Thrice Rescued

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between a character in this story to a person living or dead is purely coincidental. All the persons having sex in this story are over 18.

Any discussion of the provisions of laws in this story are purely for the purpose of the narrative and should not be taken as either a correct statement of the law nor as legal advice.

The book I reference in the introduction, "No Way to Treat a Child", actually exists. It is a scathing indictment of how the foster care system in this country operates. If you haven't read it, you should. You'll begin to understand the damage done to children in the system and why so many of them turn out so badly when they age out of the system.

My apologies to the U.S. Marshal's Service. I needed a mechanism to move the story along and they sprang to mind. Their record of protecting persons in WitSec is astonishing and they deserve kudos. But when you need a villain to keep the story moving, you can't go wrong with accusing a government agency of administrative failure and their witness protection mission made them the logical choice.

Finally, as always, I welcome comments and feedback. I'm new at this writing thing and am still trying to find my voice. Please be gentle.

THRICE RESCUED

INTRODUCTION

I've been rescued from a life of chaos on three occasions. Gunny Hopkins and Mrs. Hopkins rescued me twice, intervening on each occasion to redirect a life spiraling into the toilet. The third rescue came about in a completely different fashion, but it has every prospect of lasting for a lifetime.

My name is David Derr. Folks who know me well call me Davie. I spent twelve years of my life in foster care. I never knew my father. I'm not certain my mother even knew who my sperm donor was. If she did, she never told me or my grandmother. My mother was an addict. I spent the first six years with her dropping in and out of my life, although it was more out than in. Most of that time my grandmother was caring for me. Grandmom died shortly before I started first grade, relinquishing my care to my heroin addicted mother.

My time in mom's custody turned out to be very short. I came home from school about two months after my grandmother's death to find my mother asleep in the bed, a needle sticking out of her arm. I tried repeatedly to wake her. Experience told me that sometimes she just needed to sleep it off and so I waited. I ended up waiting for three days, feeding myself on whatever I could find in the refrigerator and the box of cereal I climbed up on a chair to get out of the cabinet. After I failed to turn up for school for the third consecutive day and mom failed to answer the phone, my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Gallagher, showed up with her patrolman husband to check on me. When they knocked on the door, I wasn't going to let them in, until Mrs. Gallagher finally convinced me it was OK. I told them mommy was sleeping and Mrs. Gallagher went to check on her. She called her husband into the bedroom. He confirmed that my mother was dead. They then called Children and Youth Services and I was scooped up into the foster care system.

Years after my foster care experience, a woman named Naomi Schaefer Riley wrote a book called "No Way to Treat a Child." It's an indictment of the foster care system. My only problem with her conclusions is that she wasn't nearly harsh enough about how destructive that system is to a child trapped in it.

CYS made some desultory efforts to locate relatives with whom they could place me. If I had any living family, I never knew any of them. This was long before the whole fascination with genetic testing and searching for relatives in the various online databases became popular, so it was mostly going through my mother's things to see if there were any names or phone numbers. CYS drew a blank and off I went to long term care in a mightily flawed system.

When I later tallied up the total, I calculated that I'd been fostered by twelve different families in nine separate schools by the time I reached age 14. I wasn't a difficult or rebellious child, but several of the foster care families were almost as dysfunctional as my own had been. And many of them were just in it for the payment they got for keeping me. I saw all kinds of chicanery, bullying, physical and sexual abuse, and just plain neglect. The families with multiple foster children and children of their own were the worst. There was a decidedly two-tiered standard of care in those families, with their natural children strongly favored. Those years of my life were chaotic, to say the least, and I was on a fast track to a life of disfunction when Gunny and Mrs. H intervened.

CHAPTER ONE

I first met Gunny Hopkins in freshman gym class. He was African-American, a retired Marine gunnery sergeant who had undertaken a second career as a high school gym teacher. He was probably in his late 40s when I first encountered him. Meeting him was memorable. The guy was about 6'4" tall and weighed nearly 240. If there was an ounce of fat on his body, it was well hidden. He scared the living daylights out of every boy in the student body, not the least because his side gig after school was owning and operating a martial arts studio in a strip center near the high school. Several of the people I met had trained with him and they told me that he had a wall full of trophies from martial arts tournaments, although he no longer competed. No one I ever met at school had even a passing thought of giving him grief.

