Drink Some Water

“I was an orphan.  I grew up in Pennsylvania, in a whorehouse.  I read about Milton Hershey and his school in a Coronet magazine, or some crap the girls left by the toilet.  And I read that some orphans had a different life there.  I could picture it.  I dreamt of it, of being wanted.  Because the woman who was forced to raise me would look at me everyday like she hoped I would disappear.  The closest I got to feeling wanted was from a girl who made me go through her john’s pockets while they screwed.  If I collected more than a dollar she’d buy me a Hershey bar.  And I would eat it alone in my room with great ceremony, feeling like a normal kid.  It said “sweet” on the package.  It was the only sweet thing in my life.  If I had my way, they would never advertise.  You shouldn’t have someone like me telling that boy what a Hershey bar is.  He already knows.”

DAN RIZZO-ORR