Rescued

By G. Miki Hayden

In the heart of Nassau County, NY, young Jay Gardner is a living specter — alive but invisible to those who should love him most.

Abandoned by his family, Jay finds solace and education in an unlikely teacher: the television. With each show, song, and dance, he absorbs the world around him, unveiling a prodigious intellect that bridges the divide between humans, animals, and even the departed.

Guided by unexpected allies, from compassionate strangers to a sensei with transformative powers, Jay embarks on a journey from neglected child to a man who wears multiple hats: a PhD holder, a celebrated author, and a martial arts master.

The first book in G. Miki Hayden's Rebirth series, RESCUED is a story of love, loss, and relentless resilience, and a testament to the enduring human spirit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Sep 18, 2023

Book preview

Chapter 1

Iwas a ghost in the house where I lived in Nassau County on Long Island. Oh, I was alive, very much so to myself, but the people I lived with, my father and my stepmother, didn’t acknowledge me. I was about six years old at the time. I wasn’t sure of my exact age as it wasn’t told to me, but my guess was that I was somewhere in my sixth year on earth. That would be my seventh year to some in the East who still figure age that way, including the time spent in the womb (it’s slightly complicated). I love cultural nuances, which is why today, speaking eight-plus languages, I’ve become a linguist—among other specialties.

But let me take up the story of my early days, a story I’ve waited a number of years and waded through writing seventeen other books to reveal, a passage of time during which my burdensome past simmered in me, as it still does—for our formative period can be moderated but never truly erased.

I was rarely spoken to and then only a very few words. I wasn’t fed, but left to forage for my own food—for the most part with great difficulty. I was bought no new clothes, though even on a restricted diet I was a growing boy, and I was left alone in a cold or hot house during the day.

But I don’t mean my story to be primarily glum. This is the account of my rescue, how the light of life supersedes the darkness, how I received help, made friends, and actually, ultimately, thrived.

My heritage from my father was as a Russian Jew. I knew that even at six or so, because I must have heard it early on and recounted it to myself later on. Since I have a perfect memory, that may have even come from a pre-language age.

As for my stepmother, I had and still have no idea of her background. All I know of her is how she looked and her behavior and that she wasn’t mentally normal, which was quite obvious.

My oldest daughter has asked me more than once why my stepmother treated me the way she did, and all I can say is just that, that Sienna wasn’t mentally normal.

And then my daughter says, But what about your father?

My answer is, I think he was afraid. Deeply afraid. Afraid if he crossed her, he would lose her. He, too, wasn’t mentally normal, a phrase I heard during that early time from a speaker on TV. But I’m getting ahead of myself in relating my daily addiction to television.

Sienna went to work every day, thank God, and I was left of my own to do as I saw fit. And though I was starving, freezing in winter and beyond hot in the summer, I saw fit to do quite a bit.

I’ll tell you—if any you are out there—something of how my days transpired. I’ll pick some days on which I met my friends, the people now known informally as The Friends of Jay Gardner.

Each weekday morning when I woke up, the first thing I did was to listen. I needed to know what was going on in the house, who was here and what they were up to. I would then look out my second floor window to judge the weather—rainy or light—and perhaps run downstairs quietly if I was desperate, in order to pee in the first floor bathroom. No, I wouldn’t flush. Then I’d hurry back silently and into my room down the hall from the large master bedroom. My own bathroom wasn’t attached to my bedroom and I didn’t want to chance running into one of them in the hall.

I’d lie in bed now and listen until I knew that both of them were gone for the day. No, I didn’t have a clock or a watch.

Then I’d cautiously exit my room and ever so quietly tiptoe down the stairs. Silence. I could breathe. I’d go into the kitchen, pull a chair over to stand on, and check the sink.

Sienna left the house first and next my father, who often put a bowl in the sink with a bit of water run in. Sometimes, the bowl contained a little food—granola or oatmeal—wet, as I’ve explained, but still edible. So, this was my breakfast, though not all the time. And maybe something edible had been thrown into the garbage, either from that morning or from the night before.

