That line is from Larry David and I write it because it's 3:48 a.m. and yesterdays post and dead relatives have me awake. I simply think it's brilliantly funny, and after yesterdays post, I could use some laughs.
The dead relatives? I've heard that between three and four a.m. is when most spirits are active and for most of my life, if I wake in the middle of the night, it is during that time frame. So, if they want me up, I can assume it is to finish what I started yesterday, and not zone out in front of a Chuck Norris infomercial. (Chuck Norris has no chin under his beard...it's another fist.)
I stayed with her for a while and I have a vague recollection of the incident repeating itself but the memory is locked away. The first memory seems to be doing all the heavy lifting anyway.
She would talk to my Dad in Dallas on the phone, and she would hand it to me with tears in her eyes. He would tell me he loved me, and call me Tiger and tell me I was going to come live with him. As he was playing at the Baker Hotel and living at the YMCA in downtown Dallas, I thought that rather exciting. I stayed with him there on weekends before my Mother and the fish grease smelling cook absconded with me to Vegas in a small, white Chevy Nova.
(He failed to mention that all his money had gone to child support, of which my portion amounted to cheese sandwiches, and legal fees, having my Mother declared unfit was apparently expensive and exhausting- the staying with him part would have to wait-filling in the gap would be my Aunt and Uncle and my five cousins. I found this out when they picked me up at Love Field in a giant, gas guzzling station wagon.
I remember driving to my new house in this behemoth of a car and seeing a white Chevy Nova. I hid on the floor boards of the car and no one mentioned it. Either they were letting me work it out, or were too stunned to say anything. But they became my first real family and I learned what it meant to survive in a loud, sometimes violent, fiercely loving, Irish Catholic home.)
I remember leaving Las Vegas, dressed in shorts and a white dinner jacket, with a note on my lapel giving my age and name-now that I think of it-more of a brief menu description for an airborne pederast than anything else, and my first commercial flight went off without a hitch, minus the ketchup episode on the dinner jacket.
The funny thing is, I don't remember saying anything at all, just being this big eyed, long haired, (the haircut of the day in 1966 was the burr for boys my age, so my shoulder length locks were a topic of conversation among the space waitresses minding me on the flight) silent, little boy who left town without saying goodbye to his Mom. (I found out when I lived with her as an adult it took her two weeks to notice I had left...)
I wasn't scared or excited.
I just knew I wasn't going back to the trailer. And that was enough for me.
tracker
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Women; the fairer sex...when there's nothing fair about them.
It has been 42 years since the following incident and it is time I put it to rest.
The psycho babblers would say I was looking for my Mother in all my relationships, and they may, or may not be right. All I know is this...I learned something about women, and my place in their world a long, long, time ago...and it was not from my Mother.
We were living in Las Vegas and I was six, maybe seven years old. It replays in my head like some weird loop of a grainy surveillance video, and it is time it stopped.
My Mother had farmed me out to a friend of hers- a showgirl- who was between shows. She knew my Mother was incapable of caring for me as she showed up one day at our trailer and I was on the front step, playing in the dirt with a stick and my Mom was passed out, naked, on the toilet.
She bundles me up, and takes me to her house, where she has a pool and a poodle and real food and a color t.v.
I am wary, as I know this won't last and I will eventually be returned to the trailer, where I live on cheese sandwiches and my Mothers voice echoes in my head from the bedroom, while I try to close my ears and eyes, in a small ball on the couch- "When you fucked me did you mean it, huh, cowboy, did you mean it...?"
She lets me take a long bath, and makes me spaghetti and meat balls and has bought me a pair of real pajamas.
She lets me watch t.v., anything I want, and I settle on 'Gypsy"-with Rosalind Russel- the story of a famous stripper, the irony of which is not lost on me...but not until later.
I'm engrossed with the colors and the beautiful women, Natalie Wood to be exact (Rosalind was a little long in the tooth for my seven year old taste.)
She calls my name from behind me and I twist and look to see what she wants.
She's wearing nothing but a pair of panties and her breasts are, in hindsight, spectacular. I have very little to compare them to as my Mom was a hard A cup at best and my only real knowledge of the female form came from a Playboy I found folded up on my way to first grade.
( I kept it in my plaid winter coat pocket and Mom found it. I was grounded, as well as confused, but I wanted to see them again, that was for sure. I never went through the stage I hear of, where boys find girls gross, or have cooties. I found them behind the bushes at school with their panties down and I was enthralled.)
She sat on the couch and asked me if I wanted to touch them. All I could do was nod. If I said no, she might get mad, and I couldn't swim in the pool, and I did as she asked. The experience left me flushed and her breathing hard and she suddenly stopped me and said that was enough, and left the room.
The movie ended and I went to bed, in her room, and she tucked me in to her big bed, with the fluffy comforter and she gently kissed me on the forehead, and I smelled scotch. She left the door cracked so the light from the hallway shone in, like a triangular night lite.
She returned a few minutes later and slid her hand under the covers, touching me, making me grow.
