Life by the Red Oak... What if...

Excerpt from Chapter 20

“… In the United States, the President saw the crisis and the fear in the population as an opportunity. His administration had been embroiled in heavy turmoil since November. He had won re-election, popular vote and Electoral College, by a crushing margin despite devastating late October polls and an approval rating in the low twenties, a level of dislike from the electorate never before seen.

His numbers had taken a steep dive toward the end of the summer as a result of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

He had dismissed the virus at the onset as nothing but a hoax. When it became obvious it was indeed real, he promised it would all go away on its own, as if by magic. The rest of the world watched as time passed and the tally of victims skyrocketed in the US. Through it all, his supporters were more than willing to ignore reality. And why not, inside the media bubble where they all lived the weather was beautiful.

In September, six months into the pandemic, the death toll had surpassed two hundred thousand. On the very day this sad milestone was achieved the White House had announced a series of three Presidential Addresses to discuss the end of the pandemic and celebrate the millions of lives the President had saved with his swift, decisive and early actions. 

These rallies, disguised as Presidential Addresses to force the networks to broadcast them, had been held inside arenas in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Tens of thousands of his supporters had shown up despite calls from local authorities to avoid such large indoor gatherings. 

Given the President’s aversion to them, protective masks were forbidden. 

The staggering number of hospitalizations and deaths among the people who had attended the events had finally managed to erode his popularity, especially within his base.

When the President himself was diagnosed with COVID-19, he insisted on remaining at the White House. The employees who had the temerity to voice concerns for their own safety were fired. Thirty-eight people on his staff were infected in the weeks after his diagnosis. Ten of them died, including two of his doctors. 

Only then did his numbers hit rock bottom. 

Still, he had won the November election. And since his party had also taken the House and the Senate, every attempt by his opponents to investigate these baffling, if impossible results, was dead on arrival.

A month before the situation in Antarctica, the President had tweeted he was firing his entire Cabinet. By then he was cured from the infection, though it was said he was highly unstable and reeling from the effects not only of the virus itself, but also from the potent experimental medication used to treat him. 

Family members and shady individuals from his entourage and from the media filled the Cabinet positions a week later. His youngest son became Chief of Staff and his oldest daughter Secretary of State. A grossly unqualified TV host was appointed National Security Advisor. The new Secretary of Education had once said on the record that those who believed in evolution should either repent or be crucified. The new head of the EPA, a coal industry lobbyist, had sued the Agency he now controlled a dozen times to argue America’s God-given right to pollute in the name of profits.

There were no confirmation hearings. The appointees showed up for work one morning with armed security teams and took over.

The unraveling spiraled on the day the President arrived unannounced at an afternoon press briefing to rollout a slew of reforms in Education, Energy, Transportation and Defense. He walked to the podium and remained silent while journalists from most news organizations were forcefully, and in some cases violently, removed from the room leaving only friendly networks to broadcast the event and offer their undying praises afterward. 

The reforms were a giant step back into the Dark Ages. 

“The Word of the Christian God” would now be taught for two hours at the beginning of each day in every public and private school in the country. Fuel efficiency was a thing of the past since it had been implemented as a response to the hoax that was global warming. And because he now intended to make good use of it, the United States would triple its nuclear arsenal. 

And so the country was already in chaos when the breakage in Antarctica was announced. Amidst the confusion and apprehension that followed the release of the images by NASA, the President paid a surprise visit to the hosts of his favorite live morning TV show. He proclaimed he had proof there was no truth to the reports from Antarctica. It was fake news, an elaborate mise en scène orchestrated by the crooked media and political opponents in an effort to distract from the good he was doing for the country, and thus for the entire world. 

He would reveal his evidence at a later date, but in the meantime, he had signed an Executive Order suspending the licenses of almost all major networks in America. All but a few were to remain on the air. The others had proven they were “the enemy of humanity.” The announcement had rendered him so giddy, and he put such emphasis on the last two letters of the word “humanity,” that his top dentures had flown out of his mouth and landed on the lap of the already freaked out female anchor seated next to him on the couch.

When the head of the FCC refused to pull the plug on the networks, the President fired everybody at the agency, including the support staff. He was about to install a team of loyal followers in their stead when the virus first struck …”

Life by the Red Oak. A story in the apocalypse.

Chapter 1

Jonathan Foster lowered the binoculars and squinted to bring the distant scenery into focus. His target, a woman as far as he could tell, had become a dot to his naked eye. A tiny dot that had now just derailed his plan to hit the sack right after dinner. 

“No way in hell,” he mumbled.

His round to secure the warehouse — the building he’d been calling home since the initial wave of the virus — was almost finished, albeit much earlier than usual. His end-of-day ritual had taken him to the roof last as always. This was where he listened for suspicious noises nearby and made the final determination on whether or not it was safe to call it a day. He was about to go back inside and lie down when movements at the top of the hill, east of the City, had tickled the corner of his right eye. No one had used that road in weeks; ignoring such a sighting was not an option.

“No way in this brand-new hell,” he said again, raising the binoculars this time.

