The note was written in a scrawl

3) River Boy and Grandpa
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River Boy knew pain.
His was different than Maggie's.
Maggie came from privlege, but River Boy came from hard circumstance.
His step parents adopted him after he was born. It was a favor to somebody, that went unfulfilled. They heaped layers of abuse on River Boy since before he could walk, beating and starving the child, refusing to give him a name other than call him Boy.

By the time he was 7 the man next door had taken a kindness and told River Boy he should never forget who he was. They shared catfish whenever the man went fishing and River Boy was overcome with the strangest warmth whenever the man was around.

At age 12, the man next door moved away. No goodbye, just gone. The house was empty and the neighbors didn't know where he went.
The young boy searched along the river, and walked down every street. Over the next few months, as this young boy stood completely alone before the world, his soul got pulled out down to the root.

River Boy' real mother was a white woman of high origin who lived in partial disrepute.
The story was complex.
She was a prize beauty who was sometimes captured into whoredom by a wealthy pimp named Southy Strong who ran high class out of the tourist hotels in New Orleans.
The baby was not her husband's. Instead the father was a Rich Man who owned most of rural Jackson County, half way up the state along the Mississippi River.
He had a weakness for that proud lady whore and brought her up to Jackson County as his mistress. He afforded her fine clothes, and pampered her with flowers and car rides. She craved the attention, but after a few months, got pregnant with River Boy and ran back to her husband and Southy Strong in New Orleans.
She hid the pregnancy from Rich Man.
By the time he found her, the baby was gone for adoption.

Rich Man was enraged and supposedly beat the woman to death.
The actual truth was different. Rich Man visited the fine whore and they argued, that was true.
He wanted to know where his son was, but he never touched her. He loved that whore, and he loved his baby boy who was gone.

She was beaten to death by somebody else but Rich Man was blamed.
The lawyers argued that Rich Man couldn't commit the crime because of his shoulder injury. Besides, she was the only person who could help find his son. There was no reason for him to kill her.
The story threatened to explode in the newspaper.
To keep it quiet, Rich Man was forced to turn over half of Jackson County to the Upstate Boys, which was exactly why the whore was beaten to death.
The Upstate Boys owned Southy Strong and the all the action they could kick out of people without getting killed themselves, or raising too big a ruckus.

Rich Man never found his son, and River Boy was locked into an adopted family that beat him and called him Boy and didn't feed him.

They say, sometimes your life is a measure of your actions and words, and sometimes it applies and sometimes not, but sometimes it can happen anywhere, like what happened to River Boy’s stepfather.

As his habit, the stepfather walked home drunk every night. Except one angry night with tree limbs heaving in a heavy wind, River Boy waited at a corner, six blocks from the tavern.
It took forever for the drunk to come up the street, stopping to pee on a telephone pole before recognizing the two eyes glazing at him from the dark.
There was no sound in River Boy's ears when he ended his stepfather's life under the rule of a stick and a brick. There was no fear or regret. There was nothing. He got home and couldn't remember how many times he hit the man, worrying that it wasn't enough. Then crawled into his closet to sleep on the straw mattress he made for himself.
Every night for weeks he laid awake with nightmares and fear, sweat and relief, and hell and glory of ending the torment that still followed him.

The law never discovered the cause. It was just another body laid out on the poor side of town, pockets emptied, and hardly anyone left to grieve.
So there it was. Blood from his hand and nobody knew except those living in the clouds and fire, and maybe it happened so fast they didn’t notice either.

A month later, the stepmother brought in a new man.
The replacement drunk had a job. He was kinder to River Boy and didn't beat him, but still refused to feed him.
They fed the other two children but not him.

Short while after that, River Boy decided to leave. Age 13 it was over.
He knew how to steal chickens and beg food from neighbors. He understood which people were kind, and which of those recommended he seek God at the church instead of begging from their moneyed purse.

River Boy had to make a better way.
He watched the pretty girls, dressed real nice going to school.
Two years earlier he went to the school, and the lady at the desk screamed. River Boy forgot his face was still bloodied. He ran out and couldn't go back.

Before leaving his foster family, he took several things from the house, but then put them back. He walked out empty except a few clothes and started following the river, hoping he could find the man that gave him fish. Besides the river was quieter than walking along a dusty road.
The second afternoon he stole a boat and started floating down river. It had a fishing pole and River Boy threw a line in the water but he didn't know the spots and at the end of the day he still had no fish.
A group of Negroes along the bank gave him a fish in exchange for the stolen boat, knowing it was a bad deal but they needed to get rid of the boy before he caused trouble.

I swear River Boy was a ripe felony for somebody else.

The next day he found a stringer with 3 catfish. Exactly what he needed, and he could already taste them, but just as he reached for the stringer, a giant hand grabbed the neck of his shirt from behind, practically lifting him off the ground.
What you doing there white boy, were the first words he heard before staring dead eye with the biggest, most fearsome Negro he’d ever seen.
The Negro’s face was lashed with scars. His massive arms and hunched shoulders showed a man who earned a hard labor from life.
Too terrified to say a word, River Boy smiled, like he was trying to smooth his stepfather out of a beating.
Then the man asked, you hungry?
River Boy answered, yes, I ran away.
Oh hell, the law looking for you, the Negro laughed.
Not this time, River Boy answered. Which was rather truthful. The law might be looking for a chicken thief, but they were not looking for the stepfather’s killer or the runaway boy. Of course they might be looking for the stolen boat that was unloaded on fully suspecting Negroes upriver who shared their fish in exchange for the opportunity to get arrested and beaten.
River Boy’s answer caused the big Negro to laugh even harder. Not this time, huh? Ha ha ha. What’s your name?
He had always been called Boy. He didn't have a name, so right that moment he made up the name, River Boy. That's who he was.
The Negro said, ok River Boy, my name’s Edwin Jones. What say we cook up this catfish?
Sounded real good. Yes indeed, he found the man who fed him fish.

And that’s how River Boy met Grandpa, Mr Edwin Jones.
Mr Jones wasn’t his real grandpa, at least as far as anybody knows to the immediate blood line, but the world is a foolish place with lots of intermingling despite the warnings that such might should not be the case.

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