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Issue link: http://magazine.kcm.org/i/172584
Fourteen-year-old Nashon Walker stared into the empty refrigerator, willing food to appear. His stomach grumbling, he checked the pantry. Nothing. // Nashon chewed his bottom lip. It had been three months since his dad left for a business trip and never returned. Nashon had taken care of his younger brothers as best as he knew how. They’d grazed through all the food in the house and Nashon had begged food from his girlfriend. His little brothers had stolen some. // Hearing a car door, Nashon peeked out the window. // Cops! “Get in the attic!” he hissed, herding his brothers up the steps and pulling the door closed behind them. Afraid to move, the boys held their breath as police searched the house, calling their names. Someone had turned them in to child welfare. They were busted. Nashon had lived with his grandmother from the time he was 3 years old until his father had been released from prison. He’d been 12 when he met his dad and learned that he had not one, but two younger brothers. Now that he’d found them, Nashon couldn’t stand the thought of losing them. He knew what would happen if they got into the child welfare system: They’d be separated. “Here’s what we’ll do…” he whispered. Later, they climbed out of the attic. Each of them threw a few things into a trash bag and they slipped out the back door. It was now official. They were homeless. New Year’s Resolution “That was the first time I was homeless,” Nashon remembers, “but it wouldn’t be the last. We later learned that the reason our dad didn’t come home was that he’d been arrested. He was back in prison. “Right after I went to live with my dad at age 12, he took me to a maximum security prison to visit my mother whom I hadn’t seen in six years. The following year, she was released from prison and came to live with us. For the first time in my life I had a real family! “But, it didn’t last long. My parents couldn’t get along and after four months my mom left us. I felt so rejected that I began dabbling in drugs. My brothers and I bounced all over the place until a woman named Jessica gave us a stable home. “When I was 16, my father was released from prison and took us back to live with him. Dad was home for about a year before going back to prison. By the summer after my junior year, I was homeless again. With help from my coach and an aunt, I finally graduated from high school. My mother called and promised to come, but she didn’t show.” Nashon’s hurt hardened to bitterness and his life spiraled out of control. In 1998, he celebrated the New Year with his best friend. “I’d like to toast my New Year’s resolution!” he announced. “We’re going to rob everyone we see.” True to his word, Nashon did just that. Heartless and without mercy, he robbed anyone and everyone. People in the neighborhood ran and hid when they saw him coming. When his father returned home from prison, he was stunned to find Nashon’s dining table covered with cash, guns and drugs. “Look,” he told Nashon, “I can help you make money without violence.” Nashon wasn’t interested. A month later, he robbed a major drug dealer. Barefaced. “Are you nuts?” his father asked. “That guy has put a hit out on you!” *****NOTES***** Nashon studied abroad with students from Cambridge, Wheaton and Duke. His roommate had studied at Oxford. As international business students, they traveled from country to country studying European and global economies. OCT '13 : BVOV : 11