Diary of an Unbroken Child: My Autobiography- Chap I

[Since I originally began the "Kid" series, I've picked up over 2000 more followers, who really know little about me. So, seeing that I'm "on my way out" as they say (my health is all but gone) I've decided to expand the original story into a book... a book of hope. The first chapter I'm going to tag @familyprotection, for two reasons- first, because I want people that have experienced abuse at the hands of foster parents to know that there's hope. Second, that @markwhittam and I, although our stories are different, share many similarities- foster care, alcohol and drugs in early adulthood- and have both overcome them to turn out "OK"!]

They say the key to writing a good story is a catchy title and great opening line. I suck at both, so I guess I'll never become Herman Melville. This may be a true story, it may not. Maybe some of it is true and some isn't. It's a story I have to tell, I can't wait anymore. Ultimately, it's the story itself that's important. I'll say this much- the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

It's impossible for me to look back on my life and thinking of myself as somehow having been broken- they tried, but ultimately I prevailed... I survived physically and intellectually and have managed to live out my life among my fellow human beings without causing an undue amount of mayhem- so, in the grand scheme of things, I guess I did all right. I fell through the cracks at birth and have spent my life there. Everytime I tried to crawl up, I got kicked back down, but I survived and that's what counts. Life isn't fair and never will be- people who believe otherwise are either fools, weak, or both. We do the best we can with what we have and I guess, that's good enough for an epitaph... "He did his best."

I'm not writing this so that people will feel bad for me- that would egregiously diminish my efforts throughout my life. What I want people to take from this is that it doesn't matter what kind of hand life deals you, you can still come out all right- if you try. All of these young people that need "safe-spaces" make me laugh- spineless jellyfish! You make your own safe space, if you can't, you don't deserve one.

I was born just at the end of the Great War...the one that was supposed to end all wars. Not the first one that was to end all wars; the second one. I don't remember being born, but I must have been there, they say it's traumatic. I've watched kids being born and I'd say it's more traumatic for the mother than the child. Most of the people that talk about the trauma of birth are a bunch of New Age fuck-ups. Anyway, I may not remember the trauma of birth, but I remember well the trauma of what came after: My name's Rich Quitliano and this is my journey.

It's funny that stuff you remember from when you were a kid. I remember a little t-shirt I had with brown teddy bears on it... It had snaps on the shoulders. I remember Dangerous Dan the Monkey Man, my stuffed monkey. I remember hiding under the kitchen table with Chi-Chi my dog eating raisins.

I can't say I remember my father, he came around three or four times and didn't stay that long, maybe a week or a month at a time- I wasn't timing him. The only thing I really remember is that when I was around three, he brought me a set of Compton's Encyclopedia. It was how I learned how to read and later it became a vehicle for escaping what was to become my childhood. He didn't come around much after that.

My Nonna came to stay for a while, I don't know how long... One day she was there and one day some time later, she was gone. She helped me learn to read and she used to read me storys- Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby down in the briar patch. God I loved those stories, especially Tar Baby, I don't know why. She had a big kettle on the stove and she used to make donuts... and polenta. I hated polenta but it was what she made for breakfast... I still don't like it to this day.

I don't remember people ever coming to visit- I guess most people can, but not me. My mother had a friend Polly that lived a couple of doors down, I remember her vaguely, and there was old Mrs. Pavaglio that lived downstairs. My Nonna said she was pazzo (crazy) and she drank a lot. She had this filthy cat named Luther, the same name as her dead husband. I remember her yelling at that stupid cat: "Goddamit Luther, you better listen to me when I'm talking to you." It's weird I can remember that like it was yesterday, but I don't even remember my mother's face.

My mother, I don't remember that well either. Mostly she sat in the front room and watched for my father to come back. She would just sit there and cry. It gave me a lot of freedom I guess, she didn't pay much attention to me which left me free to run around the streets of Boston's North End. For anybody that doesn't know, the North End was the Italian slum at that time. It was for years the safest place in Boston, kids played in the streets. Old people sat on their stoops at night playing Scopa or Briscola and talking. The cops seldom came around, we didn't need them. If the Sun went down and you didn't belong there, they found you a couple of days later floating down by the locks.

