Preface

My Great Grandma Lindner always saved the wishbones for the grandkids when we came to visit.

And out of all the toys we never had, my most fun times were at her house.

We were so poor the rats ate the soap and the first words I ever read were:

“Minimum Speed Limit”.

I wore a razor strap for my only pants or at least it might as well have been,

It was covering my ass more than anything they made me wear.

Right about the time I had a few names straight

I’d been enrolled in a new school, in a new town,

Where the Principal was told to beat me if he needed to.

They say you are what you eat.

Now, if that were true, I’d be a potato pancake that smells and tastes like bacon.

And if I’d known then, what I know now,

I’d have known what to wish for when we broke the wishbones when we were little.

Written by Zachery Scott Polk

bandanabro@yahoo.com

(231) 497-0513

Escaping the Despondent Sea: The Adventures of Mad Pat Kiderm

Introduction

My name is Zachery Scott Polk, a forty two year old man with hopes, dreams and aspirations. Thirty five years, (I’d call that a majority), have been spent trying to rationally, comprehensively, and productively understand and accredit my acquaintances and family members for their efforts and sufferings, as well as, to do what I can do to make things resemble a closer version of a family and the way I feel life could be for all of us.

It’s possible that these familial contemplations and heartaches motivated my desire to want to be a writer and a musician, coupled with memories of us gathering around the television to watch the “Lawrence Welk Show” at my Grandma and Grandpa Lindner’s house, earning me some of the attention that I felt I deserved but was not getting.

When I was three to four years old my attention was a concentration. Grandma Lindner called me brooding because I was always in deep thought. Mostly, I was trying to figure out what, exactly, a boy could do without enduring the mistreatment that one gets when they cannot be heard or unseen.

Everyone I have ever talked with, studied or sought advice from said the same thing: “Write about what you know”. Well, I only know what I have lived and learned along the way. When I get to something that I know little about, I either forget about it or start the research process depending on my level of passion for the subject.

Special interest groups, a derogative term for the reasonably concerned, grant security or, tactfully termed, consideration, to persons willing to focus on issues that are believed to be of great consequence or detriment to the Earth and Mankind. Some people pursue these interests for the convenience of the funds provided. Others are sought out and baited with money to become involved, and only act when their needs and desires have been met. You could call me a Philanthropist but I am not sure if anyone would see my humor in creating a special interest, using nepotism to appoint myself the allocations, presenting myself with a statue or award for my solutions all the while creating the actual problem or dreaming it up entirely.

Anyway, it was my own observations of the world, man, and certain family members, (both bad and good), that spurred my contemplation of what I ascertained was Right and Wrong, where it came to being a man, husband, father, friend, and human.

One of the things I had begun fantasizing about, when I was around nine years old, was proposing to a girl and starting my own family- becoming valuable in those respects. Only, while I occupied myself with hoping for my tomorrow, my today was evolving into an acute nightmare or so it seemed.

Chapter

My senses were relieved. He was leaving, taking pieces of all of us with him that he had stole, including what I came to find out was my half-brother and sister, as opposed to my full relation. It came out that our “father” had left our mother for her brother, uncle Gary’s, wife. (Uncle Gary happened to be one of my favorite people among all of my uncles and aunts.) Our father had been repeatedly accusing our mother of going to bars, drinking, and flirting with the opposite sex, which is exactly what he had been doing. Eventually, she started doing it, and naturally, it swept her up into a routine.

Mom didn’t understand or just feared being without him, and as a result did not see that he was acting out as a result of his own guilt. One thing I will never forget is the pain I imagined she felt, and the words she said to me, while on the way to the hotel room that he claimed he needed in order to concentrate on the completion of his book on the game of Golf. The hotel room, and his book writing efforts, turned out to be a cover, extended as to accommodate for his going to bars, drinking, and playing around with women. He had been playing around after work at the Red Shag Carpet Inn that was located in Grandville. He had been messing around with cocaine and prostitutes. He had brought a variety of minor sexually transmitted diseases home to my mother. One night around the house he had commented on running a load of cocaine for the lust of the quick and easy money. There was also the torn up coke fold pieces that didn’t get flushed down the toilet all the way. At the time I had no idea as to what these signs meant or that they were signs of anything but looking back now it is all so very clear.

So, It was a bit of an accident that I stumbled onto the truth, only because he had seemingly forgotten about picking me up at our driving range when we closed it up at night. I was left stranded for a couple of hours before finally asking Ed Rode to take me to his room. Ed had been helping him with the book, especially since he was a photographer who worked for the Grand Rapids Press. He took photos at concerts and other events that were featured in the section of the press called “Connections”.

After managing to get the manager to let me into the room I found the woman’s travel bag with her clothes in it. When I realized what that meant I panicked and fled to the strip mall where MC Sporting Goods was located, on Plainfield Avenue. The phone booth made a nice place to take refuge out of the cold wind, where I slept while waiting for my mom to come and pick me up after getting out of work. This was my first experience of being on the street with nowhere to go. I was 14 years old.

On the way to the hotel room the next day, she told me that she hoped I never mistreated my wife in this way or dishonored my family, in the event that I should ever become married. The few serious attempts at getting established to build a family or life for myself were wholehearted. Whether it was out of self-pity or concern for me that she said that, was never a question, but as I think about it now, I am quite sure it was both.

Mom always talked about “the long run”. I never understood my mother and I to be close- what she calls tough love are the scars left on her and transferred to me from her own mother. It’s possible that her mother’s habit of working as a barmaid is where she failed, only to bring her twisted attitude and perspective home to the children. I can only love my mother for it, despite the pain I felt that was a challenge to cope with- part of my inheritance. It’s pretty ironical to me that schooling costs so much. The equivalent of some sort of degree in Psychology only cost me tears and valuable pieces of relationships before most kids finish Junior high school, which happened to be where I was when my Stepfather left in 1984 or so. And in “the long run” my mother and I finally became closer than we had ever been.

I didn’t drink milk, throwing my bottle from the crib around one and a half years old. For the most part I never, voluntarily, drank milk again. At every family gathering, holiday or special event, a spectacle was made, where I often ended up beaten and humiliated by way of my step father dragging me from the table and taking me behind the garage, woodshed or out into the cornfield out of view, and physically funneled to put it mildly. I was fourteen the last time this happened. It was Easter. I can’t help but wonder what my Grandpa Lindner thought, especially since it was at his house in Bay City. It seems like a great display of disrespect, to make it a point to beat a child at a family holiday gathering.

That year, 1984, I believe it was the day before Thanksgiving when he finally left. I am confident that it was a Thursday. Was it a gift from my, deceased, Great Grandfather Maximilian Lindner? Needless to say, I still do not care for milk but the man I am, I sometimes force myself to drink it anyway by exhaling, holding my breath, and slamming it down when there is a lack food. The milk was a symbol- rejecting my mother’s rejection, and it was my first argument in life. Although we were a Baptist family, it seemed that I was protestant. And to this day I have remained the black sheep but not with that intention.

Rejection was something that I learned I needed to work at coping with, which was not unlike coping crown molding. Recognizing that I was allowing others to destroy me by allowing my pains to govern my actions and ability to constructively manage them, when I was twenty-two years old, was very positive. I told myself that the best revenge was to succeed, and I quickly learned to move on. Acceptance, forgiveness, self-discipline, and perseverance should be clear to see in this stream of thoughts, though roiled with what my Language arts teachers at Coopersville Junior High School would call, “run-on sentences”.

As I read over what I have shared, I ponder where to go next. I realize and appreciate these memories, however unpleasant, but I cannot recall what Christmas was like that year just as I can’t remember most of my childhood, which is a blessing. The majority of who I am is the result of the value found in what I do remember. Anything more would send me into a void where self-destruction is eminent.

My mother started drinking and actually doing all of those terrible things Rick had accused her of. The disharmony created by her desperation to maintain her emotional needs, and the family, resulted in my having to remove myself from the home the following winter. The place I found refuge in was Jim Zemiatis Junior's house, my only close friend, who happened to be only three months older than myself.

Jimmy and I started hanging out after his mom had brought him down to meet me, shortly after we moved in. It was 1980. We began spending time hunting in the woods and fishing, using the guns and equipment that his father had. His father, James, was a Veteran of the Korean War, and an avid outdoorsman, as well as an alcoholic. My mother never liked Jimmy at all. And she didn’t hide the fact. She never liked any of the kids that came around the house to see me. Whenever they did come by, she’d put us all to work digging out tree stumps or what have you. They stopped coming by after a while, and Jimmy became aware that he wasn’t welcome around myself or our house and property.

Jimmy and I started meeting halfway between our homes, riding our bicycles. We would spend our days fishing the ponds and creek, and becoming acquainted with the forests, wildlife, and the trails in the area. As for me, since I had always had only nature for my playthings, I found myself quite comfortable and “happy”, if I could ever assume what that was.

We also started experimenting with his father’s cigarettes. The excuse for our smoking began as a way to combat bugs while we fished. Alcohol was also a curiosity, especially since it was always around the house. After we had consumed all the liquor that his mother kept in the cabinet we would steal beer from his father’s case of “Blatz” beer, replacing the ones we had taken with empty ones. It was usual practice for me to have to sneak around, so it was my idea to take empty cans and place them under the full ones in the very bottom of the case, making it look like the beer hadn’t been disturbed. This worked out excellent, especially since his father was in so much of a stupor as to never catch on.

It was common to see us with shotguns and twenty-two caliber rifles. My first gun was an Iver Johnson single-shot twelve-gauge shotgun. My stepfather had introduced me to it when I was twelve, when I shot it for the first time. When he left us it stayed behind. A shotgun is the property of the house and belongs to the man of the house, which, in this case, now happened to be myself. My marksmanship and love for shooting developed very quickly.

One winter day in 85, we got our hands on a John Deere JDX440 Snowmobile that his mother had gotten for him, eventually finding out exactly how much abuse it could take, and that we weren’t as good of mechanics as we needed to be to keep it going. We also got our hands on our share of dirt bikes, and had a Honda three wheeler for a while. That year marked the beginning of our experience with gasoline engines, aside from the lawnmower, leaving another indelible mark on my Serotonin receptors.

The issue causing me to stay at Jimmy’s was regarding my mom’s boyfriend and some “stuff” of his, which is what people call things when trying to minimize their existence. Jimmy was pretty much the only friend I had, and having low self esteem and always receiving the lame duck treatment at school, (being that I was only sublimely scarred, was what some may try calling my Water Lou or at least an indication of coming avoidable problems, which I am happy to say were not an overdose or an untreatable STD; highly likely for affection starved people who have been stripped of their self esteem, that is to say, if it was ever nurtured at all).

The next generation of jokes may start a little something like this: “Sometime in the fall, a latchkey kid came home from school…” Whether I had put the Ray Charles Greatest Hits album on the record player or not, I do not remember but out of boredom I decided to give in to temptation and open a very curious looking briefcase, where I happened to find a very large amount of marijuana. Thanks to the Hudsonville Elementary School, and the Michigan State police showing it to us, (probably planting seeds for their job security and future) in the third or fourth grade, I knew what I was looking at.

[Someone should investigate to see if it was an operation to set up our youth.]

There may have been a pound or two, I don’t know but the physical look of the size was akin to a bag of cereal without the box. A few older kids, and a couple around my age, were always talking about things like drinking, cigarettes, music, girls and… weed. Well, with me being a quick study, and having a void in my life that needed filling, it didn’t take long for me to see the opportunity… to be accepted, to have friends or at least people who would talk to me, if not think I was cool (every kids dream) even in the slightest sense of the word. I decided to bring a small amount to them the next day. Strange thing is, here I am in a situation that resembles the one of my youth, only today I am not in need of the camaraderie but I am readily available for substantial conversation, elaboration not included. You may think it’s weird but I’ll say it anyway, (it never stopped me from sharing things before): though unlikely, I don’t believe it impossible that my Guardian Angels protected me from intoxication that day. I was only a boy in the woods, and among demons, the epitome’ of vulnerable. Only my name isn’t Hanzel.

It goes without saying, that everyone without loved ones and self-esteem is vulnerable, but I am told that it’s wrong to assume that they’ll think the smell is perfume and I find myself having to sometimes cover up or explain my Marijuana garden.

Anyways, I didn’t care for the affects of the Marijuana at all, aside from the effect of having the Marijuana. It wasn’t until I became more mature and able to comprehend the immediate benefits, that I developed an appreciation for the herb. With a developing maturity, recognition of the need for self-preservation, and with aspirations of becoming something more altruistic, I quickly became aware of the usefulness of the “drug” and how to use it to my benefit. And not as a recreational intoxicant, which was the extent of it to me- nothing more than a tool. The first step toward discipline pertaining to the use of marijuana as a tool, is to recognize and understand that knowledge of its possession attracts people and can create all the situations that are purely a distraction that undermine ambitions, desires, and commitments to something other than your true calling(s). “It’s not the sixties anymore. It’s time to weed out who your friends truly are, and recognize where an individual finds genuine confidence,” I said to myself. This was one of my more profound understandings, and was realized at the time of my twenty-first birthday.

Ironically, (boy, this seems to be a diet high in iron-y), this was when I realized it was time to eliminate using alcohol entirely- even mouthwash. My foremost concerns began the summer of my twenty-first birthday, when I realized what was a serious possibility at a family so I prioritized a couple things to ensure it. First, to continue developing as a skilled tradesman/finish carpenter, which was mostly made possible by way of my mentor and Master, Paul Valdamar Jensen, whom proved to be a true friend and remains to be to this day. If it had not been for his patience, (he’d laugh at that word), and ability to identify my potential, as well as the forces at work tempting to deny myself any amount of success at all, I would not be alive today to make the willful efforts at contributing to society that I have been motivated to make- however small or seemingly undeserved, second.

[Personally, I dream of reaching a multitude but reality and the ability to rationalize allows me to accept the possibility of going unheard or misinterpreted, though a single person would be a success.]

It was my trade that empowered me with an identity and provision. And just as those great cultural icons of the world whose careers and lives ended at twenty-seven years of age, so did mine seem to. It was the loss of my business as a Finish Carpenter when I was twenty-seven years old that caused the devastating blow of destroying my household entirely. The trigger was fear. The fear I had of my wife put me on the road when I was:

A friend of mine needed an estimate for replacing the windows in his home but I needed to be home at a time dictated to me by Mindy. I left the jobsite early enough to go look at the window situation, and still be home for dinner. Well, thankfully for me, I did not have time to load up my tools or my head may have been crushed when I was stopped in traffic, only to become the primary victim of a triple collision- the definition of which is not that there were three vehicles involved but that I was hit three times. There were, in fact, three vehicles involved. One was the semi that hit me, from the Grand Rapids Trucking Company, which happened to be traveling at fifty-five miles per hour. He was looking down blouses when he failed to observe that traffic had backed up to a complete stop near the 196/U.S.131 interchange. The third vehicle was in front of me. It was also hit three times, secondary to the impact. It should be easy to deduce that I was hit six times. The only word I can use for the moment is “senseless” because I had no idea what had happened- only that I had somewhere to be and the man in front of me, not only wasn’t proceeding but was now getting out of his mini-van and going to the rear of the vehicle. I was so agitated and knocked so senseless that when my door refused to let me get out, forcefully springing back to slap me upside my head, I simply used the other door without a second thought. After all, there were two doors. The explanation softens the blow but it absolutely crippled me with despondency, to say the least, especially after my wife began catting around in A.O.L. chat rooms, and then soon after, announcing to me that she wanted a divorce. I stated one simple question: “I guess you won’t mind me having a beer then?” It came out almost as if it invited an answer from her. At that point I think it was more of a dare or a challenge. It was a thinly veiled threat, a tactful yet passive way of saying, “I’ll kill you.”

I realize it would have been the easiest way out, and for that I will never get credit from man but the cynical human self-preservation defensive part of me that provides humor in the face of adversity couldn’t help but at least wonder, “what if ”, like Dr. Seuss.

While making my second twenty ounce cup of instant coffee, emptying my bladder and washing my hands, I briefly pondered a lesson meant for someone else in my cube but gifted it to myself. I imagined asking him what the difference was between the time God gives you on this planet, and the time man gives you in prison. The answer is, “Nothing, it’s what you do with the time”. I immediately thought of Danny, Dan DeRuiter, Danimal, S’Dan. And as I work on something I feel could be important to someone, I remind myself, “don’t ignore the message though the messenger is imperfect”. Due to the fact that drinking was one of the more arbitrary things we did the most of. Even though we spent a lot of time drinking, we searched for, and found, substance and meaning in almost every minute together. Trivia was merely a moment of rest, combined with comedy and appreciation for the arts. It recharged our creativity and our passions to be able to focus on the bigger picture, the one most people are too busy or selfish to see. So, it was Danny that I gave credit to for my time in prison, away from my regular prison of my own existence. I recognize it as his test on my relationships, and other sailing vessels, and his value in, and of, my ability to have something to share- if not powerful. It was only up to me to decide when to get over my grief and focus. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it Dorothy?

So, I’m doing exactly what they say to do, no matter what you do. When someone writes abut something they don’t know or have no idea about, you will know. And even when I stumble on my topic I hope to have captured your interest enough to keep you reading regardless if I have ever sought compensation for my work. Rewards come from what you have done, your feats, not what you do. To me, you are rewarded for your efforts with support from those people that believe in you- embracing your loving heart for what it is.

Too often, lately, people get portrayed as heroes for fulfilling their job descriptions. Have we underachieved so grossly that anyone who does even the smallest thing is a hero these days? Is it possible that the state of society is related to the travesty of the disservice we have done to our people, our children, the youth- the future, for claiming Einstein was a genius for instance? Meaning nobody is smart enough to figure anything out unless they are? Boy, somebody really messed up for us! (SHHH, the game is on.)

Danny was one of my most intimate friends. It was because of meeting him in the spring of 1999 that I was able to get away from drugs, and trying to deliberately drink myself to death. It was at this moment in time that I became reunited with my dreams of being a musician, and finally finding a friend at a time in my life when I was totally lost. We were far more than drinking buddies but when he died from “natural causes”, while exceeding his daily allowance of fun, I lost my drinking buddy, only gaining the perspective that I was next.

On the night of 6-6-06, I had a dream. My truck was in a shallow stretch of the Grand River, with the hood up and me under it. I was startled by a slender, muck covered being that swam up along side of me and popped out of the water. Frightened by the sudden appearance of it, I grabbed a long handled tool, bludgeoning it to death. When I went to work the following day, my roommate came to the job to tell me that Danny was found dead that morning. The thing in my dream had all of the earmarks and character of Danny. It had all of the indications of the state of my life, and I had killed him but I also killed the thing that was what I was becoming. A murder/suicide through my fear of what lay ahead.

The emotional strain caused some decisions to be made. The only one I had made with any clarity at all was that the drinking, drinking, drinking had to stop. And even though some great things happened, the worst or what would seem like the worst, was failing to recall that the job offer that followed was from someone that was never a friend, and who had caused a lot of problems for Danny and I out of his jealousy of us, and his Heroine addiction.

Now here’s where a friend or a family member would have come in handy. My decision to go to Florida for work was rationalized with the desire to put fear to rest with the Friend of the Court, buying time until my SSDI came through. It was not until one and a half years later that I could change the last statement that I made to my son, which was: “Cody, I am going to go to Florida to work for a few weeks. I need two thousand dollars for the court to keep from putting me in jail over child support again.”

It was only too late before I realized that I had been set up and robbed of my band equipment. Some of it was purchased from the guy offering me the work, and some of it I had inherited from Danny directly.

Have you ever heard of “the Key West move”? Google it and see if anything comes up. I never have but I am willing to bet my Brazil nuts that something is there to illustrate what I am talking about. Anyway, I was clueless until I discovered myself abandoned on Key West without a single soul to help me with much of anything, (well, almost nothing). I did find help getting rid of my money and smokes. The police arrested me repeatedly on a string of charges without any witnesses or evidence. And when I tried to defend myself I found that I had no real Defense council. It was myself against them, and I was playing on their turf with nothing but the words of the local police, and mine- a homeless person in the Florida Keys. 422 days were spent in the detention facility on Stock Island but I left with a lot of stories, and information, that under certain circumstances I could be killed for. Danny would exclaim, “Unbelievable!” Just when you get into it, and start enjoying the ups and downs, the speed changes, the screams of the fast drops, and the giggles of the climbs- it’s over. Just like life. I can only say two words: Actuate Yourself.

I lived it, and wrote it down to share with you.

Sincerely, Zachery S. Polk Convicted Felon

August 2011

It was almost time for the public schools to begin when I met Sandra Van Winkle. Having met her at a place on College Avenue called, the College Inn bar, across the street from the house I was staying at on the North side of Carrier Street, and West of College Ave. Next door, North of the bar, was a local, middle-eastern owned convenience store. It was just a beer-slinging joint that sold Chore-Boy scouring pads, glass pipes, and cigarettes. It wasn’t much later that I realized she was just another drunk to add to my long list of distracting acquaintances. I am certain we were drinking beer while sitting at the bar but it was her inquiry about whether I had any “smoke” that got us together in the house I was occupying. She seemed very sweet and loving, and was an all around fun person to share space with. She would always refill the ice cube trays and spruce up the house a bit. She did little things that a person appreciated. I very quickly appreciated her greatly, especially since nobody ever did anything for me except smoke my “smokeables” and drink my “drinkables”. In essence, they merely prayed on my “emotionals” to spend my “spendables”, as if they had done the “earnorable” thing and earned them, thereby contributing to the “sociables”.

The framing in the couch was broken from a time when a very, very large man, in an overweight category that has yet to be given a term to describe it, plopped himself down upon it’s emptiness. His name happened to be, “Tiny”. When you sat down you couldn’t help but feel tiny in, the now permanent, depression.

The house was divided into two separate residences, and it was haunted. The part I was staying in was Michele Shackleton’s, who was about thirty years old, and looking very much like Goldie Hawn. The part she rented was the area that was most affected by the haunting. The adjoining residence was in the rear and was occupied by an older man who lived with a couple of friends. It was him who she had been out with when she got a drunk driving charge that finally landed her in the Kent County Jail. It had been his birthday when the incident occurred, having taken her out for “steak and lobster”, which everyone knows is a set up for sex. They had gotten extremely drunk, to the point where he couldn’t drive. He had her drive them home in his Cadillac instead of driving himself. Of course, she clipped another vehicle and sped away. They hid the car in a small garage behind a stockade fence in the backyard. She was so drunk that she fell out of the car when she went to get out. They were such bad alcoholics, and were so wasted that I doubt they ever found their way out of their clothes that night.

In the meantime, she had lost a relationship, and custody of her daughter, because of the drinking and drugs. This man she had been out with was suppose to be helping her get her six year old little girl back. Her mother had custody at the time. As for her ex-whatever he was, I have no clue of his position or of his concerns.

This man she had been out with for the birthday celebration was in his sixties or just looked like it, and had an alcohol monitor at the house that was required by the conditions of his parole. He worked as a self employed contractor, knocking on doors to drum up work doing home repairs. I had met Michele at the Scoreboard bar a few months earlier. Little did I know she was… let’s just say- another learning experience. There’s more to her that I may explain later, like the fact the she was a descendant of Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, the Polar explorer.

I am illustrating the how, where, why, when- starting with Sandy because she was the most pivotal. Michele had been in the county jail, for I don’t know how long, before I met Sandy. It may have been weeks. I was house sitting while Michele was serving her jail sentence. Project rehab was part of her rehabilitation ordered by the courts. This was a joke in itself, and anyone who has been through the program can attest to that.

So, anyway, Sandy had just had her fiftieth birthday, keeping that a secret from me. She started coming over before and after work at Vitale’s, where she was a drink preparer at a bar area that wasn’t really a bar but was just a bar area within a restaurant- a server’s station actually. A few people could sit there, a place to have a drink while waiting for a table or for their party to arrive. It was a nice place- a family place. If you wanted to drink, the Sports bar portion with take-out items was located in another building of the same parking lot.

Sandy would often come by with a picnic basket. There would be beer and treats, and sometimes money. It was all out of her appreciation for my having pot to share with her. She was always helpful in some way, repaying me for sharing my space in time with her. [Here is where it would have paid off to dig a little deeper than Schizophrenia in my Psychology studies.] Sandy was a California girl, and was unlike any person I had known at that point in my life. I was very attracted to her aura, care, kindness, and the way she expressed her gratitude for being welcome. She was always sharing things like weed, which I now believe was always a chief concern or motivation of hers, and why she did so much to keep in good standing with me. It kept the availability of pot open, as it was a crucial part of her everyday life. She would say things like, “make sure you find me when you have pot”. She would end up proving herself to be very concerned with pot and drinking but wouldn’t reveal these concerns as a problem until I was able to appreciate the information.

One day, early on in our relationship, while at the house I was sitting, she started dropping questions about religion, asking me if I knew the name of the Lord. She explained that she felt very uncomfortable in this house and that it felt heavy, that she sensed a negative aura about the place. These were things that would further convince me of her being genuine, loving, trustworthy and sincere. She would tell me that I am teachable, probably because I listened intently, reciprocating and displaying a general knowledge as opposed to ignorance, I guess.

As a Pisces, my natural concern was for capturing her interest in me, hoping to win an important place in a relationship and fulfilling a need to belong, never mind that she was twenty years my senior. She invited me over to her place, where I found a wonderfully kept and decorated upstairs mother-in-law’s apartment. There was an extensive collection of scaled down replicas of classic automobiles, a large assortment of photos displayed, and seashells that she had collected and scattered around as accents. She was clearly a music lover, noted by quite a large collection of cassette tapes. An exercise bike near the stereo stated a concern for health, along with the assortment of herbs and vitamins that were in a wicker basket nearby. The place looked and felt like a small museum. It felt very comfortable. Maybe it was the salient affect that took hold of me, with so many things to look at and touch- a bombardment of distractions for the senses. Steeped in this environment, a strange and serious web ensnared me in almost everyway. She had told me that she thought the place was being haunted, since there were things that had happened to her that she thought were odd; suspecting her deceased father. She told of how she had opened the oven door one day and was blasted in the face by an explosion, burning her eyebrows and singing her hair badly. This house did have some strange activity in the upstairs Sandy occupied. I had noticed a figure in the upstairs window on occasion, and after a time situations would occur that I was apprehensive to think of as coincidental.

I would soon learn of her son, Richard, his pretentious wife, and Sandy’s grandson. Sandy had me sneak up the stairs in sync with her footsteps so that her son would not be aware that she had company. Richard and his family lived on the ground floor of this home on the North East corner lot of Carrier Street and Lafayette Avenue. At thirty-two years old, Richard was just about the same age as I- six months apart. He may have been a few months younger or older. He was very protective of his mother or so it appeared but I was not sure exactly why. Regardless of his opposition of me being involved with his mother, or that we were the same age, I had just lost three children in the recent past, and was thankful to have found her. Him and I would butt heads for some time- he would insist on it, even going so far as to tell her that I had been in their basement snooping around- an attempt to plant seeds of doubt in her mind of me. It was a tactful attempt to conjure up trust issues, which he knew she was sensitive about- a hope to separate us quickly. It nearly worked.

Well, with mutual confidence gained in our relationship, stories of our individual pasts would be told by both of us. It would not be very long before she figured out about my state of mental health, from a head injury, and the Kent County Friend of the Court. She would be the one that got me into the doctor’s offices and got me the attention needed to begin tending to my many needs. I am pretty sure getting locked up, eventually, for child support, and my unhidden handicaps were a factor. She would slowly reveal stories of her past, like how she had been taking care of her father up until he died. And how Richard had come out to California to bring her back to Michigan to live with his family, where he rented her the upstairs. She explained how she got stuck with all of her father’s worldly possessions or what was left of them after all of his acquaintances learned of his death. And how she hadn’t seen many of the key items of that inheritance since the move. And how she handed them several thousand dollars to fund the endeavor. Having a poor education resulted in her having weak math skills. It wasn’t hard for greed to impede on her situation, handing her back the short end of the stick. Sandy would continue to grieve over the situation at her son and daughter-in-law’s insistence. She was strategically being punished but for what was unknown.

In short, I mean to highlight the keys to the story. Her father was always a bastard. He sexually molested her, abused her, and neglected her. He was a drunk and a womanizer. Back in the early days of auto racing, he was a racecar driver. He had been with Sandy’s mother up until she had a hemorrhage at the hands of his girlfriend after an abortion that she performed. She was found dead in the hotel room by the cleaning lady.

He and this woman could now be a known couple, only to separate Sandy from her sister. Incidentally, they had just found each other after all of these years but, sadly, it wasn’t until after Sandy had relocated to Grand Rapids. This estranged sister was in California near where Sandy had been living all along, South of San Rafael. One of the last memories she had of them being together was when their father had locked them in a fruit cellar as punishment for one thing or another. Steeped in the cool dark room, one of the only things she could feel was the fur brushing across her skin from the rats that were crawling and climbing around them as they held each other in terror. Her and her sister were four and five years old. She would become reunited with her sister just two months before we became acquainted. Forty-five years had been lost since they had last seen each other. And even though there was much anger and resentment for what their father had done to them, they picked up the pieces and began mending what had been so badly broken. The strange thing was that Sandy had three brothers from a different mother. They were in contact routinely. One of them was in San Quentin dying with Parkinson’s disease.

Fall rolled around on the seasonal clock, bringing the joy of harvest time and the festivities of Halloween once again. Richard hosted a costume party, inviting us to attend. It was a western themed event, utilizing all of the stores from the last years gathering, topped off with store bought emotions and the poisons that help trick people into getting along and thinking that they are happy. Angie’s mother was there, if only to take a stab at me by asking where the garbage was, as if I would certainly know.

That evening during the party a phone call came for Sandy. It was her sister calling from California with news that she had been diagnosed with liver cancer. She had been to the hospital because of some issue that arose. Our evening was interrupted by this news and began our Worried Blues, spending the rest of the night walking around the city drinking and talking. That night she decided that she needed to save some money and go to California soon to try to help her sister, to try to make her well with herbs and vitamins.

Thanksgiving drew near with the leaves finally changing; late in the city due to the impact of concrete, asphalt, condensed populous, sewer gases and automobiles. We walked around town quite a bit but especially now, enjoying the fall air and the colors of the leaves blowing away from the trees. We came upon a small camper that was put up for sale after a member of their family had passed away. It was a Little Gem, made in Grand Rapids back in 1963. The camper door was open when we walked by it at eleven o’clock that night, so we went inside to look around. We sat at the dining table with our mixed drinks, (vodka and grapefruit), getting a feel for it and taking pleasure in our little hiding spot. It was reminiscent of something we did as kids back where I grew up- pool hopping when no one was home. The sign in the window said they only wanted four hundred dollars. Since we were getting hassled by Richard for being together, we saw it as an opportunity to move somewhere else, living in the camper.

Sandy had lived in a cube van that was set up as a camper when Richard was a little boy, defecating on paper plates or in buckets as an alternative to not having a bathroom or plumbing. The camper was taken by the man she had been living in it with when he broke off the relationship with her for another woman, causing for Richard to be taken by his father. Sandy then turned to staying with friends, living with elderly persons she cared for, and living in shacks in the mountains and desert, where water had to be hauled in from hundreds of miles away. Living the life of a gypsy may have been the reason for Richard’s animosity towards his mother.

Living in the camper with me was very appealing to her since she was accustomed to living on the rough side of existence. What appealed to me was to be out of the city and away from people who find pleasure in involving themselves in everyone’s business but their own. We decided to buy it, and went back the next day to secure it.

Salih had been providing me with work since the log cabin job with Dan Doyle had ended abruptly. Salih’s wife had a van that she was trying to sell at the time, which I bought for about three hundred and fifty dollars. The idea was that I would use the van to haul the camper with. She had sabotaged the vehicle by slicing the serpentine belt with a razor but not all the way through, just enough to weaken it. The problem was that it was broken at some point after I started driving it, leaving the motor and accessories to drain on the battery that was apparently already weak. The next time I tried to start it I found that the battery was dead and the belt was gone. Sandy and I walked up to an AutoZone store on Fuller Avenue to have the battery tested and get a belt. Who knows if the battery was any good, of course, the person who was selling batteries told us it wasn’t. We walked back from the store with the battery and belt, taking small breaks every block or so along the two-mile trip but we were kept elated with the thought of the day Sandy and I would finally have enough money saved for the camper, planning on the big day when we would be able to move away from the drama that wasn’t entirely our own. Richard’s wife, Angie, would continue to taunt her mother-in-law by keeping the kid and herself too busy for Sandy to have any time with her grandchild. Hiring a babysitter to watch the child was especially grating since Sandy was there waiting for the opportunities to arise.

The day finally came when I got paid from Salih. We could pick up the camper and bring it to the house to prepare for living in. That evening, around dinnertime, Sandy and I were inside the camper celebrating the outlook on our new independence with a drink, and thinking of the new living situation. Thanksgiving was ten days away. We had been investigating various RV parks, discussing the pros and cons of each one. We had just smoked a joint when Richard and Angie knocked on the door. He was smiling and seemed to be in a good mood. His hand went to his face as if he had a tear to wipe away, informing his mother of a phone call saying that her sister had just now passed away of Liver Cancer. He tried covering the smile as it widened, having difficulty concealing it. He had a hard time resisting a chuckle as he spoke. It was a pain he felt she deserved and he was laughing at her despair. It seemed he was taking advantage of the in-your-face punishment. A person could possibly perceive it to be dealt to Sandy by Jehovah.

The money we had been saving for our season payment at the RV Park would come in handy so that she could fly out. There was money coming in yet from another two weeks of work to make up for it. She got on the phone that evening to make arrangements for a flight, which happened to be for two days before Thanksgiving, and the day before we were to make our move with the camper.

What she would find is that it was a waste of effort on her part. We drove to the airport, where I waited with her until she could board her flight. The plan was that I would move the camper to the River Pines Camp and RV Park the next day. When she boarded the airplane I returned to the house, I contemplated my options, considering calling my mother while on my way back from the airport to explain how I needed to move the camper. It wasn’t going to be easy for me to ask her but I had no other person to ask. She was accustomed to hauling her large horse trailer so I knew it wouldn’t be difficult for her. The more to it was that I didn’t feel confident that my van would pull it. Don’t ask me why I had that feeling but something told me it wasn’t going to work. Trusting my intuition, and setting aside my pride, I called my mom to help.

Mom came out with her boyfriend, Tom, and hooked the “Little Gem “up to her truck. I stashed a quarter ounce of weed inside a panel near the wheel-well along the foot of the bed, so that if we got pulled over for some reason, it would not be found- just in case I had a warrant. We took the most direct and inconspicuous route, which was M-45, all the way out to Allendale, turning north on 60^th Avenue, where an intersecting road lead to The River Pines Campground and RV Park. The RV Park was nestled in some very tall pines, and had a pretty nice pond out front near the road. We checked in at the manager’s office and found our way to the site to place the camper. I chose the site closest to the bathhouse because of the convenience of the washroom and laundry facilities. It didn’t take long to drop it off, and within minutes my mother and Tom returned to their home just eight miles back toward Grand Rapids, in Marne. I went right over to Arek and Ruth’s house to surprise them with the news that I am living two miles away from them.

Some time after my mother had left, I was working at hooking the electricity up to the camper. The cord extended just short of my connection point. No problem, I just backed my van up to the camper, attached the ball to the hitch, and lowered the weight of the camper onto it. After backing it up to where I needed it, the park manager came cruising up on his little utility golf cart to see how I was fairing. We discussed a bit about the park, with him making particular mention of the strict five mile per hour park speed limit. He zipped away on his cart at fifteen miles an hour while I returned to unhooking the camper from my van. What I found was that the weight of the camper had collapsed the Reese hitch assembly, folding it down as if it were tinfoil. The rust had taken over and eaten the steel almost entirely. The only thing that was holding it together was the paint and the rust that hadn’t been cracked apart. Now it hung like a wet noodle, and if I would have been relaxed about it I may have been able to see it being blown slightly by the wind. That may be a bit cynical. The hitch maintained just enough integrity for me to stand on it but if I were another five pounds I’d need to be treated for a laceration. What occurred to me was that my intuition in calling my mother to move it was correct, yet I had no idea that the hitch was no good, and it hadn’t even dawned on me when I had to pound the tongue into the receiver with a maul. It was my first hitch and my first camper. I have never had any experience with towing- the Cops were the ones who always towed stuff for me.

One of the things I have been searching for years for is information to gain a better understanding of ESP and the paranormal. It’s been more of a subconscious effort than anything but my conscious curiosity and experiences keep motivating that search.

Anyway, my drinking wasn’t a problem at the time of moving in to the park, mostly due to having no one to wrestle with for ‘who’s got more in theirs.’ And it’s funny, I don’t recall scraping the bong either… but I didn’t recall stashing a sack of grass in the camper either.

It was magnificent at River Pines. There were very, very few to no leaves left on the trees. It was pretty windy the next day as I climbed from the camper to soak up the sun of the morning. Grabbing a cup of coffee from my campfire, I strolled out toward the river to check out the wildlife. As I walked, there were Sand-hill Cranes standing here and there. Bits of rabbit fur were lying about in quite a few places, looking like a hunting ground for something or other. There were two Bald Eagles flying in the area, which happened to be over the flood plains and bayous. There were plenty of areas to fish from around here. I suspected the eagles as being the hunters feasting on the rabbits, and that a nest must be somewhere nearby. The river itself could not be reached on foot because of the nature of the swampy area outstretched beyond the bayou. Oh well, I was satisfied with the wildlife anyway. It was time to get back to the camper and be off to work.

As the day progressed I told my friend Joe Grimminck all about the new digs. He was pumped about coming out after work to check the place out. We made a plan to get some beer and hang out at the campsite, and since it was Friday he planned to camp out for the night.

When we got out to the campsite with our thirty pack of beer, we went out back to explore the bayou a little bit. Sitting on the bank, smoking a bowl, Joe spotted an otter that was floating on it’s back with some food he’d found to eat. It was an exciting thing for Joe, who had been out of the city very little. A short time went by when Joe suggested we go back to the camper to make a campfire to sit around while knocking back some brews. I tried to tell him that it was too windy but he set right to gathering wood from a row of trees that separated the adjoining westward field. It was a bit windy but what the heck. I had to give Joe the real camp treatment. We just had to watch the fire closely.

Watching the fire closely was a pretty big job because the winds whipped up the flames, making the fire bigger. Sparks were being sent into the air by the heat as it intensified, helped along by the wind. Huge pieces of burning debris were being blown everywhere causing for the leaves to catch fire and be blown into more leaves that had been piled up by the wind where branches on the ground had grabbed them and held them down in masses. I ran around stomping them out in a panic. We got some water to put on the fire, knocking it down quite a bit. My hopes were that everyone was too occupied with their own affairs to have been watching the new guys try to light the forest on fire. Joe never heard me say, “I told you so”.

After having about four beers, Joe wanted to make his bed near what was left of the fire. I tried to tell him that it wasn’t a good idea to sleep by the fire with the winds blowing as hard as they were because embers being blown about could set his clothing on fire. He didn’t care, it was his desire to do it cowboy style, like in the movies he had seen. I couldn’t argue with him, if that was what he wanted to do. He was going to do it anyway. He said he would watch the fire, so I went inside the camper to sit at the table and reflect on my day- an excuse to drink until I was ready to pass out.

The next day reminded me how windy it was during the night. Beer cans were scattered all across the ground. Beer cans were all the way past the tree line, which was fifty yards away. Most of them were stopped from blowing into the field by the remains of a fence and the weeds. The rest were over a hundred-fifty yards away, falling just short of the wall the forest made along the west and north sides of the field. I picked up over four dollars in cans, matching up with the thirty pack we drank, and what was left of the second one.

This was an average night of drinking- one to two thirty packs of 5.9 percent alcohol by volume. At this rate a guy (me), can drink about four hundred and fifty bucks a month. That was taking into consideration the beers Joe drank, and that my average, alone, is thirty. Let’s not forget smokes and weed, which would be another two hundred and fifty bucks a month, for a total of approximately seven hundred dollars a month. Strangely enough, that’s about how much money people get from the government who are receiving Social Security and other compensations- like monies for Native American peoples. So, you can see where it would be cost effective to grow your own “smokables” and brew your own Hooch. Just food for thought for the underachievers in your life because this needs to be said by someone, and I know for a fact that unless they’re using this for study materials in prison or rehab they aren’t reading squat except for…

Oh whom am I kidding? I don’t care what they read. Many of them spend their reading time trying to figure out how to “get down” on someone. As far as I’m concerned at this very moment I write, I’m “getting down” on them by not sharing what little knowledge or understanding I have. Now, if they search for it, that’s different. Knowing stuff isn’t for everyone. It’s for sharing with your children, loved ones, your team members- whoever they are. That makes me sound a bit dictatorial but you can only share knowledge with those you are bound by moral obligation to, and to those who seek it in earnest. Or, reconsidering the options, share with those who can evade the bullets- and the dog.

Where was I before my display of disgust for my so-called fellow man, and for my foolish desires, motivations, concerns with the prison environment that I am forced into… the cost of existence when you are consuming all of the things that keep you in the maze, frittering your life away while working to replace them on a daily basis. And never getting anywhere in life accept the poor house, which happens to come with a tell-lie-vision, so you won’t miss the big game.

Shortly after cleaning up the mess, Joe and I were having a cup of coffee and watching the northern section of the property when we saw an Eagle flying over the trees to the right of the trail that led to the bayou. It was carrying a large stick in its talons. Joe explained how Eagles are constantly building onto their nests, and that they occupy them for a very long time. As he spoke, the Eagle flew westward. The area it flew towards was the forest that lined the corner of the field where I had just picked the cans up. As I scanned the top of those leafless trees, I backed up to the camper, watching for a change in the direction it was flying in as I went feeling my way for my binoculars. I grabbed them and zeroed in on the Eagle. Then I looked at the treetops for a sign. Through the limbs was a dense looking area where a bunch of branches came together in one spot. I had found the Eagle’s nest! The nest was the largest nest I had ever seen, the size of an upside down Volkswagen Beetle. As I marveled at the sight of the nest, the bird flew around it and landed on the edge of it. Just then a head popped up. There were two! It was a functioning mated couple and it explained the pieces of animal fur that were scattered all over the morass out back around the perimeter of the bayou. I handed the binoculars to Joe so he could view the sight.