She put me in her mouth and I felt her tears on my stomach.
She told me I was a good boy...a very good boy.
I drifted off to sleep, confused yet knowing something had happened that would forever change me.
I learned to be a good boy with all the women in my life.
And all of you wonder why it hurts so much when you leave...?
Because I wasn't very good, after all.
The psycho babblers would say I was looking for my Mother in all my relationships, and they may, or may not be right. All I know is this...I learned something about women, and my place in their world a long, long, time ago...and it was not from my Mother.
We were living in Las Vegas and I was six, maybe seven years old. It replays in my head like some weird loop of a grainy surveillance video, and it is time it stopped.
My Mother had farmed me out to a friend of hers- a showgirl- who was between shows. She knew my Mother was incapable of caring for me as she showed up one day at our trailer and I was on the front step, playing in the dirt with a stick and my Mom was passed out, naked, on the toilet.
She bundles me up, and takes me to her house, where she has a pool and a poodle and real food and a color t.v.
I am wary, as I know this won't last and I will eventually be returned to the trailer, where I live on cheese sandwiches and my Mothers voice echoes in my head from the bedroom, while I try to close my ears and eyes, in a small ball on the couch- "When you fucked me did you mean it, huh, cowboy, did you mean it...?"
She lets me take a long bath, and makes me spaghetti and meat balls and has bought me a pair of real pajamas.
She lets me watch t.v., anything I want, and I settle on 'Gypsy"-with Rosalind Russel- the story of a famous stripper, the irony of which is not lost on me...but not until later.
I'm engrossed with the colors and the beautiful women, Natalie Wood to be exact (Rosalind was a little long in the tooth for my seven year old taste.)
She calls my name from behind me and I twist and look to see what she wants.
She's wearing nothing but a pair of panties and her breasts are, in hindsight, spectacular. I have very little to compare them to as my Mom was a hard A cup at best and my only real knowledge of the female form came from a Playboy I found folded up on my way to first grade.
( I kept it in my plaid winter coat pocket and Mom found it. I was grounded, as well as confused, but I wanted to see them again, that was for sure. I never went through the stage I hear of, where boys find girls gross, or have cooties. I found them behind the bushes at school with their panties down and I was enthralled.)
She sat on the couch and asked me if I wanted to touch them. All I could do was nod. If I said no, she might get mad, and I couldn't swim in the pool, and I did as she asked. The experience left me flushed and her breathing hard and she suddenly stopped me and said that was enough, and left the room.
The movie ended and I went to bed, in her room, and she tucked me in to her big bed, with the fluffy comforter and she gently kissed me on the forehead, and I smelled scotch. She left the door cracked so the light from the hallway shone in, like a triangular night lite.
She returned a few minutes later and slid her hand under the covers, touching me, making me grow.
She put me in her mouth and I felt her tears on my stomach.
She told me I was a good boy...a very good boy.
I drifted off to sleep, confused yet knowing something had happened that would forever change me.
I learned to be a good boy with all the women in my life.
And all of you wonder why it hurts so much when you leave...?
Because I wasn't very good, after all.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Better living through osmosis...oh, who am I kidding?
So I worked and stayed clean.
It was becoming usual. The crawling back into meetings, fessing up and growing up in public, and the sobriety countdown started one more time.
To be honest, I couldn't wait to get loaded again. Crazy? You bet. Reason? Not a clue.
Sure, I could dissect the childhood thing, product of my environment, yada yada...but the truth was, I romanced my addictions and loved the effect drugs and alcohol had on me whenever I ingested them. They changed me, and I couldn't stand to be me.
I hear it now... "How could you? You knew what would happen..." Every time, baby...just no guarantee when, or what or to what strange degree I would sink.
It was that magic place...about 13 minutes into two large ales, (I timed it) when the world would become a singular, perfect moment, and I was in my heaven. It truly was a beautiful place, a place in which I was brave, and handsome and witty and loved everyone and everything.
I loved a good two glasses of red wine; a pint and a half of Bass, or three quarters of a well smoked joint.
It's that place I want to live in and I seek that moment long after I have stripped my clothes off and run screaming through a Cantina bellowing 'I am the other white meat!' (True story...but that's for another time.) I could just never stay there...I had to go farther, and deeper...and ultimately, darker.
So I knuckled it, and tried to enjoy being without armor.
My mother's oldest son, five years my senior, was moving into an apartment near White Rock Lake and needed a roommate. He asked me to join him. His first marriage had grown unpalatable and he too was starting over.
Talk about the odd couple.
He was a Methodist Youth Minister;born to the position, I mean, I have never known him to not do the right thing.
Growing up, we kept in touch, although our Fathers (his-ex Air Force and a Math teacher...mine-Jazz musician and Scotch drinker extraordinaire) never met.
I love the guy to death, but I'm stumped. He inherently knows the right thing to do, and freaking does it. Without fail. And he is genuinely nice to people, especially the elderly. Now, were he to read this, he would without a doubt tell me I was wrong, he certainly made mistakes and has regrets about the choices that he made. I'm sure that's true, although he never made any where I could see them.
