CHAPTER 1
Not often do I come across the tale of a kid who made his teens a living hell of anarchy and booze, then managed to be a normal, productive adult. Or the story of a kid, who fought authority, ran away from home, lived on the streets, and still didn't get killed. But I say 'not often' because I know a kid who pulled off something like this.
Me.
I am sometimes known as the Jesus of Suburbia, because one day my best friend James ruffled my hair and laughingly told me I'm such a good kid I'm like Jesus, only badder, so I'm like the Jesus of Berkeley, or 'Suburbia'. James has always been the leader of our group. He started it all, really.
He was the 6-year-old that snuck away from church when his foster parents dragged him there; who said and knew more cusswords than have ever been recorded in history, and on top of that, he smoked, drank, and defied authority more than some of the people appearing on America's Most Wanted, but James was never caught. So he was still around, still politely rubbing it in my face that he's cooler and better than I could ever hope to be. He got the girls, the pride, and the spotlight, and the only sliver of it I could ever receive was a chance bit that gleamed on me as I stood encased in my friend's shadow.
St. Jimmy, as a lot of people called him, was far more the person I wanted to be. So I idolize him, even though I was constantly reminded that I could never be like him. I come from normalcy. Sure, my parents are divorced, Mom has a new husband named Brad who hates me, and Dad's slept with every hooker in the Bay, but who hasn't? I strive still.
Jimmy is definitely from a broken home, a past riddled with suicide, murder, booze, and everything else that comes to mind when you visit him in the warehouse on 12th he lives in when he's mad at his latest set of foster parents. Jimmy is a brilliant kid, but he can't even remember his proper last name anymore. That's what beer and weed have done to him.