And as I hadn’t otherwise checked the refrigerator since they both had returned from work the prior day, I could look in now for leftovers, pieces of fruit that wouldn’t have been counted, and suchlike. This was often a useless endeavor, but just in case, I made sure, because sometimes I could find a half-eaten pear or apple or a few grapes I could consume.

My father was a licensed stockbroker in an office out here on the Island and Sienna was an office manager. I didn’t yet know what either job entailed, but I did understand that they had enough money for themselves, just not enough, they felt, for me as well.

If no food was to be had—and this would worry me, of course—at least I could drink some water out of a cup I would take from the dishwasher and return there, not neglecting so hunt for food scraps on the plates or pans if the machine hadn’t been run.

My first regular task of the day done, I would go into the living room.

I was, as I suggested above, a regular television watcher. Television was the source of my education at the time and had instructed me in many facets of life and had improved my language skills to what some people—people outside my home, naturally—found a laughable extent. Some years later, I became what I am today, an academic, and at age six I had already begun to sound like one. I would often say, later on, that I was a natural-born academic, because, well, I was.

With the television on, I didn’t merely sit down and watch as you might expect because I had already learned from a health show the pressing importance of working out.

I had no equipment or any appropriate moves (though I kept my eye out for them), but I did know the stations for the free non-commercial music programs, which was where I would go now. That was primarily how I learned both to dance and sing. The song I derived from imitating the popular singers of the day and the dance I made up by myself.

Hungry though I was both day and night, I seemed to have the energy to pour into my rituals, and the sound I produced was to my satisfaction, even if I couldn’t quite judge my footwork. My singing was as close to the adult vocals as a child could approach because even then I had a nuanced ear and could replicate sounds—which served me in good stead in learning languages.

My dance was agile. A TV instructor had taught me to stretch and I did that both before and after my workout, eventually resulting in a body with both some muscle beyond that generally expected of someone my age, and supple limbs. Thus went my morning.

Taking a break, I checked in the kitchen again. Had I missed some scrap? Not really, but worth a look.

Now was the time for my education.

Keeping the television on low so no neighbors could complain or wonder what was going on inside, I would flip from station to station to find knowledge I thought could benefit me, especially those pieces that might lead to better skills or a larger comprehension of the world.

Did you know that Hitler (also not mentally normal) was given all kinds of shots by his doctor that contained everything from vitamins to rat poison. He probably had Parkinson’s (whatever that was). He killed himself when his thousand-year Reich didn’t work out so well.

While I started with the alphabet on a children’s show, I was soon reading pretty much everything I saw on the screen, and if the words were spoken, I had the pronunciation down. All this was in English at the moment.

On this one fateful day when I met my friend Margaret, I grew restless watching television for my lessons as I was quite desperately hungry. The day was cloudy with intermittent breakthroughs of sun and the time of year still summer.

Thus I was ready to make my daily exploration to see what might come to sustain me.

You do recall, I suppose, that I believed my family heritage was as a Russian Jew, but despite that I listened to many Christian homilies. I didn’t know at the time that I had crossed a religious boundary I was expected to stick to, but that really meant nothing to me. What I had heard and recalled quite vividly was that God answered all needs, that the lilies didn’t toil yet had their necessities and the same for the birds. God could be expected to similarly nurture me. I believed this without a shred of bitterness or skepticism derived from my situation.

All the clothing I had at this time was a pair of dirty beige shorts growing too tight around the middle and thighs and a dirty, ragged T-shirt. Since that was all I had, that was what I was dressed in.

I left a window open for emergency entry and went out the back door, wedging in a piece of cardboard so I could come in again that way.

I spent a moment or two admiring nature. Too bad the adults didn’t kept the yard up, but even so the birds settled onto branches there and chirped a note or two, and flowers, perhaps weeds, bloomed with enthusiasm. The air smelled good.

But nothing to eat here. I was particularly careful not to eat things I didn’t know anything about since they might be poisonous. A man on TV had warned me of the possibility.

