David was young

The age really is irrelevant

He was sleeping in his mom’s bed with her

When the bad man came

He had missed school again

There was daylight

Or at least that is what David remembers

 

The bad man beat on the door

The door was the door of a house trailer

In Bronson Michigan

It was on a channel of a lake

 

Not that that matters

 

But that’s where it was

 

When the sound came

David’s mom grabbed him

She covered his mouth

 

The terror in her eyes was unimaginable.

 

David and his mother got under the bed

In case the bad man came in

Or incase he looked through the window

 

The time stretched on forever

David would never go back to that school

 

When the bad man was gone

The race was on

 

David and his mother grabbed what they could

 

They got in the car

 

They drove like a couple of madmen

 Toward Adrian

 

They stopped at a junkyard

It was somewhere on highway 12

 

But again

That is only a dream

In the mind of a little child

 

David’s mom told him

that they needed money to get away

 

She told him what to do

How to do it

 

She stopped

Opened the hood

Of the car

And distracted the man

With her body

her female ways

and her lies

 

David snuck in to the office

He went through the drawers

 

He found the money bag

 

David put the money bag under his shirt

He put his shirt over the bag

He put his hand on the shirt and held the bag

 

David went outside

And said mommy I don’t feel good

They got in the car and left

 

They would be safe

because David had become a criminal

David paid their way with his soul

 

But they would live

It was worth the price

At least in a second graders eyes

 

And then David found out that he got the wrong bag

There wasn’t enough money in it

There was only $700 in cash

 

As David’s mother tore up the checks

And threw them out the window

She told him how he had gotten it wrong

 

David knew that if they didn’t make it

That it would be his fault

 

Later that day

They went to the Adrian Mall

David’s mom had David buy a Chihuahua

then they went to the motel

 

David went down to the office of the motel

To see if he could get a book

 

He had seen some on a little metal shelf

 

(I can see that shelf so clearly in my mind.

That shelf of books cost me my mother)

David heard the detectives asking about his mother

 

David turned

Ran for the door

He had to get to the room fast enough

to get his mom out of there

 

He failed

 

The detectives came to the door

David and his mom

rode in the back of a brown 4door car

 

They took David’s mom that day

 

And it was all David’s fault

 

He didn’t steal enough money

And he let his weakness for fun get in the way

 

David spent the rest of his life

Trying to never let his wants and his desire for fun

Get in the way of doing what it took to survive.

 

After all

Life isn’t about being happy

It’s about being safe.


Little David grew up

But not really

He will always be that little boy

That didn’t steal enough money to save his mom

A little boy that was too weak to take care of business

 

A little boy that let play get in the way of family

 

A little boy that sold his mother

for a book called Jaws  

In a small motel

on the corner of 223 and M52

 in a little town called Adrian

 in the State of Michigan

so many years ago