Eddie Butcher

Edward was an accidental birth between his father, a visiting American whom he doesn’t even know, and his mother during an affair. Although his mother never said so, he knew that the only reason she had him was to blackmail her former lover. Any money she gained for her silence was used on a growing addiction to booze and drugs.

First she began to neglect herself, then their home and finally her son. Sometimes she encouraged her boy to steal with false showings of love and affection, so they could eat. Or she could hock whatever it was for money. Growing up in poverty wasn’t the worst thing for Eddie, but he spent most of his time barely in school and mostly out on the streets.

Things digress into his mother selling herself to support her habit… Or worse, using her son to get what she wanted. Her so-called boyfriends that at best would kick him out on the streets when visiting, at worse they would abuse him physically or emotionally frequented the home more and more. Eddie hated her for not protecting him, but he hated himself more for not knowing how to escape this life.

A desperate attempt at suicide in his later teens alerted teachers, and the state, how bad the situation had become. Ed went from being a victim of his mother’s lifestyle to becoming one of the foster systems. He ended up in and out of homes, juvenile centers, and eventually jail when he was old enough.

He vowed never to be caged, or used by anyone again. Unfortunately this meant leaving his hometown and eventually his country. Like many young people in Australia and wanting to forget his troubled past, Butcher did a lot of things he would rather forget to get to the States where dreams supposedly came true. It was a long, hard and of course totally illegal journey. At least he thought so but with his father being a citizen, who knew? Edward scrimped what money he had and did favors to bypass a lot of the legal red-tape to cross the Pacific as quickly as possible.

He hit the West Coast first and made his way eventually to Las Vegas, because Ed had heard “what happened there, stayed there”. What better place for a young and possibly illegal immigrant? But he was still that same damaged boy in a man’s body. And soon he was hooked on whatever junk he could get, and just working on a slower way to death and forgetting his old life.

Sometimes he had legal jobs like bouncing for casinos and clubs. And sometimes he was robbing the tourists that he had been protecting hours later. Hustling on the streets. Stealing cars and private property. Hell, even selling his ass if he had to… Whatever it took to get what he wanted or needed.

Until he met a girl that made him want to turn his life around. Just when he was getting his life together going to rehab and trying to clean himself up, the world went to pot. And his muse, his inspirational angel died from an illness that was spreading across the country.

So now he’s fallen back into old habits breaking into houses and businesses to find food, booze, drugs, whatever… He’s not above stealing from someone else, although he’ll make an exception for kids. Screw this world and everyone on it for making him go back to what he was trying to get away from…for dragging him back down.