The woman’s wheelchair seemed to disobey her commands to roll forward in a straight line. Her troubles grew as she gained speed after she pushed her wheels down the long steep hill that would take her to the south end of the City’s outskirt, not too far from where Jonathan lived.

It was the truth of her predicament he was questioning. She couldn’t have survived until then on her own, he thought. Not in a wheelchair. Not one that appeared to be such a dud, anyway.

He theorized the woman was used as bait, part of a scheme to rip poor saps of their belongings. Tapping into people’s good nature impulses had become an effective luring tactic as of late. Jonathan himself, though far from gullible, had walked head first into a similar trap three weeks earlier. In his case, the lead character in the setup had been a young boy feigning distress. A woman pretending to wrestle with a wheelchair wasn’t that much of a stretch.

But when the chair came to a brutal stop and then flipped, sending its occupant flying from her seat and onto the pavement, her fall erased many of his doubts. That tumble was as real as it was violent. No accomplices jumped out of the bushes to rush to her aid either. The woman took a moment to gather her wits. She then crawled across the road to recover parts of her chair, reattached them and pulled herself back up before resuming her descent.

Jonathan’s instincts defeated his common sense and he left the warehouse to go get a closer look. Sleep would have to wait a little while longer.

Venturing out there was always a rough proposition. If he had to, he preferred to do so wrapped in the safe blanket of darkness the night provided. There was still an hour of daylight left when he had first zoomed in on the woman. He calculated danger was multiplied by a factor of about ten.

After his encounter with the kid three weeks earlier, he had promised to himself he would never again try to help someone in need. He knew better now; he had paid, and he continued to pay, a hefty price for his latest attempt at kindness. These short minutes would haunt him for the rest of his life, however long that was going to be. He was certain of it. 

The scene that had just played out in the distance had somehow lit a spark in his darkened sense of empathy.

Jonathan ran across the South Side Bridge. He zigzagged between the destroyed stores, the deserted office buildings and quite a few decaying bodies. He had combed the streets of this part of town often enough in the last eight weeks to know which ones would take him in a single piece to where he estimated the woman would arrive after her trip down the hill. Still, he paused every once in a while to listen. The silence in which the world had gone and plunged itself had become a great advantage to the mindful. The noises Jonathan heard could mean the difference between life and death. So did the ones he made. 

He found a safe spot in a back alley and waited. 

Coming from the adjacent main street, he soon recognized the unmistakable sounds the defective wheelchair made as it moved on the pavement’s rough surface. It was indeed a woman. When she appeared in his line of sight, between two buildings, he got his first close look at her. She was disheveled, dirty as can be and he could tell she had been wearing the same clothes for many days. The backpack she carried on her lap contained very little.

He took a step forward but stopped, making good on his own promise not to engage. He would play it safe and follow and observe her for the time being, nothing more. Easier said than done; Jonathan had never seen anything so compelling. The advanced state of decrepitude of the woman’s chair, as well as the injuries she had sustained in her fall earlier, made each yard she covered look like an Olympian exploit. She was also moving toward the hot zone, which gave Jonathan cause to worry. This main road on which she was traveling would eventually lead her to the worst elements the City had to offer. If she were to move too close to the downtown area, he thought, he would approach her and warn her of the dangers ahead. Much to his relief, she took a sharp right turn and opted instead to use the same alley from which he was spying on her.

Every once in a while the woman paused to gaze at her hands and blow some cool air on them in an apparent attempt to ease the pain from her injuries. She tore open garbage bags and rummaged through all the bins she came across. At times, she would bring a find near her face to inspect it. After some hesitation she would either throw away the piece or shove it in her mouth. More often than not, she spat it back out and coughed in disgust. 

It wasn’t a scheme. Jonathan was overwhelmed by her situation, the worst he had seen since the beginning of this mess back in April.

It always came down to food. Every survivor’s life had been reduced to a never-ending quest for something to eat. Water wasn’t a problem for anyone with some sort of a container and a functioning brain. Even this woman, obviously deprived of luck and all other necessities, took a bottle with some of the precious liquid out of her bag to sip on it at some point. Food was the constant worry. Going out to look for it was a gamble whether armed to the teeth and dressed in fatigues, like Jonathan was, or not. Finding it was equally perilous. Decency inevitably flew out the window at the sight of food. A kind and sweet old nun could kill the leader of a biker gang in his sleep for a bite of a dried out Pop-Tart if she ever saw it in his hand.  

So the more Jonathan observed the woman in the wheelchair, the more he softened his position. Inside an hour, he had switched from keeping an eyeon herto keeping an eye outfor her. He would stay within earshot until sunrise. Then, he would try and make contact with her.

Night descended before she could go very far. The deserted alley was now lit by nothing but the half moon shining above the woman and her stalker. Plenty of darkness for some much-needed protection from a distance, but enough of a glow for Jonathan to still distinguish the tones of the woman’s clothes. 

After her mealshe found room behind a dumpster, pulled the remains of a blanket from her bag and settled down for a nap.

Jonathan sat on the ground just shy of a hundred feet from her, his back against the brick wall of a structure that had perhaps once been a factory of some sort. Difficult to tell since most of the buildings had been ravaged — first by rioters, then by scavengers — after the virus had struck. He retrieved an army ration from his backpack, but thought better of it; such a feast would be inappropriate after what he had just witnessed. Even the energy bar he ate felt over the top.