Mrs. Hopkins was a school guidance counselor, responsible for the freshman class. She stood about 5'2" and probably weighed no more than 110 pounds. She had Gunny H wrapped around her little finger. I didn't learn until later that they had three children, two boys and a girl. The boys were both Marine officers and the girl was still in college, majoring in early childhood education. I would subsequently learn that as intimidating as Gunny Hopkins was, he didn't hold a candle to Mrs. H when she got wound up. She was a freaking force of nature when that happened. I would also subsequently learn that Gunny and Mrs. H were qualified as foster parents, a legacy of their caring for a niece whose parents had been addicts and lost custody of her. They had successfully finished raising her and the niece was now married to a Marine NCO and had two children.

I had arrived at the latest foster family a few weeks before beginning my freshman year of high school. They were not one of the better families into whose care I had been deposited. The father was an alcoholic, short-tempered and quick to lash out. The family had just had two foster children age out and they had depended on the monthly revenues from those children for their care to make ends meet. Between the alcohol, the temper, the financial strains, and the short time I had to adjust to latest living arrangements, I expected trouble. It came about two weeks after I started high school.

My unstable foster care history had left me woefully behind my peers educationally. On my initial high school assessment test, I'd scored as a fifth grader in reading and a fourth grader in math. That guaranteed me a meeting with Mrs. H shortly after I arrived at her school. The meeting was intended to map out an individual education plan to bring me up to grade level. It turned out to be a great deal more than that.

The morning before I met with Mrs. H, my foster father had gone off on me. He'd misplaced his wallet and accused me of stealing it. When I couldn't produce it, he'd beaten me, leaving me bruised from shoulders to waist, splitting my lower lip and blackening an eye. I'd managed to escape and had gone to school, expecting a normal day. I'd either forgotten or never known about the meeting with Mrs. H. When my homeroom teacher told me to report to guidance in place of my first period class, I walked down the hall and entered her office. The next thirty minutes changed my life completely.

I'd done the new student drill so often that I could narrate both sides of the conversation. As a foster kid in a new school, I was accustomed to a cursory interview and an immediate relegation to "hopeless, don't waste time on this one" response. Perhaps it was cynical of me, but the last thing I expected when I walked in her door was for Mrs. H to actually care about me.

I had taken a seat with the chair turned to hide the side of my face that my foster father had hit. She opened our conversation by asking me to look at her. When she saw my face, she gasped. "What happened to you?"

I was well acquainted with the need to conceal foster care failings. "I fell."

"Bullshit. There's no way those injuries resulted from a fall. Don't lie to me. If you don't tell me who hit you, I'm calling the police."

I hesitated. She glared at me. She picked up her phone, hit 9 for an outside line and dialed 9-1 and held her finger over the third button ready to complete the 9-1-1 call. I folded.

"My foster father thought I'd stolen his wallet. He was drunk and lost his temper."

"Did he hit you anywhere else?"

"He beat me across the back. It's pretty sore."

"Stand up and turn around."

I did as she asked. "Lift your shirt."

I pulled my t-shirt up to my shoulders. "Good God! How often has he done this to you?"

"This is the first time. I've only been there a couple of weeks."

"Sit down. I need to make some calls."

To my surprise, her first call was not to the principal, the police or CYS. She called her husband. "George, I need you in my office. NOW!" It was the first indication I had of just how much control she had over Gunny H.

Gunny H arrived within moments. She told him what she had seen, then said, "What are we going to do about this?"

Gunny H was no fool and he'd known his wife a long time. She clearly had something in mind.

"What do you want to do?" I think he already knew what was coming.

"This child needs a new foster home, today. We're qualified and we have three empty bedrooms. Unless you object, I'm going to call CYS and get him moved today."