I looked up to him my entire life, and still do and always wanted my big brother to be proud of me, and then somehow I would screw it up. But he never, not once -tried to force his views or beliefs on me or drag me to church, or God forbid-'save me'. He let me make my mistakes and was always there when I needed him.
He eventually became ordained and several months ago gave me communion. I cried when he did it, out of gratitude and respect I suppose. It meant more to me than I can possibly describe.
It gets chilly living in someones shadow.
It was becoming usual. The crawling back into meetings, fessing up and growing up in public, and the sobriety countdown started one more time.
To be honest, I couldn't wait to get loaded again. Crazy? You bet. Reason? Not a clue.
Sure, I could dissect the childhood thing, product of my environment, yada yada...but the truth was, I romanced my addictions and loved the effect drugs and alcohol had on me whenever I ingested them. They changed me, and I couldn't stand to be me.
I hear it now... "How could you? You knew what would happen..." Every time, baby...just no guarantee when, or what or to what strange degree I would sink.
It was that magic place...about 13 minutes into two large ales, (I timed it) when the world would become a singular, perfect moment, and I was in my heaven. It truly was a beautiful place, a place in which I was brave, and handsome and witty and loved everyone and everything.
I loved a good two glasses of red wine; a pint and a half of Bass, or three quarters of a well smoked joint.
It's that place I want to live in and I seek that moment long after I have stripped my clothes off and run screaming through a Cantina bellowing 'I am the other white meat!' (True story...but that's for another time.) I could just never stay there...I had to go farther, and deeper...and ultimately, darker.
So I knuckled it, and tried to enjoy being without armor.
My mother's oldest son, five years my senior, was moving into an apartment near White Rock Lake and needed a roommate. He asked me to join him. His first marriage had grown unpalatable and he too was starting over.
Talk about the odd couple.
He was a Methodist Youth Minister;born to the position, I mean, I have never known him to not do the right thing.
Growing up, we kept in touch, although our Fathers (his-ex Air Force and a Math teacher...mine-Jazz musician and Scotch drinker extraordinaire) never met.
I love the guy to death, but I'm stumped. He inherently knows the right thing to do, and freaking does it. Without fail. And he is genuinely nice to people, especially the elderly. Now, were he to read this, he would without a doubt tell me I was wrong, he certainly made mistakes and has regrets about the choices that he made. I'm sure that's true, although he never made any where I could see them.
I looked up to him my entire life, and still do and always wanted my big brother to be proud of me, and then somehow I would screw it up. But he never, not once -tried to force his views or beliefs on me or drag me to church, or God forbid-'save me'. He let me make my mistakes and was always there when I needed him.
He eventually became ordained and several months ago gave me communion. I cried when he did it, out of gratitude and respect I suppose. It meant more to me than I can possibly describe.
It gets chilly living in someones shadow.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
I learn to play the part...
The bus arrived on a misty Saturday morning at the bus terminal a few blocks from Dealey Plaza. My Mother and her hulking, brooding husband were already waiting for me.
(Mom was afraid if they weren't, I'd go get drunk. I had to laugh...I was stone cold broke and really had no intention of drinking...she didn't need to worry. At least not yet.)
She looked me deep in the eye when we hugged, and I knew she knew where I had been.
Her husband asked me how the trip was, and I told him it was fine. I don't think we said anything else to one another for the entire day.
We got to the house and I immediately took a shower and had something to eat. Then we went to a meeting. Just that simple.
However, I had lost my identity somewhere along the way. While I never really knew who I was and chameleoned into whatever group I wanted to belong to, from now on, I was my Mother's son, and that was how I was introduced at meetings for the next year.
My Mother had been sober for quite some time, was very active in recovery, and was a circuit speaker, traveling to recovery conferences and giving her talk. I was the 'little boy in the trailer' in her talk (that started the weepers in the group every time. )
And now, here I was all grown up in recovery too. How fucking wonderful.
One may think I was ungrateful. Well, one may be correct. I was in this dog and pony show, well scrubbed and sober, tap dancing as fast as I could, while smiling at the right people, and saying the right things in meetings, (that's Patty's son...yes., the one in her talk) and I was using my Mother as a sponsor. Note to anyone seriously wanting to get sober...not a good idea.
I wanted to get screwed up again but knew I couldn't, so I white knuckled it, and smiled, and pretended to pray.
Landed another job waiting tables, saved a little money and bought a '63 Triumph. I painted it midnight blue and picked up women at the restaurant bar. (I had to bring them back to Mommy's house-very uncomfortable-but she had a pool, so it was a plus, I guess.)
I was learning I was a natural observer and that it kept me at the edge of things. Too close equaled pain, too far equaled isolation and bad craziness. A balancing act to be sure.
I've balanced that for quite some time, now, and I still do it. I can learn what you want me to say, what's necessary to pay the rent, while I watch you, the things you do (sometimes actually in the name of God-which really slays me) and I incorporate what I can use, and write about the rest.