At that moment Jerry, the park manager, cruised up on his golf cart. He stopped and got out. He wanted to know why we tried burning the woods down last night, exclaiming that we needed to be careful with the fire pit. After apologizing for it, I quickly tried to hand him the spyglass to see the Eagle, mostly to take the subject control away from him and schmooze him over a little bit. He said that he had seen them before, that they were planted out here by the DNR as a rebuilding project, and that there was a nest somewhere nearby that he has been unable to find. Offering him the spyglass again, I said that he could see the nest pretty easily. He snapped his head around to look where I pointed, saying that he had been here for years trying to find it. His comment that I had come to find it in two days revealed a bit of animosity. And didn’t help in building a good report with him. I sensed my troubles were already beginning with this man. And between the speed limit, forest fire, and the eagle, my fate was almost certainly sealed. Great. Wait until Sandy gets here. The rumors are sure to fly when they see us together. And they did.

It was snowing and cold with a below zero wind chill the day Sandy was arriving at the Kent County Airport. The morning was off to a late start since I had a habit of drinking myself to sleep for fear of my nightmares but I had enough time to be where I needed to be to pick her up. It was a weekend and there wasn’t much traffic as I headed onto the highway from Coopersville. As I went along at sixty miles per hour in the Ford Econoline 150, without a blower motor working to get heat in the rig, I noticed the engine temperature gauge quickly climbing past the normal operating range. It steadily climbed further and further until a loud popping sound, followed by a cloud escaping from the hood, forced me to pull over. It wasn’t even two miles since I had merged onto the East bound lane of I-96. Now I was broke down, parked at a most inconvenient time.

My heart started racing because I knew I was going to be late now. Knowing how Sandy had just been dealing with a very bad situation in her life, it wasn’t hard to understand that was going to be quite cranky and unyielding, especially since it was a little too early for the airline stewardesses to be serving drinks on the flight. When I got out and looked at the radiator there was slush inside of it and the radiator hose had popped off of the water pump flowing into the top of the radiator. The first thought I had was that there wasn’t enough antifreeze in it or the thermostat was bad but I saw the disconnected hose and reattached it, thinking that it was just not tight enough. The antifreeze was low for sure now since it had blown out of the hose, and the fact that there was slush inside told me that it was definitely in need of being drained and filled back up with the correct amount of antifreeze. The gauge fell after twenty minutes, so I tried to start the van again but it wouldn’t go. I kept cranking the starter until the battery lost most of its power to turn it. My cellular phone was going to be handy now, along with my AAA auto insurance with roadside assistance. This wasn’t the right time to be putting the service to the test but I was about to find out how reliable AAA and my cell phone were.

Making a call that took through an automated answering service finally took me to a service representative. I was asked a series of questions and asked if I could be put on hold while the few cars that were on the road passed me by. I explained that I was using a cell phone, and that I would rather not be put on hold but the person heard no part of my statement and I began to hear the sounds of recorded music through the earpiece. I got an earful of Yanni. The call was dropped within six bars of the music score. Making the call again, I was reconnected with the same person I had spoken to. She got on her computer and started locating a tow truck in my area, placing me on hold again as my battery showed the symbol of battery life dwindling. Several minutes turned to half an hour, while my cell phone battery petered out to a trickle. The call was lost again. The third time I called, I was told that the tow trucks were all busy and that it would be three hours before one could be dispatched to aide me. Now my phone was dead and I couldn’t plug it in to the accessory power outlet because the battery was too low in the van. Lighting another cigarette, and working myself into a panic, I tried the van again but got only two full cranks on the motor before it started clicking again the way Fords do. I turned the key off and hoped it would recharge itself enough to start it. Now my bladder is full, my feet are freezing, my phone is dead, and my mother and friends are all within six miles of me. Help is all around me but there is no way to get to them. I can hear Sandy screaming at me in my head, thinking I had been up partying all night. Just then an Ottawa County Road Commission truck is coming up behind me in the distance. He is scraping the roadways and dressing the ramps with the salt and sand mixture that they use. The truck pulled right up behind me and stopped. A man got out and approached my vehicle. He had stopped to offer some help. Thank God for the few good people there seem to be left in the world. Explaining what had happened to the van, he said that it had just frozen up in the radiator because of the wind chill., and that it sometimes happens to their rigs, which is why they put the covers over the grill in the winter. He told me to try it again and that it would probably start, which it did. Relieved, and late, I thanked him for stopping to offer help and resumed my mission to the airport. All I could do was continue on my mission, while thinking that this was a great way to start the day and to begin Sandy’s new homecoming celebration. Too bad my phone had died or she could have called to find out what had happened. I limped the van all the way to the airport, which seemed like a hundred miles away but it was closer to sixty, only stopping once at a filling station to check the fluid in the radiator.

I finally pulled up in front of the area where people wait with their luggage for their transportation to arrive. It was pretty difficult for me to discern that it was Sandy standing there among a small group of people. The scowl on her face had distorted her from recognizable. I had never seen her face contorted in such a way. Most of the individuals she was standing among were women who, judging by the looks on their faces, were forced to listen to an authoritative explicative tirade of about me the whole time. She was heavily cloaked in anger and vehemence, sharing the heaviness of it with me entirely now that we were alone. She screamed at me while I could do nothing but sit and endure her expression until the opportunity finally arose to make amends and offer my apologies without triggering more negative energy.

Having thought little enough about the situation to ask me what had happened, she assumed I had been flying high and was unable to get up to handle my responsibilities. Sandy would hear nothing of my situation with the truck and kept screaming to be sure of it, berating me most of the way home. It was odd to me that it was so normal because here I am grown up and out of the control of my father but still in an environment that was identical to what I had experienced throughout my life. It seems we don’t feel normal unless we are receiving that type of treatment to which we are oriented with. Things only softened up after I stopped at a liquor store and she smoked some weed but how soft…. I didn’t save any mental notes about that.

Our camper was a real novel thing at the time and it wouldn’t be until after we sold it that I would learn of the pot I had stashed in it when I took the precautions of anticipating being pulled over when we took it to the RV park on Thanksgiving Day. The possibility was pretty good since the camper had not been registered or plated. It was not unlike me to hide things and then not remember where I had stashed them- hiding them from myself in effect.

There was no heat in the camper only because the gas line leaked somewhere and I was more concerned with drinking than fixing anything as menial as the source of heat in my home, besides I could do it tomorrow. On top of that there was a bit of a bonus: when I got home my glass from the night before still had ice in it. And as for heat, I bought a twenty-five dollar Mr. Heater at Meijer’s a few nights before Sandy came home. It was an electric jobbie that took the frost off of the place. Hell, we’d light a couple candles, and between us, the cat, the booze and the cigarette embers, we’d get it up to forty five or fifty degrees in there and we were happier than, well, a well lodged tape worm. It will eventually prove to be detrimental to my health from the winds blowing through, loosening the filth and fiberglass from the walls, and the heavy concentration of second hand smoke. It wasn’t until too late that I finally realized the filth we’d been breathing on top of the smoking- non-filtered rolling tobacco. Oh well, I have to live with it now. I am just thankful to be able to tell the story, partially made possible by my thirteen-month stay at the Jackson Penitentiary, where I got the idea to segregate myself by occupying my mind with whatever I could get that would expand my knowledge and add to whatever I had already stockpiled as an artist of sorts.

Sandy returned, two days later, to her job at Vitale’s. It was Monday. We drove into Grand Rapids together, where I would return to work with Salih. After work I would carouse around to visit with friends until she got done at eleven p.m. It went on like that for another two weeks until one day when Sandy had the day off and joined me in Grandville where Salih and I were putting an addition on a home. Salihs wife showed up at that project around noon and berated him for about twenty minutes. She even made mention of their sex life and his manhood, to which he replied something about the Grand Canyon. It was very soon after that Salih and I had a falling out due to the impact that his wife had on our work environment. And with Sandy’s observance came even more difficulty in dealing with the Drama. I just couldn’t take it anymore. With Sandy on the sideline influencing the situation with her sentiments on the relationship the decision was made for me to quit. He really needed me at that time since the workers he had were mostly unskilled, and Salih was more of the coordinator. I was the lead man, making all of the field calls and construction decisions needed to complete the projects. He really depended on me. When I just didn’t show up, and let the calls go to voice mail after telling him on the phone that I had to quit, Salih headed out to the park to try to talk to me about it. He couldn’t accept it and had no real understanding of what the reason was, and I was unable to tell him anything further than the first phone call I was allowed to take from him. When he got to our camper Sandy had barricaded us inside, forbidding me to open the door or respond to him in any way. I felt extremely bad for what I had done to him by quitting, and even worse for not being able to talk to him. I knew in my heart that he deserved an explanation or an apology but I couldn’t do it without making mention of his wife and her hatred towards me, or without Sandy being involved, all of which would have only made things worse for both, Salih and I. The chief problem was something I was not willing to focus on at the time, Sandy’s possessiveness and jealousy. She had taken full control of everything I did, and everything I was going to do.

It was nearing Christmas, on the twenty-first of December, when I took Sandy to work. Someone had given me a Smelt basket that I had accepted and reheated in a gas station microwave oven when I got gasoline. When I was arriving back at the Vitale’s parking lot, my stomach began to wretch, rejecting what I had eaten. As I was pulling into the parking lot I opened the door of my van and puked as I drove, hoping that Sam Vitale was not watching on one of his many surveillance cameras as I did so. It was a hope but highly unlikely. I went to the sports bar next door to have a drink and use the bathroom, twenty minutes afterwards going to the van to take a nap. Sam’s cameras were in the sports bar as well.

When I awoke, I turned the radio on in the van just in time to listen to an emergency weather report that stated everyone in the area was to remain indoors and not to drive anywhere, unless it was an absolute emergency, because of “Black Ice”. The temperatures dropped dramatically and freezing rain were certain to create hazardous road conditions. At about eleven p.m. closing time, I went inside to warm up and wait. Sandy was drinking her fill from the serving station, having the perfect excuse to taste the drinks as she made them, for quality control purposes. When I told Sandy that we should stay at a friend’s house that night, she refused the idea saying that she intended us to return to our camper. The warning about the “Black Ice” was not important to her. She suggested we just drive slowly and carefully, taking the highway because there would be no stopping and starting and less traffic.

Well, with no one else on the road, we left as she insisted. We made our ritual stop at the liquor store for tobacco and alcohol on Plainfield Avenue, just a mile from the on ramp. Whether it was vodka, rum or gin, I cannot recall but I can recall that we made drinks in the parking lot for the ride home. We entered the empty westbound highway of I-96 tiptoe slow and headed for Coopersville. We made it all the way to the Marne exit without any slipping or another vehicle on the road. Four miles later we passed the forty-eighth avenue exit, still without any signs of another car on the highway going either way. Everything was nice and smooth and I was relieved to be only five miles from our home in the park. In a few minutes we would be sitting at out dining table with the heat blowing on our toes, while Zoey the cat was soaking up her love from us for the day. As the thoughts of being home waltzed through my head I felt the van sliding for the first time.

Our van was an older model but it was in nice shape. The tires were great and the rims were aluminum mags. It had running boards and was furnished with a seat that folded down into a bed and a table with swivel bucket seats, four Captain’s chairs. There were some tools that I kept inside because I had nowhere else to store them, along with a bag of concrete and a slide compound Hitachi saw I used primarily for finish carpentry work.

When I noticed that the van was sliding, I looked around for the lights of any other vehicles but there were none in the blackness. The rear slid slowly around to the right turn around one hundred and eighty degrees. We kept sliding sideways off of the road and into the median of the east and west lanes. When the wheels stopped sliding the van continued to move, rolling over onto its passenger side. My tools flew from where they were stowed and my saw bounced around along with the bag of concrete, which had broken open. Our drinks were spilled and the bottle of booze was tossed and rattled in the cab. Sandy complained of neck pain as I tried to open the door but the weight of it was extremely difficult to move from the position I was in. Repositioning myself, I managed to get my door open and climbed out.

The first thing I noticed was a dark Jeep Cherokee parked on the side of the highway. There were no lights on of any kind except for the glow of a cell phone in the cab. Approaching the vehicle, I noticed that it was a man behind the wheel, and that he was wearing a Kent County Sherriff’s patch on his coat. He seemed to be making a call on his phone. He answered my question regarding what happened with a statement that a little blue car had hit me and took off but I knew there was no little blue car but he and I knew that there was no such vehicle. I had been keeping my eyes on the mirrors and entrance ramps for other vehicles, especially cops that like to sit there when shooting radar or looking for people. As an accomplished drinker and someone who smokes pot, I am always aware of my surroundings. I kept an eye out for these things. If there is something there, I know it before they think I can see- the epitome’ of perfect vision.

As I went back to the van, foolishly hoping to flip it back over, I thought about the whole situation. We had been alone the entire time since passing Alpine Avenue. We were snuck up on from behind. He had been waiting for us at the entrance where 48^th Avenue crosses over the I-96 highway. There are entrance ramps for both, East and West bound traffic. We or should I say I, had been monitored along the way via radio by officers posted up at every entrance ramp. When I got into the area, the cops pitted me, arresting me for child support. I do not remember how long I was in jail that time but I do remember that I was never told what the warrant was for. They said that the reason for my arrest wasn’t one but “fifteen thousand of them”, which ended up being the bond amount that I was unable to post. I gave my wallet to Sandy immediately, knowing that they would take what little money we had. I was denied the opportunity to use my phone to call a tow truck or my own insurance company, which ended up costing me a lot of money for the flatbed they arranged. They denied me to call anyone at all regarding this matter, taking my phone from me when I tried to call my mother, who lived near by. Memory doesn’t serve the details but I am sure that the documentation is available to back this all up. There are files in my possession that support this story. Sometimes I imagine that I keep these things in case I ever go on a rampage that ends up with me gaining some kind of notoriety, the kind of thing where they decide to do a bio. Funny thing is, I always likened myself to the great men of our past and to be in the history books since I was old enough to think of tomorrow, which I am told was pretty early. Only, it was probably more like: “tomorrow I will kill them”.

The move on the states part was illegal, but I haven’t the capital to pursue it, especially them denying me to call my insurance company. To me, that would be a witness to the situation. I should have sued but how can anyone fight without money? If they were smart, they would have written the accident up as a routine weather condition incident and issued a drunk driving charge but they never gave me a Breathalyzer or mentioned my alcohol use to me or in the police report.

Sandy used every bit of the hundred and fifty dollars to pay for the tow truck that brought our van back to our camper. I think it was this incident that ended up costing her the job she had at Vitale’s but since we had our bills caught up and I had family in the area, she was able to get by until I returned home.

We used to walk back to the north end of the RV Park, to the river bayou, to fish. Along the way were a few campers that people had stored in the back of the property, out of the way of the park. Some of them were for sale. We entertained the idea of getting a new one or one new to us. And it’s funny because someone else was thinking the same thing.

One day in the fall we asked Jerry Cannon, the park manager who was an ex-FBI agent, about the other “units” because we had become interested in upgrading. He made a comment about being glad we asked because he was just about to come and tell us that our camper was too old to be in the park for another season. Whether that was true or not had nothing to do with why he was going to tell us this. He tried to sell us a modular cabin but the price was beyond ridiculous, and it was meant to be. He really didn’t want us in the park. It was apparent that the other park residents had been discussing us too. Probably out of boredom. Jerry then tried to rent us one at a price that he felt we could afford, making it too easy, which scared us a bit, and rightly so. We were sensing being set up for something but we couldn’t tell what it was. What we ended up deciding was that we wanted to buy a camper, so he reluctantly showed us the ones that were for sale, starting with the most expensive one. The prices on all of them ended up being more than we wanted to spend or could afford.

During this time we were targeted for our campers antiquity as well as being “undesirable”. We had gotten to know young woman named, Katirna, who worked at the store in the park on the other side of the river- Conestoga Camp ground. She filled us in on a lot of the dirt about the park and it’s people. The rumors were, in fact, flying in the park. It came out that Jerry didn’t care much for us but there was nothing he could do about our being there since we complied with the park rules and paid our bills on time. One of the stories was that Sandy was my mother and we were an incestuous couple. That story made me laugh out loud. Sandy was appalled.

The typical people that reside in these RV parks, come to find out, are mostly on fixed incomes. They live in the RV’s because it’s inexpensive compared to traditional housing options like senior citizens with no family members who are caring or stable or willing to give back to them. There are many people who have child support demands that prevent them from living any other way, basically living in whatever is big enough to hold whatever it is that they have left in life. There are many people who are so much into chemical dependency that they have adjusted their lifestyle to accommodate their use. We were really no exceptions to the rule. Yeah, it’s a sad reality in the RV Park we lived in, and there we were doing much the same thing. Don’t get me wrong. You can’t discount the people passing through, the tourists, the hunters and the nature lovers. And then there are some who are shackled with the leg irons of a modern society and can’t afford themselves the leisure and luxury of traveling and exploring the wonders of our country. There are those who keep an RV or camper year-round or seasonally to have as a get-away, that don’t want to buy property or can’t find what they want. Then there is the management. The managers always seem to be some tyrannical control freaks who are the Dictatorial Hitler type of person, as far as I have ever seen in my limited experiences.

One day as the snow was beginning to melt at the end of Winter, Jerry came and told us about a camper at the other camping and RV Park- Conestoga Campground, on the north side of the river. A last stitch effort to get us to move out of the park, which would provide a great comfort to those who are there and afraid of outsiders coming on the scene to learn their secrets.

Conestoga was being prepared to open for the season since it was not a year-round park. It was owned by the same man who owned The River Pines but it was ran by Jerry’s son who had a camper parked there that they had rented out from time to time. It was on a lot right next door to the managers unit. This was a decent looking camper and appeared to be in good shape. It was a thirty-two foot 1984 Jayco Bunkhouse that slept six people. There was a nice little bathroom with a shower, a queen sized bed, a new fridge and furnace, as well as a newer water heater. It was a beautiful camper. To us, having been living in the Little Gem for the winter, it was a palace. Jerry claimed to own this camper, offering it to us for two thousand dollars, which he would finance, of course. He drew up a payment plan that was a land contract type. The camper would remain at Conestoga Campground until it was fully paid for, while payments were to be one hundred and thirty seven dollars and change per month but if we missed one payment we would lose our entitlement and all of our interest. We happily agreed knowing that we would easily be able to make the payments, making arrangements to have Jerry put our Little Gem in the back with the others that were for sale. We placed a sign in the window of it and hoped for it to sell quickly. Now Sandy was ready to call Richard to claim her stuff back that she had inherited from her father- the stuff that vanished when she got to Michigan.

Sandy kept on about the coo-coo clock and various antiques and possessions that Richard and Angie kept tucked away, including many guns. She kept on about it until we decided to call her son to ask for them. A threat had to be imposed in order to get him to comply with her request. These items were all stored in his basement, along with the pot he was growing. The very thing that he had suggested I broke in to get at. He refused to give up the items, saying that they were his, which fueled a battle that lasted for days until I got on the phone, threatening to turn him in for the pot if he didn’t give his mother what she was after. He hung up at that statement, only calling back about an hour later to say that he had checked his perimeters and was willing to concede to Sandy’s argument. The next day we met him at his house, retrieving a van full of stuff. It was packed to the gills with just enough space to get back in and ride home, stopping off at our storage unit to unload the items. The van had over heated from the haul and wouldn’t start when we went to leave. It finally started after about two hours.

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Jerry moved the Jayco to a site we picked out at Conestoga but it didn’t have a full hook-up, meaning the sewer line. That would require me to drain it manually, hauling a thirty-gallon honey pot back and forth from the tank to the dump station. Jerry’s son said to just run the grey water out a hose and down the hill into the Grand River. He said that was what a lot of them did with the grey water, which is a separate holding tank apart from the actual sewage tank.

It was the first of April when we moved into the Jayco. The lot we picked was on the very end of the row along the ridge facing south. It overlooked the forestry below where it met the bank of the Grand River as it flowed westward to meet Lake Michigan in Grand Haven. Our lot was also next to the graveyard- a very old graveyard. I remember worrying about the very large oak tree that was standing on our North side- a mere six feet away. It had a huge limb that was more like another trunk, hanging a big threat that stretched precariously out over our trailer. All I could think about was a story that my close friend, Arek Clark, had told me about when he lived here years ago.

A man was lying in bed but then got up to make a bowl of cereal. The tree that was next to his camper suddenly broke and fell onto it, landing right where he had been sleeping. It destroyed his camper and would have killed him if he had not gotten up to eat. This was an especially haunting tale, being that we were located right next to the graveyard, and reminded us of death almost every moment of the day.

The storage facility, in Allendale, where we kept many things, was right next door to a gas station where I liked to acquire Drum rolling tobacco. I would always get two pouches from the rack and then go to the drink cooler, where I slipped one down my coat sleeve. Then I’d approach the counter, go through my act of pulling out my wallet to see that I didn’t have enough money, then to return the pouch to the rack. This was almost always too easy to pull off, unless the person behind the counter was someone I had done it with recently but since the store had a big employee turn over, and was always pretty busy, it was fairly easily done. Sometimes I could do it two to three times a day but at least a couple times a week, which was enough to get by. This was a technique I used at the places that sold beer as well, grabbing two jumbos but slipping one down the sleeve of my heavy coat.

We didn’t go a day without drinking. Sandy wouldn’t really discuss not drinking. Her emphasis was just on me not drinking. And I agreed but not drinking wasn’t something easily done on the one-way street of a relationship. Strength is in number, yet we remained divided in many ways. One morning she opened the cupboard doors and beer cans spilled out everywhere. It’s funny, for a person who claimed to be a hippie, and always talking about Jehovah and the Kingdom Hall, she was a nonstop consumer. She’d always say things like, “there’s nothing to have”, but we’d spend money that we had to sell things to get, to buy gas, and risk driving all the way to the city, drinking both ways, to buy a small amount of pot. We ended up spending thirty bucks for a ten-dollar bag of grass- smokes, drinks, gas and pot. What a waste. We could have just grown our own pot. None of it was that serious but it was to her. We would scrape the pipe at least three times a week and I hated it every time she asked me to do it. This evil would remain veiled by her home-making skills, her deceptiveness, charisma and her charm. I was so loved starved that I was blinded completely. I was so blinded by her wiles and my own drinking and psychological issues that I couldn’t even see myself to find my own errors for correction. It’s funny how things can compound so thick and fast, stealing you away from the future with the moments.

For the most part, while with Sandy, I had forgotten what I was doing and what I wanted in life. I had become brainwashed with the promises of love, giving up my hopes and dreams to follow someone else’s. She was a siren but I didn’t know it yet. She would always mock me about my dreams and aspirations of becoming an entertainer, telling me, “There’s no time in this system. Jehovah is creating a new system for you to do it there”. My dreams of musicianship were rekindled when I had met Danny but they were lost when we became separated by a situation caused by lack of money, coupled with his despair from his afflictions- all of which were caused by alcohol.

After a week in the trailer, I had a fit of paranoia fueled by Sandy’s own. I began to tear out the radio and speakers that came installed in the trailer. Since Jerry was an ex-federal agent with the F.B.I., I was concerned of eavesdropping. One of the things that motivated my concerns was a very large and powerful looking two-way radio antennae. Sandy was always an instigating factor for suspicion and evil doing, which got me pumped up pretty badly.

When we got down on our luck we would drive around looking for returnable beverage containers on the roadsides. It was while on one of these excursions that we stumbled upon one of Bob Smithe’s Home Builder signs. He would put me to work doing whatever he had going on at the time until his alcoholism and demeanor contaminated our work relationship again. The main problem was that it seemed he couldn’t be man enough to deal with his personal frustrations on his own time. He took advantage of using me as his punching bag until he couldn’t stand it any longer. Mostly he was ticked off because I wouldn’t lose my cool on him.

After a while, I would end up calling Tom Bruin to ask him for work. He had me come out to a project in Jenison, where he was building a house for the Parade of Homes, offered me twenty-five dollars an hour. At that moment all was well. That is, until Sandy got wind of the Cleaning Lady.

My first big standing cabinet was a four-person locker bank with a boot-box seat. It stood eighty-four inches tall by sixty inches wide, was built from birch plywood, made with bead-board inlaid doors- all painted white. I have pictures of it somewhere. Tom also had me build the staircase, especially since he had witnessed some of the work I had done in the past; how solid the newel posts and banisters were, the accuracy in the miters, and the meticulous attention to detail.

The house was to be in the Grand Rapids Parade of Homes, which meant that it was doomed to heavy bombardment and buffoonery of morons yanking on the staircase to see how well it was built, being the defeat of many who claimed to be a carpenter. Now, this staircase has to be the neatest one I have ever done. And I was proud to be the one to build it. The main newel posts were site built out of Maple. The balusters and spindles were wrought iron with a painted finish, and had decorative piece that slid onto them to be fixed in a position with a hidden set screw to make up a collective pattern that the artist assembling it felt would be most aesthetic and pleasing to the eye. I had to use a clear silicone adhesive since it was “finish complete” except for the maple. The newel posts were monumental, rigid and solid. And when struck they reverberated throughout the home. I received more compliments on that staircase than almost anything I had assembled in my life.

So, feeling very proud of myself, I took Sandy to the jobsite to show her my accomplishments. She had been continually complaining about not being able to go along with me to work. She wanted to do the cleaning after the work was all done. I explained that Tom had someone he always used on his projects. So, she asked if she could help them with the task. I said I would ask Tom about it, which I did but Tom couldn’t make it happen. For a while she kept on about the teachings of the bible, trying to manipulate me into taking her to babysit me for fear I was doing something wrong or that she felt she should be included in. It was her intention that I understand God gave man woman for a helper, and that I acknowledge that, and always have her as my accompaniment, according to the Scriptures.

We arrived at the project and everything was fine. Having never seen a lot of my trade, she was amazed at what I had been working on, taking a few pictures of the staircase and the cabinetry. Around noon a van pulled up and someone got out. It was the cleaning lady. When she walked into the house, she greeted us with a smile and cleavage, along with a radio, plugging it in right away. Sandy’s body language said it all: “What’s with this precocious little skank?” I mean, the cleaning lady was blonde, cute, maybe thirty years old and trying to appear sexy with her mannerisms and style of fashion, and she was flirtatious. She was everything she needed to be in order to work feeble men over for money and opportunities- it was clearly her M.O.

That afternoon the guys showed up to do some punch list work, last minute details. The cleaning lady was washing windows inside the house, chatting away with Tom and whom ever she could engage in conversation.

The decorators showed up with furniture and ornamentals to dress the place up for the showing in the Parade, pushing items they happened to have for sale in their store. The speakers in the boom box were blaring, “It’s getting hot in here, let’s take off all our clothes,” and the cleaning lady was singing along. An emotional volcano built up pressure inside of Sandy. As the song ended, the cleaning lady turned and said, “I need to wash the windows outside but I have to climb the ladder. Zach, will you hold the ladder for me?” The top of Mount Sandy found a crack and she finally exploded. She turned crimson, screamed a series of cuss words and stomping out of the house, knocking things over and slamming doors as she returned to our van.

Tom came running out of one of the back bedrooms asking, “What happened? What was that noise?” I explained Sandy’s jealousy, and that she lost it when the cleaning lady asked me to help her with the ladder while she washed the upper windows on the backside of the house. Tom muttered something about Trust being important in a relationship, which was funny to me because he was selling cookie dough for the cleaning lady, and telling me not to tell anyone about it. I suspected he was having an affair with her.

Anyway, on this day lots of things came together about this group of people. For instance, Tom wore a baseball cap because he was bald but for a small wreath of hair that stuck out from around his hat. He took it off that day to scratch his head in confusion over why I even brought Sandy to the job. The male pattern baldness didn’t go well with his Napoleon-like stature, making him look even smaller than before.

Tom was married to an accountant who had shown up at the job with his son- a blonde haired child of about eleven. This little boy looked like he could have been the twin to Tom’s son, only four years younger. His wife wore the look of years of suspicion and a bad marriage, where a husband is rarely ever home. I could tell by her aura that she was extremely unhappy.

John, Tom’s right hand man, was an alcoholic who had a lot of familiar problems as well but he managed to stay working for Tom for a long time, though off and on as the drama caused by the constant drinking would always do. It didn’t stop Tom from drinking with him routinely after work, which had some purpose but I did not know what. I think Tom may have appreciated this relationship with John due to distracting himself from his own problems in life.

The cleaning lady was married, also working for Tom for a number of years. She had brought her son to the job as well, which looked almost exactly like Tom’s own son but about four years younger. It came out that the cookie dough was hers that Tom was selling when she asked me if I would buy some, saying that it was for her son’s class at school. It was to help raise money for an upcoming class excursion. She spent a lot of time with Tom during throughout the day, chatting about everything and flirting with anyone who would reciprocate. Every time I walked into a room, they were there acting as if they were busy with their duties. Her with her expensive undergarments riding high above the waistline of her jeans, and her blouse unbuttoned down to the bottom of her sternum, exposing much of her breasts.

Now whether the cookie dough was really for the school or if it was to offset child-rearing expenses, I never concerned myself much with determining. However, I did determine that Tom and her had something pretty big going on. I could not get the image of Tom’s wife out of my head. I felt so sorry for her, and I could only imagine all of the broken and empty promises, the shattered hopes and dreams, and the feelings of betrayal- all of this drama because of the concerns of a man and his penis. I couldn’t help but think of how he told me that his wife couldn’t find out about the cookie dough, and how the look on her face said there were too many lies, and enough poorly kept secrets already. And there I was in the mix. I felt her pain, her frustration, her broken heart and her anger. A poisonous situation that was poisoning my own life even more than I poisoned it myself. Throughout the coming months Sandy would administer a dose of abuse whenever she had a problem with me by mockingly mimicking the words of the song the cleaning lady sang that day.

The day we completed the job, I accidentally busted in on them “working” in the lower bathroom together. Her g-string stuck out in plain view from the back of her pants, as if her pants were hanging lower than they should have been. It became very clear why they were always working in the same room, away from the rest of us. On this day we all went into Jenison to Brann’s Steakhouse after work, where he threw hotel room keys at Johnny after buying him an excessive amount of drinks that would require him to sleep it off, knowing full well that Johnny is an alcoholic but needing a scapegoat for the room. Some routine small talk verified that Tom’s wife was an Accountant, and that she was extremely suspicious about his expenses. I must admit that Tom was clever but not clever enough to get what he wanted without any hassles. Oh God, what a pain in the neck I had from all involved. All I wanted to do was practice my trade and receive compensation for it.

A week or so after the job was over, the Sandy wind stopped blowing so hard. Within another three weeks of the job, I was called to another project- this time up at Crystal Mountain Resort. Naturally, I agreed to do it. Having some money to work with, Sandy and I rented a car and we were off, eager for the road trip.

Now, it’s hard to do things when you don’t have a partner that contributes in a comprehensive fashion, which is why I took so much clothing and tools that I really had no business taking. Like bringing an antique Italian revolver that looked like it was found after lying for eighty years in a river somewhere while fishing. It was all rusted and froze up, though intact enough to clearly be a pistol. At first glance it looked like you may be able to fire it, although for the last time, before exploding in your hands. This was not at all practical, and with a clear mind now, it’s easy for me to see- hindsight. Luckily I never made it fire or else the demons that Sandy and I had haunting our lives would have forced the bullet to find her fate or mine.

We arrived at Crystal Mountain to find a very prestigious little community nicely tucked away in a Pine forest. Ski slopes were revealed through the trees, at few points, which would be a comfort to people like Judge Power of the Thirteenth Circuit Court or Mr. Jarboe- my joke of a defense, since I am sure that there are people who would love to take a rifle shot at them. This place would be a secure area in that respect.

My eyes were wide as the log style look of the homes caught my senses with their grand features extending out port style over horseshoe driveways like something you’d come to expect to find in Colorado. A golf course wound through the forestry that cradled the loosely scattered homes, here and there a flag indicating a putting green. It was great. It was magnificent.

After several lazy turns of the road, we found the project, easily identified by the two trucks and large enclosed tool trailer. The tool trailer was pretentious, yet petty and anal retentive, revealing more about Tom. Inside it were nicer kitchen cabinets than the majority of homes being built in the affluent communities I had worked on in the past. These were for keeping tools in. I felt it was an example of how important his time with his wife or his own children was to him. He probably used it as a makeshift dwelling when his wife threw him out of the house, which I am sure happened a lot. He was just another self indulgent egotist to add to the list of piss-poor examples of men I had dealt with, and what a list it was until I realized it’s a disease of men and that most are afflicted, although willingly. I was no exception.

We spent that day building onto the house until early evening when Tom handed me a room key, saying something about my probably wanting to “go to the womb.” I am sure it had a lot to do with seeing me show up there with Sandy, and the fact that she was so much older than I. It seemed clear to him that I had “mommy issues.” And whether that’s true or not, the reality was she had issues of her own that didn’t allow for me to be out of her sight, however blurry.

Tom and Johnny had a room down the hall from ours, if not each having their own. They came by later for drinks, and then we went outside for a smoke while Sandy insisted on preparing something for us to eat. That’s when I took them out to the car to show them the stuff I had in the trunk, mainly, the revolver. Sandy’s eyesight came up in conversation, saying that she must not be able to see very well. Maybe it was another crack at her age, I don’t know but I just replied with that for being the reason I rarely let her clean the weed- because she can’t see well enough to get all of the seeds out of it. The three of us laughed pretty good at that comment, knocking back the rest of our beers for another round. And, Oh man, how we drank that night.

We went back inside to eat some food but instead of eating I broke out the bottle of Cherry Kijafa, putting that on top of the thirty pack of Milwaukee’s Best Ice I had been drinking on… and the weed… and the gin. As if five point nine percent beer wasn’t enough. After they left for the night, we started fighting. We fought for much of the night. Management came twice or maybe three times, to quiet us down. The police came at one point but couldn’t do anything because I seemed to not be a problem when they arrived. At some point she attacked me and I bit one of her breasts in the scuffle, leaving a nasty bruise. I drank so much that night that I passed out and urinated all over the bed, which was a very nice bed, causing her to get out the hide-a-bed to sleep on.

The next morning we tried to clean the place up. She found the hair dryer and tried to clean up the bed but it was useless. I was still drunk but that didn’t stop me from opening a beer that morning, which must have been when Sandy decided she was taking the car and leaving me behind. She packed up the rental car and took all of my money, leaving me a twenty-dollar bill that I was too drunk to find in my wallet. She took the booze and the pot, except for what I had in my pocket that was rolled up from the night before. My glass marijuana pipe got hidden somewhere during the drunken madness of the evening with the expectation that the cops were coming, It was left behind to be found by the cleaning staff or person who owned the room wherever I had hidden it. She loaded up the food we had brought, and finished by loading up all of the empty beer cans. I followed her out a moment later, after finishing my beer, my arms full of my belongings. She was already in the car as I set them down to open the trunk. Then she turned the ignition, put the car into gear and pulled out of sight. She just went to get gas I told myself, expected her to be coming back to hurry me along and take one last look around for the pipe or something we may be forgetting. I waited there while drinking another beer. I said out loud, “maybe it’s just a threat. What happened last night anyway?”

Moments went by before I realized she had no intention of coming back. I had a momentary lapse of reason, deciding that I was in no condition to see Tom and Johnny after what had happened last night. I panicked over being seen by any of the resort staff or being seen sitting out in the parking lot at all, so I started walking with all of my things. Fortunately there were only about one or two hundred people that could have witnessed my display, reminiscent of Steve Martin in the Jerk, drunkenly, and slovenly, walking down the street with my arms loaded with pure junk- my clothes, my tools, a broken pistol, and a Zip-lock baggie full of whatever it was she had made the night before. I wasn’t very happy about it. “Maybe she just went to the store,” I thought. I kept telling myself that she was going to turn around and come back for me in a minute but the minute kept renewing itself to a new minute that I would have to wait through all over again. The thought renewed of what she was doing, like she had just gone to clear her head or get some cigarettes.

While on the “heel-toe express” I dreaded every fully exposed and hung-over step of the way. As my feet were shuffling, I wondered WHEN she would be coming back for me. And if I walked the right way for her to be able to find me when she did. I mean, how could I get very far with a big bag of crap and all the rest of the junk I had with me? How far could I get before I ran into the cops like this. They would surely stop and ask me why I was in the area looking like a vagrant. I had weed on me and was inebriated. I had a gun, working or not, it’s still a gun. And I am hiking on a highway with a difficult load to carry. Getting picked up was a huge risk and it motivated me to push on quickly. I am sure it was a sight to see.

Before too long, I located a gas station in my view up ahead. I recognized the place from the day before. We had stopped here and bought alcohol and supplies- as opposed to supplies and alcohol. I went in and asked for directions, buying some tobacco with some change I had in my pocket- still unable to find the money in my wallet. He pointed me in the right direction and I left the store, stopping outside to roll some cigarettes.

My arms were so tired I knew I couldn’t keep carrying the stuff any longer, so I took in a good visual of my surroundings. Up the road I spotted an intersection with a lot of forestry along it. I spotted a good spot to enter the woods, heading toward it with my stuff. There was no traffic when I entered the forest but I wondered if hunters would stumble across my booty, if this were where I left it. I looked for something that I would easily recognize when I came back to the area. As it was, all I needed to do was to find the gas station again to locate the spot. Now all I needed was a geographical oddity that would be a good secondary marker. I found a large felled tree, knocked over by a storm. There was a depression in the dirt with lots of limbs and leaves lying around the area. The bag of clothes, the gun, the tools and the food, everything except for my tool belt with my hand tools in it, was left in that spot. I buried it in leaves and limbs and left for the road.

Now I was liberated or so it seemed. The leaves of that October crunched under my feet as I exited the forest with confidence that I would relocate it. One of my last worries was of wolves or coyotes tearing up my buried treasure. After a pretty good handful of miles, I happened upon a liquor store where I, finally, was able to find that twenty dollar bill in my wallet, so I poisoned, I mean, treated myself to a small bottle of whiskey to find the realm of familiarity I was lost in while I was in my abandon.

Many cars passed me by on that road, and feeling rejected and helpless, it was easy to temporarily abandon my abandonment to take a breather under a bridge where a creek ran through. This was a great place to smoke some weed. It was out of the wind, and out of view. The sound of the flowing water was much needed, as was the time off of my feet, giving me time to think about things and recharge a bit.

The distance I had hiked after that is uncertain, though I am sure it was quite a ways because the sun got to a point where it was no longer morning but nearing sunset before I finally got a ride from a young couple who happened to be in Traverse City at a family gathering. They had a tray of Hors d’oeuvres that they offered me to eat from- finger foods like onion wraps and veggies with dip etc… They drove a light blue Blazer, saying that they had just left one of their parent’s homes and were headed to the Alpine area off of U.S. 131 in Grand Rapids. Perfect, exactly where I was going. I thanked them profusely as I climbed in, offering to compensate them if they could get me to my trailer, just twenty miles from where they were going.

They drove me right to the Conestoga campground, where I found the trailer to be locked. It wasn’t hard to get in by climbing in through the utility hatch that was on the side near the access to the holding tanks. The hatch went in under the bed and the bed lifted up to expose storage space underneath. I still can’t believe I did it. Had it not been for my being so thin from drinking so much, I probably would not have been able to do it but I was so angry that Sandy had left me behind that anything was possible. Opening the door to let them in, a car pulled up just then. It was Sandy.

Sandy was all smiles and cheer when she saw me there, nonchalantly stating how she had stopped and got a room at a Motel Six to catch up on some sleep, just as drunk from the night before as I was. It was as if we had met back at the trailer after a much-needed vacation, like nothing dramatic had happened at all. It was a sticky sweet interlude but had I not shown up when I did, the trailer and her would have vanished completely, I am certain. I had a strange feeling that she was on a trip to somehow get revenge for things that happened to her in the past, like losing a mobile home in a bad break-up, something she felt she was entitled to. All she needed was the right situation, which I pretty much gave her in the events from the night before.

My memory of all of these things may not be as fluid, as far as any time-line or chronological order goes but it’s pretty damn good. Actually, I am amazed that it is as good as all of these stories make it seem. It should be only a blur from all of the polluting I did to myself, drinking some of the worst drink and my using the finest poisons. Oh well, call it a gift and be thankful.

So, I’m not sure how things were that next day but I know things were quiet that night. And I know that I never worked for Tom Bruin again. It was several weeks before I got paid for the work I had done but when I finally did get paid, he had his wife meet me off of Alpine Avenue at a Dentist where she was already taking her son for an appointment., in order to meet up to get the check. She handed me a check that was nine hundred dollars short, telling me that they were forced to deduct it by their insurance company because I had no liability insurance policy to cover me being on the project. What good was it to even try to argue with her about it? It’s not like I was going to be able to get her to write me a check for the difference. Tom had made no mention about this huge detail. Clearly, he sent her as a buffer, and I, working paycheck to paycheck, needed the money days ago. It was a typical scenario for a sub-contractor in the construction business. But it’s possible that the nine hundred was for the repairs to the hotel room and replacement of the bed. We still haven’t spoke and I have yet to return for my treasure.

All Sandy cared about was getting some pot, and going back to the camper to pass the time by getting high and sucking down some booze, pretending we were all by ourselves on the planet. I was fit to be tied. My grief was compounded from all sides and there was no place to go to find a single person to confide in over anything. All that my mother would say anytime I tried to talk to her about things was, “You people sure have a lot of problems.” This from a woman who had a complaint about everything and everyone, having worked at the post office for a number of years- the exact kind of person you hear about on the news going “postal.” If anyone were ever suspected of “going postal”, it would be her though it never happened as far as I know. Yes, that’s what she would say if she took time to acknowledge me in my distress. Eventually I ran out of money and resorted to my ol’ standby… picking up cans for their ten-cent deposit.

I remembered the night I caught the Allendale grocery store using illegal labor as my elbow ached while combing the roadside for beer cans: I had been drinking all day and I was fighting the end of it, so I jumped in the van and limped to the store for another thirty pack. When I got to the store it looked open but the doors were locked. A young man saw that I was trying to get in. He came to the door and opened it with a big smile. As I hurried for the beer cooler, I noticed that the store was being cleaned and that everyone was Latino, and that they were actually closed. This issue was in the news a lot in the prior weeks- illegal labor from over the border. My only concern was with getting a box of beer before the store manager realized I was there, planning on swiping my card at a self check out and blasting out in a flash. My feet marched me right to the cooler. I grabbed the beer and raced back down the aisle to the register but my feet magically slipped out from under me. On the way to the floor, I put my hand out to break my fall but had my arm locked, which jammed my elbow, slamming me into the floor and aggravating my back injury. The floors were wet with fresh wax. The machines that were being operated on the floors shut off and several people who spoke no English came to help me up. That’s when the manager came around to see why the machines had stopped running. She chided me for being in the store since it was closed, asking me how I got in. When I explained that the help had opened the door, she ordered me out. She was pretty startled at my being there in a precarious position to observe what was going on there with the illegal help functioning as employees. It’s too bad I was drunk because I could have blackmailed or outright exposed the store for it. Too bad I messed that up. Live and learn, I suppose.

