"We're all Mental" unedited

The Memorial Day show came and went. When fall arrived, it was time for another Barn Party at a friend of ours, Greg Peterson, that Bruce had introduced us to. The farm was in Rockford and was very popular with a local community radio crowd that we all were a part of- we called them the WYCE crowd.

We were invited to come and play, so Danimal and I loaded up the vehicles with our band equipment. Julie and Casey followed in the Saturn, while Danimal drove my truck, and I drove Julie’s Sidekick. My luck with incidents involving Deer was unfavorable. 
As we drove north, on Northland Drive, we all watched as a Deer came lumbering from the hillside, on our right, to cross the road, impeding with my pathway. It hit the front passenger side of the Sidekick and just kept going. 

It astonished me because there were other drivers on the road with me, and Julie was right behind me watching the whole thing. There was nothing I could do to avoid it. I looked back at her in disbelief, and questioning what to do with hand signals. She just waved me on to continue and not stop. When we got to the destination, the damage was a small dent in the corner where the headlight assembly met with the quarter panel on the passenger side. There was hair wedged in the cracks of the assembly that would make it obvious it was a Deer, so she could later report it. When she did, the cop didn’t believe her one bit.

Dusty accompanied us to the party, making quite a spectacle as she walked around on stage with us while we played, like she was part of the band. I guess she was part of the band. It was pretty sweet having her there. People were worried that she was going to get after the Chickens, and that she looked pretty serious, sporting all of the classic features of a Grey Wolf. Time told a different story, and people were all trying to get a small piece of Dusty’s affection throughout the evening.

Danimal had brought an artist from the loft building that was a glass blower. It made sense to me because I knew Danny would drink his share for the night, and that, The Glassman, as we called him, would not drink much at all. I wanted him to drive the truck home. When it came time to leave, the Glassman would realize it was a manual transmission. His foot slipped off of the clutch pedal and the truck stalled out. After a moment or two of struggle, Danny took the reigns, backing the truck into a car that was parked too closely- someone's daddy's car. It only bumped the car but the kid called the cops because he didn’t want to get reamed out for it by his father. 

When the announcement was made that the cops were coming, the Glassman took off from the scene. Danny was arrested for drunk driving and the truck was impounded, costing me two hundred dollars to get it out. The exhaust had been damaged where the tailpipe hit the kids bumper and needed to be strapped up since it was folded badly and dragging.

Danny ended up serving a six-month sentence in the Kent county jail but managed to get placed in an Honor Camp Program near Greenville. He did about five months with good time. Danny had already purged all of his excess belongings in his anticipation of moving from the building, storing everything else at Julie Wickman’s house on the Westside of Grand Rapids. Since he had been staying around town with various people, it wasn’t too big of deal for him to serve jail time, giving him time to sober up from years of alcoholism.

Shortly after Danny went to jail, I went to jail too. This was the last time I was imposed on by Friend of the Court. I served a ninety-day sentence. The cops were coming to the house with a warrant as we were leaving the house one morning, passing us as we came out of Alcove Drive. Instinctively, I knew they were coming for me but didn’t say anything about it for the sake of freaking Julie out. The bubbles went up and we were pulled over. 

After an exchange of words, I got out for them to take me on their warrant, slipping off my insulated flannel shirt that had a half ounce of bud and a glass bowl in the pocket- in order to help them with less paperwork involving registering my property at the station. The officer appreciated my consideration without knowing of the contents in my shirt pockets.

When I was finally released, some 72 odd days or more later, I came home to a disaster. Beer bottles were littering the lower level of the home, along with pot stems and seeds everywhere. Food packaging was littered in piles around the sitting areas. Laundry was accumulated in corners of the rooms, along with trash in heaps next to, and around, the area of the overflowed trash cans. This was definitely not the look of a two hundred fifty thousand-dollar home that you’d find in a sub-division on a cal du sac. 

When I got to the bathroom, the toilet was a disaster all its own, having not been cleaned since before I left, and had not been flushed for days. There were clothes heaped behind the door near the shower where they had been thrown. It wasn’t hard to figure out that NO housework had been done. Just for fun, I counted the underwear in the pile. There was nine pair in the pile behind the door.

They released Danimal from jail in 2006 at the end of April, I believe. The first day he was out I met up with him at Bruce’s. He set the beer down in the flowerbed as I pulled up with Julie, in an attempt to hide the fact that he was already drinking again. It was sad to see since we talked so much about sobriety, and Danny wanted it so badly but Bruce kept a large cooler full of beer on the back deck next to the hot tub, making it available for anyone to help himself or herself to, which we all did. Sometimes I would grab a six-pack when I needed it after the stores were closed, replacing it later or intending to.

By this time in the caretaking game, I was tending to Jean all day long, everything except for changing her diapers and bathing her, which had now become necessary.

Danny would call from Bruce’s in an effort to get me out of the house but I stayed to do what needed to be done. He would get frustrated because I wasn’t there spending time with him, exclaiming, “You’re missing out on life!”  He was swimming in Versluice Lake and doing hot tubs, kayaking the river and playing music, all while spending time with our friends but here I was, his other half in all of that- his muse and his soul mate. What he really meant was that he was out of time in life, and wanted to spend every day he could with his friend- his “brother of another mother”, Zach. Danny’s health was deteriorating, and he had already spent enough time discussing it.

Danny was now crashing at Robert’s house on Coit Avenue, next to Lookout Hill, while he served his community service to cover the court fees. They came and picked him up every morning except Sundays. Robert was glad to help Danny out, as Danny had helped him out in the past. Since Robert was a Paranoid Schizophrenic, he didn’t have much to do with his days, making it convenient to have Danny around to do things with.