The time with her taught me to stay half in the shadows and half out, walk that line...and try to stay out of the deep shadows.
In the deepest shadows I am not alone.
(Mom was afraid if they weren't, I'd go get drunk. I had to laugh...I was stone cold broke and really had no intention of drinking...she didn't need to worry. At least not yet.)
She looked me deep in the eye when we hugged, and I knew she knew where I had been.
Her husband asked me how the trip was, and I told him it was fine. I don't think we said anything else to one another for the entire day.
We got to the house and I immediately took a shower and had something to eat. Then we went to a meeting. Just that simple.
However, I had lost my identity somewhere along the way. While I never really knew who I was and chameleoned into whatever group I wanted to belong to, from now on, I was my Mother's son, and that was how I was introduced at meetings for the next year.
My Mother had been sober for quite some time, was very active in recovery, and was a circuit speaker, traveling to recovery conferences and giving her talk. I was the 'little boy in the trailer' in her talk (that started the weepers in the group every time. )
And now, here I was all grown up in recovery too. How fucking wonderful.
One may think I was ungrateful. Well, one may be correct. I was in this dog and pony show, well scrubbed and sober, tap dancing as fast as I could, while smiling at the right people, and saying the right things in meetings, (that's Patty's son...yes., the one in her talk) and I was using my Mother as a sponsor. Note to anyone seriously wanting to get sober...not a good idea.
I wanted to get screwed up again but knew I couldn't, so I white knuckled it, and smiled, and pretended to pray.
Landed another job waiting tables, saved a little money and bought a '63 Triumph. I painted it midnight blue and picked up women at the restaurant bar. (I had to bring them back to Mommy's house-very uncomfortable-but she had a pool, so it was a plus, I guess.)
I was learning I was a natural observer and that it kept me at the edge of things. Too close equaled pain, too far equaled isolation and bad craziness. A balancing act to be sure.
I've balanced that for quite some time, now, and I still do it. I can learn what you want me to say, what's necessary to pay the rent, while I watch you, the things you do (sometimes actually in the name of God-which really slays me) and I incorporate what I can use, and write about the rest.
The time with her taught me to stay half in the shadows and half out, walk that line...and try to stay out of the deep shadows.
In the deepest shadows I am not alone.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf...not my Mom.
Now you didn't think I would really go into tawdry details regarding the aforementioned passenger, did you? My depravity, contrary to popular belief, is not bottomless.
I was too sick, and too scared to do more than smile back and indulge the fantasy. (Although if they ever do perfect time travel in my lifetime, I will be going back to several moments just like that.)
I tried not to peek as she read, jacket over her lap like a blanket, occasionally doing what appeared to be wrestling a muskrat one handed under the jacket, leaving her pale and shaking, but I could be wrong...
So I slept, or tried to and watched the desert scrub whip by, fantasizing about getting off at the next stop, changing my name and becoming a short order cook for a mining camp, while I slowly drank my self to death.
Not a bad fantasy, I just couldn't see myself being called 'Cookie'...the guy with a past.
So I tried to envision what I would be coming home to. To Mom and the last remaining meal ticket.
All I could conjure were the stories she told me when she tried to sober me up before, sort of a scared straight bedtime story.
The time she learned to sew coveralls in the Reno County Jail, doing an undetermined stretch for an undisclosed crime; being driven to the California State line by the CHP, tired of arresting her, begging her never to come back; being flown in a blackout from Vegas to Hawaii by a bona fide, rat pack gangster, and not remembering the trip; working from good casino, to lesser casino, being fired from every one until she was blowing cowboys in our travel trailer in North Las Vegas.
(This was Frank and Sammy time, 1966, none of the Disney bullshit...you could wind up in a hole in the desert faster than cashing an unemployment check.)
Driving from Vegas to California with another husband, an even bigger drunk, who would slip into a seizure in the passenger seat while she drove, and she would pull off the road, kicking the bejesus out of him, sideways in the seat, until he passed out and lay still. Not an after school special.
And there was my story, she-six months pregnant with me; slipping into DT's which induced premature labor and me being born, one lb. thirteen ounces, the doctor slipping her a grain alcohol IV drip to stop the withdrawal, pumping sweet ethyl spirits in to all of me at the same time.
She said that explained the feeling I had of coming home, once I took my first drink-made sense. (I chased that feeling for the rest of my life...thanks again, Mom.)
And I remembered the good, for her at least; getting sober, finding a real day job and taking a bus to work at Love field, getting a paycheck and paying her rent for the first time in years; meeting Mr. Normal, and her weird fairy tale wedding.
Who knew...maybe I could have one too.
I watched the sun go down over the mountains in Arizona and settled in for the trip.
...and I started to think...I just might live.
I was too sick, and too scared to do more than smile back and indulge the fantasy. (Although if they ever do perfect time travel in my lifetime, I will be going back to several moments just like that.)
I tried not to peek as she read, jacket over her lap like a blanket, occasionally doing what appeared to be wrestling a muskrat one handed under the jacket, leaving her pale and shaking, but I could be wrong...