These things we had of her fathers in storage proved to be valuable, calming our needs and wants. After a while went by of pawning things, starting with the two salamander kerosene heaters belonging to Tom Bruin, we had a big sale at a friend’s house down the road from us. On the third day of the sale a person came by telling us not to sell anything until they brought their brother to see about buying some of the stuff, giving us a fifty-dollar bill to hold it. He came that night, looked around, offered us fifteen hundred dollars and bought every scrap. Sandy was relieved to have it gone because she felt it was all bad to have versus the money that actually just gave us back what we had spent in storage fees to keep it.

Now, it wasn’t just Sandy’s, and my own, once again, broken dreams that clouded my perception. There were other people who had damaging impacts. I am not making excuses for my drinking, which I did know was a problem. It was a familiar comfort that I had discovered when I was a teenager surviving a badly broken home. Bob Smithe was a factor in my struggle to overcome during this time, as he had been in and out of my life since immediately after the truck accident, which happened just a handful of months before my family became to be destroyed. As I think about it now, I wonder if it wasn’t his twisted aura that poisoned my own?

Bob had his house up for sale, while building himself another one that was very much like it. The only person who became interested in it had no credit of any use, and was unable to purchase the home. Bob, needing to unload it, had a discussion with his loan officer about his little problem. The fact that this particular loan officer was known as “The Loan God,” was what made Bob seek out his confidence in regards to how he could unload this house.

The arrogance and vanity of this particular loan officer was evident by way of his vanity plate on his automobile. The vanity plate on his car say’s “Loan God.” His manipulation included instructions to Bob that he needed to bring the money that the potential buyer was required to have in order for the loan and purchase to be made possible. That meant that Bob would have to bring fifteen thousand dollars cash to the table, placing the pile of money in front of the buyer as if it were his own money, which he then slid toward the loan officer as if he were paying it. The deal was sealed and Bob could now move on with his plans. The whole thing is fraudulent and is part of what is plaguing us this very day.

Part of Bob’s browbeating of me was to throw these things in my face. Like I was nothing, insignificant. Always saying that I needed to start small and work my way up. Stating that he got what he has in life because he took it. Myself, I am not like that. All I could do was to pretend to listen intently- as if he was some kind of teacher. He would inundate me with these kinds of things throughout the day. My theory was that he could not handle his own conscience, needing to drown it out by ripping on me constantly.

Lucky for him I was use to it since my so-called father was much the same, constantly beating me into submission, which I stubbornly fought from the beginning, much to his dismay. No matter how much he beat me or smacked me, I would get back up. He would refuse to listen to something I had to say, swatting me in the face and telling me to “tick-a-lock” but I would keep on. No matter how many times he hit me, demanding me to shut up, I would continue- forcing him to work harder at it. Just as much as he could dish out, I would provide an amount of resistance equal to or greater. My tolerance for pain is extremely high as a product from that abuse. That is a triumph for myself. No one can hurt me now.

By the time I got home from work with Bob, I was a useless heap of flesh. I couldn’t talk very well, stuttering my words and becoming hard to string them together in sentences. My hand would curl up in an odd way that I’d only seen in invalids. During the day I would be subjecting myself to a barrage of abuse, things like semantic lectures, and statements such as, “My kids got me…for Father’s day. What did your kids get you, Daddy?” Or, “You must not have been that great of a husband or your wife would have never divorced you.” Or by taunting me with calling out to my ex-wife’s new husband as if to be hunting him, “Peetah, oh Peetah...” Peter, being his name. Never, have I received closure for the decisions Mindy has made, and it continues to haunt me to this day, more or less.

Bob had a way of starting the day off as a confidant, which, having no father to confide in, I desperately needed in my life. As the week progressed, he would take that which I had told him and twist it into his own brand of torment. I would continue to persevere and do my best work for this man, constantly trying to prove my worth, sometimes on a minute to minute basis and just as often, I would secretly forgive him. The abuse I endured would only be the cork that seemed to keep me tucked in the bottle, especially after telling me things like, “Maybe you just don’t know how to suck up right”, which to me meant that I should be serving his intimate perversions- to put it lightly.

Back at the park, I was content in my trailer. My mother even came to visit, sometimes bringing us pork sausage made from hogs that her boyfriend, Tom, had raised and slaughtered. I would end up working for her, pouring my heart into whatever it was that she wanted done, as I always did. We had been having trouble with the van and it would get worse, running out of gas all of the time because of so little money and the defective gas gauge typical of Fords from the eighties.

The season came to an end and we had to move back to the River Pines since the camper was not paid off yet. I scrambled to get it winterized. The entire bottom needed to be wrapped in skirting before the cold weather, which put me under the gun because the cold was already upon us. I had no choice or assistance to get the work done before the snow started flying. One freeze could create so many headaches for us that I couldn’t begin to calculate the potential expenses. I made a call to Bob, hoping to find work that would, once again, back me up financially and to make it known that I was living in my own home fit for the occasional guest. He would call it my “hut” in the “tin ghetto”.

One day, we had scraped the payment together that completed our purchase of the trailer. We were sitting inside celebrating as the sun was going down, having just given the last payment to Jerry’s wife, and the receipt still in our hands. Jerry came tearing into the lot we had and came pounding on the door. He seemed upset, which we were used to. We opened the door to an irate shyster, saying that we lost our agreement because we messed up on the payments. What he was really upset about was that he had no intention of us paying it off, knowing we were cash poor and banking on us having a hard time doing it. We were supposed to mess up. He was working at making it impossible to make that last payment, if none of the others, by not being there to accept it or write us a receipt but his wife was home at the right time for us to do so. He figured it would be like shooting at dead men and he knew we wouldn’t be able to fight him in court over it. This was a money scandal of his, and not the only one. He had made a bet and lost, and, boy, he was more angrier when he left. He slammed the door so hard that it shook the whole trailer, knocking stuff off of our walls and jamming the door so hard that it wouldn’t open back up to get out of. We just smiled and laughed to each other. We had finally won something.

Come to find out, Jerry had been caught with his hand in the park till. He had been caught renting out the modular units that were for sale, and pocketing the money. Only Jerry knows how much money he embezzled. He was ousted from the managing of the park, and forced to take up residence in his own motor home, a brand new Bounder.

Money sources were about exhausted and the lot rent was becoming difficult for us to maintain. We still had not missed any trailer payments or electric bills, and I had no phone bill because Dan Doyle had given me a phone as part of the money I earned but never got due to his purchase of a Harley Davidson Fatboy, which used up the money he had been paid for the contract to finish the Log home for the Minster family. Dan repeatedly denied any wrong doing but taking into consideration the things that Mark and Connie had to say about what they paid him for the project, I am not sure that Karma was going to let him slip by unscathed for his seeming violation of our trust. This took place while I had become to be involved with Michele Shackleton, just before I met Sandy- another flash back:

Out of my desperation for an income, and my innate ability to extend trust to anyone for a chance to earn their own, my sight failed to recognize the paid meals and few dollars, now and then instead of a check, as part of a scam. Dan kept promising the pay would come when we finished the project, while he petered out a few dollars each week to keep us hanging on for as long as he could. This was a classis carrot-and-stick tactic that is commonly used in the construction business to take advantage of sub-contractors and their labor. I like to call it the “West Michigan Trade Robbery”. Never mind that I was happy to be working on a log home with people whom I felt were my friends that I knew from the past. That small detail helped to keep me completely blinded to what was really going on. Keeping on at my trade, and trusting Dan, I whistled the song in my heart.

Other than Dan Doyle, Bill Bolthouse, and a young guy Dan had working with him for quite some time on his various projects in the past several years, he also had his son, Danny junior, and his daughter, Mandy, helping him off and on as he needed them. Dan kept managing to land gigs, like this carpentry gig, while working as a licensed electrician, servicing run-down mobile homes and small businesses that used antiquated warehousing spaces to run their shops out of. It was one of these dilapidated buildings that Dan ran in to Bill at, while Bill was performing plumbing tasks for a crook named Gary McQuaig, who kept Bill around for inexpensive under-the-table cash labor.

Dan’s son, Danny, was working with him from time to time, instead of steadily due to substance abuse issues that interfered with the work demands. He would be slowly replaced by his oldest sister, Mandy, who, at twenty-six years old, had just been released from a lengthy jail sentence for substance abuse related charges herself. Mandy would work a few days a week when she didn’t have furthering education classes. It would end up being my job to work with her, training her in the carpentry trade. This was mostly because her father lacked the mindset, and had little patience or ability to effectively communicate with her or anyone else who was without any skills that he tried to use as help.

Being a patient parent, and a happy teacher, I corrected her efforts as she worked, rather than blow a lot of wind trying to “teach” her, which took a lot of time away from my own productivity. This was the right way to go because I could continue working while observing her, letting the tools she used do the talking, telling me what her instruction needs were. The table saw would holler or sing after a tag team primer lesson. My ears could always tell what I needed to know. “Smooth continuous feed on those boards- it leaves less blade kerf to remove and gives less strain on the motor,” I would tell her. Mandy was a good student, always eager and very earnest and enthusiastic about learning the Finish Carpentry Trade. She was also motivated since she was a mother of two, and needed to provide to them without having any help from the children’s fathers, unfortunately.

One evening a year or so later, around nine o’clock in the evening, while Sandy and I were enjoying cocktails around our fire pit, I received a phone call to come and do some emergency repairs at the Gezon Building in Grand Rapids, near the corner of Plainfield Avenue and Leonard Street. Apparently someone went through the building, busting down doors of some of the most active musicians studio spaces, where they stole anything of value. For some reason Dan Doyle gave them my number, which I am glad he did because I could use every dollar I could get my hands on at that time, especially since I was still feeling the sting of being robbed on the Minster’s Log Cabin project. Sandy and I immediately jumped in the van and dashed out to perform the repairs and collect the money that was being offered.

One day, while at that same studio building about a year or so after that, I was told of how Dan Doyle’s daughter, Mandy, had been found dead of an overdose in her apartment. I was told that evidence was found in her apartment that indicated her body had been violated after her death, as well as violating one of the children in the home at the time. Apparently, this evidence supported blatant sexual misconduct to both of them. I instant became weak and my knees buckled, collapsing me to the ground. My stomach wretched with dry heaves, and my eyes flooded with tears as the news sunk in. It was as if she was my own child that had died, and it had been my own grandchild that suffered this terrible atrocity. Mandy was only twenty-nine years old.

Dan Doyle was my oldest daughter, Sarah’s, uncle. Sarah’s mom, having been the victim of sexual abuse as a child by her father and several other men, had become a man hater. She had accused me of “hitting” on Mandy back when we had first gotten together, when Mandy was a young teen. Another twisted up family in the world. Sarah would prove to be the only one on her mom’s side of the family to do anything with her self, like graduate high school, not get knocked up, and to become enlisted in the military. Because of her grades, she was offered an opportunity in the Air Force, where she tested out high ranking and was offered placement in Intelligence. She made the final decision to go into Meteorology. Thanks to her Great Grandmother Lawrence, Sarah went to a Catholic school on Bridge Street, and was looked after by her Great Grandma Lawrence most of the time. This proved to be a significant influence- Great Grandma Lawrences’ involvement, not necessarily the Catholic school.

Sarah’s mother was known as, “Crazy Mary,” by her whole family and everyone who knew her. I didn’t think much of it until she started accusing me of having sex with everyone she and I knew. She got me fired from a good job once because when she called to speak to me, a woman answered- the boss’s wife. Mary accused her of having some kind of relationship with me- sex mostly. Mary began to force me to drop my pants to smell my genitals to see for her self if I smelled unusually clean or like another woman. This was when I met Bill Bolthouse, while working with Mary at Florentine’s Italian Restaurant in Grandville. Mary’s antics drove me crazy, and I used anyone I could as a convenient buffer to spend my time with, especially for drinking or getting stoned. I could no longer stomach going home to Mary. I could no longer handle her without drinking. I was miserable but had no idea how much so, or what a relationship was suppose to resemble since I came from a broken home myself. The fact that she became pregnant with my child was a total shock. I thought my testicles were damaged from a bicycle accident that ripped a large gash in my scrotum. We had been together for over two years, having unprotected sex the whole time. I was sure I was sterile but I was also just a clueless kid. The fact was that her level of acidity in her bodily fluids made my sperm sterile- a clue from God that I was in the wrong place in life maybe.

One day, after Mary had gotten me fired from Florentine’s for accusing the waitresses of trying to steal me, my mother picked me up from the Wheeler family’s home where I stayed at the time. She took me to meet a friend of hers that she new from the American Legion on 44^th street and South Division. His name was Bob Bolthouse- a plumber. His son, Bill, had just gotten out of rehab earlier that month. This was in 1988.

Bob was the owner of Midwest Plumbing and had a habit of finding apprentices every once in a while, that were nothing more than someone to be available to drive him to various bars around town. He always had this story that he needed to collect money from people that owed him from jobs he had done for them. Bob would dispatch Bill to plumbing jobs that would come up, things like repairing or installing carbonic systems and water heaters at bars and restaurants. They were always small jobs from repeat customers. The truth was that the business had been bankrupt for some time. He always sent me with Bill as his assistant. Bill and I soon became very close friends. I quickly learned of Bill’s addictions to cocaine and alcohol, which he drank everyday. It was a routine I became accustom to and continued, ironically enough, until I turned twenty-one years old.

The music was always blaring loudly from a shrine of a stereo system Bill had built. The speakers were one of his many accomplishments that he would routinely show off, along with his extensive knowledge of the music that he paid daily tributes to. We were like brothers in many ways, and everyday was a party. Since I was eighteen at the time, it was a welcome environment. I came to spend a great amount of time there with him. By 1991 Bill and I would part ways after my meeting Mindy, who became pregnant the first night we were together. It was her that pushed for sex that night. Anyway, Bill would end up spending over three years in prison for drunk driving charges where he also punched a cop. It was one of several drunk-driving charges Bill had accumulated. This all happened right after Paul had to cut him lose from our trim carpentry crew because of his drinking and using coke on the job.

Bills performance slowed way down because he was constantly tending to his use instead of working, occasionally calling one of us in to the room he was suppose to be working in, for a line of cocaine. He was always sweating profusely because of it. It wouldn’t be until the spring of 2002 that I would see Bill again after running into Dan Doyle whom Bill was working for. Dan quickly scooped me up to help him on the jobs he had going on at the time. After a few weeks we began working on the Minster project- a log home. That was when I saw Bill again. It was like old times with Bill, and I was happy to see him. Soon, I became to understand that he was worse off now than he ever was. Alcohol had almost complete control of him, if not entire control. The funny thing was that Dan was a devout A.A. guy but he just watched Bill dying there, right before his eyes. Maybe it was a reminder to himself to not begin drinking again, since he too had spent time in prison for alcohol related charges involving criminal sexual misconduct with his daughters, which two of them were his stepdaughters. This was the final straw in the marriage he was trying to maintain at the time.

Anyway, Dan paid for the phone through his service plan that he had with a well known, over priced company called, Verizon. It had been his son’s phone before he quit working the kid. The day I became separated with having the phone was while fishing on the Grand River at Conestoga Campground, kicking it off of the dock when I stood up to leave by stepping down in the wrong place. Since my back had been injured in the automobile accident in 1997, I had many issues that made me clumsy. Besides, I was having cognitive problems from the head injury that also contributed to my many dysfunctions. And who brings their phone fishing, anyway? It kind of defeats the purpose of escaping the monotonies of daily life. After the phone was lost, everything finally went to hell but I am ahead of myself a bit.

Yard sale flashback selling Sandy’s junk collection she got from her father.

One day we got the idea to have a yard sale, taking the Yamaha 650 Special that I had bought with some of the money from the Tom Bruin project, and all of the junk Sandy had inherited from her dad, to our friends house a mile to the west of us. This friend was one that Sandy has developed when I was in jail for nonpayment of child support. Mainly, he was a source for Sandy’s chief concern- marijuana. It would be about five days into the yard sale before someone would stop to look at our junk and say that they were sending their brother back to look at the stuff, asking us to hold off on selling anything else. They were certain that he would be very interested in everything we had for sale.

There were lots of tools and tool chests, antiques, a lot of model trains and the stuff that goes along with them. There were quite a few old record albums, long guns, and an old coffee grinder that stood twenty-six inches high and had been completely refurbished by her father. There was a pretty cool police siren from the thirties or forties- the kind that went on top of the vehicle. There were all kinds of unique items, and every bit of it was antique. The value of everything, if it was sold individually was probably close to twelve thousand dollars. When the guy showed up he offered us about fourteen hundred bucks for everything without even walking around the whole display of goods. Sandy was ecstatic. Never mind that it cost us ten times what he offered her, in grief, and three times that, in moving expenses to get it here from California. Not to mention the storage fees at the mini storage. ARGH! The sale of these goods was not a moment too soon. We were in need of lot rent, and we weren’t sure where the next beer, I mean dollar, was coming from.

We slept in the van for a few weeks, including the parking lot of a local church, and at a boat launch on the river, just miles from the Conestoga campground. It was the end of the season and they were winterizing the park to remain closed for the winter, which meant that we needed to come up with the lot rent to be put back over at The River Pines RV Park until the trailer was paid for. They had already kicked everyone else out and we were left scrambling for the money to get in there even though they didn’t want us back in that park. Our leverage was that we still owed on the trailer and hadn’t defaulted. Jerry had no choice but to let us back in, and we didn’t have a choice either. We came up with the money byway of the yard sale just in the nick of time. Now, my only problem was getting the trailer ready for the cold and snow, which was coming fast. Having no help to do it was what made it difficult. It was the kind of job where you need five sober hands. Sandy only had one that was helpful.

Our second winter in the park was nice with heat. Bob and I began working together again, mostly due to the fact that everyone else who worked for him would soon quit after realizing that they couldn’t stand him long enough to get anything done that resembled work. Those that could stand him could only do so as long as alcohol was involved but since I am a father with lots of patience and a love for the trade, it could be done. The drinking helped too. Luckily I hadn’t shot him, only because Dale Earnhardt’s death had prevented him from returning in time for me to get the gun that I had the opportunity to buy. The man who had it had a deadline to board a plane for his new job and home in California.

Rundown

Anyway, let’s re-hash this. Thanksgiving I was working for Salih, soon to end. It wasn’t long before going back to work for Bob on the Kurt Moran development near the RV park, which only lasted two months due mostly to Bob’s level of maturity. This was while we were still at the River Pines campground. Quite a number of months went by before I would end up back to endure more of him for the money. Then I called Tom Bruin who was in over his head with the time frame of completing for the Parade, which would have been a hefty fine if it were not finished in time to make the deadline. The fine would not only be a monetary assessment but it would also deny him his eligibility for the next Parade of Homes. My mother helped me with some work that provided the money to pay my bills, like the lot rent. It was spring when we got the Jayco, and that summer is when I discovered Bob’s Home Builder signs on a road in the area that indicated the construction of homes for sale. What interested Bob was the Bruin drama stories. This Moran project started in the summer while at Conestoga after stumbling upon his home signs after Bruin.

The Moran projects kept me supplied with steady work for the time being. There were also the various projects that were going on in Bob’s shop, especially building the cabinet doors and drawers for cabinetry that went into the houses Bob was building in the area. Bob would continue to use me for his profits and pleasure, needing anything to avoid himself in conversations. He only continued to appear as though doing good things for the sake of his wife’s observance but when she was gone from the picture the hood came off and the horns came out, an acute and classic resemblance of a man with two faces.

He started me out on the ranch style homes he was cobbling together, where he “let me” put in a hardwood floor after having me help with the paint finishes. Little did I know he was just amusing himself by keeping me around while he fought his own demons and vented his frustrations onto me.

Sandy was constantly nagging me about helping, so I finally had an opportunity to bring her along on a project. The flooring product was real wood, a product that came prefinished. It was a beautiful looking product called “Dirty Maple.” It was three quarters of an inch thick by two and one-quarter inches wide, and of various lengths. It stretched from the front door to the staircase, throughout the kitchen, dining room, down one hallway into a laundry room, and down another hallway into a bathroom, where it met right up to the bathtub. This particular spot is where Vinyl should be placed. I remember it very well, not because I had to manufacture my own turn around strips due to Bob intentionally setting me up with stuff that was the wrong size in order to take my payout down on the installation but because of Sandy and her damned hiking boots.

Oh yeah, Sandy loved helping. On the day the job was finally completed, we were cleaning up and filling nails holes when I happened to notice a small dent in the wood floor. Bending down closer, I became horrified. Everywhere in an area of at least ten square feet were dents, gouges, and scratches in the finish. The replay of this area went through my mind. It was where Sandy was on her knees, racking together assortments of wood pieces for me to install. Her boots had these metal rings and eyelets riveted to the top of them. They were your typical hiking boots. She sat on her feet while working, gouging the flooring and carving long dents into the surface. There were no visible scratches at the time, hidden by the sawdust and scrap pieces on the floor, nothing to indicate that this was happening. My attention was focused on installing and cutting the end pieces to fit up to within a quarter of an inch of the wall in order to be trimmed out with the baseboard and shoe molding for the finish. Her and her footwear never occurred to be a possible problem to me. I was so pleased with having a project to make money on that it never occurred to me. The worst part of it was that it was a section of flooring right smack in the middle of the room. It was right in the middle of the entire field of work. I silently blew a gasket.

Taking a deep breath, I had to figure out how to handle the situation. Having a certain amount of confidence in being able to handle it or somehow hide it, I loaded up the van and took her back home, telling her that, since I was done and it was still early in the day, I had to go to the shop to help Bob with a few things, and submit my bill to get paid. It was a small lie but the intention was to not attack Sandy, which would have been explosive.

After getting the tools back out I realized that my work was really cut out for me this time. Now was the moment of truth, to see if I was cut out to repair it. Since Bob was a Dutchmen first and a carpenter last, he squeaked when he walked. There was only enough of the flooring material to do the whole job, calculating out where the wood would go next as the pile shrunk, saving him on carpeting or tile expenses. It was basically free flooring, having accumulated it from here and there from past projects. Luckily for me, I am an extremely conservative person when it comes to material handling. And since I was told there was just enough material to get through the job I had to be extra conscientious and methodical. I had managed to use the right pieces of flooring which took me quite a bit more time installing. After rounding all of the scrap up, there was just a little bit more than what I could use for a small fire. The wood I had put in the closets would just have to get pulled up, no big deal. The advantage I had was that my math skills were just two percent better than his, making me the only one who knew the truth.

It would have done no good to tell Sandy about it, and her helping fix it wouldn’t have made things better either. She had enough pain dealt to her in life, so I was just going to absorb this whole ordeal myself. It worried me to death that someone would show up while I was in the middle of it, namely, Bob. The end of hearing about it would never come if he did find out.

Sandy could never understand why she couldn’t just come along and help me on the jobs. I’d tell her, “It’s not about you, it’s about you not being covered by the liability insurance.” I would tell her, “The employer or contractor accepts the responsibility for certain people on the job. It’s not open to the public to come and watch.” I could never use enough tact to get her to understand that, or maybe she just refused to hear it so, I caved and brought her along anyway even though I’d catch a whole world of additional grief because of her. I was risking losing a job that I needed desperately but I couldn’t win either way I played it. This would seem true with every person I dealt with.

Grabbing a drill and a one and one quarter inch paddle bit, I strategically picked a spot in the floor and started drilling, while praying the whole time for Bob not to show up as I worked at the repair. My hammer and a chisel, along with a lot of hope helped to extract that first piece. I started drilling more holes, got out an extra hammer, placing the head in the hole, driving it out from where the piece was locked in with the other hammer. It was a bent over, drilling, chiseling, hammering task. I worked like a madman for a few hours, start to finish, all backside and elbows. It was one hundred square feet of flooring in total. Now there wasn’t anything left but sawdust and a couple of pieces with the ends cut off that I could throw on the fire pile.

Right next door to this project was one of the last games I played with Bob. While riding back from a project in Ada Township, Bob received a phone call. It was Ricky, his excavator, just a drunken buddy of his that was calling about when and where he was to deliver a load of fill sand. They laughed and giggled back and forth like a couple of juveniles- Beavis and Butthead come to mind. The conversation was very easily heard because the Nextel phone earpiece was audible and clear from where I sat in the van at the time. When Ricky asked who the “lucky guy” was going to be for their little game, Bob was quick to say that he sat right here, turning to look at me as he told Ricky to put the sand in the garage. When Bob hung up he told me he needed me to install the drainage tile around the footing and to place the sand in the basement according to preparation for the concrete to be poured for the floor slab. Naturally, I couldn’t back away from the job since I had to have the money to pay my bills. No one else was willing to work with me due to my injuries to my back, neck and head from the accident in September of 1997. Bob had me right where he wanted me.

Incidentally, Ricky owned the land that Bob was building the houses on. The land was cut up into parcels, which Bob had been buying with large amounts of money in cash. Bob had me ride along with him to make the money drop, which was done in a church parking lot, on the corner of 68 Avenue and Leonard Street, around nine p.m. that night. Bob flaunted the money in my face, having me count it out for him, as if I had never held that much money at one time. It was just another part of his constant head game he played with me. Ricky showed up there shortly after we did, handing over a small time capsule looking container that had a sort of combination lock thing that you had to twist to get it opened. It was a two quart sized unit that he buried in his yard somewhere.

So there I was the next day with little more than a utility knife and a shovel. There was no wheelbarrow and the sand was in the garage just as Bob had asked. To my surprise, this was located as far from where it needed to go as it could really get. The only thing farther would have been the hole it had come from. My task was to install the drain tile and take the sand from the garage, all the way around the back of the house, in through a window of the basement, to fill and level the area for the floor.

One issue that I had to deal with first was that the tile had to connect with the tile that was around the footing of the garage. I had to dig under the footing to locate it because it wasn’t sticking through the wall where it was supposed to be. This was very frustrating because as I dug, the earth from above (sand) was caving in on me as I tried to work, creating an hourglass affect like being buried in the sands of time. The sand kept coming and coming. It seemed like forever while I struggled with the ordeal. It occurred to me that this was how Bob had envisioned me getting the sand in the basement, by draining it from the garage like this. Surely it would drive me mad, as well as wreck my back, leaving me covered in filth. He had expected that Sandy would be with me, and that we’d both be tortured by the exercise but the joke was on him because I left her out of it entirely.

I got some boards and started fighting to get them into the hole to stop the sand from flowing, managing to buy myself enough relief to actually get the tile installed the way it is supposed to be. By the time I finished with the tile, the cement guys showed up to prepare the site for concrete delivery, remarking on the “idiots who put the fill sand in the garage”. I started to tell them something about it when they broke out the wheelbarrows and started moving it to where they needed it. I didn’t follow through with that comment because I had suffered enough humiliation. I didn’t need to risk their comments to further the degradation. They said they were a day early but were in the area with a little time to work with, so they decided to get an early start. This was all part of their job, not mine. The conversation between Bob and Ricky was still playing in my mind about where to put the sand. They were just two bullies planning a dastardly scheme of impossibility, placing me there under-tooled to break my back. I had driven myself mad trying, all the while knowing what they had conspired, and refusing to let a couple of cheats beat me. Here I was, a highly trained, and highly skilled tradesman, playing in the dirt for no reason but jealousy and hatred. This had been a job for three to four unskilled laborers. My stroke of luck was that the concrete guys arrived a day earlier than Bob had planned on. My guardian angels at work again?

In the meantime, Bob was on the north end of Grand Rapids, at the real job, installing decorative columns that I had built. His fear was that the builder would recognize who the real Finish Carpenter was, between the two of us. The builder was anxious to meet me but Bob wanted to keep me hidden from view, absorbing the credit for what I had been doing in the recent weeks, the main reason for his efforts at destroying me in my mind, destroying my confidence, the confidence that he wished he had. How sad it is to see the sicknesses of today’s men active. It was easy to imagine the conversation he was having, the same conversations I had heard from him so many times in the recent past of others, and the things he had done directly, and caused to be done, to them. He laughed while hiding his insecurities, reveling in duping the only guy that cared about life’s big picture enough to understand him, to forgive him, to fight back with kindness, while feeling sad for the love his wife must long to feel. Sandy and I would eventually catch him in his deception and lies, red-handed that next couple of days. I kept journals that have accumulated over the years. There are many things in them about my relationship with Bob, lying dog-eared in dark cubbies awaiting my reflection.

The tides and tune soon changed and I ended up working for my mom more often, once again needing to pay the lot rent and to make a trailer payment, and in need of a vehicle since my van had taken the toll of time and wear that I could not afford, especially after it was impounded by the Coopersville Police, whom had a hand in rendering it inoperable, which I found out when I tried to collect it from the impound yard. The van wouldn’t start or respond. I don’t know what they did to it but what they did do was make sure I wouldn’t be sleeping in it anywhere around their little village.

Mom had a house in Conklin that I had been working on for some time, earning myself a bit of money to cover my bills, and eventually giving me a truck that she had for sale. We would finish out the winter at River Pines, enduring a constant battering of the negative energy that started with our own. Mom agreed to help us get another lot at a campground somewhere else when we finally paid the trailer off, ending up at, the “Kozy Kountry Kampground,” north of Ravenna, just over the Muskegon border.

Sandy began working at a nursing home in Coopersville, where the staff would routinely help themselves to the drugs in the cart, and to the belongings of some of the residents. They would come in on their days off and say things like, “you don’t see me here.” We feared Sandy would be implicated when, and if, anyone ever caught on to what was going on there. We felt a felony drug charge always threatening her. She soon decided to quit after only working there about two or three months. Which was about how long we lasted at, the “Kozy Kountry Kampground.”

Sandy had taken the truck to work one day, leaving me there at the trailer with some beer. I am not sure that the place wasn’t haunted. It may even be located on sacred Native American burial grounds. At some point, I began running around the countryside gathering greens to cook up, since it was Springtime and there were plenty everywhere that could be picked. The park management caught sight of me and called my mother saying that I was looking like a crazy man and that he was getting complaints. She came out that night to have me pack up so we could pull out, taking the trailer to my mom’s property until we could find another place to take it.

Since I was already near the Conklin project, I would continue working there. Sandy decided that I had worked enough and demanded that I stop, saying that the truck was more than paid for, and that my mother was taking advantage of me. She would go with me, cleaning up around the living quarters my mom had occupied in the basement at that time, even though my mother told her to not mess with her things. It wasn’t long before Sandy found some magazines of Tom’s, titled “Barely Legal.” She went ballistic, shredding them and throwing the pieces all over the kitchen and sitting area, and screaming at me. We argued for several minutes before she jumped in the truck and left to go back to where the trailer was parked at my mother’s property in Marne.

We had no money to speak of, except for a food stamp card and the empty beer cans around the area. Wright Township, in Ottawa County had an ordinance that may still be effective to this day. It states that you cannot occupy a trailer without a permit, which no permits were being issued for such a dwelling situation. This is probably due to a couple of factors, one being the sewage, and two being that it degrades the surrounding community. The van was the only place we had to stay in that wouldn’t get my mother a fine. Sometimes we would sleep over at a friend’s house, or in parking lots in our van around the local area. One day, the van was impounded because we were busted for vagrancy, Sandy left on foot and I was sent to a shelter in Muskegon. It didn’t take long for me to decide that Muskegon and the shelter was not the right place for me to be, so I set off for very long walk back to Coopersville the very next day.

Sandy and I tried to get the van out of impound but we realized they had disabled it to where I could do nothing with it but leave it there to be scrapped out. My mother finally relinquished the truck to me because of it. That night Sandy and I stayed at the trailer, staying up late in the evening talking about what we were going to do. The next morning I got up and left her to rest a while longer because we had been up pretty late the night before. Quietly, I began sprucing the place up a bit while I waited for the day to begin for us. I took care of everything but for a radio I had sitting on a small storage cabinet. The plug was in the wall socket by the sink, which stretched across the hall from where the radio sat. When Sandy finally got up, she walked to the rear of the trailer to get fresh clothing, stepping over the cord. As she tried this maneuver her foot caught the cord, where she tripped and she fell face forward to the floor.

Still to this day, I can’t say why the plug didn’t just fall out of the wall or any number of things but I suppose it’s all relative to gravity, her footing and the dynamics of weight and balance, along with having slow reflexes. As she fell forward and went down, her arm caught the end of the bed, where a corner of it stuck out into the hall about four inches. I heard a pop sound of bone breaking. She lied there a moment and moaned, “Oh no! Oh no!” That was that. Her arm was broken. Helping her up from off of the floor I could see that, from her shoulder to her elbow, the upper part of her arm had an unusual curve to it. That forced me to immediately call mother because we had no gas or money for gas, and Sandy needed to get to the hospital.

What’s crazy is that we had been fighting for days. The biggest and most recent was over the magazines she had found near the microwave and coffee maker area, in a pile of other like-sized paper items. She went absolutely crazy when she saw them. See, it was her idea to help and clean up all of the time. It was her M.O. to spruce up the house she was at for people. She lacked the perception to take the hints from my mother, not to clean up her messes. And so, she found something that she wasn’t supposed to find. Tom was pretty angry about it, especially since he sold the books to his buddy when he was done with them. It was an effort to get the money back that he spent for them- money he definitely couldn’t afford at the time. He expected me to pay for them because of what Sandy had done. It was a few days after that blow-out, the morning that I drove her to the hospital, that I saw the words written in the dirt on the driver’s side of the windshield: “I Love Pussy Books.” My eyes couldn’t believe it and I wondered how many people might have seen it while I had been driving around to various places in the days between the incidences. I laugh out loud now but it wasn’t even on the same planet as funny when it happened. My mother still thinks I had something to do with breaking her arm.

Anyway, I took her to the emergency room and called Sandy’s son, Richard, only after I realized what they were going to do or not do, in order to get her the help that I was not able to coax them into giving her because of my inability to effectively or cordially, communicate in stressful situations since receiving my closed head injury. Ever since then I have a personality disorder that is aggressive and seemingly violent at times. It would only be about four or five days, after her arm became broken, before we would break up once and for all but that was only because on one of those nights I went to Danny’s loft to sleep on the couch instead of sleeping out in the truck on the street-side in front of the Butterworth Hospital. When I went to the hospital with booze on my breath, boy, was she angry. After explaining that I had stayed at Danny’s, she was even more irate because I might have been doing some greater wrong, like playing music or just drinking without her.

From the first night at the hospital, there was a possessiveness that I had failed to see fully until then. She wanted me to stay with her in the room, which was not an issue for me to do at all. It was the medical staff in her area that asked me to leave, saying, “It’s just a broken arm,” so I went out to the truck and slept nights. After a few of these nights of sleeping in the cab of the truck, I paid the price in pain, not to mention meter fees. My lower back and neck proved to need surgery once I resumed going to doctors a few years later, and little did I know, I was leaking spinal fluid the whole time.

On one of the first nights, I ran into Danny at a liquor store. He was on his way to go back to his studio at the loft in the Gezon Building. This warehouse was only a mile and a half from the hospital that Sandy was at. The hospital was on Michigan Avenue, and the warehouse building was on Plainfield Avenue by the Flying Bridge Fish Market. It was the old Gezon building that Sandy and I had done the late night emergency repairs in. It is amazing that we didn’t run into Danny there that night we fixed the doors. Danny and I talked and drank, laughed, and did some art works, played a little music, listened to some tunes, smoked a puff of grass, and that was where I stayed after that. Unfortunately much to Sandy’s disapproval. Or was it unfortunate?

Danny and I were very close friends. Out of all of the things that happened to me, and out of all of the situations, and people that I became acquainted with and went through in life, Danny was the gem of them all. He would prove to be the one person that I would end up recognizing and give full credit to for my getting my life back to belonging to me, that is, if it ever did.

When Sandy got out of the hospital, I took her to Danny’s place to see for her self. Of course, all she could see was an orgy going on, as if it was a pad of male sirens luring women in with advertisements that “we could be had”, as Sandy would put it. She went right to her son’s house for a place to stay that day. The agreement was made between them that there would “be no more Zach.” That was fine with me since I now hated, loathed, and even despised going out in public with her, only to be accused of looking at other women. I had to be drooling over them. They were there! And she always said so, so it had to be true. It was only too much time wasted before I realized how truly jealous, insecure and paranoid she was. Yeah, if there was a woman within view, I was looking. Funny thing is, out of all the grief I dealt with, I felt sorry for her and women everywhere who had been abused and neglected so badly, starting with their own fathers in their infancies, that they didn’t know how to respond when someone was genuine and earnest. They become so accustom to getting stepped upon that they are always ready for it. And if they don’t actually see it, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It’s always there. I wanted to take all of these people into my arms and show them that LOVE is REAL. It hurts me to see people bare the scars of abuse. It goaded me and fueled my thirst, a thirst that was already overwhelmed with the fuel from my own pains that were much the same, with the same scars that go unseen by the untrained eye and the untrained conscience.

She and I would continue to speak for a little while in between working and living at my mom’s house in Conklin, where I slept in an old camper van that she had in the backyard. It had belonged to my Uncle Bill and Aunt Bernice. It was full of bees but I stayed in it anyway, with my wolf/German Sheppard mix, Dusty, accompanying me. This went on through the Autumn season.

I only remember because one night I was going to the Pit Stop bar for Karaoke but I was going too fast and didn’t see the stop sign coming, missing my chance to stop. The road didn’t go through so there was only the left and right to turn on. My wheels locked up on the slippery surface, sliding through the intersection and ending up stuck head first in the ditch. It was a long walk back to Toms hog farm, where I had just been at, but he came up with his truck to pull me out. What we realized was that the ditch I was in was too deep, leaving only the tail end of the truck sticking almost straight up. He had to go back to the barn to get his tractor.

Sandy had wanted me to give her the truck after she burned a bunch of important things in her friend’s backyard while staying there for a few days. One of these things was the title to the trailer that we had just paid off. She would fight me over my meds, trying to use them for herself. She would fight with me about my mother. She would fight with me about everything, breaking CD's that I liked or smashing things that were sentimental. Hindsight, too foolish to see that a woman scorned has no hope or seems not to, that is until she can get over it. Unfortunately, there are some things that people never get over. You would have to know what being scorned truly is to understand.

We all get robbed in a way, especially robbed by someone who is close to us, but we forgive him or her anyway, for ourselves. It’s the only way we can carry on, fulfilling our obligations to those who are entitled to them, our loved ones. The constant reminders of being victimized by my ex-wife, coupled with the loss of my own family, my identity, my business and my manhood, was the main source of fuel for the vehicle that slowly carried me toward complete destruction- a final release that I miserably sought for subconsciously one drink at a time.

The words of my ex-wife would, and sometimes still, echo in my head like a movie that I am being forced to watch. Visions of her and our children bombard me. Little did I realize it was part of my medical condition, Frontal Lobe Syndrome, compounded trauma, P.T.S.D.- shell-shocked. My days would come and go, unknown to me. I rarely know what day it is or what time it is. My life is sometimes a blur and I am a madman. Some one should have hospitalized me. Alcohol was the only medication readily available. It was as if I was a Marionette. I had little to no control of anything. Food had been, and still sometimes is, of no concern. Bathing and grooming were and still sometimes are of little or no concern. My only concerns were tobacco and alcohol, and weed if I could manage them. I didn’t drink to get high. I drank to die.

Although I couldn’t outright bring myself to die in the here and now, it was all I could hope for because all hope seemed to be lost. My soul was crying nonstop, and I had no one to cling to, no one to call, and no one who would take time to care, except for Danny, when I finally relocated him. That was how I got involved with the people who lurked in the shadows, people who panhandled for change and cigarettes, outside of the college crowd bars, in Eastown, Michigan. This bar area was where I ran to when Mindy announced her plans. These people and their demons latched onto me in their ways. The trials and tribulations of my life that would pose the biggest challenge to my evolving as an individual, and pose the biggest threats to my life, began here, at that point in Eastown, when Minderella destroyed my home, my family, and the futures of my children as they were becoming in that reality that I helped to largely shape.

This trip I went on was a long strange trip, to say the least. I can only describe it at that moment as a round trip that started on Earth and went to the far edges of space to every galaxy at the speed of light. It was extreme misery, a broken heart and failure that never would look away, staring me in the face like a showdown. I pulled the trigger and watched as the bullet hung there before me, taking lifetimes to reach me in order to pierce my heart, so I ran toward it. And it seemed the faster I ran toward it, the longer it took. It was as if it only got further away as I tried to get closer to an end to my life, laughing as it evaded me. Imprisoned in this new reality, nothing could ever really hurt me further. I was mesmerized by it. It would be, what felt like, a lifetime to get through but would only seem as a blink of an eye in my past. It proved that I was not meant to die yet but what was I alive for? I smoked tobacco because I was nervous, and used pot because of my nightmares and anxiety. I consumed copious amounts of alcohol because I was miserable with pains- my back, my teeth, and in my heart and my soul. I used it all to make me feel better, to feel better until I could be dead. And then I found Danny but I’ll get to that.

Celebration on the Grand was being advertised on WLAV FM, which was my favorite classic rock station. It was on in my truck when I drove and in my area of control where ever I worked at most days. I heard it while working at Permalife as a mold and pattern maker for, Randy Bouma, cousin to Doug Bouma- the guy who had a hand in black balling me from area employment after my accident. Doug was the developer I had most recently worked for as a subcontractor, installing the Finish Carpentry in residential homes throughout the region. Maybe it was all a freak accident that I was struck by that Semi or maybe it was part of my destiny. If I had only waited for another day and time to give my friend and band mate, Ron Vokes, window replacement estimates on his house maybe this wouldn’t have happened to me but I did not. That would have changed the events that would end up robbing me of my health, home, family and livelihood. The head injury that was sustained had altered my perception and my life, and would directly affect my ability to run my business, contaminating my business relationships that I had been maintaining. All of my relationships changed but I saw nothing better on the horizon. Was I meant to rebuild for something better? My Destiny?