 Danny didn’t have any money at all, begging his boss to pay him just a dollar an hour, which he refused. Danny lowered his request to a quarter per hour but was still humiliated with refusal.

Bob had me working on some projects, keeping me busy through the week. His plans to keep me around were out of necessity, involving a renovation on a six hundred some odd thousand-dollar home in East Grand Rapids. Julie sometimes took me to the site since I had no driver’s license at the time from my recent drunk driving incident.

Bob enlisted another guy to be there with me, a show of force but only for appearances and to keep the man-hour clock racking up time. 

This particular guy, Rob, was not skilled. Everything he did took an enormous amount of time. While he was running baseboard, which was about all he could do, everything else was my job, especially the, so-called, impossible. Those were the things I enjoyed doing, the things that were challenging and rewarding, to me, as a tradesman. My job was always doing anything that couldn’t be done with satisfactory results or couldn’t be done because no one wanted to be seen as the hacks and imposters to the trades that they truly were. Things like marrying crown molding into rounded and angular walls and ceilings were unheard of.

When lunchtime came we went to East-town and had Gyro’s at, Sammi's Oasis and deli, that won awards year after year for their food, making it all seem worthwhile. I loved my trade for all of these things. Feeling a sense of self-worth was probably the most valuable thing I got from it. But working with people who soaked up the glory of the work being performed... well, working for Bob- it was just the way it was. Bob knows the truth. And as long as he's alive, he will feel guilt and shame for what he has done. All I had done was pour my imperfect heart into every little thing that I had privilege to be a part of- in the name of one phrase in the Bible: "All things you do unto man, do as you would do unto your God". Amen.

Even though the verse is appropriate, what was not was to learn, while on this job, that Danny was found dead the very last morning of his community service. He will never again want for anything yet I will always want for one more day with my very dear friend. I miss him, and I will always miss him even though he is still with me.

He, and I, sincerely hope you enjoy his, and our, music. Be sure to find our "Ambient Blues" Album. It is available to hear on many internet radio stations- Spotify is one of them. You can also hear more songs in a list from Topic on Youtube. Just type in, "The Bandana Brothers" for a list of songs for your listening enjoyment. It was my promise to him to "Get The Music Out There".
Thank You.

Selfishness, a Realization

It seemed like a good idea to focus on my work with Bob, and with making woodcrafts from the scraps on the floor, among the so-called waste. 

The magic in my artistic vision spotted the table leg scraps that had been made when they were cut to length recently. I cut the four sided, hollow blocks into cubes, and transformed them into a pair of Dice. They made a desktop pencil caddy that I found pretty darn cool, looking just like Dice frozen in action.

There were some cedar pieces among the scraps from the fabrication of round top window casings that, to me, looked like birds flying. It was an abstract vision that gave the artwork to me. It happened to be Julie Wickman’s birthday, so I took to making a wall mount shadow box display using the “birds”, and some scrap bead-board for the back panel. A glow of pride warmed me that afternoon as the artworks took shape.   

A birthday party was planned to be held in the bar portion of Holly’s Landing- a hotel on the Grand River, off of Ann street. A Blues band was playing that night, surprising me when I got there. It wasn’t very busy, which made it nice because the crowd was fairly small, having about forty people but then again I wasn’t really paying close attention to the crowd.

My focus was on presenting my gift and getting into party mode with the music, dancing and beer. The cardboard box I had wrapped the shadow box in had something that I had written on it, which was something to the affect of it not being a Mel Gibson Blow-up Doll. It was my attempt at being funny because Julie was a big Mel Gibson fan at the time.

When I presented it to her, I took her into a side room to do it. A few of her friends, in their curiosity, followed us to be part of the unveiling. Hoping for a big reaction, I didn’t want to just leave it for her to open later. Perception, having been contaminated with alcohol, was that she didn’t really think much of it.

Maybe it only looked nice to me, sort of like a new parent with their infant. Oh well, it wasn’t going to stop me from what I would do later on, which was throw myself at her once again, especially since she was such a good person, and the perfect representation of everything I wanted in a partner for life. She had a job, owned properties, had a child, and a crafting hobby, and she wasn’t an addict. That was the big one, and exactly the reason she didn’t want me around for much more than a place to crash when I was too drunk to find my way to my own part of town. She trusted me in her home, and with her adopted son, Simon.

Occasionally, she would call to have me service her home or rental property or to bring her some delight, which is our slang for weed. It was like I was looking in the window at something I wanted but could not afford for myself. Life went on- and so did my window shopping.

In the meantime, I was at the end of the rope with everything. My court battle regarding the enforcement of my, so-called, visitation was won but after only a few visits, it all blew back apart. Before actually winning, Mindy had agreed to allow me to see the children but only under her supervision. Having her chaperone the children didn’t stop me from taking advantage of the opportunity to see them.

We had a mediation at the Kent County Friend of the Court building, where we spoke with the mediator but when I had my chance to speak, Mindy was rude and impeded on my communications for what I felt was all too often- and for the last time, to which I exclaimed that she needed to “shut the phuk up”. The facilitator did not approve of this, recommending that I go to anger management classes. 

After laughing it off, to my self and a few friends, I never complied.

In the meantime I have a second family court battle. My oldest child’s mother, Mary, came by the house to push off her youngest child, Heather, onto me as if she was mine. She had steadily maintained that I am the father of Heather regardless of the fact that I have had a Vasectomy since 1994, when I was married to Mindy. This added to my feelings that the wolves were trying to tear me apart. It was only natural, and convenient, to numb my pains with alcohol and camaraderie while grieving over one more nightmare, which served as a convenient excuse to continue self medicating- needless to say.

