by Melanie Hemry
Ronnie Morgan slouched in a chair in the courthouse, waiting to go before the judge for sentencing. The chiseled look on his face and the flint in his eyes belied his age.
He had just turned 16.
The drugs he’d taken to give him confidence did little to control the anger that simmered beneath the surface.
The truth was that Ronnie had more to be angry about than the average teenager. The third eldest child in an abusive home, Ronnie had been the scapegoat—blamed and beaten for anything and everything. Truth was of little consequence.
At home, his stepfather had chased him with a butcher knife. At school, he’d been bullied and picked on because of the wicked-looking scars on his back and arms that came from burns.
“Burned-Up Chicken!” the kids mocked.
Just thinking of those words made Ronnie sweat with fury.
By the age of 12, Ronnie was hanging out with the wrong crowd. They stayed up all night smoking pot, dropping acid, taking mushrooms and pills. He’d been high as a kite when he stole a car. Of course, he didn’t know how to drive and was arrested after sailing through a red light.
Sentenced to a year at the Mount Meigs Juvenile Facility, Ronnie had landed in a never-ending party of drug use where family members of rich kids brought in sacks filled with drugs.
A year or so later, he had graduated to shooting drugs and stealing to support his habit. His mother and stepfather sent him to live with his father. Ronnie didn’t know the man. He’d been a year old when he’d fallen into boiling water and been burned. Afterward, his mother had left his father and moved to Alabama to live with her parents.
When Ronnie and his father got home one day, his school shoes were gone.
“You sold those shoes!” his dad accused.
“No, Sir,” Ronnie said, “I did not. Someone must’ve stolen them. I didn’t sell those shoes.”
His dad beat him, and Ronnie ran away from home.
* * * * * article continues on p. 24 * * * *
BVOV : 23
