Read Uncaged for Free Online Page B

like an idiot, staying out late. It was minor stuff, but it was against the rules, and I kept getting into trouble. I was often on the road crew. I was one of those kids cleaning the park.
    I was mischievous. I don’t know if it was because it gave me a sense of control or power, or just because I was restless and neededsomething to do. But I had to try really hard to stay out of trouble. I would find myself wanting to do something but think
that would be wrong
or
I shouldn’t steal that.
Normal people don’t have to think like that.
    I know now that, because I was young, my brain was not fully developed. I know that young boys can’t fully understand consequences. And I know that I never thought about the consequences, which I couldn’t imagine would be that bad anyway, at least until I turned eighteen. The worst thing that would happen was I’d get sent back to juvenile hall and see all my friends.
    So I was good for a while, until I got integrated with the boys. I found the troublemakers. I was good for five or six months. I made a couple of new friends. One of them was Ryan, who came in around the same time as I did. He was a skinny little Puerto Rican guy, brown like me. We had that in common. He became my friend and stayed my best friend for years and years.
    Unlike me, he was not a bad boy. He wasn’t serious about criminality. He was just a good kid who got into trouble. He grew up with a wealthy adoptive family. For most of his childhood he didn’t know they weren’t his biological family. He found out when he was fifteen, and he went a little nuts. But he wasn’t a bad kid. He just had a big mouth. People beat him up, and he got into trouble, and he wound up with me at the Shamrock place.
    After a while, after I got settled in, I started drinking and screwing around, staying out, testing the limits. Some of that was probably not a big deal. Bob understood boys. He understood that if you were taking care of business and doing your stuff—keeping up with your schoolwork, doing your job, coming home on time—then having a beer with your friend was OK. His philosophy was “If you can handle all your responsibilities then you can handle one beer.”
    It was easy to do. There were a lot of older boys at Shamrock. There was a lot of drug use there because Bob was pretty naivewhen it came to addiction and the harder stuff. He knew about pot and drinking, but the rest was a big secret. And I found the bad kids in the community, the way the bad kids always find each other. It wasn’t hard to get the stuff; it was hard to stay away from it.
    As much security as there was around us, and as much love, screwing around had become my life. I’d get up on time and get on the van for school, and I’d be there on time to get on the van to go back home. In between, I went to a rural high school run by people who weren’t used to dealing with little criminals. It was easy to get away with stuff. There were hoodlums like me all over the place. The big hangout was the high school. If you wanted someone to hang out with, or drink with, you’d sit on the high school lawn. Eventually, someone would drive by. There was always someone who would buy a bottle for you. Or you could get a ride outside of town, where there was a family who ran a small liquor store. They’d sell liquor to anybody with money. I could get booze from town, or pot from school. Near our school was the continuation school where they sent all the problem kids. It was just a short walk, and that’s where the pot was. And in town you could get a twelve-pack of Hamm’s beer for a few bucks.
    I usually had a little money. I was always volunteering to wash Bob’s Cadillacs. He paid five bucks per car. I was very meticulous about it, and I’d wash two cars a week. With ten bucks, I was cool for beer and pot for the weekend. My problem was that I had no control when drinking or using