Leo's Voyage

His world was different, it was made up of a hard working multiracial population consisting of families with several children that spoke a diversity of languages and two parents that worked long hours for low wages. Similar to other center or "inner cities", as it was called by the press and law enforcement, it was overrun with crime, unemployment and poverty. The area was thought of as being so distasteful by the political fathers of the surrounding communities that each had adopted a...
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His world was different, it was made up of a hard working multiracial population consisting of families with several children that spoke a diversity of languages and two parents that worked long hours for low wages. Similar to other center or "inner cities", as it was called by the press and law enforcement, it was overrun with crime, unemployment and poverty. The area was thought of as being so distasteful by the political fathers of the surrounding communities that each had adopted a "Township" identification of their particular community in order to distinguish themselves from the inner center city world. Not considering the population of the surrounding townships, the inner city, when compared to small cities of the same size, was consistently ranked near the top in violent crime per capita of cities with over 50,000 residents. It had the highest crime rate in the country with 2,333 violent crimes per 100,000 people while the national average was 455 per 100,000. Three out of every five families in the inner city residents were below the national poverty line. Leo's mother, was a young unmarried woman who had experienced the misadventures of her mother. She was the child of a single teenage mother that dropped out of school at age 16 to pursue a singing career. Her mother was a fair singer but was misled by the false praises of her talent heaped upon her money hungry agents and hanger-ons. The mother chased her dream until the reality of her lack of talent and the cheap alcoholic drinks opened her eyes. The singing career never came and somewhere along the way Leo's mother was born and became a companion in her mother's struggle to survive. Now having inherited and experienced the poor decision making of her mother, the teen mother and her young son, Leo, where now struggling, desperately, to survive in the inner city. Leo and his mom shared a small two bedroom apartment that was subsidized by the state which also maintained their physical health on a sparse diet of powdered milk, peanut butter sandwiches, dry pasta and a red sauce purchased with state issued food stamps. Because of his mother's daily diet of cheap wine, which she was able to purchase by selling the food stamps at less than their value, the meals at home were few. From time to time there had been men who lived in the apartment for short periods of time; his mother had always prevented him from building a relationship with any of them which left him barren of any of the normal acceptable skills of manhood. The skills that he did learn, which came from the transient men who moved thru the apartment, were schemes and tricks that were used to survive by abusing the trust of others.