Then one day, everything changed, my mother died when I was five, I don't know from what. Nonna always said she was "sick" which I guess could mean anything. In retrospect, I kinda figured she killed herself over my father- but that's just a guess. All I remember is something about the bathroom, I don't know what. I must have found her, I was the only one there. Then there's a blank spot from the bathroom until some people took me. I'll tell you something else weird- I can remember the linoleum on people's floors.

Understanding how things work now, I must have got put into foster care. I don't know what happened to Nonna, she was pretty old. I guess my father didn't give a shit about me- not enough to step up and take care of me anyways. So I wound up with these strangers... Aunt Pearl and Uncle Eddie. I never saw them before. All I remember about them is Uncle Eddie had a stack of dirty books behind his chair, with naked ladies and I liked them very much. I wasn't there long, maybe a week, maybe two. Then things got bad. I have no way of knowing this, but I kinda think they must have sold me, bacause as bad as I now know that Child Protective Services and foster care are- they didn't just give you to people like I wound up with... at least not back then.

I spent about the next five years getting passed around a bunch of queers that liked little kids. I don't know if "trafficked" is the right word- when I think of trafficking, I think about from country to country. I was just trafficked around Boston. I know this isn't politically correct, but I got to tell the story the way I remember it and that's also the way it was. Back then, gay meant happy and queer meant queer. Sometimes they would have parties and guys would get drunk and do stuff and take pictures of me. It hurt really bad, but they didn't care... I thought I would get broke in half. They all laughed at me when I screamed and somebody would put their hand over my mouth. I can't remember my mother's face, but I can still see them laughing at me to this day. I always thought maybe one of them would feel bad and help me, but I guess queers aren't like that. There was one guy, Willie, for some reason I kept winding up back with him. I think that's who Aunt Pearl and Uncle Eddie sold me to. He was cruel, but he taught me one thing... he taught me how to hate. Sometimes he would light a cigarette and tell me if I didn't do something by the time he was finished, he would kill me. I believed him, he was mean. Sometimes he would hurt me just for nothing.

I thought about running away, but where are you going to go when you're a little kid. Willie told me if I ever went to the cops, they were his friends- that they were at the parties. If I went to the cops, they would bring me back, and Willie told me he would kill me then. He said I had nobody but him- nobody cared about me. He could just kill me and there was nobody to come looking for me. I realized then and there that I was all alone in this world, a condition I was to endure my entire life.

Some of them weren't that bad. After a while they couldn't hurt me anymore. I was already dead inside, but I didn't know it. Kids just don't think about things in those terms... I didn't find that out until later when I was in Vietnam. There was one guy, Bill, he was married and he didn't hurt me. There was something almost sad about him, in his eyes. His wife was sad too, even when she smiled. One day she was sitting in her chair and I went over and put my hand on her shoulder and she just started crying, for no reason. She was pretty nice, she bought me books and taught me arithmetic. I still had my encyclopedia, they went everywhere with me. They were pretty much all I had. When I read them I could go anywhere and be anything I wanted to be. But, somehow I always wound up back with Willie. I don't know if a little kid can make a vow or not, but I promised myself that one day I would look down on him dead.

One night when I was about ten, I was sitting reading. The guy that had me lived in Mattapan, I think, or somewhere around there, maybe Hyde Park, I don't remember. Anyway, I was reading when there was a loud crash and the front door came off the hinges. I looked out and there was the biggest man I ever saw. I could just barely see light past him out in the hall, he took up the whole door frame. The queer came out of his room and the big guy picked him up like a sack of flour and threw him off one of the doorways in the house. He laid there and wasn't moving, I thought he was probably dead. The guy came to me and I was scared shitless, I thought he was going to kill me too.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

I just fuckin looked at him. I thought I was gonna piss my pants.

"I'm your Uncle Arthur, your mother's brother and I been looking for you for a long time."

I don't know if any of you have ever felt relief like this or not, it was physical. I could feel it all through my body. We got my encyclopedia, my books and what clothes I had and left. The queer still wasn't moving.

Next: Uncle Arthur