In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with and transcribing, then editing, the interviews, creating a kind of memoir but in other people’s words. You can read earlier oral histories here. …more

In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with and transcribing the interviews, creating a kind of memoir but in other people’s words.

***

Mato — Actor

I went to a Catholic school. I was a shy kid and got beat up by girls. I would express myself through drawings; that’s how I made friends. So when I transferred to the public school in fifth grade I had this chip on my shoulder.

You were the biggest kid in class. On the first day of school we were writing notes about all this violent shit we were going to do to each other. Mrs. Scott found the notes and kind of talked it over with us. We ended up becoming really good friends. The other kids knew not to mess with us, because we would fight. …more

“Why are you doing these interviews?”

Wendi – Writer

We first met at a party at Lauren’s house. Pat brought you. I think you were in sixth grade, I was in seventh, he was in eighth. You were looking around the room, like your head was spinning, trying to take it all in, and there really wasn’t much to take in, just bowls of potato chips, nothing on TV. Pat said you were a good guy and if he vouched for someone that was fine. Because when Pat said someone wasn’t a good guy, that guy would walk off with my purse.

I tried to talk to you and you looked at me and said, “Why are we here? There’s so many better places to be right now.”

Pat was like, “Yeah, we could go get high somewhere.” I don’t really remember much of that particular night.

The next time I ran into you was at Pat’s. He was with Nicko and you and Nicko didn’t seem to get along. Nicko was acting like the pompous jerk he was and you were digging through this milk-crate full of books. You pulled something out and I said, “Oh yeah, that’s good.” You were like, “You read this?” We started talking about books and then you left. I said to Pat, “You have a smart friend?” He said, “One or two.” He told me you wrote poetry and I was impressed by that. He said I should hang out with you more. Pat said, “You’ve got a fucked up life and he’s got a fucked up life. You guys are the gold standard of fucked up lives.”

I started heroin really young. Because of my youth I didn’t have the big obvious tracks. I would use my knees and legs. Nicko was the one who caught me. I was in Brian’s room and Nicko came in and went running for Pat. Pat came and stood there and watched. He didn’t say a word. I finished, untied my arm, put everything away. He turned and walked out and the next time I saw him it was like nothing had ever happened. But all of a sudden everybody knew about it, which I think came from Nicko.

I heard stories about things you did. About you slitting your wrists. When your dad shaved your head everyone was talking about it. That was horrible. All the people we hung out with had long hair and getting your head shaved seemed like a way to cut you out of every group. Everyone was so proud of their hair. Fat Mike used to shoplift conditioner on a regular basis. Who shoplifts conditioner? Every guy got to hide behind his hair. You had to wear your troubles on the outside and that bothered me.

I was always hearing that you had killed yourself, then we had to call around to find out if it was true. I was fifteen and Iggy was living with me. He came home crying hysterically. He said, “Steve’s dead. He set himself on fire.” I called Brian and asked about you. “Steve’s in Pat’s room. You want to talk to him?” I told Iggy you were fine. But people were waiting for it.

Once my heroin use became known I was running on the death pool right along with you.

I took a lot of shit because of you. You didn’t have a place to stay and Iggy said I should let you stay at my house because I had the “cool” mom. But my mom was running a crack house and I didn’t want to take a chance, if the police came, of you getting caught.

I don’t think my mom called it a crack house. She said, “There were all kinds of drugs there.” It was a one bedroom on Sheridan and Thorndale.

None of us knew how to handle anything. No one could handle the stuff with me and the kiddie porn. No one could handle the stuff with you. We all ignored what happened to Brian and what was happening to Pat. It was so over all our heads, we just had no idea. Everybody wanted to come over to my house because there were all these drugs lying around. Iggy was there, Albert was there, Joe was there. I wouldn’t let Aaron and Kenwood over because they robbed housees. Tim slept with my mother, which was kind of strange. She would tell me about his curved penis. It used to drive me crazy that my friends would come over and get high with my mom. So I stopped being there. I stayed out as much as I could, spent my time in Albert’s garage, the kelly house, the laundromat.

My drug of choice was heroin and there wasn’t any heroin at my house so there wasn’t really any reason to stay there.

You were noticed. People would talk about you. People were interested. You were the walking freak show who was going to kill himself or this really smart guy who was throwing everything away. If you weren’t around people were upset and worried. They would look for you. It was one hell of a support system. You had people who cared about you but nobody knew how to show it. Also, people thought you were going to hurt them. Not in a violent way, but that you would say something. They were afraid you were going to insult them. You were great at that.

One night we were in the laundromat. I was the most desired female in the laundromat because my hands were small enough to reach inside the machines and pull things out. Brian was asleep on a bunch of washers. Iggy and Fat Mike were doing God knows what. Lynn asked me if you liked women. I said, “You’re asking me if he’s gay, or too self-absorbed to like women?” I said I thought you liked women.

“Do you think he’d like me?”
“Has he said anything?”
“He scares me.” She said Brian would hate her dating you.

A week later we were all hanging out at Boone and you showed up and Lynn just gawked at you. I think she thought you could protect her. But you were living on top of Quick Stop, so I’m not exactly sure what you could have protected her from.

All the girls were looking for someone to take care of them and the guys were looking for the same thing. All Pat wanted was someone who wasn’t going to throw shit at his head every ten minutes. All Brian wanted was someone to mother him and have sex with him. A whole group of people that wanted people to take care of them, I don’t know how any of us got through it. All anybody thought of was getting high. We tried to cover for each other but we never tried to help each other. Instead of saying something nice to someone we would just hand them a bottle or a joint.

When I was 17 I was dating a guy and he was 24 or 25. He was an amazing drunk and pill head and his idol was GG Allin. We were at a Ramones show at the Aragon and someone walked past wearing a Charles Manson jacket. I loved the jacket because I have a serial killer obsession and I walked over and said so. It was GG. He took off the jacket and let me wear it.

GG would just come in and out of my life. He’d send me articles on Joey Ramone, or things he thought I would like. I still have all these trinkets sitting in a box that GG sent me. When GG died in his video tape will he left me the Manson jacket. His brother tried to give it to me. I was like, “Bury him in it.”

