"Approval's disapproval" from Escaping The Despondent Sea" by zachery polk

Ron Groenlier had gone to Texas to start a family with a beautiful Mexican woman that had become pregnant with his child. We were all at Ron Vokes house the day he was leaving to go to Texas. She was very nice; pleasant, personable and pretty. I was happy for them. That was about a year and a half earlier. It didn’t take long for everything to fall apart. Moving to Texas may have been the problem, only on top of having an ego problem and having a programming history not unlike the one that has misinformed so many men in America, and is only getting worse.

His father happened to be the upstairs occupant on the house we were moving into- helping to care for him being a prerequisite in the scenario. The old man was dying from cancer and needed a bit of assistance. He had meals on wheels coming but I think it only got in the way of his drinking.

Substance abuse smashes everything and is a bigger issue in the United States that anyone is willing to see. Myself, I had no idea that everyone around me was dying from drugs and alcohol.

What I would learn regarding Ron’s Texas experience is that his wife said “no more” and filed for divorce. Ron would have me believe that she only married him to become a citizen so her family could come here from Mexico. He went in and cleaned out the house of all possessions of value, putting everything in a safe hiding place only to end up doing a year in jail or prison. This was due to his alcohol use. It would soon come out that he had been smoking crack cocaine as well.

As we hauled in her stuff, I secretly felt her pain. Having just lost my whole world, I couldn’t believe that someone would approve of destroying his or her own. Denying there was a chance I was making a mistake, I pressed on with moving in and helping to make the home livable. Besides, Ron Groenlier wasn’t a bad guy. We had a lot in common. It was an all out effort on both of our parts to make a home of this place and get on the right track in life… we’d just have to not drink so much, so often.

After getting the house together and the yard into shape, I gave Bob a call. The idea was to show him that things were improving and that I wanted to practice my trade. He was desperate to have my work to hide behind and would work with me on getting to the job. I was right on the bus route, which made it convenient.

These days we were working on Johnny Van Soest’s developments near Rockford, along side Tommy Bruin’s projects, and also another part-time builder that demanded I was working on his projects. These were the days of all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinners at Rinaldi’s in Rockford. And these were the days when VanSoest told Bob he was a hack.

After about six months Bob, knowing I had no driver’s license, left me with his old truck and a list of things to work on at the VanSoest project. Bob was going to Florida for his annual NASCAR event at Daytona, which was a good place for him because he was, once again, wearing away at my last nerve with his constant insults and destructive criticism. He was always bringing up the subject of my ex-wife and kids to humiliate me with. It inwardly infuriated him that I wouldn’t be coerced into attacking him. It also goaded him that I wouldn’t share his diverse guilt. He liked to jab at me in any way he could think of. He knew I was battling with alcohol, and what bothered him was that it made him see the problem in himself that he had with drinking. He’d keep a huge cooler full of beer in the van, all of the time, to drink on the way home. He didn’t want me sober. He feared I would escape his control- a control that he hated to love. I was thankful when he left, thankful to have some peace. My mistake would be to drink after work that first day he was gone. I had been doing so good, paying my child support etc…  Pride, Ego, and a taste of Independence, combined to disable my view of the big picture. This is also when Ronald Jackson discovered where I lived.

The snow was melting away in dirty little piles one spring day. Ron Groenlier and I were in the yard working when Ronald Jackson happened by. Groenlier had said that we lived there, despite my attempts to downplay why we were there working. I tried to pass it off as a yard clean up job that we were doing for someone. Ronald Jackson came by a short while later with a joint to smoke. This was the second day I had been left to use the truck.

The joint Ronald came by with wasn’t your regular ol’ grass cigarette. The joint was a “corn-dog”, having some crack cocaine sprinkled in it. No big deal, I thought. Well, it was just enough to get the demon moving again. It caused me to lose control of myself, which is exactly what was supposed to happen since I had a job. Ronald set me in a position for himself that evening, and I fell right into the trap. He got me started and I ran until all my money was gone- exactly what it is suppose to do to people. I had failed the test of my responsibility by going on a crack binge with Ronald Jackson. Chasing dope all night puts you on the road a lot. What made the last trip, the final trip, was that I had turned onto an on ramp for the highway and lost control of the truck on the slippery street surface- bouncing off of both sides of the embankment with each end of the truck.

The next day, though minimal, I realized the damage. The bumper molding was pinched in the middle of the bumper, causing the plastic to pull away from the surface. With a little panic, and some adhesive products, I glued it and taped it down until the glue could set. Despite my attempts to conceal the damage, Bob noticed it within a few hours of being home. But the bumper wasn’t what caught his eye. It was the bodyline from the bed to the cab that got his attention. I guess it twisted it just a little when I hit. Bob then went out and examined it closer, seeing my failed attempt to make repairs.

Well, with Bob being an expert faultfinder, he found everything but the truth. No matter the situation or how hard he tried, truth was never revealed to him except for the truth about himself that he tried desperately to ignore. These were the truths that he kept others from knowing by keeping them distracted in any way he could manage to, which was not unfamiliar to me being that I was distracting myself from my pain with anyone and anything I could find or afford.

That’s a bit of an exaggeration. I never touched a lot of other drugs outside of cocaine, muscle relaxers, alcohol, marijuana, and a minimal amount of LSD. While writing down these memories today, I began reading a book written by Joyce Meyers titled, “Beauty for Ashes”. This book is exactly what I needed since what I am attempting to do for myself- by writing, is healing from the years and years (a lifetime) of abuse and pain. My efforts are giving me something that I begged those around me for- closure. Closure is a gift that I am giving to myself, so that I may be able to make the most of what is left of my life ahead, and to be restored as a father and as a man. One of my hopes are that I may continue working on those things that I have worked on in the past in my efforts to want to give something to people- to help them live better. Incidentally, living better was not what I have been writing about. It’s about all of the failures along the way.

Right about now is when I helped someone do a job. Someone had it all set up, just needing a small amount my help. This small amount happened to be the most critical part of the caper. Why I did it, I do not know. I can only speculate but I know it’s unlike me to do such a thing. That’s what happens when an addiction to cocaine corrupts your mind. It get’s it’s claws into you and you’ll do things you never dreamed of. You will do things you will never speak of. And those things will eat away at you inside until you die miserably or wish you would die.