Today, I struck out in a direction different from the way I generally traveled. This was a residential area, though, and I didn’t think it was a good bet for food. But then I had been told by the Jesus man on TV that I didn’t have to figure out where exactly my answer would come from. Just to trust. Thus I trusted. But I was hungry. Hunger is a compelling ache, and so I walked, trying to know I would be going in the right direction.

Chapter 2

Imentioned that my memory is entirely perfect. And I imagine you’re wondering how I came to be in such a situation. I’ll try to explain.

I had a mother once. I do recall her holding me in her arms and my feeding happily at her breast. That was an idyllic time for me. All my needs were met.

Though I do remember it all, I can’t separate the days one from the other because the concept didn’t strike me yet. Thinking, on the whole, didn’t take place for me at the time so much as sensory impressions. Though I might cry, that came as a call for assistance, rather than out of discontent. Or so I see it as having been.

After a while, the images changed and while the woman still hovered over me, the feeling was different. I became something separate from her. I began to walk and talk. I had her attention but not quite so much.

And I remember the man as well, who wasn’t exactly the center of my world. And I began to hear what I say now was shouting. The woman would cry and she would shout. The man would raise his voice but not as explosively.

And the world transformed again and a really nice woman, Dora, was taking care of me, fixing my soft meals, talking to me, playing games with me. During the day. Then I would go to sleep. If I awoke during the night and cried, the man was there. He would change my diapers and make minor adjustments to my bedding. I spoke early and I spoke words.

Eventually, the nice woman went away, and another woman came. She and the man, my father, of course, had a special relationship. In the beginning, Sienna would take care of me much the way Dora had, but with less warmth. Still, time passed. Sienna’s minimal affection and attention cooled. She became, I heard her say, bored with me. By now, she would tell my father I was self-sufficient. And he accepted that somehow.

Either that or I would, well, whither away, might have been how she thought of it. I would die.

But she wasn’t completely wrong, I’d say. In a sense, I was self-sufficient. I understood myself to be an independent being. I had independent cognition and in some ways could care for myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the physical capacity to do all the things that older children and adults can do. I also didn’t have a complete knowledge set. Or an income. Or any money at all—no piggy bank or savings from birthdays.

In fact I’d never had a birthday celebrated, which was something that not infrequently nagged at the back of my mind. Having a birthday celebration would allow me to know my age and seemed important because, as I learned from watching television, throwing a child’s birthday party was a happy, normal rite in families. I wished for a magical someday ahead when I, too, would have a birthday acknowledgement, and friends to wish me well and recognize my existence, which became more shadowy as time went on. As I said at the start of this chronicle, I turned into a ghost.

Margaret

I had become used to crossing streets, but doing so when cars were coming was pretty scary. I had to be careful because I was small and the driver might not see me in the road.

Yet on the day I met Margaret, I felt I had no choice, but like the hunters of old, I had to seek out basic sustenance.

I walked further than usual, but straight along the avenue where all I saw was house after house and beautiful lawns and beautiful trees. Most homeowners did a pretty good job with their landscaping, much better than did my father (Edward) and Sienna.

What I didn’t mention was that since my room was upstairs, I could hear some of their conversations—not all by any means, but some. I could hear them in their room, which was down the hall a little way from mine, and I could hear them when they were downstairs in the living room if the television wasn’t on too loud. They did turn it down during commercials.

In regard to having in a gardener as well as perhaps a housekeeper since the house was somewhat messy (and trust me, I wasn’t the guilty party), Sienna said, I don’t like having strangers around. Apparently they had received some negative feedback from the neighbors about the landscaping and my father felt embarrassed and worried that they would be harassed. From time to time, he did cut the lawn—and some years later, I enjoyed working outside and building a bit of muscle. No, no pay. Surely you jest.

Now, I took in the details of the area as I walked a few blocks further than I had before. Being hungry though, I tired quickly and became dizzy. At one point, I felt simply like lying down on the sidewalk and dying on the spot. But of course dying isn’t really that easy in any sense. I knew it wasn’t. I knew I could lie down, but I wouldn’t die right away, and I would just embarrass myself if anyone came by. Did I want to die? Yes and no. I felt I would miss out on much that would be wonderful. I’d miss out on investigating the world. But I was heartsick at what I experienced every day. And for one so young, though of an indefinite age, I was tired.