Shortly after the accident on the highway I would be “phased out” and “blackballed,” destroying my opportunities almost completely. Coincidentally, Randy was one of the only people to respond to my resume. He was the only person to offer employment but without proper medical services being provided, there would be no recognition made of the extent of those injuries that lie under the surface, yet to reveal themselves to the layman or victim- those around me and myself. The whole ball of twine, that was my life, unraveled into a big knotted up mess that I would spend the next fourteen years trying desperately to unravel and salvage. The pile that lay at my feet only grew as memories, bits and pieces. And almost all of the mess was lost in the panic to salvage my past, present, and what would become my future.

One of the many dreams about the damage sustained was of my performing a sort of brain surgery on myself. With a few mirrors and minimum tools, I cut the top of my skull off and attached hinges. There was not a brain but a pair of Reel-to-Reel tapes, like the guts of two VHS tapes standing side by side. The reels were off of their axis points and jostled from their placement, and the tape was in a big birds nested wad, like a messed up fishing reel or something. I tried and tried to unravel it but it was otiose. Eventually I admitted defeat and cut out the knots. My concerns were of all of the knowledge and memories I had lost- the extent of it is still being revealed as I remember bits of that which I cannot restore. The flip-top head image comes to mind a lot. That must have registered first after my repairs to the recording device that I attempted in my dream. It was, what I think was, Randy’s pity on me that gained me the opportunity in his corporation. Except for the seriously dry and dusty shop atmosphere, it was here, where I would gain a real friend, a gift that would be of great value later on when I was nearer to finished and ready to give up entirely.

Everyone was genuinely friendly to me at Permalife. I liked them a lot and had a pretty good understanding of them all, for the most part. We were a family. And as a family does, I would tell them all about the family I had of my own- the kids, wife and dog. Well, they were all sitting there with me, on break. We were talking and smiling, and happy. Just then, she comes walking or marching rather, Cody and Scarlett with her- Scarlett in her arms. “Where’s your check?” she demanded. Silence came down hard in the break room. My co-workers were quick to conceal their discomfort by trying to go about their business making it look as though they weren’t embarrassed for me- to have to observe this woman I was just now bragging about how fortunate I was to have in my life. I was so naive, failing to see what was so clear to everyone else but I bought the tickets to dinner at the Celebration on the Grand over the phone anyway, without a second thought.

We meandered around the downtown area, seeing the variety and taking in the atmosphere. The band played on at Rosa Parks Circle, where Mindy said that there was something she needed to tell me. I went into shock as the message was given, six years too late. She needed to tell me that she didn’t want to be married. She was given the choice immediately when she learned of the pregnancy but now she makes the announcement- at a celebration, of all places. Shock took over as it sunk in. Now she gets to change her mind? Well, it wasn’t clear what she meant, and I am not 100 percent sure that I wasn’t happy. She had to be joking, I thought. She couldn’t possibly think of leaving me now. The part that bothered me, apart from her complaining about the fine establishment that the reservations were made for, and the patrons that dined there, not to mention that I spent my last five dollars on a cocktail for her and not myself, was that later she clarified that the scenario was that she was simply removing me from the family entirely- not that she just wanted a divorce. My kids, my wife and all of my household and everything in it, except for the dog, which was all I got besides my clothing and personal items. It was all gone for what I would later find out was another man that she had met in an A.O.L. chat room. What a kick in the teeth! I don’t believe I ever got over the reality of that humiliation. Never has she apologized for what she has done- to me, to my family, to our children- to Cody. I needed her to oversee the situation with the attorney involved in the lawsuit against the trucking company, who happened to be a friend of her family. I needed to coordinate my medical needs, which were my going to speech pathologists and physical therapists, as well as seeing the joke of a Family Practitioner that Blodgett referred me to- Dr. Mervyn Smith. Heartbreaking is only the introduction to the lengthy description for what it was and still is. And although I am in a much better place now, and finally happier, a recognition or admission would, at least, salve the wounds that re-open every time I am forced to see the damages in my only son or in all three of my children.

No wonder she made the announcement in a place so public. She obviously feared my reaction, and rightly so. There are some who insist I should have beaten her a bit, earlier on in the relationship. The problem with that is, when a person grows up with having to choke back on their anger for so long, it may become such a violent rage that it might not be controllable. It might not be something that you can stop. I never wanted to see what my rage could become, and therefore kept it locked down tight for the fear that someone could be severely hurt or even killed. How’s that for reality- knowing that you are in total control of something so volatile and potentially deadly. That’s the mark of a real man, in my opinion.

I bawled for months at the emasculating effect of her raping my heart- my home. It got so bad that she decided we couldn’t just stay together in the same house, pretending that everything was normal while she got up the nerve to throw herself at this man who wasn’t man enough to go out in public to win the affections of a woman, let’s say- at the grocery store. How could a person put stock into someone who hasn’t the morals enough to think twice about messing around and violating someone’s marriage? These people are cowards cloaking themselves in a digital age. When would he show his face? To this very day, he has not.

Before she moved out she spent “our” money, going on a trip to South Carolina, as well as throughout the Gulf coast. This included attending a Lollapalooza Festival in Muskegon. I wasn’t invited on the getaway even though it was my life that had been severely disrupted, and myself who truly needed the break. My offspring were taken from me to her parent’s house, to stay with them until she returned home. She had went all over town buying things at stores, where she used my name to open up lines of credit so she could stock up on “thneeds” for her new residence plans.

When she came home from her trip, boy, was I dumb, helping her with her luggage while noticing she had smacked up the Plymouth Voyager that she had forced me to buy in order for us to go to a Thanksgiving Day gathering with my family in Bay City, instead of pooling in with my mother or sisters. She just blew off the damage as no big deal. I was overwhelmed with the feeling to look inside the suitcase before I even got to the door of the house. Hoping to find a souvenir t-shirt saying something to the affect of, “My wife went to… and I got was this stupid t-shirt,” but what I found was a red lace Teddy that I had purchased for her at Victoria Secret on some Hallmark Holiday. I commented about it, saying that I thought it was odd to need a piece of extremely sexy lingerie for a solo trip to clear her head. She turned white as she tried to back-peddle. And even though I didn’t have the mental faculties to understand it, denying she would do such a thing to me, it slowly sank in. I became a bit hostile, asking why she needed this item, turning to her girlfriend, Mariah Schwallier, whom had accompanied her to the music festival. I asked Mariah to tell me what was going on. Silence slammed down hard as Mindy stomped around in a somewhat silent fit of rage, taking things from the house and placing them in the van, so she could go stay with her parents. She asked her friend to help saying that she thought it would be best for her and our children to go stay “somewhere else”. She would now be staying in her mom and dad’s lower level- the new phrase at that time for the basement. Mindy commented that they could live there comfortably, meaning more free from guilt.

Very soon after she went there to stay, Mindy’s father, Marc, asked me if I would finish his basement. I began working there in the evenings and on weekends. The work totaled four grand in value but I did it for free. It was a duel purpose- making it an affective way to see my kids, and get in her space in an attempt to resolve things between us. The idea was to save our marriage but there was nothing to save since her heart had never been in it and I had known that truth for some time.

My sobriety had started and ended with her, having quit drinking to marry her after learning of her pregnancy. When she announced that she wanted a divorce my comment was simply, “I guess that means you won’t mind me having a beer then.” That moment I went right to Mulligan’s Pub, in Eastown. Even still, I was a glutton for punishment. Maybe it was from being beaten regularly as a child. Who knows but I have a feeling that I would have outright killed her, had I not always been accustom to grief and pain. Sometimes I catch myself wondering how long I would have spent in prison for ridding myself of her for real.

Chapter

Charles Fizer and I got along really well. We respected each other and became friends quickly, while working together at PermaLife Incorporated. He was with me in the beginning of the end, and he’s with me in the beginning of the new ending. He has seen my worst and he knows my best. And I am one of the few people who him and his wife Candice welcome in their home. It would be his friendship that would keep me going when I was at my worst. Without Charles, I would find no one, and anyone that may have been there to help was impossible for me to reach. It wouldn’t be long before I would end up at my mother’s after Mindy left.

The decision to quit my job at Permalife Incorporated was made at Christmas time. The funny thing about that Christmas- the gift-giving season, was that the next shock came directly from my Father-in-law whom claimed to have begged Mindy not to go through with the divorce. Only, his motives of seeming support were resting on a fact that I now learned, and that was that I was actually renting the house at 738 Rosewood from him, when I was under the impression that he helped me buy it. He was taking a profit from ME, taking away from my efforts, so that he could reduce his own house payment by combining two homes on one mortgage. I tallied him onto my mental list, my “ridding” pile. My mother would later tell me about Marc offering to buy her a saddle for her horse, and of his desire to wear it while she helped him entertain his fecal fetish.

So I ended up at my mom’s for a while, along with Stan, her worthless man-ling. Stan had been recently fired from the Post Office. His error was his mentality. Not everyone is employable. He constantly proved that. One particular day, Stan took it upon himself to lighten his mailbag the most effective way he could think of, which was by throwing the bulk mail in the trash dumpster behind a McDonald’s. Incidentally, the bulk mail in particularly happened to be the Advo-system cards that have an advertisement on one side and a missing child alert on the other, of all of the things for a person to throw away, especially a parent. An employee of McDonald’s had found the mail when they took out the trash. Man, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall that day! And how often was he doing this?

Stan had a trucking company now, resurrected from one of his earlier home-based business ventures. The transport service was called “Top-Trans”. The irony of that was that he was as close to the bottom as you could get. Rarely could he find work. Nobody could work with him, and nobody could work for him. Anyone that had hired him in the past wouldn’t even consider hiring him again. And that was just sub-contract work. At one time he convinced some poor woman into marriage and breeding with him but that ended with tragedy as a result of his travesty of a contribution as a husband and a father. This young lady tragically left him; killing the children and her self out of the sheer misery he introduced and kept them in.

Our yard often smoldered in spots where Stanley had burned the material possessions that once belonged to his wife and children but that was just because he didn’t want anyone else to have them, especially the very people he was robbing and cheating in everyway he possibly could at that moment in time. If he wasn’t burning things, he was chain smoking on the computer twenty-four hours a day in a room that he took over and controlled in the house, even though my mother didn’t smoke or allow it in her house or around her, especially since her father had passed away from lung cancer. When Stan wasn’t doing that, he was filling the property with pure junk at the immediate expense of my mother. It caused property devaluation and numerous complaints along with fines and harassment from the Wright Township office. When he had idle time on his sick hands, he was running the washer and drier with nothing in them, and flushing cigarette butts down the toilet in his campaign to ruin the appliances, cost excessive electricity use, ruin the septic system and dry up the well. I really can’t help but wonder what it would have taken to rid the world of him too.

How fortunate for all of these individuals that I am not a murderer. It would have been nothing to kill them but for my own principles, and added the misery that would occupy me further with my own destruction. They would lock me up and throw away the key if they knew how angry I could have easily justified being. For I know what the taste of blood is. And I have been licking my wounds everyday of my life. Now, let me tell you, no prison will ever compare to the prison that a child learns to live in without the inherent affections and nurturing that they didn’t ask to be here on Earth to have the need for.

It’s a curiosity I have. Was he was taking shots at my mother for his ex-wife’s actions? Was he punishing her for the sake of making her suffer as he felt he had or was???

Strength is often, if not almost always, misunderstood. The strength that it truly takes to be able to deal with these situations, and the memories- to control the bridle and bit on the beast of pain that runs rampant in the heart and mind, always needing to be channeled, giving energy to art. Giving life to the art that I am living or dying to share. Funny thing is, I go back and forth from wanting to share something with the world, to wanting the world to have nothing. That the world in general does not deserve it but I tell myself that some forms of life on this planet exhaust themselves to give life to just one. If I can just give to one, other than myself, it will be worth the effort to catalogue things but even if I reach out to no one- in the end, at least I found something more to live for, while making myself happy by venting to conquer my pains.

It has been said, (and I am not sure by whom), that he who laughs the loudest on the outside cries hardest on the inside. I have lived, and have to agree this to be mostly truth, for I have, literally, been in hysterics since the seeming subsidence of one of my earlier traumas. So many people are in a state of hysteria. Along with the attempts at taking the intentional risks that may cause death to a child, my stepfather invested a lot of time in terrorizing us, especially me. I was often called an assortment of names, not in fun, like “turtle-neck” and “pout face” since I can ever remember, only to have Scoot and Scooter added to a list that would grow over the years. That particular name started when I was learning to read and write, and had been so foolish not to save such an expensive vowel for if I was ever on Wheel of Fortune. My demonstration of what we were learning yielded the misspelling of my middle name. I would be taunted with this up until I was fifteen, coincidentally when he left. The hysterics part started in late seventy-four when he took us to Six Flags over Atlanta Georgia, to see Jaws. He always loved to frighten us, genuinely frighten us. Another strange coincidence is my current wife, Jenny, was also traumatized by this film- only it wasn’t intentional. When the diver picked the tooth out of the hole in the hull of the sunken boat, and the decapitated head of a crewmember rolled out, I went into shock- hysterical, uncontrollable fits of screaming and laughter. We were eventually ushered out of the theater when it was evident that I wasn’t going to calm down. I would be maliciously reminded for a long time to come, that I pissed myself as well. My childhood from then on (because I only remember the lights on the ceiling from the day I was born) was none, to very small bits and pieces. Most of the very few memories I have were mere moments like walking the shores of Georgia’s Blue Ridge Lake, finding line and fishing lures among the rocks. My hopes were to find one with a big fish on the end of one. Another was of playing with my sister at our Aunts hair salon, spending time in the pet store downstairs. The smell of cedar bedding is still in my nose. Everything else has always been a blur- blacked out, though my wet sheets would be a reminder of the damage, and would remain a topic to be tormented with well into my teens.

Stan’s Scandal

Now with Stan, he had his own way of protesting my existence, as if he wasn’t busy enough with his own tantrums. After I found refuge at moms, he would do what he could to interrupt my efforts there. Like when I built stalls for the horses because they were standing in a seeping sewage swamp secreted silently in their stays.

The “office” addition in the shop end of the double length pole barn, that my mom had built so she could live in it, needed to be finished. Her hopes were that Stan would then move out entirely, as he had threatened to do if that was where she intended to move their domicile, only then to rent out the house that they had been living in, to someone who would actually pay her rent money. She wouldn’t just tell him to get out because of the intimidation he used against her, like some prison tactic at running things, taking over the house and using her for all she was worth. She had hopes of a clean break. The drywall needed to be hung, mudded and finished, flooring needed to be laid, and tongue and groove pine was to be installed to finish the ceilings.

While this was going on, Stan began a new hobby of nonchalantly taking the tools one at a time and using me as the scapegoat, partly in his attempt to stop her from proceeding with her plan. He had a semi trailer on our property where he’d place his treasures under lock and key. As I think about it now, his plan must have also been for new tools, to replace what he felt was missing from his own collection. These tools Stan collected and swapped as he felt like it. Viola! The tools would reappear but their replacements would disappear. “Where did that come from?” My mom would ask. “It’s been missing for weeks. Hey, wait a minute, now I can‘t find the saw I just bought!” What a sorry little man.

It was otherwise a beautiful day when I witnessed his abuse of my mother, finally in real time- yelling at my mother, telling her how stupid she was because he sent het to the auto parts store without enough information to get him whatever it was that he was making her buy, which was usually something senseless like nice clean plastic tubing that slips onto wiring because the stuff under the hood of his Semi had dust on it. Stan Johnson, living dead. Where is a real-time smiting when it’s needed?

One morning I awoke, from the area where I slept on the floor of the living room, to find that Stan was sitting in the room with a rifle or shotgun of some kind, while entertaining the idea of killing me. I realize that, to an outside critic, I could be mistaken but there was no cleaning kit odor in the house, and he had never been seen at anytime with, nor did I have any clue that he ever had any guns. All of this, not to mention that it was “out of his area.” It would be like he left it lay in the yard. Couple these deductions with the gift of clairvoyance. He also had a small hydraulic rowing machine that he was using to build up his strength. It was obvious that he was working up to something. I am not mistaken, later learning of his intentions from the messenger- my mother.

The final motivating factor in Stan wanting to kill me may have been due to my having taken one of my mother’s cars out the night before- drinking and smoking crack cocaine with Muddy Water’s Niece, Hope. Then, on the way home, smacking the Ford Festiva up a bit. My control of the vehicle was lost when exiting from the west bound highway, I-96, at the Marne exit. The exit has a very short and compact curve where I ended up too wide on the turn, and off of the road, taking out the road sign that indicated a train crossing ahead. The signage must have ripped a hole in the gas tank. I might have misjudged the distance and lost focus on my speed accordingly. Go figure.

I had recently gained employment at 84 Lumber. By taking the train tracks in Marne, I could get to the job fairly easily since it was just off of the tracks near Sand Creek. That was where I set up camp to live for a while- hoping to save some money to get back on track with. This was a great spot because it was very close to my new job, making it easy to walk to work. Camp was right off of the train tracks, and right on the edge of the creek, where I would refrigerate my beer- making a rocky enclosure in the water to hold it from being swept away by the current. There was a felled tree right there that was over two feet wide in diameter, and suspended up off of the ground by it’s root structure about three feet. This made for a pretty good shelter.

One night, in the fall, I had been at the old Silo Gopher bar, now called the Pit Stop Bar, where I probably drank five pitchers of Killian’s Red beer. Rinaldi’s sub shop was across the street, making it a great dinner option for around four and a half bucks for a beef and cheese steak sub. I went over and made the order and then went back to the bar to drink until it was ready. Well, I made it back to the camp with my food, almost.

It was not so moonlit that night when causing me to take the wrong trail to my camp, the one closest to the edge of the creek, where it ran along close to the edge of the muddy bank. I slipped in the mud and darkness and fell in. The water must have been five or six feet deep. The new blue jean pants I was carrying when I fell in were never found when went back the next day on a salvage mission, thinking I threw them up on the bank before I climbed out of the frigid water. Instantly sobered right up, I made the best decision I could at that moment. My feet started marching the train tracks towards my friend Jimmy’s parent’s house, eating my sub sandwich along the way. As I ate it, I appreciated how well they wrap them up because it was perfect. It didn’t get wet at all and was still hot as I ate it, contributing to fighting off hypothermia. Jimmy’s parents house was a bit of a safe haven for me, so I knew I could go there in an emergency, which I felt this was. He was one of my only friends I had, beginning in 1980, and going our separate ways because of his wife, Glenda Palmer, and their lifestyle, around 1990- more or less. We continued to associate from time to time until 2003, which is the last time I ever spoke to him. This was secondary to Glenda but primarily because of Jimmy’s cocaine addiction.

When I got there they let me in, where I immediately stripped out of my wet clothes and passed out in a chair wearing a big bath towel. The next day I awoke to being sounded about sleeping naked in a recliner chair. Apparently Jimmy’s sister Carol and her husband lived there with their daughter of about ten years of age. That was when realized my mind reading ability must have been shorted out when I got submerged in the creek. My clothes were dry so I dressed and left without reminding them I had nothing else to wear.

I started off to go to work, where I would eventually be invited to stay at a co-workers place. He and his girlfriend lived on the west side of Grand Rapids. I cannot recall her by name, oh wait- it’s Laura. Her name was Laura Larson, and she had a son with this guy, which was about five years old. At one point in the relationship, they had broken up. She went away, met another man, who was from Brazil, and ended up pregnant with another child- a girl. It was this little girl that stayed in the bedroom that was in the front of the house, in the first room on the right as you walked up to the front door. The room had a couple windows, one facing the road, the other facing the neighbor’s house to the south. These windows were extremely messed up, to say the least. They covered in, what looked like mud or brown paint. I soon learned about this room where the “man” had been keeping a bulldog puppy of sorts, and a lot of other information that was, to me, pertinent to the welfare of this child. It would be several days to a week before I would digest it all. And I’m not convinced I wasn’t supposed to be there to help the child- sent by angels to save her life, I am sure. Was this a test of my ability to care for others, while still dealing with my own misery?

The smell that came from that room was terrible and would keep me out of it until I had a better understanding of what that room was, and what it meant. When I learned that the child was sleeping in there, knowing it was also used as the dog’s room, I really started working towards finding a solution.

Matt was unabashed about my witnessing his dog training techniques- holding the dog with one hand by the back feet, while smacking the Dog about the face. He would explain that he was trying to turn the dog into a vicious fighting dog. A visualization of the scenario flashed in my head several times afterwards: the dog and child being placed together in hopes that it would kill her. It would appear as if it was only a room the dog was left in routinely, and the child had accidentally gone in there to play with it. It would not appear as though it was also being used as the child’s room. It would look like she wanted to play in there with the puppy. It’s amazing that she didn’t die from the fecal contamination! There was a small piece of foam rubber that resembled a crib mattress. It was heavily soiled in feces. Poop was smeared and caked on all walls, doors, and window surfaces four feet up everywhere.

In the meantime, the manling was getting his paycheck cashed and getting the word STRIFE tattooed across his upper back with what little money he had left after his steady diet of Coca-Cola and fast food. He was intentionally torturing this little girl, and tormenting the household, mostly because he wasn’t man enough to accept his failures at being able to maintain and contribute to a household or to correct his mistakes and actuate his future, his destiny- or what seemed to be his fate. He was angry at her for who knows how many selfish reasons but the most important issue was over her bringing another child, from another lover she became acquainted with after their break-up, into the scenario when he finally decided he wanted to try again or to use her again or when she decided. Either way… an attempt at salvaging what they once had as a couple for the sake of the children or their son or so it would appear.

We call them sore losers where I come from. And as for the mom, Laura, it’s a sad day when a woman is so emotionally crippled, and lacking in confidence, and self-esteem because of the nurturing deficiencies in her up-bringing and relationships, that she fails in her responsibilities by getting knocked up regardless if she has the means to care for an additional child. Man, he was, in Earthly form but this manling was just a piece of filth that hadn’t yet found his calling as a prison inmate.

Strange, just as the feces smeared all over the room, he was smeared all over those children and their mother’s life. Her starvation for attention and affection was what would lead her to briefly throw herself at my feet, and that was when my foothold to motivate her to change the situation took place. With my influence, and mentioning the child protective authorities coming and taking her kids, she would walk into that disaster to face it head on, as far as the “living condition” and the dog being housed in the same room. The situation with the manling would be a whole ’nother battle that she would have to deal with entirely on her own. As I think about it now, I had an opportunity to have him arrested for negligence and abuse, at the least, but I didn’t have the hate or anger or maybe the ability to call the police, of all people, or the comprehension of the dynamics or to understand the big picture. What I did know was that this child’s living situation had to be addressed immediately.

Whether she left or he left, I do not know but I think they did end up splitting up completely. It’s too bad it didn’t happen before the manling allowed his iguana to bite their son’s nose off. This animal had no cage, sometimes also being kept in the little girl’s room. This creature was left free to roam around the house. Their son’s nose had to be sewn back on. It was a nasty scar left on his face, and something he has to look at and relive for the rest of his life.

This Iguana was large, which over four feet, in my limited education, is large for an iguana. I ended up proving that it was never taken care of and was “misplaced.” Later, it was found somewhere in the walls of the house, where it died. It must have been a nice surprise for their landlord the day that he found it.

My west-side adventure at Matt and Laura’s hovel was what led me to find Matt and Sara. One day I decided to try to buy a used guitar from anyone I could find one. For some reason I began lurking around the payphone outside of Edzu’s Liquor Store, where I’d inquire to customers who looked like they might be artists or musicians. Surely, this was an effort I thought would put a wedge in between my drinking and my occasional crack cocaine use but it was more mysterious feeling than that. I likened the experience to Salmon returning to spawn or a Mariposa Monarch on its journey to Mexico, taking three lives to get there, and three more to get back; a true wonder of the world. It was a force that had been trying to guide me to something in my life since I was a child. I have always been, well, stubborn, I guess. I have always done everything the hardest way possible- blazing my own foolish trail in life it seems. Destined to get there but taking the long, scenic route. I don’t recommend that for regular everyday people, the psychiatrist would probably just say, “it’s remarkable,” which doesn’t generally interpret to a good thing, by the way.

It’s a coin toss, supernatural or chance. Either way, this was what led me to Matt and Sara, beginning our relationship as friends, and giving me another shot at learning something in life. This would be about the time, at a Dairy Queen on the corner that I would get to see my kids for the first time since she took them away from me. Luckily these children of mine were not at the John Ball Zoo when the manling Laura was with put a rope out for the monkeys, which found their way out of the pit-style containment, only to attack people and children. One was bitten repeatedly about the face and head. Matt was never caught or turned in but he boasted to me about this “feat”, admitting how he did it- tying a length of rope to the picnic tables along a fence lined area that overlooked the pit, directing the loose end into the area within reach of the monkeys. He also bragged about some other crimes involving a sawed off shot-gun but guys like him speak of so much in their efforts to fit into their ego suits that you really can’t believe one word they say. Strife, ironically enough, will be a large part of this manlings existence, which will, more than likely, prove to reward him for the rest of his life, just as he deserves. Maybe you’d call it Karma, and the reward would be Strife. My hope is for someone wise enough to recognize, in his errors, as well as my own, lessons for themselves. Necessary Evil, as they say.

The world is small, so I am sure the future will produce Ms. Larson and her children eventually. Maybe I will be able to see some good I have done for someone else, in them. It would be reassuring, and reinforce my faith in humanity, which I sometimes desperately need.

As for my relationship with Matt and Sara Howell, they were steady consumers of beer and weed but I am certain that the beer was a substitute for her coke habit and it just became an everyday thing for them. Eventually, Matt would discover a love for fishing that would pull him away from alcohol, which was a minute Demon compared to this woman he so naively called his wife.

Sara was a shock-jock. She covered herself in tattoos and wore very suggestive and revealing clothing-like items as an everyday thing to go out in public wearing. These were things you would come to find in a Fredericks of Hollywood catalogue. She did anything and everything for attention. The Bistro BellaVita, where she worked as a head chef, is a very high-end pretentious joint. How did she get the job? My guess is that the owner was bored and thought it was a disaster in the making that would earn him some kind of notoriety or social report with his fellow business owners down at the Chamber of Commerce, by way of the conversation piece that she insisted on making her self.

Sara’s co-workers would come in on their days off just to see what she was wearing. Don’t take this wrong; she was an accomplished culinary artist with some kind of credentials from a place that I cannot recall. She would design the daily specials herself. Once, that I know of, she sent a busboy to pick crabapples for the days dessert special, from a tree she passed on her way to work that particular day. She was very creative, a character of her own- mostly.

Sara was a person whom had some things she kept secret, like her attempts at Witchcraft. She was the first person to try using it on me, that I know of, and was just the beginning of what would resemble a list of people. At one point, Matt went out of town for something, asking me to stay with his wife and animals while he was away for fear of her coke addiction causing some great controversy of sorts. They had regular menagerie in their home- dogs, cats, fish, lizards, snakes, turtles, and birds… I don’t remember what else. The next thing I know, Maynard, from the band Tool, shows up on the first or second day. We drink, smoked and hung out. Sara and I noticed him, at one point, peeling the Blue Pearl/Nag Champak from its bamboo incense stick form, balling it up into little marbles, where he sat on the couch. She asked him what he was doing to her incense, and why. His response was only that he was going to sell it for “gank”, so he could buy some dope of some kind. I assumed he meant crack but I think it was heroine, specifically. I never saw him face to face after that day but the recordings keep coming out.

The next night an old friend that she used to do coke with stopped by, bringing some synthetic coke for her to try. She must have called him, asking him to drop by. Never had I met the guy before, or heard of him in conversation in the many months we had spent together. Myself, having been clean for some time now, gave in to temptation. Synthetic coke sparked my curiosity. After we bought some and I snorted a line. It set me off, causing for me to go on a binge that night. Calling Hope with the intention of her bringing me some rocks, I ended up running the streets all night long for the garbage.

In my search for friends and support, while dealing with my familial losses, this was what got hold of me. Never, was it my desire or intention but it became a product of the Demons that recognized I was in a state for them to feed upon- to prey upon. It would be a whole ‘nother element to my battles and only added to my struggle to stay alive once I did finally realize what I was into.

It was my job working for Salih as a Carpenter, mostly performing a variety of roofing repairs and installations, helping me to carry on at those moments in my, so-called, life. And it would be off and on employment for the better part of this period of time. It was his irate, difficult, ungrateful wife that would insist on interrupting the work situation, causing senseless grief to him and all who worked for him.

About now I got an apartment on McReynolds, with Salih’s help, quickly taking in my oldest daughter’s mother’s ex-husband, (her brothers father)- Bruce Vachon. Little did I realize that he was mental or becoming senile. Whether it was an underlying condition or relative to his alcohol and past drug use, I can only speculate (alcohol) but it would later surface and cause the loss of those items I did maintain from my broken marriage, that were very near and dear to me. This would add a whole ‘nother flavor to my defeat and my heartaches. And no matter how badly I recognized that I needed to quit drinking and using- this only made it that much more impossible.

Anyway, when it was all said and left undone, Matt had an affair. Per their agreement, the one that cheats leaves, forfeiting all but their most personal possessions, leaving the household items behind, which had to be a relief to Matt all the way around. Now that I think about it, I wonder if he hadn’t hoped she would have an affair with me, thinking he’d get everything but then deciding it was best this way? Either way, he left and I stepped right in to help out.

They had just recently moved into the upstairs apartment of the house they were living in before their breakup, where I mistakenly went one night, while drunk off of my rear, mistakenly thinking it was my own apartment. They watched me through the peephole, trying to figure out which key was the one to the door, and then turning around to urinate in a potted plant that sat near the door at the top of the stairs. Finally, I realized I was at the wrong house and left.

Well, she decided to move into the house across the street, on the corner lot, when they broke up. And, with all of my foolishness, being so freaking stupid and starved of affection, I stepped right in to “save the day.” I did all the work possible in her move and was given a room there in the upstairs of the new house. It would quickly accumulate cats and kittens, and feces, and all of the smells that go along with that. Throwing myself at her feet, as I seemed to do whenever a woman within my reach was in need but having always been too ignorant to discern which ones were worthy, I hoped for a relationship with her. Never mind that I was not emotionally healthy enough for one with anyone, for that matter. All I knew was that I desperately needed a relationship of some sort, of any sort.

After having researched this and attributing my condition to not receiving any attention, affection or love from my own mother, is what gave me the wisdom needed to correct my path. I could see her but not touch her, like a carrot on a stick. She finished (Sara) with me and tried to do some magic to rid her of me. This became clear one day when I was drawn to the room used as the library/study, where I snooped to find a book of spells. This book brought itself to my attention more than I searched for it, revealing what I needed to know. It wasn’t possible that she wanted me to learn what I had learned but I am still confused as to why she didn’t just ask me to be gone. At some point in my refusal to read the writing on the wall, she called for a pizza, ending up seducing the poor schmo on the other end, in a last stitch effort to relay to me that she wasn’t interested. Eventually I got it through my thick head but by the time I had returned to McReynolds Street, it was too late, Bruce blown the money I had left for the rent. On what the money got spent on, I can only wonder. Bruce’s only concerns were cheap beer and rolling tobacco, so how four hundred and fifty dollars ended up gone is still a mystery, and though I am not interested- it’s a mystery just the same.

After escaping, I realized what would later be recognized as a new beginning, with the end of her in my life entirely. At a time later she would resurface in a junk store on the west side of Grand Rapids, tempting my reality with her re-entry into it. After offering Sara one of the CD’s that I was promoting at the time, from my residual band, The Bandana Brothers, I never really thought of her again until now.

At this point in my life I had gotten through a lot of bad situations. These situations tempted my patience and willpower, and my very life, reshaping my existence and potential future into the needs of the people I was around. The coke and degradation was an everyday thing, a re-run. It was like the movie “Groundhog Day,” with Bill Murray. Only on one of those mornings I had hoped to awaken in my death, I awoke to find life and fought back in a whole-souled effort, and what I thought was, finally meeting a female companion to help me to save me from my self. Little did I know, I was about to order a beer and meet someone who would prove to be the only good thing I had found in Grand Rapids since my selfish, arrogant, ignorant wife took my children, destroying my family empire, my identity and my heart, refocusing the sights of my reality to the bottom of a pit.

The only things that I felt prevented me from killing her were my children and my love and grace. It’s been a bit of an unsettling thing to deal with. It is frightening even, when you come to learn how easy and instinctually familiar it is to you. Seeing the images of the act of killing. Seeing yourself handling the body, feeling the various sensations from the emotions, from the exertion, the sting of the sweat in your eye, the smells of bodily discharges and a smell like wet rusty steel. And there is the splattering and taste of the blood, the stickiness of it on your hands and between your fingers. And then the sensation of it as it cools and the water moisture evaporates, causing it to thicken in a short time. And then there are all of the ways of disposing of it or of them, cutting it up on a band saw after having had it in a freezer for some period of time. And then the burning of it, dumping the ashes in the river or even a blow to the head that would indicate a slip and fall that resulted in drowning while they may have been hanging out on the river alone while extremely intoxicated. Then there is always the old way of feeding the pieces to some pigs or the dogs. And then my favorite sensation: the feeling of my hands around her throat, the sounds of her last struggle, the feeling of her body twitching and finally going limp as her head changes in form, from round to flattened on the backside, and turns softened as I repeatedly pound it on the pavement like it’s a coconut and it’s all I have to use to stop the earth from spinning.

These are all very dark images, I am well aware. The funny thing is that I even imagined my imprisonment for the crime/s. No part of it bothered me any more than my usual nightmares I have. These thoughts had become to be just another thought playing on another of the multiple theater screens playing in my head. It was just another day that I had to live through. And out of all that I have lived through, and been through, and was forced to endure, it would be learned that this would have all been expected. These images really paled in comparison to my nightmares. But who was I to interrupt her fate in my hands by resisting?

Well, I have always felt that I had a purpose, a gift, a calling in life on Earth, and no matter if I found it or not I do not want my donations to man to be ignored or rejected by something as petty and as self serving as satisfying an itch for wrath on such a deserving individual. It was only because of the children that I didn’t do it. Had I done this terrible thing, they would have hated me but had she never given birth this would never have been a torture that I had to feel. I accept that I’ll never be given credit for my restraint but a large part of me would like to hear a “thank you” and an apology. One I do not expect in any foreseeable future.

In the meantime, I spend a lot of time keeping my sharp things sharp, my aims accurate, and my self in shape or shape-like. The only thing that gives me anything to worry about in a time of need remains to be my lower back and neck. Other than that, I really have no concerns.

It doesn’t take a very smart person to be able to tell how healthy a person is. A caring, well-tuned person can easily see it in another’s eyes- the hurt, the pain, the damage done by a loved one. I can’t help but wonder if my damages were revealed to Danny that day at Konkle’s Bar in the winter of ’99.

The barkeep handed me a draft beer, one of the booths on the wall invited me to sit, where I did, lighting a smoke. The person with me was a guy I was letting stay at my apartment on McReynolds Street, him and a buddy of his. They were a couple of guys I had met when I was out smoking crack on a recent night of stupidity. He was quiet, probably wondering when we were going to get some dope. Still plenty disgusted with myself from the last crack-about, it would soon be a moment or two in life before I realized the error of my ways, as they say.

My immediate attention was on a young girl in her early twenties. She wore a Beret and had a way about her that sucked me in. Later, I would realize that it was her plan, to suck someone in, trapping a man’s affections in order to use him for whatever she could get. We would speak, and even dance together but not sit together. She remained with a seat at the bar. At one point, my ears perked up on the words “Billie Holiday”. That really stopped my twisted mind in its tracks because Konkle’s bar full of uncultured persons. It was a place where a guy could feel like a star. If you sang Karaoke, you were great. Compared to the other people that frequented this place, my teeth were fine, and I was very looking. There would be the occasional reminder of how smart you were, a psychological booster shot, so you can see why I’d be surprised to hear about Billie Holiday in the conversations at another table.

“What do you know about Billie Holiday? I asked them. A man who sat with the two women and another man said, “We’re members of WYCE.” This man was Robert McVoy, and I would learn of his craziness soon enough. Just then the other man interjects, “Yeah, and I’m an artist and a musician.” I responded with my being a musician to which he then stated, “I’ve got a studio, let’s go record.”

As best as I can recall, that’s how it went but either way, the statement was, “Let’s go record.” Of course, we left promptly but it was tough, only hesitating since I had just received another beer. It took a second to slam it down, and then we all piled into Danny’s Jeep.

Well, when I got to Danny’s studio, my senses were in a bit of shock- more positively than they were accustomed to at that time in my life. In time, ironically enough, this place would prove itself to be haunted too.

There were creations everywhere. Watercolor paintings, sketches, sculptures, musical instruments and equipment were everywhere you looked, like a battle of the arts had taken place, and continued perpetually. There was a fireplace like I had seen only in movies and in books showing Victorian style Castles. You could fit a large tree stump or two within it.

Later, I would learn that this Heritage Hill district home, at forty Prospect NE, was once a Mansion, complete with a Ball Room floor. This property overlooked much of the city of Grand Rapids. There were five apartments carved out of this place, of which Dan’s was on the actual Ball Room floor, the second floor of the building. The kitchen was small, a simple galley style, where a rear-service staircase entered- once used by the servants. I doubt that the kitchen had existed before, and if it had, it was probably just for Hors d'oeuvre and as a drink preparation-type wet bar. We would soon use this area for another aspect of the arts- our own culinary efforts. There was a screened in porch-type nook that was just a kind of a box that hung out off of the south side of the house. It was a nice place to sit and listen to the elements of nature while reading, smoking, drinking, listening to or playing music, writing or just passing out. This overlooked the parking area and the wooded portion of the property to the rear of the house, where he had an outdoor art gallery set up in the past summers. We would transform it once again and entertain the community and ourselves until Mother Nature protested. The yard sales were always a treat, placing a slew of items out for sale, only to embellish upon them as if they suddenly meant more than we realized. Dan called it the “anti-sale”, saying, “Oh, well, I shouldn’t sell that…” He would then add how it had some sentimental aspect, being handed down to him by someone in his family or past, making it all the more interesting or curious to the potential buyer to the point where they would offer him much more for the item than he originally priced it. We would laugh and giggle about it after they had long left, tickled to get so much money for something we either dug from the trash, found at a thrift store or came across while cleaning out after evictions.

All of those classes at Kendal School for Art and Design paid off at these sales in small dividends that would yield us more gin, cigarettes and even more entertainment. In addition to the music, photography and art classes, Danny had studied psychology just enough to become a bit of a hustler. It was a new world to me, one that I had been searching for since long ago, and finally found, fully loaded including it’s own Demons.

A baker’s rack held many electronic stereo components that added up to be a sound system for doing anything you could want with sounds. There was a four track Tascam Port-a-studio, a Yamaha keyboard, a Fender Stratocaster, mics, amps, pre amps, lights etc… There was everything but an audio slave for lights, and a CD burner. It was not a big elaborate system, nothing at all like what I thought that I would find in a “studio”. It opened up my eyes to a new reality, one where a guy didn’t need anything much more than the “want to” to create recordings that were pretty powerful. It’s always amazing to me, when I see something in its raw form that I had thought was something different, something more difficult or more intricate. Danny made it look too easy. And along with all that he would show me while we became to be close friends, I would learn of what kept him so deeply immersed in art and alcohol as well … his health.

If ever I am stricken with Alzheimer’s, I don’t think I will ever forget that first day I met Danimal or when he popped a tape into the Tascam, adjusting a knob or two and handing me the Shure SM58 saying, “Here, put lyrics to this.” And having no clue what I was listening to, and no idea in my head, much past, “Microphone, lyrics?” I listened and let a few bars play and just started in where I felt the spot was to start. It was almost as if someone else was driving. It may have been spiritual even, now that I think about it. As if I was a medium for a spirit just then, having no idea where it was coming from. It was like my conscious mind had been out to lunch from my body forever, and I had just gotten home to myself, like I didn’t even know me. Well, maybe I didn’t. Whatever I was doing got Danimal excited. He picked up the Fender Strat and started playing leads. Little did I know, the tape was rolling, which meant that he was recording the music we were making. Nine minutes later he’d play the tape back and it would become one of my most prized possessions, proving to be a gift. And it was a gift. It was a gift of my rebirth of mind.

Music was my oldest, closest friend and we had been, finally, reunited with her. I had been kept distanced from her, by Mindy, tormented with the view of her and the unobtainability that was hard to bear thought of. Once a month, I was allowed to go play in a basement for an hour or so, with friends. At home it was a different story. I could get no personal time to play at all. Her fingers would silence the strings during my attempts, in order to remove my guitar from my moment of attention. Only to replace it with some menial task that had little to no importance, merely her demand. Red meat was not allowed, nor was I allowed to watch any action films that featured men such as Clint Eastwood or Sylvester Stallone. It was so ironical to me, how I had married a Jewish girl who was so… Hitler-like. She would later satisfy some of my unrest with the knowledge of her unhappiness that I learned of in the near future to this moment- this moment in life when I had become reunited with music, and in a growing friendship with Danny.

That same satisfaction was a detriment to my children, especially my only son, Cody. She continued to punish me for no reason at all through him, and now he is living with the damage for me to have to, painfully, observe. When he was five he wanted to learn how to become the President of our country. He will be released from prison on August 24^th, 2014, according to Michigan’s Offender Tracking System, on the Internet at this moment in January of 2013.

This particular weekend I had spent at Dan’s was four days long. I am sure we drank at least six fifths of gin and rum. The bottles were there to prove it, and had enough residual booze droplets in them to make us both a drink, which, in fact, they did.

There was also Amy and Jen- the lesbians. Later I would learn that Dan had met one of them or both, while in Rehab. They were both Heroin addicts. [Here’s where I have to put it out there that it is not a very good idea to make any new best friends at Rehab. This is, simply put, a future stumbling block. Take note.] I awoke on one of these first few days at Danny’s house, and couldn’t find my weed. I was certain that it had been taken. My frontal lobe syndrome caused suspicion to point to the girl with the Beret that I had brought with us from the bar. It wasn’t like I openly accused her but, boy, was I sure it was her that took it. After a while of searching like a madman, I found it tucked in between a chair cushion and the wall of the armrest that I had been sitting in the night before… Whoopsie. It wasn’t that I actually pointed fingers. It was my body language that screamed out the statement for me.