Gunny simply nodded his approval, then stood behind me as his wife called CYS. The conversation was brutal. I'd never seen a tiny little woman radiate power like she did on that call. She didn't ask the CYS staffer she was dealing with. She told them what they were going to do. And she told them they were going to do it NOW. That kind of responsiveness was not my experience with CYS. I couldn't believe it was going to happen. Much to my astonishment, it did.

When she finished that call, she looked at her husband and said, "We'll need to get this child's clothing and other things from that house. We'll go after school." Turning to me, she said, "Meet me here after your last class. We'll go get your things." Turning to her husband, she said, "George, get one of your cop buddies from the studio to go with us. We want there to make sure things don't get out of hand."

I looked at Gunny H and couldn't imagine how the latest foster father might give him the slightest bit of trouble. But I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth. If Mrs. H pulled this off, my life was going to take a huge turn for the better. "Don't screw this up by opening your mouth," I told myself.

Mrs. H sent me back to class, telling me we'd reconvene later to discuss my IEP. I went through the day as usual, getting a couple of comments on my facial injuries, but otherwise it was a fairly standard school day. When the day ended, I went to my locker, got my things to go home, and reported to Mrs. H's office as instructed. Gunny H and an equally large cop were waiting there as well.

The relocation went about as smoothly as it could have. Between Gunny H and the cop, the intimidation factor kept my foster father from demonstrating the slightest objections to my leaving. I gathered my limited wardrobe and the couple of other things I owned and placed them in Gunny H's car. He drove me to his house, helped me unload, and moved me into an empty bedroom. I didn't know it at the time, but the next four years would make me a whole new person.

CHAPTER TWO

Life with Gunny and Mrs. H (as they told me to call them at home) was radically different from any prior foster care experience. They were the first people to care about me since my grandmother. From day one, they made clear that there was going to be structure, hard work (both educationally and physically), and discipline. Mrs. H dedicated her evenings to bringing my academics up to grade level. By the time I reached age 18, I was taking college prep courses and doing well in them. I'd never be the valedictorian, but I could hold my own in every class I took. A's and B's were expected; anything lower meant more hours of study. And Gunny H put me through an equally vigorous physical training program. He hauled me out of bed at 5:30 each morning for a 5-mile run. And he undertook to provide a rigorous martial arts training program, which he combined with strength and flexibility conditioning. By the time I completed high school, I was 5'10" tall, 160 pounds, and in the best shape of anyone I knew except Gunny H.

I'd turned 18 shortly before I graduated, which meant I'd aged out of the foster care system. I had been working part-time at the martial arts studio, training elementary school-age students. After the graduation party, Gunny H sat me down and asked me what my plans for the future were. I told him I wanted to be a Marine. He asked me if I were sure, as the military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan were both at their height. I said I was. He and Mrs. H took me down to the Marine Corps recruiter's office, where I enlisted. I had a month before reporting to Parris Island for boot camp. Gunny H put me through an even more rigorous training program than that I'd previously experienced, so I wouldn't "embarrass him to any of his buddies who were drill instructors" there.

I would never tell a DI this, but after four years of living with the Hopkins and training with Gunny H, Parris Island was almost like a vacation. I graduated with honors, carrying the company guidon in the graduation parade. Gunny and Mrs. H were in the stands watching me. By this time, I thought of them as my parents, and I was proud to show them what a good job they'd done raising me.

My intent upon enlisting had been to make the Marine Corps a career, but a Taliban with an RPG put an end to that notion. I was nearing the end of my first enlistment and had been promoted to Sergeant. I was the squad leader for a security detail, providing protection to our battalion commander when he met with one of the local village chieftains about funding a clean water project in their village. On the way back to base, the convoy was attacked. My squad was riding in the lead vehicle. The battalion commander and three of his staff members were in the middle vehicle and another squad from my platoon was bringing up the rear. The Taliban must have had eyes on the convoy when we mounted up to leave the village, because they hit the middle vehicle with the RPG rather than mine. It went up in flames. I dismounted, spread my squad out in a perimeter and had them begin firing on the attacking force. With that force engaged, I ran to the middle vehicle and began pulling wounded out of it. The first guy I reached was the battalion commander. I got two of his staff out and was going back for another when the vehicle's fuel tanks exploded. Because of my body armor and helmet, my legs took the brunt of flames, leaving me with some interesting scars that guaranteed I wouldn't be wearing shorts very often in public. The force of the explosion also threw me into a low wall, knocking me out, breaking several ribs and shattering both bones in my lower right leg. When I came to, I was on a medivac flight to a hospital in Germany.