Though his eyes were locked on his target, he allowed his mind to slowly drift toward his own situation. Less to what it had become and more to what it had once been. Getting lost inside a thick haze of memories was easy, especially at that hour. This stillness mixed with the kind of obscurity the night now imposed was a powerful agent of reflection. The virus, and the violence that had raged in its wake, had killed almost everyone in the City. More than six hundred thousand souls had gone silent there; the remaining few could finally hear themselves think.

He had Facetimed his mom and dad before all communications were cut off, so he knew they had made it through the first wave of infections. That was it. That was all he knew. If the virus hadn’t taken them in the second wave, the lawlessness that had ensued had surely claimed many of his loved ones. The woman he’d been following this evening had revived some of his hopes for them. If she had managed to survive this entire time, on her own and without the use of her legs, perhaps a few members of his family were still alive back home. And if he had lived closer to them, maybe he could have helped save a few more. 

Or were they all gone already?

He was exhausted. At the time he had left his building earlier, he had been up for more than twenty-four hours. Wondering about those he once knew, and worrying about their fate, was far from reinvigorating. His inability to get to them was a heavy burden. The weight of these daunting perhapsand maybes found its way to his eyelids.

The moment he closed his eyes he thought of Kat, of course. No matter how hard he fought them, he couldn’t stop the images of her from flickering in his mind and hammering at his heart. 

There she was, smiling, lying in bed and facing him, her soft, warm hand on his cheek. There she was again, leading the way as the two hiked along the punishing Skyway Trail. And there she was, standing in the kitchen, holding a grocery bag over the counter as though she was just about to set it down. Eyes wide opened, motionless, stiff as a rock and disfigured beyond recognition.

“Kat, gimme the bag, babe.”

“Kat, gimme the bag…”

“Gimme that bag, bitch.”

“Oh crap,” Jonathan muttered as he jumped to his feet. He had fallen asleep. Two thugs were now attacking the woman in the wheelchair, trying to rip her backpack from her hands. She was giving it her all to fight them back. 

By the time Jonathan had risen, one of the thieves had hit her across the face with such force she had flown out of her seat and landed on the ground. His friend grabbed her chair, spun around and tossed it high in the air. When it crashed back to the earth, one of the rear wheels came off and rolled to the opposite side of the alley.

“All you had to do was let go of the damned bag, lady. Come on Bud, let’s get going,” one of the men said.

“We can’t leave her like that. That’s just mean. We should put her out of her misery,” the other one answered.

The woman looked down and appeared to whisper a few words. One of the two attackers walked up to her. The order came just as he was about to put his hand on her head.

“Don’t touch her.”

The bullies turned around at the sound of Jonathan’s voice. Though the light from the rising sun was quite dim, he could see the Oh Shit looks on both their faces. There was nothing impressive about his physique. He was thirty-four years old and of average built and height. It was the clothes he wore and the tool he held that signaled bad news to the two men. The chances of finding themselves at the wrong end of a silenced M4 pointed by a soldier in full army gear had been slim to none. Until that moment, that is. 

Right then and there they knew. They knew were toast and that there was little they could do about it. If stealing from a woman in a wheelchair and killing her afterwards were offenses that now went unpunished, so was ending the pathetic lives of those willing to do these terrible things.

“Drop the bag,” a calm Jonathan said to the one holding it.

After the backpack hit the ground, he directed the men to walk toward the corner of the street from which he had just rushed. 

“Now move this way.”

Cooperation was the culprits’ last hope of escaping this alive. The fact that the soldier hadn’t killed them on the spot had also given them a hint of comfort. But when the three men turned the corner, and Jonathan was certain they had disappeared from the woman’s view, he did the deed. 

He couldn’t have allowed them to live. Letting them walk away was the equivalent of sentencing to death other people like that poor woman. Their kind never gave up, anyway; they would have come back for him. They always did. This lesson too, Jonathan had learned the hard way.

These guys now outnumbered the weak and the good by a depressing margin. Lack of decency, combined with the absence of law enforcement, had guaranteed the survival of so many of them. Laziness played its part too, of course. Doing the right thing required a lot of work and was often synonymous with danger. So why bother. The bad elements had become the strongest, not because they were big or they could lift massive weights. They were the strongest because they were just too lazy to give a damn.

Jonathan thought of them as nothing more than cowards who viewed the most vulnerable as low-hanging fruits. They showed no mercy and seemed to enjoy going out of their ways to act like assholes in the process. The woman was lucky; it was just a couple of losers this time. They usually traveled in well-armed groups of five to ten and attacked on sight. 

This drive they had to refuse to walk away no matter how outgunned or outwitted they were made them unforgiving. It also made them unforgivable.

Jonathan returned to the woman. The left side of her face had started to swell from the beating she had received moments earlier. Her hands and forearms were bleeding after her two spectacular falls on the pavement within a few hours from each other. She was sitting up, holding against her chest the wheel that had come off her chair. He had never seen that expression on a person’s face before. Her eyes were fixated on the remains of her chair as though her entire world had just crumbled. Sure, her world looked even messier than Jonathan’s but it was hers. And now she couldn’t go anywhere in it.

