Kevin Donalds was born on May 27th, 1975, in Brentford
North, VA, the oldest child in a lower lower class family, one of
those that lives in government housing, eats government food, and can
only manage to find work at the lowest possible paying jobs. The
family itself consisted, originally, of six people: Patrick Donalds
(father), Alice McNeil-Donalds (mother), Kevin Donalds (oldest child),
Lucinda “Lucy” Donalds (second child), Ruby Donalds (third child), and
Gabrielle “Gabby” Donalds (fourth child). However, right after Gabby
was born, Patrick was the victim of a hit-and-run accident in the
middle of broad daylight, with over a dozen witnesses at the scene.
He died at Brentford North Memorial Hospital two days later from
injuries sustained in the accident. The driver of the car was never
found, despite the number of witnesses, and the case was closed,
unsolved, leaving the family to survive as best they could with even
less money now than before.
Kevin and his sisters, each child having roughly one year between
them, all did their best to survive in a world where the deck was
stacked against them. They had the advantages of intelligence and
youth, and that, once you start at the bottom, there is nowhere to go
but up, but it was never easy. Their world was a hard one, and no one
ever leaves such a place untainted.
Lucy was the first to face this. One day, she just didn’t come home.
No note, no word, not even a hint at where she might have gone. The
police finally found her, a month later. She had been bound by
thickly corded rope, and taken to an abandoned building, where she was
raped, beaten, burned, cut, tortured, and, eventually, left for dead.
As with her father before her, the assailants were never found. This
all happened just after her 11th birthday.
Ruby was the next, an end that was actually worse than that of her
older sister’s, if it can be believed. She ran away from home at the
age of 13, saying that she’d met a man who would take care of her, and
get her out of the Hellish environment she had known since her birth.
She was found dead one year later, a murder in which the details were
so gruesome, they are never spoken of outside the official police
report. In the pattern of her family so far, her own murderer was
never found, though, at least, the police know who this man is.
Somehow, through some miracle, Gabby seemed to escape this fate fate.
Yes, life wasn't easy for her, either, but she survived. She lived.
And that was what kept Kevin going. His mother, and his baby sister,
where why he did everything; though, yes, the rest of his family was
dead, killed by the world around them, the three of them had made it.
And Kevin planned to make it so that they would survive forever,
outside of the Hell they had lived in for far too many years.
It was for this goal that Kevin graduated valedictorian of his high
school class, and for this goal that he earned a full scholarship to
Brentford North University, pre-law. He planned to become something
that would make a great deal of money, and so a lawyer fit quite
perfectly into this goal. This way, he could get Gabby and his mother
out of this world, the world that had claimed the lives of the rest of
their family, and support them, financially, without problem. At the
end of his freshman year at college, Gabby, too, graduated high
school, but chose a different path from that of her brother. Rather
than college, she got a job at a nearby supermarket, so that she could
support their mother, who had fallen ill six months prior, making it
unable for her to work. Between Gabby and Kevin, things were finally
beginning to look as if they might improve for this family.
But fate, apparently, enjoyed watching this family suffer, and was not
done with them just yet.
Alice Donalds died on June 29th, 1994, just one month after
Gabby’s high school graduation. This sent the young woman into a
downward spiral of drugs, despair and depression, one that finally
reached its end point the spring semester of Kevin’s sophomore year.
At that point, the final blow struck, both for her, and her brother.
Depressed, high on cocaine, and wanting nothing to do with anything
even resembling life, Gabby wrote a short note, and slashed her
wrists.
With no one to support, and no one to support him, Kevin, too, began
to slip into his own downward spiral. But not with drugs. No,
Kevin’s choice to escape the pain of his life was the bottle.
Whatever alcohol he could get his hands on; this was to dull the pain
of his losses, not bring him any sort of pleasure, and he was no picky
about the taste.
It started out as just a way to ease the constant ache in his chest,
but this didn’t last. It progressed from the drink on the weekends to
the drink before bed, and then further. Before long it was the drink
after class, the drink before class, and, by the first semester of his
junior year… the drink instead of class. Every month, his grades got
worse. He stopped socializing completely, and would not even return
his friends’ phone calls. Were it not for some deep desire within him
that would not ever let him just give up, he probably would have
followed in Gabby'’ footsteps, and taken his own life. But, unable to
do this, he continued to live in a very dark, very cold pit of his own
creation, unable to find a way out, and not sure he wanted to.
By the second semester of his junior year, everything finally fell
through. Kevin’s scholarship was revoked because of his inability to
keep his grades at the required levels. This meant that he,
officially, had nothing; no college to go to, no home to live in, and,
without a home, he could not maintain the part-time job at the book
store he kept for food money. With no family to support him, Kevin
did the only thing that he could think to do. One night, he walked
out of his dorm room, went into a deserted alley, found a comfortable
cardboard box… and crawled into the bottle.
To this date, he has not crawled out yet.
The first year, as it is with anything, was the hardest to survive.
He was almost constantly starving, and barely got enough water to keep
him hydrated. Having to split his money, as an addict such as he did,
between food and his precious alcohol, he never got enough of either.
But, one day, he had an epiphany… as much of one as you can have,
anyway, while flying on Jack Daniels. In this place, no one paid any
attention to him. They would walk around him, talking about any range
of topics, as if he was not even there. This meant that, as long as
he listened, he could learn anything and everything that was going on
in this city, and then sell this information for a fair, and probably
cheap, price. With his sharp, flawless mind, even inebriated
constantly as it was, he remembered whatever he heard, flawlessly, and
began to try and actively seek out more information, planting himself
where it would best be found.
That is where he is now, seven years later. He has made both friends
and contacts on the streets, those who would help him when he needed,
or could get things for him when he wanted. He still drinks as much
as his feeble money supply will allow him to; however, he also keeps
his ear to the ground, hearing and seeing much that goes on in the
world around him. If knowledge is power, then Kevin may soon get out
of this horrendous situation he has made for himself, and force
himself up in the world After all, as his mother had always said,
when you reach rock bottom, there’s only one place you can go.
Let’s hope Kevin can make it there… before the alcohol puts him six
feet underground, instead.
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