Rescued (Rebirth Series Book 1)

Book summary

In "RESCUED," the inaugural installment of G. Miki Hayden's Rebirth series, we follow the life of young Jay Gardner in Nassau County, NY. Abandoned by his family, Jay turns to the television for solace and education. Through an unlikely teacher, he unveils a remarkable intellect that connects humans, animals, and the departed. With the guidance of unexpected allies, Jay transforms from a neglected child into a PhD holder, celebrated author, and martial arts master, illustrating the enduring spirit of love, loss, and relentless resilience.

Excerpt from Rescued (Rebirth Series Book 1)

I was a ghost in the house where I lived in Nassau County on Long Island. Oh, I was alive, very much so to myself, but the people I lived with, my father and my stepmother, didn’t acknowledge me. I was about six years old at the time. I wasn’t sure of my exact age as it wasn’t told to me, but my guess was that I was somewhere in my sixth year on earth. That would be my seventh year to some in the East who still figure age that way, including the time spent in the womb (it’s slightly complicated). I love cultural nuances, which is why today, speaking eight-plus languages, I’ve become a linguist—among other specialties.

But let me take up the story of my early days, a story I’ve waited a number of years and waded through writing seventeen other books to reveal, a passage of time during which my burdensome past simmered in me, as it still does—for our formative period can be moderated but never truly erased.

I was rarely spoken to and then only a very few words. I wasn’t fed, but left to forage for my own food—for the most part with great difficulty. I was bought no new clothes, though even on a restricted diet I was a growing boy, and I was left alone in a cold or hot house during the day.

But I don’t mean my story to be primarily glum. This is the account of my rescue, how the light of life supersedes the darkness, how I received help, made friends, and actually, ultimately, thrived.

My heritage from my father was as a Russian Jew. I knew that even at six or so, because I must have heard it early on and recounted it to myself later on. Since I have a perfect memory, that may have even come from a pre-language age.

As for my stepmother, I had and still have no idea of her background. All I know of her is how she looked and her behavior and that she wasn’t mentally normal, which was quite obvious.

My oldest daughter has asked me more than once why my stepmother treated me the way she did, and all I can say is just that, that Sienna wasn’t mentally normal.

And then my daughter says, “But what about your father?”

My answer is, “I think he was afraid. Deeply afraid. Afraid if he crossed her, he would lose her.” He, too, wasn’t mentally normal, a phrase I heard during that early time from a speaker on TV. But I’m getting ahead of myself in relating my daily addiction to television.

Sienna went to work every day, thank God, and I was left of my own to do as I saw fit. And though I was starving, freezing in winter and beyond hot in the summer, I saw fit to do quite a bit.

I’ll tell you—if any “you” are out there—something of how my days transpired. I’ll pick some days on which I met my friends, the people now known informally as “The Friends of Jay Gardner.”

Each weekday morning when I woke up, the first thing I did was to listen. I needed to know what was going on in the house, who was here and what they were up to. I would then look out my second floor window to judge the weather—rainy or light—and perhaps run downstairs quietly if I was desperate, in order to pee in the first floor bathroom. No, I wouldn’t flush. Then I’d hurry back silently and into my room down the hall from the large master bedroom. My own bathroom wasn’t attached to my bedroom and I didn’t want to chance running into one of “them” in the hall.

I’d lie in bed now and listen until I knew that both of them were gone for the day. No, I didn’t have a clock or a watch.

Then I’d cautiously exit my room and ever so quietly tiptoe down the stairs. Silence. I could breathe. I’d go into the kitchen, pull a chair over to stand on, and check the sink.

Sienna left the house first and next my father, who often put a bowl in the sink with a bit of water run in. Sometimes, the bowl contained a little food—granola or oatmeal—wet, as I’ve explained, but still edible. So, this was my breakfast, though not all the time. And maybe something edible had been thrown into the garbage, either from that morning or from the night before.

And as I hadn’t otherwise checked the refrigerator since they both had returned from work the prior day, I could look in now for leftovers, pieces of fruit that wouldn’t have been counted, and suchlike. This was often a useless endeavor, but just in case, I made sure, because sometimes I could find a half-eaten pear or apple or a few grapes I could consume.