“Bastards broke my, hum, my chair,” she said in a voice shattered by despair.

“Are they gone?” she asked.

“Yeah, they’re gone. They won’t bother you anymore. My name is Jonathan and I mean you no harm.”

“You understand we can’t stay here, right? All this commotion is bound to have alerted others. We have to go now,” he added while looking in all directions.

The urgency in Jonathan’s tone was justified. The curiosity that had plagued civilization prior to its recent demise had not been eradicated. When something out of the ordinary occurred, survivors would flock to the scene to see what had caused the ruckus. “Maybe there’s food there”was everybody’s first thought.

Still, a minute ago she had been assaulted by two jerks that had threatened to put her to death. And now, this man who had confronted them without blinking, was offering his help. Was she supposed to just trust him?

“I’ll get you a new chair. I promise.” 

His words had escaped his control. He didn’t have a clue if or how he could ever live up to that pledge.

“Can you climb on my back? I’ll take you somewhere safe.”

The woman raised her head to try and get a better look at Jonathan. Everything was happening too fast and the blow to her face had rendered her vision blurry. All she could really see were his army fatigues. She did notice a deep gash above his left temple. It appeared fairly recent.

When she put a hand on his shoulder, a gesture of resignation so much more than one of assent, Jonathan also saw in her eyes she had accepted there was a distinct possibility he might end up being the one to kill her later. Her situation was that dire; this faint chance to keep on living, if only for a few more minutes plagued by uncertainty, was all she had left and she was willing to go for it.

The sun was peeking above the horizon and they had a walk long of at least an hour ahead of them. The woman, who had obviously been deprived of food for some time, was light as a feather but Jonathan had to use both hands to secure her legs. Being unable to hold his weapon added to his anxiety. 

At the halfway mark, he announced he needed a break. There was a familiar building nearby, he told the woman, one he knew would make a good place to lay low. What he really had in mind was to better assess the health of his cargo.

“Is this where you, hum, you live?” the woman inquired.

“No. But I’ve been here before. We should be safe while we rest a bit and regroup.”

It then dawned on him he hadn’t asked for her name yet.

“Anna,” she answered.

“Are you hungry, Anna?”

She averted her eyes, as if in shame, and nodded. Jonathan retrieved an energy bar from his backpack. Before he handed it to her, he made Anna promise to eat it one small bite at a time. She agreed, but before he could stop her she had shoved the entire bar in her mouth and could barely breathe.

He took a bottle of water out of his bag, poured some of its contents on a piece of cloth and brought it near her face so he could wash off some of the dirt. Her reaction was one of retreat, but after she looked at him in silence for a moment, she accepted his help and leaned forward. 

Anna was scared and in excruciating pain, but it was the feeling of fresh water revealing clean patches of her skin added to the sweet taste of proper food that turned out to be too much to bear. As Jonathan saw his first real look at her face, he also saw her first tears.

The longer they stayed stationary, the greater danger grew. Jonathan cleared the space of all traces of their interlude and took Anna on his back again. This time, they would walk straight to his building.

“It doesn’t look like much on the outside, but I assure you it’s quite comfy inside. Ready?”

Anna no longer had the strength, nor the will, to answer. She was now just going with the flow. Jonathan, understanding her state of mind, didn’t repeat his question. It couldn’t have been later than six in the morning but the exact hour was irrelevant. Jonathan hated being out there during the day, period. In his opinion, only the bad or the stupid went out in daylight. He had time to waste with neither of them.

About a block away from the bridge they had to cross to reach his hideout, he got on one knee and instructed Anna to hold her breath, to keep silent. He wanted to listen for signs of activity in the vicinity of his quarters. When he felt confident enough, he ran over the bridge and proceeded toward a red brick warehouse that had been severely damaged by fire. 

He walked along the building and stopped in front of a dumpster on wheels near the back corner. He pushed it to the side. A wide entrance door attached to the dumpster followed the motion.

“Didn’t see that coming,” Anna whispered.

Her reaction drew a laugh from Jonathan, though he asked Anna to remain quiet. Once inside, he sat her on the ground, slid the door back into position and locked it. The place was now dark as night. Jonathan fired up his flashlight, which blinded Anna. 

From the little she could see, it was smaller than it looked on the outside. And it was in complete shambles. 

She began to fear she had been deceived. Panic was about to grab a hold of her when Jonathan walked to a second dumpster filled with junk like rusted metal and burnt wood. He pushed this one too, this time to reveal a set of stairs.

He took a nervous Anna in his arms and went up to the top floor. Upon reaching the last step, he opened an iron gate and flipped a switch, a surprising move since power had gone out a week after the first wave of the virus.

Anna surveyed the room. It wasn’t a mansion, far from it, but it was a home and she agreed; it did seem comfortable. Jonathan sat her on a gigantic vintage leather couch and went down again to camouflage the stairwell. After he came back up, he tried to get Anna to relax by offering her some filtered water.

“Maybe I’ll just stay, hum, stay until I get a new chair. Then I’ll be out of, hum, of your way.”

