A House with only One Toilet
I was locked up in the juvenile hall for months after I
had been released from the Florida School for Boys at
Marianna (reform school). I refused to ever return to the
Children's Home Society (orphanage). I was not going to
return to that orphanage even if I had to spend the rest of
my life locked up in a small cage. I had been at the
juvenile hall for several months and I had flatly refused to
even walk out of the front door in order help them clean up
the streets for fear that they would take me back to that
awful orphanage. I was not taking any chances, whatsoever.
Generally I would not even come out of that wire cage, even
to eat with the other kids who were locked up in there with
me. I mean real criminals too. This one boy had stolen money
from a church collection plate and bought funny books with
the money.
It was a Wednesday morning and this guy named Bert, who
worked for the court, came into my caged cell and asked me
if I wanted to go somewhere special for Thanksgiving dinner.
I told him that I did not want to go outside of the shelter
at all, and that he knew very well why. I liked Bert because
he was a nice guy, besides his brother had made a song which
they played on the radio called "The lion sleeps tonight"
and I was really impressed that he knew the man who made
that song. But he just kept on and on about that
Thanksgiving dinner and how a kid should not be locked up on
a day of thanks giving. So I finally said that I would go
and he took me down stairs to talk with the judge.
Later on that day this older woman came and talked with me
for a while. She told me that she wanted to take me to her
house for Thanksgiving Day dinner and I made her promised me
that she would bring me back the very next day.
She and I walked out of the juvenile hall together, got into
her nice car and drove to her house. It was a nice house
too, and right in the middle of where all the rich folks
lived, right next to the big river with the great big silver
iron bridge. I had never been over that bridge before
because it was just too big and scarey to cross. Even when
we ran away from the orphanage we only crossed the little
bridges. Never the big ones 'cause they might fall and we
could drown.
We walked into her house and I was really surprised at what
I saw. It was real small inside not like the big house that
I had lived in. You could sleep thirty or forty people in
our house at the orphanage. But then I went to their
bathroom and I saw right away that they were not rich at
all. They only had one toilet and one sink in their
bathroom! They were really poor and they did not even know
it.
Of course, I had never been in a regular house before and I
did not know that regular people only had one toilet and one
sink in their bathrooms. That is one of the hazards of being
raised in a orphanage.
You never get see what it is like in the real world. Then
one day when you do get shoved out into the real world
everyone treats you like you are an idiot because you do not
know anything about regular stuff and all.
The Thanksgiving Day dinner thing was very hard on me and I
wanted so badly just to get out of there and be back in my
cage at the juvenile hall. Man! There must have been fifty
people going in and out of their house. All getting ready
for that big Thanksgiving day dinner the next day. I was
really scared too. I didn't like people very much,
especially grown people. They can do some really bad things
to you when you are a kid. I never hardly move a inch
because I was so scared. I never moved out of that chair,
nor did I move in any direction until almost all those
people were gone, late that afternoon. The lady, Mrs.Usher,
who brought me to her house, came in to the living room and
asked me if I wanted to have a coke in the small bottle. I
told her "thank you" but that I did not care for anything.
I really wanted that coke real bad too, but I was to scared
to take it. I thought about that coke all day long and how
good it would have tasted. Later that night, when everyone
was asleep, I went into the kitchen, real slow and quiet
like, and I took a cold coca cola out of the refrigerator. I
drank the coke real fast, in about five seconds, and then I
hid the bottle cap behind the refrigerator. Then I warmed
the cold bottle against my stomach so that it would be warm
like the other bottles. Then I put it in the bottle carton
so that no one would ever know that I had drunk it. No one
ever found out that I had drank that coke.
The next day was almost as unbearable for me, as was the
first day, because of all the strange people coming for the
big dinner. I would have rather died than to have ever gone
through such a horrible experience as was that dinner. All
those big strange people laughing and joking and making all
kinds of noise. I have never been so embarrassed and so
scared in all my life and that is the God's truth. Not
scared like you are scared in the dark -- scared in a
different kind of way. I just can not explain it, not even
to myself. I know I hardly ate anything that day and I had
never seen so much food in all my life. But I sure was so
glad when it was finally over.
Later that night, after everyone else had gone to bed, Mrs.
Usher took me out onto her front porch and we talked for
hours and hours. She was a real nice lady too, and she let
me smoke a cigarette because I liked to smoke. It made me
feel like I could take care of myself. I think I was about
thirteen years old at that time and I had never once just
sat and talked with anyone before, in my whole life. It was
my first 'nice and slow time' and I really liked doing that.
It is a day that I will never forget and I will never forget
her kindness and her warm smile. But I just could not
understand was why was she doing all of this for me. So I
always kept one eye open on her all the time. Then she got
up and went into the kitchen and brought each of us a small
coke in the bottle, and she handed one to me. I will never
forget that either. That was the best coke that I ever drank
in my whole entire life.
The next morning she and I ate some breakfast together and
then she told me to go into the bedroom and get my things
together so she could take me back to the juvenile hall,
like she promised. I remember going into the small bedroom
and closing the door behind me. I heard her in the hallway
talking on the telephone to the authorities. I heard her ask
them why I was being sent back to the reform school and what
it was that I had done that was so bad that I had to be sent
back there. They told her that I had done nothing wrong but
that they had no where else to put me.
I heard her get very mad at them and she told them that she
was not going to bring me back to the juvenile hall to be
locked up again like an animal. I LOVE THAT WOMAN FOR SAYING
THAT! That is the most wonderful thing that anyone ever did
for me as a child. That, of all the things in my life, is
the one thing that made me want to be somebody and I thank
you so very much you loving, kind and wonderful woman.
That one little sentence that came out of her mouth was the
one small light that guided my life for the next forty-five
years.
I stayed there for several weeks and then I left to go out
on my own at the age of fourteen. I continued to see the
Usher family on and off for the next twenty or thirty years
until their deaths. I know that they would have adopted me,
had I asked. But when it was discussed I told Mrs. Usher
that it was too late for me, and she cried. I told her that
I had to make it on my own now, 'cause I was a man. I just
wish that I could have shown them how much I really loved
them, before they died. But I did not know how to show them
that because I didn't even know what that meant.
I hope that now that they are in heaven that they know how
much I love and respect them, with all my heart. I hope they
know how much they added to the life of one lonely little
boy that nobody else wanted.
Roger Dean Kiser, Sr.
trampolineone@webtv.net
Published author and internet writer Roger Dean Kiser's
stories take you into the heart of a child abandoned by his
family and abused by the system responsible for his care.
Through his stories he relives the sadness and cruelty of
growing up an orphan in the early 1950s. Today Kiser lives
in Brunswick, Georgia with his wife Judy, where he continues
to write. Publishing most of his work on his internet web
site
www.rogerdeankiser.com .
It is through his writing that Kiser has begun healing the
pain, suffering and sadness of the orphan within him.
Unknowingly at first and by the power of the internet
Kiser's stories have touched millions. In the vain of Mark
Twain Roger Dean Kiser's collection of almost 400 stories
have captured the drama and emotion of not only his
childhood but of his current day tales. Kiser's short
stories carry with them strong images and feelings that
search out and find that common thread which connects each
of us to our own emotions.
Roger Dean Kiser is the author of the book "Orphan, A True
Story of Abandonment, Abuse and Redemption." Visit his
website at:
http://www.rogerdeankiser.com