I stopped doing heroin 11 years ago because I woke up and looked in the mirror and hated the way I looked. I had just split my first marriage. It took about a month and a half to kick the heroin. Worst time of my entire life. Then I started doing what I was comfortable with, which was writing and all that crap. And somehow it all worked out. I’m concentrating on writing. I had something in Cosmo but it was under a fake name.

My mom and I talk almost every day. We talk about the crack house. She thinks it’s all so funny, part of a great rich past. My dad is dead and I’m happy about it.

My husband and I have been together about seven years. I met him through work. Everybody was like, “Oh my God, he’s such a bad guy!” He was a drunk and I was psychotic and I got on Zoloft and he cut down on the alcohol and we haven’t had a fight in a long time. We haven’t had sex in a long time either.

I don’t freak out anymore. There used to be a whole bunch of violence. I whipped a phone through the third floor window, then I put my arm through it. Finally they just replaced it with plexiglass.

I have a very large pentagram tattooed on my back and I have a couple of God fearing friends who say the Lukemia is because of the whole devil thing. I became a Satanist because God didn’t help me. Satanism is run on the basic tenet that you are your own god.

I haven’t talked about a lot of this stuff in twenty years. My husband doesn’t know three quarters of this stuff. I remember people saying, “I don’t want to remember.” When you spend your life like most of us did the last thing you want is for someone to remind you what it’s like. Part of me feels the same weird responsibility I felt back then which is, ‘don’t tell.’ Everybody was hiding something. Hiding from the cops or robbing houses. Not one of us was doing anything particularly legal. We all had to keep secrets. Nobody cares anymore.

I had to deal with your book, A Life Without Consequences. Normally I would read it in a night, but it took me five days. You never came off to me as mean. You were always polite. You were smart and you used big words. But sometimes you would get these sad clouds. Lynn used to call it the Charlie Brown. All of a sudden you were sad about something. I would see Lynn and she would say, “Steve was so sad today.” I saw it a few times. It never seemed permanent. You wanted to do stuff. You wanted to learn stuff. You seemed like you were in a rush, a rush to get past everything and get to where you are now.

**

photo of Bryn Mawr and Ashland from Chicago Milexmile

Read the rest of the interviews here.

I put myself in the group home. I was in the therapist office with my mom and I said, “I give up. I’m not going to try anymore,” meaning getting along with my mom, and he suggested the group home. To me it was a terrific idea. …more

Jenni – Patient Account Representative

I treat people the way I’m treated, with the same respect. I’m not worried about your feelings. …more

In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with and transcribing the interviews, creating a kind of memoir but in other people’s words. This is the ninth interview, you can read the interviews with Roger, John, Dan, Pat,  Aaron, Fat Mike, and Mr. Miller.

Joe – Business Owner

I believe I was one of your first friends at Boone. I think it was right when you get there in third grade. I remember you had this pissing match with my older brother about who knew more long division. That’s my first memory of you, the new kid in third grade with the funny accent.

Then I remember meeting your mother and father. Your mom was walking at the time. She wasn’t always in a wheel chair. After that you mostly came to my house or were by the school. But the next time I saw your mom she had deteriorated. I think I just blocked it all out. As a fourth grader I couldn’t process that.

I started getting into trouble early because my mother and stepfather were drug dealers. They decided not to hide it from me and my brother because we would eventually find out and being a liar is worse than being a druggy. I started dealing in seventh grade. I was stealing it from my stepfather. My father was not in the picture then. He was having a hard time finding work.

We generally went back to my place. You, and me, and Aaron, and whoever wanted to come because my parents were never home. I wasn’t really selling it so much as I was smoking everybody up. I mean, in seventh grade who had money? That one black kid, Brian Brammar, came back and stole my stepfather’s marijuana.

Kevin came into the picture around seventh grade. Kevin had a difficult childhood that he never shared with me. We had that gang. I forget what we were called. We used to breakdance. Kevin was a true friend but I burned my bridges with Kevin. I wish I could take that back.

In grammar school you were popular because you were interesting and you were different. I think most people don’t see themselves for who or what they are. You didn’t see yourself as popular. You had a lot of older friends from the high school and they would be waiting for you when school got out.

Eighth grade came around and you were basically on the run and the cops were looking for you. This was around the time we started breaking into parking meters. We were over by Freedy’s and the cops were looking for you and I ran with you. By chance I had a pocketful of nickels. They were looking for you and they were looking for kids breaking into meters. You said, “Stall them so I can get out of here.” They found all these nickels in my pocket and I was like, “Look, these are from home. The meters don’t take nickels.” They asked about you and I was like, “Yeah, I know him. You just missed him.”

You would pretty much do anything at that time. You were doing much stronger drugs, like tic (Ketamine) and wicked stick (PCP). In a sense you had nothing to lose. I remember the stories of you being locked in the basement, chained to a pipe or something. In hindsight it makes you feel like no matter how many friends you have or who you know ultimately you’re alone and you die alone. Even though I knew you and I loved you I couldn’t do anything for you.

Aaron, Sergio, and me robbed my landlord because they had a basement apartment and they didn’t lock it. We went down there and grabbed all this stuff. Aaron decides to take the TV, goes upstairs to my house, puts the TV on the table, and goes to take a shit. I guess the adrenaline was too much for him and he couldn’t finish the job. My stepfather comes home and sees this TV. We stored all the stolen good at Sergio’s. Then the landlord tells my parents their place was robbed. My stepfather turns us in. The cops say give the stuff back and nothing’s going to happen. So I tell them where the stuff is and we go to Sergio’s. They didn’t press charges. Sergio’s still mad at me because as a fourteen year old I had the cops come to his house to get the stolen stuff.

Aaron got more serious into robbing houses. I didn’t go down that path. I wasn’t much of a thief; I didn’t like stealing.

