One character profile that keeps popping up in my books is street kids. They could even constitute a sub-genre.
I don’t just mean kids that play outside all the time and get dirty. I mean, truly homeless, from very young to teenage, unattached, fiercely independent, ones that have become so used to sleeping anywhere they can find to sleep, and make their own way, that they prefer it that way. They make their living by stealing, begging, or even doing jobs like polishing shoes or cleaning windscreens at intersections. Too often, they’re drug addicts.
They may have come from untenable home situations, fleeing from abusive parents, kicked out, or just plain orphaned. Whatever the case, they’ve crossed over from being typical children who crave the security and warmth of a home, to preferring total independence.
My first time becoming aware of children like that was watching a short documentary film by the Salesian Fathers, titled Gaminos. It followed the activities of a Father of that Order, in Columbia, who would go out and make contact with those types of children. He explains in the video, the mindset of such children, and that to begin to help them in any way, one has to approach them carefully. Being fiercely independent, they easily become suspicious of anyone, especially one that looks like they could try to lure them into situations where they’d take control. Many of them have been deeply hurt by abusive control, and they think that’s what having parents is all about.
So, he becomes friends with them, builds their trust, helps them in useful, and sometimes life-saving ways.
Once they’re ready, he invites them to stay in a shelter, one where they can leave any time they want. They can come in, be fed, have a safe place to sleep, but also be free to leave the moment they feel too cramped. That’s important, because the moment you try to force one to stay, word will get around, and you will have lost that valuable trust.
But some do move on from that to more immersive situations, where they can receive education, or learn a useful trade.
Later on, in my missionary career, I had one such child living with me for a week. Our small ministry team had rented a house for our church planting effort, and we found an older drug addict and a young boy sleeping in the premises.
The two weren’t related, so we told the boy he could stay with us. He did, for a week.
I sort of knew what to expect from having watched that documentary a few years earlier, and I was plotting my way forward as to how to help him along. I began giving him reading lessons, and began to think of him as a son.
Then, he ran away again. That broke my heart.
Maybe I wasn’t emotionally ready for that. But the concept has continued to inspire my imagination.
Later again, I went to work at a shelter for homeless children and AIDS Hospice in the Klong Toey Slum in Bangkok. That was a centre similar to the one operated by the Salesian Fathers in the documentary, except this was run by a Redemptorist, Father Joe Maier. That was Mercy Centre, or Human Development Foundation.
I was there a year until my funding ended, but that was one of the more rewarding jobs I’ve ever had. My original task was translating children’s case histories from Thai into English, but when I began puttering around in the art room with some of the kids, working with ceramic sculpture, Father Joe liked what he saw, and decided I should spend at least as much time in the art room as with translation.
How it affected my literary career: I got serious about writing fiction about 35 or so years ago, just a few years after the experience with the homeless boy.
That first book was titled, The Emissary, a fictionalised rendering of Paul’s second Missionary Journey. The writing of the first draft took about six months, but then, I went back and began researching it, editing and rewriting as I did. That process took about ten years. The book never got published - I sort of gave up on the book itself - but the study was of tremendous value to me, teaching me the Judaism of the Apostle Paul, or The Emissary. A lot of that research has been useful in other books, such as Eetoo. Also, it deepened my understanding of the Christian Faith, and practically made me into a Messianic Goy. My Bible study course, The Shechinah: it’s All About God Dwelling Among Humanity, has come out of that, as well as some of my other Bible teaching books.
Just a few facts about The Emissary: I gave up on any prospects of publishing it after about ten years, though I valued what it did for me. However, very recently, I’ve picked it up again, and have decided to give it another go. Watch this space for more news on that.
Another thing: one of the characters is a street kid of the type I’ve been describing. His name is Onestos.
But that’s all I’ll say about him for now, except to remind you, I invented him as a character just about four years after my experience with the boy that spent a week with us. For all intents and purposes, he is that boy.
Then, came Pepe. He was the child of Mercy Centre. My first ideas of writing that one came to me while I was working there. A few of the elements from the real life of Klong Toey Slum and Mercy Centre were inspirations for many of the settings in Pepe, such as Dockyards Community, which like Klong Toey Slum, is close to the Harbour. However, as the disclaimer says, this is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of any character to anyone alive or dead, is all in your head (or something like that). Father Antonio, in the story, may look like a younger version of Father Joe, but again, Any resemblance of any character to anyone alive or dead is a complete coincidence. Mercy House in the story is not Mercy Centre, as it doesn’t include an AIDS hospice, and it’s located in Dockyards Community, located, not in Bangkok, but in La Fonta, the beautiful coastal capital of Cardovia, which is a fictional country on the Mediterranean.
I said all that in one breath.
Pepe was a lot of fun to write. He was brought to his “grandmother” when he was two years old, along with an infant, the actual granddaughter of the grandma. He had mistaken the infant he was holding with Po, of the Teletubbies, so the little girl grew up thinking her name was Po. Pepe and Po are again orphaned when a fire devours their part of the slum community, which Grandma doesn’t survive. So, they live on the streets. Pepe knows he has to take care of Po, and his greatest fear is of losing her.
Nobody knows who Pepe really is, except an old man named Atsuko, who mysteriously pops in and out of their life at just the right moments to save them from some calamity or other. He also talks Pepe and Po into moving to Mercy House.
Who Pepe really is, is also the reason some very powerful people want him dead. But I’ll stop here before the spoilers begin.
It’s futuristic cyberpunk. There’s also a teenage hacker who becomes their best friend.
The hacker is from a very well-to-do family, and normally hangs with friends who consider the likes of Pepe and Po as “low lifers”. The first part of the book follows both their lives through various experiences which bring them closer together until they’ve become best friends. Finally, the hacker realises who Pepe really is.
But again, there are the spoilers peeping around the corner.
Get it here
Then, in The Eurasian, the main characters are travelling through a dystopian future American Midwest. In what was once Arizona, they meet a family of orphans, Annie ‘ol Iron, and her two little brothers Scattered Shower and Light Breeze. Mr. Iron, who had the creative imagination in naming his kids, had been knocked off by the mafia. Their mother was forced into prostitution, while Annie and her two brothers got away in their dad’s pickup truck, which had a canopy over the back, and seats for carrying passengers. Ever since, she has been driving that along an inter-city route, carrying passengers and goods, like a bus/taxi. She’s a 12-year-old bus driver, and her 9-year-old brother, Scattered Shower, sits next to her, holding a loaded revolver for their protection. Light Breeze is only five years old.
Read more about The Eurasian here:
Last-but-not-least, from one of my latest novels, The Planet (Rat Queen series); there’s Rocky Bojangles, aged about 8 or 9. Rocky lived on Grand Central World, the first planet to be colonised by humans around three hundred years earlier, but is now doomed, as a large killer comet is about to make ground fall.
Leaving out the other vital details of the situation, Rocky is in just the right place at the right time as a rescue ship is landing in the city park. Not even knowing about the comet, he makes the quick decision to stow away on the ship, as he’s decided it’s time to “move on”. He’s probably responsible for a few of his friends also making it on board, with the help and cooperation of Father Pancho. Father Enrico Pancho Villa, who is as radical as his namesake, has been giving shelter to him and a few other street people. Another passenger, an autistic savant 12-year-old, becomes one of his best friends after he saves his life. However, he has a few enemies as well, whom he needs saving from at various points in the story. Some Nazis are also on board, one of whom has connections with Nazis in a previous town, who murdered Rocky’s father. Then later, Rocky makes yet more enemies of some gangster types. In this narrative, he’s just one of the many characters that contribute to the book’s wider plot.
That can be read as a stand-alone. Find that here
