What were the critical factors that raised you out of poverty, while everyone you grew up with is still there? It’s not as simple as a Horatio Alger arc.

Around the time my mother started disappearing, and my father had gone to jail, I was living from place to place. I remember coming up with this idea that I if could walk the sidewalk squares perfectly, and couldn’t step on the line between sidewalk squares, when I got home my mother would be back. And it worked once, you see [Gerald’s mother resurfaced periodically when he was young]. So I said, “Oh man, all I have to do is eradicate all imperfections from myself. All I have to do is do exactly what the people around me want me to do. Whoever is in charge, give them exactly what they want, and they will support you, they will accept you. They’ll give you some food. They’ll let you live with them.”

This boy in my class growing up, Mauricio, had a lot of wild shit happen in his life too, and he responded by going out and lying in the middle of the road and waiting for a car to run him over. So Mauricio was sent to the principal’s office, and probably given some Ritalin for ADD, and probably had to repeat the fifth grade, and who knows where he is now. I was the wonder child because I submitted and I conformed. When in reality, the Mauricio approach probably makes as much sense as mine, if not more, right?

NPR Story 2018

There Will Be No Miracles Here: A Memoir