But I simply kept walking. One more street to cross, ever so carefully, having to dash over the last portion of the street. My heart thudded. I forced myself on.

And then I saw a tree in someone’s side yard. Little fruits lay on the ground, small apples, the best that I could tell. I was woolly headed and sick to my stomach, but I believed if I could eat one of those fruits, its flesh would bring me back to life.

But to take those fruits would be stealing, wouldn’t it? And, then too, what if they weren’t apples? What if they were a poisonous fool’s fruit, something I would mistake for food, but that would kill me?

I picked up two of them, bruised though they were and spotted with rot, and boldly walked to the door of the house. My heart was pounding a little too much, but I wasn’t actually nervous of who might come to the door; the problem was my general state of health since I mostly went without any food.

The name above the door was Margaret Landon, by the way. We didn’t have a name by our front door. I mean Edward didn’t have one. I wondered why Margaret did.

The house was nice, big like ours—I mean my father’s—but it was a little on the shabby side. Needed a paint job. But then my father’s house wasn’t in great shape, either. He was hardly the conscientious proud homeowner.

I rang again. I supposed no one was home, but I waited, pondering whether to take the apples. Was it stealing, really, and were they safe to eat?

The door was opened by an elderly woman in what they call a housedress. Her garment was just about as spotted with smudges as my own shorts and shirt were. She also had on threadbare slippers while I had on ripped sneakers that only fit because I had carefully torn them with a knife to give my feet a little more room.

Hello, Mrs. Landon, I said as nicely as I could despite the fact that I was now shivering in the sun. I wonder if you would mind my taking these two apples from the ground.

Her smile was sweet and I did relax somewhat—maybe I had been a little nervous.

Oh, Michael, she greeted me. Is it raining? She seemed to have mistaken me for someone she knew, and it hadn’t rained for the last two days, not even a little.

No, ma’am. The day is dry and hot, I said. I’m Jay.

Well, you’d better come in. No use you standing out there and getting all wet. She turned away for me to follow.

Yes, ma’am, thank you. I entered behind her and pushed the door closed uncertainly though she seemed willing to leave it open.

Are you hungry? I was just about to heat a can of tomato soup, dear.

Was I hungry? Well, I was shaking from my hunger, but at that moment I felt more nauseated than wanting to eat. But soup, yes, if she made some, I would certainly eat my share.

We walked through a shabby living room with mess all around, unopened mail, articles of clothing, empty cans and bottles, and suchlike, into a similarly disordered kitchen. I was beginning to get the idea. Margaret wasn’t right mentally. But how could I help her? What could I do? I was worried for her, frankly, because she seemed like a nice woman and maybe in worse shape than I was in that she seemed even less able to cope with life’s situations than I. I, at least, was in my right mind, while she had, perhaps, on the other hand, a can of soup.

You don’t mind my taking the apples, I added. First things first.

Oh, dear, you can have whatever you want. She picked up a plastic bag from the table and gave it to me, indicating I could put the apples in that.

They aren’t poison? I checked.

She laughed. Like in the fairy tale? What was that story? She paused to try to think of it, but I didn’t know, either.

I put the two little apples in the bag. Might I take more when I left? She’d said I could have whatever I wanted. And she didn’t indicate they were poison.

The soup can opened with a tab on top. That was handy. I stood and watched. Though I doubted I’d dare to operate the stove at home, learning how might eventually be useful.

What she did next, in putting the soup in an already-stained pot, didn’t seem hard.

Sit down, Michael, she said, pointing to a chair at the table.

I’m Jay, I repeated. I didn’t care what she called me, but I didn’t want to let her assume I was this other person who might be a friend of hers.

Well then, I’ll just heat this up.

I kept my eyes on the soup. I didn’t want to deprive her of her meal, but she was offering to share this small bounty.

Before any time had elapsed, she put a cup with some red soup in front of me. Tomato soup as the can had declared. What might that be like? I leaned up against the table so I could grasp the cup and drank as she served herself. Perhaps I should have waited, but I was that eager.

