A/N: Before diving into this chapter, I feel the need to warn you that some of the subject matter could be perceived as sensitive or graphic. This was a rough chapter to write but I felt it was necessary to the story line.

Special 'Thank You' to Corinne (waatp) for beta'ing this chapter for me.

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Chapter 4

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Jesse's upbringing was a lot different than Beca's. A lot different. While Beca was growing up in, what could be considered to some as the lap of luxury, Jesse was in a rundown trailer on the wrong side of the tracks. He couldn't recall a time when he wasn't cold or hungry and he had gotten used to sleeping with one eye open after being robbed for what they had more times than he could remember.

His mom Bambi, a nickname her Dad gave her when she was very small because she was "doe eyed", was short for Barbara. She was a crack whore and a meth monkey, who would sleep with anyone and do anything to get the money she needed to feed her addiction. Sex, drugs and a good time always came before her children, food, shelter and clothes. She had four boys with four different men and to be honest, she had no idea who any of their fathers actually were and usually struggled to remember simple things like their names and birthdays.

Bambi's first taste of drugs happened shortly after her father's death, when she was just thirteen years old. Within six months, she was not only heavily addicted but extremely dependant on drugs. She shoplifted, stole from the poor box at church and beat up on young school kids to get the money she needed for her daily fix.

At fifteen she got pregnant after a sloppy night out in a park with a senior from high school whose name she never bothered to find out and surprisingly she did the most unselfish thing ever; she quit taking drugs and went cold turkey because she wanted a healthy baby. Her mother enrolled her in a young, single mother's group down at the community center and together they tried to make the best of the situation. Despite her wrongdoings towards the local church, they held a fundraiser to buy Bambi a crib, stroller and clothes for her child, believing her when she claimed to have turned over a new leaf. Right before her sixteenth birthday, she dropped out of school to have her baby; a son she named Jesse Christopher.

He was a beautiful baby, barely cried and seemed content just nestled into his mother's arms. Bambi was in the hospital for three days before being released back into her own mother's care. She accepted no help and devoted every waking moment to being with her newborn son who appeared to thrive under her loving care. She loved nothing more than to take him out in his stroller for a walk around the park, accepting admiring glances and appreciative nods from her neighbors for turning her life around for her child.

Unfortunately, her selflessness was very short lived. Shortly after Jesse turned three months, she received a phone call from one of her old friends, inviting her to a party. Bambi asked her mother for permission to go, asking her to babysit Jesse while she went out for a few hours. Her mother refused, having already made plans with a few ladies from church. Bambi threw a tantrum and her mother tried to explain that they were indebted to them for their help in getting the things she needed for Jesse.

At first Bambi seemed accepting of the situation and settled down for the night with Jesse on her lap watching television when her mother headed out. She had only been gone an hour when she received a call from a worried neighbour who said that her grandson had been crying non stop and no lights were on in the house. Eleanor had rushed home to find the trailer empty save for a very red faced and sad baby lying propped up on the couch with a bottle.

Bambi stumbled home two days later, high as a kite with no memory of her own baby. Within a week, she went back to her partying ways and hardly spent any time with him. She entrusted Jesse to the constant care of her mother. Eleanor would argue that Bambi abandoned Jesse in favor of sex, drugs and rock & roll. Bambi on the other hand would strongly disagree. She would say she was just living life to the fullest and that her son was too young to notice whether she was there or not. Eventually, Jesse stopped calling out to Bambi when she would surface from her bed and when he banged his head on the coffee table while trying to stand up by himself, it was Eleanor he toddled over to for comfort while Bambi watched from the couch with a bottle of vodka in her hand.

Eleanor did her best to give Jesse everything he needed but she wasn't his mother and refused to pretend that she was. She was too old to be his mother. Eleanor was a religious woman who spent her days caring for her grandson and her nights praying that Bambi would find a nice young man who would help her to overcome her addictions and love her enough to help her raise her son. She applied for financial aid to help pay the bills having had to quit her part time job at the Piggly Wiggly but was refused assistance as she was not listed as Jesse's official caregiver on any paperwork. Bambi was too lazy to file the papers signing over her rights.

Eleanor sold her car which meant they could keep their heads above water for the next eighteen months if they were careful. Not trusting banks, she kept the money under a loose ceiling tile in the bathroom but soon noticed small bills were missing. Realizing it was Bambi who was taking the money that Eleanor needed to raise her grandson, she asked one of her neighbors to look after it for her. Eleanor continued to pray for her family.