“You’re my guest, Anna. Not my prisoner. How about we just take it one day at a time?” Jonathan replied.

Her second sip of water was interrupted by cries only a very small animal could voice. Jonathan looked at a cardboard box in the left corner of the room.

“Right. The Fur Ball,” he said.

Click here to find Life by the Red Oak on Amazon

March is the National Social Work Month

March is the National Social Work Month. Early in my life, I got to benefit from the presence of a devoted Social Worker. Social work can take many forms and if it is well done, it can leave a positive and everlasting mark on someone's life!

What follows is excerpt from my book, Citizen of Happy Town. An excerpt that recounts the very first time I met Danielle soon after my arrival at the orphanage.

"... A couple of weeks after settling in, one of the Educators takes me to a small room to introduce me to a woman named Danielle. She shakes my hand and asks me if I would like to join her for a walk in the backyard, an offer I promptly accept since I spend most of my time there anyway and I also know we’ll find Alain playing marbles with the other kids, a game I can only enjoy as an observer since I still don’t have my own marbles.

Danielle, to the best of my recollection, is the first human being to ever hold my hand, which I instinctively put into hers as we walk outside and we make our way to one of the wooden tables in the backyard, away from the noise my friends are making. We walk in silence, but I can feel Danielle looking at me. I can sense she is curious about who I am. When we reach the table, I sit down and I ask immediately if she too is going to take me to a new home.

“No,” Danielle answers with a smile.

“Not today, anyway. But my goal is not to find you a home; it’s to find you a family. That’s what I do for a living; I find families for children who don’t have one.”

A few words from her is all I need to hear the kindness in her voice, to notice the determination in her tone. Just a few words, yes, but well-chosen ones and Danielle has just told me that she is real, that she is sincere and by the same token, she reassures me a little about whatever it is that awaits me in the near future.

We remain at the table where she asks me more questions and lets me talk her ear off about what my life has been so far and how much I like being here in Happy Town.

Speaking with Danielle makes me feel good. It’s easy and the sound of her voice alone adds to that feeling of peace I found when I moved here.

Before Danielle says goodbye, she surprises me by opening her purse to reveal a gift she brought just for me, the very first one of my life, I think. When I see what it is, I can barely breathe; it’s a blue pouch, filled with brand new and shiny marbles. I use both hands to grab it carefully, as if she were handing me a velvet bag filled with diamonds. Danielle was the first person to ever hold my hand less than an hour ago, and now, she is the first person to whom I say “thank you” spontaneously. The Educators have been trying to teach me these two words ever since I got here but now, they just plain exploded out of my throat like a reflex.

I can now play marbles with the other kids, my ticket of admission to the most popular activity in the orphanage’s backyard and to truly be a part of the group.

Danielle tells me to go play with my friends and  that we will see each other again soon with, what she hopes, will be good news.

I run towards Alain and the others as I scream “I got marbles too. I got marbles too ...”

This second excerpt is taken from the last chapter which is titled Reflection:

"... Since I can no longer see her face, when I think of the afternoon I first met Danielle, I can only see our shadows walking as we hold hands or sitting down as we talk. I admit it; the scene is incomplete at best. But what it evokes in me is crystal clear: in that moment, I sense an unspoken promise from Danielle that she would do everything she could to find me a family.

Through the many challenges of my reality and her grave illness, she kept her promise and gave me a chance at a better life while she was in the process of losing her own.

She lives still, wrapped in the memories of my many returns to an orphanage called Happy Town and I know for sure she smiles with pride whenever I recognize the kindness of others, something I can do thanks to the exemplary kindness she showed me at a time of my life so marked by confusion.

Danielle also lives in the feelings I still have every once in a while, when I think of some of the things I wish I could erase or maybe just change.

When I’m hit by the regrets spawned by either the sadness I may have caused the P family when I turned my back on them, by my inadequacy to please the B family or by my impressive failure with Gerard and Grace, it is Danielle who comes to remind me that I was just a child and that every single human being’s destiny must follow its course, fueled by its own logic and its own purpose.

Most of my regrets fade when I remember that it was Danielle who brought some peace to my heart that afternoon I said goodbye to a family and then drove me to the one with which I would spend the rest of my life. 

There is nonetheless a regret I will carry in me forever : I wish I could see her again. Even if only for a short moment. The one moment where I hold her tight in my arms as I know I can.

This moment by which I repay her, penny for penny, everything good she has done for me by telling her the words - the only words - I know she would long to hear:

“I’m fine” ..."

You may purchase Citizen of Happy Town as an eBook or in print by clicking here

Christmas in Happy Town

This is why I will always have a special thought for the orphanage at Christmas. The following is an excerpt from chapter 14 of Citizen of Happy Town:

"In the afternoon of Christmas Eve, a friend of ****'s visits us dressed up like Santa. While I'm grateful for the thought, I'm not at all impressed. I come from a place where we didn’t have the luxury of falling for fairy tales. I don’t remember ever believing in Santa Claus and I’m quite certain the cheques left by the neighborhood’s Tooth Fairy of would have bounced.

And so *****, ***** and I celebrate Christmas for the first time together. We spend the evening, toasty warm, by the small wood-burning stove in the basement of our house.