I tasted the beverage gingerly, afraid it might burn me, but it wasn’t hot—in fact, was barely warm. But the taste was glorious.

This is the best soup I ever had! I declared with great enthusiasm. That was true. I recalled a couple of years before having had a little bowl of soup made for me by Dora, but the taste hadn’t been this ecstatic. Or, to put that properly, I hadn’t been that ecstatic over the taste.

You do recall, don’t you, that I said I remember everything. Indeed, such is the case, and I recalled quite well Dora serving me a bowl of soup with noodles and slivers of carrots and pieces of something green in it. This was a much bolder flavor.

This is the best food I’ve ever eaten! I exclaimed.

Margaret sat, a happy look on her face. She was pleased to have pleased me. In that respect, the woman could be called entirely normal.

She pulled my half-filled cup toward her and I felt alarmed. I had only drunk just a little sip and now she’d reclaimed it.

But no. She poured from her cup into mine, leaving me with three-quarters of a cup, which she pushed back, and herself with only a quarter of a cup.

But you… I protested. How could I take what she herself needed?

She shook her head and watched with a quiet delight as I drank the tepid yet amazing liquid that was calling me back to the fullness of life.

The doorbell rang.

Chapter 3

Stanley

Iwas startled and took a hard swallow of my wonderful soup. Perhaps I would be shooed off by a relative of my just-discovered friend.

Will you answer that, dear Michael, Margaret asked calmly.

I hurried to the door, wondering if it had locked behind me and now might present an obstacle.

But no, it swung open easily and wasn’t even too heavy for me.

A man with a pin on his sort-of-uniform shirt stood on the stoop, a startled expression on his face at the sight of me. He had a plastic grocery bag in his hand.

And who might you be? he asked at once.

I’m Jay, I said. I read his pin. And you’re Stanley.

You got that right, he agreed—adding, You have tomato soup on your face. He smiled and asked, Is Margaret home?

I wiped my hand around my mouth. Yes. Is Margaret expecting you?

Margaret never knows when to expect me, even if I tell her when I’ll come, but I’ve brought her a few things. His eyes scanned the little bite that I was, taking in what kind of creature stood before him.

Come in then, I invited since he didn’t seem particularly dangerous, and since Stanley had apparently been here before.

He nodded his approval and entered.

She’s in the kitchen, I explained.

He went toward the kitchen and I followed. Once there, I waited to see if he would take the seat opposite her, but he pointed at the chair, letting me know I should sit. I felt that was a good indication of who Stanley was, and I resumed my seat and the drinking of my soup. Please, please, let me finish this before I have to go.

Margaret, darling, I have a few things for you. Stanley unpacked what he had brought, and that included two cans identical to the one Margaret had opened containing the soup that I was now drinking. I hoped Stanley wouldn’t be disappointed that I, not Margaret, was drinking the soup.

How are you and Margaret getting along? he asked me.

I was about to answer when Margaret said, This is my son, Michael.

My mouth dropped open and I looked at Stanley, about to correct this misimpression. But really, how could I be the son of this very old woman?

Stanley held his palm to me to stop me from speaking, and he winked.

Glad for you, Margaret, he said.

For a moment, she looked confused. But you must know that, she added. Since you’re his father.

Stanley nodded, his eyes checking with me to make sure that I wasn’t going to contradict her.

Margaret got up from the table with some difficulty, as if she had aches and pains pulling her back. It’s my nap time, she said.

Okay, darling, he replied. Michael and I will go. Okay, son? If you don’t live too far from here, I’ll take you home.

I had wisely finished my incredible soup and picked up my bag with the two apples. Goodbye, Margaret. Thank you so much for everything, for the soup and the apples. But she didn’t look back.

We can’t lock the door, I told Stanley, a bit thrown off.

He nodded. She’ll be safe enough. I’m trying to call in a community worker to do something for her. I hope they move on the situation soon. Of course, as I see it, too, you never know what’s the right thing to do. At least she feels at home in this house.

I understood exactly what he meant as