Chapter 1

I'm David. David Pilath. I'm about 5'4, dark hair and dark eyes. I try to stay in good shape.

I'm told I was a happy kid, hugging everyone I came in to contact with. That's before Aunt Inga. I was four when I saw her changing clothes one day. She screamed at me that I was a little pervert and backhanded me hard. I had no idea what had happened.

She looked at me like something the dog hacked up after that. Make no bones about it, Inga was pretty and she loved the men. She had curly blonde hair and bazooka tits. She had a very nice figure and knew how to use it. Aunt Inga was a bitch. When I was four I had no idea what was going on, just that when Aunt Inga was around I was in trouble.

Finally, she arranged to baby sit me. I was about five, just before going to kinder garden. I remember I was in bed. She came into my room and took off all her clothes.

Then she pulled down my pajama bottoms and played with my peter. She was saying things I didn't understand. I looked into her eyes, not really knowing what was happening.

She kept playing with my peter, pulling on it. Then she pulled it out hard and with her other hand used a big knife to cut the end off of it. I was gasping and crying.

I remember hearing her say "Nasty little boys get what they deserve. Take that, you nasty little bastard."

I remember holding myself, bleeding all over the bed. I remember thinking that mom would be mad about the mess. I fell asleep.

I woke up and it was all white around me. There were tall silver rails around the bed.

I was thirsty.

A lady came in and gave me some water. A man came in and asked why I cut myself. I told him about Aunt Inga. He went away.

Mommy came in, screaming. "How could you tell such horrible lies about my sister?"

I just cried and looked at her. Grownups always stick together. They never listen.

I knew that my mommy would never love me again.

My uncle came in and sat down. He just looked at me. It made me feel cold. I pushed the button for the nurse. I told her that my uncle was thinking about hurting me.

I could tell because his face looked like Aunt Inga's. She made him go away.

I wondered why daddy didn't come to see me. It hurt a lot where nobody could see.

They took the bandages off my peter after a while. It was ugly. The doctor tried to make me promise that I wouldn't hurt myself again. I told him to keep Aunt Inga away from me. He wouldn't promise. I knew then not to trust him. I found a drawer with lots of sharp blades in metal and paper wrappers in it. I took them and made sure that some were always with me. If Aunt Inga came for me again I would hurt her like she hurt me.

Mommy took me home after that. Dinah, our dog was gone. Mommy told me that someone had run over Dinah and she died. Mommy didn't look sorry. She looked like Aunt Inga did. It made me afraid again. That night I got dressed and left my room.

I listened hard. I went outside. It was nice out, summer and warm. My Uncle Bob and Aunt Frieda were my dad's brother and his wife. They lived way down the street.

They had two daughters, Mary and Jane. Jane was about my age, and Mary was older.

I walked down the street to find their house. When I got there I laid down on their porch and took a nap until it got light out. I knocked on the door and Aunt Frieda let me in. I talked to Uncle Bob about why I was there. He was a Judge. I found out that a Judge takes care of bad people. I stayed with them for a while. Aunt Frieda cried while holding me. It was nice to be held like mommy used to.

It made me cry again because I knew Mommy would never cry with me again. I hated Aunt Inga. Ingaborg Kniese. I wanted to make her hurt like I did. I didn't care how long it would take. I would hurt her like she hurt me, only worse.

I was sent to Grandma and Grandpa's farm one summer. It was fine until Inga showed up.

I knew she was there from the sound of her voice. She knew I was there. She was looking for me. Well, I found her first. I took a roll of tape from the medicine chest and a paring knife from the kitchen drawer. I made sure she was asleep before I tied her wrists and ankles together, then her knees and elbows. She came awake. I hit her hard with the back end of the knife and tied her mouth shut. Then I cut her. I cut her bad.

I pushed the knife into her boobs and pulled it out cross ways. Then I cut down her arms so she couldn't cut me again. Then I cut down her legs so she couldn't chase me. She looked me in the eyes. I said "You hurt me. You took my mommy and daddy away. So I'm going to hurt you." I kept looking her in the eyes as I pushed the knife into her belly again and again. Soon her eyes closed. I walked away. I knew that the grown ups would hate me for killing a grown up. Hell had room for both of us.

I washed up in the sink before I left the house. I woke up Grandma and said "I'm sorry."

Then I left. I walked for a long time. I slept under the pine trees. I got real hungry.

The young corn was OK to eat. A man in a police car found me later. I told him about Inga and showed him my peter. He held me for a while. He took me to his house. His wife took care of me for almost a month. He told me that Mommy killed Daddy, and that Grandma was sick. I was going to be sent to some people to stay with for a while.