When Bambi was seventeen, she met a guy named Chuck. Chuck was not the guy Eleanor prayed for, he was far from it actually. He and Bambi took eleven month old Jesse from Eleanor and moved into a ratty hotel room on the other side of town; the part of town where even the police knew they needed back up. Eleanor pined for her grandson but knew in her heart of hearts, that his place was with his mother. It was from that hotel room that Chuck began pimping Bambi out for money to support their growing drug habit.

Chuck pimped Bambi out for months to anyone and everyone who would pay top dollar to have sex with her; despite her drug habit and hard lifestyle, she was still a beautiful, desirable woman and had a list of regulars who demanded her attention several times a week. While Bambi was 'entertaining' clients, Chuck was back at the hotel with Jesse.

Poor Jesse endured physical and emotional abuse while in Chuck's care and was always covered in bruises. He soon went from a happy, chubby baby with thighs that everyone loved to squeeze, to gaunt, withdrawn and sad. Chuck would eat in front of Jesse and when the little boy reached out to grab something to eat, Chuck would smack his hands away and raise his fists in anger. He began to lock him in the bathroom when he wanted something to eat instead of feeding him.

When Eleanor found out what was happening, she marched right over to the hotel and took Jesse away from Bambi and Chuck. They offered no resistance and Jesse fiercely clung onto Eleanor and refused to leave her side for several days. Jesse was filthy, malnourished and very sickly but under the care and love of his grandma, he began to smile once again. Six weeks later Bambi showed up at Eleanor's house to announce that she was pregnant again and she was moving back in.

Eleanor assumed that Chuck was the baby's father. It wasn't until the baby was born and was quite obviously not one hundred percent caucasian that that she realized that he wasn't the father of the baby. Despite his unknown paternity, Casey James was a beautiful baby with a head full of dark hair, almond shaped eyes and long dark lashes most women would kill to have.

When Casey and Bambi were released from the hospital, the always dependable Eleanor was there to take them home. She pushed Bambi for a father's name for the birth certificate but her daughter clearly had no clue and was not interested in working it out. One afternoon while Bambi rested, Eleanor, rocked her newest grandson and apologized for not knowing where he came from but told him that she loved him unconditionally and would always do everything she could for him. The baby in her arms cooed and gurgled and Eleanor did realise it was possible to love something so small so much.

For a few weeks, Eleanor thought Bambi might have actually made a turn for the better. She was home with her mother and the boys, making meals, partaking in bathtime, reading bedtime stories and playing with Jesse and his Legos on the ratty old carpet in the living room or swinging him round on the porch in the late afternoon sun. Jesse had started turning to her for cuddles again and while her arms were stiff around him, she loved to stay with him as he fell asleep. Things seemed to be going well, until Chuck started calling again; it wasn't long before Bambi was soon back to her old tricks.

Eleanor was left with a big decision. Should she allow her grandsons to become wards of the state and potentially be placed in a home or homes where they would be loved and cared for by strangers or should she continue to try caring for the rambunctious young boys. In her head, she knew that she should turn them over to the state but in her heart she just couldn't let them go. So, selfishly she decided to make the best of a shitty situation and applied for a certificate of guardianship so she could make the necessary decisions with regard to Jesse and Casey for their futures.

Eleanor and the boys didn't hear from Bambi for a few years after that. If she was being honest, Eleanor wasn't sure that Bambi was even still alive. Part of her hoped that she wasn't because at least that way she wasn't selling her soul to the devil anymore. They celebrated her birthday each year with a small cake that Eleanor managed to pick up at the local grocery store on it's last sellable date followed by a trip to the park to play on the swings or into the forest to collect pine cones. Neither boy remembered their mother but went through the motions for their grandma's sake.

When Jesse was seven, Bambi resurfaced. She showed up at Eleanor's house looking like death; she has been beaten pretty badly and was hardly recognizable. It took Eleanor a few minutes to recognize the young woman on her doorstep, huddled in a corner of the porch, wearing nothing but shorts and a ripped tank top. She was thin as a rail and there were track marks up her arms and in her neck from shooting up. Against her better judgement, Eleanor allowed Bambi to stay.

While the boys were at school, Eleanor helped Bambi bathe and wash her hair, gave her some of the clean clothes that she'd left behind and a hot meal; probably her first in months. She fell asleep in her mother's bed and slept for over 40 hours while the drugs began to ebb from her system. The boy's first glimpse of Bambi was through a crack in the bedroom door and it almost broke Eleanor's heart when Jesse asked who the lady was.

