Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“Actually, looking back, the ‘camping trip’ we took once—for three months—was just a way for them to romanticize us having no place to stay.”
“I’m sorry,” Zoe said, her hand giving my thigh a squeeze. “You deserved stability.”
“Yeah, well, there was no hope of that. When they weren’t working and were stuck at home, all they did was fight and drink. And come up with asinine schemes to try to make a buck that didn’t involve actually having to put in some work.”
There were a few months where they went around on trash day, picking up everyone’s crap, and swearing they were going to make a fortune selling it online or at local flea markets.
There were times when the only way we ate was if they did product testing or sold plasma.
They once filled the backyard with chickens, swearing they were going to start an “egg empire,” but never remembered to collect the eggs, let alone set up a stand to sell them.
They’d pretended to be home stagers for real estate agencies, despite all the furniture in our house being mismatched and straight from twenty years before.
They entered sweepstakes like it was a profession.
Oh, and then there was the time they wrote a fucking book called “How to Become a Millionaire in a Year (Without a Job)” and sold it for fifteen bucks a pop. Despite not having two nickels to rub together themselves.
They’d sold thousands of those, actually.
If there was one thing a hustler could count on, it was the gullibility of other desperate—and uneducated—people.
“Then, one day, my paternal grandfather died. And he left my parents his house. Why, I have no idea. They were no-contact for years. I guess he just had no one else to leave it to.”
“It must have been nice to have a steady place to live.”
“That part, yeah.”
To someone who’d been living in short-term rentals and camping tents most of my life, the place felt like a mansion.
It had been a two-story building with five bedrooms and four baths. I had a whole fucking bathroom to myself. No more pounding on the door when my parents were in the shower. Or having to go outside to piss in the yard.
“I’d been over the moon,” I admitted. “Until I realized they were working on yet another scheme.”
“Was it a daycare or something?” she asked.
“It was becoming foster parents.”
“But… isn’t there a law in place to prevent people from relying on the foster care system for income?”
“That’s where the scheming came into play.”
If there was one thing hustlers were good at, it was finding other hustlers to hang out with.
Back then, they had a whole network of other losers who were always looking for the easy way out, some get-rich-quick scheme, or even assholes who just fucked over people who didn’t know any better.
Enter Todd.
The sleazy mechanic who’d inherited a gas station slash repair shop from a family member.
He let the place fall down around him while gouging on gas and repairs, since he was the only game in town.
“What they did was get my old man’s friend to fake employment records, saying he worked there as a mechanic and my ma worked as a receptionist.”
The law stated that the money from foster kids had to go to clothes and shit like that. It couldn’t go toward lodging or bills.
So it seemed, on paper, that they were covering their bills with their “income.”
The house was big. They were close to a school. There was a good backyard. My parents, despite not having any sort of moral compass, had no criminal records.
They cleaned up nice.
Coached me to say all the right things when the lady from the government came to do a home study.
“The fucked-up part was I was actually excited to have siblings. Even if they were temporary ones. I’d always been alone. And hadn’t been great at making friends, since my parents were always moving me around from district to district.”
“I’m sorry,” Zoe said, leaning her head into my shoulder. “I don’t understand, though. I didn’t think the government paid much for foster kids.”
“It depended on the kid. Special needs and teens got more money. But it was a couple hundred per kid. But the more they took in, the more they made.”
The house was owned outright. Bills were pretty minimal. They weren’t rolling in it, but they were free to sit around and do whatever they wanted with their days. Which usually involved working on their next scheme.
“The first couple of kids were quick stays. I really don’t even remember much about them. They were teens who basically took care of themselves. They were only around for a few weeks before they went to some distant family members.
“It was the next group that had some staying power. Three siblings. Seven, four, and two.”
I still remembered the night they showed up at our door. They’d all been sporting red-rimmed, puffy eyes and dragging their belongings around in garbage bags.