Really, I only dreamed of being so popular with women. A paternity test was finally done. Several weeks went by before the results came back. It wasn’t until then, that I was released from that accusation. Somewhat to my dismay. Now, Mary is fully cared for in a home for a Psychiatric illness that plagued everyone in our families for so very long. The bad part is, Sarah, my oldest daughter, was negatively influenced by her mother all those years, which constantly chipped away at, and destroyed, my attempts at nurturing our relationship. It continues to be an obstacle that I hope time will, someday, heal. It grieves me daily.

The good part is that Sarah’s Great Grandmother influenced her positively, thank God. 

Sarah was the only one on her mother’s side of the family that ever graduated, never becoming pregnant or involved with drugs, and went on to get accepted into the Air Force. She was tested and given the opportunity to go into Intelligence but decided to become involved in the weather, as a Meteorologist.

My consolation prize is that she became very well educated, and takes after me, so I am told or feel, despite my attempts to gain custody of her before Mindy compromised my life by using my Attorney, Betty Bronkema, in that custody effort. She secured her to handle her divorce from me after my accident. This complaint has never been properly filed. It wasn’t until recently that I discovered how to file a serious complaint against an Attorney or Judge.

Cody and Scarlett were thrilled to be able to see their father. Our first meeting place was at a park down the trail from our home, on the Rogue River. The kids were ecstatic to go there, especially since I announced that we were to fish, bringing Dusty along with us. Mindy ignored her though, and Dusty knew it.

Dusty was not able to understand why Mindy did not give her any sort of acknowledgement, while I set the kids up to fish. It was not aware to anyone at the time, that dusty had feelings that were very hurt. 

Scarlett showed huge excitement, a bit more than Cody. It was obvious that she did not get to go fishing much, if ever. So while they casted and giggled, I took pictures and shot video with Julie’s camera.

Dusty was in obvious pain, so I decided to take the dog for a walk through the river, taking the camera to get some pictures of my kids from the opposite bank. We found a shallow spot to cross upstream, wading in to some deeper areas along the way back down to where we could get a good shot.

The cold water flowed around Dusty’s hips, supporting some of her weight, as it became a bit deeper. Dusty became a bit more lively with the joy she was experiencing from the therapeutic effect of the water, cooling her hips. It must have helped to relieve her pain. It seemed obvious in her radiance. Dusty smiled and smiled.

Scarlett and Cody continued to fish but there was no action at that time of the day for them. Cody wanted to get his feet wet with Dusty and I, while Scarlett wouldn’t put the pole down for anything. She didn’t care if she had caught one or not, having so much fun just going through the motions of being able to fish.

Scarlett continued to cast and retrieve her spinner, while her mother sat in the grass with a book, and her allergies. It was nice to see her endure the aggravation she had, sneezing and hacking, scratching and tearing. It was all part of my plan for my time with the kids, and to make it inconvenient for Mindy, since she was making an inconvenience upon US.

 The prize for the day was when I climbed up the bank from the water. Dusty carefully climbed out too, only instead of shaking off the water where she was, she walked over to Mindy, stopping directly in front of her to shake it off there. She was an arms-length away with her book, sitting in the weeds, as Dusty made her testament against her “mamma’s” cold heart, covering her with the river’s mud and wetness. It was biblical. Julie was filming the scene as it happened, capturing screams and all. Never, since the divorce, had I been happier to see Mindy than that moment.

After winning the enforcement order, the kids and I celebrated with a big home-cooked meal complete with a toast, to our new independence.  It was the last time I would see the kids despite the efforts to coordinate having them again. Mindy began to schedule so many things in their days that they were too occupied to think about having time with their dad. Yet, one day she had the time to take my call, only to prey upon my love for her once again.

Mindy wanted me to acknowledge that the kids were now old enough to find time to see me on their own terms, asking me not to call because it was pressuring them. I didn’t think that would be a problem but the truth was that she had been pressuring them on her end. Only God knows what she said, did, or implied. And only time would tell what damages the kids have sustained at her subjection.  

As for Julie, she continued to complain of back pain. Rather than live accordingly, she opted for the breast reduction plan- the easiest way out, which happened to come with Vicodin. This was the main reason why she had taken the job with Hunt Construction. Of course, she did so little that I am shocked she was never fired. “Double-clicking the mouse”, and smoking pot between web-surfing sessions, seemed to be all she ever did. She smoked so much pot and masturbated so much that her fingers were pickled, and her body odor smelled like Marijuana resin. You could actually smell the Chlorophyll coming out of her armpits and vagina.

Anyways, Julie finally got her breast reduction, and another bottle of painkillers. Bruce called me to come and help with getting a roll of carpet in my truck for him, which involved an afternoon of drinking that led into an evening of drinking. Danimal and the guys were all hanging out on the river too. The guys all wanted to hear us perform, so Danimal and I started belting out some of our pieces. It was all part of the routine, and we loved sharing. Some were drumming along on the various drums that were always around, as the sun stole it’s light from us completely.

It was around nine p.m. when Julie called, asking me to come home to help her bathe. The bags that were hanging from her, draining the blood and fluids, along with an obstinate daughter, made it impossible for her to do by herself.

Jean was also in need of attention throughout the day, and with me not being there to perform the duties, it made her realize my importance once more- only to hate me in secret for it. Any time I mentioned that there was a problem with how things were done around the home she mentioned that I was getting, "free rent".

Bruce had offered to get me a ride home but I refused, thinking I could get three miles to the house okay. When I got in my truck, the radio wasn’t working because a fuse had blown. My big idea was to pull a fuse from somewhere else. The courtesy lights seemed like a good option, and I was tickled with myself to be so damn smart. 