In high school you weren’t at Mather; you were across the street at the DCFS school. You were in the foster system by then and I ended up meeting all your friends. I used to wish that I could be more like you. I brought some beers to one of the foster houses. We’re drinking, smoking cigarettes, all that good stuff, and one of the counselors came in. “Who’s beer is this?” they said. “Somebody better claim it right now.” I didn’t say anything. You stood up, grabbed the beers, and walked out. I was like, why couldn’t I have done that? I realized I had to stop being such a pussy.

You had severe acne problems and you seemed like you were uncomfortable in your own skin. Of course, growing up the way you did and then having those changes in your life and going into foster care you must have felt like, Why me? Everybody else is living a normal life.

We were partying with Tom and Mary and someone got us a ride to pick up your mother’s guitar. You were so happy. I said, “Why are you so happy about this piece of shit guitar?” You gave me a look like, “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

I lived an innocent childhood except for the drugs and robbing houses.

In high school I worked at Venture and dated my manager, Sandy Engle. I called her San Diego because she was so big. She was twenty-six and I was sixteen. She was my first. But I don’t want to go there. We’re talking about you.

I had my own mental issues. I turned sixteen in a psych ward. I was on anti-depressants at a young age and I thought they were bullshit. I took a whole bottle and almost died. I had to get my stomach pumped. I had something of a mini-stroke where I lost feeling on one side of my body.

I don’t know why it was so crazy for us. When you think about it, where we grew up wasn’t that rough. I lived about four of five blocks from school. We would all walk to school without parental guidance. Nowadays in that neighborhood you don’t let your kids walk to school without parental control. I don’t know why being in a decent neighborhood like we were things got so crazy, so out of control. We didn’t have proper guidance. I think you had a legitimate issue in your life with your mother. You had issues coping with your mother and so did your father. The only thing is your father was a grown adult and he should know better and put his child first. But he had to deal with his wife’s death the same as you had to deal with your mother’s death. I had good parents. Except for my mom and stepfather smoking weed in front of us. I think they were good people.

I got kicked out of Mather for drugs. I went to Truman Middle College where they had a program for kids that got kicked out of high school. I ended up getting my diploma. I wanted to join the army but failed the physical. They wouldn’t take me.

My father became a cop when he was forty and I moved in with him. We were smoking in front of the school when a police car pulls up to us. Everybody’s throwing away all the weed but it’s just my dad asking if I’m coming home for dinner.

When I was sixteen I was hanging out with Doots and all those scumbags. They turned me on to crack. I remember I was tripping on acid watching (Pink Floyd’s) The Wall when they came over. My father worked nights and they liked to come over where they could do their crack without having to get a hotel room. I took a big jumbo hit of crack, which I probably didn’t need because I was tripping on acid. Man, that just rocked my world. From that point every paycheck went toward crack.

I’ve gone to rehab four times. First when I was fifteen. And then a year later when I tried to kill myself. Then when I was twenty-two and again when I was twenty-six. Crack is definitely the hardest drug that I ever encountered. It always leaves you wanting more, never gives you satisfaction. I don’t know how I finally kicked it. I think I was just so busy with work. I finally found something to fill the void.

Our worlds took different paths. We were never enemies. I remember I saw you at Erick’s North, that club on McCormick. We just run up to each other and hug. It wasn’t a quick hug. We hug for a minute. We look like flaming homos. It really meant a lot to me that it was mutual. We were so happy to see each other because we had our youth together. Everybody thought we were queers.

In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with and transcribing the interviews, creating a kind of memoir but in other people’s words. What’s most interesting turns out not so much to be the things we remember differently as the things we remember the same. This is the seventh interview, you can read the interviews with Roger, John, Dan,  Aaron, Kevin Pat and Fat Mike.

Eugene Miller – History Teacher, Retired

I guess I knew about you when you first applied to take my A.P. class in 1989/90, and they talked to me about whether or not you should be in the class room. They asked if I would take another kid with a rough background, that kind of thing. I said sure, whatever; he might be tough but I’ve had tough kids before.

You came to class with your piercings and tattoos and you had a mustache and beard. Not the type of child I’m used to having in an A.P. class. Especially at Mather. The A.P. kids at Mather are parentally self-motivated. They know that it’s important to their parents and that’s why they do it. You dressed in jeans and t-shirts then. Same way you dress now. One time you told me you were having an affair outside of school. I think she was a married woman and you were going to her house. I don’t know if it was true. But I thought, Why is he telling me this? Do I really want to know? But you didn’t cut my class to do it. I don’t think you ever missed a day. You had a lot of making up to do. I remember you also took the European A.P. test, even though we didn’t offer the class.

A.P. is much more difficult, more rigorous than other classes. At Mather you have 25 in an A.P. class, but maybe five should really be there. The rest are honors, or not even that. I knew there would never be more than five actually passing the test for college credit. But I always felt like it didn’t matter because if you take my class you’re going to raise yourself. You’ll be more prepared, you’ll have writing skills you didn’t have before, and you’ll be more ready for college. That’s the way I always ran it.

The average Mather kid was basically a good kid, but academically low. Our standardized test scores were always below average. I always thought that was unfair because for so many of our kids English was their second language. I tell my students, for some of you history is not going to do anything for you, but it’s a class you have to pass to get on to that next stop. Most of you, when you graduate, you are just going to get a job. Most people in the world just get a job. Most jobs just ask you to be there, do what you have to do, and that’s it. They’re not asking you to make something new. They’re not asking you to be Superman. They’re just asking you to do a job. That’s what I’m asking you to do. Just do this job. I promise no matter what level you are, if you work with me, if you do the work, you’ll see the difference. I know you will.

In college I didn’t know what I wanted to be. My parents wanted me to be an accountant. I took bookkeeping and stuff and I thought, this isn’t me. So I took stock and thought, what do I like? I like people. The subject I like best is history. So I’ll go into education and be a history teacher. And that’s what I did. I liked history more and liked it even more after I graduated. The more you find out the more you need to find out. I went to college in the city to be with my high school sweetheart. Junior year we got engaged. And we got married and all that. And got divorced and all that. That’s another story.