It’s a quiet night, filled with a simplicity that makes me feel safe. So much so that, if someone asked me to describe what tonight means, I wouldn’t hesitate for an instant; the first and only word to come out of my mouth would be “family”. Not because it’s the word I think others would want to hear but because at long last, it’s a word I can now truly feel.

It’s difficult to resist the temptation of comparing this present night to Christmas at the orphanage.

I can still remember the feeling of anxiety growing inside of me as preparations were underway for my first Christmas in Happy Town.

I was sitting on the lowest step of a tall ladder that had been used to hook ornaments on top of a giant tree. Well, I’m pretty sure it was a giant tree. Then again, when I was seven years old I was so little I could make anything look gigantic just by standing next to it.

The adults had been running all day like headless chickens to make sure everything would be perfect for the big night, now just a few minutes away.

In the weeks leading to the holidays, I had heard the other kids from school describe what a Merry Christmas was going to entail for them. The words they used sounded beautiful, but I couldn’t associate any of them with my own experiences. I was so relieved the teacher never called on me to make me tell my December 25th stories because until then my only memory of it was that of my brothers, my sister and I sitting by the electric stove in our apartment. We had cranked it up to the max and left the oven door opened to help keep us warm.

The few words we heard that morning were from my sister when she reminded us that it was indeed Christmas morning. Need I point out there were no presents to unwrap?

There I was, just a couple of years later, living in an orphanage where, ironically, I was about to actually celebrate Christmas for the first time.

Thanks to the other kids from school and to the description they had given in class of their upcoming holidays, I had discovered what Christmas was truly supposed to be and it wasn't what had been in the making that day at the orphanage. At the same time, I now knew what being safe and warm felt like on this cold but special winter night. The weight of the envy I was feeling toward my classmates was equal to the weight of my gratitude for what Happy Town was giving me. My heart, my skinny legs also, didn’t have enough living in them, and thus, not enough strength to carry that burden. The ladder was the closest thing to me when the weight became too heavy and my knees buckled. 

When she noticed I was sitting there alone, Carol came to me and asked how I was feeling. Honesty being a top rule there, all I could do was to tell her that I felt happy and excited about the night to come, but I also felt kind of bad for wanting, just as much, what my friends at school were having with their families at that same moment. I told Carol I knew Christmas wasn’t supposed to be what was about to happen. She convinced me to try and live in the moment so as to not miss the little joys life was so going out of its way to give to me.

I took her advice. All of us - the orphans, along with the Educators and some very special guests -  marched to the orphanage’s auditorium to celebrate Christmas. We were treated to an entertaining show of skits and songs put together and performed by some of the police officers from the local precinct. They had raised money through various events and rehearsed their performances just so they could buy us gifts and entertain us. All of them had left their families behind on Christmas night to spend time with us instead.

As presents, I received a small worktable with real tools and a guitar. I laughed and sang all evening long, such an extravagant affair for a kid who didn’t have a family.

For these few hours, it no longer mattered where or who I was. Not once did I even think about what the other kids from my school were enjoying on their side.

Thanks to Happy Town, to its people and a few generous souls, I had learned that happiness exists regardless of where we sit. Even if it's on the lowest step of a very tall ladder in an orphanage. I felt safe and warm, much like I do on this simple Christmas night by the stove with ***** and *****.

A heated shelter and the promise of a tomorrow are sometimes the best gifts of them all."

Click here to purchase Citizen of Happy Town

In 1977, I was an orphan...but I still got to see Star Wars!

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 9 of Citizen of Happy Town:

"One night - one memorable night - Lucie treats me to dinner and a movie. At the orphanage, we get to see movies but it’s on a medium-sized screen and they are a few years old movies like the whole Planet of the Apes series, Blackbeard’s Ghost or The Time Machine. We are, after all, just kids; old movies or not, as long as it means having a bucket of buttery popcorn on our lap, we’re happy. But now, Lucie takes me to see a brand new film, a super production in a real movie theater with a gigantic screen.

Lucie takes me to see Luke Skywalker take on the Empire.

She tells me a couple of days in advance and even has to show me the tickets she has purchased just so I can believe my luck. The news of my good fortune spreads throughout the orphanage at hyperdrive speed and makes the other kids madly envious of me.

When the big night comes, after a copious dinner at a restaurant, we take our seats in the theater. As the lights go down and the curtains open to reveal the screen, my heart starts beating to the rhythm of the famous opening scene with the music and the yellow text that disappears on the horizon. Each time something amazing happens on the screen, I turn to Lucie and smile at her in absolute joy. Each time, she answers with a smile of her own.

After the movie, Lucie drives me back to the orphanage, way past my bedtime. It’s so late in fact that the others are already asleep and the reel of Cat Stevens music has to be nearing the end of what must be its second run. I lie down in a comfortable and familiar bed, my tummy filled with restaurant food. I think of Lucie who had convinced the director of the orphanage to leave me in her occasional care by telling him she wanted to do simple things with me. She ended up taking me to a galaxy far, far away with R2D2 to save a princess.

I go to sleep the luckiest orphan in the galaxy. In the morning, I open my eyes to the other kids standing in silence by my bed and waiting for me to wake up at once so I can tell them the tale of Star Wars."

