Taylor was in heaven. Out on the open road, he felt like life was finally moving forward. When he was getting what he really wanted, his body had a way of responding by letting go of the pain of years of not getting it. It did so with memories and it did so with tears. Instead of sleeping, he listened to Aria begin to write in her journal and stared out the window at the blur of sagebrush and other cars passing by. His eyes were burning, having welled up in response to memories that his body was exhaling up and into his awareness.

He remembered when he was five years old and had wanted a bike so badly. He wanted it so that he could feel just the way he felt now. He had woken up on his birthday to see a bike poorly wrapped in wrapping paper in the center of the living room, waiting for him. Later that day, he and his older brother had gotten into a fight over it and, as a punishment, his mother had forced all of the kids into the car. She drove to the Salvation Army store where she had purchased the bike and then proceeded to force him to re-donate it. He remembered the divine weight of the bike when the man at the store took it from him. He had gained his freedom and, in the same day, had lost it.

He remembered the incarceration of the group homes. When he was 12 years old, two other boys at his group home had placed two of their CDs inside his room and then reported them missing. When the staff had resorted to a room check and had found the “missing” CDs in his room, they immediately called the police. If Taylor had been a kid in a normal family home, the consequence for stealing would be a scolding or losing TV time or being grounded. In the group home, the consequences were the cops being called. No matter what he said, they would not believe that he hadn’t taken them. And so, he became hysterical. Eventually, in response to the escalation, the staff made the decision to drug him with antipsychotic medication. He was arrested and taken to the juvenile detention center. He remembered thinking that except for the fact that he was completely alone in the detention room, jail was not much different than the group home.

He remembered sitting in front of the judge, who scowled at him with displeasure, passing judgment for something he had never done. Judgment from an ignorant position of never having lived through any of the conditions that he had been forced to live through. Taylor wished the judge would suffer the same way that he had suffered, but knew that day would never come.