Bambi stayed for a total of three months, just long enough to celebrate Jesse's eighth birthday. Shy of her children, Bambi didn't know what they liked or were into so instead of purchasing a proper gift for Jesse, she slipped him a pack of cigarettes and a fifth of bourbon. He didn't know what to do with it so hid it under the floorboard in his bedroom, terrified that his Granny would find it.

Then just as suddenly as she had shown up, she disappeared again in the middle of the night. She didn't leave a note or a forwarding address but took Eleanor's jewelry, including her wedding rings. The next time Eleanor heard from her daughter was when she was admitted to the hospital to give birth to her third son, Jonah Charles, named loving after her dearly departed dad. Jonah was born two months prematurely and addicted to meth. By the grace of God, a lot of rehabilitation and love and support from Eleanor, he was ready to leave the hospital after just five weeks.

True to form, Bambi went back home with Eleanor only to leave again weeks later without so much as a 'see ya later'. Eleanor was getting worn out; she was constantly bailing Bambi out and caring for her grandsons was now becoming very taxing on her. The boys needed real parents, discipline and continuity which was something that, no matter how hard she tried, Eleanor couldn't provide. She could give them love, food and shelter but she couldn't give them parents who cared.

Bambi's fourth and final child came two years after Jonah on a blustery, windy day. Eleanor had just settled the boys down for the night when the phone rang. Hearing the nurse ask for her, 'the mother of Barbara Swanson', Eleanor thought that Bambi had finally killed herself and was almost angry that the nurse was happily chirping on about Bambi being in labor and could Eleanor please bring her things to the hospital.

Colby Joshua was a beautiful baby, just like his brothers and while Eleanor was exhausted, she couldn't turn the baby away. He was a healthy eight pounds and Eleanor got the impression that Bambi had really tried to look after herself with her latest pregnancy. There was a softness to her cheeks and a sparkle in her eye that Eleanor hadn't seen for many, many years. Before they left the hospital she told Bambi that this was the absolute end of the line. She couldn't continue to bring children into the world and not care for them. Eleanor convinced her to have her tubes tied so that there wouldn't be anymore parentless children. Surprisingly, Bambi agreed with no questions or arguments.

Just as she had after each of her other hospitalizations, Bambi went home to her mother's after Colby's birth for a couple of weeks before disappearing into the unknown again. The house was small and was wood framed with a roof that leaked in a torrential downpour. The porch was rickety after many years of young boys riding their bikes all over it and the boys would crawl underneath it to hide from the bullies.

With Eleanor, Bambi and all four boys living in it they were practically falling over each other and there was always a line for the single bathroom in the morning. On one of the last visits, the social worker noticed that the house was in desperate need of some major TLC and mentioned it to Eleanor, who cried and hid her face in her hands. She couldn't afford the repairs. She was just barely making ends meet and usually had little or nothing left at the end of the month. She often went without food for a couple of days to make sure the rapidly growing boys had enough to eat.

The only reason the boys got birthday and Christmas presents was because of her friends at church. They would call a week or so before and find out the boys sizes and interests and on the day presents would show up on the front porch, labeled carefully with a tag that read 'with love'.

When Jesse was ten, Bambi came back to get her boys. She had suddenly decided that she wanted to be a mother and without giving Eleanor any time to get used to the idea, she loaded the boys into a rented car, tossed their clothes into the trunk, nodded her thanks to her mother and drove off. She left Eleanor in a cloud of dust and with a broken heart.

Bambi moved them to a trailer park on Sherman Grove Avenue which was rundown but before the Swanson's moved in, it was relatively quiet. At $50 a week, it was all that Bambi could afford, given that the only work she was able to get kept her on her back with her legs in the air, most, if not all, of the time.

The boys saw things that children their age should never have to see. They watched their mother whored around with not only men but women as well. Bambi's bedroom had a red light and a revolving door. There was a constant parade of men going through the trailer and none of them seemed to care that there were four frightened children huddled up on the couch in the living room with their fingers in their ears, trying to block out the sounds coming from the other side of the trailer.

They witnessed her drug addiction and the effects it had on her as her hard lifestyle began to take it's toll. While the drugs seemed to have a calming effect on her, when she had a fresh hit or she was waiting for her dealer to arrive with a fresh supply; when the drugs had already run out she was anxious and mean. The boys became her punching bags.

She regularly kept them out of school in order to be able to run errands for her. When Jesse and Casey attended school, they were picked on for being poor and for wearing the same clothes day after day. They tried switching clothes with each other which somehow made it worse. Jesse had been a better than average student who had dreams of making it big in show business. Despite having no formal training, he had an ear for music and would often sneak into the school's music room when he thought no one was around. One afternoon, just before he was about to leave, Mr. Davies caught him with a guitar, squietly strumming away.