Not until this little time out, at Jackson Prison in 2011, would I realize that my “bamaged” self can only endure a few hours of the normal stress of everyday life before symptoms, like confusion, inability to concentrate and “people stealing my stuff” become disabling. Now, after focusing on recalling my past for a couple of hours, I lose things, always wondering if they were stolen but before I find myself wrongly accusing someone and creating discomfort in our close quarters, I dig around and always find what I it was that I could not. Fourteen years later, I am finally identifying some of my handicaps and learning to cope but still fighting for my compensation and proper medical attention to suit my needs.

Somehow I had found out that this girl wearing the Beret was squatting in an abandoned house. Why I got it in my head to “help” by taking her in at my house when I could barely help myself was typical of me. So many things went on that I have a hard time remembering it all. Maybe part of the problem was because I had spent so much of the time as drunk as I could possibly afford. Things like, how soon after that, that I let the lesbians Danny was caring for talk me into giving them money for heroine.

As I said before, and it is like this for all of my recollections- I can recall few things the way they were, some things with accuracy and no sense of time, and other things in a generality but eventually, if I think hard enough, for long enough, I can remember the details I am looking for. Sometimes it will pop into my head a few days later, and sometimes the answers come to me a few years later. Like the last name if Jen, it’s Rasmussen. Anyway, one of the problems I deal with is that these memories are sometimes on a loop, always playing, as if my mind was a multi-screen theater- open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with shows on that I don’t want to pay money to see. It’s a lot like the tell-lie-vision. My sleep is continuously disturbed by nightmares from the past, mottled with morbid graphic images and horrific situations. These things were issues before the substance and alcohol use, issues that I maintained at bedtime with marijuana for several years and all during my marriage but no matter how hard I tried, with or without drinking, sleep could only be avoided for so long. My habit would be to drink until I was unconscious. I began to call on Danny as my free time permitted, usually on the weekend since I was working for Bob at this time. My trips to Dan’s house were a fast paced hike on the heel-toe express. The girls, as Danny called them, were home and seemed upset. Dan was not there yet or he was at the store, I think, soon to arrive but not until after I gave them the fifty dollar bill.

Anyway, Jen was crying about the court and child support, and about the threat of going to jail because of the money that she claimed she owed. Knowing first hand about the scenario, and having some money, my malleable heart gave in to them. They thanked me profusely and skee-daddled with Mr. Grant. When Dan got back he asked me where they were, only to add that I better not have given them any money. The room instantly gloomed over. He was so upset with my having given them money- and the fact that he now was forced to tell me their secrets. My heart sank, for I had just contributed to a possibly fatal disaster in the making. I went from Hero to Zero in a split second. When they arrived back at the house, Amy was dragging her girlfriend up the stairs and into Dan’s house, where they were living. He scrambled for the bathroom to fill the tub with cold water. Now there was a mess, and the mess really hit the fan. Dan would throw them out in another day or so. And Danny, having just now completed his hoop jumping for a DUI- it was a possible fatality that would be sure to bring cops and investigators, a whole can of worms about to be spilled. NOW, what did I do?

It would come out later how, Tim Steele, a local Radio Celebrity for WLAV FM, had lived upstairs in the recent past. He had a girl over who had overdosed on heroine and forced him to solve that little problem without drawing attention to his own activities that would surely become strewn about by the Media. The Grand Rapids Press would have had a hay-day with it. It is possible that WLAV would have had their attorneys step in the clean up and quiet down the mess without any attention but who knows what would have been done until it happened. If it were my self in his shoes, I’d be praying that I had a larger than life reputation to pull the real strings on the situation. That would definitely be when a person like him would find out just how important he is.

Well, you guessed it, being such a big sucker and a glutton for punishment; I brought the girls in to my apartment too. I have no real clue how long it took before everything that could go wrong went wrong at my place. It didn’t help that these girls recruited an ex-girlfriend of Dan’s to “help.” This woman just so happened to drop in to Dan’s a day or two after this all went down. She was an elementary school teacher with a huge drinking problem and no fear or shame with taking it to the streets when she needed money. I can only assume that they bought dope with the money because for some reason we got a hotel on the edge of town very close to Marne. It is easily remembered because this woman and I went there and ended up being thrown out of the Pit Stop Bar by the barkeeper, who was a friend of mine, for dancing without my shoes on. In a few short days she would be gone and I would finally lose my cool with the rest of my strays.

It was a day when I had just gotten home from work. As I settled into my favorite sitting place in the living room I discovered that the girl in the Beret was in the front bedroom with one of the strays, which not only made me angry, it confused me because if he fell into a barrel of tits he’d come out sucking his thumb. They were just using me for my apartment, my money, my property- everyone in the place was. They were there by my undeserving grace and had taken me for a huge sucker. This happened just as I had realized how obvious it was that nobody would be contributing to the household. It would become clear when I found my weed and booze gone regularly. These were items that I shared with them when I was home. They must have figured that it belonged to the house as a part of my unusual hospitality. The world’s biggest fool was my self for the moment but that was about to become an impression that I was going to demonstrate a correction of.

Right about now, I discover that the girl in the Beret was trying to practice witchcraft on me. As I am reading them the riot act and telling him that he was leaving, she came out of the kitchen with a small saucepan that had some strange looking mixture of ingredients in it. There were small vials containing some types of extracts in her pocket of her smock, as well as strewn about and on the counter in the kitchen. It was clear that it was done franticly. She was urging me with a sudden suspicious affection, to ingest the mixture. It wouldn’t be anything but a waste of time and energy for anyone to try to convince me that I may be wrong, for you should always trust your instincts and the messages that you are in tune enough to receive, however late they may come to your attention.

At the very moment, putting words like these in ink, I am curious if a deity of an evil kind wasn’t something that had become a part of my reality years ago, and continues to follow me until I become destroyed, I wonder…?

Where was I, Oh, the girl was a big mistake to bring home. For some reason I decided, in all fairness, to give them a certain amount of time to vacate my apartment then next morning. They must have thought that I didn’t really mean it when I had told them to leave the night before. I was right in the middle of giving them the count of ten to gather their things and leave when Bob pulled up to pick me up for work that morning. Maybe I had already gotten to ten because I recall him mentioning something about the stuff that was strewn about in the front yard, like clothes and hangers, along with a couple of old sea chests and a foot locker… When I had gotten to the count of five, I went to the front picture window and opened it as wide as it would go to let them know it was real. The guy she was in bed with- the stray, I call him, was crying saying, “Why Zach, why?” It didn’t begin to soften my fury and only enraged me that he had the nerve to insinuate that I was in the wrong. When I got to ten I grabbed the biggest package I could find and launched it out the window and into the yard below. Some of the things bounced out into the street among the cars that were parked along the road. Right after launching the second chest out the window, the Beret attacked. She came at me like I would imagine a full-grown lioness, in a wild rage. Wow! She put up a real fight- one hundred times more than anyone had ever came at me with before. All I could allow myself to do was to minimize what harm could come to me by blocking her and wrestling her to the floor in an attempt to restrain her, overpowering her into a nicely rolled up ball. She was like holding onto a huge spring that I had compressed, waiting for the slightest easing up on the pressure so she could fly apart. We were both breathing extremely heavy with exhaustion, hormones and adrenaline flooding through our veins. It was exhilarating, sexual, as if we had been through a series of rigorous sexual acts sought out by those who hungered with lust to make their wildest fantasies come true.

Now, I gave the other guy two weeks to find somewhere else to go but he gets up, as up as his stump of a frame could raise him, squaring off in an attempt to fight me. I really didn’t want to fight with him at all. When he made motion to grab at me I placed my hands at the shoulders along his biceps just above his elbows and twisted him down to the floor like I was laying down a one hundred sixty pound cabinet, saying, “Don’t make me hurt you. I gave you two weeks.” With that, I took a cigarette out, lit it and went down to the van to speak to Bob briefly about leaving for work.

Bob had a nervous air about him, not knowing what to expect, and having witnessed the eruption from the upstairs window out into the yard as he pulled up in front of the house. “I need a couple more minutes,” I said to him, “I’m almost finished.” He just chortled a bit in complete surprise, and with a bit of disbelief over what he had witnessed. As I think about it now, I am wondering if she wasn’t part of the group from the beginning but maybe that’s giving them all too much credit.

Anyhow, on the way out to the van to finally leave, I stopped at their car, finishing my protest at being duped by puncturing all four tires on their Plymouth Horizon sitting behind the house. Maybe I did it at some earlier point in my fit of rage, either way; it sure put a stick in the spokes because now they had no vehicle to leave with.

Lesson learned? Respect the vehicle and learn to recognize what a vehicle for change is. They take many forms. I had immobilized a vehicle for change in my life and now that much-needed change was going to be more unlikely to satisfy my desires.

Well, I had no idea how that little loss of control was going to affect me but after work that day I ended up going to some other little dive of a bar, on Leonard Street, Slackers Bar. How appropriate, considering. Stumpy, having just got off of work for the day, had ran into me on the street and wanted to talk, so we went inside and grabbed a beer.

He was in the habit of wearing a black over-coat, like he must have thought he was a warlock or something. It was the kind of coat that you see these wannabe Goth kids wearing or flashers at night on the city streets of Chicago or New York City. His job was working at Louis Padno’s Scrap yard through a day labor company that places like these cheap screws use to undercut their regular wage expenses.

Anyway, while we were sitting there at the bar, the female bartender starts giving me a bunch of crap- an attitude that was almost as big as she was. It wasn’t like me to not say anything to her about being rude to a paying customer when the place was in so dire need of patrons, so I sounded her about it, explaining that the place wasn’t exactly flourishing with business, and that I was a paying, customer who tips, not a punching bag, which was ironic because while I was taking another sip from my mug, a punch makes contact with the side of my head and lands squarely on my ear. What kind of guy hits you in the ear anyway? Sparks lit up in my sight in a blazing flash. This punch was from Stumpy, and it was a big mistake because I was still lit with a good amount of fury still residual from that morning. Maybe he got his ego bruised when I overpowered him. I didn’t mean to do that to him, and was only trying to avoid hurting the guy. I didn’t want to have to hurt anyone, and I never really have before. I only wanted them to contribute or get out. Or maybe he was getting back at me for throwing his friend out or puncturing the tires of the car or for throwing the girls trunks out of the window. Well, upstairs or not, whatever it was, I was thankful I hadn’t seriously hurt one of them or had sex with the girl, for that matter. That would have only added to my serious confusion.

Now, I don’t like getting hit. And I don’t like spilling booze, especially when at a bar with so little cash. And I hate getting wet, unless it’s my idea, so when I got hit in the ear, causing for me to spill my drink on myself, I was firstly- in disbelief, and then feeling violated by someone who I was extending myself out to help. Then I was, though quite rare, in another fit of blinding rage. All three sensations or emotions were easy to lament, denial-violation-rage, even though it was all in under a half of a second. Never the less, I reacted. Bar stools went flying as we were both heading to the floor. Next thing I knew, I had shown him to the Jukebox. Fortunately the connection to my ear was the only one or the only one I noticed. How he faired really wasn’t a concern of mine, not like getting out of the place and disappearing before the cops came as quickly as I could render him motionless.

My ear soon turned black. It must have ruptured a blood vessel or something. I have no clue how long it stayed that way either, since my ear-ripheral vision was out of order at the time. Otherwise I would have ducked when he was about to sucker punch me. The situation was efficacious because when I got home, all three were gone. Now all I had to do was rid myself of the rest of them, little did I realize at the time.

Soon after this came the notice of eviction. Bruce’s spending of the rent allocation had caught up with me, not to mention him showing up on the police radar in the area. I cannot recall how it happened but I think it was a psychotic episode or a senility thing. When the police took him off of the street, asking him where he lived and how long he had been there, he had told them that he built the house and hauled it to it’s location with his car! Though I suspected it before, it comes out that Bruce is out of his mind. How he managed to keep it to himself this long is still a mystery.

All of these people, and the situations around them, just go to show you that you cannot help those who aren’t taking the initiative to help themselves. Helping myself seemed to be a great difficulty but I managed to continue finding work to finance my activities despite my dysfunctions. What would have been smart right about then was to finance a replacement Michigan identification card because being evicted created a bit of a problem.

Why didn’t I call Danny for help? Even though I had just met him, he would have helped me but out of guilt over the situation with the girls, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was forced, or so I thought I was at the time, to rent a storage unit from a place on Leonard, right next to the Arnie’s Bakery, and since I had discarded my ID card, it was necessary for the girls to put their name on the paperwork. They were all to eager to take advantage of that situation, to help, of course. What a costly mistake for me that would turn out to be.

We moved everything but the couch. This couch was a gift from Bob but most likely his wife, Cheryl. When I moved it in, it required some disassembly and was a bit tricky for me because I had no experience with couch manufacturing, and had little clue how to do it. Bruce proved to be handy for this task but it was a bitch, which [ha-ha, bitch witch] is why I bailed on it when it came time to move it. Jens homosexual son, Ethan, drove us around in his little baby blue Ford Ranger until we found a place to rent a room that would charge us on a weekly basis. I think it was the Econo-Lodge near U.S. 131 on 28^th Street. At two hundred dollars a week, it was anything but economical.

Since we had a storage unit there was plenty of room for my computer, one of many that I lost in the past fourteen years. This way I could continue to write the materials for my books that I fantasized about writing and publishing- mainly as a last will and testament to my children. The guitar I had at that time, given to me by William “Zig Zag” Goode, was claimed to have been given to him by Ted Nugent, along with a beautiful pair of black and white sculpted cowboy boots that he managed to find for me at a garage sale; all probably given to me to insure that I would be providing the booze for a while.

William Goode was a sad case. One night we were out on a walk-about, looking for people who needed help drinking their booze. We must have not had any money because I remember walking with him to the train track crossing on Bridge Street for a nickel that was embedded in the overly tarry blacktopped asphalt. It was about eleven o’clock at night. He couldn’t get the nickel up out of the tar, and with nothing to pry it with but another nickel, it remained embedded in the tar. It reminded me of the sword and the stone. I guess he wasn’t the one that was meant to have it. The back-up plan was to go into a bar called, “Our Tavern”, which we did.

The bar was pretty empty that particular night, all but for two couples, a lone man, and the barkeeper- all sitting at the bar. It must have been fairly busy recently because the tables were a bit disheveled, several having empty glasses and pitchers on them. Bill told the barkeeper that he’d clean them up in hopes he would be rewarded for his efforts with some alcohol. He set right to gathering the glasses and pitchers, emptying the ashtrays and pushing in the chairs as if he worked there regularly. A few of the pitchers had a little beer in them. He poured it all together and set a couple glasses down for the two of us. I could hear them quietly discussing this whole scene- a guy and his wife, who were laughing about it, ordered a pitcher for us. Guilt and embarrassment consumed me- for Bill, for us but mostly for me, I guess, because I wasn’t drunk enough to have no shame. It was probably because of a mixture of Bill trying to help out all of the time, and me having told him earlier that I had no money to buy anything to drink that day. And being his friend when he had so few, he was just trying to help me out the only way he knew how. I mentioned to the people giggling about him, in his defense, that he was hard to reason with, and that since he was drunk I was just trying to keep him company until his wife might let him come back to the house. This should have sunk in as a possible future for myself but maybe I was too preoccupied with my memories of the last and only time that I had ever been to Our Tavern, to see it.

Bill Bolthouse and I had been called out on a service call to repair the bathroom plumbing about ten or more years ago. We showed up there and went inside to the instructions of who ever took charge of the bar at that moment. The men’s urinal wouldn’t flush, only to spill out onto the floor every time someone tried, which, despite the mop bucket and the sign saying, “Do Not Use The Urinal,” they did. We checked every fixture in the room, inspecting the entire plumbing assemblies before we settled down to the one particular object of concern.

One of the toilets liked to run on, and sure enough, the urinal was clogged. With me holding the tool tray up off of the urine stained floor, Bill lifted the lid to the tank on the throne. He burst out laughing, only because it was always comical to find a brick in the toilet tank.

It’s a valiant effort to want to conserve water but regardless of whether or not a brick saves water, the solution is within the mechanics. The float-bulb is in the water tank, connected to the water valve by a threaded rod. The threaded rod is made of a soft copper but sometimes it’s soft steel or aluminum. This bulb controls whether the valve becomes on or off by the downward and upward motion of falling or rising water in the tank. If you bend the rod in the middle so that the bulb sits lower in the tank, it will shut off sooner, using less water per flush. It’s not Rocket Science or Magic.

The urinal, on the other hand, had… an organic problem. When we yanked the urinal from the wall mounting plate, we found out why it wouldn’t drain. Apparently they drink so much beer, so fast, that it doesn’t become digested or broken down by the body. The drain port had a collection of gelatinized residue from the beer clogging it to the size of a quarter when it was a two and one half inch piece of drain pipe. It looked very much like Tofu or maybe even a Jellyfish sewage monster or maybe… well, let’s just move on. It was one of those jobs where you thought your chances of getting a disease were pretty likely. This always runs through my memory banks when I recall anything to do with Our Tavern, and it had to be a distracting thought the night, while I was there with William- distracting me from receiving the messages that were there for me to take in.

Anyway, one, of all the things that I had with me at the Econo-lodge, which were all important to me at the time, was my computer. I cannot remember where I had gotten it from but I do remember it did not like to work with it’s casing on the hard drive. It took me a while to figure out that it quit working when I put it back on but that’s as far as I ever got with it, continuing to use it with the guts hanging out of it. I had written on it with a black Sharpie: “I Only Work Naked.” This computer was nothing to me but a simple tool for writing, for focusing on writing my stories with. The only thing of value in it to me was that which I had written. At this time in the turmoil of the events and people in my life, I clung to the idea of writing but not for the sake of writing, for the sake of my very dear children. These writings were to express myself to them in any and every way I possibly could, to tell them how much I loved them and how much I grieved over our separation. The writings were to share the things I had gone through in my duress and the strange dichotomy between wanting to die to end my pain, and wanting to survive to see the day I had them back in my life. They would serve to be my final testament and an expose’ of the truth of their so-called mother and the terrible thing that she had done. So, when I wasn’t in an alcohol-induced coma, I would write.

Now and again, I would lament a hope that I will be reunited with those songs, stories and morsels that I spilled out through the keys but my perspective of Realism say’s that they are gone forever because the girls would vacate the room, taking the unused payment on the room, along with all of my possessions, disappearing with the entitlement to the storage unit- all of what was left of my entire life, and my attempt to rebuild it.

Of all the things I had been separated from, the one thing I am saddened by the most was a cardboard box that once held Paslode Framing Nails in it, repurposed to hold every photograph I had ever taken of my children. These photos that I took I had to beg Mindy to allow me to accumulate, since she thought nothing for our family’s need for a camera. Other than photos, the most peculiar and significant thing about that box was the actual blood that was sprayed and splattered on it, human blood. It was evidence of the reality of my struggle to find my way back in life.

Howard robbing me for crack after Mindy left.

That little detail just spun the clock back on this yarn to before I lost the house to Minderella’s father. The company I had become associated with led me into a lot of unusual situations that may or may not be typical of the crack cocaine scene. This company went by the name, Howard. I met Howard when I found myself off of Franklin Street between Eastern and Madison Avenue. My mission was to score fifty dollars worth of cocaine. He and an associate of his were working the streets, hustling by hooking people up with dope or taking their money entirely. I was one who got ripped off. Instead of fifty dollars worth of dope I was left with a crack-head who did everything he could to stay by my side. Only in hopes of me buying dope, so he could smoke some. He fed me a bunch of sob stories that caused me to end up bringing him back to my house so he could use my shower and eat something. It wasn’t until much later, steeped in the environment, that I would learn of his social status, and the intentions of an addict for an unsuspecting victim, especially someone love starved, friendless, and being psychologically and emotionally impaired.

He would coach me on how to smoke the drug, always doing what he could to insure that the next hit he had would be doubled due to the dope I tried to smoke running down the pipe to the other end when it became liquefied from an inappropriate amount of heat being applied. He would shove the screen to the other end, load it with another piece, and blow out a huge cloud of smoke. I got sick of his instruction, at one point realizing what he was doing and why, shouting at him to shut the hell up. “You graduated, baby,” was what he said to me at that moment. I was suddenly disgusted and sickened by what I had gotten myself into, and sickened by the reality of the drug I was dabbling with, and all of the people associated with it. Without anyone from my past around to see, I slipped deeper into the grasp of the Demons that I allowed to torment me. Although a part of me knew it was bad, a part of me still said that I could do anything I set my mind to, which was walking into the caves of seriously dangerous Demons, taking what was mine, and walking back out with my life.

Despite my anguish and misery I still reached out to help people like Howard, asking them questions like, “Is this how you want to die?” At some point in my delusions I even wondered if I might be Jesus incarnate, coming back to try to stimulate a change in mankind. It’s crazy, I know but I wondered that just the same. I was desperately searching for a reason why I had gone through such changes of events and circumstances in my life. How could I go from being a successful business owner, with everything I always cared to have for myself, to the edge of the grave? There had to be something more to it that I did not understand. I couldn’t just simply be stalling from my death, could I? Kind of like, “Screw it, I might as well, I am dead anyway.”

One night, around nine, we were approached by a group of kids, asking us to buy them booze. Howard took up the collection and went into the store. Moments turned into minutes when the kids decided it was time to vandalize my truck because Howard wasn’t returning. They grabbed up steel pipes from a vandalized chain-link fence and proceeded to trash the cap on my truck. These kids were eventually arrested for the vandalism. Howard had ripped the kids off while they had attempted to buy some booze. The money ran through Howard’s fingers and led him right out the door to the next dope house, which was right around the next corner. My truck paid the fee for the evening.

Howard would introduce me to his child’s mother whom I would find out was another addict. Her name was Selena. A little while later I would end up at her place, where she lived with a roommate named Diamond. There was a man there who had been beating them up but I had no clue why. He wasn’t there when I got there but would be returning soon. She was scared and asked me if I had any friends she could stay with, so I took her out to my truck, which had been idling in the snow and ice covered parking lot for about twenty minutes. As we got to the truck, this guy they called Grey (short for Grayson) saw us and came running toward us. We got into the truck but he jumped into the bed, trying to attack her through the window. I was trying to drive away when he got in the back, opening the slider window. Why she didn’t beat him with any of the tools I had in there, I don’t know. All I could think to do was drive, trying to fling him from the back of the truck without running into any of the other cars or people that were in the parking lot. How he managed to be removed from the truck is not a recollection I have but the truck did overheat in the process, blowing a radiator hose on the top end of the engine. I parked the truck down the street from my house that night, thinking he might come looking for me, identifying my truck at the house. What I didn’t expect was for her girlfriend, Diamond, to rat out her whereabouts for a twenty-dollar piece of dope.

How late it was when I finally went to sleep, I do not know but when I woke up it was due to her screaming. I tried to get up but I was attacked from behind, beaten about the head, and punctured in the upper left side of my back with a shard from a bowl that he had broken when he threw it at me. Exhaustion was dominated with an adrenalin rush, motivated by the persistent screaming of Selena. I rolled off of the mattress toward the wall, grabbing the mattress and rolling it over with me to stand using the mattress as a shield. Now I got a visual and moved to shove him out of the room and down the staircase with it. When he realized I was coming at him, he fled the scene. That’s when I saw the other guy with a gun in his hand. He fled right behind him after making eye contact with me.

I looked down at Selena, who was still screaming, and now I knew why. Her face was busted up pretty badly. Her top lip was split in two pieces below her nose. Blood was all over her. Blood was all over the entire room. It looked like a slaughterhouse, sprayed all over the floor, walls, ceiling, and us. We must have been having a heart to heart about addiction, life, and kids because my box of pictures was there in the room with us, now splattered with blood.

It was the neighbors who called the cops, bringing an ambulance arrived ahead of them. Selena and I both ended up at Blodgett Hospital, where we received care for our injuries. Both of us needed stitches- her far worse off than I. Mindy showed up to see me, and told me about all of the different chemicals ending with “caine” that were found in my blood. This was how I ended up learning of how many different ways I had been robbed. Robbed by myself, or by others, it didn’t matter. I needed to somehow remove myself from where I was, to elevate my social class but seeing the mother of my children only added insult to my injuries, and was anything but uplifting.

Now here I am, two years later, coming away from crack but cavorting with heroine and living with addicts all over again. Bob had been entertaining himself under the guise of helping, by finding things for these girls to do for him. In his wife’s eyes, he was a hero but the truth is that he was so miserable in his own silence that he grabbed onto anything that he could gossip about- probably to comfort himself in his questionable sexuality. I don’t believe that the girls having money did anything to offset my financial burdens, ever, even in the slightest sense. It seemed I continued to pay for things despite their working for Bob.

Anyway, Bob didn’t want these girls to work this particular day, and me, being so trusting, even though having trust issues, I left them at the motel without a second thought. I assumed it was so he could bitch at me for the situation that happened a few days earlier, where the girls were painting a gable end on his house but couldn’t reach the peak area, complaining to me about needing me to help them do it. Well, me being a show-off, I went up to show them how, and they went down to the ground without considering the need to hold onto the paint bucket for me. Though I was on an entirely different task in the shop, I took time for this.

On the roof of the garage I am doing my mighty mouse routine, or better yet, my underdog routine, trying to help out a lot lesser than a Sweet Polly Purebred, when in my haste, I knocked over the pail of Cabot’s Stain. This stuff goes running all over the roof, down into the eaves trough, just like it’s supposed to do when it’s spilled on a rooftop. My first reflex was to use a rag to dab at it with, only because it seemed like a splatter but I realized it was not going to work. One good thing about this was, when I sent them up with the paint, I only sent them up with a small amount of it so there wasn’t really that much. This was a job for the hose, only after getting it and trying to wash it off, I realized it was an oil base product. I did manage to rinse it off once I got it loose from the surface but it left a heck of a residue behind. When Bob finally got back he saw the yard was wet, then he saw the stain on the shingles that he had installed with a one inch crown pneumatic stapler- he lost it, mostly screaming and yelling at me for the contamination of his little garden in the clay. This land in Ottawa County is all clay. Hardly anything grows on it at all. And he is the last one to give a crap about the environment but now I have ruined everything for him. If he was a rational person, even in the least, this wouldn’t have been an issue and I would have left the paint on the shingles to be dealt with on another day but since he was such an irrational person, I was too scared to be able to properly deal with it- starting with helping the girls and reading the can to begin with. I was simply afraid of his reaction, which I am sure being abused by my father was a major factor in my confrontational disorder. [Take notes.]

Anyway, Bob and I are almost to the job that day when his phone rings. He answers the phone and then say’s, “I don’t know,” giggling and turning towards me. “I don’t know? Zach? Where do you want your stuff?” It was Amy and Jen. Suddenly I start freaking out, wondering why I would want my stuff anywhere but at the room where I had left it. It hadn’t dawned on me that they would cash out early, taking the money to feed their addiction. They had recently explained to Bob how I was, “A ray of Hope,” in their lives. It didn’t seem like it but I was shooting craps in life again. Here would have been a great time for Bob to drive to meet them in order to salvage my interests but Bob was so pretentious that he didn’t stink, and if he did it was only fitting that everyone else had to smell him because nobody was fit to breathe the air as it was. My days with him were much the same everyday, most likely reserved for him to express his perpetual vehemence at his mommy abandoning him to his hateful father- dear ol’ daddy.

Bobby grew up in a rural setting, on a large farm property that was just another nonchalant junkyard where dreams that were once someone else’s were bought, hauled to, and cut up into bits. It would become a result of old man Smith’s junk in the yard that no one in Wright township could have anything that resembled junk in their yard. Blame cannot lay only on people with the items in their yards, believed to be or expected to become, monetarily valuable. It gets to be distributed as well to the morons who want to take farms and transform them into high density residential property upon them inheriting it, only to bulldoze the farm and everything on it, and cashing it in as a housing development, which happens to be right next to the highway only separated by a parallel running set of train tracks. This would be his last laugh at his dad for not ever showing him love. Funny thing is, Bob has a brother who did not escape the familial devastation, and actually ended up on the worse end of the suffering, having struggled through life in some hard luck situations. Joe would watch while Bob did what he could to dupe a woman from a well off family into believing he was a loving family man, all the while just a thief. And Joe would grab at the world’s straws, trying to find himself a decent life.

Joe ended up in a situation involving cocaine, where he allegedly managed to manufacture some checks, only to cash them in to buy dope. He went to jail and served his time at a work camp, managing to pay the money back. Somehow, his wife lost the kids whom Cheryl spearheaded getting the custody of, leaving Joe to be forced to pay Child Support to Bob and Cheryl. It’s odd how Bob beat his brother up with the system, all the while mean-mouthing the children to me, while at work all day. Bob was such a hypocrite, bragging about his drinking and pot smoking, while humiliating poor Joe over the pitfalls he had found on his search for happiness. Without Cheryl, Bob would just as soon continue in his self indulgence and deviant activities, all the while drooling over other women every other second of his time out in public- a travesty. Frequently, he would have me get him pot, only to throw it in my face that I was a dope-head while he would be drinking and driving. And ridiculing me, on top of it, about my drinking problem and how big of a problem it was for him to have to deal with, while he came to work religiously with a hangover, only to abuse me until he felt better, which was quitting time when he could start all over again. It was the price I had to pay for having an understanding of him. All the while, he remained ignorant of the least of my charity, as well as my forgiveness for him.

There was one day that I recall quite frequently because I have a separated shoulder to remind me of it. It was a day that I worked in his shop, at his house in Marne. This particular day was a Saturday and we were drinking beer, pretty much all day long, along with smoking weed as well. At one point, early in the late afternoon, he said, “Hey, let’s ride the dirt bikes.” The boys wanted to ride, since he had promised them earlier that they could take the Fat Cat and three-wheeler out on the trails. He climbed on the Yamaha IT 250 Enduro, and gave me the Honda 100 Enduro to ride. Naturally, I got on the bike while the boys followed us. There was a trailhead that was near the house. It went out and around a farmer’s fields. At one point Bob stopped and ordered me to ride the 250, taking the bike I was on for him self, saying, “Here. Ride this if you want to beat on something.” Well, I jumped on and took off, racing along through the gears. I think it was about six seconds, if it wasn’t eight, until I came up onto a sixteen or eighteen inch lump of earth in the trail resembling a small jump. When I hit, it was like I ran into a wall. The bike mule-kicked me straight up in the air to a height of, what seemed like one hundred feet but was closer to fifty, causing me to activate my wonder twin powers into the shape of a rocket- coming straight down from my ascension head first into the well packed earth. The bike flipped over the jump and continued flipping in an “endo” fashion all the way down the trail repeatedly, with quite a bit of velocity, as would be expected since I was at the end of the wick, and up to fourth gear. It flipped rear over front for approximately forty yards, if not fifty, judging by the amount of flips it did, hitting the ground twelve times at the least.

I wondered ever since then, if the house overlooking the crash site might have contained any witnesses since it had a clear shot. It had to be quite a sight to see.

Bob came up to me, only to run past the heap I made, towards the heap I had successfully made of his bike, exclaiming “My bike! Look what you did to my bike!” His childish concern for the bike, ignoring my physical health, especially in the presence of the adolescents, spoke volumes. The bike he was so worried about was an acquisition he made by taking advantage of people, running his own one-way pawn service. I was in a bit of shock and there was a dull sting in my shoulder. Along with that sensation was a message that told me it was just popped out of the socket so, I slammed my arm down into the ground several times, trying to pop it back in. The doctor would later say that it was separated, requiring me to come back in two weeks to “talk about it”. I have been around enough to know that I wouldn’t be having my arm repaired due to not having any insurance. I never went back to talk about it. My mother was the one who took me to the hospital that day. They all thought I exaggerated the story of what happened, saying that I was “overly animated”. I could have sued Bob for the medical expenses, especially in light of the fact that he made me pay for every single repair to that bike, using the most expensive bike shop in town, Shawmut Hills Honda. I never brought up the entire situation and story to his wife. It was just another episode where Bobby unfairly took out his stored up anger on me, the only person, other than his wife, to truly put effort into whatever kind of relationship we had.

Yes, I could have said no but who would deny a dirt bike ride, especially in Marne, just because they had been drinking? That’s blasphemous. It’s a requisite for dirt biking. Every Marnian knows that. But Bob knew of my head injury and the psychological conditions I was dealing with, not to mention my problem with alcohol, and all of my accidents in the past. He knew better than to offer me booze while at work, and he knew better than to put me on or give me the opportunity to ride his motorcycles, let alone force me to pay for the damage to the bike. It’s not like I asked to come and borrow it. I was there to make money. I’m not sure if it’s needless to say or not but come Monday I was right back at work, cutting parts and assembling a stained Oak staircase one handed, and by myself- single handedly if you will.

(Wayside motel, to move in with Ron Groenlier soon)

Bob and I were working on newly built houses for, Ancil Mitchell, who was a preacher for a church called, The Grand Valley Voice of the Pentecost. This man built simple homes and duplexes for financially disadvantaged people who wanted to get out of the city and away from the potential hazards that went along with life there. Knowing Ancil would have been extremely helpful after Mindy left, which happened to be when I found out that the house I had been living in wasn’t mine at all. Soon after our separation I would end up being thrown out by her father, Marc, when I could no longer pay him the rent, which was seven hundred and fifty dollars per month. Marc, along with Minderella’s sister, Amy, (so Mindy claims), packed up what was left after Minderella had her way with everything of any use or value despite the judge’s fifty-fifty ruling. Trash bags suited this procedure because that’s how they treated my belongings. Some of which were heirlooms that I had received, that were to be handed down to my children- heirlooms like their Great, Great Grandmother Lindner’s cookie jar.

My Great Grandma Lindner was always known as the cookie Grandma. After her death, since I was the oldest Great Grandchild, the cookie jar was presented to me. This particular jar was a mother Pelican with a small baby Pelican on her bill, which happened to be the lid. The baby made the handle. Minderella had already smashed it once, in the not so distant past, during one of her Infamous tantrums of Princess-like temper. I used my crafting skills, and wounded sentimentality, to glue it back together, filling in the missing areas with plaster to sculpt it back into wholeness while trying my best to hide the fact that it had once been destroyed. I should have stripped the familial reigns that I had placed trust in her to hold, from her hands that very day. Why I didn’t divorce her, for that alone, probably had a lot to do with the children and my Love for them- along with the great Hope that I had for her to one day embrace her role in our relationship, and become everything she was expected, and vowed, to become. The beloved cookie jar was an item synonymous with Cody and Scarlett's very dear Great, Great Grandmother Lindner but was now marred with the scars of what seemed, to me, to be a loveless marriage. The thought of it now, still aches my heart. When Cody was born we were five generations living. To my mother’s family as a whole, that was a pretty serious thing for our family history. We photographed the event.

Looking back, those mistakes were a dreadful thing. Or is it dreadful to see how the solutions were always overlooked, and so simple, leading to the most difficult situations and the most needless suffering? None of it had to be the way that it had been but when you are alone in life with no one, and nothing to count on, you are forced to make all of the mistakes that you could have learned from others having done them before you. But there are those who would rather you made them instead, out of spite. After all, it didn’t kill them.

Oh well. I didn’t know Ancil at this trying time in my life but I did know Charles. And when I was out on the street he tried to help by taking me to the only place he knew of where I could find a bit of hope or just a room to stay in. One of those places was at Ronald Jackson’s apartment. This is the same place, where sometime after this, I would plan to take Selena as a somewhat of a safe haven but became interrupted that morning when we were attacked. And incidentally, it was not the right place for either of us to go. The drug issue was about to get worse because this guy was a daily crack cocaine user. It’s probable that I was taken there due to the fact that I had been using, and Ronald Jackson was a user who was always calling people for a little cash so he could score more. Sort of like the buddy system for drug user’s.

At one point, while living at one of Ronald Jackson’s apartments, I managed to find the Independent Living Services in the phone book so, I called them and spoke to a woman named Tina Tilney, who did come to speak with me. It was a desperate attempt, on my part, to get out of the environment after I realized how bad it truly was and is. She was clearly overwhelmed because she had never followed through with finding me a home for “highly functioning individuals”, as she had discussed with me. She also mentioned various jobs that she could get me involved in, and some therapies to learn how to cope with my injuries and state of duress. She took all of my files that I showed to her and just vanished.

Living at Ronald Jackson’s apartment was turning even more ugly as the drug use continued on by the minute. In a desperate attempt to change my environment, I went to Ron Vokes house that ask him to rent me a room. It just happened to be that Ron Groenlier showed up shortly after my arriving. After he mentioned that he was moving into a house owned by his Aunt, I explained that I was looking for a room to rent. He was quick to ask me to come and share his place. When I went there to start moving my stuff in I had ran into Salih, owner of Native American Builder’s, he offered me another job that lasted for a few months, eventually ending once again. Only this time it was because her problem was that I knew more about there marriage than she wanted me to. It was one more time that I had to call Bob for work.

One day Bob came to pick me up for work at his shop. We had been working through the week for Johnny Van Soest, who was building new homes in the Rockford area. There were a few projects going on in the shop where Bob was building a few items to go in his house. Things like a sow’s belly draw standing cabinet for potatoes and onions, and a small desk for the mail, keys, and charging packs for cellular phones.

As I was trying to keep going with the momentum that I was being pushed to maintain, I made a poor decision to use a small piece of scrap wood to cut a part from rather than an ample sized piece to work with. My thumb got cut on the table saw while trying to rip this board to size. It was a board that I knew was too short to cut on the table saw when I was doing it but out of my wanting to keep Bob happy by letting less material go in the pile for the wood stove I nearly lost one of my hands. And although I was a very highly skilled woodworker, my head was twisted up with the residual affects of the substances I had been using the night before.

The saw blade became pinched by the twist in the wood as the board became separated into two pieces, caused by the nature of the wood grain as it had grown around a knot. The blade yanked the board and the force I was using to push on it let the weight of that force fall forward into the area of the blade, catching a piece of one of my fingers on my right hand. Had my senses not been compromised by a hangover, I would have been able to achieve it, as I had become known to do the improbable routinely. As the board went flying, bouncing off of the wall, my hand was struck and vibrated with a high frequency vibration. My fingers felt hot from the blow. It was my first reaction to grab the struck hand with my other hand, and grip the fingers tightly as if to hold them together. The pressure applied was to stop the blood flow that I knew was there. It was also to hold the pieces together. Fearing the extent of the damage, I just kept squeezing until I could stomach to look at the wound.

Bob took me home shortly after. I grabbed a half pint of Seagram’s Seven and a couple of pain relievers. Having thought that it was minor, I realized that it was quite a bit worse, so I got on the telephone and called around for someone to take me to the hospital but no one was around to help. Then I go the big idea to call The Independent Living Association to see if Tina Tilney could help me, and continue our discussion about my life situation. The way I saw it was that she would see that I nearly cut my hand off and would then recognize that I truly needed the help of her organization.

Tina Tilney did come to the house and took me to the hospital to be treated. While we were there I told her about a story I had been writing and a few nightmares I had been having. She didn’t really listen to me, thinking that I was delusional or crazy.

There happened to be a friend of my ex-wife’s there with her husband but she never said a word to me, only to relay her observations back to Mindy shortly after she had left the Hospital. Later on in the coming months I would hear how Carrie was there with her son, and with the impression that I was out of my mind.

Within a few months weeks Bob would land Ron a job working for a friend of his who owned a heating and cooling business, as well as an auto-body and mechanic’s shop. This time things would get bad around the house with Ron, especially since he had an income now. His drinking had gotten so bad that I would question my own. Eventually he would end up losing that job.

Chapter-

Bob and I were trimming houses for Johnny Van Soest at the time. One day Johnny called Bob to a private luncheon, leaving me at the jobsite where I continued to work, eating my lunch as I went along in my details. The thing about me, I am told, is that the work I do is exemplary, setting the standards of those around me, and would be expected of a well-trained Finish Carpenter. Bob, on the other hand, was an imposter. His accumulated skills gave him the resemblance of a carpenter but he was not. It was more accurate that he was a general laborer. Truth is, he had such an attitude, (much like Stan), and was so snide, that nobody could stand him long enough to get any kind of work done at all. He was so insecure; anyone getting the attention of the superiors, other than him self, was targeted to be subtly, and slowly, whittled away at with Bob’s tone. It was all fun and games on the surface but it was malicious and deviant in it’s intent; cowardly passive, yet aggressive attacks, veiled in humor. This is one of the purposes he had for my craftsmanship, passing my work off as his own where ever, and when ever, he could get away with it… until now.

Bob would soon come back from his little private luncheon, at The First Wok on Northland Drive, to make light of what ended up being an outright confrontation. John discovered that my work was what he had been promised in affect but with Bob on the job, trying to maintain a dominate grasp on the contract while fearing me taking over- the truth spilled out for the only one who mattered in the scheme to see… the man who signs the check.

Bob’s insecurity constantly rewarded me with information. If it hadn’t been for his uneasiness and guilt emanating from his disability of not being able to handle silence, he may never have told me what was said at the luncheon. Instead of a discussion about the next house or a price negotiation, Johnny flatly stated, “I don’t think you take pride in your work.” I was a bit shocked that Bob shared that with me but maybe he needed me to help him make light of it, so he wouldn’t feel the psychological sting, and the threat. Bob and I both knew who’s work they all hired him for, and as they would learn that it was mine, he would paint out a gruesome picture of me- making himself look like a star for dealing with me. As long as he controlled me he could benefit from my work, keeping me on the weak end of the pay scale to insure that I was starving enough to keep performing. Constantly beating me down in my mind, extinguishing the flames of desire that burned in my heart, that gave me the spirit that I had. He would toy with my life as if I were a lab rat or a fly, only to torture me and keep my wings from being able to lift my self back up to the heights of who I had been in the past.

His mouth would leak things it never should have. He was his own worst enemy in that way. He is one of the first people you’d shoot, if he were in your crime family because he would run his mouth off and cause your inevitable ruin.

At one time he was an employee at a dowel company in Marne but quit when they scolded him for performing excessively in his position, denying him a raise that he had been pressing for. This didn’t wear well with his rejection issues. Before he left, being a deviant, and a psychiatrists dream, he altered all of the company’s production jigs. This malicious act caused a huge problem, and was a devastating blow to the business, that would rob the employees of their security by going out of business because of it this act. This was a problem in the Marne area because there were few jobs around that contributed to the local community and it’s Economy.

