There was the touch of cold metal against my left wrist and the harsh voice in my ear: “This is the FBI. You are under arrest.” I’d been relaxing in the back seat of the car with my left arm hanging out the window. The car was stolen and I was AWOL from the Army. Being AWOL didn’t bother me. It was the getting caught that hurt my pride. I’d always considered myself capable of doing my own thing and getting away with it. Now I had to suffer the humiliation of the jail cell, stand in line for lousy cold chow, go back to the lonely cell and the hard bunk with nothing to do but stare at the wall. How could I have been stupid enough to get into a mess like this?
I’d been a pretty independent fellow from the time I was twelve. That’s when my father died suddenly, leaving my mother alone with three boys to raise. My brothers were seven and one, and Mother started taking in washings and went on relief to keep us alive. She always talked about Dad being in heaven and how God would take care of us, but with the intensity of a twelve-year-old I turned in fury against a God who could treat us that way.
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