Yeah, Gladwin is where I spent some time trying to find my way. Instead of going to my relatives, we stopped at Long John Silver’s on our way back to Gladwin with the household items we had retrieved from their old residence. I only knew this because I got drunk and puked all over the floor where my notebook laid. Even after cleaning it all up, the pages of my notebook were oil stained. Mike answered my question about what I ate that was so greasy the next day.
On one of my trips to and from their house, I stopped in at Wally Gator’s Auto Repair, where I filled out an application. They were steadily busy repairing exhaust systems, and were in need of help, mostly because the owner of the shop was in prison on cocaine related charges- leaving behind his wife to try to manage the business. It wouldn’t be until too late that I would realize I messed up, yet, another opportunity to get off of the street and into a refuge long enough to get pointed in the right direction to reposition myself in the game of life, instead of playing life’s games. She hired me but my inability to read the writing on the wall would soon get me arrested for trying to walk six miles back to Mike’s instead of going to her house. Impaired with over indulgence, and Budweiser’s, provided by numerous dollars and plenty of dancing with the women they came from, I made the bad decision to stumble all the way back to Mike’s place.
With my shoes in my hand, I started off down the highway. It was dark and cloudy so, I used the yellow lines in the center of the road to guide me. At one point the trees were making a bunch of really cool colors but I would quickly learn that it was because the bubbles on the top of the county Sherriff’s car were putting them there. When the cop grabbed me I stumbled, which resulted in a resisting and obstructing charge on top of the public endangerment charge. When they asked me if I had any weapons, of course, I said no but my shirt was not tucked in. If it were, it would have revealed a legal belt knife. That added a concealed weapons charge that comes with a five-year max- a felony charge.
Well, being a bit annoyed, and a wise ass with gluttony for punishment, I added a comment that was something to the affect of me being Bill Clinton. They threw me in the car and headed for the pigpen, which gave me time to think. Now, of all of the stuff I could have, and should have been thinking, I was stewing on the flagrant abuse of authority, trumping up the charges against me, and keeping me distant from any rational or practical thoughts. They asked me for a name again, so I made up a good one. I started to give them Tom Kloosterhouse’s name but changed it to Kloosterman, in an attempt to keep him off of the radar. My reason was that if I gave them my name they would be sending me back to Grand Rapids, which I was trying to get away from because of the crack and the court. Even during the booking process, it was obvious that I made up the name but the deputy just brought up a printout with all of the information that went along with the name, for me to copy down onto the paperwork. At this time he asked me if I had seven hundred dollars. He stated that if I did, the whole thing could go away. I did what I could but my efforts were useless. The woman I was working for wouldn’t be putting up any money to help me out.
Imagine my surprise, thirteen years later, to run into Nate Book in prison, not just run into him but to be sharing the same cell after having met him that night in the Gladwin County Jail. Him and the other eight men in Gladwin’s ten man cell would later ridicule me and reject my attempts at trying to convince them of what I had done with the “fake” name. Nate began calling me “Goldilocks” because of my long blondish hair. He was quite jealous, and the instigator of the taunting since he was at a total loss of all hair, having alopecia since the age of eight. Not to mention the fact that he was in jail on cocaine and criminal sexual conduct charges.
When I went to court on my several charges, I tried to explain the name issue to my Court Appointed Attorney but it was useless. He left it alone and that was that. There would be no convincing the court, in any way, that I was not the person they understood me to be. The whole thing was covered up and would later resurface in the media by way of the Bay City Times Newspaper.
It ended up being a six-month sentence in the county jail, which resulted in three entertaining months- day for day. They released me at seven in the morning on a very nice sunny day at the end of September. In an attempt to face my problems, armed with a renewed sense of purpose and a little jailhouse bible study, I found the main road and started throwing my thumb out to any vehicle LEAVING Gladwin. My plan was to head south towards Grand Rapids.
The first ride I scored was from a young couple who lived in a Geodesic Dome house that was poorly assembled and seemed way too small for a couple with three children, which it was but they were very friendly. Despite being low-income survivors- they rustled up some change for my pocket, and a pack of cigarettes.
