Kasher in the Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16

by Moshe Kasher

Why that day was any different, I don’t know. There comes a time. The pain of existence transcends the fear of change. There comes a time. DJ looked up and I could almost see the lightbulb going off above his head. Electric currents shocking an idea into his atrophied brain. “Hey, let’s go to Brodricks!” Brodricks was a bar we’d found that, in the rush of after-work madness, never seemed to card for beer. No matter how young the commuter ambling up to the bar seemed to be. “Let’s go get ripped up!” DJ was stoked. Everyone was. Everyone agreed. Everyone. Everyone but me. “I can’t go, guys.” I surprised myself as the words came out of my mouth. I looked at the confused faces of the guys. These guys. The guys I loved. My other family. There comes a time. “Huh?” DJ was confused. He’d had an idea. It was a good one. “I can’t do it today. I gotta go.” Donny looked at me. He looked at me in the eyes. Every scene of every moment we’d ever been through together was playing, fast-forwarding in them. He saw it. Saw the change. Saw that something had died in me. My will had died. My childhood had died. He saw that I was done fighting. He saw it. He smiled. He grabbed my hand and slapped a half hug on me. “Right on, man, we’ll holler atcha later.” Donny held my gaze. I looked away. “Yeah, f’sho. Holler later.” There comes a time. When you have to walk alone. Take a right turn. “All right then, let’s bounce.” I could hear Corey salivating for beer. Hell, I was, too. All of my friends, a...