So I slept, or tried to and watched the desert scrub whip by, fantasizing about getting off at the next stop, changing my name and becoming a short order cook for a mining camp, while I slowly drank my self to death.
Not a bad fantasy, I just couldn't see myself being called 'Cookie'...the guy with a past.
So I tried to envision what I would be coming home to. To Mom and the last remaining meal ticket.
All I could conjure were the stories she told me when she tried to sober me up before, sort of a scared straight bedtime story.
The time she learned to sew coveralls in the Reno County Jail, doing an undetermined stretch for an undisclosed crime; being driven to the California State line by the CHP, tired of arresting her, begging her never to come back; being flown in a blackout from Vegas to Hawaii by a bona fide, rat pack gangster, and not remembering the trip; working from good casino, to lesser casino, being fired from every one until she was blowing cowboys in our travel trailer in North Las Vegas.
(This was Frank and Sammy time, 1966, none of the Disney bullshit...you could wind up in a hole in the desert faster than cashing an unemployment check.)
Driving from Vegas to California with another husband, an even bigger drunk, who would slip into a seizure in the passenger seat while she drove, and she would pull off the road, kicking the bejesus out of him, sideways in the seat, until he passed out and lay still. Not an after school special.
And there was my story, she-six months pregnant with me; slipping into DT's which induced premature labor and me being born, one lb. thirteen ounces, the doctor slipping her a grain alcohol IV drip to stop the withdrawal, pumping sweet ethyl spirits in to all of me at the same time.
She said that explained the feeling I had of coming home, once I took my first drink-made sense. (I chased that feeling for the rest of my life...thanks again, Mom.)
And I remembered the good, for her at least; getting sober, finding a real day job and taking a bus to work at Love field, getting a paycheck and paying her rent for the first time in years; meeting Mr. Normal, and her weird fairy tale wedding.
Who knew...maybe I could have one too.
I watched the sun go down over the mountains in Arizona and settled in for the trip.
...and I started to think...I just might live.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Rule one of the Salvation Army: You can never baptize a cat...even if he joins your church.
I was suffering the tortures of the truly afflicted as I boarded the bus leaving the pearl of the pacific coast. They never put the bus station in the wonderful, kitschy part of town, but where people like me hang out. Outside small beer and liquor stores, blood banks, adult bookstores and gotta love 'em, the Salvation Army.
I always wanted to put that on a resume-under military experience- Special Forces, Salvation Army. I could kill you with a spork and a rolled up sermonette, while bashing your brains in with a tambourine, and do it all...silently.
"Just a closer...WHACK...walk with...WHACK...thee....Sing, DAMN IT, sing."
We were the usual bus passengers...garbage bag luggage, pockets filled with crap food, and all smelling ethnically divergent. God, I felt like hell. As the bus pulled out I leaned my head against the window in the flow of the cold, air conditioning.
It would be some time before I felt like living. As we cleared the south part of the city, I knew I was done with this part of my life, with no knowledge of any kind of future.
So I slept, fitfully, as best one can on a Greyhound, waking as we pulled through some little California desert town, stopping briefly, then rolling out again, the miles stacking up.
We had stopped outside Modesto when she got on. My age, carrying a rolled up copy of Penthouse Letters. She sat across from me and smiled.
Whoever was in charge of irony was laughing their ass off. "Dear Penthouse, we had stopped outside of Modesto, when she got on the bus..."
You had to be freaking kidding me. I watched her read, look up, catch me, and smile.
Oh my.
I always wanted to put that on a resume-under military experience- Special Forces, Salvation Army. I could kill you with a spork and a rolled up sermonette, while bashing your brains in with a tambourine, and do it all...silently.
"Just a closer...WHACK...walk with...WHACK...thee....Sing, DAMN IT, sing."
We were the usual bus passengers...garbage bag luggage, pockets filled with crap food, and all smelling ethnically divergent. God, I felt like hell. As the bus pulled out I leaned my head against the window in the flow of the cold, air conditioning.
It would be some time before I felt like living. As we cleared the south part of the city, I knew I was done with this part of my life, with no knowledge of any kind of future.
So I slept, fitfully, as best one can on a Greyhound, waking as we pulled through some little California desert town, stopping briefly, then rolling out again, the miles stacking up.
We had stopped outside Modesto when she got on. My age, carrying a rolled up copy of Penthouse Letters. She sat across from me and smiled.
Whoever was in charge of irony was laughing their ass off. "Dear Penthouse, we had stopped outside of Modesto, when she got on the bus..."
You had to be freaking kidding me. I watched her read, look up, catch me, and smile.
Oh my.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
You can go home again...but you'll never, ever live there.
My options were shit. I was losing my mind in this weird free fall and reached down deep to get it to stop.
I did the unthinkable. I called my Mother.
Now, our relationship was odd, as she had nothing to do with me from the time I was seven until I was fifteen when I moved in with her and husband number four in a small town in Oklahoma.
