CHAPTER 19.99
A Week in the Desert
Johnnie picked me up at the airport in his big yellow Cadillac. He didn’t live that far from the Vegas strip, and when we passed it I was in awe. So many lights covering such massive structures. I usually don’t like arriving somewhere at night, but I was really glad I did this time. It was a beautiful introduction to one of the world’s most famous cities.
A couple of hours later Johnnie went to go pick up Mom and the kids at the Greyhound station. Johnnie was the type of guy who lived in the past. A ‘60’s cat’. From the music he played to the clothes he wore. You could tell he’d be Motown ‘til death.
Right from the start he and Mom didn’t have the connection they had online. They were just two completely different people, and less than forty-eight hours later she told me her and the two kids would be moving on to Georgia and asked if I was staying.
I had planned on it, but I didn’t know if I wanted to stay with this guy if I was the only one around. I mean, he and Mom were the two who had this supposed connection, and now I was going to be left alone with this odd guy?
(Odd not because of his 60’s style. After all, being a lover of all music, I could appreciate some of the great music that came out of that decade.) No, it was just that my instinct was telling me that I shouldn’t be living with this guy. Maybe it was because he always seemed money hungry.
After considering everything, the deciding factor was that there was a Ninjutsu dojo in Georgia. So I thought I could train there until I had enough savings to move on to Ohio. The guy who headed the dojo was Bud Malmstrom, one of Stephen K. Hayes’ first students, and he had been one of the guest instructors at the Mini Tai Kai. (Not the egotistical one.) So besides the dojo in Dayton, the Bujinkan Atlanta Dojo was one of the best around, and with that I decided to go on to Georgia too.
So why was Mom wanting to move there? Another internet connection she had made. Actually, more like a back up to Johnnie. Another black guy, named Randy. Personally, I didn’t care who she tried to date. More than likely it would end anyway, once they got to know the real her. But if she somehow managed to find a true companion, great. Perhaps it would finally bring some stability to her life.
So after exactly one week in Las Vegas we were now headed Southeast to Georgia. Amoco had mailed me my last check, but since I hadn’t cashed it yet and Mom didn’t have enough money to loan me to get a bus ticket, I had to wait around for an extra few hours for a pawn shop to open while they went ahead.
Once the pawn shop did open I cashed my check at a ridiculous rate and went back to the bus station and found a seat on a bus I’d be stuck on for a couple of days. Oh, joy!
CHAPTER 20
School Of the Divine Warriors
I never truly realized how big Texas was until that bus trip. It took forever to get through! Add to that the remaining distance and man, if it wasn’t for my walkman and imagination I don’t know how I would have made it.
Tired, hungry, and yearning for a shower, I had to wait another couple of hours once I got to Atlanta for Mom, the kids and Randy to show up. Randy was quite a few years younger than Mom, and had a young daughter from a previous relationship. He was staying with a relative, so we had to go find a motel to stay in. We ended up checking into a place near Tucker, a town where the dojo had been located, but Bud had recently moved the training hall to another town, Norcross, so I’d have to wait to visit it.
Randy was a quiet guy, and every time he’d drop by the motel to see us he’d have this look and such about him like, Man, what the hell did I get myself into?!
But he was a good guy and you could tell he wanted to try to make it all work out. He and Mom became somewhat of an item, but he still had this distant feeling about him.
Being in a motel, we were quickly running out of money, and feeling responsible for having given the invitation in the first place, Randy tried his best to help. But he had bills and a daughter to take care of, so he started pawning things to help pay for the motel, including a camcorder I hated to see him lose for such a small price.
After only about a week of being there, and with no more money and things to pawn, Randy moved us into his sister’s place. As usual Mom didn’t fit in with others and soon you could feel the tension in the air. After another week, it was then that we had no other choice but to go to a shelter in Atlanta. The Cascade House. A shelter for battered women and their children.
Mom had Randy drop us off about a block away. She’d tell those who ran the shelter a bullshit story so we’d be accepted, and I’d have to lie about my age in order to stay there with them.
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