I remember saying to you once, You know, Steve, you’re going to be graduating soon. You could go either way. You could do something really good or you’re going to be on the front page of the news or something else. I also told you once I thought you were very good looking, that you probably had lots of girlfriends. You were just amazed by that. It seemed you had never thought of yourself that way.

It never bothered me that you lived in a group home. That’s just another way of living. And my cousin worked at that group home’s school. You were a good kid in a group home. So what? You weren’t a bully or a fighter. But you were tough in the sense of getting through all this shit. I knew you had a drug problem but you were dealing with it and doing exceptionally well. You channelled all of that into your schooling. You knew you had to get out and you were doing what you needed to do to get there. You had failed your first two years of high school but you wanted to graduate on time. I don’t know what made you change but you decided, I’m going to do this. I sort of admired you for it.

I would think that your old friends would have seen some of the same things I did. Even more so because they saw you at your lowest. And I would think maybe some of them were even a little mad at you. Were upset at you for doing this because they couldn’t do it. And also because it would pull you away from them. And that would be a normal kind of thing, for them to be resentful toward you.

You’re always working on it. Not just you, everybody. Like I always say. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I look at myself in the mirror, the inside feels so much different than than the outside looks.

I had my drug years too. It makes me happy to see you going along, taking responsibility for yourself. Not being a ward of the state anymore. Try not to downward slide again. Because things get harder to turn around the older you get.

In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with and transcribing the interviews, creating a kind of memoir but in other people’s words. …more

I left home at thirteen and spent a year on the streets, more or less, and four years in group homes. Because of that my social network was significantly wider than average. In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with and transcribing the interviews, creating a kind of memoir but in other people’s words. What’s most interesting turns out not so much to be the things we remember differently as the things we remember the same. This is the sixth interview, you can read the interviews with Roger, John, Dan,  Aaron, and Kevin.

**

Pat – Bartender

If you think about it, the stories we have about each other are some of the most awful things. Why is that what we remember?

The first time we hung out is when we broke into that comic book store together. The window had already been kicked in and all you had to do was give a little push. I remember you going straight for the valuables. But I was a collector so I was going through and putting stuff back and only taking what I wanted. You had the mind of a thief.

I used to show up at your school. I had already finished grammar school and was just starting high school. You were in seventh grade. I didn’t think anything of that, you being younger than me. I would meet you in the morning and I would have weed and you would say, “I really got to go to school today.” It was straight out of a drug commercial- I’m the older kid ruining your life, you’re begging to go to school.

Nobody went to school. All we did was do drugs or find people with drugs who would do them with us, or steal money from parking meters and buy drugs. We were bored urban teenagers. It’s no wonder we were all socially maladjusted.

We went into the grocery on Devon to buy a gallon of vodka in one of those plastic bottles. They asked you for I.D. and you got all huffy insisting you were 35. I think you were 14, at the most. But you had that beard. We drank the whole bottle. How do four teenagers drink a gallon of vodka and not die?

It was around that time I was walking down Devon with my big radio blasting heavy metal and the Assyrian kids hit me with a golf club.

I could never figure out why we all were so hell-bent on squandering our potential. Despite the circumstances most of us came from, we were a bunch of really bright and talented kids. It just seemed like we were more interested in deliberately pissing away our collective futures. The desire to be some kind of streetwise city kid was too strong for some…y’know, Aaron and Kevin and the rest of the house burgling clique, but I know at least for me I feel like it did me some good. Hardened me in a way that has served me well in life.

We were at that girl’s house the first time we took LSD together. I busted out the landlord’s window at her request because the landlord was giving her family problems.

A lot of us didn’t have relationships with our father. I stole my father’s weed everyday for ten years. Your dad shaved your head. I remember that. I couldn’t understand that anybody could be that adversarial. I was shocked that a father could be so brutal. It seemed like a brutal act, to violate you in that way. It affected me.

You moved around a lot that year you were homeless. I remember being like, “What the fuck?” You looked like shit. You said you were sleeping on top of the Quick Stop.

We had nothing going for us. Girls didn’t like us. We weren’t like these safe sanitized versions of ourselves I see walking around now. There were one or two girls, but they were troubled. They were the ones who could look at us and see a measure of stability. Girls aren’t into mindless vandalism, smoking pot all the time, stealing electrical meters off buildings. I remember Herb and I stole so many of those things. We kicked the meters off every building in the neighborhood. We would dump all of them at the burned down Wheels Warehouse. The place was full of those things.

We were really into vandalism. We were huge vandals. We were probably responsible for the downfall of our neighborhood.

I was living with my mom above the fruit market when you and Niko got in a fist fight in the apartment. I think it was Nik had an issue. You’re a guy with a certain level of charisma and people looked up to you and Nik didn’t like people not looking up to him. There was ego and tempers and then the ridiculousness.

I chose to live with my mom. I knew she was going to be more lenient. She let me smoke weed in the house. I would buy her weed for her. That’s always a weird scenario, having to buy drugs for your parent. You want to be the cool son, with the cool mom. Don’t be the cool mom, be the mom.

One of her friends turned me on to cocaine for the first time.

Then there was the jewelry heist. I probably shouldn’t go into details on that.

I started seeing you a lot again after you moved into the group home. Mike was there and we were jamming together. It was cool because Tom lived across the street. Tom was into bad drugs. They were doing crystal meth before I even knew what it was. (Tom passed away from a heroin overdose December, 2002 – se)

Maybe that’s what got us clean. We quit drugs together. You were sixteen and I was eighteen. You, me and Dan. It was the longest I’ve been clean. I lasted three years. It was not surprisingly the most productive period of my life.

During that time you and I were volunteering at the homeless shelter. You were a senior in high school then. There was that female priest and she would leave you and me there alone all night to run the place. Two kids and a hundred homeless people. We would stay up drinking coffee and we’d have to turn people away when the shelter was full. We were good kids at that point. We could have stayed good.

Then I started smoking pot again. I’ve smoked pot every day until now.

I dropped out of college, got divorced from my cop wife, and joined a punk rock band.