Citizen of Happy Town can be purchased here for only $3.99

Why Christmas in Happy Town will always remind me of the police!

Here's why I will always have a special thought for the orphanage at Christmas. The following is an excerpt from chapter 14 of Citizen of Happy Town:

"In the afternoon of Christmas Eve, a friend of ****'s visits us dressed up like Santa. While I'm grateful for the thought, I'm not at all impressed. I come from a place where we didn’t have the luxury of believing in fairy tales. I don’t remember ever believing in Santa Claus and I’m quite certain the cheques left by the neighborhood’s Tooth Fairy of would have bounced.

And so *****, ***** and I celebrate Christmas for the first time together. We spend the evening, toasty warm, by the small wood-burning stove in the basement of our house.

It’s a quiet night, filled with a simplicity that makes me feel safe. So much so that, if someone asked me to describe what tonight means, I wouldn’t hesitate for an instant; the first and only word to come out of my mouth would be “family”. Not because it’s the word I think others would want to hear but because at long last, it’s a word I can now truly feel.

It’s difficult to resist the temptation of comparing this present night to Christmas at the orphanage.

I can still remember the feeling of anxiety growing inside of me as preparations were underway for my first Christmas in Happy Town.

I was sitting on the lowest step of a tall ladder that had been used to hook ornaments on top of a giant tree. Well, I’m pretty sure it was a giant tree. Then again, when I was seven years old I was so little I could make anything look gigantic just by standing next to it.

The adults had been running all day like headless chickens to make sure everything would be perfect for the big night, now just a few minutes away.

In the weeks leading to the holidays, I had heard the other kids from school describe what a Merry Christmas was going to entail for them. The words they used sounded beautiful, but I couldn’t associate any of them with my own experiences. I was so relieved the teacher never called on me to make me tell my December 25th stories because until then my only memory of it was that of my brothers, my sister and I sitting by the electric stove in our apartment. We had cranked it up to the max and left the oven door opened to help keep us warm.

The few words we heard that morning were from my sister when she reminded us that it was indeed Christmas morning. Need I point out there were no presents to unwrap?

There I was, just a couple of years later, living in an orphanage where, ironically, I was about to actually celebrate Christmas for the first time.

Thanks to the other kids from school and to the description they had given in class of their upcoming holidays, I had discovered what Christmas was truly supposed to be and it wasn't what had been in the making that day at the orphanage. At the same time, I now knew what being safe and warm felt like on this cold but special winter night. The weight of the envy I was feeling toward my classmates was equal to the weight of my gratitude for what Happy Town was giving me. My heart, my skinny legs also, didn’t have enough living in them, and thus, not enough strength to carry that burden. The ladder was the closest thing to me when the weight became too heavy and my knees buckled. 

When she noticed I was sitting there alone, Carol came to me and asked how I was feeling. Honesty being a top rule there, all I could do was to tell her that I felt happy and excited about the night to come, but I also felt kind of bad for wanting, just as much, what my friends at school were having with their families at that same moment. I told Carol I knew Christmas wasn’t supposed to be what was about to happen. She convinced me to try and live in the moment so as to not miss the little joys life was so going out of its way to give to me.

I took her advice. All of us - the orphans, along with the Educators and some very special guests -  marched to the orphanage’s auditorium to celebrate Christmas. We were treated to an entertaining show of skits and songs put together and performed by some of the police officers from the local precinct. They had raised money through various events and rehearsed their performances just so they could buy us gifts and entertain us. All of them had left their families behind on Christmas night to spend time with us instead.

As presents, I received a small worktable with real tools and a guitar. I laughed and sang all evening long, such an extravagant affair for a kid who didn’t have a family.

For these few hours, it no longer mattered where or who I was. Not once did I even think about what the other kids from my school were enjoying on their side.

Thanks to Happy Town, to its people and a few generous souls, I had learned that happiness exists regardless of where we sit. Even if it's on the lowest step of a very tall ladder in an orphanage. I felt safe and warm, much like I do on this simple Christmas night by the stove with ***** and *****.

A heated shelter and the promise of a tomorrow are sometimes the best gifts of them all."

Click here to purchase Citizen of Happy Town

Finding the orphaned memories

I remember the exact day I met my parents.

Not many people can say that.

It was on my tenth birthday. February 23rd 1979, to be precise. Danielle, the social worker in charge of my case since I had become an orphan four years earlier, took me to a restaurant where she and I met with a nice young couple. They treated me to a giant piece of cake and gave me a crisp two-dollar bill to celebrate. At the time, I was happy because of the sugar rush and the money.

Today, however, after a long and intense look into my past, the scene that took place 35 years ago is a comforting memory not only because of the good my family has brought to my life since then, but because it also serves as a reminder of all that had to happen in the years before that meeting just so I could sit with these good people, at that very table, on that very day.

The path leading to that restaurant was a long and peculiar one, no doubt about it.

I was born in poverty, taken from my biological family at the age of six and driven in a big white car to an orphanage by a man wearing a suit. No one has ever given me a reason. I can only speculate that, since she was raising us alone, since I was the youngest of the five kids and we were so poor, my mother wanted to give me a shot at a better life. There can be nothing but bad explanations and this the only one I’ve ever allowed myself to contemplate.

