My mother hated me. I loved her, of course. I remember her smell mixed up with flowers and cookies and winter fires. I remember she hugged me on my ninth birthday. The trouble came from the notes written in my awkward hand that she found, calling her names I didn't understand. Sometimes there were drawings. I didn't write those notes or make those drawings. My mother and father must have been glad when I was sent away to reform school after my thirteenth birthday party, the one no one came to. The reform school was nicer. There were others there who'd had it about like me. We got along. I didn't watch their shifty eyes too much, or ask them what they shifted to see. They didn't talk about my screams at night. It was home. My trouble there was that I was always being framed for stealing. I didn't take any of those things they located in my bunk. Stealing wasn't in my line. If you believe any of this at all, you'll see why it couldn't be me who did the stealing. There was reason for me to steal, if I could have got away with it. The others got money from home to buy the things they needed--razor blades, candy, sticks of tea. I got a letter from Mom or Dad every now and then before they were killed, saying they had sent money or that it was enclosed, but somehow I never got a dime of it. When I was expelled from reform school, I left with just one idea in mind--to get all the money I could ever use for the things I needed and the things I wanted. * * * * * It was two or three years later that I skulked into Brother Partridge's mission on Durbin Street. The preacher and half a dozen men were singing _Onward Christian Soldiers_ in the meeting room. It was a drafty hall with varnished camp chairs. I shuffled in at the back with my suitcoat collar turned up around my stubbled jaw. I made my hand shaky as I ran it through my knotted hair. Partridge was supposed to think I was just a bum. As an inspiration, I hugged my chest to make him think I was some wino nursing a flask full of Sneaky Pete. All I had there was a piece of copper alloy tubing inside a slice of plastic hose for taking care of myself, rolling sailors and the like. Who had the price of a bottle? Partridge didn't seem to notice me, but I knew that was an act. I knew people were always watching every move I made. He braced his red-furred hands on the sides of his auctioneer's stand and leaned his splotched eagle beak toward us. "Brothers, this being Thanksgiving, I pray the good Lord that we all are truly thankful for all that we have received. Amen." Some skin-and-bones character I didn't know struggled out of his seat, amening. I could see he had a lot to be thankful for--somewhere he had received a fix.