Everything was fine until I turned off of Northland Drive. The lights went up behind me. I kept driving, thinking that it wasn’t possible for them to want to pull ME over- I was good. Yeah, I was excellent, up until I realized that they did want to pull me over. 

My house was so close I wanted to just keep driving and stop to chat there so that I could explain it all just right.The house was only another mile away, as Radar Love played on the radio. After a short distance, I realized I was bordering on a fleeing charge. I just didn’t want to have the truck towed, knowing I was going to go to jail for driving under the influence. The officer came to the window to go through the routine. Eventually I was placed in the car with my hands cuffed behind me. Somehow I managed to get my cell phone from my pocket, calling Julie in hopes that she could come up and get my truck. The officer called for backup, and when he arrived, he went up the road to get her. The truck ended up home without the added expense of being impounded. For that, I was thankful.

When I went to court on Monday, Judge Servass gave me a suspended sentence. It was a comical dialogue between us, since my answer to why my blood alcohol level was a .240, yet, remained to have command of my faculties, showing little sign of intoxication, was that I was German and Polish, having a natural inclination to hold my liquor. He chuckled at that.     

Several months later someone decided to take Jean’s 2004 Saturn Ion up to the Circle K convenience store for another jumbo but it was raining, which caused for some slick roads if you were in too big of a hurry to get to the store before it closed, and back before anyone knew you had left. If it hadn’t been for the front wheel drive, they would have never been able to get the car off of West River Drive after careening into a Fire Hydrant. The trunk was half caved in, and the driver’s side rear tire was completely folded up underneath. Nobody would have a clear idea of the damage until the next day.

A ride was called for them get out of the area before any cops showed up, especially since this person didn’t have a license. It’s the only way the auto insurance would have paid for the damage. The next day an officer came by the house to see why there was a disabled vehicle sitting on the road, and to write a report because it was clear that there was an accident. Mostly, what made it clear was that there was a broken hydrant, and that the township wanted to know why they needed a crew at two in the morning to cap the water flow. And since there was a car sitting across the road with a massive wound, it was only natural for them to begin by tracing the ownership of that vehicle, which belonged to an elderly woman with a bad state of Alzheimer’s. For some reason the bill for the hydrant repair was sent to me. I still, to this day, do not know why.

The next day Bruce showed up to go look at the situation with a cocktail in his hand but he found that a cop was there at our house to do an accident report. Deciding not to stop, he went up two more houses to a garage sale, where he milled about until the officer left. 

After seeing the mess that had been made of the vehicle, we quickly realized that it was going to need to go to a body shop, and that it needed to be hauled away with a flatbed truck. Comstock Body shop got to deal with the task, sending a flatbed to pick it up.

Julie was not excited about what had become of the brand new car. She wasn’t excited about having to claim responsibility for it either but it was the only way it was going to be repaired because this other person had no way to remedy the problem. With the possibility of becoming the center of attention regarding her affairs, that she’d rather not have questioned, she had no choice. The only thing I could do to help was to not criticize any part of it and resolve not to let anyone else use the car ever again.

Strangely enough, offering envelopes were showing up more frequently from the Catholic Church that Jean belonged to. Since I retrieved the mail, they found the trash very quickly. Surely they were aware of Jeans memory issues, taking full advantage of it.

Often she would say, “I could eat something”, even though she had just eaten. Once, a pile of Pistachio shells were in front of her, and Pistachios were still in her teeth- she had eaten a whole bowl of them. When I told her she had eaten them she scoffed with, “I beg your pardon”.

Jean had a piano that she would play once in a while too but whenever she went past it she would ask, “Who’s Piano is this?” I would tell her that it was hers but she would deny ever knowing how to play. 

The piano would make a noise as if a key was struck, her dead husband communicating from the spirit world. It had to be because we had it looked at, thinking it was a mouse. No mice or sign of a mouse was ever found. 

The regret that I have today is that I had not taken care of myself knowing full well that Jean's care would be compromised. I still feel like I failed at being her companion and caregiver due to my inability to cope with the many issues in my life that spurred my wanting to drink. I only hope that she is on the other side, and aware of how much I care about her- and of how sorry I truly am at being so selfish.

"Filthy Rats" Edited New Format! 3-30-17

The real estate thing proved to be another scam, preying on people with the lure of seemingly easy money:

“Come get a real estate license. You can make big commissions. Our courses are only 2500 dollars!”

That amount of money is pennies when you think of the promise one single sale brings. Even the smallest property can yield enough to live on for three months.

Arrgh! I suppose that’s what you get when you take the way out that seems easiest- and that’s closer to broke. Just hope that this decision comes before you liquidate every single possession you have that is worth any amount of money at all which, we are programmed to see a monetary value in every single thing... except in ourselves.

Nobody seems to have a sense of pride or respect for honest work anymore. My hard work was really getting me nowhere, but my foolish pride, and my resentment towards my ex-wife, were killing me slowly but surely. Not to mention, the slow and methodical suicide of the seemingly routine normalcy- an unrecognized battle with drug and alcohol consumption.

 It really was no conscious secret to me, that I was no better than those I criticized. I could not break myself free from the spell of consumerism that told me that it was normal and all okay.
"Don't look back, your day's behind you. Have a glass of Windsor Whiskey!" Or, "Head for the mountains, Busch Beer."

Consumerism, Capitalism, and the consistent erosion of Individualism all keep us in an economic slavery that has made us all equal. Equal yet divided in so very many ways. When will the constant societal pummeling cease for a moment long enough for us to take a breath with which to admirably fight with?

