue-lashing, “You don’t give a shit if I get into trouble because you’re out wandering around by yourself, do you? Fuck, you couldn’t care less about me, period. Just like your mother! Well guess what boy? Your mother killed herself on account of you. You’re a piece of shit and she realized it when you were two. That’s why she left you with me, because she wanted to fuck with me for the rest of my life. And you know something else? I’m going to do it too, and it’s your fault again. You want to prance around the city, taking random buses to bum fucked Egypt, playing in that shitty canal, wandering around Stapleton, and who knows what the fuck else you do? Shit, boy, you want to live alone? I’ll show you what living alone is. I know what living alone is, I lived alone my whole childhood, punk!”

The boy’s father grabbed the knife, began to take deep, mean breaths while staring into the boy’s scared watery green eyes, and set the knife into his chest while simultaneously yelling at the boy, “This is your fucking fault!”

Immediately the boy’s instincts set in and he rushed out of the house into the darkness across the street to the park. The boy found himself again at the caboose, next to the cold steel wheels, confused about what he should do next. As the boy looked back over his shoulder his thoughts raced - “Should I go back and check on him? He might do the same to me, he’s threatened me before and beaten me to the point of unconsciousness. If I don’t check on him he will be even more mad at me.”

The boy reactively ran back across the street toward the apartment complex and over to Vivian’s apartment, a woman who often checked on the boy and offered him food as he passed her apartment each day.

Vivian came to the door to find the boy fidgety and looking over his shoulder. “Can I please come in, it’s an emergency?”, the boy asked. “Yes of course, baby! Come in, what’s wrong?”, Vivian replied.

“My dad stabbed himself in the chest and I don’t know what to do.”

Vivian sat shocked for a moment before replying, “Baby, I’m sorry you had to see that. Listen, the phone is right over there, if you want to dial 911 you can go right on ahead, but you also have to understand that you don’t have to and it’s perfectly ok if you don’t.”

The boy’s mind found comfort in Vivian’s wise suggestion and shocking form of compassion, but the fear of his father coming down hard upon him forced his hand – he dialed 911. “Yes, hello, I’d like to report a stabbing at Park Place Apartments, apartment 307.” The boy said no more and immediately hung up the phone.

The boy began to shake uncontrollably and real panic started to set in. Instinctively the boy ran out of Vivian’s apartment and back across to the park. He settled into a spot where he could watch over his apartment and waited.

The boy immediately saw his father stumbling outside of the apartment building before falling down next to the garbage container. He could barely see his father’s face, but he could see that he was holding his chest.

Not too soon thereafter, the police began to arrive in masses and the boy became more and more scared. He wondered if the police would make him in trouble, if his father would live, and where he would end up.

“We found the murder weapon, “ the boy heard one of the police yell as he came out of the apartment building. This made the boy even more uneasy so he ran further away, but still within a good enough distance to watch the scene.

All of a sudden the boy could hear the loud thump of a helicopter approaching the open space across the street at the elementary school. It was a flight for life medical helicopter, a familiar sight as the boy used to watch them come and go from a hospital he and his father once lived next to.

Afraid that the lights of the helicopter would give away his position, the boy headed to his favorite hiding spot, the pedestrian bridge. There he sat with his knees to his chin, shaking and scared, waiting for it all to end.

The boy awoke to the sound of kids walking over the bridge on their way to the bus stop. He immediately recalled everything and ran toward the apartment complex where he found a scene outside that looked as if nothing happened, just as if he had dreamed it all up.

As he entered his apartment, he found a few things tossed around, but it didn’t look much different than any other day. He cautiously looked in the bathroom and the bedroom, making sure his father wasn’t around before settling down on the beaten up mattress that lay without a frame or box spring in the corner of an otherwise empty room.

For the next several days the boy lived life as usual, going to school, playing in the park, and taking care of his fish tank.

When Saturday arrived the boy set out to the canal, looking for bigger crawfish to add to his tank and minnows to feed those he already had. While looking under a small waterfall he heard an old but familiar voice, “Scott? Is that you? Come up here Scott, we’re here to take you home to Boulder. Hurry up now, your brother is waiting there for you. We’ve been searching for you for two hours.”

Chapter 2

The sound of two older women walking past, cackling about their grandchildren, brought the man back to the present. As he watched the women walk along the edge of the incoming tide, he began to wonder why it was natural for him to give so much of himself to everyone that didn’t deserve it. Why did he choose people who would prey upon him, take advantage of his kindness, drain him emotionally and become shocked when he left them on account of it?

As he laid himself flat on the hot sand, he began to worry that nothing would change, including himself.

