Escape from Treasure Island: A True Story from Bondage Into Freedom

By William Morris

A true story of a young marine who escaped from a level 5 military prison on an island called Treasure Island. In the military, he graduated number one in his class; his future seemed bright. After his first love left him, his life spiraled out of control into drugs and crime. It’s a true story of one unbelievable event after another. It will keep you wondering what’s next and will give you hope if you’ve lost it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662420757

William Morris

William Morris (1834-1896) was an accomplished writer, textile designer and artist. A utopian socialist, he was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Craft Movement, and was a founding member of the Socialist League in Britain. Greatly influenced by the medieval period, Morris helped establish the modern fantasy genre though his works The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems, A Dream of John Ball, and The Well at the World’s End. Authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were greatly influenced by works like The House of the Wolfings, The Roots of the Mountains, and The Wood Beyond the World. Morris was also an accomplished publisher, founding the Kelmscott Press in 1891, whose 1896 edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer is considered a masterpiece of book design.

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Escape from Treasure Island

A True Story from Bondage Into Freedom

William A. Morris

Copyright © 2020 William Morris

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2020

ISBN 978-1-6624-2074-0 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-2075-7 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Escape

from

Treasure

Island

Tex Davis was six feet tall, two hundred forty pounds, and a track star in college. He served in World War II and sent money home every week to his family. In fact, he ended up sending money home every month for as long as his mother lived. When he got out of the service, he worked for a while on a ranch in west Texas. He was a cowboy through and through. You never saw him without a cowboy hat and boots unless he was at work where he managed Western Auto stores. He was a smart and wise man who feared God, which was passed down from his mother, Pearl. Pearl lived to be almost one hundred years old. He married a beautiful woman named Iris. She was eighteen and he was twenty-four. They had their first child, a girl named Queenell. Over ten years later, they had three more girls. Their names were Neysa, Tana, and Ceryse. Then finally, they had the boy he wanted, Rance. His firstborn, Queenell, married and had a son named Aaron. Rance and Aaron was a year and a half apart, with Rance being the oldest, and they were known as Rance and Aaron.

My name is Aaron, and I have a story that I feel must be told. It was fun, sad, crazy, supernatural, and unbelievable but very true. Queenell, my mother, divorced my dad, Bill, when I was almost three years old. I didn't see him again until I was almost six. We lived out of town and would visit my grandpa Tex's house every Christmas. One day, while we were visiting, my dad came to the door, and they let me see him. They called me from the back room, where I was playing, and said that someone was here to see me. I hadn't seen him for three years, but I knew who he was. He bent down, and I ran and hugged him. I've never forgotten that moment. He was six foot one and in good shape. He was a very charismatic ladies' man and the best hustler, to this day, that I have ever known. He was always having fun wherever he went.

I spent summers at Tex's, and I remembered the next summer he picked me up and took me to the lake. There was a party close to the water. The sun had just set, and music was playing. We were walking toward the party, and he asked me, Son, can you swim?

And I said, Yeah, Dad.

He said, When we get down to the lake and I ask you if you can swim, you say no, okay?

And I said, Okay.

He introduced me as his son; there were lots of men and women there. He said, Son, can you swim?

And I said, No, Dad.

He grabbed me up, put my butt in his big hand, and said, It's about time you learned.

He launched me way out into the lake. As I flew through the air, I could hear the women gasp. When I hit the water, with all my clothes on, it was warm and dark. I went under and swam down away and held my breath for as long as I could. My dad didn't tell me to do this, so he's getting a bit concerned when I didn't come up. The women were yelling now, He hasn't come up! My dad was starting to panic now. Off came the watch, and he's coming out of his shoes when my head popped up from the water. He said that I scared him really bad. I was just trying to play along. We bonded that night, and I felt that he loved me a great deal. I would only see him once a year until I was fourteen.

* * *

I looked forward for every summer to come to Kansas City to see Tex, Iris, the girls, and Rance, who was my best buddy. We had horses since we were able to walk and rode in rodeos. My grandpa Tex was president of the saddle club. I called my grandpa Big Daddy. Maybe because my dad wasn't around much, but the three of us were partners, and that's what he called me as well as Aaron head. He would buy lots of horses, and we would train them. I was good, but Rance had a gift like his dad. He could train with the best of them. Everyone knew that you don't walk behind horses that you don't know. I walked behind one of our own horses, like I've done hundreds of times. I didn't know if it was because she was pregnant or what, but she kicked me with both hind legs extended. One caught me in the back of the head, the other one caught Rance in the shoulder. I was about eight years old, weighed about fifty pounds, and did a flip in the air. When I came down, I was conscious and felt the warmness on my neck and shoulders. When I touched it, it was blood. I started crying and ran toward the house.