This would be bragged about every once in a while, just for the sake of inflating his own ego and subtly letting me know that he owned me. Occasionally he would remark to me that I, “just don’t know how to suck up right.” This implied that maybe I should be submissive to his lust. Later, he would reveal a problem at home involving the computer, mentioning the discovery of gay porn being viewed in the browser history. He suggested that it was the curiosity of the younger of his two charges that were being cared for in his home- his brother Joe’s kids. The boy was around thirteen at the time, and very meek, more than likely fearful of Bob. How convenient it was to use this poor boy for a scapegoat. Cheryl would now giggle a bit over the discovery, and continue to monitor the traffic on her Internet service, thinking the boys were being boys, as they say.

At one point, while staying at my mother’s house after my separation, an acquaintance convinced me into meeting him to go out and “party.” He picked me up as I walked down the street away from my mother’s house, and then doubled back to his apartment- the same building that Selena and Diamond had lived in. When we got there, I realized I had made a mistake. Apparently this guy owed money for dope and had just taken me hostage. The plan was that I would give them money in order to be allowed to leave. I spent ten hours trying to figure a way out of this situation without giving them what they wanted but ended up calling Bob to come and get me, using some of the money he owed me to fund these dirtballs for their precious crack. Just knowing that they are in their own hell is satisfaction enough, I suppose.

Yes, it was another convenient situation for Bob to use to his advantage. Not too long after this is when I lived by the creek, saved Laura and Matt from losing their kids, and then got a job working for the carnival, which is a very interesting story, especially since it took about a year or less from the time Mindy left until I left with them on my suicide run.

I had just left 84 Lumber and was trying to get my job smoothed over. I think I was fired that day because as a Sawyer, I cut the parts for the trusses we manufactured but almost all of my cuts were wrong. With my brain injury dominating the situation, and alcohol compounding things as best supporting actor, everything was all mixed up. As I crossed the highway overpass, going towards town, a guy driving a king cab pickup truck stopped and asked me if I needed a ride or a job. People don’t just stop and ask you if you need any sort of help these days, and I should have been weary, especially since I was already in town. I got in, of course, only to find myself on my way to the carnival with a man who had to run for potatoes to use in his food wagon that he operated there. He explained to me that they always needed schleps, and me- I nominated myself. What a typical Pisces.

It was the first day of the carnival, which was still in set-up mode. Jerry’s Concessions were providing the show. The work I was assigned to do was running a ride called, The Force Ten. This ride was the feature on this midway, going in circle fashion, lifting high and tilting, spinning at a speed that generated a G-force in excess of three G’s. All of this while several pre-amps, and over two-dozen speakers blared music that I felt was appropriate for the rhythm and the intensity of the ride. It was up to me to decide what music to use. Metallica happened to be the best to choose from, so I selected “Battery” as the main track to use. The intro is kind of long, so I played it while loading the buckets on the ride. I would load a couple buckets and then jog the machine. Then I’d load a couple more, jogging it around some more, while burning through the introduction. When it got time to go, I would hit the run button, choreographing the music and ride for the rush and thrill- compounding the effect. What a Blast! People couldn’t get enough of it. The ride was drawing crowds of one hundred people or more that would watch. My costume helped a bit having long crazy two-tone hair from a dye-job I let some crack addicted woman talk me into. The music would fill the grounds and I would thrash my hair about, while playing air guitar. I loved being on a stage, especially five feet off of the ground. It was my own show that put two hundred and fifty dollars in my hand, per week. This was a huge pay cut, from the seventy thousand I made as a Finish Carpenter, to the fifty thousand per year I was making at Permalife but it didn’t matter anymore. My whole life was destroyed and all that was left was garbage. Little did I realize I was now a volunteer prisoner, serving time on death row in every possible sense of the phrase.

One of the first couple days working for the ride owner, I was asked if I would be interested in leaving with them to go to the next spot. “Sure,” I answered. The very next question was, “Do you have any warrants?” This should have indicated the reality of modern day slavery but my common sense was completely out to lunch since my accident. I was on a suicide run, with that intention. That night, at close, I got a twenty-dollar tattoo of a runaway doobie on my left shoulder, and threw all of my identification in the nearest trashcan.

The customers or ‘mark’s, would come back after riding, a lot of times with “tips” that ranged from money to drugs. I was instructed not to accept them, so I let my alter ego handle that department. Sometimes people would pay me to get on, deciding to go on a ride after all but not wanting to go through the hassle of buying any tickets. There was a young guy with a crippled arm that ran a food wagon who told me that he would watch a joint at each spot, studying the traffic and business. He would tell me that my little freak show was getting all the ratings at the Berlin Fair, saying that it was the most interesting and entertaining thing he’d seen since he had been on the circuit. Feeling proud that night but not feeling proud enough of myself to want to live; it was a momentary thing. Maybe it was ego more than pride or maybe it was blind stupidity but there was plenty of stupidity on the carnival circuit, so I blended right in. Only they don’t call it stupidity because it’s not at all recognized as anything but normality. George Orwell may have written about it already or Hunter S. Thompson, but I am going to try to explain it anyway:

Working for the carnival is just like anything else in life. There are maybe three sides to the politics. There are ride jockeys, food vendors and barkers, and then there is the management, which would be the governor or dictator. The rides are mostly owned by the management except for some privately owned rides that follow along either by invitation or bid. Management sells tickets and each ride collects them, each paid a percentage of the tickets it draws. Barkers run the games in the same type fashion only it’s cash from the marks, directly into their hand so, even among those with no honor there is an honor system to split a percentage with the management. So you should be able to see how the jockeys and barkers are competing for the same monies.

Food vendors are always neutral because everyone has to eat. The food vendors are like Cleopatra’s in the carnival. Fights often break out between the jockeys and the barkers, and it’s always due to their frustrations with getting money out of the marks. Either they are just pissed off because people aren’t spending money at the games like they used to, or expect them to- blaming it on the rides, or they claim they can’t be heard well enough over the noise of the sirens and sounds that are used to add a layer of attraction or saliency- calling the attention of the potential riders.

At then end of the night it’s party time- drugs, booze and sex. Eleven P.M. comes and then it’s all too crazy. The clans group up and who knows what will happen next. Someone almost always gets beat up. It’s like the freaking jackals or hyenas on the African plains- just a bunch of beggars around me, biding their time until they are completely freed of responsibility as earthlings who are sick of having to wash up for supper even.

Biding time until death was mostly what I was doing but I wasn’t dying from anger and hate, I was dying from a broken heart. It was typical of me to get mixed up with the dregs of society because I was born, inconveniently. And being aware of that, as well as being socially scarred because of it, placed me right where misfits end up a lot of times- on the streets.

Tom Kloosterhouse worked with me at 84 Lumber, where I met him. After I joined the Carnival, he landed a job working with me. Now that I look back with my experience on Earth, I see how we both thought it was a good idea- we both had our bells rung. My bell got rung six consecutive times in the collision with the Semi, and he got his bell rung when a stack of Trusses fell from their foolishly upright, stacked position. So, we both were dealing with concussions. And now that I have been educated on what concussions are, and what PTSD is, I clearly understand why we did something so utterly stupid.

They got rid of Tom over the workman’s compensation suit, and they got rid of me because I was having serious issues with my mathematical computations- being a sawyer and cutting the truss parts, my head injury was a serious issues. My numbers were always miswritten or misread, as if I had Dyslexia. That was fine with me because I had enough of that operation anyway. Seeing my mistakes was a constant source of frustration and aggravation that only made the drinking and using more consistent, routine and copious. Even though it would appear as though I was partying, I was miserable and hated everything I was doing to myself, which only compounded my misery all the more.

So, there we were, him and I, and our demons. One night, being locals, we let someone talk us into finding them some cocaine, one of the other jockeys. By the time we got back to the lot, we were pretty lit. In the bunkhouse room we were assigned, Tom gets out the coke he had gotten for us and puts down a couple of lines. I passed out right in the middle of trying to snort one; my head fell forward onto the mirror. Tom just grabbed me by a wad of hair and scraped it off of my forehead with his identification card. It was just an average night in the life of a Carney.

We’d pull out in a day or two and head for the next spot… Gladwin County Fairgrounds, where I’d end up getting fired from the Carnival. It wasn’t really a secret that I was playing a drunk but it would be the reason I was given- a simple truth but not the real reasons for getting the axe. It was okay with me, I had seen enough. The truth was, the guy who ran the bulldozer game was irate over the horns and sirens and the sound system on the Force Ten. He was aggravated because his game was placed right next to this ride, for what I saw the second spot in a row, drowning him out and frustrating him in his efforts to draw players. He took this out on me, especially since the female he worked with was admiring what there was of me to admire, while he was intent on getting something from her that was not available to him regardless of if I had any interest in her or not. At one point he crawled under the ride and all but silenced the siren by stuffing a rag in it but me, being a take charge kind of fool, I crawled under and found the reason for the sudden change- removing the flannel shirt that was stuffed in it. The electrolysis of the big picture made me the zinc plate on this vessel that was almost certain to sink. And I was so green, as Captain, that I had no idea of the type of tact to use to escape the Despondent Sea. It was his mutinous attitude, I’m sure, that made the management of Jerry’s concessions decide to keep placing him where he had been placed- probably trying to get rid of him altogether.

The day I was fired was definitely interesting, with my first puker, and a drunken lot lizard. The day was just getting started when the kid threw up on the ride. Puke went flying everywhere but it was quickly hosed down and ready for the next wave of riders. There weren’t really many people around to want to ride except for a couple kids, two fortyish looking partier types and a woman who had stumbled from the back lot, where the campsites were for the crew in the show. This woman was pretty loaded, having a hard time walking even. After a long-winded session of her begging, I let her on. When the ride got into full swing, she was writhing in the bucket like she had a broken neck so, I was forced to stop the ride but it wasn’t stopping in her mind. I opened the gate on the bucket while there was a county cop observing- apparently he had watched the whole thing because this woman was a community drunk with mental problems that had been all over the park the night before, combing the place to suit her agendas among the campsites. She stepped down and fell into a flailing heap, what looked like tumbling in place. People who hadn’t seen the whole episode had made me out to be an abuser. The cop would explain her to me and drive her off of the lot, taking her home.

Fortunately, for me, I had made an impression on the kids in the community. The man who hired me said he was going to drive me back to Grand Rapids. Quickly deciding that was not my intention, I told him that I had family in the area, and that I would just go there.

When I hit the streets, the neighborhood kids took me in. For a while my home was with an eighteen year-old kid with handicaps, both mental and physical. They called him “Mike on a bike,” and he had his own apartment at a complex not too far from the fairgrounds. It was an apartment on the second floor that his father managed to get for him. A very many people were social security recipients at this complex. His father said Mike was born handicapped due to his exposure to Agent Orange while on tour in Vietnam that affected his sperm. This was the first time I had witnessed a lot of new things that, looking back now, I wish I had sense enough available for any of it to mean something to me.

At some point in my excursions with, Mike, we were at a Pamida grocery store near a Veterinarian, where we ran into a married couple that he knew, and had done odd jobs for in the past. They arranged for us to come out to their house where they were doing work to prepare the place to be their full-time residence, having been relocating there from Bay City. One of the tasks for the day was, going on one last moving run. Now, this would have been an excellent opportunity to just have them take me to a relatives house in Bay City but my step-father destroyed all familial security with his taking us far from anyplace where his failures and his many underachievments could be viewed by any of mom’s relatives. I only know that now, where, I could never put my finger on it before. As for what was important to him, self-indulgence, Golf, mostly. He invested all of his time and money on golf. Of all the years he was with us, he rarely spoke to any of his ten kids from his previous marriage. He actually spoke more often of his ex-wife, Gloria, than all of them combined, for whatever reason.

Now, I see how typical this is of today’s so-called man. But it wasn’t his fault entirely. For, my own failure at helping myself had created a disaster that I was just too blinded by my own actions and grief to see. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself, and too willing to give the control over to alcohol and whatever or whomever else was around. My binge drinking and misery would not allow me to see my options in the least. It’s really too bad, and a lot worse than I thought at the time because, little did I know, people that loved and cared for me were there suffering with the complications of growing old, and in dire need of help and support that I could have easily provided. We could have helped each other at a mutually difficult time in our lives.

My Aunt Bernice Russo had been afflicted with Polio when she was a very young girl. She was struck down and forced into a wheelchair, where she sat for the rest of her life. My Uncle Bill met her when they were in school together, which is when they fell in love. They were High School Sweethearts. He had been placed in a convalescent home with Alzheimer’s, and she was at home being tended to by in-home nurses and such. I would learn they passed away twelve hours apart but that would not be until about six months after the fact. I recall my mother mentioning the situation of Uncle Bill and Aunt Bern around the time of my divorce in 1997 but due to never receiving anything that I understood as love and affection, I was unable to respond to their needs. So poisonous, the regret is, over wishing I had responded to Aunt Bern’s need for my help but I failed us both. It was not possible to receive the messages that love and intuition sends, primarily failing because I was polluting myself with whatever I could get while dwelling in self-pity. Lobotomized by the closed head injury and alcohol, I remained ignorant. Ironically, of all the loss giving me worlds of grief, I was about to lose more, and quite possibly two of the last loving family members I had left.

With Polio at eight or ten, and leg braces and a wheelchair, Uncle Bill never left her side. They were both smokers in high school and their younger days, as many were. Most likely a product of the WWII promotions, smoking Camels way back then but they both decided to quit one day, as far as she knew. Being confined to a damned wheelchair, she was left only to roam the main floor and deck, which was always odd to us kids because Uncle Bill was extremely inventive, if not ingenious.

Uncle Bill had an air compressor system that he had built out of some automotive parts. And he engineered and manufactured his own boiler system that provided heat and hot water for their home. He also had a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T. God only knows when he bought it but he kept it alive, driving it right up until he couldn’t drive any longer.

Everywhere he went, someone would offer to buy this car- literally begging him to sell it. People would ask him to race, and to see under the hood, really lusting after that car. It was the same make and model that was used on the “Dukes of Hazzard” show. Uncle Bill wasn’t selling. This car was being saved for me. He had told me this himself when I was maybe twelve years old. The car is now gone. Nobody knows where it went but one thing I know is, I was never invited or informed of the funeral. The funny thing about Uncle Bill, with all of his inventiveness and genius, never built a lift for Aunt Bern to climb the stairs to the lower level. Come to find out, he had his own pad down there, complete with a kitchenette and an exhaust system in the chimney so he could smoke cigarettes.

It wouldn’t be until too late, until Aunt Bern has been long gone, while here at Jackson Prison, that I would finally realize what it was like for her to be imprisoned in that condition, and feeling as lonely as she must have felt. She would mail letters to us quite frequently that would always contain pictures and articles from these tabloid type newspapers you find in the grocery store checkout lanes, within reach of her wheelchair: Largest ball of twine unwinds; Thirty nine pound cat eats whole pizza; Man with no legs climbs mountain. There was always a “can-do” aspect to everything she shared with us. The problem was, having been going through the motions of life with a dysfunctional family, we were never motivated to write her back, that I can remember or maybe the thought was overridden with traumas from the past or a beating, replaced with the hungers children have for the love they are starved of.

My poor Aunt Bernice was a sweetheart that showered us all with hugs and kisses but having never received them, they were strange to me, and I would cringe and try to resist, like an animal that never has been in human contact.

Odd to look back on, the sheer irony, that I have been literally killing myself, in my search for a place to be in life, and in my head- searching for love and affection. And the very people that had it for us kids died before we could become wise enough to understand what they had, which denied them of the love they deserved just as much.

All I have of my Aunt Bernice is a picture of her seated and smiling, spectacles and shawl- the silver in her hair matching the bluish yarn. Extremely saddened with the truth in her memory, I realize now how very, very important love is for our children, and for one another. It’s the main message in almost every religion, and the Bible: God is Love. Love one another… Stealing from our children brings pain to us all, in that moment, in their tomorrow, and finally, to us when we look around and find they’re not by our side when we are transitioning into the final phase of life- our death. So, I failed in all respects. That is, if any of it is respectable. It was a perfect opportunity for so much, to come to her rescue, as well as my own.

[I would later hear of how the in-home nursing assistants were unable to move her around without hurting her. She really would have appreciated it if I could have been able to stop feeling sorry for myself long enough to see that I was truly needed; another irony since I am a Pisces.]

It was a perfect opportunity for me to find my safe haven. It was another perfect opportunity to have love and support that I so direly needed. It was a perfect opportunity to position myself to take over the familial reigns, replacing my grandfather- becoming the pinnacle.

I couldn’t help but wonder if having a father to talk to, in this very tough time, would have changed any of it. Even still, I am not without the understanding that the drugs and alcohol compounded everything, making it all far worse than it really was or needed to be. Stupid me.

I can still hear my Aunt Bern’s voice echo in my head: “Rutabaga soup! Rutabaga soup! That’s all they fed us at damned the VA Hospital!” Between the memory and a photograph, that’s all I have of my Aunt Bern, and from what I’ve witnessed after the deaths of loved ones these days, it’s probably the best thing I could have.

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.

Anyway, I got the next ride, ride number five, which carried me all the way to Grand Rapids. After asking me where to drop me off, I see that it’s going to be a trick because traffic is heavy and it’s a very busy spot on the highway at the 131/I-96 interchange near Alpine Avenue. Just about the time I get to the top of the entrance ramp heading west to Marne, a Michigan State Police officer pulls up and scoops me off of the road. My instincts were telling me to hike through the bush a ways but I figured another hitch would come along right then- not the authorities. Just imagine my surprise when he runs my name to find that Ottawa County has a warrant for me. All that way just to get picked up by the police and put right back in jail! This was my final ride. This was ride number six.

In a way I was relieved- getting right back in the ring to fight things out to the finish or maybe punishment from the spiritual realm for drinking so quickly after being clean and sober for three months. Either way, or both, it would speed things up with my tasks. Mostly, I considered it a prep-course for what lie ahead, re-uniting with my dreams of music because during that thirty days I would become acquainted with my cell-mate who played music, wrote lyrics and recorded in his own home studio. We spoke about these things ninety percent of the time, yielding only to familial topics. This got the brain train moving along, and with all the freight mine carried it was now unstoppable.

They did experiments involving prisons and institutional settings, where some of the participants were made inmates and some were made guards. It was a very powerful and informative psychological documentary. Here I am, in the reality of that particular study, on the inside. I feel like Jane Goodall in a way, only the monkeys that I am observing are a bit more serious issue: TODAY’S MEN.

The mentality in motion, on the part of those who help run the Ottawa County Jail, involved a little game with the “systems” people. There I am, waiting to be picked up for my release, all the while my people are cruising around outside in their efforts to get me but they cannot find the entrance. The grounds are set up with instructional road signs that are intentionally confusing in their implications and configuration. It seems they do not like helping people, contrasting to the “serve and protect” mantra that they are sworn to uphold.

State workers, especially turnkeys, which are largely disgruntled, get off on taunting and humiliating people (It surprises me that Bob isn’t a turn-key). Most often they become prison guards because they couldn’t pass the psych evaluation to become an actual police officer but they end up in the institutions working with people anyway, which is unbelievable and makes no sense.

So, after you follow the directions of the sign saying “Ottawa County Jail Visitor’s Entrance”, you find all the other signs. These all say “wrong way” and “do not enter” and “authorized personnel only,” leaving you with no way inside the compound. Yeah. Real funny. I’m sure some Napoleonic twerps get a frequent laugh about that but it is nothing compared to the thrill they get from getting into arguments with people because of it.

Looking around, I see the male specimens surrounding me and feel relieved that my life isn’t so lacking- left with time to imagine what life must be like for these pitiful fools. Fortunately I have better things to do but while doing some of those things, I find myself saddened with the fact that I have no real men for friends, which leaves me without anyone to call for help when I need it or anyone that I can hang out with, or have over for a card game with my wife and I.

At the moment I can’t recall if I ended up released or if I was transferred to the Kent County Jail for an FOC warrant but somehow I ended up back in Grand Rapids, on the West side of town. I am pretty sure I went back to work for Salih but it wouldn’t last very long. His wife was still too much to deal with.

It wouldn’t be much longer before I’d be back to work for Bob. I’m sure they spoke about what to do with me being that I couldn’t go back to mom’s due to Stan’s Ego, and so that’s how I ended up in a room at the Wayside Motel. Bob would just deduct the rent from my pay. One of the problems I had with Bob was that he took it upon himself to pay me so little that I was starved in effect. So much so, that once I was involved, I had no choice but to stay where I was at unless I wanted to go back to the streets. I didn’t really have enough money to do the things I wanted, like go out to the bar in search of a companion or buy dope of any kind. I had grown accustom to earning over two thousand dollars a week, now only being paid two hundred a week.

There were reasons why I was getting shorted. Most involved Bob’s scandalous nature of milking the jobs out. The profits he earned, that were rightfully my own, paid for his Corvette- an acquisition he flaunted in my face whenever he got a chance to. Little did he allow himself to understand is that if he would have listened and learned important trade secrets and techniques that I was willingly trying to share with him he could have paid me one thousand a week, enabling me to take my ex-wife to court over defrauding me, my children and the courts, and regaining my life, and have bought himself two Corvettes. But humble in the smallest, he was not, and I’ve finally become rewarded with that which I have sought so long and hard. Kids somewhat included.

Anyway, the Wayside Motel was an okay little place except for the narcotic affect of the room environment, either depressing or lacking of oxygen, I am not sure which- maybe both. Trying to keep myself busy, I took it upon myself to work in the backyard repairing the Horseshoe pits.

There were plenty of things to keep me busy, like working for Ancil Mitchell, at the church he ministered to. He needed a Baptism pond built, something other than the galvanized thing they were using. This was the same thing used to feed or water livestock with on many farms across the United States of America.

Ancil propositioned Bob to create the Baptism pond but rather than further his knowledge in the engineering and artistic scope that makes up more than half of the skilled carpentry trade, he nominated me. It was probably a decision he made because of the fact that it would end up being a low paying gig- if any pay at all. I feel like he did that to keep himself from being exposed but mostly he just couldn’t do it. There was too much thinking involved, a curious situation because my thinking faculties were compromised because of the head injury I had received from the accident with the Semi, and my newfound lifestyle after my divorce. Either way, I really appreciated this because it kept me busy and away from myself- consuming my time that would normally be spent drinking, especially since I was exhausted from carrying an excessive amount of emotional baggage. This pond ended up being a very, very cool thing, and it may possibly have been Bob’s attempt to help me get away from the destruction I had been doing to myself. With Ancil on the sidelines, and a team of volunteers- I let the project lead me along, helping me find whatever I had left in myself for the world. It was a confidence booster.

Outside of the fiberglass liner, the fabric, paint, and various fasteners and adhesives, I manufactured every part of it, even the mechanical hardware assemblies. We needed a lid for it that could also be the floor of the podium, concealing the pond beneath, in which to “bury your sins.”

Some calls were made, magazines thumbed through, and a day or two later I had information to use for proceeding. We found a company, on the east coast of course, that manufactured this lid component. They called it a “stress-skinned panel”, and it cost around ten grand, shipping included I imagine, which would take approximately eight weeks. It was a no-brainer for me, being it was my project. After a short contemplation I decided that I would engineer one of my own panels. The one that I made was under an inch and three quarters thick and took me about two days to make. When it was finally installed you could park a full size motorcycle on it. Proud of that achievement, I glowed for weeks.

The initial phase involved removing some of the floor, cutting out some of the existing load bearing beam structure, and re-engineering it all to accommodate a new joist system that gave us the lowered finished height we needed, without having to rebuild the existing stage ensemble. Making the upper portion slide, roll, and lift was another small engineering feat accomplished with minimum hardware that was constructed using one inch threaded steel pipe and some bearing roller parts I acquired from a fitness store that I had worked at in the early nineties- Viking Leisure Products.

The people who made up the congregation were always there to lend a hand or just spend their time doing whatever needed to be done. A good amount were recovered from the streets and clinging to the church out of their earnestness in keeping away from those things that robbed them of life. Many of them were single mothers, divorced parents, and fatherless children who found alcohol and drugs, and in some cases even prostitution and the edge of their graves.

Ancil was known as a Saint- a healer. Many persons had been healed in his church, leaving behind their crutches and various braces and even wheelchairs as a testament to their healing. Even if it was the mere decision to truly choose good to end a charade, they were healed just the same. His own son and daughter were not strangers to the world’s games involving being hounded and bamboozled by persons interested in separating them from their money with any of the highly habit forming and dangerously addictive salves that those who lost all but hope to find the goodness in life will try.

His son was recovered from full-fledged junkie status, having a lengthy history with intravenous drug use that all but claimed his life.

One of the young ladies in the congregation had her eyes on me but I was no where near recovered for a relationship- merely struggling with the reality of trying to find my way back to what was important to my whole existence. I could have cleverly manipulated this woman for selfish reasons but, thankfully, I am not really the type and had been just sober enough to not prey upon her, having the realization that there was respectability in keeping my grief my own. I loved her by staying away, not to share my poisoned existence with her in her efforts to keep her family intact and to be a mother to her children. Though it was something I yearned for in the deepest pit of my heart and soul, I was just honest enough with myself or dare I say wise enough, to know that it was wrong.

Aside from working on the baptism pond, I attended the services at the Grand Valley Voice of the Pentecost on the weekends, even became baptized in the pond that I helped them to create. It was a great experience at that time in my life, and I think about it once in a while with a smile, while wondering if I should find the time to visit and see what kind of maintenance the pond needs to reflect the love, care and craftsmanship that went into it’s creation. My heart was poured into that project as I had poured it into every project. And even though Ancil told me to come to him for money on it, I declined even the smallest payment. How could I take money from a church that showed a mere forty or sixty dollars in the offering plate? Even still, to this day, in such a time of my own dire needs- facing hardships and uncertainty, I am still satisfied in that decision. Money wasn’t what I needed.

chapter

It wouldn’t be long before a guy would move into the room next door to my own, bringing the cocaine I was struggling to get away from into my reality again. It was my inebriation with alcohol that undermined my own defenses. Compounding the circumstances was my need for camaraderie, being in a state of psychological and emotional weakness and unable to focus in on the big picture. Once again, I would fail to resist temptation, and I ended up cavorting with addicts again, namely, Ronald Jackson.

Ronald grew up in Allendale. He went to school there and also rode dirt bikes as a teen. He had a chance to be a pro rider but somehow got separated from that dream. His mother and sisters raised Ronald. His father was an addict who still roams the streets today. As for how Ronald’s father became an addict, I cannot say nor do I know but in regards to Ronald, I feel it was his father that introduced that poison into his life. As a whole, my guess is that it’s mostly environmental- conditioned by forces that will never show them selves to be prosecuted. Drugs, particularly cocaine, destroyed Ronald’s marriage. Ronald’s son is now a young adult who’s playing the same games like being a small time dope peddler, and wannabe gangster, slowly evolving into a full-blown addict, and slowly poisoning all those around him. Being a dope peddler is a convenient way to have the drug at your disposal, which is the premise behind those who “share” the drug with anyone around them. Ronald, much like his father did in my speculation, probably turned his son on to the drug by-way of mixing it with marijuana, the first step to turning one on to it. Nostradamus said that the cities would poison all who inhabit them.

Ron would spend what money he could pool together to use the drug. He would then call around the city, to every relative, friend and acquaintance, trying to accumulate a couple dollars from each one. The story was always the same: that he needed money for bus tickets to get to work. He did this so often that the phrase, “bus ticket money,” had to be understood by everyone he contacted. If I could have only gotten a handle on my drinking I would have never allowed him or anyone else, to know of my safe haven at the Wayside Motel. Ronald would drive out to get me in a stolen car, knowing that I had been working and had a few dollars, only to re-awakening the demon that I was trying to make sleep forever… bad associations.

My biggest failure was the alcohol- a door that I had left wide open, while trying to close out all of the bad people and bad things that I stumbled on while lost in life’s game. The final straw at the Wayside Motel was after the motorcycle crash that took place at Bob’s. I had been examining the mushrooms in the yard behind the motel- looking for psychedelics but the manager saw me and mowed the yard down tight.

Thrown out of the Wayside Motel soon after, I ended up at Ronald’s house, having nowhere else that I could see to go. It was soon the end of summer again because I recall it being Cody’s birthday. His birthday had motivated me to write him a special Birthday song. Ronald had a phone, so I called his mom’s house in Spartanburg South Carolina, only to sing it to an answering machine that would quickly end up erased after Cody had gotten to listen to it:

“I- ’m singing Ha-ppy Birthday, t-o my favorite little du-de. I’m ho-ping you don’t gro-w at all, as I look at pictures scattered ‘round of you. Just look around your room, you’ll see me smiling at you in that oak sun carving I sent home with you. Ha-ppy Birthday, Happy Birth-day. Happy Birthday Cody, I Love You.”

His mother told me that he smiled big as the world when he heard it, which only makes sense to me why she destroyed it now that I look back. And as angry and hurt as I have been since she took them, I am happy because it only gives that much more value to the power and significance of the love that I have to share. And it makes me happy that I survived the tests and strains. I won. You can’t kill me. You can’t destroy me. I have been strengthened by the hardships, hardened, tempered but my heart is intact. Thank God. I still can’t believe I am alive sometimes.

It was while staying at Ronald’s, on Alpine Avenue, that I would cross paths with Salih again, and regain my job performing roof repair and carpentry. It wouldn’t be very long before my substance abuse would interrupt that again. The question I now wondered the answer to was: “Why would Salih continue to offer, yet another chance at employment?” The answer is fairly predictable or maybe not. You see, Salih was one of a number of three or four brothers, him being the youngest. Their parents were deceased- killed in an automobile accident, if I remember right. I envisioned the movie, “Westside Story”. Alcohol quickly became a routine in their lives, which led to some serious drug use. Dependency soon took over and destroyed what was left of the family. But that’s a bit vague. To put it more clearly, cocaine almost killed them all.

Salih told me of how he and one of his brothers had been fishing in the Grand River, when they found some small vials among the rocks in the water. Assuming them to be cocaine or morphine, they took it home and injected it into their veins. They discovered that it was not medicinal. It was chemical- better known as stink bomb. It is curious to think of now, and it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that his brother placed them there to find, and that it was a trick to get Salih to shoot the stuff into his veins. His brothers were deviant and malicious like that.

Salih spoke of this as a reborn Christian, having been devout since the early nineties when he dried out in jail. He explained how amazing the human body is, and that it is a miracle that the body can endure that kind of abuse. It's just an example of immortality, in a sense, or the will to live, if you want to call it living. But he was genuine and sincere, and a person with heart. Though he still had many of the traits of an addict, he did the best he could to maintain his business and his tassel of kids- not to mention his black hole of a wife. If he ever was found dead or just fell back into addiction, she would be the reason.

My efforts to get clean were continuously undermined by Ronald and the fact that I had nowhere to seek refuge. Thumbing through a telephone book, I frantically searched for somewhere that I could get help from. It ended up looking likely that the place to call was The Independent Living Association. Tina Tilney answered that call. She came to the house, where we discussed what made me eligible for their help. The idea of being able to get assistance was elevating. This restored my hope instantly. We discussed my having serious issues with managing affairs, no matter how great or small. I had so little awareness of anything that it’s amazing I had the ability to continue trying to stop myself from feeling. It was rarely my idea to bathe or eat, and I rarely knew the date or time. And the truth was that I had become so despondent that my self was lost.

There was no knowledge of the extent of my injuries because the doctor I was referred to by Blodgett Hospital, (Dr. Mervin Smith), provided so little assistance that I stopped going to see him to avoid it triggering my depression. My back and neck hurt constantly. My ears rang almost continuously. I couldn’t sleep because my mind and heart raced. My wrists were sprained and my jaw snapped and locked up sometimes. When I did sleep, I suffered extremely sever nightmares. And making it worse was that just before Mindy had abandoned me, she gathered up all of my meds and threw them away, immediately calling the doctor to complain about them, which made my life hell all the more. Now, with one phone call my problems were compounded.

Calling the ILS was my attempt to help myself. This was after meeting with me and explaining that she was going to help. She informed me of all of the things they could do, and that I could do, right down to me working part-time as an assistant DJ at a public radio station. Ms. Tilney certainly renewed me with hope.

Amid the disaster I was left in when Mindy ran off, there was a friend or two left to confide in. One was Ron Vokes, who lived in a house that he owned on the corner of Knapp and Coit. This is where I sometimes had played music during my marriage. It was here that I was last at when I was in the accident that helped to destroy my reality.

One night, Ron’s wife died in their bed. He never seemed to fully recover from that. Come to find out, she had rheumatic fever as a child. This illness left a hole in her heart, which was the cause of her death. He had been maintaining but became in a weekend alcoholic routine, always the same thing every weekend. It seemed normal but the truth was not pretty. No one would recognize it for fear that they would find fault in themselves. While visiting him, an old friend of his, Ron Groenlier, was back from Texas, having recently been released from jail there after a divorce and drunk driving charge. Groenlier was moving into a house owned by his Aunt. This house was a block away from Ronald Jackson’s place. Groenlier said he needed some help with the rent so I jumped at the chance. Talk about being in the right place at the right time… or was I?

I slipped out of Ronald Jackson’s while he was at work one day. The last time I caroused with him was the weirdest one for me. It became very clear to see how badly the city was polluted with crack cocaine. There was a plasma clinic near the Sixth street dam- the fish ladder, where Ronald gave Plasma in exchange for about thirty dollars. This day he was giving plasma for money to buy crack with. Since I had no identification or documents to become enrolled myself, I waited outside.

When Ronald came out he already had two cocaine rocks in his hand, having bought them right there, while lying on the table with the I.V. in his arm. A guy laying on the table next to him had the dope. I kept tossing this around in my head, along with the disgust with myself for associating with any of it. How I got into this situation in life and how to correct it were questions I was too poisoned, and distracted, to answer- disabled by lost love… and love lost for myself. It would be a cold day in hell before I would ever let Ronald know where I moved.

Chapter

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 loot a building. Charles 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.

The squirrels chapter

Here’s something that still bothers me: Shortly after moving into this house with Groenlier, in the spring, we couldn’t help but notice that there were an awful lot of squirrels in the yard. Well, squirrel is one of my favorite small game meats so; I decided to try to get a few. Now, if I wasn’t so concerned with having money for drugs and alcohol, I’d have just bought a pellet rifle but my priorities wouldn’t hear of it, especially since I could think of a way to do it and spare myself the unnecessary expense. I searched the garage despite it being in the middle of collapsing, and I searched the basement of the house. This led me to a rattrap that hung from a nail on a floor joist but that wasn’t until after I had tried to build a live trap using a five-gallon paint bucket and a refrigerator grate. The wire shelf made a lid that I attached to the bucket with a couple pieces of wire coat hanger for fasteners that also created the hinges. Then I tied a brick to the lid and placed some birdseed in the bucket. I used a stick to prop the lid open, and tied a rope to it- like a box trap from the days of old. It was just like in the cartoons or on the Little Rascals. It worked well if the squirrels just relaxed a bit but they freaked out, shooting out of the trap like furry little rockets with claws. The rattrap was a cartoon moment. Like when you see the light bulb over a characters head appear and illuminate. I tied a piece of heavy yarn to it and tied the other end to a large broken tree branch that laid there on the ground so they wouldn’t run off with the trap. Figuring that peanut butter would be great bait, (and remembering the Planters commercials), I ran in and got the jar, slathering some on the trap. Well, before I pulled the cellar door shut behind me, I heard that awesome, “snap!”, that said I had one. Dragging the bucket with me, I took the squirrel off, dropped him in, and baited the trap again. I was pretty excited! Hunting squirrels with a rattrap! Well, as I put the trap back down I saw the squirrels at my feet. “Wow!” I thought, “This is too easy. I can’t believe I never thought of this before”. In about ten minutes I had five of them. Ron Groenlier volunteered to clean them and cook them. The sounds of him gagging and dry heaving from the act and the smells that go along with it, had me choking on the laughter that was a challenge to keep under my breath.

While he was doing that, I was looking out the window, at the back yard, filled with a sense of pride for having succeeded in trapping squirrels. There was an overabundance of them, which is one of the reasons I even killed them but now I see past our fence, and there is an old woman on her backyard deck. She had a three foot “A” frame, carpet covered perch for them to climb on, where she fed them from her hand and talked to them. These squirrels I just killed had a caretaker, with names and everything. They were more or less pets and very friendly. Suddenly I was sick at heart! I just killed a bunch of tame squirrels and, boy, was I ashamed. To this day I still feel bad about it.

It was only a matter of time before I was familiar with enough addicts to suck me back into the twilight dope scene. My friends lived on Fuller, and I lived off of Leonard and Alpine, so being on foot brought me onto the battlefront.

A five-dollar bill nearly got me killed once by a would-be attacker. My mistake was getting into a car with a stranger who had been out running around chasing his tail for rocks all night. Just because someone has a car, even a nice car, doesn’t mean anything at all when referring to a person’s Principles, Morals or Ethics. Material possessions are very often part of a charade- an Antithesis even. We had met because I was trying to score at the same place, not really knowing where to score, just searching through the city sludge.

Well, after being on foot in the rock scenes royal rat race, a car is a welcome thing- your own mobile dope smoking spot with no outsiders wanting to share your dope. But when the dope was gone, he came up with a plan of his own. Deciding we should do some cruising, he drove us to the Grand River down Butterworth drive, out near the gypsum mines. He knew I still had a five-dollar bill but I needed it for other things. There was a chunk of industrial wire on the floor of the front passenger seat area that was sixteen inches long, and an inch around, sheathed in black plastic casing. It was perfect for bludgeoning with. My spirit already knew what was going on- though in danger, I remained calm. His body language confirmed what his plans were. He suggested we get out and walk around. I really didn’t think much of it- probably denying I was in a precarious, life-threatening position but out of the corner of my watchful eye, I noticed him reach for it. He fondled the item while he worked up the nerve, probably deciding if he could or should do it. That was when I realized it was really about to happen. Pretending like everything was normal, and that we were merely trying to kill time in an attempt to “come down”, I suddenly blurted out, “I just remembered, I have money!” That’s when I gave him an explanation of how I always cashed my checks at Edzu’s liquor store, and that he didn’t have all of the money yesterday, still owing me a hundred and sixty five bucks. This worked like a charm. He drove us back immediately.

When I went inside the store, I told the clerk that someone was trying to rob me, and asked him if he had a back door. There wasn’t a back door. My only chance to escape unseen was to dash out and run west, crossing the street toward the south about a half block down, since the guy was parked on the east side of the building. There was no place closer than four blocks south for me to go to get off of the street. Four blocks is plenty of space to get caught up again. It scared me to death but I had been in several brushes with death before. After managing to escape that situation, I never saw him again, that I know of. One thing I know of, for certain, is that cocaine is a lot bigger problem in Grand Rapids than people realize. I witnessed firsthand, and I am not sure that it isn’t being used as a tool for a variety of manipulation that I’d be killed for suggesting. But how do you get funding for problems? You have to have problems to get funding for them. And if everyone is consuming alcohol, there are just a bunch of crass conspiracy theorists and nobody listens to their drunken tirades. Just look at how they defamed Oliver Stone.

One night, I manipulated Ron Groenlier’s dad into letting me use his car to make a dope run by telling him I needed to run to the store. I ended up with a flat tire and no way to tend to it, driving for who knows how long, maybe six miles until the rubber busted apart and the rim was ruined. Ron fixed it the next day. I contemplated checking in somewhere but lacked confidence in three days of dry-out or confidence in myself to confide in it or even deserve it. I am not sure what happened regarding moving out of the house, whether I was evicted or if I just decided that I needed a different environment. Oh, I remember now. Ron Groenlier introduced me to a bar called The West Side Bar, where we went out for beers and burgers. They made a burger called, “The Hog Burger”, served with bacon or ham on a one-half pound patty. The place was a biker hang out that appealed to me, so started going there regularly, eventually becoming acquainted with the owner.

One day I went in wearing a t-shirt for a bandana. That was the day I met Terry Lynn. As I stood at the serving trough, waiting for my beer, she struck up a conversation with a question: “What kind of a guy are you?”

The next thing you know, I was seeing her daily. Soon after she was served an eviction notice to move from her apartment for non-payment of the rent. She was probably fishing for her next move the night I met her. What a sucker I was, finally figuring out that she was a junkie. I do not recall but I’m sure the dope was brought into view early on. The extent of her addiction was yet to be recognized. Apparently she had blown her money with her off and on again boyfriend a little too often. She was probably led on that he would pay her back for their excursions, up to the point where time lapsed and the rent had been put off too long to salvage. She was quick to play my heartstrings and moved in with me. I failed to recognize that cute little sneeze, though thespian, as an intended tool for her prey. She was a full-blown addict that couldn’t shoot herself up- always needing my involvement.

My first thought about her was that she was okay because she had a job. Well, let me tell you, having a job doesn’t mean much. The important part to take notice of is what gets done with the money. It’s got nothing to do with how much you have, just what you do with it. She spent hers in the bars while looking for places to spend it in the street.

Yeah, things just kept going from bad to worse for me. Shooting up was her thing, and she couldn’t do it alone, which made me the guy since I was preying on her for affection and companionship. She would score whatever she could put in a needle- Dilaudid when she could find it, and crack any other time. She would crush it up, dissolve it in lemon juice, suck it up into a dirty needle, and shove it into her arm. I was baffled. I wondered often, “Is the whole world like this?” It certainly seemed like it to me.

It only made me agonize, that much more, over the reality of what the divorce had done to me. Miserable is one of the many terrible things I was. Was this type of degradation all that I was going to find in my search for wholeness? Death was the one gift that couldn’t be received. And though death was all around me, it wasn’t for me to receive. Why?

One night Terry and I went to the West Side Bar. It was my aim to go either way but she ended up accompanying me for the sake of dope. It was very cold and snowing that night in November. The wind was whipping pretty hard. The West Side Bar was about a fifteen-minute walk, which might have been twelve blocks or more. That was too far, considering the weather. We decided to ride my bicycle but I am sure it was my own idea.

When we finally left the bar it was close to midnight. Holding the bike up, ready to start pedaling, I waited for Terry to get on. After shoving off with my foot I began to crank the pedals. In the next twenty feet we began to fall over onto the right side. Releasing the bike and gaining a hold of the ground, I managed to land on my feet. Terry was not so quick to reflex properly and ended up lying on the ground as if to still be riding the bike. When I helped her up, it was quickly decided that we’d walk for a while.

