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Wayfers

MEMOIR PROJECT ROUGH DRAFT

When the school bus arrived on the first day, I found out that I really did belong to something. Even if The Way told you you didn’t have to join and there were no memberships, the kids on the bus, the kids not in The Way, made it very clear I was different from them because I was “in” The Way. It didn’t matter if they were Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, or another religion, the fact that they didn’t live at The Way made them unified against us. And it wasn’t just the kids, it was the community. As we stepped on the bus the first day, the bus driver made it clear kids from The Way had to sit at the back of the bus. Even if we wanted to sit with a friend we somehow made at the school, we couldn’t sit up front with them, we had to sit in the back and the friend would have to come back with us; and they never would. Instead, everyday, as we passed by all the local kids from grades K-12, they would chant in unison, “Wayfers… Wayfers… Wayfers…”

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© 2006 Christian Cloud Abraham

Posted on July 26, 2006 in
Emotion: Anger, Type: Creative Nonfiction