The sun had just begun setting behind the Rockies and daylight started becoming scarce when Scott, dirty and worn out from a day of searching for critters in Rotella Park, finally caught a small tree frog. Scott was unusually proud of his find as two days earlier his one and only full sibling, Sean, had come to live with the family - joining him, their older stepbrother, and four other younger half siblings.

“Look at this Sean!,” said Scott, excitedly showing his older brother who had been somberly trailing behind him all day. “Look at how little it is!”

Passing Sean, who was quietly watching Scott carefully hold the frog, Wilfred, the older stepbrother who was five years older, smacked Scott in the back of the head and told him, “Go upstairs, stupid, before the rapist comes and ass rapes you like he did to Sandra in apartment 102 the other night.” Scott didn’t pay much attention to the warning hidden in the vulgar remark, but instead carefully stood up to let go of the frog near where he found it. Wilfred, seeing the frog, smacked it out of Scott’s hand and stomped it before heading off.

Sean, shocked, began to whimper, which took Scott’s attention away from the flattened frog. Scott attempted to comfort Sean as he began leading them home, telling him, “Don’t worry the frog is in heaven now, he would have probably been eaten by a snake anyway.” But it wasn’t the killing of the frog that Sean was crying over. “I want to go back to Grandma and Grandpa and I want you to come with me,” he wept. “Grandma says we have to be together because we’re brothers, but I don’t like it here.”

Scott was taken aback by the thought of living with his grandparents and started becoming sad, as this is what he always privately wished for, but knew would never happen. “Everything will be ok Sean, we’re going to have fun at school even if life at home sucks,” he said as they passed through the hole in the fence that separated the park from their apartment complex.

As the boys entered their apartment, which reeked of dirty diapers, beer, and flatulence, they saw the rest of the siblings already eating at the table. Noticing that the pot of macaroni and cheese with hot dogs sitting on the dinner table was near empty, the boys hurried over to the to get their share. However, as Scott rushed over, his father, seated on the couch in the living room with two new drinking buddies from the neighborhood, called out, “Come here, I want to show these guys how tough you are.”

Scott walked over and stood next to the stereo, which was playing Prince’s Purple Rain record, and noticed that the men were eating sausage and pepperoni pizza from Little Ceasers, one of his favorites. The father stood up, walked around the glass coffee table filled with dozens of empty cans of Milwaukee’s Best, and stood behind Scott. “Watch this little fucker, he’s tough as nails!” said the shirtless father as he picked Scott up by his hair, holding him up two feet in the air while the drunken men laughed. “Tough as shit, I told you,” his father said as he set the six year old boy back down.

Scott quickly turned away, trying not to let anyone see that his eyes were watering or to show any sign that his head was hurting. “That other one he just walked in with is his full brother that just came to live with us, I don’t have full custody of him yet because I’m fighting with his rich grandparents who want to keep him because they think I’m an asshole,” said the father to his new friends, who were taking hits from a bong. “Their bitch mother left the older one with her adoptive parents, dropped this one off with me, and then went off and committed suicide. The little one had chicken pox too, he was puking all over the house. Debbie was pissed and giving me shit about getting rid of him. Right, Deb?” the father said, calling out to his wife who was nowhere to be seen.

Remembering that the grandparents had been trying to reach Sean all day, the father called out to him, “call your grandparents before they cause trouble, use the phone in my bedroom.” Then, looking over at Scott, the father said to his friends, “they never bother me about that one though, I think it’s because he looks like his mother and Sean looks like me. Boy, go get us three more beers and then come back and have a slice of pizza.”

Scott retrieved the beers from the kitchen, grabbed a slice of the lukewarm pizza, and sat on the soiled floor next to one of the stereo speakers jamming out Darling Nikki. One of his half-siblings, wearing only a sagging diaper, crawled over next to him and began trying to grab for the pizza. Scott, annoyed and trying to fend off the toddler, heard a warning from his father, “boy don’t you hurt her or I’ll fuck you up!” So Scott stood while he ate his pizza, avoiding any acknowledgement of the toddler.

It was then, as Sean had come back to relay a message from his grandparents that they would be coming to visit in the morning, when the father noticed a small roundish turd had fallen out of the toddler’s diaper. “Sure Sean, you can see them tomorrow, go sit over there with your brother.”

Not missing an opportunity to humor and impress his friends, he caught their attention, “watch this guys.” The father then called out to Scott, “you dropped a piece of sausage from your pizza there on the floor, pick it up and eat it. Don’t waste food.” Scott reached down, grabbed the turd, and set it on his plate, avoiding having to eat something that had fallen on the floor. However, his father warned him, “boy, you better do what I told you!” So, Scott put the turd in his mouth, took one bite and then realized what it was. Everyone in the room was dying of laughter while Scott started vomiting into his plate and Sean sat traumatized at the scene unfolding in front of him.