Many times that night, she had made comments like, “I am living proof that you can live on beer and popcorn alone.” We ended up only walking for a few yards because she kept yelling about her leg. There was no doubt that it was painful, especially after I looked at it under a streetlight. Between the knee and ankle, it was bent like a cheap piece of macaroni or better yet, a banana. I went back inside the bar to make a phone call. Ron Groenlier came to get us with his dad’s car, driving us to the Butterworth Hospital for the broken leg to be treated. She was in the hospital for several days, hooked up to an I.V. pain management system- screaming her fool head off, milking it for all it was worth.

Thoughts began running through my head pretty constant about mu relationship with her. It may have only been a few days before I decided that I’d had enough. One day I told her that I couldn’t take it anymore and that I couldn’t live with the reality of the drug use, the shooting up or the anxiety of whether or not I was going to catch something from her or become a junkie too. So, I left the house I shared with Ron and her so that I could get away from it, and so she could still have a place to stay.

After bouncing around at friend’s houses that I drank and smoked at while lost in the streets for a spell, I went to Mary Doyle’s house in order to spend some time near my oldest child and maybe crash for a while until I could figure out what to do. Mary’s ex-husband, Bruce Vachon, was staying there, living in the garage, which was just a city dump with a roof and a power outlet. Bruce’s state of reality didn’t let him see that and he didn’t seem to mind, as long as he had his tobacco and his forty-ounce bottle of Magnum. He had a small television and a radio that he had managed to find while diving in dumpsters in the neighborhood. He also had a recliner chair that he occupied much of the time. This is also where he slept or passed out in. Little did I know, the house was dominated by a whole barrel of demons, and it was just a short time away from a serious fire caused by the kids cooking hotdogs in the attic space where they had a fort. It wouldn’t be long until the final result of the family’s dysfunctions and standard of acceptable living would be that the City bulldozed the house into the ground. My heart went out for the whole situation and to everyone involved but the only one who responded to any kind of an attempt I made to help was Bruce. There is more Irony because I would inevitably find out that there was no real help for him that would make any sense at all.

Rarely, in the past, did I have a conversation with Bruce, let alone anything in common to talk about, other than a child with the same mother, Mary Doyle. So, now it made sense to me to try helping him. If nothing else, our children would see that I was not the bad guy, as far as failing at a relationship with their mom. Having, once again, regained my employment with Salih, I talked him into giving Bruce a chance at doing some groundwork picking up shingles on our tear offs, for instance. It made sense to me that Bruce would feel a gaining in his confidence and self-esteem if he had a job. And It was another gung-ho push on me getting a grip on my life since I had just been on another binge, being approached by a police cruiser to be asked if I was okay while I stood out on a street corner at five in the morning, waiting for someone to come back with the dope, who was probably watching me from a window while smoking the dope that they had bought with my money. It ended up that I had to accept being robbed and so I started the long walk back from Franklin Street, all the way back to Forty-fourth Street, for the entire world to see.

I guess my desperation was so much that in order to help myself, I had to help someone else but that really made no sense, since I could find no way to really help myself but to try to keep a job. And it was all I could do to do that. I had no business worrying about Bruce, and little did I know he was a lost cause. What I did was open up to Salih. He was the only person I knew who was sober and with a sober mind. Salih didn’t really have any real answers, not any different than the truth of the reality, (quit drinking), but he helped in every way I allowed him to.

Salih gave Bruce a job to do, and he soon assisted us with securing an apartment that one of his clients had available. Part of the deal was that there was a lot of work that it needed to have done to it in order to be rented out by law. The kitchen was in a shambles and the bathroom needed some serious love. The back entrance stairwell needed some intensive care, in addition to overhauling windows and an interior paint job. It was a great relief and I was happy to have it. And I think Bruce was too. This was the McReynolds place off of the southeast corner of Leonard and Alpine. After settling in I went out to a few of my lesser toxic friends houses to brag up my new developments. Now is when I go through the Matt and Sara phase- learning of their divorce, and trying to lend a hand…. Like I didn’t have my hands full with my own rehabilitation and with trying to provide Bruce with a chance to regain his dignity.

William “Zigzag” Goode lived on the block. It was at this time that I started visiting with him and his wife. Just around the corner from the apartment was a party store. It was on the corner and was attached to a row of apartments. I met a guy who lived there while buying some beer one day. He was a very nice guy.

Not to many months back, he had been asked for a ride while leaving Konkle’s Bar. Of course, he said he would help but when he got to his Ford Ranger, the guy pistol whipped him and took his truck, leaving the man lay there with a hole smashed in his skull. This man had just recently been released from residential hospital treatment, having had a steel plate put in his head. He had been in a coma for a period of time. This wasn’t the only man I had met that this had happened to around here. It was a fairly common thing on the Westside of Grand Rapids.

Bruce’s psychiatric issues would finally rear their ugly head, starting with the disappearance of the rent money but I failed to understand the extent of it until it was too late. And although my efforts to keep myself all too busy to drink and use didn’t keep me from trouble, it all added up to a College Education.

What I had learned was a firsthand account about a lot of things pertinent to life in the present-day reality that maybe I was supposed to learn. It makes me feel like it was fuel for something, maybe writing, that will one day help a man… when he decides that it is time to make himself feel deserving of it, starting with myself. Who knows? Was it to build my belief in something more, and my hopes for mankind, and to truly understand the hell my children endured during this time in our lives? That could have ended me up in prison for something violent, which I am thankful never happened. It seems like I was supposed to meet some of these people. I was supposed to meet Danny. Without a lot of these things that happened, I wouldn’t be who I am today, who I am in a relationship and as a father, and as a husband and friend. There is no pride in any of these the things that I’ve done but I am proud of making the decisions that got me where I am today. There is a sense of pride in being who I am, who I have fought to be; resisting to follow others and to become like them, sharing their ideas or lack of, hating the things they hate, reciting the songs they sing- hiding from God and myself.

Well, after losing my house on McReynolds, and the hotel room on Twenty-eighth Street along with all of my possessions, I went to Danny to tell him a select portion of what happened. He gladly took me in and we started doing whatever we could to feel alive. At some point we rehashed the intimate details of my past, of each other’s past, other than just the basic overviews. We were enjoying the days that we were given. Besides, he was battling with colon cancer, and with no health insurance or money, the outlook has only one ending. That end was closer than I could know or imagine.

Other than the excessive drinking and some marijuana, we didn’t touch anything else although stuff was all around us. We’d practice music until we could go out and perform, appearing at open mics all over town. We’d host art parties and music sessions that would pick up, and become more frequent, as our employments would enable us to do. I was still working for Bob, absorbing the routine ridicule and abuse that I came to expect but my spirits were lifted, empowered with art and my love for music. These things helped to keep me from falling back into the cocaine scene and the people that went along with it.

The city bus got me out to Walker, where I would get off in front of the Police station. Bob picked me up there unless I met him at the D and W shopping complex, about a mile before the last stop at the police station. This time period was the year two thousand.

While working in the shop at Bob’s, I had built five memento boxes from knotty pine v-groove car siding, one for each of my children, one for myself, and one for a lady who drove the city bus, (GRATA). Danny and I would be asked to move soon. Aside from property maintenance for the landlord, Danny worked property maintenance for the Kettlewell’s.

The Kettlewell’s were affluent, if not rich- his wife being an addict and quite a promiscuous tramp. Michelle Kettlewell was beaten about the legs for a debt she owed to a coke dealer, for crack. She claimed she was hurt while playing golf, injuring her knees in a freak accident. We all knew it wasn’t true. Her brother, Robert McVoy, lived in the apartment upstairs but was one of the regulars in Dan’s crew before I came along. He was a Paranoid Schizophrenic and was relatively unstable because he bounced in and out of reality, sometimes refusing to take his meds for fear he was being poisoned. Now and again he would rant about the “Secret Police”. Suspicions are that the “Secret Police” were related to the Dutch Construction Mob, which can be traced through to the Grand Rapids Home Builder’s Association. Anyhow, he’d end up in the Forensics Hospital for a while, long enough to stabilize him, and return him to his apartment. Then he would just be crazy enough to deal with.

On Thanksgiving Day, there would be a gathering at Dan’s mom’s house, to which I was always invited. Of course, I would go but only to end up being accosted by Dan’s ex-girlfriend, Helen, whom was the widowed wife of Michael DeRuiter- Dan’s older brother.

Dan was the last straw for his father, leaving Dan’s mother, Eleanor, the moment he learned that she was pregnant with another son. Danny was the last of four, having two sisters: Kathy and Linda. Linda may be the oldest in the family. She is a parole agent in Kalamazoo. Kathy was once busted for trying to smuggle a block of hashish into the country when she was a spring chicken. The family had to put up the house to help her out of that one. Mike ended up driving his car into a tree, which killed him. His death was claimed to be a result of his intending to commit Suicide. Come to find out, the wife, Helen, drove him to it. She was Danny’s ex-girlfriend to begin with. The interesting thing is that Dan’s dog, Chewy, never liked her from the beginning. Mike ended up having two children with her- a boy and a girl. Helen.

Danny, Mike, Kathy and Linda grew up mostly in Grand Haven, near the beach. Actually, the house was in the hillside, on the south end of the beach, overlooking Lake Michigan. Danny’s uncle was the male role model in their lives, for the most part. He was always doing the things that reflected a certain amount of ingenuity and creativity that I imagine is what had the biggest influence on Danny’s evolving or gravitating toward the Art world.

The house in the hillside would turn from a rickety shack, into a beautiful two family home, and today is still owned by the family. This was the second wake location when we celebrated Danny’s life. It was here, in Grand Haven, where Danny started studying music and playing guitar, eventually meeting someone who would become his best friend, Rick Belkofer, also known as “RB”, a musician who became a consistent, and large influence, in Dan’s life.

RB, today, is one of the top Blues guitarists in West Michigan with many albums, as well as having a string of musicians he plays with as the band, “RB and Company”.

Well, Danny had no idea what would be happening beyond the typical Thanksgiving Day merriment or he would have prepared me for Helen a little more than he did. It wouldn’t be long after this that she would make a full on attack at gaining my attention for an exchange of affection. Later on, If Danny would not have told me to be extra cautious, I may not have noticed the red flags that let me know I wasn’t ready for this or that this mission of mercy was just too much for me. It was only about a week after that meal, that she called, preparing for the holidays and her coupling needs. This was also the same time Danny was relieved of his property management services that he was providing to his landlord, which meant we had to move. Luckily for us, a guy we worked with on painting projects that we performed for Brad Lake, was renting a house around the corner that had several rooms for rent. So, we moved from forty Prospect Street to six twenty Lake Drive. By now, the Jeep Danny had was out of commission, having lost the gas tank while driving back to Heritage Hill from Coit Park, also known as, “Look Out Hill”. We were now driving RB’s old camper van around. It had been parked out at Dan’s uncle’s house, where his mom stayed. This period of my life was a bit tumultuous but surprisingly restful compared to the cacophony I was in when I met him.

Meeting Danimal was really the one event that I can say made the difference, that got me started on a path that I could see, helping me turn my life into something more closely resembling what my life could be without trying to destroy myself for the sake of being a failure on too many levels for me to accept living with. More irony- I found music when I first needed comfort, and now it helped me to save my life.

We went to all of the music clicks in town in order to perform and meet other musicians. The west side of town usually meant the Radio Tavern for open mike with a host Blues band. And then, for a while, there was Arco Iris, which was an informal place- a dive that served coffee where they hosted an open jam and a drum circle. It was the west side where we would become acquainted with Andy Flynn, an addict who used a fake smile and a hodge-podge travesty of musicianship to infiltrate the New-Age hippie scene. It would be close to too late before we would learn that he was just another dirtball who was trying to sneak heroine and crack cocaine into our reality. Thank God that never happened.

Dan named him “Bad Andy”, because he ruined everything, always. Before we banished him, we would record his attempts at songs, some of which I did the vocals. One night the three of us ventured to the west side, where we performed at the Radio Tavern. A woman would throw herself at me and follow us back to the studio. Little did I know she was merely an alcoholic, and a homeless woman, in between her options for a fool. Well, me being such an excellent fool, I was game to give her a chance. She soon emptied her bags for me, explaining her epilepsy and a falling out with her roommate, and her having to quit her job working for her dad at the cemetery. This was only because she was sick of the pre-requisite that she have sex with him as part of the job.

As wonderful as Catholicism seems to be, I don’t understand the advocacy routine. It must be the real selling point. And what’s with those creeps working around the dead? Anyway, we let her stay, even though her story about the total body shave and cigar burn didn’t correspond with any known history involving losing at strip poker. That’s the wonderful thing about alcohol; it enables us to alter our perceptions long enough for them to develop a tolerance for anything.

As the summer got underway, festivals sprang up. Dan and I decided to accept an invitation to play at the Ann Arbor Art Festival with the guys from the band “Werkshop”, however lame they really were. On the day of the show, I made an executive decision to keep Danny on the sober side by helping him drink the booze he had bought that morning, which meant he’d only be half as drunk as he would have been, had I not intervened. It really worked pretty well until we were in Ann Arbor. After getting Danny set up, I took it upon myself to buy another fifth of Burnett’s Gin for the three of us.

By the time the guys from Werkshop arrived, we had drawn a crowd and I was photographing everything I could. The need for a second fifth had already come, which I had fulfilled, and I’m sure we had consumed by then, at least for the most part. Werkshop was upset because we upstaged them by getting there when we were suppose to but we didn’t know they were that upset yet, so I helped them unload and carry their gear. Just a short time after the band was playing a set there was a muffled spat, where they complained about Danny being too loud. The jealousy of the moment found a way to the surface.

In a band, it’s always about volumes, to start with. I imagine they knew Dan was drunk, and I am sure my being drunk added to the deficiency of Diplomatic skills at hand but we had been there for hours and were ready to move on anyway, so we packed up and tried to leave. That was when we met the police officer that got involved. Of course, the cop was not trying to spend the next few hours trying to stay in our way, and was more than happy to accept our stating that we were leaving to meet up with our driver, since Mike from Werkshop was the snitch trying to alert them that we were driving somewhere after we’d been drinking. If ol’ Mikey had known to what extent we had drank that morning, he may have fainted. Well, we were so drunk that we had to let the girl drive- once we finally found the Jeep. One of the last things I remember was Dan asking her if she could drive, and if she could navigate us back to Grand Rapids. The other thing I recall is Werkshop Mike calling to ask if I had his keys after we had been on the road for some time. The keys were in my pocket, little did I realize. We stopped at the first truck stop we could find and I took them in, placing the little guitar figurine in the clerk’s hand. “Someone may come looking for these. You might want to put them in the lost and found box.” Then we got back on the road.

It was pitch black when I awoke to the woman saying that we were almost out of gas. Dan jumped up from his seat yelling, “We should have been home by now. Where are we?” A road sign came into view that said West Branch. “Gimme the map. Where’s West Branch? The Michigan map revealed that we were traveling North when we were supposed to have been heading South. She drove the wrong way. We were as far from going the right way as a tank of gas could get us. There should have been a quarter tank of fuel left when we got home. Why would a person continue driving while unclear if they were going the right way? Why not stop and ask someone to be certain? The answers to those questions would never be answered, however superfluous they were at that moment.

Dan yelled at her to get out of the truck, switching seats so he could drive, while cussing for several minutes. He put the truck into gear, and then it happened. Less than one minute later the bubble lit up on a West Branch County Sheriff’s car. The three of us were put under arrest and the cop went through the Jeep, finding our band equipment and my briefcase that he insisted on opening but couldn’t. There was nothing in it but my Harmonicas and notebooks, where I think he expected to find drugs, at least. The truck was impounded and we all went to the station, where they let the woman go, putting her on a Greyhound bus to take her back “home”.

Dan got another DUI but due to them misspelling his name, it was his FIRST ONE. We had to laugh about that. If he had gone to jail for a while, as one does for multiple DUI’s, it would have altered how everything afterwards that pertained to my life, would have played out. So, instead of Dan DeRuiter getting a DUI, Dan ReRuter got one. Myself, I was arrested for false information to a police officer when I told them I was Bill Clinton, and that I never inhale. The real torture came when I realized they were holding me until I could see the judge.

The problem with that was I was finally going to be able to see my kids due to the fact that they were in Grand Rapids while their mother was visiting for the holidays- Independence Day, I think. We were finally to have time together for the first time since they were taken out of state. Their grandmother was arranging the visit. Other than music and art, the kids were the only concerns I had.

Danny’s mom would bail him out of jail in a phone call, and come up to get him in a few days. So, he’s put up in a motel and I am in jail. When she got there they came and got me out of jail, and then we went off to find the truck. What an ordeal that was! We searched and searched for this place, having been given misinformation to begin with. When we finally found the place, over an hour and a half later, it would become clear that we weren’t suppose to find it at all. It was hidden. This particular place was way, way out of town, out in the boo-oo-oonies! The only reason we found it was out of sheer determination and the fact that the stuff in it meant that much. As an artists and musicians, the equipment is half of the whole world.

The Jeep Wagoneer was loaded with odd’s and ends: Danny’s Fender Stratocaster Electric Guitar, the amplifier, effects processors and pedals, keyboard and stands, P.A. speakers, patch cords and cables, not to mention THE COWBELL.

The place had no signs and no visible mailbox. A dense wall of forestry, mostly evergreens, concealed it very well. Once we got an idea where the driveway was, it led us in a ways, much like a moonshine operation was going on. Even Dan’s mom, Eleanor, said that they were up to no good as we came upon the gated entrance.

When the gate opened Dan got out to talk to the guy that approached, while I stayed with his mom in the car. About twenty minutes later Danny came back to tell us they were moving vehicles so he could get it out. The Jeep was all the way in the back of the property, buried behind almost forty other vehicles. We knew what time it was here. Thank God Danny’s mom came to help us.

They were hoping to lay claim to the contents of the truck in a matter of days that would easily add up to way more than the truck was worth or that we could put together. They under estimated our determination, and our geographical and navigation skills. That, and we were just too hard-pressed for cash, since we had no other option.

Danny led the way out, driving Nancy, the Jeep, while I rode with Eleanor in her sporty little red Chrysler. Once we got to the gas station to fill up the tank, we were feeling more like we had recovered. The problem we had now was that the store had no alcohol.

I really felt bad about Eleanor driving back by herself but my own smoking habit and Danny’s insistence were controlling the situation. Danny listened to my story about my needing to get back for court in a couple weeks, promising to bring me back for a court appointment that I never made it back for. It wasn’t a secret to me, that I wouldn’t make it back, and it didn’t surprise me either.

Before we made it home I had a thought run through my mind. This was more of a voice with a message than a thought. The voice told me to put on my seatbelt because something was about to happen involving a wheel. My thoughts were then focused on loosing a wheel, picturing the lug nuts on the hub. One of them was broken off on a couple of the tires. After I fastened my seatbelt, a loud rumbling grinding sound came from the rear end of the truck. My brain replayed the previous thoughts, the fastening of the seatbelt with my right hand, the startling noise… The truck didn’t feel like a wheel fell off, so when Dan pulled over to investigate the noise. We had no idea what we would find. Well, being mechanically inclined, and in disbelief that I knew before it happened, I jumped right out and poked my head under the chassis. “What the hell is that?” I asked. “It’s the spare tire bracket. See if we have something to rig it back up with,” he said.

Luckily for us the county had been out earlier that day, placing the wire coat hangers on the roadsides for people to find for miscellaneous vehicle cobbling. The winds created by the passing big-rigs rocked the Wagoneer as Danny and I mended the dangling spare tire bracket back up to the underbody. Moments later we were back on North bound 131 and coming up onto the Burton street overpass and exit. Dan lit another cigarette and offered me the pack. As I lit one, my thoughts went back to my intuition of loosing a wheel. “Wasn’t there a spare tire mounted on it?” I asked, curious why we didn’t pick up the spare too. “The spare is on the truck,” Dan said. “You mean we have been adventuring the stateside without a spare tire?” I asked. Dan said, “ It wouldn’t matter, we haven’t got a jack to put it on with anyway.” Well, I suppose that made sense, if anything made sense about any of what had happened all week. That was probably the bulk of it. And so, it’s just another day in the life, being a starving artist.

We got off of the highway and pulled into a party store parking lot, where Dan got us a bottle and a pack of Marlboro reds. While waiting, I made a mental note about trusting my instincts or at least considering them, especially in light of the spiritual encounters I had experienced in the past… and continued to have in the future.

Shortly after we arrived back the truck would drop its gas tank and drag from underneath by the remaining steel band that supported it. Evidently the other band had not been refastened when the fuel pump had been cobbled- a “miss-repair” done by our good friend Jimmy Huckleberry. Someone pulled up to us to tell us what was going on under our truck since we were unable to hear the sound of the plastic tank being worn away on the asphalt over the sounds of the exhaust system and the radio. When I got out to examine the situation I noticed what the problem was and tried to slip the band back onto the gas tank, where it had jiggled from because of the looseness. It was a bit difficult since the five gallons of fuel we had just put in it made it seem heavy in relationship to the awkward position my body was in to achieve the task. A hole had been worn through the corner and was leaking the fuel. Luckily we only had about four blocks left to go to get back to Prospect Studio, where we salvaged the leaking fuel by placing a plastic tub under it that’s designed for the wallpapering process. Previously, we had to take care to only fill the tank half way because of a crack in the seam of the tank but now it needed a tank for sure. I think that was ol’ Nancy’s last drive.

Fortunately, for Danny, his mother had no real need for her car at that time, so we borrowed it until we could figure out what to do. We soon decided to fetch RB’s old Ford Camper Van from where it was stashed behind Dan’s Uncle’s house where Eleanor lived in Standale. Dan and I spent an afternoon getting it ready to run and travel, which was nothing more than a repair to the exhaust pipe and a battery- typical.

Dan’s Uncle hooked him up with a project to work on, which ended up being another run-down apartment building, on the west side, just a few houses down from the Broadway Bar. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure that it was to enable Danny to pay them back for all the expenses she and his Uncle had absorbed over the past couple of months. Danny would incur more expenses with his drunken antics and impatience, while we were working on rental properties on Coit hill.

We had the van and were in the process of salvaging some stockade fencing from one place, to use on another. Nobody thought of removing the rusty crusted spikes from the rails, so when Danny jumped out to assist us with putting the sections of fence on the roof of the van, one of the nails caught his left forearm, ripping the skin loose. The tear was about four inches long and made a V shape like the third of a pie- 120 degrees. It never bled a bit. It was just a flap of torn skin exposing the underlying muscle tissue and sinew. He went to Butterworth hospital, where the doctors “insinuated” he was dehydrated, giving him a great number of stitches to close the wound- forty seems to come to mind. The fact that he never bled told me that he was, in fact, dehydrated. He wasn’t just dehydrated. Danny was severely dehydrated. Alcohol does that to you. Why do you think you get up in the middle of the night and drink a quart of water? Ever since then I have learned to check myself by pinching the skin on the back of my hand. If the skin doesn’t lay back down flat, drink more water. This also helps your brain do its many tasks, and lessens the discomfort from arthritis but whatever.

The project that Danny’s Uncle turned us on to was a corner lot, two and one half story apartment building, and boy was it ugly. I wouldn’t realize it until the end that a woman living next door made it a point to occupy her front porch the day we started. She sat there with a cooler and a book, drinking beer, watching us, and staying where she could be seen. Dan made friends with her that first moment of the day we started. She became part of our social circle, and The Broadway Bar became our office.

The siding on the apartment building had rotted away so much that the whole top half of the building was finally covered in cedar shake shingles in the recent past, which happened to be an inexpensive repair that hid the real issue. The shingles on the building had become so badly eroded that the eves on the building had finally rotted to the point where someone decided that it would be a whole lot less work to just cut them off. Now the rain just ran right down the sides of the building, eventually rotting the siding to the point where the cedar shakes were put on top of the rot, which takes us to where my job began. Now, large areas of the cedar shakes were falling apart, and in need of replacement, which I did. The south and east sides were shedding paint chips so bad that I ended up being set up with a power washer to prep the surface for paint.

Here lies the lesson in building maintenance: The roof is the most important part of a building- secondary only to the foundation. The cost of roof replacement can be a hard number to choke down. Many landlords will just slather tar on the leaking areas, sometimes even adding granules to match the existing shingles but not very many will go to the trouble of spending a few more of their precious dollars to take that step. Shingles are approximately fifteen to twenty dollars per package. It takes three packages to cover one square of roof- ten feet by ten feet. The square footage on this building was about twenty-five hundred square feet for a shingle expense of fifteen hundred dollars, plus flashing, caulk, roof tar, and the occasional piece of roof decking. Labor for a building that is two and a half stories is about seventy dollars, to one hundred dollars per square- twenty-five hundred dollars. The higher it is the more the cost. At the most, we are looking at about five grand for the roof to be replaced. Now, since the roof wasn’t replaced, and the eves just were cut off, the siding had become ruined, starting with ruining the paint job. The cost to paint, considering the windows, doors and trim, and the color variation, is about four thousand dollars. The siding is another six thousand dollars, the rotted windows are another twenty-five hundred dollars, and doors and trim are another fifteen hundred dollars. The total cost of the damages, at this point in the negligence of the building, is nineteen thousand dollars. That does not count the damages to the interior, such as plaster, woodwork, paint-finishes, flooring etc… This all could easily add up to another twenty thousand dollars. That’s when the landlord puts the place up for sale, dumping the property to someone else who will do minimal patching up to the place so that they can rent it out again. The end product is a whole section of town that looks like crap, and drives the esteem of the community down in the process, so you get a whole bunch of addicts making up an entire side of town. It’s not rocket science. It’s the monetary system, where the most important thing is the unspent dollar. That is what we are trading our families for, and it is what we are teaching our children.

So, anyway, right as we are beginning this project the clutch went out in the van. Danny and Jimmy now had the perfect excuse for me to end up doing all of the work on this run-down apartment building. It really didn’t bother me that much because it was a whole lot less stressful to work when people weren’t bitching and moaning. The girls started off helping but quickly bailed. The Joe Grimminck came in to help, only to end up going over to work on a project for someone who was paying a lot more money. That left me alone to handle the mess.

After replacing the missing cedar shake shingles and miscellaneous woodwork, and after blasting, scraping and spot priming this ugly monster of a building, Danny finally made himself available to help. It happened to be time to blast paint on using the airless sprayer. Pulling the trigger was the best part of the job because that is when the real transformation takes place. This part was the part of the job I had earned but I ended up doing more of the grunt work- being chased by the triggerman. Someone had to run around with the spray shields to stop the windows from being over-sprayed in the process. The spraying didn’t help the cars parked in the area one bit. I’m not sure how many cars we had to clean up but I know we had at least one- the woman’s roommate next door.

Up until then, I received quite a bit of attention, especially from the barkeeper who gave me free beer quite often. Everyone knew who was doing all of the work and they continued to express their gratitude for the improvements being done in the neighborhood. Aside from booze and cigarettes, my pay came in the form of an instrument.

Danny had decided to buy an Electric Fender Bass from Rainbow Music. The bass was my payment, and was an addition to our band equipment. I didn’t get to play it as much as I expected to. Dan ended up taking it from my hands to play all the bass lines him self. It didn’t bother me. I understood how he was when it came to composing, and I can’t say I blamed him. What bothered me was a little bit later on, when he turned around and sold the bass back to Rainbow Music in order to use the money to buy booze and smokes.

In the end or just from the beginning, I never made a penny from the job where I did the majority of the work. It hadn’t occurred to me that he really bought the bass for himself, and I don’t think it mattered to me. It was merely a comfort that made me content with just having a place in life to be. That is mostly just the essence of dealing with alcoholism, in yourself or in someone close to you. Danny was my brother, and I loved him. And at that point, seeing his mistakes only highlighted my own. Besides that, I was the vocalist, lyrist and Harmonica player- absorbing the blow for Dan’s stage fright. It was okay with me to play the parts he had given me to play.

A short time after we finished the project, Danny and I would go to Chicago with our Mountain bikes and the camera. This was around Halloween. The clues were all revealed in the photographs proving the fact to me since I was so polluted I do not recall much of it. The order of the Lamprey was an interesting group that was coordinated and ran by one of Danny’s friends in Chicago. We took a pretty good amount of photographs of this, and of all of our trips.

This particular house was a definite, and important, link to Danny. It became obvious where he got some of the ideas used at 40 Prospect NE. The backyard was a sculpture garden that was walled in eight feet high with cement blocks. It was an escape from the city. We pretty much biked everywhere, visiting the art district, copping complimentary drinks at the various open studios that were having displays. It made sense to me, how this tied in with the Jazz scene.

After making our rounds, we went out club hopping. One of the places I recall was… well, I guess I can’t recall it but I do remember drinking Rum Runners all night and finding our way back. It could have been different that night, especially since the women sitting next to us kept dropping hints about wanting cocaine. So, passing out in the van was probably a reward in comparison to what could have happened that night. The next night I was sent to stay at Tim Dashenaw’s place because it wasn’t safe to sleep in the van, so I was told. Truth might have revealed something different but the story I was given was fine with me because Tim’s place was pretty damn cool.

Tim lived in an old bar, complete with the actual bar in it, all the stools fastened to the floor around it, even some booths that he had his tools piled in.

At some point we went to the old Cermack building where Danny and numerous other artists had once had flats or studios until they were all ousted and the building was turned into commercial warehouse use. This was now Tim’s place of employment.

While touring through the Cermack building with Danny and Tim, I happened to notice a large piece of machinery that I worked with in the past, at Tadd Industries- a panel machine. “Hey, a panel machine,” I said. It is basically a jig for clamping various wood assemblies until the glue is cured, used for making wood panels like for cabinet door fronts or door slabs. On one of these, you can make a wood panel that measures almost four feet wide by nine feet long. Tim was surprised that I was familiar with this apparatus, stating that if I ever needed a job he could get me in there because of my knowing what that piece of equipment was. I really had no business in Chicago, even if I could live near enough for long enough to need a job but I really had a great time in Chicago with Danny’s companionship.

One of the high points was smoking half of a joint of some killer green while riding the Giant Ferris wheel on Navy Pier. Now, with my head injury, the bloodstains on the rooftop of the buildings below us were a pretty disturbing sight. We took some pictures of them but it wasn’t until several weeks, actually it may have been months, before I realized that the stains were part of the Halloween décor. At least I think they were. We shot a lot of film while at Navy Pier. Some images I can still see clearly in my mind, like the bloodstains on the rooftop.

After returning from the trip, I had an experience that still frightens me- one that makes me wonder… what else happened to me that I am unaware of? For some reason, I went to the west side on my bike, stopping at Konkle’s for a few drinks. My only place to sit was a booth that was already occupied by a man who welcomed me to join him. Someone had some pills that I put in my pocket- taking one. It wasn’t long before I figured out why he told me to be careful with them. Methadone is pretty powerful stuff. My head started to nod, and after a while the guy I sat with offered me a ride home. When I awoke my eyes focused in on the cobbled crown molding on the ceiling of the dimly lit room. A thin sheet covered my naked body but it did not yet dawn on me that I had no idea where I was. Right about the time I am realizing that I don’t know where I am, a guy comes into the room and see’s that I am awake. He tells me where my clothes are- adding that I am welcome to use the shower.

After showering and dressing, I went into the living room area, where the bar separated the kitchen from the dining area. As I am lighting a cigarette, I notice that it’s nine in the morning. He is drinking a rum and coke, asking me if I want a drink. As I sit there collecting my thoughts he says, “I hope you don’t mind but I sucked you off last night.” My heart stopped for a moment, and an eerie chill washed over me. In a moment of shock, I took another methadone pill and grabbed the half-gallon jug of rum to make myself a tall drink. It was definitely needed after that.

Only a few minutes passed before I collected myself and made my way to the door, finding my bike on the porch. Within ten minutes I was having a very difficult time of managing to travel on my bike- falling, slamming into the pavement on my shoulder each time. It had to be the addition of a half pint of rum on top of the pill that affected my balance. My head kept echoing with the words he had said to me as I thought, “How could I have polluted myself to the point of becoming a rape victim? What have I done? What am I going to do? What am I going to say? What else happened to me? HOLY SHIT!” And then, SLAM! I’d have to get up off of the sidewalk again.

Of all of the things I was trying to erase from my memory, now there was this terrible thing. How often did stuff like this happen to me? Memory of the first time that I knew something like this happened was when I was fourteen or fifteen- waking up from the disturbance: I was with my friends, Jimmy Zemiatis, Steve Klein, and someone else that I can’t remember the name of. The kid had a small silver Volkswagen- a Rabbit. Steve suggested that we go to this friend of his to hang out there and drink, saying that this man would purchase booze for us. He happened to live above a funeral parlor and mortuary, where he worked as the Mortician. He may have owned it, I do not know. The place was in Eastmanville, near Coopersville, west of Marne. Steve arranged it but I think it was planned.

Jim and I had just come back from a trip to Petoskey with his mother and sisters a day earlier. We went fishing while we were there, hoping for some German Browns but didn’t catch anything. On the way home we had managed to get a pint of Jim Beam. The idea was to cut a hole in a watermelon we had bought at a roadside fruit stand, and put the booze in it.

We took the melon with us to this friend of Steve’s, and It wouldn’t be long before we were messed up to the point where I had to lay down. Steve walked me to a small room with a single bed in it. Here is where I would sleep it off, that is, until a hand startled me awake. The hand was not on my shoulder. It was in my pants. The hand had stimulated me to an erection. Between being a fourteen-year-old boy and being drunk, who knows how long this was going on before I woke. When I realized what was happening, I froze, scared to death. Where were my friends? What had he done to them? Oh God! I’m in a funeral home. He might kill us and stuff us into coffins with people waiting to be buried! The only thing I could do to defend myself was to play Opossum. Despite panic and shock, my body did what comes naturally to that type of stimulation. That was the most startling, and caused me to lose control of my reserve, blurting out, “What are you doing?” He said, “I’m jacking you off.” “You’d better not be or I’ll be jacking you upside your head!” I exclaimed. It was all I could come up with, and that was just a natural thing for a young teenage boy to say.

Now, I can hear the muffled laughter in the other room. Having become so upset about all of this, I didn’t know what to do. My body was shaking from the adrenaline and panic. “How could Steve do this to us, to me?” I wondered. This must have happened to him and this was how he was dealing with it, by getting others involved so he wouldn’t feel so much like a victim- alone. I got up and stormed out of the room and confronted the guys. After a short argument I went out to the car, threatening to leave with it if they didn’t come with me. They eventually followed me out, got in the car, and we left. It was never mentioned again after that night, after telling them what was going on there. They never mentioned it either. Steve was not part of my social circle after that.

So here I am, fifteen years later with the same situation but what was that? An immoral perverted man? Or was it my own poor judgment of actions and possible consequences? Or, was it that I was finding myself in bad situations because of my trying to fill an emotional void with substances that only lead me further away from that which I so very desperately searched for? But that wouldn’t be a realization until almost completely too late.

After finding a peaceful living environment and reaping the rewards for some of the sober choices that I came to make, coupled with the decision to do what I feel may help me evolve, (like a certain amount of reflection), I can finally see and feel my own personal growth.

The idea behind this manuscript is not, “Look at me! You don’t know what it’s like! You don’t know!” It’s an example of personal growth that can be gained through that reflection.

Wisdom, that develops through reasoning and understanding that cannot be made possible until the mind can be freed from prejudices and defensiveness with honesty and sincerity enough to comprehensively extrapolate those nutrients, needed to grow in order to serve the needs of my loved ones.

Last night, at an A.A. meeting, this is a certain amount of what I communicated. A reference that I made to a thing that happened to me because of drinking, and the act of trying to poison it ,(and other things), from my memory, had silenced the room. It didn’t have to take twenty-seven years to understand. Or did it?

Something keeps coming to mind lately: “Why does a mountain climber climb a mountain?” The answer used to be, “Because it’s there,” but now I have a different perspective and can see that answer as an obstinate reactionary answer. The truth is, mountain climbers climb mountains because that’s what they do. That’s what defines a person who climbs mountains. They see it and it interests them, so they persevere. The moral to the question is to pick something and do it. Maybe that’s why I went out with Helen. The beautiful part of it is that I was finally aware enough to read all of the signs that said, “Don’t do it Zach.”

Helen was a mess. She had erected, and constantly maintained, a shrine to her late husband, Mike, in the basement of her Kentwood home. She offered to buy Danny’s Jeep for me- to put it in her garage for me to work on it there. Oh, and the performance. She started talking about her problems with her yard- the erosion, and how she was just a woman. Oh! And the tears she shed. Geesh! A few more drinks and a bit less of a warning from Danny, and Super Zach would have flown in to be the Hero. Thank God for what small amount of sense I had in my employ. And even though I’d pass that test and move on, I hadn’t enough sense to avoid some other situations that were far worse than Helen.

That was the same summer I became acquainted with a number of bums. Nominated for Super Bum was, Andy Flynn. Andy was, and still is, a real “A number 1 American Dirtball”. A number of people would have killed him if he weren’t already dead. This was the year 2000, I think. It was the year I finally felt a spark of happiness. The problem was that I discovered I was targeted. The non-stop drinking and the assortment of bad associations that were trying to get a piece of me were being realized as a real problem- a threat. It was the fact that I had an income source and that I was kind enough to be generous- routinely providing a certain amount of weed and drink, that I was preyed upon. Incidentally, Danny and I were almost exactly alike- people took his kindness for weakness also.

Andy used us bad. Who knows how much he stole from us to feed his habits, and the habits of the girls he brought around. We had the whole second floor of 40 Prospect, since the other apartment was vacant on that floor. And since Danny had the keys to the building, it was accessible. When we met Andy, we had no idea he was anymore of a bum than he appeared to be. I thought, “Just another guy, another artist with very little need for much in the way of material possessions.” I mean, look at me: on the street without a home or car or much of anything but I had all that and more not too long ago. It didn’t really mean anything really. Or did it? The truth was that he had traded it all for dope, sealing the deal by beating his wife, and the women he attracted.

You can go to treatment and counseling but when you smack a woman up you can forget it. If you lack the control to do that you’ll probably do anything because you are truly weak.

What he didn’t trade were the lies and deceit that he had stashed and accumulated in the basement of his employer’s home- Chet. Chet was a crook too, who taught Andy how to rob people with a paintbrush but I don’t need to drag another demon into my arena. These items were things that Andy siphoned from his household income while imitating a farcical rendition of a husband and a father, only to destroy a woman and the future of the children she had by turning her onto dope and using her for what he wanted, when he wanted it. He is the kind of guy you’d love to read about someone finding dead in a burning bed with his severed penis placed in his stash box smoldering in a heap next to him. Men, largely, make me sick.

The three of us played quite a bit of music together until we ostracized him, working on songs like “Harley Davidson,” and some other ideas. We got into some recording sessions one day, where Andy insisted on using one of the rooms in the vacant apartment as a sound room, having the room mike and an acoustic guitar off in the distant corner of the house, far away from us, under the pretense that the isolation was for the recording quality, which made logical sense. We didn’t suspect a thing.

It would be weeks before we discovered the signs of what else he was doing in there, right after we were all working on a painting project in Crystal Springs. He ended up robbing us of fourteen hundred and forty-eight dollars. We were having a great time before we realized we were screwed. But isn’t that how it goes? We were having cocktails and playing Frisbee golf at Brewer Park on our lunch breaks everyday. We were laughing the days away while doing something we loved to do, paint. It was a beautiful thing.

One day Andy mentioned a couple times, how he could spray the hell out of some paint while on Heroine, so it wasn’t long before some bare foot lookie-loose rich kid started coming around… who wasn’t painting. Next thing we knew, we had a house with paint all over the driveway and a wretched smell inside. It was soon clear that someone, only God knows who, puked all over one of the rooms in the basement. I wonder how that came about??? Well, that was the weekend that we didn’t get paid, and when Andy went into hiding. We never saw him again. What we did get out of it was a new friend or two. Brad Lake was one of those guys.

Brad lived in Grand Haven with his wife and two children. They were “Seven day Adventurer’s”, as he stated. He had a crew of guys from the Eastown area- slacker hippie types who soaked up the kind bud and the music scene. In the past, Brad had worked with Chet, breaking out from under Chet’s wing in order to start his own crew. They were still associated, working the Crystal Springs development on the south side of Kentwood, past Sixtieth Street. In the past, when I worked with Paul Jensen, we had performed a lot of trades there. It was a farm that they had turned into a private Country Club, selling lots to be built on, and houses- big houses. They were all bought up by business owners, like the car dealers and restaurateurs- the better-established people with a history in the Grand Rapids area. I like to think of them as segregationalists because they created their own community separate from the rest of the city.

These segregated communities were sprouting up all around the Surrounding Grand Rapids area. It was a boom in the early nineties. But now, here I was again, working behind hacks. Pulte Home Builders were responsible for quite a few of these homes. Being a finish carpenter, I had a position to critique the woodwork I was prepping to paint. A section of baseboard, not more than three feet long, had twenty-nine nails in it. They were easy to count, as I had filled each one with putty. It is a wish I have, that I could say it was an anomaly but that wish proves to be only that- a wish. What I will say is, if something like this was done by me or one of my crewmembers, not only would we have been back-charged, we would have been completely out of work in the area. The problem is- that’s just what you could see. What other problems were concealed within these sheeted walls? It doesn’t matter, as long as you can keep it pasted together until one year after completion.

The homeowner is the pawn, and it’s only a chess game to get the money. There is little pride in workmanship required. Just ask Bob. Today’s Builder and Tradesmen have little to no respect, and this is true of the majority. They do not appreciate the value, the worth of anything but the dollar in their pockets and the beer or thneeds it will buy them. But hot damn! It better be the best they can get! Oh boy.

Joe Grimminck was one of those guys that we got along well with. He was eager to perform, eager to learn, and reciprocative. Joe knew when to ask questions, and although he was unskilled at that point, he was teachable which made him a value. We became good friends with Brad and Joe.

Brad, incidentally, played the Bass very well. They would find their way back to our place on Prospect Street, where we’d do what we did: hang out, play music, do art- whatever. We’d find ourselves in Eastown, at the coffee shops, where Joe and his friends hung out, playing chess and resting up for their tomorrows. It was while in East town that we would meet musicians like Ralston Bowles and Billy Edwards.

Billy told us about a small festival happening at Riverside Park near the Veterans home, where his band was hosting the Open Jam. “Beats Sittin’ Home,” he said. A clever pitch, his bands name as well. Of course, Dan and I went. We were going to be playing Frisbee golf there anyhow.