Our captors know that they cannot let up on their oppression that keeps us held down in a dismal state with which we are unable to construct our own thoughts enough for a fair chance to fight back.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2dik2kDlhQ&t=19s

My labors earned me a room of my own in the basement, which I converted into a music studio. In reality, I had been assigned a task to turn a utility area into a usable den but my fantasy of having a career in the media, conveniently replacing Danny’s loft space studio, kept me from seeing that.

I think The Fabulous T-Birds were playing in my head while I set to work building a bulkhead around the ductwork of the furnace.
The framing needed to be built in order to drywall. It needed plenty of soundproofing and some carpet.
Julie had me build a closet that she could grow pot in as well. Danny helped me build some counter space, appropriate for the computer, keyboards, and appliances, which included a Tascam Four Track Analog recording system that he had gifted me.
https://www.reverbnation.com/thebandanabrothers/song/1498831-actuate-yourself

One day, while Danny was making plans to move out of the building, Andy was making plans to move in. He quickly befriended Sean Adams, (of Within The Cochlea) and his band mate, Mike. https://www.reverbnation.com/withinthecochlea/song/22224548-make-you-gods 

“Ace music Dave” was there bringing orders of guitar strings (marijuana) to musicians that day. Mike’s girlfriend, Laura, was painting a recreation of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, on the walls of their studio space.

It wasn’t hard to tell that she was there spending time trying to save their relationship. I think I was the only one that picked up on life budding elsewhere in the room that day.

Taking it upon myself, I tried to warn them about Andy but they were already under his spell. The guys were snowed.

That’s when Dave changed the subject, telling me about a guy interested in selling his DJ business.

Little did I realize.....
it was just a dope fiend trying to gain purchase in the mind of a man with the dope- confidence created to confuse and manipulate him.

Julie agreed that, since it came with a listing in the Yellow Pages, it was a good investment.
Danny and I weren’t interested in the DJ business. We only wanted the P.A. system that was for sale. It was a great buy, and we happened to need it for the upcoming Memorial Day show. The guy selling it wanted us to go do a DJ gig for a wedding reception, saying he’d loan us the speakers to do it with, and that we could think about buying the business. 

Neither Myself, nor Danny, nor Julie, could see the actual writing on the wall. We were so blinded with a chance at something different than we were accustomed to or understood that we failed all the way around to approach the situation with any kind of LOGIC.

We said we would do the gig, and that we would think about the prospect of the DJ business. Julie called him back two hours later, saying we’d "take the business off of his hands", and asked where to meet up with him to do the transaction.

Now, it appeared as though we were the owners of “AA Bands and DJ’s”.

The wedding gig was on a Saturday, and was being held at a Country Club, in Jenison, which threw up red flags to me but Julie said there was absolutely nothing to worry about. She said it would be an easy two hundred bucks. We finalized with the decision to do the gig, and set off in our routine.

It seemed like I was the only one around the day Andy actually moved into the building so, it was me that ended up stuck with helping him move his things, which also meant helping him move his things from the woman’s house he was leaving.
Judging by the looks on her face, she had been mistreated for the last time. Just the way she looked at me with Andy, let me know that I was helping the enemy, with a lot at... steak.

Her eyes told me many things- most of all that I was a piece of shit for helping him. She didn't know who I was to Andy. All I could do was offer her my sympathy through my body language, and my eye contact with her that said how sorry I was and how ashamed I was of myself... that I was involved in the least.

There were many pieces of musical merchandise, mainly brand new electric guitars that still were in their boxes. Every bit of it was hot.
Chet, his boss, was storing a lot of this loot in the basement of his home. The story was so, that Andy wouldn’t sell it all for drugs while he was supposed to be getting clean from Heroine and Crack Cocaine- just another con job on Chet.

It worked well for a while but Chet was just as much of a crook, robbing people with a smile and some paint equipment.
Andy swore that he was no longer using but everything, other than his words, said something else entirely.

One of those things that spoke to me was the motor home he left for abandoned in the lot at the building we moved him into. It was eventually towed to the impound yard and sold for scrap. The other was the crack pipe, that I saw laying on the floor, under the couch, where it had been placed in an attempt to hide it.
Little did they realize I would just pull up some rug before them, to listen, while he and a girl with him played and sang. My words that I added to their song were something along the lines of, " crack pipe on the floor..." letting him know that I had seen what was really going on that day.

As people progressed toward leaving the building in the weeks that followed, Andy was liquidating the things he had been accumulating. Story was that he had to move back to Florida to help his mother, meaning that he wouldn’t be there very long. He had survived shooting a near fatal dose of bleach into his arm almost two years ago, and now was on his way to spend time with his mother while his body was yet to realize he was walking dead.

Andy offered to sell his P.A. equipment to me for seven hundred bucks. The lighting system, a good size mixer, amplifier, a pair of one thousand watt Yamaha speakers, light cans, miscellaneous lines and patch cords, etc. It was a great deal that I just couldn’t believe- too good. He knew Julie had the money to pay for it, and I was right in the middle of gearing up for the show. It just made sense at the time, so she bought it for me.
She liked the music room so much that she bought a mini fridge with a tap handle and a carbonic system for a pony keg to put in there too. Yeah, I really thought I had things made now. Thanks to the spell that alcohol had on me, every bit of sense that I had was compromised. 

Julie went with me to do the wedding reception gig in Jenison. The father had called beforehand to explain what music tracks they wanted, and when they wanted them to be played. It was pretty exciting for me even though it was a wedding reception, which almost every band dreads. https://www.reverbnation.com/thebandanabrothers/song/1494707-runaway-bride
I had spent days going to thrift stores, buying all the music tapes and CD’s I could find that might be good additions to a DJ library.
I just couldn’t remember, did he say NO Hawaiian shirts or did he say WEAR Hawaiian shirts?