After fussing at Jesse for ten minutes, Mr. Davies asked him why he'd never seen him at music practice as he was clearly talented. Jesse explained that there was no money in the home for lessons and he was sorry for being where he shouldn't have been. Mr. Davies looked at him; he knew the family history and felt bad for the boy.

Mr. Davies marched Jesse out of the school building and straight to the parking lot. Jesse was terrified that he was about to be turned over to the police, when he noticed that Mr. Davies popped the trunk of his car and fished out a battered guitar that had seen better days; it had holes in the soundboard, the rosette had chunks missing and several initials had been carved into the handle.

Mr. Davies presented the guitar to Jesse and apologized for the state of it but said it was his to keep as long as he promised to come back week by week for free lessons and he had to join the school choir. Jesse smile could had lit up the darkest room. He was so excited to have received such a wonderful, heartfelt gift.

Jesse conformed for two months until one of his mother's newest clients became angry when Jonah began to cry during a particularly loud session one Sunday afternoon. Jesse had been playing guitar in an effort to soothe Jonah and drown out the animalistic sounds coming from his mother's bedroom. Aggravated about the interruption, the client stormed into the living room, snatched the guitar from Jesse and broke it over his knee.

The next day at school, he and Casey were approached by a large group of boys who discovered Jesse's choir sheet music in his bag. The teasing lasted throughout school. Jesse was too embarrassed to admit to Mr. Davies what had happened as he didn't want to admit what his Mom did for a living so told the music teacher that he simply didn't want to learn to play anymore. Extremely frustrated by the whole thing, Jesse lost interest in school after that and Casey, copying everything that his older brother did, followed suit.

A couple more years passed and Jesse, the oldest of the four boys and by default, the man of the house had started to become well known to the local law enforcement. He and Casey, the two oldest Swanson boys, were known around the trailer park as trouble with a capital 'T'. The boys terrorized the residents of the Sunland Trailer Park community day in and day out, with homemade fireworks going off all night long and their own version of smash the mailbox.

When Jesse or his brothers wanted something, he had to steal to get it. Initially, it started off with basics like food and school supplies. He stole food to feed himself and his brothers because Bambi often left them with little or nothing. When his face became more familiar around town and the reputation of the Swanson Boys grew, he couldn't steal food as he was constantly followed around the store so he would dumpster dive behind restaurants in search of the best old food that was being thrown out.

Then as he got older, Jesse started stealing cigarettes and booze so that he and his brother Casey could sit around the dilapidated trailer smoking, drinking and looking cool. By this time, neither of them bothered going to school and when approached, Bambi claimed the boys had moved out of state. She no longer cared what they did as long as they kept out of her way.

When Jesse was sixteen, he was finally caught and arrested for shoplifting. After having his mugshot taken and being fingerprinted, he was handed a cup and told to pee in it. He knew he was screwed because the jailer was watching him and he couldn't pee in the toilet then collect it in the cup like he had seen his mother do so many times before. He was going to have to pee directly in the cup and pay the consequences. He was just glad that Casey hadn't been caught and hoped he'd made it out with some food for the younger boys.

Jesse spent a week in juvenile detention before being placed into a boys home. It was by far the nicest place he'd ever lived, with clean sheets, a bed to himself and three square meals a day but it was far from home. He wanted and needed to be with his brothers, having cared them for so long. He had to protect them from Bambi and her johns. He got word to Casey to see how things were going but when he didn't hear back, he began to worry. After spending two weeks in the home, Jesse decided it was time to leave and get home to check up on them. After everyone was asleep, he went to the kitchen, loaded up a large duffle bag with all of the food he could shove in it and headed back to Sunland Trailer Park.

Jesse hiked across town until he arrived back home. He walked in on the biggest fuck fest he'd ever seen and what made it worse was that his brothers were being made to watch as their mother, who was barely conscious, was being passed around like a tray of hors d'oeuvres at a party. Jesse quickly collected his brothers, all the clothes he and Casey could manage to carry, and left the trailer. It was too late to bring them to Eleanor's as she lived a good fifty miles away and the two younger boys were in no fit state to walk that far so they all spent the night in a local park. However, Jesse was able to feed his brothers what was apparently their first decent meal in weeks. They binged on Jesse's haul while he and Casey tried to hatch a plan for the future. When Jonah and Colby fell asleep in and among the food that they hadn't devoured, they huddled together under the jungle gym to keep warm.

After spending three days in the park, the boys did eventually return to the trailer but Jesse officially put Bambi on notice. He told her that if she wanted to live like that she was more than welcomed to but that he and his brothers would no longer be forced to watch her in her semi hypnotic and drug induced stupor while strange men feasted on her then passed her to next guy in line.

