The Journey to Freedom: Path to WW3

Chapter LIII

You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.

Johnny Cash

"Ok, so I told you about Mary and how she got pregnant with Jasmine. I told you about Patsy, I told you about Jennifer, I told you how I learned Martial Arts and how I learned to fight with the Katanas and other Japanese weapons. Well here is where things get bad because this is how I got into the fight with Tommy. How I got sent to ISS, the troubled school, met Monique and how Mary got pregnant the second time." I tell Josh.

I grab another beer and see the floodlights turn off. I then tell Josh that I needed another smoke. We go outside and sit back down on the rocking chairs. I look at my watch and see that it was 1:30 am.

Jennifer broke up with me in January because she had to move back to Japan because Tu, my sensei, had to return to Japan for his father's funeral and take over his sword-making business. That's how I realized that his family made the swords for me. I was going to be 17 in June and a law had just passed that if anyone committed a crime and they were still 17, then they could be tried as an adult.

I was alone again. No girlfriend and no friends. But I made friends with a kid name Devarean but everyone called him Da-V. We hung out at school all the time. We had Pre-Calculus on A day and we had Reading 3 on B days. He always had an earring on his left ear and I wondered I would look with an earring. So one day I went home and did the stupidest thing I could think of. I had like $40 on me and went to the Indian store over by Fiesta market and bought two pairs of earrings and when I got home, I sterilized them and then I pierced my ears with a sewing needle kit. I didn't get one piercing, I got four of them, two on each ear. I was going to be the first kid in my school to get double piercings in each ear. I pierced my ears and it hurt like hell. Once they were pierced, I put on my studs and being my ears recently pierced, they hurt like hell in all honesty. My mom went ballistic on me because she said that only women got their ears pierced. I told her that my Tio Cuco had his ear pierced also.

"Sí pero tú tío ya está viejo, nomas porque el brinca del puente para el rio, no quiere decir que tú tambien lo vas hacer!" My mom yells.

I replied once she was done screaming at me "I know he's already a grown-up but my uncle is cool, I want to be like him and to respond to your yelling, yes, if he would jump off a bridge into a river, then I would jump with him because unlike my dad, he cares about me, he always tells me that I am welcome at his home and that he would always be there for me and tells me other things too."

My mom just sighs and tells me that she is tired from work and that I had better hope that my ears don't get infected. I told her that I sterilized everything before I did it. She goes into her room and slams the door.

Josh says while laughing "Bro, I can't believe that you pierced your ears with a sewing needle." He continues to laugh.

I told him that it was the only thing that I could think of to use when I was getting my ears pierced. Continuing the story, my mom didn't talk to me for like three days. It was cool though because she didn't yell at me, nor told me anything. And after a few more months we were at the end of the school year, it was like the second to last of the week of school. Finally, after the whole school year, Da-V told me that his brother was gonna pick us up and take us home. I told him that I didn't need a ride because I always took the bus home. But he told me that Tommy was waiting for me by the bus because I had talked to Patsy during one of my classes. I didn't talk to her because I wanted to, but because I needed to. I had a project that I had to do and the geography teacher paired me up with her. So I went to the bus and Tommy was waiting for me. My homeboy Da-V told me that he had my back if things got out of hand.