Jake’s Life

My trip to Seattle was great. Not only did it get me out of my element and help me focus on other things besides what had been happening over the past year it also really opened my eyes to the whole gay thing. I met a lot of people who were like me, in that respect, and it felt good. When I got back to California, I wasn’t doing so well. I was starting the Tenth Grade at a high school that I completely hated in the sticks of California. I wasn’t able to be myself and I wasn’t making friends at all. Besides my grandmother, I was all alone.

Nearer to the time that school was about to start my grandmother arranged with my uncle for me to move to Seattle and live with him. This really helped get me out of the funk of my placement, but I was still almost a year later broken up about my mother. If my own mother couldn’t love me, then who could?

The first few months of living with my uncle were great. He worked nights in the medical field, and many nights that he was off or called in sick he was out. It didn’t take me long to figure out where he was those nights (mostly hitting up bath houses and similar places), and he was an avid marijuana smoker. I mean avid. After twenty years of using it every day, he almost couldn’t function without it. The morning, all throughout the day, and falling asleep with it. It always gave me a huge headache, and it was a “get used to it” type situation.

By now I had already started at a high school in Seattle and made a few friends, probably not good ones given my recent history and the inherent attraction to other people with effed up lives. One morning when we all got to school it was closed due to a power outage and created two hours before it was expected to open. Of course what did we do? We went to someone’s house and drank, then being the fifteen year old we were thought we could pass at school and went back. This got me entered into a teenage treatment program and caused issues at home, namely with me confronting my uncle on his drug use.

Can anyone guess what comes next? Yeah, he packs my bags for me and gives me a deadline to get out of his home.

The night I was supposed to leave I still wasn’t able to find anywhere to live. I was a gay youth drop-in center (which is a whole different story…if you think the early twenties gay community is bad, the teenage one is worse in how it treats its own). Being the fat, ugly one I was even a source of humor for these people. It was almost closing time and a few of the youth here knew of my issue with finding a home. They also knew that I was on medication for ulcers. They went into my backpack, flushed all of my pills, then reported to staff that I told them I took them all and was trying to kill myself.

That night was spent in a hospital having my stomach pumped and being questioned by all sorts of people. My uncle was called, and being the nice guy he is, brought my belongings to the hospital and left them there. So here I was, back at square one. The next day once I showed that no, I wasn’t trying to kill myself (they found no pills in my stomach when they pumped it), and that with all that I’ve been through I’m confident that I could handle more, they released me to a homeless shelter for youth.

End part three.