“Go wash your mouth out in the bathroom, dumbass,” the father told Scott. Sean followed Scott to the bathroom where he helped wash his brother’s face.

Instead of going back out to the living room, the boys went to their bedroom, where they shared the bottom half of a bunk bed.

“I want to go live with Grandma and Grandpa, I hate it here. No one likes me and none of them want me here,” Scott told Sean. “The night before you came I got into trouble because Debbie said I lied about something so dad made me stand up while all of the kids got a free shot to punch me in the stomach. Wilfred went last and he hurt me badly, I cried myself to sleep and woke up with a hurt stomach.” Scott looked over to Sean through his teary eyes, but Sean had no comforting words to give him, so they both lay in silence until they fell to sleep.

The next morning the boys’ grandparents picked Sean up bright and early, leaving Scott behind. Scott was very upset about it and sat in his room sulking for two hours before he heard a knock on the door.

Scott ran out to see who it was. It was his grandfather, by himself, asking for Scott’s father. The father stepped out of the apartment and shut the door. Scott stared at the door, waiting for Sean to come back, but instead after two minutes he heard his father raising his voice, “Fuck you Jerry, you can’t do this, it was a joke and he wasn’t the one who ate the shit! Please don’t take Sean!”

The man was brought out of his daydream by a leg spasm that was sending a horrible pain up his body. In his pain, he caught his bearings again – yes, he was safe on the private beach he had spent his life getting to, a place he knew he didn’t truly belong.

Soothing his left leg with his hands, he looked to his left and watched a boy playing with a kite. He wondered if the boy would rather be inside of his mother or if he’d rather be where he was right now, playing with his fickle kite. The man, caustic in thought of this privileged boy, began to think about his daughters — his oldest was eight and his youngest was six. Would they continue the legacy of his shitty family? Would it be better if he stayed away from them so he wouldn’t smother them into a bad life? Would they become him?

The man could no longer look at the boy so he focused on his feet fumbling in the sand. He felt sick, but quiet, his bones were ready to sink into the sand forever. This spot seemed like a great place to lie down to rest forever, but the mess he’d leave behind kept him awake. He looked to the right of him, down the million dollar beachside, and saw a man kite surfing. He watched the kite surfer for a bit, as the kite surfer dangerously reached high speeds and hit large waves. The man sat wondering if the kite surfer was also trying to find something, something to hold on to. He wondered if the kite surfer was losing time, if he felt wasted and unwanted.

As the man brought himself off his elbows that had perched him upon the sand, he saw a woman in front of him, she was knee deep in the water picking up shells and inspecting them, looking for something. The man recognized her, they had spoken before at a bar in Mizner Park. He had walked away from her after she had initiated conversation because he was unsure of himself and feeling as if he’d smother her. He wanted her then and now, but he knew that they weren’t right, he’d suffocate her.

“I’m the fastest kid in the school, “Scott said emphatically to himself as he ran down Nueva Vista Dr, a straight and quiet road that connected his home to his school, Coronado Hills Elementary. Running home from school – or vice versa for that matter - wasn’t something of a celebration, but instead something Scott did everyday. He had a neat little route that crossed into one of the neighbor’s yard, which had a wonderful bunch of trees that Scott could run through pretending he was running through a forest.

As Scott approached his house he slowed down abruptly as he saw something strange in front of his house, there were several men carrying all of the belongings out to the curb and it appeared that nearly everything was already out. Shocked and approaching slowly, Scott spotted his father being held back by two Adams County Sherriff deputies while yelling at a man Scott recognized as the land lord of the duplex. “You’re lucky these pigs are here Jeff. I’d beat the shit out of you. You just wait until I see you again, motherfucker, I’m going to rip you a new ass!”

Scott looked over at Jeff, who was standing under the awning of the door that led to their side of the duplex, his face was blank and Scott could tell he was scared, after all, his father was 5’ 11” and 200 pounds of muscle.

“Mr. Silva, please, just step over to the sidewalk or leave. If you don’t, were going to have to arrest you for trespassing. This is your last warning,” said one of the deputies.

“I told you I needed two more weeks. You just wait, you piece of shit, I’m going to fuck you up!”

Steve, fuming, began to walk toward the sidewalk where he noticed Scott. “Look at this you piece of shit! My fucking son has to see this! Look at what you’re doing to us!”

Scott and his father walked to the apartment complex directly across the street where several people had come out to see what was going on. Scott, feeling embarrassed, took a seat on the curb while his father paced back and forth on the sidewalk while intermittently yelling vulgar remarks at Jeff. Scott looked up at the mound of belongings, wondering if he would be able to retrieve any of his things, mostly a set of Nancy Drew books he found in a garbage can and had just begun reading.