My father was a licensed stockbroker in an office out here on the Island and Sienna was an office manager. I didn’t yet know what either job entailed, but I did understand that they had enough money for themselves, just not enough, they felt, for me as well.

If no food was to be had—and this would worry me, of course—at least I could drink some water out of a cup I would take from the dishwasher and return there, not neglecting so hunt for food scraps on the plates or pans if the machine hadn’t been run.

My first regular task of the day done, I would go into the living room.

I was, as I suggested above, a regular television watcher. Television was the source of my education at the time and had instructed me in many facets of life and had improved my language skills to what some people—people outside my home, naturally—found a laughable extent. Some years later, I became what I am today, an academic, and at age six I had already begun to sound like one. I would often say, later on, that I was a natural-born academic, because, well, I was.

With the television on, I didn’t merely sit down and watch as you might expect because I had already learned from a health show the pressing importance of working out.

I had no equipment or any appropriate moves (though I kept my eye out for them), but I did know the stations for the free non-commercial music programs, which was where I would go now. That was primarily how I learned both to dance and sing. The song I derived from imitating the popular singers of the day and the dance I made up by myself.

Hungry though I was both day and night, I seemed to have the energy to pour into my rituals, and the sound I produced was to my satisfaction, even if I couldn’t quite judge my footwork. My singing was as close to the adult vocals as a child could approach because even then I had a nuanced ear and could replicate sounds—which served me in good stead in learning languages.

My dance was agile. A TV instructor had taught me to stretch and I did that both before and after my workout, eventually resulting in a body with both some muscle beyond that generally expected of someone my age, and supple limbs. Thus went my morning.

Taking a break, I checked in the kitchen again. Had I missed some scrap? Not really, but worth a look.

Now was the time for my education.

Keeping the television on low so no neighbors could complain or wonder what was going on inside, I would flip from station to station to find knowledge I thought could benefit me, especially those pieces that might lead to better skills or a larger comprehension of the world.

Did you know that Hitler (also not mentally normal) was given all kinds of shots by his doctor that contained everything from vitamins to rat poison. He probably had Parkinson’s (whatever that was). He killed himself when his thousand-year Reich didn’t work out so well.

While I started with the alphabet on a children’s show, I was soon reading pretty much everything I saw on the screen, and if the words were spoken, I had the pronunciation down. All this was in English at the moment.

On this one fateful day when I met my friend Margaret, I grew restless watching television for my lessons as I was quite desperately hungry. The day was cloudy with intermittent breakthroughs of sun and the time of year still summer.

Thus I was ready to make my daily exploration to see what might come to sustain me.

You do recall, I suppose, that I believed my family heritage was as a Russian Jew, but despite that I listened to many Christian homilies. I didn’t know at the time that I had crossed a religious boundary I was expected to stick to, but that really meant nothing to me. What I had heard and recalled quite vividly was that God answered all needs, that the lilies didn’t toil yet had their necessities and the same for the birds. God could be expected to similarly nurture me. I believed this without a shred of bitterness or skepticism derived from my situation.

All the clothing I had at this time was a pair of dirty beige shorts growing too tight around the middle and thighs and a dirty, ragged T-shirt. Since that was all I had, that was what I was dressed in.

I left a window open for emergency entry and went out the back door, wedging in a piece of cardboard so I could come in again that way.

I spent a moment or two admiring nature. Too bad the adults didn’t kept the yard up, but even so the birds settled onto branches there and chirped a note or two, and flowers, perhaps weeds, bloomed with enthusiasm. The air smelled good.

But nothing to eat here. I was particularly careful not to eat things I didn’t know anything about since they might be poisonous. A man on TV had warned me of the possibility.

Today, I struck out in a direction different from the way I generally traveled. This was a residential area, though, and I didn’t think it was a good bet for food. But then I had been told by the Jesus man on TV that I didn’t have to figure out where exactly my answer would come from. Just to trust. Thus I trusted. But I was hungry. Hunger is a compelling ache, and so I walked, trying to know I would be going in the right direction.