It's been six years. I'm twelve. I've learned to fight. I've learned to kick. I've learned to break a knife out of a window if I have nothing else. Two men thought an orphan was a toy. I bled them out. I got hit a lot by the cops for that. Then I bit the cop and didn't let go until the finger came off. I told the judge that if he wouldn't take care of me then I would take care of myself and fuck the cops.

I ran from the juvie home they put me in. I've gotten good at hiding. I eat out of grocery store dumpsters. The restaurants get too shitty about people eating out of their dumpsters. I've burned out three of them for trying to get me busted. Winters are hard. Winters hurt. You can stay alive if you keep moving unless the cold gets too bad. Then you can bust into a church or school if you're careful and stay until morning. If you don't make a mess sometimes they don't lock up behind themselves and you can sleep there again.

In the summer I try to find abandoned houses and live there. I try to take care of the little ones that have run away. No-one else will. I teach them what I can. I learned to read some when I had a mom and dad, and read what I could find in the juvie home. I can do some numbers, plus and minus. The little ones were my family. My own. We depended on each other. We cried with each other.

It was getting colder. I tried to find a warm place for us to stay. I found a church with an open basement window and we've been sneaking in there at night. I made sure everyone washed up good before going out so nobody got kicked out of places because they stank. I worked at a bakery some and got day-olds for us all. We got milk and meat that was too old to sell at the grocery. That manager was an angel.

We snuck into the church basement one night and I about crapped. A man was waiting there at their big dinner table. He wanted to talk to me. He knew we were coming and going even though I tried to clean, because we missed some things. The towels were dirty, the soap was getting used. He said he didn't mind. I was so glad. This was the best place we had found. He was the minister. He showed us how to cook with soups so things tasted better and bought us lots. We got clothes and blankets, coats and shoes. He said he was impressed that I had kept the littles together and healthy. He asked why. I didn't want to talk about how I grew up, but he waited until I did. He wrote down what I said. When I was done he stood up and walked out. I went to bed and cried. the others piled on and held me. Some nights I'd rather freeze to death like the bums in the alleys than remember.

I guess he told some people about us. An old guy with white hair, mostly bald, and in fancy black clothes came to talk to me one night. He said that there was a place that would take care of us until we were 18 and nobody would mess with us, but we would have to go to school.

The man I knew said it was true and I should believe the old guy. We left the next day, all eleven of us. I had a knife in my shoe, behind my belt and little Tracy carried one for me.

I made sure they were all sharp and wrapped in canvas before we left.

We were in a bus for two days, stopping for food and sleep when it made sense to them.

We came to a big place in Arkansas with a fence and gate around it. They made us get off the bus and go inside to wash and get new clothes. I couldn't keep my knives. When a man found them he grabbed my arm and took me aside. I twisted away from him and kicked his ankles until he fell, then kicked him some more. When I stopped he was looking at me funny. I said "I give better than I get. You hurt me, I hurt you. Hurt my littles and I'll bleed you dry and anyone that helped." He nodded and pulled himself up. We all got a shower and clean underwear, socks, jeans, flannel shirts and sneakers. They fed us and we got to sleep. I kept waking up, looking for them, my littles.

We got sent to classes for schooling. The adults told me that the littles should be with ones their age. I looked that man in the eye.

"Can you promise that they'll be safe?" He said "I have no doubt that they will be quite safe." as he tried to pat my back. I twisted around to face him and said "You lie real good for an adult. Must be all the practice. If they get hurt I'm coming for YOU. I'm gonna stab YOU until you bleed out. The I'll find the ones that hurt the littles and stab THEM until they bleed out. You understand me, mister liar?"

He got real nasty then and tried to smack me in the head. I broke his fingers and dropped him to the floor by kicking his ankles. I wrapped his belt around his neck and started twisting until two guys pulled me off him. I said "No deal. I can't trust any of you.

Take us back to Aurora. The lies didn't stink so bad there."

Boy, you'd think there was a train wreck with all the people running around yelling and screaming. I collected the littles and we found a small store room with a mattress in it and only one door. I could block the door. We didn't get dinner, but we had slept hungry before. We were safe for then.

In the morning a guy knocked on the door and asked me to tell him what happened. I can remember things that happened real good, just like I can remember the pages of books I read. I told him word for word what happened. Then I asked for a bus and closed the door.

One of the cooks came up to the room with a little cart with food for us. I thanked her very much and asked if she knew when our bus was coming. She wasn't happy.

She just left. When it got dark, she came back with another cart full of supper.