Steve, growing more and more angry, looked over to Scott and said, “let’s go, I’m done watching this bullshit.”

They walked down the hill, through the apartment complex, and toward Rotella Park. As they made it to the small bridge that passed over one of Scott’s favorite play spots, the creek, he started feeling a pit in his stomach and an overwhelming fear that his father was going to take all of this out on him.

Then, as they walked up to Rotella Park Apartments Scott still didn’t know where they were going, but he started wishing that Bernadette, Steve’s ex-girlfriend, was home so that they could go see her. Bernadette was very sweet to Scott and a terrific mother of twin girls that were a few years younger than Scott, but Scott knew he wouldn’t be seeing her for a while since she was serving a year in jail for having several DUIs. As they continued through the apartment complex Scott began to remember one of Bernadette’s caring moments. Scott had made up a story that he had won tickets to see Barnum & Bailey’s circus from a radio station’s call-in program. While it was just a simple fib to impress his friends, Scott didn’t realize that his teacher had heard and subsequently told the assistant principle who then made mention of Scott’s luck in the school’s monthly newsletter. Upon seeing this, Steve got very angry and beat Scott in the bathroom at Bernadette’s house. As Scott left the bathroom whimpering and in pain, he caught a glimpse of Bernadette sitting in her living room chair, head down and crying. That night Bernadette called her mother, asked her to buy tickets to the circus, and then immediately told Scott he was going.

“Jerry, I appreciate you doing this for us. You sure you put it under my name? Great, we’re two blocks away and will be heading over there now.”

Scott and Steve were at a payphone just outside of Waffle House, but upon hanging up the phone they headed over the bridge of Interstate 25 and into a hotel where they were met by a courteous woman.

“How

“I just spoke to him, he said it was under my name. Just call him and ask!”

Scott was staring at the small refrigerator in the lobby that offered snacks for sale, particularly eyeing the packaged cheese while making sure that his father didn’t catch his eye because he didn’t want to be scorned.

“You have to be fucking kidding me! Give me the phone, I just spoke to him fifteen minutes ago at a pay phone down the street and he confirmed this was taken care of!”

“Hi there! Would you like an apple or a water?” said the concierge to Scott after noticing the commotion. “No, thank you,” said Scott, not wanting to upset his father by accepting something without his permission.

“Hi Jerry, listen, the staff here at the hotel aren’t letting us in, can you please speak to them and sort this out?”

The woman at the front desk spoke on the phone patiently for a few moments and settled things.

“Ok, sir, we’re sorry for the trouble, but here’s your key. Your room is 201. Please have a nice stay with us.”

“Fucking idiots, you have no idea the day I’ve been through! Let’s go you little shit.”

Scott and his father settled into their room, a small unit with a TV, queen bed, small table with two chairs, and a bathroom.

“Turn the TV on and watch something, I have to make a call.”

Scott turned the TV on and began watching Cheers while sitting on the edge of the bed. His father was rapidly dialing the phone on the table trying to reach his estranged wife whom he hadn’t spoken within weeks. He was fuming with anger because just hours earlier he and Scott had been forcefully evicted from the duplex.

“FUCKING BITCH! YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH! WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY GOD DAMN KIDS!!!!!” said Scott’s father as he punched the wall next to the table. That was the message he had just left on Barbra – Scott’s step mother’s sister’s - answering machine.

Scott ignored his father and continued watching Cheers, particularly enamored by the character ‘Diane’ who resembled Karen who was Steve’s best friend’s girlfriend. Scott had seen her the day before at Tony Roma’s and she promised to play Sorry, the board game, with him the next time they were together. Scott liked Karen a lot, she had paid a lot of attention to him every time they met. She was a school teacher and had taken a certain liking to him.

Taxi had just come on and Scott was getting more and more tired, he kept taking peaks back at his father to see if he could sleep yet, but his father was still yelling into the phone. Scott, feeling incredibly tired, slouched down and tried to wiggle his way to sleep on the edge of the floor while still watching Taxi.

“No, fuck you, I’m not opening the door. You can come in here and kill me, I have nothing to live for anymore, that bitch took my kids and I haven’t seen them for a month.”

Scott heard this and perked up a bit because he missed his siblings and had wondered what happened to them.

“No. No. NO! He’s not going to go out there without me, he’s staying in the room. I won’t hurt him.”

Scott looked over at the window as lights started flashing into the sides of it. His father was on the other side of the room pacing around while speaking on the phone.

“Thornton Police! Get down! GET THE FUCK DOWN!”

Scott was immediately grabbed and pulled out of the hotel room before he could turn his head to see what was happening.

“Don’t you fucking move, Steve!” was the last thing Scott heard as he was rushed out of the room and down the stairs into the lobby of the hotel by a masked man.