Read Online A Deadly Wandering: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in the Age of Attention by Matt Richtel - Free Book Online

was so good to talk to him! I really love him! I failed a math test today but hope to get a good grade on the test tomorrow.” And a few sentences later: “Mitchell can walk at nine months now and tonight we took movie films of him walking. Last night, I only got four hours of sleep. Dad got drunk and started playing Michael’s saxophone and would not stop. It was dreadful, he woke everyone and said that the reason he was playing it in the middle of the night was because that was the only thing or person or whatever that understood. Mom said she was glad something did. Tonight, it is hidden under my bed.”
    The months wore on. More fights. In January, she scribbled, “I am writing this in the dark because I’m afraid of what Dad will do if he sees that the light is on.”
    MICHAEL STARTED TO GET into drugs, Terryl explains. Pot, when he could get it. When he couldn’t, Terryl watched him sniff gasoline. After taking a big whiff of the gas, he’d pass out. The cycle of addiction was beginning to take hold. And Terryl felt the other ignominies in her life, such as sometimes showing up at school without a lunch.
    “Do you have anything left over?” Terryl recalls asking classmates in the cafeteria. “Can I have some of your chips?”
    Terryl and Michael sometimes would get silver dollars from their grandparents. When they were flush with a silver coin or two, they’d go to the local convenience store and buy food for breakfast or dinner, often splitting a pack of Hostess donuts.
    One evening, when they were living in the new apartment, Danny came home loaded, in a rage. He threw Kathie and Michael out of the house. Then he came for Terryl.
    “You drunk son of a bitch. You are worthless!” she remembers screaming. He chased after her and grabbed her. She kicked and punched. “You are not getting me out of this house without a fight!”
    He got the better of her, bloodied her, put her out with the others. Terryl wrote in her diary: “This man cannot be my dad. I can’t have come from someone this evil.”
    She was furious at her brother, too.
    “Go fight back!” she says she implored Michael. He was a big kid. Not Danny’s size, but big for his age. “When he comes after you, fight back.”
    Her impression was that Michael and Kathie were peacemakers who wanted to stay under the radar. And that her mom felt she could change the dynamics by again changing the circumstances and the setting. She had a new plan: move to Downey, a new community. A new start.
    It was the summer after Terryl’s ninth-grade year. Her room with the sheets tacked up for curtains also had a built-in desk, a chest of drawers, and a record player given to her by her grandparents. She had a Steve Miller album, but she wasn’t much into music.
    Now she was an even more voracious reader. In fact, she’d gotten herself into trouble for the first time. The reason: She’d checked out too many books. Her favorites were The Diddakoi , the story of an orphan girl who faces persecution, and The Secret Garden , where a girl and a boy, who is sick, escape to a beautiful garden. She loved mysteries. She hated teen romances. She’d started to get into Stephen King. From the Downey library, she would take out armfuls of books, fifteen or even twenty at a time. She didn’t always return them on time. She got a fine: $300. She couldn’t pay it.
    But for as much of an emotional escape that reading provided, it couldn’t protect her from the physical threats. It was not a sufficient one on that summer night when Danny burst into her room with a gun.
    “GET IN HERE. I want you to see this!”
    She was wearing a nightgown. She and Michael followed Danny’s orders. Michael had come from his room and started to cry. Mitchell, their baby brother, was back in Michael’s room, sleeping through it all, as he’d learned to do. Terryl and Michael followed Danny into their parents’ small bedroom. It had hot-pink walls. Kathie lay on the bed, her face