The Lives we Choose

The Lives we Choose(George Mills) Prologue
Chap 1
1. A young boy with a wagon half full of bottles knocks on a door of an apartment on the ground floor of a two-story courtyard facing complex. In the center of the courtyard is a rain forest style common garden with lush plants and palms. The apartment door opens, and it is old Mrs O’Malley, a widow with two cats. She smiles and reaches behind the door and picks up a brown paper grocery bag full of recyclable bottles and hands it to the young boy at the door, who adds the bag to the others he has in his wagon. The young boy’s name is George, but she calls him Georgie like so many other adults. He hates the name Georgie because it is also the name that kids use to tease him, especially the ones that are bigger and are looking for someone to pick on.
2. George thanks Mrs. O’Malley and pulls his wagon to the next apartment where he knocks on the door. After a minute and no one answers and he is about to knock on the door again when he hears a man yelling and using bad words, the kind that can get your mouth washed with soap if your Mom hears you. Then a woman is screaming, also bad words. George doesn’t knock a second time and moves on to the next apartment.
3. Knocking on the third door he already knows that he will not get any bottles, but that is ok. The door opens and it is Maria, she is a blossoming dark haired, tan skinned girl a few years older than George. She calls him Georgie too, but he does not mind, it sounds nice when she says it. She says “sorry, we don’t have any returnable bottles today. She looks at the apartment door next door and says, can I walk with you?
4. Maria is the oldest of four sisters. The second oldest is Teresa and she is in the same grade as George. Both Teresa and Maria like George, but George really likes Maria. She has curves and wears a bra.
5. George tries to hold back a big smile as he attempts to sound mature and kool and says “sure”, wanna get some soda after I fill up the wagon?
6. They walk together to the next building, another courtyard style apartment, this one has a swimming pool in the middle of the courtyard. George continues his rounds like he does every weekend, once the wagon is full, he walks up to the 7-11. The guy who works here on the weekend is red haired, freckles and is a real ass, named William, everyone calls him Reddy, like Freddy without the F. George always calls him something else that starts with an F under his breath. Reddy’s younger brother Joshua, everyone calls him Joe, also has red hair, super curly like a poodle and his face is covered in freckles. Joe is one of the bigger kids that likes to pick on George. Joe and his asshole friends are also in the store playing pinball on one of the two pinball machines in the front corner next to the newspaper stands.
7. As George is handing the bottle to Reddy for the refund and Reddy puts them in milk crates behind the counter, Joe yells and cusses and slams the pinball game. The pinball machine responds with alarms and lights up the words TILT in the top two corners. Reddy yells at him to stop hitting the game and Joe responds, “%$#@ you and @#$% this piece of shit machine, give me a refund, @#$%en thing robbed me.”
8. Of course, Joe sees George and Maria. Joe and Maria are the same age and go to Junior High together. Joes says to his friends real loud, “Look its Georgie the bottle beggar”.
9. As Reddy is handing George the money for the bottles, Joe slaps Georges hands and the money flies everywhere. George tries to pick up the money quickly as Joe and his friends are doing the same, one of them knocks george down and laughs. Joe laughs even louder and says “whatcha gonna do Georgie Porgie, you gonna cry for us, like you make the girls”. The rest of the boys start singing, “Georgie Porgie, pussy pie, looks at the girls tittys and starts to cry”. Joe reaches out and grabs George by the nipples and twists, “Cry Georgie, Cry!”.
10. A few years ago, George would have cried and asked people around for help. Now at the ripe old age of 10 and a veteran in the bullying game, he just pushes Joes hands away and glares, first at Joe then at Reddy, then at Joes friends. Joe sees this and get mad and snarls, what, you a bad ass? Think your tough?” and shoves George back to the ground again.
11. Maria starts to yell at the boys and begins to cry. They laugh and start singing Georgie Porgie again. “look, he made the girls cry, hahaha”
12. The boys exchange the money they took from George for quarters and return to the pinball game, laughing.

