My Name Is River Blue Read Free Page A

staff would provide transportation to and
from some other approved location such as the girl's home as long as it was
chaperoned time approved by her parents.
    At the time, Sean
was twelve years old and had previously rejected the responsibility of
"looking out for a little brat," but that was before his hormones suddenly
woke up, and he suffered his first crush on the "hottest babe" in
junior high. All the younger kids were already matched with an older boy, so within
half an hour of my arrival at the boys home, Sean literally snatched me from
Mr. Bonner while promising the old man that he would be the best big brother
ever. Sean held me in his arms as he would a football that he was afraid to
fumble until Mr. Bonner gave his approval.
    In the
beginning, I was afraid of Sean because he was always promising me some kind of
painful punishment if I made him look bad. With time, I learned that he wasn't
mean, just desperate to spend time with his girlfriend. He was usually nice to
me, especially when no one was watching.
    When I told Sean
what the woman visitor said about me and asked him how I could be better, he first
called me an idiot and then bluntly told me that I could not make most white
adults like me. I hung my head and stared at the floor of the small room we
shared. It hurt when Sean called me names.
    "Oh, come
on, River." Sean raised my chin, but I turned my head away from him. "Get
your little butt up here with me." Sean sat on his bed, lifted me onto his
lap, and gave me a hug. "I'm sorry, buddy. Sometimes I forget that you're
just a little guy. Forgive me?"
    "Yeah,
okay." He always forgot I was little, and I always forgave him. At the
time, he was all I had in the world.
    "Listen up.
In this town, most foster parents are white and so are the people who adopt.
Both of them want white kids who look like them, and you're not purebred white.
A white family might take you in if they were desperate for the state check, but
don't ever plan on a white family adopting you."
    "You're
white, Sean. Why don't white people want you?"
    He snorted and
sprayed me. "Cause I got red hair and freckles, and some white folks think
I'm ugly, but I still got a better chance than you do. My parents were drug
addicts, but they were married and Americans, so I'm American too."
    "Ain't I
American? My teacher says that if you're born here, you're American."
    "Yeah, but
you look like you're at least half Mexican and to some of the retarded rednecks
in this town, you won't never be American."
    Sean helped me
understand the whispered remarks among the visitors and the reason the staff
treated some of the boys better than they did me. It all made sense. It was the
same reason that purebred dogs cost more than stray mutts did. I wasn't a
purebred white boy, so people didn't treat me as well them.
    Sean explained
"prejudice" and told me that to some snotty white people, I was a
mixed-race bastard who wasn't as good as a white orphan whose parents had simply
passed away and left him with no living relatives to care for him. He explained
that the mothers of most throwaway kids were unmarried and didn't want or
couldn't afford a baby. To the white majority in our county, my parents were
sinners because they mixed races and had a child outside of marriage. Even
worse, the same conservative "Christians" were outraged that their
tax dollars were used to support me after my mother abandoned me to state care.
    Sean told me
that Bergeron County was one of the most backwards, racist counties in South
Carolina, one of the most conservative Southern states. Harper Springs had a
population of only twenty-two thousand people, but it was the biggest town in
the county, and it was also the county seat. He said that when I grew older, I would
understand how boring Harper Springs was, and why people had plenty of time to
gossip and cause trouble.
    "It's like
this, River. In our county, white people control everything. Most of them are Protestants
and Republicans,