They met at the State Hospital. He was a butcher by trade, but told me in private he was a secret agent. Said he was one of the one's they sent to get Francis Gary Powers from the Soviet Union. Yeah, and I was Eleanor Roosevelt.
She found him hanging one day in the front yard. Swinging from a mulberry tree, his face bloated and purple. There was no note.
She got drunk and bought a pet rooster.
She loved often but desperately and her choices were poorer than mine.
Her last husband had killed his wife in a car crash, and the guilt left him totally impotent, and to tell the truth, pretty fucked up.
My Mom and I were more like Harold and Maude, and he was jealous of whatever it was we had with each other.
There was no apple pie and Motherly advice. There were Viceroy cigarettes stubbed out in my eggs, and the smell of nail polish remover, and the memory of a quart of cheap vodka under the kitchen sink.
But she was sober, and she knew where I was. I sincerely believe she wanted to help.
She sent me a bus ticket, and said sure baby, come on home.
I did the unthinkable. I called my Mother.
Now, our relationship was odd, as she had nothing to do with me from the time I was seven until I was fifteen when I moved in with her and husband number four in a small town in Oklahoma.
They met at the State Hospital. He was a butcher by trade, but told me in private he was a secret agent. Said he was one of the one's they sent to get Francis Gary Powers from the Soviet Union. Yeah, and I was Eleanor Roosevelt.
She found him hanging one day in the front yard. Swinging from a mulberry tree, his face bloated and purple. There was no note.
She got drunk and bought a pet rooster.
She loved often but desperately and her choices were poorer than mine.
Her last husband had killed his wife in a car crash, and the guilt left him totally impotent, and to tell the truth, pretty fucked up.
My Mom and I were more like Harold and Maude, and he was jealous of whatever it was we had with each other.
There was no apple pie and Motherly advice. There were Viceroy cigarettes stubbed out in my eggs, and the smell of nail polish remover, and the memory of a quart of cheap vodka under the kitchen sink.
But she was sober, and she knew where I was. I sincerely believe she wanted to help.
She sent me a bus ticket, and said sure baby, come on home.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Swimming in it, but too stupid to stay under.
I don't need to tell you. I don't need to describe it. Those of you who know, certainly don't need to be reminded, and those who don't, well, we should keep it that way.
Couldn't drink enough when I was drinking, and couldn't not drink when I wasn't.
It was worse first thing in the morning, especially when I was broke, and I knew there would be an eternity of ground glass under my skin, sweats, shakes so bad I couldn't write my name, auditory hallucinations like a softly spoken conversation in the next room that I could never quite catch.
I could only hope to die in my sleep, as bravery was not my strong suit, but God only shook his head, at times embarrassed to call me his son.
I took to haunting churches, alone, huddled in a pew, away from the altar, away, always away from the pitiful, withering gaze of his only begotten son. (I was more the mixed-race stepchild) but still I went, and kneeled, crying out if not for mercy, at least some fucking sympathy.
And one day God answered.
He said, "No..."
Couldn't drink enough when I was drinking, and couldn't not drink when I wasn't.
It was worse first thing in the morning, especially when I was broke, and I knew there would be an eternity of ground glass under my skin, sweats, shakes so bad I couldn't write my name, auditory hallucinations like a softly spoken conversation in the next room that I could never quite catch.
I could only hope to die in my sleep, as bravery was not my strong suit, but God only shook his head, at times embarrassed to call me his son.
I took to haunting churches, alone, huddled in a pew, away from the altar, away, always away from the pitiful, withering gaze of his only begotten son. (I was more the mixed-race stepchild) but still I went, and kneeled, crying out if not for mercy, at least some fucking sympathy.
And one day God answered.
He said, "No..."
Monday, September 29, 2008
I slip and the slope is longer than I imagine...
Can't figure it. My Dad was okay, it was good news, so why did I feel the need to blot out everything in my path?
Maybe what they say is true, that this 'disease'-once we get sober-becomes arrested and when we start up again it is always worse, with no exception.
(If my alcoholism had been arrested then it had been released on bail, tracked me down, and made me it's bitch...I was running this string out all the way to the end.)
I moved south of Mission, into a converted warehouse. My employers had to bring in an outside source to make sense of the mess I had made of their books and I hooked up with a small, independent record label, promoting records.
Not as glamorous as it sounds. It was 1987. A lot of booze. A lot of other drugs and very little music. Add the fact that I had no idea what I was doing and you get a pretty good picture.
I started to realize what withdrawal meant and what the hair of the dog could do. It was more like an entire dog, sometimes more than one and I was rapidly falling apart.
Any relationships I had cratered and I took one more stab at rich and famous. Or my idea of it, at any rate.
I was in a bar and met a sales rep for the Columbia School of Broadcasting. By the time I signed a contract, to include a guaranteed student loan to become a disc jockey, I was in a full on, free fall, blackout.
Years later some pinched face government wench, with the personality of a stomach cramp was demanding I pay back the money. She actually said, "The U.S. Government will not rest, Mr. Hill, until you have satisfied this obligation."