Chap 2
1. It is early on a Thursday morning a couple of months later, George has a paper route now, the Goleta Valley, not a big paper, not much money either. Earlier in the morning, same as every morning, the newspapers arrive at 4 AM. George has his alarm set and get up, goes outside and down the stairs, drags the paper bundles to an empty spot in the carport to roll them up and slap a rubber band each one. George has 200 regulars, but on Thursdays the News press delivers enough papers to give almost every person in on the route a free paper. By the time he is done folding the papers, he has a huge pyramid of 1 ½” inch diameter papers.
2. George is walking with a huge newspaper bag with just a few newspapers left to deliver nearing the end of the daily deliveries, the sun is up, and George is running late. Better hurry or he will be late to school.
3. Up ahead he sees Joe, that big ugly red face and clown hair sticking up over the wooden fence the separates the rows of Apartments the Trailer Park that Joes lies in.
4. Joe singing again, this time it is George of the Jungle.
5. Sometimes a boy can only take so much before he does something stupid. This was one of the days for George. Looks like Joe is alone, face sticking up over the fence, no back up.
6. George walked over to the fence as Joe continued to sing and laugh. The fence was a short fence on this side on a cinder block wall, the way it sat on a short concrete retaining wall, the side Joe was on was a bit further down to the ground and joe’s feet were up on the concrete part of the wall.
7. Without even thinking, George jumped up on the wall and hit Joe in the ear as hard as he could while finishing the “George of the Jungle” song with the lyrics “and watch out for my fist!”
8. Joe fell back, both from shock and being hit in the ear.
9. George jumped up on the wooden fence and looked down at him and realized the Joe was not alone. Standing there on the lower ground level in shock were three of Joe’s bully friends.
10. Time stood still while everyone took in the moment.
11. Seconds before, George was imagining a Billy Jack scene, hero stands up for himself and all is better in the world.
12. As the momentary shock passes, Joe is screaming, GET HIM!
13. George jumps down from the wall and runs as fast as he can crossing through the last apartment courtyard and throws the newspapers in the general direction of the subscribers.
14. George knows these apartments well and easily loses Joe and the bullies and gets away from them this day.
15. Eventually Joe inflicts what he feels is retribution. But George is not permanently hurt, the bruises and scratches heal.
16. This was also one of the times were getting even really did not feel as good as George expected.
If this story was about the fights or trouble that George got into growing up, this story would get very long and may even require a trilogy before we get to the point of the story.
Understanding that being poor required that George learned to fix toys, bikes appliances and how to make money is more important.
It is also important to know that even though Maria, the older girl was exciting, she never felt for George the way Teresa did. George later learned that when he said in from of Maria and Teresa that he liked Maria better, Teresa cried for days and not long after Maria liked an older boy. There were several lessons of the heart here for George at a very young age.
Fast forward to George at 13 years old. He likes to surf and go fishing. He often walks for hours to do either one. No money for allowance means that he still has to use his skills to make money when he needs it with paper routes, bottle collecting, and yard work for people in the neighborhood. Surfing and Fishing is not cheap for a 13-year-old.
Surfing down at Ledbetter beach one afternoon, some kids that were not from the neighborhood were harassing them and kept “stealing” their waves. The rules for surfing are simple, first one to “Catch” the wave owns it. If you are up first, it is your wave and anyone else is supposed to get out of your way.
This afternoon the “nonlocal” assholes would not back off. George caught a good wave and one of them did not back off. So He swooped in low and cut the offender off his wave. George did not expect the Jerk to kick his surfboard right into the back of George’s head.
Next thing, he remember’s is looking up at the sky. The view was like what a rugby ball must have at the beginning of a scrum. He looked up to see the sky framed by a dozen faces in a huddle, looking down at him. After a few minutes as he tried to get up, he learned that you cannot walk for some time after a hard concussion. He slowly made his way up from laying down in the sand to sitting against large drift log. Finally, after about 30 minutes, He was able to get up and walk.
He learned from the kids at the beach that when the jerk’s surfboard hit him the back of the head, he was knocked unconscious and sunk down in the water under the waves. People from the beach ran out into the surf and pulled him to shore and since one knew CPR as we know it now, they rolled him over a few times, banged on him back, lifted his feet. Not CPR. He was incredibly lucky that his will to live was strong, after a few minutes He started to cough and puke the water out of His lungs and stomach.
No one said exactly how long he was not breathing. Most of the accounts were “you weren’t breathing for like a loooong-tiiiiime dude, like reaaaaaly long time” and “Dude, you turned blue, almost like a wax statue, whoa, huh huh”, one guy said “you were just staring at the sky, like dead, weird”.

