E A St Amant - Stealing Flowers

Published by E A St Amant atSmashwords.com

Stealing Flowers E A St Amant

Copyrighted by E A St Amant May 2006

Smashwords Edition, January 2010

Verses and poems within, by author.

Web and Cover design by: Edward OliverZucca

Web Developed by: Adam DAlessandro

Author Contact: ted@eastamant.com

E A St Amant.com Publishers

www.eastamant.com

All rights reserved. No partof this novel may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by anymeans, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,emailing, ebooking, by voice recordings, or by any informationstorage and retrieval system, without permission in writing fromthe author or his agent . Stealing Flowers =ISBN -13: 978-0-9780118-2-6. This book is a work of fiction. Names,characters, organizations, companies, places, and incidents areproducts of the writers imagination or are used fictitiously. Anyresemblances whatsoever to any real actual events or locales inpersons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Thanks to themany people who did editorial work on this project and offeredtheir many kind suggestions, including Dr. P Miller and LDAlessandro, and especially, Robyn Lori Stephenson. Thanks to T RSt Amant for helping so kindly on the piloting and flyingscenes.

By Edward St Amant

How to Increase the Volume of the Sea WithoutWater

Dancing in the Costa Rican Rain

Spiritual Apathy

Restrictions

Book of Mirrors

Perfect Zen

Five Days of Eternity

Five Years After

Five Hundred Years Without Faith

Fog Walker

Murder at Summerset

This Is Not a Reflection Of You

The Theory of Black Holes (CollectedPoems)

The Circle Cluster, Book I, The GreatBetrayer,

The Circle Cluster, Book II, The SoulSlayer,

The Circle Cluster, Book III, The HeartHarrower,

The Circle Cluster, Book IV, The Aristes,

The Circle Cluster, Book V, CentreRule,

The Circle Cluster, Book VI, The BeginningOne

Non-Fiction

Atheism, Scepticism and Philosophy

Articles in Dissident Philosophy

The New Ancein Regime

By E O Zucca & E A St Amant

Molecular Structures of Jade

Instant Sober

Table ofContents

Up until turning five-years-old, I lived inNew Jersey with my birth mother, Diana Briner, who died in Januaryof 1965. I was never able to find out of what. I dont have anyspecific memory of her or of where we lived. My adoptive parentsdiscovered little when they researched it. As I grew up, I lostinterest in ever finding out if my birth-mother was Jewish or whomy father was or even if my mother died suicidally of a drugoverdose. I still dont much care all these years later. Manyexperts say that our fate is decided by our heritage, that its allgenes and spleens. This story is a complete refutation of that.

For the next three years after her death, Imoved from institutions at St. Croix, where I could see the EmpireState Building from my bedroom, to Gudgeon Place just off Tonelle.It was a grungy house with cockroaches and fleas. At the ripe oldage of eight, I landed in the juvenile court system when for thethird time Id been picked up on the streets for truancy. Id beenshoplifting or panhandling each of those times.

I recall little of how I got from one placeto another, or how I learned so much so quickly about the streets,but I think most of it was due to the influence of a roughstreetwise eleven-year-old, Lloyd Mills, at the time, my onlychildhood companion. I became the youngest of the residents at 55Carling Street, Juvenile Group Facility, Essex County, ahalfway-home administered under the authority of the State of NewJersey near Lincroft.

I had met Lloyd at Gudgeon Place, but Irecognized soon after Id arrived at Carling Street, I needed hisprotection to cope inside with the twelve and thirteen-year-oldbullies and gave him my full allegiance. Perhaps because I was sotall, no adult actually believed I was only eight years old.

Lloyd used to come into my room at about oneoclock in the morning after the guards had gone to watchtelevision and sleep with me. Sometimes he cuddled against me,sometimes he would want more. He would stay four or so hours. Hecarried a switchblade which hed boasted hed much practice with,and the other boys feared him, as did I. He kept them away from meand made sure my holiday packages from the state werent stolen. Iremember that I thought our relationship was a tradeoff on thelevel of life and death, an instinct to survive. I dont recallever being affectionate to him in a way which would be called love.I recollect the feeling of boredom with the mechanics of it. Isometimes would fall asleep and hed get angry. However bad it was,it could never compete with the utter fear I felt of being allalone in the world at eight-years-old. It was the loneliness Irecollect most vividly and it didnt go away until I met Una andthe Tappet family.

I think I cried quite often, but even inthis period before the Tappets, I recall just selected events. LikeI remember one day I found an irresistible kitten that hadobviously gone unfed for sometime, and against the rules, smuggledit into the home. I begged Lloyd to steal food from the kitchen tofeed it, which he did, and even better, he went to a grocery storeand stole real cat food for it. After Lloyd would leave in themiddle of the night, Snowball slept with me. Itd tickled my feetin the morning to wake me up. It was a white fluffy ball of fur,but had some black spots around the ears. I remember how small itwas and how it needed my protection to survive. I was saving mymoney to get it to a vet to have it checked out. I loved thatkitten and I cried inconsolably when it was run over by a car onCarling Street, even in the face of all the goading I received fromthe older boys, even Lloyd teased me about it. After all, fortoughened boys, the only good cat is a dead cat.

I mention about my relationship with Lloydso that what happened between me and my stepsister, can beunderstood more clearly. Id experienced more about this sort ofthing before I reached nine-years-old than most teenagers ever do.My behavior toward Sally was due in part to my amplified sexuality,matched evenly by the naivety of my new family. Parents adoptingyoung boys living in orphanages or public institutions, dontrealize that they are sexually active at nine, eight, and evenseven-years-old.

At that time, I attended Westside Park, EastEssex State School. I remember it as an okay experience even if Iwas often truant. They served hot cereal and toast in the morningand they let me have double helpings. Ive no existent report cardseven though I tried to get them, or should I say, someone on mypayroll when I was first putting my life story down in words, triedto get them for me. They could find no record of my existencebefore 1968, let alone my education. Apparently, until I became aTappet, Id no history and was a nonentity to the state.

A favorite place of mine at the time was thegraveyard where my birth mother lay. I brought Snowball thereseveral times to meet her. Her absence in my life had created apuzzling world of ifs and maybes. Life seemed so arbitrary andI never seemed to have any fun. I visited her there to talk aboutit. To try and understand. Perhaps to pray, although no one hadever instructed me in religion until I met Mary Tappet. Piety backthen seemed the farthest virtue from me. Stealing and sex seemedmore natural. Life stole mothers. Lloyd stole sex. Every Sunday Iwould steal flowers from this fancy mans garden to put on mymothers grave. Its a large black-gated property at Rookery andRoanoke near Hoboken owned by one of the richest families in JerseyCity. In my mind at eight-years-old, if I thought about it at all,it must have seemed a palace beyond my imagination. But really, Idont remember what I felt as I scrambled through the propertystealing their flowers. The electronic gate at the front drivewaywas always closed on Sundays. But back then, it was no deterrent atall.