After I composed myself I felt compelled to ask what she could possibly know about satisfaction.
Then she hung up on me.
That was hardly fair. I wasn't through laughing.
Maybe what they say is true, that this 'disease'-once we get sober-becomes arrested and when we start up again it is always worse, with no exception.
(If my alcoholism had been arrested then it had been released on bail, tracked me down, and made me it's bitch...I was running this string out all the way to the end.)
I moved south of Mission, into a converted warehouse. My employers had to bring in an outside source to make sense of the mess I had made of their books and I hooked up with a small, independent record label, promoting records.
Not as glamorous as it sounds. It was 1987. A lot of booze. A lot of other drugs and very little music. Add the fact that I had no idea what I was doing and you get a pretty good picture.
I started to realize what withdrawal meant and what the hair of the dog could do. It was more like an entire dog, sometimes more than one and I was rapidly falling apart.
Any relationships I had cratered and I took one more stab at rich and famous. Or my idea of it, at any rate.
I was in a bar and met a sales rep for the Columbia School of Broadcasting. By the time I signed a contract, to include a guaranteed student loan to become a disc jockey, I was in a full on, free fall, blackout.
Years later some pinched face government wench, with the personality of a stomach cramp was demanding I pay back the money. She actually said, "The U.S. Government will not rest, Mr. Hill, until you have satisfied this obligation."
After I composed myself I felt compelled to ask what she could possibly know about satisfaction.
Then she hung up on me.
That was hardly fair. I wasn't through laughing.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
I turn from the light...embracing the darker pleasures.
I drank on the plane and I drank at the airport, waiting on a girl from the office to pick me up. She joined me while we poured a few down and played 'spy' at the airport.
I talked her into stopping for provisions on the way to my apartment. She was drunker than she ought to have been, but it didn't matter to me.
She was the one driving.
After more libations and clumsy, embarrassing sex, I decided to put on a pot of beans. The old fashioned way; slow, simmering, southern goodness.
We both passed out with the beans on the stove.
I came to in a grey world filled with acrid smoke, populated by large angry dude's in space suits. One of whom was slapping the shit out of me before throwing me over his shoulder and carrying me outside.
The San Francisco Fire Department takes a dim view of stupid drunks almost killing themselves with a pot of burning beans.
She was wearing a blanket, playing cutesy with a fireman while I watched, stark naked- thank you very much- to yellowish smoke billowing from my now burning apartment.
The apartment manager had been summoned and I could imagine she was not going to be happy about this.
She was still mad from two weeks ago when I carpeted the kitchen.
My feet were cold.
I talked her into stopping for provisions on the way to my apartment. She was drunker than she ought to have been, but it didn't matter to me.
She was the one driving.
After more libations and clumsy, embarrassing sex, I decided to put on a pot of beans. The old fashioned way; slow, simmering, southern goodness.
We both passed out with the beans on the stove.
I came to in a grey world filled with acrid smoke, populated by large angry dude's in space suits. One of whom was slapping the shit out of me before throwing me over his shoulder and carrying me outside.
The San Francisco Fire Department takes a dim view of stupid drunks almost killing themselves with a pot of burning beans.
She was wearing a blanket, playing cutesy with a fireman while I watched, stark naked- thank you very much- to yellowish smoke billowing from my now burning apartment.
The apartment manager had been summoned and I could imagine she was not going to be happy about this.
She was still mad from two weeks ago when I carpeted the kitchen.
My feet were cold.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
The light of reason hurts my eyes...
The surgery was a success. It bought my Dad ten more years and a diet he loathed. Already a fairly disagreeable old prick, the diet did not help in making him a cuddly, shorter, Wilford Brimley. More like a seriously pissy Mickey Rooney.
"See..." he said, propped in his hospital bed, showing me the scar that ran like a big blue zipper in the middle of his chest, and a thinner, maroon scar that ran the length of his leg, from groin to ankle, where the 'good veins' had been removed for use in his well buttressed chest. "This is what you've got to look forward to." I think it actually thrilled him in some perverse way.
"Yeah Dad, thanks for the genetics, sport, can't hardly wait to be opened up like a human fucking canoe."
"Watch your language, there's a god damned lady present," he growled, motioning to his 'doppelganger' bride. Shit...she looked just liked him, except her ass was bigger.
He had never in his life curtailed his language for anybody, except possibly his mother, but she was liable to call him a 'shit ass' as well as anything else, so I'm not sure where the big moral push came from.
And then began the family litany of heart disease. My Uncle-bypasses-many heart attacks, but God love him, still going strong as I write this 23 years later, and of course our dear Uncle Charley, the Episcopal Priest whose heart exploded either in his living room, or the fairway at the golf course, depending on who is telling the story.
He even mentioned his Father, which I thought patently unfair, as his heart only stopped after he plowed a 30.06 round through his skull after being found with a hooker on his lap by my grandmother. He was tired of her nagging.
I think he made his point. But that was not technically a heart attack-so I don't think it counts.