By the time my leg had healed, the Marine Corps had given me a Navy Cross, a Purple Heart, an assembly of plates and pins to hold my leg bones together and a medical discharge with a 40% disability rating. They paid my way back to my home of record, which was Gunny and Mrs. H's house, the place which I and they considered my home.

When I got home, Mrs. H asked me what I planned to do with the rest of my life. I was 22 years old, had trained as a rifleman, could teach martial arts, but had no real marketable skills. To her surprise, I told her I wanted to go to college and become a history teacher at the high school level. Gunny had forced me to set aside a huge chunk of my monthly pay in a college fund when I enlisted, so between those funds, the GI Bill benefits and my disability pension, college would be affordable. There was a decent state college with a fine history program and a well thought of education department about an hour from the Hopkins' house. Mrs. H helped me apply. Because I was 22 and had been living on my own for four years, I leased a small apartment about 15 minutes' walk from campus rather than think about living in the dorms with a bunch of college students. I registered as a double major, in history and education, and began knocking off my mandatory prerequisite courses, one of which was a freshman biology course, which included a weekly three-hour lab.

Because I was neither living in the dorms nor participating in Greek life or sports, I knew no one in my biology class. The instructor told us we would need to pick a lab partner. Since I was not the standard 18-year-old student, I didn't find anyone gravitating toward me. When the instructor asked at the end of the hour who didn't have a partner, only one other person raised her hand. It was a reasonably attractive woman sitting a few rows forward of me. The instructor told us to team up, exchange contact information, and dismissed the class.

I walked down the center aisle and introduced myself to the woman. "Hi, I'm Davie Derr."

She stared at me, saying nothing. I went on, "If we're going to be lab partners, we'll need to exchange contact information. If you'll give me your name and phone number, I'll give you my info."

She continued to stare.

"Miss, we need to do this. Please. I don't bite and I promise not to share it."

Finally, she said, "My name is Vera McDonald. My telephone number is 555-555-1212." She then gave me her email address as well. I did the same, then told her I'd see her at the lab session and went on to my next class.

Vera turned out to be a bit of a strange duck. She had the highest, thickest walls around her that I think I'd ever encountered in a person. Getting to know her was like trying to chisel granite with a plastic spoon. We'd gone through most of the semester without her disclosing a single fact about herself despite spending three hours a week together in the biology lab. I'd tried without success to breach those walls, finally just giving up when it became clear that she would never open up. Then, shortly before Thanksgiving break, I was talking to one of the guys at the next lab station about our respective plans when Vera walked in.

"What are you doing over the break?" he'd asked.

"I'll be staying at my apartment for most of it trying to get a leg up on next semester's workload. I'll probably go to my foster parents' house for Thanksgiving Day, then come back here. They live about an hour away and I haven't seen them since school started."

Vera had come to a sudden stop as I mentioned "foster parents." She looked at me and said, "Are you a foster kid, too?"

Suddenly, it all fell into place. I knew what a trial foster care had been for me, and I'd lucked out being male and ending up with the Hopkins. I had seen some of the horrors visited upon female foster children, particularly the ones who were attractive. Vera tried to hide it with the baggy clothing she typically wore, but I'd noticed that she was a good-looking girl. Had the wall not been there, I'd already have asked her out. Since this was the first time she'd opened even the tiniest crack in her armor, I approached carefully. "I was in foster care from age 6 to age 18. I was in 13 foster homes. The last one was for four years. I consider Gunny and Mrs. Hopkins as my parents, even though they never adopted me."