Born poor and without a sober mother, the boy's father worked three jobs as his mother slowly withdrew and disappeared from their life. He always loved to read, and his dad would give him a dollar a week for comic books.
Ethan was a bright child who went to an overcrowded school where most kids were reading at a 4th grade level in high school. He had developed lupus and Medicaid helped him. Last week his father suddenly died of an undiagnosed heart attack; his father had never had affordable healthcare. The young man, having no where to go, tried the Church of The Afterlife that offered him a bed and breakfast. Sadly, the lonely minister climbed into his bed shortly before sun up, so Ethan collected his things and left her, before breakfast.
Homeless and hungry, he steals some bread from a 7-11. As he runs to hide, a cop mistakes his plastic knife for a real one, draws his gun, and aims for the boys heart. The boy jumps at the sound of the shot, so the bullet enters a lung, he fell limp and bleeding. The cop handcuffs him as the ambulance arrives.
After a life-saving emergency, and a few days of recovery, the boy is sent to jail to await trial. The sheriff pays a visit and says, "You criminals don't deserve hot meals, here's your baloney sandwich." The boy threw up his sandwich as a guard punched him and screamed, "You disgusting runt!" The boy was sent back to the hospital for bleeding.
The nurse attending the young man heard him say that he missed his father, and worried that he’d die in jail. The nurse told him not to worry, that he was young and that he had his whole life to figure out how to make things work. This was America, after all.
UrbanPink2008 c.2015
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