George did not immediately recall the “Dreams” that had occurred while unconscious. That came later.

Then later dreams that were not explainable may have been induced from head injuries and pneumonia.

Why did they continue? Why so specific?

Over the years, several more illnesses and injuries occurred at what George later learned were potential turning points or gateways in his life. Places to change the path he was on.

A black out from Pneumonia while in the Army induced a dream that showed several new possible paths, that did not include having any more children. A path that led to choices where he would end up overseas, part of the war, but would cost him his family.

A set of dreams that showed a life path with a Son, that would not live to graduate high School.

Later in life head injury while snowboarding caused a blackout that once again showed Robert a few path options. Paths that led to Money and Glory but did not include a family.



Story Outline
1. The story is about the possible lives of George / Robert as he experiences several different versions of his life.
2. As a child his life is very formative for what he encounters in the future.
3. We see when he is young that life is tough, much of it on the streets. Taking his younger brothers on adventures.
4. Learning how to fix just about anything mechanical or electrical.
5. The turning points in his life are a series of near-death experiences that show him pieces of alternate lives.
6. In one life “Robert” chooses a path that leads to drug dealing, gun running. His life in Drugs starts out simple. Dealing at bars and places that young people hang out. He learns early that to make good money, you need to have people working for you that can make good sales. He starts grooming people to be salespeople that have their own territories and regular customers. Like how he had a “territory” and regulars when he collected bottles and had the newspaper route. At one location, the roller rink, he saw this young woman and thought she looked familiar, but he did not make the connection. His life was exciting, full of money, parties, women, and travel. His Brother was his partner and they both lived the lives of rock stars in the Drug Trade. After a several years the business got too big and hard to know who your people were and who you could trust. Things slowly start to fall apart, then in the Blink of an it all goes to shit. After a DEA bust, he and his Brother get sentenced to Prison. The Government takes all his property and money. His Brother gets out of prison early on good behavior. The people that work for them in the drug trade think the Brother was a snitch and got our early for being a rat. By the time Robert gets out of Prison, his brother was found dead in the Chena River.
7. In one life “George” make decisions to work in a recovery and debt collections business, he meets a mentor that takes him under his wing and helps him start his own repo business. He makes enough money to go to college, he becomes a civil engineer. He has always been good at building things and figuring out how to improve machines. He is Commissioned in the Army. Gets sent to Aberdeen Proving Ground to test weapons for the Army where he excels. He made the lead on the development of a new vehicle system. Meets a young Woman who is engaged to an asshole through family Friends. She seems so familiar to him and he can’t help but feel that there should be more to their story.
8. Later gets sent Kuwait to test his systems in real world environments. His team develops several simple systems to help protect the vehicles soldiers use every day. He and his team are road testing a new design when his vehicle is hit by an IED in the road as part of an ambush. He loses almost his entire team and his legs. He is sent back home where he spends months at Walter Reed and the VA. He finds a place to live Aberdeen. Where he meets that young woman again. Her asshole husband had recently died in an accident. She was not doing well, fighting depression. George must go back to Walter Reed for more surgery and treatments, when he returns, he learns that the Young Woman, a daughter of one of the VA Nurses had taken her life. She never forgave herself for having an abortion forced on her by her dead husband and his bitch mother because the mother did not want her Son to marry a girl if she was already pregnant. Robert never had a family. He could not overcome the loss of his squad in Kuwait, blamed himself and after years of drinking, died of a heart attack from diabetes.
9. In Several of these visions, he saw the same Girl, often in different places and times, in several versions of his lives on both sides of the Country.
10. George saw how some different choices effected the entire outcome of his life. He saw the choices that killed or saved Friends, Lovers, or his Brothers and Him from tragedy. Choices that changed to being sent over seas to fight for his country where he ended up dying or getting injured.
11. So many versions of himself, and almost every time there was this beautiful woman, that he never really got to know, except once. So why was she there over and over again?
12. The path required that choices had to made precisely and required what some may call sacrifice. Choices meant that he would be the national hero with a Purple Heart or a Drug Lord with money and parties or so many other versions of himself.
13. None of these other versions included a family.
14. Only one extremely specific set of choices lead to a life with a beautiful woman for a wife, with a family and a happy life.
15. Only one set of choices allowed him to be a Father and Husband, if he could stay the course and follow that path.