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When you’re a kid, you have your own unique sense of what’s “normal”.
I grew up in Ohio, so I knew that sometime after Thanksgiving, it was going to start getting cold outside. And we would have snow. Sometimes, LOTS of snow. And I loved it. Of course, as a little boy, big piles of snow just meant having fun sledding and making snow forts. I didn’t have to drive on it or shovel it; at least not until I got a little older.
But as far as I knew, that’s how it was in the winter for everyone. What I experienced must be the same for other people. But then sometimes we would go and visit my grandfather, who lived in Miami. And there we were, in the middle of winter, and not even wearing a coat outside. I couldn’t believe it.
My guest today is Angel. He grew up with his three brothers in Brooklyn. And to him, his childhood was normal. The hunger, the abuse, the homelessness – that’s all he knew.
And I have to give you a little content warning here, that this episode is going to include something I’ve never had in a previous episode, but you’ll have some warning if you want to fast forward. There’s a brief bit of audio where Angel talks about what his father did to the family cat. I contemplated not including this, because I hate to hear about animal abuse and I know you do too. But that incident is important to the story and what happened afterward, and I always say, this podcast doesn’t shy away from real life. But when you hear me ask Angel to talk about the story of their cat named Bonkers, that’s when you can fast forward about 2 1/2 minutes if you want to. It’s not a graphic description, just sad.
That’s the incident that finally triggered something inside Angel. He and one of his brothers decided they were going to kill their father.
And Angel was just 10 years old.
Angel’s book:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H4CVDSXP/
Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here:
https://WhatWasThatLike.com/270
Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai.
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