I could remember seeing Big Daddy's face in the hospital. It was the only time in my life I've ever seen him look scared. I ended up with fifty-two stitches and was back on my horse the next day. Our saddle club rode in the Fourth of July parade every year in Independence, Missouri. I was a little fella, still eight years old. I had my own horse, Dynamite, but the streets were wet from the rain, and it was still drizzling some. It was about eleven in the morning, and Big Daddy had been drinking a nip or two. He was riding his horse, Champ. Champ was a big, white gelding who was cut late, so he still thought that he was a stud half the time and a little crazy. The horse had shoes on, which made his footing even slicker.

He was on Champ, who couldn't sit still, and looked down at me and asked if I wanted to ride with him. Well, my first thought was no, but I never wanted to act scared to my Big Dad. My mom and grandmother Iris started throwing a fit saying no, that it was too dangerous. I had to say yes, and he reached down with one arm and pulled me up behind him. We were out in front of the other horses in the parade. Champ was not used to all the noise and people all around, which made him crazier than he normally was. We came around the corner to this street that had a slant to it, and Champ's feet went out from under him. With lightning fast reflexes, my Big Dad reached around and grabbed me and set me on my feet as the horse hit the ground. The horse's leg and my Big Dad's leg was bleeding, but neither one was hurt badly. I didn't have a scratch on me. He got back on Champ and looked down at me and asked if I wanted back on. That's when, thank goodness, Grandma showed up and yelled, Hell no!

* * *

There was a golf course near the house, and Rance and I would go down to the par 4 hole that was next to the high school. From where they teed off, they could only see the top of the flag and not the green. So, when a guy would hit a good shot, we would get low to the ground, get his ball, and put it in the hole and then hide. It was so funny to watch him get pissed off knowing that he hit the ball perfect, and then when he would find it in the hole, he would go crazy jumping around yelling, I got a hole in one. We would laugh and laugh.

In school, I was the littlest kid in my class for the longest. One summer at Big Dad's, the family was watching me through the back windows. I was standing on the picnic table bench, and there were three older girls standing beside one another, and I was kissing one after the other. I still don't know how I managed to talk them into that…LOL. Needless to say, I started liking girls at an early age.

It was Thanksgiving Day, and all the family was at Big Dad's house. Even his mother, Pearl, came up from Winters, Texas. Rance and I always had a meeting before any meal at the kitchen table. We had a laughing problem. He would always look at me, or I him, and we would start laughing. Especially when Big Dad would have too much to drink and smack his food when he would chew. We've even got our asses whipped for laughing at the table. So, we would have a meeting to try and get our heads right. I went and sat down first, and I could hear mother Pearl saying, I can't find my teeth, I can't find my teeth! Rance sat down, and I tried not to look at him but glanced at him for a second, and he had this worried look on his face. I remember thinking, What's wrong? Then I grabbed my glass of milk and turned it up to take a drink. At the bottom of the glass were mother Pearl's teeth. I spit milk all over the turkey and everyone on that side of the table. We laugh about it now, but that was one whipping Rance got that I didn't mind hearing him yell.

I was scared of the dark when I was young, and Rance would like to scare me when I would feed my dog. I'd yell and sometimes even drop the pan of dog food. He got a kick out of it, I guess. We were vacationing in Winters, Texas, my stepdad, Bob, my mom, and I met Big Dad and the family down there. It was about 10:30 p.m., and Bob told me to feed my dog whom we had brought with us. I went outside, and the trees were blowing, and this was new territory. It was dark, and I was more scared than usual. I got two cans of Alpo from the car and headed toward the house and out jumped Rance from behind a tree. He yelled, and I yelled and rifled one of those cans of Alpo. It hit him in the head and knocked him smooth out. I remembered Big Dad's dad laughing. I thought he'd never stop laughing. Rance got a few stitches and was okay, but he never scared me again.

I hated it when the summer was over, and I had to go back to Mom and Bob's, my stepdad. I used to wonder why my mom would stay with him. She was beautiful and worked twelve hour days. They owned Health Clubs. Men twisted their heads around everywhere she went. Bob was mean and selfish, and he didn't like me, that was for sure. He would whip me with a belt every chance he got. He would also hit my mom. I remembered when he broke her nose one time. I started doing push-ups and would shadow box, thinking that someday I was going to beat his ass. I was fifteen years old and wanted to be a fighter, so Mom and Bob let me join a boxing club.

One evening, Bob was sparring with me. We had gloves on and were in a room of the house with no furniture. He had socks on his feet on the hard wood floor. Just as my mom was coming in the back door, I came up and swung a hard left hook and caught him on the side of the head, and his socks slipped and down he went. My mom saw it all, and at that moment, which I will never forget, I felt like a superhero. Of course, I paid for that with a bloody nose. I ended up going to the junior Olympics but lost. But I would do a lot more boxing later on in my life.

* * *

When I was fifteen, Rance and I worked at a Thriftway Grocery store. Rance was seventeen and had a car we called the rocket. It was a 64 Oldsmobile with a 455 rocket motor in it. We loved that car. It was Halloween night, and we were working till 10:00 p.m. We had gotten in trouble, so we were