"Not now, Shapey. No milk," she would tell me.
That's she would always tell me, always denying my thirst—my want for attention. I didn't think I was asking for much. I realize they clothed me and gave me food, but sometimes I would really just like attention from my parents.
Whether or not Clay was my real father should not have mattered because he played role of my father, and he did not fulfill that role. He completely ignored me; I did not exist to him. He paid a little attention to my older brother, Orel, if only to discipline him. I did not even get disciplined; I was paid no mind to.
My mother was not much better for she would not let me drink when I was thirsty. "Not now, Shapey," "No milk, Shapey," "Go play with your toy, Shapey." What toy, Mother? The discarded vacuum cleaner? The gas lighter? It's a wonder I wasn't killed, and if I had been, would you have noticed?
When Christmas came at age seven and there were no presents under the tree, I did not understand, naturally. I was a little boy, and to me, Christmas meant presents. Having no presents upset me because despite the normal neglect, we did get Christmas presents every year. But not that year. . . That year was strange and confusing and really downright awful, and it never really got any better from then on out.
Orel always was good at having hope, always talking about Jesus. . . I don't know how he did it. But I admired him for it; I admired him for a lot of things. After all, he is my older brother, and out of my mother, father, and him, he was the only one who really paid attention to me. He played games with me, tried to teach me things I didn't understand, and I am quite sure that he was the only one who noticed I was gone when I had been switched with the Posabule's child.
Yes, Mrs. Posabule had taken the wrong son home, and nobody seemed to even notice. It wasn't awful. It was almost identical to being at home, except I then had a sister instead of a brother. The sister, Christina, noticed that I was not her brother. Her parents called me 'Block', not taking the time to really look at me and realize I was indeed not their son Block. Christina realized it, and I was fairly sure that back home, Orel realized it, too.
Having Block at home made things more tolerable. We could relate to each other, we became best friends—brothers. We helped each other make it through, but that lonely feeling never quite went away. That feeling of thirst.
"When I'm thirsty, it feels how I feel when I'm alone."
Me making that statement shocked my mother; she seemed confused and even remorseful, if only for that moment.
Time went on. Things were never great, and sometimes they were downright awful, but we made it out, my brothers and I. Orel and Christina married—had a family. Block and I went on and got jobs that we thought were quite fitting. Block became a firefighter, and I became a policeman. We wanted to help people, to save them. We knew what it was like to be neglected, to be scared, to be sad, to be in danger. There are different kinds of danger, and no matter what kind people were in, we wanted to help them because being in bad situation and having no one to save you is not fun.
We survived, but we want to make sure there are more survivors in this world. We want to save them.