One month later, just before Casey's 14th birthday, they got word that their mother was found dead in a seedy hotel room naked and sprawled across her pimp's chest. She died of an apparent drug overdose and all four boys were legally given back to Eleanor and from then on, social services was sent in to check on her and the boys regularly. None of the boys cried at her passing or even seemed remotely upset. On the day of her funeral, Jesse and Casey were no where to be found, having gone out with a group of girls from the local youth club. Having the reputation as bad boys meant they were not short of female admirers who were desperate to look and act older than they were. Without decent parental supervision for a long time, Jesse didn't care about the consequences and bedded as many girls as he could, narrowly escaping the wrath of one father who caught him boinking both of his daughters at the same party.

Eleanor, or Granny as the boys called her, tried her hardest to keep everyone in line but it was no easy feat for the widow. At nearly sixty years old, Eleanor was well beyond her child rearing years. She tried her damnedest but Jesse and Casey were a lost cause; they had seen a lot in their young lives and were angry at just about everything in life. Like their mother, they were into sex, drugs and rock and roll and Eleanor couldn't go down the same path with them that she had with Bambi. She no longer had the strength or the conviction.

As a result Jesse and Casey were emancipated and were no longer Eleanor's responsibility. The only time she saw them was when they needed money, clean clothes or a shower. She always welcomed them into her home; she still dearly loved them and they understood her reasons for emancipating them. They found girlfriends to live with for a few days and once bored, they moved on to the next girls. They stole money or things to hock but never enough to raise suspicions, having gotten clever and wise despite their young years.

Jonah and Colby were six and eight when Bambi died and because they were so young, Eleanor had a much easier time raising them though it still wasn't easy. They played truant, hoarded food and had very little regard for rules but Eleanor persevered with them, desperate to help and surround them with love and kindness. Her system worked and they began to thrive again.

The following year, Eleanor died peacefully in her sleep. Jesse and Casey were in no position to care for Jonah and Colby, who were placed into foster care. Jesse had two requests… that Jonah and Colby be kept together and that he and Casey be allowed to meet the foster family. The caseworker was more than understanding of their requests and promised that as soon as the boys were ready to be placed, she would call them.

Two weeks later, Jesse received a call from Jonah and Colby's caseworker. A foster family had been found and was willing to take both boys right away. Jesse and Casey met and loved the foster family and felt that Jonah and Colby would be loved and cared for. After a tearful goodbye, Jonah and Colby were off to be with their new family in the next county. The foster family impressed on Jesse and Casey that they were welcome to visit once a month and share a meal with them. After the first visit and seeing their brothers settled, they never went back again.

Jesse and Casey were thick as thieves; they did everything together including spending time in juvenile hall for misdemeanors and shoplifting. As part of an outreach program, a local charity introduced them to a music workshop and both Jesse and Casey became animatedly involved, turning their lives around within a few months. Casey, as ever, followed Jesse's lead which proved to be a good thing as Jesse spent more and more time at the center with underprivileged children, earning a small wage. They saved every buck they could for their future.

Not long after Jesse turned twenty one he had a bit of an epiphany and decided that he suddenly knew what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He and Casey had been hanging around with a group of guys that they had met while at the outreach center and had bonded over their troubled childhoods and together, they decided to form a band. They were going to practice as much and as often as they could and somehow, some way they were going to get a record deal and make something of themselves.

They took on every party, bar mitzvah, humble bar gig and festival that they could. Within a few months, they were getting repeat bookings but still, the money wasn't rolling in like they hoped. They rented a small one bedroom apartment and the four boys made it work although affording nice things was hard. Occasionally Casey would come home and empty his pockets with things he had managed to shoplift but everyone else turned a blind eye to his thieving ways, calling it a necessary means to justify it to themselves.

A few months into their second year, Billy brought home a flyer that he'd seen stapled to a tree by the local convenience store. It was an advertisement for a Battle of the Bands contest a few miles away. The boys agreed to work on their vocals and found a dozen songs they liked which worked with their sound.

Despite working hard and practicing relentlessly, the boys didn't win or even get close to making it past the second round. However, Jesse got a taste for the promise of a real contract and so encouraged the boys to write some lyrics and score some new music for the competition the following year. They updated and simplified their look, changed their name to The Riff and spent some time down at the community center, helping themselves to the free gym, doing all they could to give themselves a shot.

Their dedication paid off when The Riff, and especially Jesse, caught the eye of a keen talent scout from Warner.