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

My little lost boy family was becoming as painful as my real family. Donny stood silently. He never participated. He never stopped it either. He stood and stared. I tried to laugh it off. I tried not to cry in front of the guys. I tried to stay tough. I couldn’t keep this up. I was falling apart. The next day I’d go back, pretending I forgot what they did, and what I’d said to myself. I’d go back because I didn’t have any other place to go. I took all that shame and turned it into rage that exploded at home. Anytime my mother ran screaming after me for coming home late or the cigarettes she found or the money I stole, I’d explode with rage, screaming in her face on a level I am simply not capable of anymore. A kind of primal snap. A little solar flare from the hellfire. I’d go mad. I’d throw whatever was in my hands at her head, trying to kill her. It got bad. I’d overturn kitchen tables and break the doors. I’d throw off my own shoes and toss them through windows. My body was racked with rage like the devil was squeezing my spine, pumping anger into me. My mom would run into the fracas and try to make me stop. Try to make me right. I’d throw her to the ground. I’d hit her. I’d kick her. I’d scratch her. My own mother. My grandmother, too. I’d become what she’d always told me men were. An abuser, that’s who I was. An abuser. I’d abuse at home and be abused in the streets. I’d abuse the ones I loved and be abused by the people I called friends.