I’m a good bartender. I can trade on my personality and it translates into hard cash. Right now I’m doing catering bartending so I’m somewhere different all the time. It’s a lot of fun and if I don’t like the people I’m working with I never see them again.

In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with. Because I left home at thirteen and spent four years in group homes, my social network was significantly wider than most people of that age. What’s most interesting about these interviews turns out not so much to be the things we remember differently as the things we remember the same. This is the fifth interview, you can read the interviews with Roger, John, Dan, and Aaron.

Kevin – Auto Mechanic

Don’t get married.

I see my mother once or twice a month. She’s doing OK.

My earliest memory of you is in eighth grade. I was the new kid. You were the outcast. You weren’t homeless when we started hanging out. I don’t think so. You gave me my first hit of acid. We used to stand on the fence outside your house and watch your dad and his girlfriend. I didn’t know your mother had just died.

We would eat instant coffee. Your room was covered in art and poems. Mostly poems. They were all over your walls.

My mom went on vacation and she sent me to my babysitter back in Indiana. My babysitter was a Christian group home. I had been there before. But this was just for a couple of weeks so I didn’t think of myself as a resident. I was fifteen years old but I was in eighth grade. I had failed a year. I was smoking a cigarette and they told me to put it out and I told them I wasn’t going to do that then I got in a fistfight with the counselor. I took all my stuff, slept in a cornfield, then got a Greyhound back to Chicago. You had run away by then and you were sleeping in a broom closet so I moved in with you. The broom closet became home.

That was the second time I ran away with you. The first time was when my mother hit me in the face with a phone.

We used to rob parking meters.

I remember you coming to my house with your wrists slit. You drank a whole bottle of Puerto Rican Rum and slit your wrist. This is all still eighth grade. You were getting hell from your dad. He handcuffed you and shaved your head. But even still I couldn’t understrand why someone would want to slit their wrists. To this day that just doesn’t compute in my head. Especially when you leave. I mean you left. It’s not like you stayed home. So I don’t know. Maybe you felt like nobody cared.

Don’t you want to forget this stuff?

I remember when you and John left for California. You had a duffle bag full of stuff. You called me from California. I was like, “How is it?” You were like, “It sucks. I have no clothes, no shoes, no money. I’ve got a can of tuna fish with no opener.” Where’d your clothes go? I can’t believe you guys made it to California. I mean, who would think some punk kids could hitchhike to California? That was too crazy for me. I wasn’t about to hitchhike to California. I knew where my food was.

Twice I went with Aaron on those little burglary things. I went with him one time, it was a basement apartment. The window was open and I got stuck. Another was a place right near the grammar school. Robbing the houses was a bigger rush than doing the drugs. A natural high. I remember Aaron busting the lock. I remember we did what every stupid criminal did, we ate. We went through the house, the drawers, looking for cash. Then, when we were done, we went in the kitchen and made sandwiches.

Even when my mom kicked me out I would climb back in through the porch. I had to climb over the ledge and get myself in my own windows. This was on the third floor. She put security bars on the windows to keep me out.

I went with John and your uncle to visit you in the mental hospital. There was some guy there, walking down the hallway picking cigarette butts out of the ashtray and eating them. After seeing that and then visiting John when he got put in Edison Park I remember thinking I don’t want to end up in these places. I started doing my own thing. It was time to work, make money. So you can get all this crap (gestures around. We’re in the basement of his house. His daughter is playing an educational game on the computer. Behind her is a fish tank with no fish. Kevin is holding a can of beer. The floors are white tile.)

I think in Freshman year I got suspended for tapping my gym teacher on the shoulder. She had me suspended for assault. So I go to school anyway, I don’t have anywhere else to go. Then I get arrested for trespassing. Of course I have pot on me so now I’m busted for possession. My mother wouldn’t pick me up. She called my dad, who I hadn’t seen since I was three years old. I’m waiting in the police station and I see this guy hobbling in on a cane and I’m thinking, Please don’t let that be him. Of course it is. That’s when I moved out by Diversey and California. It was like living with a stranger. I didn’t know him or what he was about. He had back problems. I moved in with him and his wife. They had to rent a bigger apartment. He would buy my cigarettes for me. I guess I liked him but we had a falling out too, somewhere about when I turned eighteen. Probably over staying out or something. Spending nights with Penny. Just being free. God I wish I could go through that again.

**

I’m with Roger and when we’re done talking we ask Kevin if he wants to go out to eat. He lives almost an hour away from the Chicago neighborhood we grew up in. He mentions restaurants nearby, all chains. He can’t go because his wife has snuck away and taken the van leaving Kevin with the two children, one thirteen, one three. He and his wife don’t talk anymore, haven’t talked in a while. They pass notes back and forth through the children.

“I’m simmering with rage now,” Kevin says, opening the garage door, standing inside in the giant square of light. The suburb is quiet.

In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with. Because I left home at thirteen and spent four years in group homes, my social network was significantly wider than most people of that age. What’s most interesting about these interviews turns out not so much to be the things we remember differently as the things we remember the same.

Aaron – Unemployed

I’m shooting heroin again. I just shot a couple of hours ago. Did you know that dope enhances longterm memory?

We sat next to each other in third grade at Boone Elementary. I remember your costume. For Holloween you were a devil.

I moved with my dad to Arizona that year, then came back and lived with my mom, then back with my dad again. I was back in Boone again in sixth grade.

We didn’t hang out too much then. You were hanging out with older kids. Then in eighth grade we started to hang out. You were with Kevin sleeping in that hallway. One time Kevin and I ate a bud in class and we got so baked. You and I started hanging out in eighth grade because I started to get stoned a lot.

You had an argument with Mrs. Powell in eighth grade and she said, “I can never see your eyes because they’re always dilated,” and you said, “I can never see your eyes because you have too many moles on your face.”

You gave me my first hit of acid. I couldn’t stop laughing and you’re telling me to shutup. You don’t want your dad to hear us. So I went in the other room with John and Rudy. And they’re sitting in your bedroom. John is crinkling a piece of cellophane and saying the place was on fire. They’re watching the walls burn.