We arrived and set up. I first smelled a rat when, after an hour, we were never offered a drink or any type of hospitality. Having never done a wedding gig before, I was under the impression that it’s a celebration regardless of whether you are “just” the DJ or not. Not even a glass of water was offered to us.

At one point, some of the girls came and gathered around to have their pictures taken with me. Little did I realize, they were sent by the father of the bride. They were gathering pictures to use against me.https://www.reverbnation.com/thebandanabrothers/song/3787025-homicide-blues-by-rb-and-company

The next day I received a phone call from an irate Dutchman who felt like stiffing someone on his wedding expenses. He was yelling, demanding his two hundred dollars back because I showed up wearing long hair and a Hawaiian shirt! It didn’t settle well on me, since I had just been awoken from sleep so, I was irate as well but more so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFVYzw8XzOI

Julie took the phone from me, and somewhere along the conversation, agreed to refund him his precious money. This only confirmed my fears, and I was quick to chalk it up to one of the reasons nobody likes doing weddings, and moved on with my renewed opinion about Jenison.

Now my attention was on satisfying myself over the DJ service purchase by calling the guy to discuss the Yellow page listing, which was tied to his phone number. I smelled another rat.
The problem I now had was, my life had become so infested and overrun with rats that,

 a simple extermination wouldn’t work well enough. He ended up stiffing me on the whole transaction and walking away with the money we gave him, and the DJ business. This was going to require something more drastic but I didn’t know what.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wXgEk7rKRg&t=78s
I Truly Hope You Find Value In Something I Have To Share. Thank You- Zachery Polk 3-30-2017

Brilliant Stupidity or Resenting Resentment?

Chapter;

Needless to say, I maintained the caretaking and cleaning in our home, while needling for sanctions and demands to be put on the child to pitch in. There was a huge battle that resulted in the police coming to the house. Casey had called them but the neighbors may have as well. Her claims were of child abuse. Before leaving that night, the officer stated that it was clearly a discipline problem. Well, it remained a problem. The courts should mandate some counseling in these cases because it manifests into a burden on society, and reverts back to the thing about acorns (they don't fall far from the tree). I call it Frig Newton’s Law.

As for Casey’s brother, Kenny, he had moved in with his dad, virtually, as soon as I was living there full-time, escaping from the rigors of sharing a home with an implied living standard. Casey’s claims of being groped and molested remained to be ignored by her mother, which should have said something to me. Kenny stayed at his dads but continued to come over to leach, stealing his mothers weed, beer, and porn she kept- along with raiding the house for money.

When he did come over whether family function or not, he would always ask for things that were not in the house, requiring a special trip to the store. These were things like whole milk instead of the two percent we had. And she would send him to the store in the finest vehicle we had in the garage instead of … his own vehicle or the bike.

When Kenny was invited to family dinners, that I cooked, he would only eat a cut of beef that was a prime rate cut, and he had to have it cooked to a blackened burnt mess that ruined the cookware. This added a huge portion to my anxiety and psychiatric issues that I could just barely handle as it was. I felt that they were trying to kill me.

One day, Danimal came around to organize a kayak expedition. Bruce agreed to let us use a few of his kayaks, and to drop us off at the Rockford Dam, on the Rogue River. When we got there, we launched amid Spring Steelhead fishermen and a mob of others with a clear case of Spring fever. It was the first of April 2005.

Julie and Casey took the two man ‘yak, and Danny and I both had Daggers. None of them had the boots that fitted them to keep the water out of the cavity. My big idea for the safety of the girls was to bring my cell phone, placing it and all other dry items in a re-sealable plastic bag.

The fear was that the kayak could flip and cause someone to suffer a serious injury, maybe a head injury. And, since the Rogue River is a category three river with lots of rocks and boulders, it goes without saying that it’s dangerous. Never mind that Dan and I didn’t consider drinking to be an added hazard potential.

So there we were on the Rogue, passing through the areas where fishermen were hoping for Spring Steelhead, and on top of the world in the great outdoors, waiting to laugh at the first one to flip over.

We drifted in the current past the areas where people were, and into the seclusion of inaccessibility where we could tip our beers. My forty-ounce bottle seemed to taste great, and Dan and I were in our comfort zones loving the moment. The day was beautiful, yet only in the fifties, which gave the impression that the water was anything but thirty-something-degrees. As we approached Childsdale, I noticed the artificial flies lost to the branches by fly fishermen. Taking advantage of being on the water to collect them, I gathered as many as I could safely reach.

Danimal was hurrying along in the lead, and the girls trailed along behind me when I heard the first screams of the day- curses against the frigid waters.

Casey had leaned too far when she tried to duck a branch instead of staying in her position and using her hand to push the branch out of the way. Apparently the water was shockingly cold. My challenge was to conceal my outbursts, quietly relishing their discomfort. In a kayak, it’s always head first. The icy temper of the Rogue River only made it that much more amusing to me. I only wish Danny could have witnessed any part of it, as it was only a matter of time before they went in. What I did not expect was to receive my own dose from Mother Nature. What was good for the Witches almost earned me stitches.

Bruce’s earlier warnings to go left at the fork in the river were abandoned for the right. This didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time because, from where I could see, the left side was a walking route that was strewn with boulders. I didn’t feel like getting out.