I had done my dutiful son routine and it was time I went back to the coast...I made it seem like I was terribly busy at work, and now that he was out of the woods...well, you know.
I should have stayed, sought help and burrowed in with my family, but I had something to prove.
And I knew my Dad was not going to die, at least not yet...because whatever it was, I hadn't proved it to him.
And you know what?
I never did.
As soon as the Southwest flight leveled off after takeoff and I headed into the sunset, I ordered two beers and a tequila.
I had earned it.
"See..." he said, propped in his hospital bed, showing me the scar that ran like a big blue zipper in the middle of his chest, and a thinner, maroon scar that ran the length of his leg, from groin to ankle, where the 'good veins' had been removed for use in his well buttressed chest. "This is what you've got to look forward to." I think it actually thrilled him in some perverse way.
"Yeah Dad, thanks for the genetics, sport, can't hardly wait to be opened up like a human fucking canoe."
"Watch your language, there's a god damned lady present," he growled, motioning to his 'doppelganger' bride. Shit...she looked just liked him, except her ass was bigger.
He had never in his life curtailed his language for anybody, except possibly his mother, but she was liable to call him a 'shit ass' as well as anything else, so I'm not sure where the big moral push came from.
And then began the family litany of heart disease. My Uncle-bypasses-many heart attacks, but God love him, still going strong as I write this 23 years later, and of course our dear Uncle Charley, the Episcopal Priest whose heart exploded either in his living room, or the fairway at the golf course, depending on who is telling the story.
He even mentioned his Father, which I thought patently unfair, as his heart only stopped after he plowed a 30.06 round through his skull after being found with a hooker on his lap by my grandmother. He was tired of her nagging.
I think he made his point. But that was not technically a heart attack-so I don't think it counts.
I had done my dutiful son routine and it was time I went back to the coast...I made it seem like I was terribly busy at work, and now that he was out of the woods...well, you know.
I should have stayed, sought help and burrowed in with my family, but I had something to prove.
And I knew my Dad was not going to die, at least not yet...because whatever it was, I hadn't proved it to him.
And you know what?
I never did.
As soon as the Southwest flight leveled off after takeoff and I headed into the sunset, I ordered two beers and a tequila.
I had earned it.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Landing in the fog...
Daylight was tweaking over the horizon when we landed at DFW. It was foggy in the City when I left, and foggy here when I landed.
Maybe the world was fogged in. While I was travelling above the earth maybe a huge fog bank had finally enveloped the planet, socking it all in. I warmed to the idea, but, having taken another Valium, I warmed to everything.
My youngest cousin met me at the gate. She was great, the closest thing I ever had to a baby sister, who truly loved me unconditionally.
She took me to my Aunt and Uncle's house, the one I lived in during the third grade Catholic school experience. It was smaller than I remembered, but still the closest thing to home I ever had.
My Dad was being prepped for surgery right before I got to his room. His wife sat in the hard backed chair next to his bed. I could hear him from outside the door, bitching and she shushing him like a petulant child.
A cute nurse exited the room as I was entering, rolling her eyes and smiling. Yeah...he could do that to you.
I steeled myself and walked in.
The scariest part was not how small my Father looked, nor how frightened, but how similar he and his wife looked. Like some strange, white haired, androgynous, couple of twins. Wow. Maybe the drugs had something to do with it.
I hugged him and he whispered thank you in my ear, then began doing his 'bit'. Never failed. He was an entertainer, so scared of who he really was, had to be the 'Nutty Professor' whenever any one walked in to the room. I had finally gotten old enough to tire of it.
She just looked at him, letting him go. She really put up with a lot...his tantrums, moods, personality shifts.
Like they said about the blind hooker; you really had to hand it to her.
Maybe the world was fogged in. While I was travelling above the earth maybe a huge fog bank had finally enveloped the planet, socking it all in. I warmed to the idea, but, having taken another Valium, I warmed to everything.
My youngest cousin met me at the gate. She was great, the closest thing I ever had to a baby sister, who truly loved me unconditionally.
She took me to my Aunt and Uncle's house, the one I lived in during the third grade Catholic school experience. It was smaller than I remembered, but still the closest thing to home I ever had.
My Dad was being prepped for surgery right before I got to his room. His wife sat in the hard backed chair next to his bed. I could hear him from outside the door, bitching and she shushing him like a petulant child.
A cute nurse exited the room as I was entering, rolling her eyes and smiling. Yeah...he could do that to you.
I steeled myself and walked in.
The scariest part was not how small my Father looked, nor how frightened, but how similar he and his wife looked. Like some strange, white haired, androgynous, couple of twins. Wow. Maybe the drugs had something to do with it.
I hugged him and he whispered thank you in my ear, then began doing his 'bit'. Never failed. He was an entertainer, so scared of who he really was, had to be the 'Nutty Professor' whenever any one walked in to the room. I had finally gotten old enough to tire of it.
She just looked at him, letting him go. She really put up with a lot...his tantrums, moods, personality shifts.
Like they said about the blind hooker; you really had to hand it to her.
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