When and where they let me off at, I can’t recall but I did the same thing I always did when I needed to get someplace- I just kept going in that direction. The only real problem I had was a result of sitting around in a jail cell for several months. The fast pace of my stride soon made my feet raw. My calves became swollen and aching, and my head ached from squinting in the sun. Starving and lonely, and wanting a cup of coffee in the worst way possible to want one, I kept moving on. There were some carrots that I found laying along the roadside that relieved a bit of my hunger, probably having fallen from a harvest truck on the way to the co-op. “The lord will provide.” I kept thinking. I wondered, “Would it be possible for a cup of coffee?” Several hundred yards later I stumble upon a small convenience store where they had coffee that had just finished brewing. I took out the change I had, some that I had found on the roadside between carrots but it wasn’t enough. I pleaded with the clerk, explaining my plight, to allow me a large cup of coffee with what change I had. A customer that was in front of me heard what I was saying as he left- only to come back in with the ashtray from his vehicle, giving me all of the change that he had accumulated in it. Was this the answer to my request?
Not long after I had finished sipping my super-savored cup of mud, a blue four door Oldsmobile zips past. The driver’s head turned, scoping me out as they went past me. A few minutes later the person came back, driving by me, and turning around to pick me up.
Driving the car was a much older woman than I, maybe early sixties, who’d been out at garage sales that morning. Her face was haphazardly made up. She had fresh lip paint, and gobs of mascara hanging from her lashes, looking very much like she had plans for me and hurriedly made herself up to increase her chances. She startled me with her seeming intentions. My only defense was discussing the Bible, and it worked like a charm. She had lunch with me that day but it wasn’t cream of some young guy. It was cold chicken salad sandwiches from a Convenience store-type gas station near the off and on ramp of U.S. 131 highway.
Once I made it to southbound entrance of US 131, a guy stopped and offered me a ride. It wasn’t even three minutes later but there I was, drinking the beer he had offered. What a huge mistake for an emotionally crippled person with a concussion disorder. For three months I had dried out, sobered up, tuned in and reasserted myself. The worst thing I could do was to start drinking again, before tackling and resolving, the issues that caused me to get lost in it. I knew it at the time but it had been such a long walk in the blazing sun, that my senses were compromised and I could not resist the temptation. In my experiences and realization, now, I would have refrained for most of the ride until I could decide whether I really wanted to or if it was merely an impulse- to, “sleep on it,” as they say. Even still, I could see that my work in life was really cut out for me.
When I started out that morning, I made a prediction that it would take six rides to get me back home. It was just a bonus adventure to beat an aged cougar off with the Bible that day. She did, however, leave a claw in by giving me her address- if I needed a place to stay. And NO, I never took her up on any of it but, as you can see, I never forgot either.
It’s funny how your memories work, how your psyche works, by blocking out the traumatic events and replacing them with a lack of memory. Then things that are so silly or absurd, memory takes these things and places them before the traumatized parts. It would be like a navigation system. The subconscious seems to always push for a better understanding in order to control emotions, and conquer anger and fear- helping steer us to destiny that we relish to find. That is, if we don’t lobotomize ourselves with alcohol and substances or with other people’s views, intentions and schemes- trading away ourselves for a glimpse of some painted up sell-outs thighs or for a Coke and a store bought smile.
The last few days, while rebelling in my own ways at the things I like to observe so-called “grown men” doing, I have given a bit of thought on the old tale about the sword and the stone. Maybe I’m just thick but I finally understand something about it. The sword wasn’t in the stone; the sword was within the stone- the stone was the sword that conquered the people. In order to have a fighting chance at their oppressor’s, they needed to have swords which meant making them- the sword “in” the stone. The man who can give the people the sword for strength would be the man that they would crown. It’s all so simple. We are the stone that the sword is in, and we are the ones who can get it out, giving our power to ourselves with the empowerment that knowledge and ambition brings.
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