The water sped through what used to be a dam. It had been washed out and removed. The river broke off in two, around a small piece of land, and reconnected. Right as I was trying to go through, Julie and Casey came through in a panic. We all realized Bruce was right but it was too late. They almost ran into me but I pushed them back away from me, which put them in the best spot to descend the eight-foot falls to safely pass through it. It didn’t look like too big of deal, so I followed suit. As I went over the fall, I knew it was a mistake because I couldn’t get into the main current, which swiftly took me to the bottom and spat me out the right side and rolled me upside down. The kayak instantly filled with water. In my struggle to gain control of it, and grab onto something to help pull myself out of it, I lost my paddle. It didn’t dawn on me how important the boots were until this point. The current had grabbed the kayak and was yanking on me to follow down stream. I managed to wrestle the thing while being bombarded by the falls. It would have been so much easier to just go to the left, and get out for a minute, like I had been told to do but my mom say's that I never did listen... so... yeah.

The fishermen quietly resented our being there as they fished the riffles. My paddle had to have drifted past them but they weren’t having anything to do with helping. We had molested their hunt for Steelhead. Now, I realized how Bruce might have gotten hold of so many kayaks. They were probably inexpensive. No one wants a kayak without it’s boot, otherwise they’d buy a canoe. Oh well, I was still happy to have their use. I can’t say that I blame them for not lending a hand but I totally resented their resentment.

As I drained the kayak, it wasn’t surprising that all of my belongings and findings were gone. My pack with the phone, smokes, snacks, the flies, and my bottle of beer, were all gone. 
Down around the bend, where Childsdale road crossed the river, Danny and the girls landed and waited, wondering what happened to me. Suddenly, they spotted my beer bobbing in the water as it moved along with the current. Since it was half full it was upright, which was good because the cap wasn’t on it. “There’s his beer,” they said. Dan retrieved it, and then noticed my pack floating along behind it. Soon after, I caught up and we wrung ourselves out, continuing down stream toward Bruce’s house on the Grand River.

The girls entertained me by flipping three more times, finally deciding that the smart thing for them to do was to get out of the river. They beached the ‘yak and found a trail to get them somewhere that was dry, and hoped to use a phone to have someone pick them up.

They were pretty upset but not nearly as upset as they were to find themselves being. It was the trail they chose to take that added insult to their humiliation. My pleading with them to stay the course to Bruce’s was useless, so I said I’d see them at Bruce’s and come back for the kayak later, planning on going down the river a second time but without them. This would also give me a chance to scout the trail they had taken, telling me the story of what happened on their adventure.

When I went back for the kayak, I investigated the trail. They had told me the story but I needed to see for myself. It was a heavily used Deer run that took them through places only a Deer could manage. There were large areas of it that were so trodden that it looked like they had a Deer festival. There were places where it was like soup because it was so wet and tore up, impossible to step through because it would suck even the best-tied boots right off of your feet. Other areas were all Hawthorns, briars, brambles, Blackberries and wild Roses. The Deer had serious numbers, judging by the looks of the torn earth.

Anyone that’s hunted them knows you can’t follow a Deer run very far at all. They ended up walking over a mile through the thickest of brush and mud. The last stretch of their hike was uphill, although so uphill that it was more like a cliff, having a 70 to 80 percent grade, which had a stretch of Hawthorn bushes about seventy-five yards deep before they got to the foot of it. It was like having to hike through the Mangroves. They had little choice but to ascend.

At the top of their climb, the summit, I guess you would call it, was an extravagant looking home that was nicely isolated. The view below was beautiful, facing east over the area. The stonework that covered the exterior looked very handsome, and the entrance was a grand set of double doors with double leaded glass detail. I only got a close up look when they drove me to the home explaining their misadventure. (This is where I started the hike back down to retrieve the kayak, getting to witness their experience).

And, oh, how they told me about it. No one was home, they thought but, finally, a man came to the door in a robe, looking like the guy from the male enhancement commercials on television- huge smile on his face. My guess is, that he was surprised to find two females, covered in mud, soaking wet and disheveled, interrupting his “private time” but he let them use the phone. After all I had been through with these girls I was pleased with the whole thing, especially being able to complete the journey in peace- twice. No sounds but the birds and the babble of the water on the rocks of the Rogue River. It was fifty-five degrees and I was absolutely an element of nature and happy in those moments.

As for Danimal, he hurried on ahead with enthusiasm fit for a Novice, and in an effort to get away from the girls, completing the voyage back to Bruce’s Holler- mostly because that's where the booze and schmooze was.

On one hand, I can’t say I blamed him because the girls were a wet blanket, unless you were drunk, which was part of the problem because I didn’t necessarily want to be. It's just the way things kept working out. If it weren't for the drinking I could have escaped a very great many of life's difficulties but since I had been drinking... it helped to lessen the sting of my own indiscretions...or brilliant stupidity. God Help Me.

"Priceless Reflections" a self effacing admission

 A day or two earlier I had mentioned that we were going to launch the boat in the Grand River. Our plans were to take it out, maybe to Grand Haven, and open the throttle up on her, launching it off of Leonard street, near Coopersville.

 We launched around noon on Saturday when the sun was high. The cooler was full of provisions, and we had fishing poles as well. If I was thinking about it, I would have known that it wasn’t good to be out drinking on the water when the sun’s high. Before long the heat adds up with the alcohol- surely taking it's toll. 

I wasn’t able to get out of the trance I was in with the boat- just as Julie had hoped. We spent the day drinking in the sun and fishing, and everything seemed fine- except for the fact that we had Sandy with us.

As always with Sandy, screaming and fighting ensued, which really carries a long distance on the water. She worked subtly, at first, pushing my buttons in efforts to break up what I was working on. Things escalated when we got hung up in the mud, unable to get the motor up, so that we could free ourselves. Then she took the keys out of the boat, making me enraged. That’s when I blacked out.

Julie loved to spend her mother’s trust fund, and having me doing all of the work was a good opportunity to make it look like I was being rewarded. She took me to a couple concerts, one was Bob Dylan, and another was Leon Russell. 