Later that night we went to a party at Harlem Irving and we had to walk home. It was the longest walk I’ve ever taken. We were at Cicero and Montrose and you conned a ride from some guys with a car. But there wasn’t enough room for everybody so you go out.

You couldn’t get into your house. I guess the doors were locked, so you and John slept on the side of your house that night in these lawn chairs.

Dude, let me tell you something. My life all starts, I trace it back to one moment. It’s when you hitchhike to California. You came back and we’re sitting in my hallway and you’re telling me of the Maxworks where you met those hippies and all the things you did in California. It’s the summer after eighth grade. And you have this great story to tell at such a young age. And I wanted to have stories. It all happened so quickly after that.

That’s when I started dosing a lot more.

You came to my house. It was crazy. I had ditched school as usual. You had broke into your house the night before. Your dad had moved and you didn’t know where he lived but your house was still there so you broke in so you didn’t have to sleep outside. He hadn’t sold it yet. So I remember, I’m sitting on the toilet, and the doorbell rings. I’m looking out my window. I see your walk but not your hair. So I yell, “Steve,” and you turn around. As you got closer I saw your head was shaved and your wrist was gashed, I mean like an inch wide, and there was all this meat. You were crying. I took you into the bathroom, wrapped you up, washed you and stuff. I remember you told me you pushed the razor all the way in and then you ripped it away real quick and you said you dropped to your knees because it hurt so bad. You had bought the razors with the five bucks your dad gave you after beating your ass and shaving your head.

I was very new to robbing houses. I was fifteen maybe. We’d just robbed a couple of houses. One of the houses we robbed was that crazy guy who had let you stay with him for like a week. We robbed a couple of others. What happened was we robbed a place, got a TV, put it in my basement waiting for Doots to wake up so we could fence it. I was living in my basement at the time. I had runaway but I was still living in the same building my dad lived in. Nobody knew. While waiting for Doots we went to Gigios to eat. Eric said, “Let’s go rob another house.” So we left Gigios and I saw a house where I could pick the lock. We get in the house and there’s a nice stereo system. I go into the kitchen to get some bags to wrap it up in and I hear Eric go, “Oh shit, oh shit!” I run in the bedroom and he’s holding fistfulls of cash. I snatched four bills from him. All hundreds. We ran out of there. I was so nervous I puked on the way home. It was $3,600 cash. We got a hotel room so we could shower. We got some clothes. We remembered William saying he wanted to go to Florida, to visit his mom, she was throwing this huge party. William’s mom was a stripper and her husband was black and his name was Spider. We got a cab and go to get William and he’s walking home from school with Fat Mike. We’re like, “get in the cab.” Fat Mike’s like, “I can’t go.” He was thinking long term.

We partied like crazy in Florida until we were out of cash then we came home. We robbed that same house like three times. They never changed the locks. In retrospect, I feel remorse for doing that.

The day I got busted they followed me from my house to the house I was going to rob. It was only like five blocks away. I was inside the house and I heard, “Come on out Aaron. We know you’re here.” Someone had ratted me out.

You never robbed a house with me. But Kevin did. He robbed like two.

Dan – Assistant Restaurant Manger

My earliest memories of you are on the bus, third grade. That’s where you stood out, gaining laughs through insulting others. I was the recipient of those insults. I can clearly remember you singing: Oh Dan don’t wear no socks/I saw him when he took them off/He through them in the sky/Now the birds refuse to fly.

You’ve told me before that you remember our first meeting was me kicking your bike and you punching me. But I don’t remember that.

In early childhood there was no chance of us hanging out. I was getting beat up a lot.

I moved away from the neighborhood in fifth grade, came back for high school. That’s where I meet John. We were all ditching school. He was a runaway and I let him move in with me. You were soon in the same boat. You and John had the common cause of rebelling against your parents and running away.

You lived with me a little bit. But my mom was getting sick of people staying over. You were the one that told me John was having sex with my sister.

You lived on the roof at California and Devon and drank lots of vodka. You were generally miserable at that time. Your father found you on the street and dragged you home and handcuffed you to a pipe. Nobody knew what to do with you then. You were drunk all the time, very self-absorbed.

You and John hitchhiked out to California. I gave you a flute to sell, to get some money. But it was too much so you threw it away along with everything else. After you guys came back there was this big group dynamic. Huge numbers of people hanging out. I always had the line on everybody. I would hang out with Albert and he would know what happened to you. You would know what happened to Tim. Everybody knew everything.

Then we split into two groups. There were the dirtbags and the overlords. I remember specifically a conversation we were having in the laundromat. You were talking about what would make a good leader and you elected me, but you were actually the leader. That was the perception. The overlords made a comic book about us. I still have it.

I remember you getting your first tattoo. That led to many sleeveless days. You wrote a lot. I would write too. You would pick two or three lines out of my various poems that you might like. I think you’ve always been one to tear down other people.

I was put in the hospital when I was sixteen. You and Joe and Pat wrote me letters. When I got out we were going in different directions. You were moving out of the drug scene, toward high school. We made a pact not to do drugs but I didn’t take it seriously.

In high school you were doing more things. You joined the chess team. You had your little side dramas because you were hooking up with one of the staff members in the group home you lived in. We didn’t hang out that much. You were reading all these books on Bhuddism. You were all about higher-consciousness. At some level you were probably more grounded. You were very quiet at that point. You did a lot more listening. Next time you were social was much later.

I remember you came to wake me up every day for my last few months of high school. I was about to be kicked out for truancy. You made it some kind of decision. Took some kind of responsibility that it had to be done. But you weren’t acting like a friend. You wouldn’t hang out. You were actually very parental, paternal at that time.

It was something I didn’t want to do. To this day I would never have done that. I didn’t want to graduate high school. I slept through finals and they still passed me. I shouldn’t have bothered with high school; I wasn’t into it. I didn’t learn anything. I should have just got a job. I enjoy work more than I enjoy school.

Overall, I would say most of what I like about you is who I knew in high school. Afterward there’s a lot less to relate to. Then you were into this idea of everybody. How can we help everybody. Now I would say over all the years a lot more of you is for self, Steve for Steve. This doesn’t include the last couple of years, where you’ve transitioned and become political.