We thanked her again. I asked where a toilet was. She smiled and said at the end of the hall. I asked if anyone would try to hurt us if we went there. She looked real mad and said "Not in this lifetime". I guess that meant no, so we all trooped down to the bathroom and got ready for bed. The nice cook lady left me a big honkin' knife with tape around the handle. It was nice to sleep in a pile together again.

A man in red robes came to talk just after noon.

"I'm a bishop of the church. In church terms that's a pretty important person. I can pretty well make people do what I say. Something bad happened here and I want to know what."

You want to know what happened? OK. Here's what I saw, heard and said."

I repeated everything like it was off a record player. I could see him getting mad. His neck and face got red. He took a red metal card on a gold cord off his neck and put it around mine. He said "Keep the knife. The card lets you go anywhere. If anyone stops you, put 'em down. I promise you that if anyone tries to hurt you or your little ones I won't say a thing if they get buried in the swamp."

He shook my hand and left. I guessed then that we were going to be OK.

Not much bad happened after that. I kept a good sharp edge on that knife and visited the littles at least once a week to let them know I still cared about them and worried about them. We were like a big family within that place, but we slowly drifted apart, year after year. I learned a lot in their classes, but I had the most fun in the library. It was a big library with different sets of encyclopedia. There were books on medicine and herbal remedies, woodworking, forging and plumbing. There was a whole section on "mechanical arts". I could build a whole house if I had the tools and lumber. A small section of old books were about survival, evasion and escape, surviving in the woods, mountains, desert and cities. I smiled when I read some of it. I had learned it the hard way. I read every book in that room before I left. Well, everything but the religious stuff. That was pretty repetitive.

We were supposed to do something for athletics every day. I ran. I didn't get very far at first. I had trouble mastering my breathing. Then I found the poetry section. I would say poems under my breath as I ran. That helped. Then I found a real neat book on drum chants from the old Indian tribes sent to Oklahoma. Those were much more even and easier to run to.

The classes were pretty easy for me. I got into a few fights about 'teachers pet' and 'brown nose'. I got trashed a few times but always got up and finished what they started. I read the anatomy books from the library carefully and started hitting soft spots. I also memorized where all the big veins and arteries are, and where the tendons are. I learned to punch on a heavy bag.

It still left me with something inside that wanted out. I found a box of dock spikes and started throwing them at fence posts. I ground the ends off some into points so that they would stick either way. I got pretty good with them and could throw the hell out of them. I needed pliers to get them out of the posts. I always had a few with me. I kept twenty freshly sharpened ones in my room.

I took class honors and graduated first. I was called into the proctor's office one day and told I had offers of an academic scholarship to the state university.

I took him up on it, gladly. It meant more years off the street. Remembering everything isn't all candy and soda. I remember every freezing night, every hungry day, hiding from cops and being beaten for nothing.

I went to Little Rock by bus. I had an army surplus duffle bag with my clothes in it. I was broke, so I found a part time job in a restaurant. My scholarship paid for classes, room and board, books and fees. I signed up for pre-med.

I was doing fine until a druggie tried to rob the restaurant when I was on shift.

I took his knife and shoved it up his ass with an assist from my knee. Then I put one of his arms thru his crotch and bum's rushed him into the door jamb. The police didn't want to let me go but the dean and the restaurant owner stood up for me. I had to take a combat sport to "calm me down"-- give me some "discipline".

I could have killed that idiot over ten ways with that knife. All he got was a cut-up colon and a busted shoulder.

The campus martial arts coach suggested something not using my hands--that was too personal, too angry. I took up the stick. It's called Bojitsu.

I ran every morning, took classes every weekday and worked in the restaurant every weeknight for five hours. They fed me better than the cafeteria. Every weekend I spent Saturday afternoon learning Bojitsu.

Sundays I read the library. I was very happy to find more native american chants set down on paper. Some were drum chants, some dance chants, some were for healing.

I would sing them as I ran around and around the running track from dawn until I had to dress for my first class.

I took summer classes because I had nowhere else to go. They closed the dorms for the summer so I stayed in a shelter, cleaning and helping for my room. I ate at the restaurant as part of my pay. My duffel bag got raided one day I was at work.

There wasn't anything to steal but my clothes got left all over the floor and stepped on. I bought a surplus metal-covered foot locker and a padlock the next day, then washed my clothes. I told the preacher in charge of the mission that he had a thief.

The preacher didn't know what to do about it, so I thought about it my self. I bought 1/4 oz of silver nitrate at a pharmacy and a small wooden box at a resale shop for a couple of bucks. I put the box on my nightstand, baited it with a couple bucks in change and used an eyedropper to cover the contents with silver nitrate.