Leon Russell was held at the new Intersection nightclub, located on the Westside of town, near the new Grand Rapids Area Transit Authority. On the main viewer/dance floor, to the right side, I glimpsed Sandy. She was wearing her bibbed overalls and had her hair braided- her signature style.

After warning Julie, her suggestion was to get the situation under control by meeting and greeting with her, so we didn’t have to spend the evening trying not to be noticed. My tiny, and diversely distracted mind, wasn’t capable of seeing that her motive may have been to get Sandy and I back together, so she could have a reason to kick me out in a way that would make me actually leave, eliminating the perspective of my observations. 

Maybe I understood what she was doing, and why she was doing it but she had no clue what I was truly interested in, which was building what looked like a family in order to re-stake my claim in my three children’s lives. 

There was no way in hell that I was going to walk back into a reality with Sandy, and as long as I had my leverage- taking care of Jean, in addition to holding the beans on Julie, like her so-called family and drug use, there was no way she could get rid of me. She would have to come up with a better plan, which she eventually did.

In the meantime, on the river, we were trying to enjoy the weekend. The boat tilted to one side for a small stretch, which should have been an understanding that the boat was telling me we were in shallow water or sliding over a log. I had no idea we were taking on water at this point, making us sit lower in the water. We were dragging in the muddy bottom, even though the boat had a short-shafted motor. 

We had decided to get out of the sun, and that we were in a bit of trouble due to our drinking and inexperience but as we made way for the shore we found that we were stuck in the mud with the motor. The power had cut out because the battery became immersed in water. We had no idea that our inability to deal with the problems with the boat were from the water- or the alcohol. We had been trying to paddle to shore but weren’t getting nearer. Everyone became angry. We could not get the motor to pull up from the weight of the mud. Not one of us thought to get out of the boat to push the motor up. The women were not helping in any way, inebriated and bickering with me. While I struggled with the boat motor... Something snapped.

In between all of the useless paddling, yelling, sun, heat, and drinking, I became very angry about the situation. Julie got smart and bailed out of the boat. The water was only less than three feet deep. She took the keys with her for fear that I would leave them there- a sort of mutiny for mutiny, I guess. Sandy had seized control of the alcohol, since it was of greater interest to her than trying to help with the boat. The whole thing was a fiasco- out on the water for everyone to hear, which at the moment was a group of young people around a campfire in the yard, where we were trying to get out. 

All of my anger and frustration from several years of wasted effort with all the wrong people just blew right out of me like a volcano. There was a storm of negative energy between the three of us. How foolish of me to think I could drink with them. It only set the whole thing up for inevitable failure and misery. That’s the point when I blacked out.

By the time I regained consciousness it was dark. The evening sky gave me the idea that it was around ten p.m. . A fire pit was blazing with a few kids sitting around it who were drinking. They were mimicking my tirade from earlier- repeatedly yelling out the statements and obscenities from my maddened drunken state that they had witnessed. 

Ignoring their comments, I began to search for the women, being told that Julie was sleeping on their porch, and that Sandy had wandered off to the store down the street. For some reason, I cared about her getting left behind, so I went to try to catch up to her. She had a habit of just stomping off, and my sense of guilt, feeling bad about the whole experience, I couldn’t leave her stranded, having to walk all the way back to Grand Rapids. All I thought about was how my decision to drink that day could have changed the whole outcome. Out of all the mistakes and bad situations that I had to deal with, the drinking was the only one that I couldn’t handle coping with. Up until then I had some control in the events and their outcome. Looking back now, I can’t believe I allowed myself to be so easily mislead in life.

Memory of Danimal asking Julie why she hadn’t chosen to put a move on him just came to mind. She told him he was too smart. That’s what I get for letting money knock me off of my square. Julie had mentioned how guys were just after her for her money, and I jumped right on the bait. Well, with all of the drama and difficulty, and whatever else I can’t think of that starts with D, my torture was far from over. And as long as there was booze around, I could take it. It’s like the antigens a parasite uses, so that you don’t know it’s there, sucking the life out of you- like weed killer, only it’s used on society. How disgusting.  

When I arrived at the store, the clerk said she had just been there minutes ago. I walked the only way I could go there, and never saw her. She had ducked behind a tree when I was walking down the road to find her. When I got back to the fire pit, there she sat smiling with a triumphant innocence about her.

Early that morning, after I pulled the motor out of the mud, we piled back in and made way for the launch site. The boat had taken on a large amount of water. It wasn’t until I got it on the trailer that I saw it coming out of a small hole in the bottom. Had it not been for getting hung up in the mud, it may have sunk completely, especially since we were too busy fighting amongst ourselves to notice that we were taking on water or that we were a spectacle for seemingly innocent bystanders. How embarrassing. Thank God my name wasn’t on the side of the boat!

I just knew Bob was responsible for the hole in the boat; it fit’s his M.O.  He had told me about some of the dastardly things he does with his idle time, while his wife is at work as an x-ray technician in Grand Haven, harassing paroled CSC people by vandalizing their property. He scratches up their vehicles, slices tire, steals their mail, and who knows what else. It’s one of his favorite past-times to look up the sex-offenders list daily to see who is nearby to mess with. His exploits were impossible for him not to share with me, and provided him with something to talk about while we were driving to job sites. It was just a matter of time before I was again subjected to his little games he played. If it were not for the money I would never have kept re-opening the door I closed on him so many times before.

The incident with the boat was convenient, only in a single way. It got rid of Sandy. Had it not been for Julie having pot, she would have never been at the house with us, or so I think. Then again, if it hadn’t been for my drinking, I would never have been involved with Julie’s affairs or been so successful in failing to recognize my own self-worth. Reflection is a priceless thing.