John – X-Ray Technician

It was like third or fourth grade when we first met. It was you, me, your sister, and my brother. We were all into comics. Later, you and I would rob the comic store. We weren’t the only ones to rob the comic store. They were closing down. They had already been robbed. You kicked in the wood they had put over the window and we went in and took a bunch of comics. I think you got all the back issues of Daredevil. That was your favorite character. You were taking as many as you could get and I was picking just the ones I wanted. I was thumbing through them thinking: I have this one, I have this one… I wasn’t a very good thief. In hindsight we should have just taken boxes. That would have been smarter.

I remember meeting Roger for the first time. We went over to his grandparent’s house. He said I had to wear a Yamakuh, but he was just kidding. You guys were playing chess but you were way better than I was. You were out of my league.

You started taking speed. You would take your mom’s drugs. We talked about pot and stuff and you said you had smoked pot before but I was with you all the time and I didn’t remember that. I think you got me stoned for the first time. I think you got the weed from Pat.

I remember a lot about your mother. She was very nice. She still had her English accent. She was very skinny I remember her laying down a lot, watching that black and white TV. And you told me she couldn’t have a color TV because your dad thought it caused lukemia or something.

Your dad walked around naked a lot. He didn’t care. His manhood dangling around.

When we started getting in trouble is when we started sneaking out at night with Albert. Albert’s mom used to call me Diablo. The Prince of Darkness. We’d just run around, hook up with other kids that snuck out. Try to find stuff to do. Go to the public golf course and vandalize the greens. Then we started breaking into cars. We were trying to be bad boys but we weren’t. If we were really bad we would have stolen the cars. Which we probably would have done if we knew how.

I don’t know why we started sneaking out every night. Probably because I didn’t want to be at home. It was the only time I was able to go out because my father wouldn’t let me leave the house except to go to school. He used to beat me with a switch, broom handle, extension cords. My dad actually whipped me in front of you when he caught you hiding in my room. He made you watch.

My father hated you. He tried to run you over in his taxi, but that was much later. Probably the year before I went to high school, when you were in seventh grade.

After you told me my dad chased you with a gun I looked for that gun. I looked all over the house but I couldn’t find it. He probably kept it in his car.

I think we were just kids and we had these dreams and we’d talk about philosophical stuff, what our dreams were, how do you make out with a girl, what does the ideal girl look like. Kid stuff. That’s all before the drugs. Then we started taking drugs and we talked about stupid stoner stuff.

We used to rob parking meters. Herb showed us how to do it.

I became homeless way before you did. I started sleeping under your bed. Probably when I was around twelve or thirteen, so you were eleven or twelve. You had a lot of porn magazines under there. I’d run away for weeks at a time. I’d go home, get a beating, get a shower, get some clothes, take off again. Hopefully in that order.

In hindsight I always ran to you when I was in trouble. But how could you help? You were six months younger than I.

I remember you and Felix got in a fight. You fought in the alley and you were kicking his ass pretty good. I remember thinking you were more coordinated than I thought. After the fight he gained some respect for you.

Your father had mirrors all over his bedroom wall.

I remember you telling me you had this fantasy of being tied up by a woman. There was nothing we didn’t talk about.

I think at one point we stayed completely stoned and drunk for two months straight. I knew things took a turn for the worse the day I came over and saw puke running down the side of your house below your window.

It sucked when you ran away from home. Then I had to show you all my spots. Like the hallway, the laundromat, basements I would find. I’d show you where I stayed. You had a hard time getting on the roof of Quick Stop. That was the night you got bit by all those spiders across your stomach. I’ve never seen anything like that.

I showed you how to be homeless. I remember those cold winters. It was fucking cold. How bad could it have been at home for us to decide to be outside in that weather? We didn’t even have heavy jackets because we wanted to look cool. It was worst at three or four in the morning. You wake up shivering. I hate that period of my life. I look back on it now. If I’m walking from my car to work and I’m cold then I think, hell, I’ve been through worse. It was freezing cold. Those winters away from home were cold.

My parents caught me once and put me in a drug rehab. I was there like three months and was going to get out but then I got caught sniffing liquid paper so I ran away from the rehab. You and Dan came to meet me on the Southside at an ice cream place called the Purple Cow.

You and I were huffing spray paint. We were using paper bags to sniff black metallic paint. I said I’m hearing BeeWee and you said you were past that, you were on the BeeZee’s. I’m looking at you and you looked dead. There was nothing there. You had paint all over your face.

You had gone back home. I had a warrant out for my arrest. I was charged with breaking into a basement. I remember my dad flipping out. He beat me pretty good that day.

A narcotics officer interrupted us getting high. Bam, we were awake! We took off running. We’re jumping fences, cutting through yards. We must have ran in a half mile circle only to go back to your place and there’s the cop sitting on your stairs. He says he’s too old to chase us but he knows about me and says I should go back home. That’ when we decided to go to California.

That night you hid me under your bed. You went into your dad’s room and took a wad of cash from your dad’s pocket. He always carried cash so he could make bail. I went back home and grabbed some gear while my dad was sleeping. We packed up real heavy. It was ridiculous.

We got a ride from hippies and stayed our first night in a commune. They gave us acid. We spent all the money you stole on one way tickets to Phoenix where the Grbvacs had moved. Their mom kicked us out. She said, “We moved here to get away from you.”

We hitchhiked from Phoenix to L.A. We got picked up by this German guy. He was going like 100 miles per hour. He was driving with one hand, drinking beer with another, chucking beer bottles out the window. He was trashed. He gave you a bong hit. You tried to pass it to him after you took your hit. He told you it was a one-hitter, you were supposed to finish it. He bought us beer. He wouldn’t let us drink his beer because he had brought them with him from Germany. Halfway through the trip he came to a screeching halt. He goes to this emergency phone box and says he’s lost.

By rights we should have died on that trip. I would never let my son hitchhike across the country.