So I was left behind at the orphanage, which was called “Ville Joie,” or “Happy Town,” and this is where the quest to find a family for me began.

The adults at the orphanage were called “Educators,” a group of people as kind and as dedicated a kid in my shoes could ever need. It still amazes me to this day: an orphanage called “Happy Town” and it actually lived up to its name.

Soon after my arrival, I was introduced to Danielle. She was so kind and had nothing of the bureaucrats who sometimes manage cases like mine.

I loved Danielle immediately. During our first meeting, she told me her job wasn’t to just find a home for me; it was to find family where I would be happy. Right then and there I knew she was for real. She also gave me marbles. That sealed the deal between us.

If the orphanage was as close to perfection as it could be, the era in which I grew up wasn’t.

At the time, kids like me who were, in essence, children of the system, were somewhat treated as guinea pigs. It wasn’t done with mean intentions, but it has had its consequences. And so I never lived in “foster homes”. I was instead sent to live with “pre-adoption” families. People would pick me up at the orphanage and on our way to their home my entire world would change. I had to adapt to their lives: new habits, new rules, new food, new school and new friends. A new name also. That’s how it was at the time: when I joined a family, I took their name. That would have been inconsequential had it happened once or twice. I didn’t have that kind of luck; considering I had to revert to my birth name whenever I was sent back to the orphanage after things didn’t work out with a family, I changed my name nine times in a little over four years.

Some kids are loners. I was a loner.

Families were allowed to try me. If they weren’t fully satisfied, they could simply return me, no questions asked. I sometimes joke by telling people that I came with a toaster as a free gift. When customers sent me back, they could still keep the toaster.

When I set out to write my book, Citizen of Happy Town: An Orphan Remembers, I went back deep inside that period of my life.

I saw again the man with the suit and his white car. I saw the moment I arrived at the orphanage and Alain, the great friend I made there. I saw Danielle and the “Educators.” In my head, I also went back to the families who took me in, starting with the very first one where I spent three months.

It turns out three months is an eternity when you spend most of it in hell.

Yet, in my reflection, it wasn’t the meanness of these terrible people I was able to measure.

It was the kindness of the other families I was sent to live with, like that of the “P family” for example.

They were a beautiful couple with two generous daughters. But they had the bad luck of welcoming me after my stay with the bad first family. Given my state of mind, it was never going to happen with the P’s. Ultimately, I was the one who rejected them and Mr. P drove me back to “Happy Town.” His goodbyes by the door of the orphanage’s entrance will stay with me forever.

There was the “B family” who were simple and down to earth folks. I was starting to open up a little and to allow people inside of my bubble. Danielle was on sick leave at the time and was replaced by one of the bureaucrats I spoke of earlier. I make some light of it in my writings but the truth is, this cold man caused a great deal of pain to a number of great people. As a result of his lack of compassion, and common sense, he denied the “B family” a very simple request they made and so they too had to let me go. They too had to drive me back to the orphanage.

I was eight years old and I was beginning to wonder if there was a place for me out there in the world.

There was also another couple which I won’t name because I don’t want to ruin it for those who will chose to read my book. It’s fair to say I felt they were my dream family. I was finally ready to be loved but I didn’t know how to give some of it back. I had been an orphan long enough to forget what it entailed to be a son. That family made the decision not to keep me and at the same time another one agreed to take me in. This time around, there would be no return to “Happy Town.” I would be leaving one family and going straight to another one.

That “other family” would turn out be the right one for me. They are the ones I met at the restaurant on my tenth birthday.

It sure wasn’t an easy adaptation and with everything I had experienced prior to joining them, they had to show a lot patience and understanding at first. Some people even asked them if they were in their right minds, taking in a ten year old kid with such a past. I’m glad their desire to give a child a family was stronger than the doubts expressed by some.

I tried to write my story a few times over the years. I knew it was different. I knew it was a story “you can tell”. I just couldn’t find the right words to tell it. Something was missing to my approach in the writing process and therefore, something was also missing on the pages. A chapter or two worth of meaningless words and to the recycling bin it all went.

What was missing was a reflection. The one I did in order to finally be able to write my book, which took nearly three years to complete, was a powerful wake up call.

Instead of seeing the negative or difficult moments like I did in my previous attempts, I was reminded of the kindness most of the people I met on my path showed to me.

I was also surprised by few the tears I shed; not by their presence, but more because they came at the thought of those who brought a much needed light in my life at a time where there could so easily have been only darkness to remember. You know, the right kind of tears.

It seemed like the deeper I went into the emotions of the time, the less bitterness I felt and the less regrets I found.

And with the completion of my book, not only was I able to find again most of the images of my life as an orphan, I was also able to put them back in the right order, which is behind the images of my life as an adoptee.

I can’t for one second imagine a life without the memories I have of my childhood because they now lead to my life with my family.

It’s ok to reflect. It’s ok to go back. Sometimes when you go back, you end up in a restaurant with an enormous dessert in front of you and a little fortune in your pocket.