Boy Scout!

By B. Alexander

B. Alexander offers this coming-of-age novel for several young people. These young people have a special bond from their participation in scouting.
Scouting sets these teens on the right track and offers some incredible experiences, including hiking and camping. It provides leadership opportunities to other members of the troop, and they appear to be set to tackle lifes challenges.
Unfortunately, as the teens grow to be young adults, the negative influences of their environments prove to be too much. Drugs, alcohol, violence, and the sheer will to survive overtake them.
The morals from their youth experiences in scouting remain, but in the end, the challenges of the environment prove to be too much.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503590595

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by B. Alexander.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 07/30/2015

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Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

For them who can’t be here.

PREFACE

Why do young boys grow up and make the choices they do as adults? How do individuals and organizations influence those decisions? During the teenage years, when boys are likely to experience the most change in their lives, how do certain organizations make their impact?

When left unchecked by parents and organization leaders, some groups can be infiltrated by people who mean young boys no good. These individuals operate with their own agenda. In most cases, these agendas are predatory and illegal. Left unchecked, their influence can be devastating.

Fortunately, today things are more out in the open. There are checks, balances, and laws to keep predators away from young boys. Parents are also more involved. They won’t just open the door and let a young boy out into a seemingly trustworthy world. Unfortunately, for a few of the individuals in this book, these changes came too late.

CHAPTER 1

My father did not like spending time with me. He used every excuse imaginable and sometimes no excuse at all. Often, he would just say an emphatic no.

I often dreamed of spending time with my father doing something fun and fulfilling. Often, our conversations consisted of my father saying, Oh yeah, we’re going to do this, or declaring, Someday I’ll show you how to do that. These promises were always followed by watching him sleep late, leave for work on the afternoon shift, or park himself in front of the TV set.

At the same time, I had to continuously listen to his stories about how he and his father used to go fishing. My aunt next door often showed me pictures of them in their gear. After seeing those pictures, I always asked him when he would take me. My father would usually say, Next spring.

One year he actually made serious promises to me about what we were going to do on the first day of spring. He must have gotten some kind of satisfaction watching me parade around the house and brag to my sister about what we were going to do. It included everything from working with tools, fixing my bike, to learning to paint, and of course, we were going to go fishing. The first day of spring came and went, and I didn’t ask about any of the new broken promises.

As I got older, it dawned on me; he must have hated fishing. His father must have held a gun to his head or something to make him go. I came to this conclusion because all of his fishing gear was in the basement. This included tackle boxes, rods, reels, and hooks. My dad never touched or even looked at any of these things. His father died when I was about a year old, and I was left to conclude that fishing died with him.

When my grandfather died, it was almost as if my dad said to himself, I’m glad I don’t have to do that anymore.

As a child, I often felt as though the only other thing he must have hated more than fishing was spending time with me.

Our home didn’t fare much better either. The yard was always a mess. The grass was not cut until it reached our knees, and my mom always complained about it. The leaves from the trees were everywhere. So eventually, I was given the assignment of cutting the grass and raking the leaves.

In addition to our untidy lawn, our basement was a mess. It was full of junk, and no amount of pleading by my mother during our cleanup week would get my father moving. One spring, my sister and I helped our mother gather up a great deal of trash from the basement and move it to the street. For some unknown reason, my father met us at the door and prevented us from taking it to the curb. I remember the confrontation. My parents didn’t shout at each other, but Mom repeatedly asked him why he would not let us put the things out on the street. His response was because he wanted to do it himself. I sat there thinking about how silly the whole situation was. I wondered why he did not simply help out in the first place. I think it was alcohol related and that he must have had a severe hangover.

Some of the biggest letdowns came while I was in elementary school. Every fall there was a father-son night. It was a recreational event, where fathers participated in activities with their sons. The first disappointment came when I was in the fourth grade. I asked my father if he could go. He reminded me that he worked nights and that it would be difficult for him to get off. I must have really wanted to go because I pestered him until he was able to get the night off.

That night, I pranced around the school with my chest poked out in pride for what, I thought, would be a night of fun. My optimism quickly faded when we got there. He told me he could not participate in any activities because he had split his pants as he sat down. Once again, I was out there alone, with other fathers and sons.

The next year, I tried pestering him again; but this time, he quickly dismissed my efforts. He told me he couldn’t get the night off and that I should just go with my best friend, Harris.

I counted these events as the biggest disappointments of my life. I thought, What kind of a man would do this? The next year, I didn’t bother to ask at all and just went with my friend Harris and his dad.

I could never figure out why my dad would not request a night off to spend time with me. For one thing, he drove a truck for the post office and was always filling in for other guys who had taken the night off. The second thing was that he had called in sick on more than one occasion before. This was for when he had drunk too much the night before and was in no condition to go to work. Later on in life, I was able to put the pieces together. It really wasn’t really about me; my dad was a functioning alcoholic.

He would typically finish his shift at 11:00 p.m., hang out with his buddies till all hours of the night, and sleep all afternoon until it was time to return to work. My dad would brag to me about how he and his buddies had polished off of a