We were out of cash, out of smokes. We made it to Los Angeles. I remember you called Kevin and he said he just scored a quarter pound. You said, “Don’t do anything. We’re coming back.”

So we’re going back. We get picked up by that truck driver. You can ad-lib those details, I’m sure you remember. (We spent the night in his cab. In the morning he drops us at a donut shop in East L.A. He molested John while I was sleeping. He took everything we had left, which consisted of a small bag with some poetry and maps.)

I remember our clothes are tattered, covered in mud. We have nothing except our clothes, literally. We arrive at Ceasar’s Palace in Las Vegas. We probably haven’t showered in a week. We ask the cocktail waitress for some water and she gives it to us on a silver platter. It was like finding heaven. Then we go back to the highway and get picked up by the Nevada State Troopers and they lock us up in the juvenile detention center. You were fourteen, I was fifteen.

You got out after a couple of days but they kept me for three weeks. I remember they only had enough petty cash for you. Your last name started with an E and that’s how you got out before me. I remember you telling me, “Sorry John, I’m bailing on you.” After you, the caseworker took a vacation. So I sat in detention all that time. Then when I got off the bus in Chicago I’m busted for curfew and that’s when they find out I have a warrant for my arrest. So from one detention center, on a Greyhound bus, to a squad car, to another detention center. I was in Chicago Juvie for a long time. I was in there about six months. I was pretty angry.

My parents kept trying to continue the court case so I wouldn’t get out. Finally I asked to call DCFS, met with a social worker. I asked if the state would take custody and they said they couldn’t do anything unless there were two reports of physical abuse. I said, Go check your files. That’s how I became a ward of the state. If I had known it was that simple I probably would have done it sooner.

I was in the group home when you were put in the mental hospital and we talked on the phones. Then you were put in a group home too. We both became wards of the state.

I remember Aaron having like zero problems in his life but making problems to be more like us.

We were smart. We were a bunch of really smart kids. It makes me wonder where we would have been if we didn’t have drugs and alcohol in our life.

In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with. Because I left home at thirteen and spent four years in group homes, my social network was significantly wider than most people of that age. What’s most interesting about these interviews turns out not so much to be the things we remember differently as the things we remember the same. – Stephen Elliott

Roger – Graduate Student

I was walking down Washtenaw by myself. I was probably seven or eight and you were playing soccer with your dad. I stopped and observed and I think your dad saw me and invited me in so he could do something else. I have no idea what I was doing alone walking down the street at that age.

We were best friends. We had our routine where we would go to McDonalds on Western and talk about current events I remember we were talking about a satellite going past Pluto and some pissed off mother leaned in to tell us we weren’t as smart as we thought we were. Which is a strange thing for an adult to tell a couple of small children.

We did a lot of reflecting. These long conversations in your bedroom. We talked often about running way.

We would play chess for hours. Tournaments. Three out of five. Four out of seven. I think we were pretty evenly matched. We were very competetive. We competed in all these different things which is how we gave each other affection. We would race. I was faster than you.

I remember you seeing my mother naked.

We must have been eight or nine when we found your dad’s porn stuff. I was always more into the pictures and you were into the stories. You were particularly fond of the bondage type stuff. We’d read though the porn books on the shelf. I don’t think we knew that your dad had written a lot of those books.

Your grandmother would make us food. I remember your grandmother being very sweet, going out of her way. And I remember your father being very verbally abusive toward her. He would yell at her to shut up or get out. I remember him as a huge guy. Big, barrel chested. He would walk around with his shirt off. Imposing, threatening. He was very volatile. Sometimes he seemed very sweet, other times very explosive. I have lots of memories of him wearing his sheriff’s outfit. That’s kind of who he was, tough imposing bailiff sheriff type.

I remember learning about the money in the top drawer of your father’s dresser. I remember you taking money a number of times.

I remember your mom when she could walk, seeing her moving around the house. She never really liked me. She called me an alley kid. She criticized my clothes. Then I remember her slowly degrading and ending up on the couch and you having do more and more things for her. She had a piss bucket you had to empty out regularly. She shook when she talked. I don’t remember her having a ton of interaction with you or your sister who was always up in her room. Your interactions were all about getting chores done.

We had a fist fight once. I was pissed off at your for being selfish in some way. We got in some verbal fight. I made some comment about your mom being in a wheelchair. Then we started swinging.

Then my mother remarried and I moved to Florida when I was eleven and you were ten. We would send each other letters. We’d even send each other audio tapes because it was too expensive to talk on the phone. I would come back in the summers and see snapshots of you. Your hair was growing. You hit puberty early. You were the first to have armpit hair and a beard.

I remember sneaking out with you in the summer and learning how to open parking meters. There was a period of time we were robbing cars. I remember Albert had to sneak out by stepping over his sleeping mother. My grandparents caught me sneaking out once and forbid me to hang out with you.

One summer I came and you’re thirteen and experimenting with acid and whatever else. At that point I felt very much that you weren’t the same anymore. You were going down a path I couldn’t go down and it scared me.

The next year you’re homeless. You stay at my grandma’s with me for a little bit and my grandma calls your dad and gives him a hard time so he comes over screaming, “Where the fuck is my son.” You took off through the back door, ran down the alley. I thought your father was going to beat up my grandparents.

I moved back when I was sixteen and you were fifteen. My mother had broken up with that man who had been abusing me. You were in a group home by then and I would hang out with you and your friends.

Our neighborhood was overrepresented with violent kids with no sense of other people. I remember Pat getting hit with a golf club, Albert smacked in the head with a wooden board. We were just a violent, unempathic bunch. We had more than our share of socio-paths.

There was only one honest way to get attention and that was to be better than everybody else. There was no concept of loving each other. There was no parenting, no modeling. We were a safe-haven for the worst kids but the irony is that we were incapable of being supportive. We always saw things in terms of what people could do for us.

There were so many times we could have done more. Take Dave. His parents wouldn’t let him live with them so he got sent to live with his grandmother who was out of touch with reality. Early teens, he’s totally on his own. Now, if I knew a twelve year old in that situation today I would think it was fucked up. But we had a lot of situations like that.