That was the day that I ran into Beverly Knopf, my ex-wife’s Aunt. Being pretty lit up, I lit into her with some of the sting I was feeling over Minderella’s destroying my children’s household- my life, although I don’t know what I said, like it matters. It was later my regret for causing her to feel upset. She never did anything that I know of, to harm me but the fact alone that my family was not repaired meant, to me, that she did nothing to help. And being drunk on top of harboring anger and resentment didn’t win me any favors.

My favorite advice from a successful person is from Warren Buffet: “You can always tell someone they’re a jerk tomorrow.” Which, in this case meant, “Don’t run your mouth when you’re drinking because it could cause irreparable damage.” Once something is said, no matter what it is, you can’t un-say it. It would be too long after this event that I would decide to stop drinking, at least for a while.

After the Jam, Billy and his band mate came up to 40 Prospect Street to hang out, smoking, drinking and playing music. Danny showed off his talents, and then, William Norman Edwards played a few guarded bars of his songs- claiming he was working on recording his own album.

Just like anywhere with anyone, everyone has a line of crap that they feed you. Just because you never get called on it doesn’t mean people believe you, one way or another. I have the four track studio recordings from that day to prove it all.

Billy really was recording an album. Whether he was or not, we didn’t really care one way or another. All we cared about was that moment, and what we were doing with it… enjoying it and making music. If we came up with a few bars worth repeating… that was fantastic. If we got an idea, perfect. If we discussed something meaningful… that was great too. If we just enjoyed the time… that was fine too. Any and all of these things made up the goal, and were what Danny and I did everyday. We were “having too much fun,” as Dan would often say.

It would be Joe that introduced us to Jesse MacIntosh, a rogue bagpiper playing the streets and the hilltop of Coit Street. In a couple years I’d learn that Jesse was Billy Edwards’s son. It was like a lot of things that were right there, in my face or being told to me. It took a while to learn because my comprehension was delayed from the booze, added to the rattling my brain took in the accident of ’97. People said things but it never registered until later. That is, if it ever did register.

One morning, a short time after Billy was over, someone came in and helped themselves to Danny’s fifty-dollar phone card and a video we had rented the night before. It was Danny’s suspicion that my friend, Charles, had came in and took these things while we slept but it could have been a few other suspects, more likely. My trust in people was very little but I had more trust in Charles than that.

About a week later, my favorite pair of pants came up missing- along with my wallet that was chained to them. There was two hundred and forty-eight dollars in my wallet. My to-do list was to pay on my child support on Monday. When I awoke to find my pants missing, I freaked out.

Now, I have a head injury. People are always stealing my stuff, although later I find whatever it was that was stolen. It wasn’t clear to me, so I didn’t really know if my pants were stolen or if I had hid them while I was stoned, so they wouldn’t get stolen. What I do know is that the ring of keys that I had in my pockets would later turn up in the console of Danny’s van.

Right across the street from where we lived was the apartment of Lisa Pressey. We had recorded, “Brand New Day,” earlier that summer while she was detoxing at our place. Now, she was over, hanging out with us. Who knows what we were discussing or if Danny was with us. It was her words, on top of a lot of recent and not so recent hardships that jostled around in my memories, causing for me to stop myself and think. She responded to my statements regarding thinking of making a drink with, “Do you ever think about not having a drink?” This was coming from her only a month after Dan and I would console and comfort her.

She had been out with the guy who rented an apartment in her building, doing coke all night. She was pretty upset, overwhelmed with the depression that follows, and shame, afraid of the silence that helped induce her guilt. She came to us and spilled her guts. She just needed a hug and a shoulder to cry on, I guess. So we comforted her with our kindness. She curled up on one end of the couch, and Dan put some incense to smoldering, while I made some homemade hot cocoa for her. So, while she “came down”, Danny and I came up with a song. For the next five to six hours we played, wrote, sang and recorded with Lisa curled up on the sofa with Dans Siamese cat, Miko.

That day I learned a lot from Danny about singing with a microphone, and recording. It proved to be a bit of treasure in the mistakes of others; had she not been in distress, we might not have worked as earnestly as we did- writing, recording and working out the lyrics as we had done. Looking back, I’m sure that a certain amount of it was fueled by our secret desires to win her heart- fools we were or I was. Apprised, though not a prize.

RB would soon pay a visit to record a couple songs and ask us to make a trip out to help him paint his house and cut a window into the southern gable, where he had a room he used a lot but had no light coming in. It was a great excuse to go to Grand Haven, and we loved it. It was a fabulous way to end our summer and to help recover from the grief we received from Andy and the whole West Branch incident, just to name a couple of the situations. But a strange thing happened while lounging around RB’s pool.

I made a gruesome discovery that I had crabs! I had been looking at the sweat glistening on my belly when I noticed these little specks near my navel. I thought, “Wow, blackheads on my belly.” So, I scratched at one with a fingernail and picked up the speck. As I looked closer at it I saw that it was a bug of some sort I had never seen. After looking closer at my belly I noticed there were a few more “specks.” And, boy, did I become instantly agitated! Now, I’m thinking this must be associated with the mysterious itching sensation that I had been dealing with. Extended my arm out towards Danimal with one of them on my finger, I was frantically asking, “What the hell is that? What is that? Is that a crab louse?” Sure enough, it was a crab louse, especially since it had little crab claws on it that made it look like an actual crab!

In a panic, I jumped up and ran into the shed looking for solvents or chemicals of any kind that might kill them. A gas can was on the floor that had gas for the mower in it. So I doused some on my hand and rubbed it on my belly to see if that would kill them. Nothing I tried worked, so I had another Foster’s, pissed off that I allowed myself to get crabs! I said nothing to anyone else about this, mostly because if Judy got wind of it, she might throw us out. It didn’t dawn on me that her and RB would have gotten me the medication to use to get rid of them. There was far too little humility in me to begin to understand that. It was my loss and aggravation. I did, however, vow to forever be more careful to avoid such filth- yet thankful it was only crabs. A few drinks later I had all but forgotten about it.

As a reward for our efforts, RB and his wife took us to a joint called, “The Rosebud,” where we had a light meal and a few drinks. The place became packed. Danimal and I were kicking our feet to the beats of a hot Chicago style Blues band, popping the cork off of the dance floor for the evening. Nobody had broke from the form of restraint and order until after that. Now, the people were enlivened and becoming less inhibited. All it takes is for someone who is unabashed to draw the attention and be the fool. We sat down to rest, and drink, unconcerned that we should be proud and satisfied as the trendsetters for the evening. It was just one of those times when the band was working hard and people had no clue anymore how to respond naturally.

We just couldn’t hold it in. We’re musicians, we had to express our feelings to the band. It’s insulting to not have any dancers when you’re working so hard and sounding fantastic. People have no respect for themselves and, yet, they put so much effort into respecting themselves that they are out of touch with a sense of gratitude and humility or any sense of what love is. After playing the fools, the real fools don’t look foolish anymore. Somebody just has to be first. Many wives were happy with their escorts being forced to play their hands that night. As for the ones that didn’t lighten up- I’m sure they had to “play their hand” in the end.

Well, now that people were on their feet, Danimal and I could do what we did- work the crowd. The Captain was there, from Captain Morgan’s Rum. We were hanging out with him, doing shots and talking with the stereotypical vernacular and attitude of seamen or pirates. All the people around were laughing and shouting. We went back to dancing and then sat back down with RB- Judy had left for home. A couple minutes later a young woman approached me from behind, tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I would dance with her. My astonishment stole my words, mostly because I was unfamiliar with how to respond to being approached by someone, someone so… innocent, asking only to share some joy. Overcoming my unusual speechlessness, I asked, “Why do you want to dance with me?” She smiled a big smile and threw her head back exclaiming, “Because you’re fun!” And that was that.

After dancing with her she brought me her friend and I had to dance with her too. These two girls kept Danny and I busy dancing all night, bringing their friends to dance with us too. Come to find out, the first girl that I danced with was there with her father. He had brought her and her friends out to celebrate her twenty-first birthday! Needless to say, I wasn’t his favorite person.

Everything was heavenly until Danny bumped into someone’s table- spilling a guy’s drink. My guess is that he was one of those persons who wouldn’t dance and was already offended from his date comparing us to him. He refused to accept our offer to get him a new drink. He was obdurate. We were promptly asked to leave the premises.

Actually, it’s more accurate to mention that Danny was asked to leave. My guess is that many were envious of us because it didn’t take much for the management to side so easily with the spilled drink guy. And I’m sure that a lot of wives and girlfriends wanted to cut the rug with us, due only to their men confining them to imprisonment with their self-awareness, insecurities and inhibitions; unable to enjoy any part of the evening. Surely, somewhere, someone still talks about it. Out of loyalty to my friend, I left with him. Besides, we had enough fun in one spot; it was time to move on anyway.

We’d end up back at the Rosebud a few weeks later. Walking in, I did a little footwork to the music as I crossed the floor. The music grabbed me with the vibe as soon as both feet were in the building. From behind me came a voice that belted out, “No floor shows!” It came from an apron-clad, stumpy, grimacing barkeeper. Surprised, I found a seat at a table, rather than sit at the bar where the man now stood.

Several moments later, a waitress finally found her way to me, asking me for my order. She mentioned something about having vacant seats at the bar, to which I explained being put off by the barkeeper. “Yeah, we had to throw you guys out a while ago,” she said. This told me it must have been a memorable occasion. It must have been his daughter among the women we danced with. The first girls were part of a big birthday celebration, I remembered. There were at least twelve girls at the table arrangement, along with the father.

Why I failed, (or why I have to consider), recognizing the possible repercussions for being able to enjoy myself at a public function, is still frustrating to understand. Why do some of us have to endure being persecuted by those who cannot exist without overly concerning themselves with the opinions of small-minded people? You can actually afford to devote energy to being angry with me for my ability to allow myself to be moved by the music, or my girl’s joyfulness? How arrogant and self absorbed. It reminded me of the movies Elvis had been in where he was always being attacked for being able to dance and sing a song. Whatever.

Danny came back from the bathroom and we left moments later. I don’t recall what we did that day but I know we hung out at the music store for a while, where RB was working at the time. The place has been out of business a few times but the owner kept trying. Now that I think about it, maybe it was a cover for something else- laundering money. Why would you keep trying to run a business that consistently goes belly up? Taxes? I don’t get it but then again, I don’t have to.

Being starving artists, it wasn’t long before we were looking for another place to move to. This was just after Halloween. Helen had been offering me to move in with her after Christmas. Joe mentioned several rooms at the house he rented, so Danny and I went over to have a look-see.

The place Joe was living in was huge. It had five bedrooms and two baths. There was a very large porch, a full Michigan basement, a garage and a decent backyard. It was perfect, especially since there was also a fireplace, a small library area that we made into the studio/equipment area, an upright piano, nine-foot ceilings, crown molding and an attic, complete with a family of raccoons living in it. My money was coming from working for Bob, traveling on the city bus, to and from Standale everyday. Little did I know the well was running dry for Danny and the property maintenance business. His reputation had become tarnished due to his Alcoholism affecting his performance. We went back to Prospect Street to discuss the move.

Lisa’s question echoed in my head, and my frustration over the disappearance of my pants or more accurately, my money, gnawed at me. Jimmy and Danny were arguing about something- cigarettes I think. That’s when I decided that she was right. Here I was, broke basically, and if I was going to be broke, then I need to make myself broke. When I drink I get loose with my money, my smokes, my weed- everything. These guys were consuming my money because when I drank I let them. “That’s it, I am not drinking anymore. I’m paying my child support before I get home from work, and what’s left of my check I’ll budget, buying tools and other liquidable assets,” I declared to myself. I was so mad that I quit drinking to fight the battle of the bulge- my wallets. Now that I think about it, I must have been pissed off because I was thoroughly enjoying alcohol- or so I thought.

Boy, did sparks fly from Jimmy. “You think you’re better than us?” he’d scream at me when he realized I wasn’t buying any booze. Danny, on the other hand, didn’t say anything. Certainly, he must have been frightened by a number of things. This only put him in check with reality involving his own health. And although we discussed our substance abuse, and what we wanted in life, it was like I was leaving him as a friend. His dreams of being a husband and a father were useless because he was all but dead already. All he had left was music and art. And now that he had my promise to publish his compositions- to “get the music out there”, he just had to kick back and enjoy what was left. At this point he still had five years left. And right now, I’d be happy to have one day of that back.

My newfound sobriety didn’t have a positive affect with Bob despite my anticipation. He felt a spotlight on himself as well, and re-appropriated an enormous amount of his energy at me in hopes of causing me grief that would amount to my failure but the more I did better, the more hateful he became. Never, have I seen so much hate come from a married father with so much to show for his self.

My notes and journals are stashed and not at my disposal since I am writing this from prison. When I get back to my life, home and family, I will elaborate on the nastiness and evil that was forced upon me. The fact that I really cannot recall a lot of it may be a natural part of my subconscious warring against depression, fighting to stay in a positive state but I am happy with that. To me, it’s signifies growth on so many levels. Also, it would be a convenient time to “beat up” on Bob, since I am elaborating in a certain amount in this bio but I am not- reinforcing the significance of recognizing that growth. Did I say that right?

One of the assets I acquired was from a painter that worked on Johnny VanSoest’s houses. He was a motor head with a racecar that he ran on the weekends. While working together the conversation turned to motorcycles, and he mentioned a couple old bikes that were for sale. Bob was only interested in old Honda mini-trails, which left me wide open for the Suzuki Stinger. The price was about two hundred dollars. This bike was in very nice condition but it would only fire up on one of the two cylinders. On a Saturday morning, on the front porch of the Lake drive house, I made the repairs that made her run- smoking the front porch out with two-stroke exhaust. Happy, I put the bike in the garage with Joes road bike.

My mind finally snapped, crumbling the walls I had built of patience, understanding and forgiveness- releasing an enormous amount of negative energy and fury towards Bob. I wanted him dead. He had beat me up with his attitude and hatred and nasty statements about me and my ex-wife, my kids, and my friend Danny, to the point where I wanted to see him dead. “Be careful what you wish for”, echoed in my mind, so I didn’t wish it but when Lisa’s neighbor said that he was flying to California to take a job and to live- needing to sell his car and his handgun; the answer to my riddle was revealed. For just one hundred dollars I could wipe him and his negative force clean from the face of the earth, and end my own pain as well. It would be a murder/extermination and a suicide. How could I stand to live with the pain and guilt of killing even a so-called man, on top of all of the grief he had forced back to the surface? The decision was made while Bob was preparing for his annual NASCAR event that he went to in Florida every year. When he got back he would pay me. The money would go to buying the gun, and it would be over.

The clock was ticking, the guy had a departure time that he couldn’t miss, and Bob had to be back so I could get the gun. But God had other plans or had better plans. Bob wouldn’t make it back in time to pay me, and the job offer in California wouldn’t wait. That was because the Hero in Bob’s world, “the Intimidator”, would die on the racetrack in a, not so nasty, crash. That, to me, was a fair consolation prize since lots of people would now be less impacted with the over-emasculating effects of impressionable men trying on his ego. The man was no Hero and he was no role model. Secretly, I was satisfied with that small amount of pain that Bob was given, and thankful for the psychological and emotional relief that spared both of our lives. Hopefully he learns what’s important in life and discovers how to free himself from his own prison before it’s too late. Knowing and sharing real love, in all its truth and beauty, is priceless. So, myself, I am very thankful to think that I finally have that in my life.

So, instead of inflicting my own brand of pain onto Bob, I wrote him a letter of several pages, which I handed him to read when I met him at our rendezvous for work one morning. It started with, “From the mind of Zachery Polk.” He voiced his opposition from the start but read it, asking if he could keep it to study. I wish I had made a copy of it. Anyway, he stated that maybe we should part ways for a while- mumbling something about just wanting to help. Him and I knew he just wanted someone to fight with. What made him the most irate of it all was that I could not be provoked to give him the response he sought for. With me, I’m more of an all or nothing type, I guess, or at least I was then. Maybe it’s my own personal growth. Who really knows?

My happiness can hardly be measured today, and I am so thankful for all of the experiences I have had. The gratitude I have is unexplainable. The peace I am feeling is precious. My intent that I may share my story with someone to impact positively on their existence is a cornucopia of hopes. I am a Father, a Husband, and a Teacher again, and I am truly happy and content.

Anyhow, now I am looking for work again, which is really nothing unusual for any independent labor provider. It’s a good thing, looking for work. The constant change is why I like being a carpenter instead of working in a factory- always having to deal with the same people, places, poisons and perspectives or lack of them.

Danny and I had a few projects here and there but things seemed to be drying up completely. All over the Grand Rapids area that he had been mining, perspective clients would become more and more aware of his drinking and unreliability, and the fact that he was just too laid back for people to appreciate. So, Danny would go back to the places where he had known people, to try to eke out his daily existence. He was, pretty much, just waiting to die. His secret hope had always been to meet a woman who’d impact his world and essentially “save” him from his despair- his plight. Until then, he would bury himself in a multifarious reality as an artist. In all of this, we were alike, for the most part.

An ad in the classifieds of the Grand Rapids Press, for a Trim carpenter, caught my eye one day. The next day the city bus system would take me out to Meijer’s, on Knapp Street and East Beltline, where I met the builder who placed the ad.

Shawn Dusendang seemed pretty even keeled. And between his ego and his character, he was pretty entertaining. The Three Stooges come to mind when I think about him. That was, at first but after I got to know him better he was no different than any other person I had met and became acquainted with. The house he was building was located east of the East Beltline, north off of Three-mile road.

Shawn was recently divorced and had his daughter in his custody. She was a nine-year-old, and was very articulate. It soon became clear that he was an alcoholic when he revealed his ability to suck down a thirty pack by dinner. He would send me to the Marathon gas station, to get the Coors and Copenhagen, in his Ford King-Cab Power stroke diesel. On one of the first trips in his truck to get beer, I got the crap scared out of me when a young guy came tearing into the parking lot, losing control of his vehicle and running into the light pole on the south side of the station- right by where I parked Shawn’s truck, which I happened to be driving with NO driver’s license! The light pole appeared as though it was going to fall on me but resounded only to lean. The car got a pretty good amount of damage, busting up the grill, wrinkling the hood a bit and deforming the bumper. I wouldn’t doubt the light pole to still lean to this day but maybe not.

Yeah, I broke a sweat over that but it was nothing compared to the sweat Shawn broke… that is if he ever stopped sweating. Wow. It had to be alcohol related, and boy, did it smell bad- just like an old dishtowel that was always left in the sink in a crumpled wad. It would eventually come out that he was going to declare Bankruptcy. Thanks to alcohol and Ego, he ran off at the mouth a lot about himself. The part he didn’t actually tell me with words was that he was a desperate man. He was as desperate as a man can get, which was why he was building the house. The drinking was so bad that, between the smell of stale beer, alcohol, and profuse sweating- you couldn’t smell anything but that. The smells of fresh oak and paint were completely drowned out.

Shawn’s daughter would be around the jobsite, now and again, since there were issues with the sitter quite often. He claimed his wife cheated on him. My guess is that she cheated on his Ego and that the acquisition of the kid was only due to his own selfishness and legal counsel that he only afforded himself out of spite.

There were women he met on the computer- FTF they called themselves, which he’d bring around after hours for show and tell. The scraps he threw to me, I never helped myself to- out of respect for myself. My interest in women wasn’t a casual one. My hope was to find a person worth sharing with- someone to build a home, a life, and a family with. Chasing after a mate had caused me plenty of grief already, and I knew that looking is the best way not to find one.

One day Shawn came to work bragging about a woman he met online- a widow. She was driving up from Tennessee in a Corvette- a red one, no less. Why? It was probably because her husband was dead. Anyone I know who is loaded would fly up and rent a sweet ride but whatever. They jumped right into bed, of course. The next day was filled with stories of their escapades and how she insisted on sleeping with his ‘one thing’ in her mouth- like a pacifier. I wondered how she could stand the smell of him but he must have painted a sweet enough image of his affluence, a circumstance sure enough that would seem to drown out the smell. In reality, she was just another desperate soul, grabbing at the straws in life.

Building an image, being cast of having money, was exactly what the house he was building was supposed to do. He went out of his way to find things that would exact him as my superior- or exact me as inferior, always calling me nigger. Between his condescension and the constant drinking, he was becoming a problem to me but I needed the income and thoroughly enjoyed performing my trade. The act of my performance intended to speak the things to him that I needed to be understood. Whether he understood or not didn’t matter so much. What did matter was that I recognized the possibility that maybe I needed the elements exposed to me as an open lesson for something greater.

It was getting time for the hardware and paint finishes. This was when I got a chance to hook up Joe with some work- painting and helping to build the deck on the backside of the house. It was refreshing for me, having Joe on the job. That took the most part of the aggravation out of my day at work with Shawn. My job, historically, has often been to do the impossible- the stuff no one can figure out, which I can almost always do. The intent of the people I worked for was often to put me on a task that they were sure I would be unable to complete on my own. It did not gain me their respect in most cases. Out of their own insecurity, it ending up that they would despise me even more.

One day, while Shawn was entertaining more of his Internet conquests and other outsiders, he took the belt sander from my hands as I was carefully shaping in a complicated transition in some stairwell capping where there was a step and compound miter detail- only to grind a big gouge in the center of something that I had taken a ton of care to fabricate. It was quite beautiful until he had to “show me” how to do it. This particular spot was right in a high traffic area, where your eye is drawn to the intricacy of the woodwork. It’s a wonder if he looks at that spot today, and remembers how foolish it was to emphasize that he was the King? It’s doubtful since he was a hack when it came down to it. Like, maybe he was really a prop builder for television, not a homebuilder.

He cobbled a bar and entertainment center together as if it was a stage prop, ruining my tools and cords in the process by dragging the sheets of plywood across the floor, cutting the casings and wires of my cords badly. The copper was hanging out on several of them. It was the fine I had been imposed with for having experience enough to see his mistakes- typical male Ego.

A few days later, the winds would pay him back for me, when he instructed me to pick up the yard and burn the trash. The wind kicked up the flames, turning a small fire into a scorcher, which blasted his tool trailer, melting the rubber molding that covered the seams on the side. It was funny watching him try to move the trailer in a hurry.

Maybe it was partly Mother Nature- paying him back for swerving to hit the Mother Goose as she stuck her neck out from the weeds, at the edge of the road, to look before taking her babies back across to their home at the farm. They had been enjoying the pond, learning what to eat, while playing in the water. It was pretty sad to see her lying there, dead, on the side of the road. When I mentioned it, he admitted to killing her with his truck- saying how she shouldn’t have stuck her neck out there to be hit.

He tried playing the religion card, mentioning how his Rabbi had told him about me. Whether or not it was true isn’t the point. The point is being careful with people who want you to believe they are religious, believing in God, implying that they have good, sound, principles and ethics. These are the people that are manipulating you for their own agendas.

Anyway, in a while, things would shift and we would be working on an apartment complex consisting of four-plexes, located across the street from the River Town Crossings Mall. Myself, and one other carpenter, would work on that project for less than two months before Shawn would lose the contract for various reasons. One reason was that he, personally, never showed up. The other reason was due to being caught over-billing for the work done- submitting the bill in twice. It was a blessing in disguise, I’m sure.

Chapter?

My recent stretch of sobriety began at Thanksgiving and lasted up until Valentines Day. It wasn’t very long after this that I had begun working for Shawn. I have to fill in some of that gap before I get too far.

One day I decided to get some hands-on experience in the studio, making recordings. At the moment I can’t recall how many hours I had spent working on recordings but I’m sure it was that day, on Valentines Day. Danny’s Alvarez Guitar called out to me, or it was the ghost in the house. Picking it up, I was moved to begin playing, stopping after a few minutes because something in my head said to record. After about ten minutes, I found the end and stopped the tape. Next, I ran upstairs and got my notebooks from the desk in my bedroom. Replaying the tape, I got an idea of which poems might sound nice as an added track to the instrumentation. So, with the headphones on and the equipment running, I recited my poems over the guitar track- adding some harmonica fillers here and there, as I felt my way through it. Flipping frantically through the pages, as can be heard on the recording, I’d find another one, recite it, and then another. Four or five poems later I had a finished piece that I called, “Zactly ‘sperimental.” It was a very impressive piece of work- to me.

That was the day Danny and Jimmy came in with a twelve pack of beer- leaving it with me as a “welcome back” present after we all had a beer from it. Danny chuckled silently as they explained how Jimmy’s puppy died from Parvo, contracted because of eating cat poop. As they stood around me, I turned on my new recording, thinking Danny would be proud of my effort. It wasn’t very long into the recording when I realized Danny wasn’t really listening to it- only to become disappointed with his reaction. It really offended me that he rejected my solo flight in the studio after his having expectations of me learning how to use the equipment. He over critiqued my guitar accompaniment and failed to recognize my earnestness. Feeling hurt, I found myself drinking more of the beer they had brought.

When they left I drank some more of the beer, and returned to my efforts with an added bit of energy or anger. That was when I sat down with the harmonica and the microphone, and belted out the Valentines Day Song. Now, regardless of whether or not I had the pans out of whack or whether my vocals were too raw or the vulgarity in the improvisation from the alcohol- it made me proud just the same. You can actually hear the alcohol affect in the recordings, from one track to the next.

It wasn’t Danny and Jimmy’s fault that I drank alcohol that day. What started it was centered on the ghost in the house. Some very strange and unusual things went on in this house. The first thing to happen was that a stick in the shape of the letter “Y” showed up in my room, along with a hard cover book with a paper jacket titled, “How to Survive the Loss of a Love.” There was also a letter from years ago, that I had found in the closet of my room. It was addressed to whoever found it. This was eerie because it felt like a farewell letter, like an echo from long ago. It was a voice from the past- a voice from the dead.

My television would turn off or on- all by itself. My sleep was disturbed as well, waking up at about two in the morning, unable to move- like I was being restrained or held down by force, while a cloud-like thing swirled above me, I think I passed out because I do not recall recovering from that sensation.

On another occasion I was on my way back home from the Radio Tavern, where I had played at the open mike. My walk home took me across the footbridge between the Gerald R. Ford Museum and the Amway Grand Hotel. It was a clear night, and very peaceful so, I stopped to rest, listening to the sound of the river flowing. After rolling and lighting a cigarette, I tried to remember the name of a song by Ben Harper that was in my head.

When I had left the Radio Tavern, it seemed likely that I could predict how long it would take me to get back home. It didn’t occur to me to factor in a break period. Just before I got to the yard I decided to try talking to the house. This was the suggestion made to me when I had Ryan and a female co-worker of his over one evening a few nights before this- the night I had explained the ghost story to them, while having a toast with my new set of wine glasses- one of the holiday gifts I had purchased for someone but never gave them. Memory of whom I had chosen them for is blank but when I served them to my guests, my not sharing in the toast left one out of the act. Ryan’s female friend said it was not good and, in fact, was bad luck to not break them all in at once. That was the week I resumed drinking but it was my being forced to tell the story of the ghost in the house- my nervousness, more than the threat of bad luck. Like maybe it would make them take me more seriously, I don’t know. Either way, there was pressure. Her suggestion to me was that the entity/ghost/spirit was sure of my receptiveness and that it wanted to communicate. So, I was supposed to try talking to it. That’s what I did that night, coming home from the Radio Tavern.

As the house came into view on my right, I swallowed hard and took a deep breath- hoping nobody was home that would think I was crazier than they already did. As I turned toward the house, I began to talk to it when my feet hit the property. I talked about my roommates, and their piggishness, the condition of the house, my hopes to care for the property, the raccoons in the attic- generally apologizing that the place wasn’t in better condition.

When I got to where the front door was at, the phone began ringing. My key was for the back door, so I went to the rear of the house, continuing to talk while the phone rang. It must have rung four or five times before I got in to get to it. In the dark, I answered it and waited for a reply but there was none. There was a connection but no talky-talky, so I just decided someone should talk- continuing the chat that I was having before the phone rang.

After about fifteen minutes I told “it” that I, really, had to use the bathroom bad, explaining my evening, also mentioning the incident from a week earlier when my steak mysteriously disappeared from the grill, while I wrote on my computer in my bedroom, only to find the steak in the center of the staircase, halfway up the steps. WTF?? I thought. Anyhow, I explained that I’d be happy to talk some more, and for “it” to call back later. The phone didn’t ring again, and I never had another weird episode or smell or sensation again either.

Yeah, the night of explaining my ghost situation, breaking in the wine glasses, kicked it off- my drinking that is. It was the perfect excuse for drinking, drinking that slowly progressed due to those persons that made up the environment that I was in, and by my birthday it was steady again but not really excessive. It may have been April when I started working for Dusendang. And it was sometime in June, by the time Joe became involved in the project.

The night I had spoken to the house was the night I chanced to make a prediction of how long it would take me to get home. Had it not been for dawdling, listening to the sounds of the river, and the song in my head, I would have been exact in that prediction. That’s proof, to me, to never second-guess your instincts.

Survival of the fittest isn’t about who’s the strongest when it comes to men. It is about being in tune with the planet. That tuning becomes compromised when we pollute ourselves with excessive stimuli and psychological imbalances, such as low self-esteem and doubt, as well as, the ill mentalities that make up society. Is that assumption part of my own conspiratorial reflexes?

So, when the Dusendang projects turned sour, I began doing work for the Kettlewell’s. Speaking of sour, I’ll never forget the time the guy on Shawn’s crew took me to the strip joint- Parkway Tropics. They were talking about it when I mentioned that I had never been to a strip joint. It was their cue, of course, to drag me there that evening. What a filthy hole that place is. The beers were four-fifty each, and the patrons had a real creepy vibe perfuming in the air. There was a weird energy in that establishment that let me know I may be in the wrong place. Failing to put the change in my pocket must have been an invitation for an encounter because, after a few minutes, a brush cut bleach blonde with a mono-fox tramp stamp came over, made some kind of seductive move, that felt more like, “Oh, if I have to”, while sticking her boobs in my face as she scooped the money up off of the table. I got the feeling that she didn’t like men and was left, not only penniless but with the rotting smell of a dirty towel that she must save special for wiping off with when she comes to “work.” Going to another, so-called, “Gentlemen’s Club”, never crossed my mind again. The smell of a sour towel triggers that recollection every time. It’s imprinted in my memory forever, along with burning chicken feathers and cat-piss stewing on a wood stove.

Yeah, speaking of tramps, back to the Kettlewell’s. A lot went on while working for Michelle and Jim Kettlewell. Jimmy Huckleberry was living in one of their dumps, working off the rent, while stretching out his budget for cheap booze and crack cocaine. The way I happened to become involved was that the girl he lived with got aggressive and decided to fend off his abuse one night, resulting in a bunch of broken windows and the neighbors calling the cops. Being delinquent in child support, and a town nuisance, they were more than happy to book him for domestic assault and creating a disturbance, on top of the FOC warrant. Danny had got word from Michelle Kettlewell that the place got busted up and needed to be dealt with, so he recruited me to stay there and take over until Jimmy got out.

This building was in an alley right behind the Devos Children’s Hospital, on the east side of it, facing west. There were three apartments in the building. One of the tenants was a young mother of a four-year-old little girl who was a darling child. She used to walk the grassy areas with me to look for snakes. I fantasized about being the much-needed father and tried to get to know the mother. While at a home remodel on Coit Avenue I made a cedar flower box for them, in hopes to win a foothold in their lives but that quickly eroded with my drinking. The other tenant was also a single mother but no matter how hard she worked to get close to me, I shoved her away by becoming obnoxious and displaying typical drunkenness with purpose. In all of my perfection she was no gift to me. Strangely enough, her mailbox displayed a card that read: “The Goode Family.” She would later get even with me for being so rude.

People ruin many opportunities based on appearance. Had I been so shallow still, in 2008, I would have overlooked the most wonderful friend I ever had in my life- missing out on the one thing I had been so desperately trying to find- LOVE.

People today have grown fickle and should be ashamed, especially men. Before life is all over we will all know certain truths- making for the greatest sadness we will ever feel, the sadness to know it’s too late to make even the slightest correction or even have our apologies heard as we slip into our deaths. That is why they say: “Ignorance is Bliss.” And not one of us, who has a functioning mind, will be awarded that gift. I am so grateful to have these revelations at the age of 42, while I still have a chance to make a difference, and to be a role model, a father to a child, and to share love with someone special. That is why I write- to heal myself, to forgive, to grow in all the ways I can, AND to share that journey with others with the hope that others will join in on this very special revolution- The Individual Revolution- the pursuit of truth and wholeness, and to break free from the illnesses of society and the slavery of economics. Money is not what’s important.

So, Michelle tweaked by one day, mentioning that they would, “Keep me alive.” I wasn’t really in a position to decline what little I was going to get, so I just let it ride without an argument.

Danny had left town, for a while, to live in Chicago and regain his employment there. When he came back, we made it a point to play at Stooges on South Division, at the open mike they hosted there. We talked about going back to his place in Buck town but I only had a somewhat small amount of money. He came to Grand Rapids with very little cash to get back home. Instead of telling me that, and coming up with a plan, I felt a scheme where I’d be stuck in Chicago. Again, my conspiratorial reflexes were in affect. That was one of Danny’s hang-ups- he’d always put himself in the way of my plans or somehow talk me out of doing what I had to do, to put it off until later. In the back of my mind, I would justify it with Danny’s illness and that he was dying but no matter what it was, I always regretted deviating from my agenda.

Well, after performing I was reciprocating in conversation with a young, and pretty thick, black woman, who was giving me a lot of attention. Feeling sorry for her loneliness, (and probably making up for mistreating my very thick neighbor), I brought her back to my place to hang out. When we got back there, I hid my money underneath a large container of laundry detergent. Between my concerns with getting suckered into going to Chicago, and my experience with women, I was sure the money would end up gone, especially after finding my keys in the van, that I am pretty sure were in the pocket of the pants that had mysteriously disappeared on Prospect street, with almost three hundred dollars in my chained leather wallet. But that’s how bad addiction is, and how bad the drinking got to be. That was when I said I was going to get sober. Oh well. It was a pretty good hiding spot this time. I mean, who’d find the money underneath a big box of Tide? Someone would have to do the laundry in order to find it or be stealing the detergent.

Anyway, the next morning he wanted to go but I couldn’t remember hiding the money. So, he took the girl home and that’s when I found it. Now I was afraid to get stuck in Chi-town. When Danny got back, I denied finding it. Danny left, disappointed but returned an hour later. It was when he returned that I decided to go to Chicago with him.

Danny had s storefront in a building that was cut up into several apartments. The large apartment in the rear of the first floor was a recent eviction that had not been tended to, agreeing to help him by doing the labor, while he was at work in the city with his job of performing construction site management. His mom had given him her car to use because the van took its last breath. We cruised around town, where I got to see the various projects he was tending to. He was proud, mostly because this job had all the ear markings of a real job, and I was happy for him.

Dan was especially proud of his “system” using multiple ink colors to indicate the status of the project, and the level of importance: red ink was for immediate attention and need, blue might have been an indication of scheduling- I don’t remember exactly- or black. I could see where the ink colors would work, and I’d figure out how to if I were managing a project. Regardless, it was nice to see the work thing pan out for him. Eventually, we made it back to Dan’s apartment, where he instructed me to clean out the rear apartment.

This rear apartment was the residence of two men, whom I was told were, both gay and smoked crack. At least one of them was smoking crack. My eyes were wide with my astonishment of the condition of the place. There was oil everywhere. There was grease infused lint and saturated dust weighing on the blades of the ceiling fan. It has always been an impression of mine, that gay men were clean and fussy. This must have been a pseudo-gay species- only using homosexuality as a tool for manipulation, and as a cop-out for not having the ability to give anything of them selves, like commitment, responsibility etc… They appeared more concerned with their own obsessions and instant gratifications. That is, if you call that gratifying. I’m not saying there is no such thing as a genuine homosexual person; it’s just that too many people use it as a convenience- using people to enable their addictions and further enabling their own psychological illnesses.

At any rate, it was a filthy trash pit. It wasn’t long before I found a room that was an office of sorts- complete with a computer and an Internet connection. My first thought was, “Hey! I can email my kids,” but after clicking the mouse button I became shocked to find the monitor filled with very graphic images of him and his lover or, at least, parts of them. There was a big ol’ bung holeo and a sagging scrotum looking right at me. Now, I can’t even see that being interesting to a surgeon who specializes in anal reconstruction <shudder>. Suddenly I became very fearful of sending an email or even touching the computer… or the chair… or the…

My efforts at cleaning yielded some immediate rewards that were very useful for pulling myself out of the panic and anxiety that had all but incapacitated me. The first item was a super score- Bob Dylan Bootleg Series CD Collection: Rare and Unreleased Recordings. This was a three CD set with a book of photographs and some answers to where the songs originated from and what they meant. It is an expensive set, maybe over a hundred dollars. The CD’s have become casualties of a hard life in the valley of death but the book remains to be an article on my personal property.

The other reward was also recordings, only in the form of actual cassette tapes. These were all Grateful Dead shows. The Dead were the only band to allow people permission to record their shows, which made a huge impact and contributed to their becoming a very big success. This set of cassette recordings was individually labeled, all in cases, and all kept together in a cassette storage case that holds about a hundred cassette tapes. It was about full. So, with these items, how could I stay depressed? It’s not really possible to stay distraught while listening to The Dead.

Danny would end up finishing the clean up after bringing me back to Grand Rapids, where I returned to Jimmy’s apartment and the Kettlewell’s nightmare. A few days would go by before I came across the digital camera that Dan had bought from Charles. This item was actually part of a cache of items that were stolen from a warehouse location, setting it up and recruiting me to help him. He had a big stack of pallets blocking the rear door, which he had left unlocked earlier that day. After getting in, I opened a door for him to get in being that I was much thinner and able to squeeze into tight places. He gathered up the loot, while I staged a break-in point- making it appear as though someone didn’t have prior access, taking the suspicion off of the employees who worked in the warehouse. This part was my idea, and it made a difference. Had we not taken that step the investigation would have turned inward, on the employee’s. This wasn’t a great moment for me but it is what it is. Had I not been using crack, at that point in my so-called life, I would have never, ever, been even remotely involved. God, forgive me.

There is little to nothing a person won’t do that’s on that garbage, Mess with a prostitute these days and you will become acquainted with it, and most likely, become a user. We would be better off if these criminals that target us for our money would just rob us at gunpoint but the truth is today’s big tough manly “gangsters” are cowards- sending women and children out to destroy the communities that they are too lazy to earn their own rewards in the work force of. They fear the prison sentences associated with a gun charge, so they use the guns to beat women and children with instead- boosting their Ego, which is really the only thing you have when you don’t have any integrity. The crack is to shackle your paycheck to their pocket, and you would become coaxed into a murderous rage if I told you more about it. Citizens should be allowed to bag drug dealers- terrorists right outside our doors. Open season is what I say. Enough! Where are the real men at these days? Gran Torino?

Danny shot a lot of great footage of friends on that camera- footage of all of us doing what we did together. One of those friends was Ryan. Ryan had a father who was exposed to Agent Orange while serving in one of our branches of the military- Army maybe. Ryan’s sister was terminal, with some kind of cancer, in and out of the hospital quite a bit- liver cancer of some kind, I think it was. At one point the nurses were caring for her, providing her things that being confined to a bed would entail, like food and drink, for example. The doctor had some specific orders that were misinterpreted, one way or another. One of those orders was to take in plenty of fluids. When the nurse’s aid served her, she reiterated the instructions to the patient. Ryan’s sister asked for a sprite refill, and if that was okay. The smiling face assured her she could drink as much Sprite as she wanted. Eventually, the already tired liver gave out from the dehydrating effect of the carbonation in the beverage, leaving her to go into a coma, and at some point she actually died. The emergency response team managed to revive her, saving her life, and she did finally receive a new liver but the cancer wasn’t entirely gone from her body. The medical staff determined that her cancer was in remission but all that meant is that the tape was rewinding. It will start playing again when it gets back to the other end. I wonder if she is still house ridden or if she has lost the fight, and how her husband, children, and the rest of their family are doing in life today?

Come to find out, Ryan had cancer too- in his chest. He told me about the pain he was experiencing in his rib cage, saying that he could feel the lump when he breathed. He also told me about a pretty serious car accident that he was in, and how he would never really have known about the tumors if it hadn’t occurred. His friend was driving, and they were drunk. The car went off of the road and into a ravine, rolling over multiple times. Ryan’s face hit the dash and his head went through the windshield, knocking out a bunch of his teeth and crushing part of his skull. The surgeons managed to pack his brain back in after picking out the bone fragments, and, somewhere along the path of recovery, they fixed his palette. His best friend, who was driving, fared none. He was killed before the car stopped rolling. Ryan told me about his life expectancy after telling me the story of the accident the night that Danny brought me back to Grand Rapids from Chicago. His main reason for stopping by that night was because he was going to see his mother and needed some things for the trip- one of those things was a joint or two for the drive. It wouldn’t be very many more days until he would be gone from this world and he wanted to have time with his family in preparation. He asked me if he could have a copy of the video footage of our party, where we did the Blind Poem that he was on, so he could show it to his mom. There was a very slim chance that she would be able to view the diskette, so I gave him the camera to be able to play it, along with a bag of weed instead of a joint. Getting more for myself was no big deal, and I knew a joint wouldn’t be enough. The footage was a great thing to share with his mom, so she could have a little pride to know that her son was in good company, having clean fun, playing music, writing poetry, and happy- if only for those few moments.

We sat and drank a couple beers together but I ended up drinking the one he opened because his trip to his mom’s was more urgent than I understood- he was going NOW. He might have told me about how long he had but I don’t remember. I remember we shed a tear together, and I remember he told me that he did, at least, have a son. The whereabouts of the camera isn’t known, and I never saw Ryan again but I know his mom was living in Tennessee. And I know the mother of the child worked at a bar that was right by the railroad tracks on Lake Michigan Drive, where the local police were known to frequent. Ryan had told me that this woman was heavy set, and a beautiful woman who only wanted to have a kid. He knew that he would never be around long enough to marry and have his own family so, she, and he, got together and both got a compromise.

It’s possible, though unlikely, that I may find her someday. Hopefully, I can get the camera back. Not for the camera itself but for the video footage on it. It was footage from Joe’s birthday party. We were singing a song and playing guitars. Ryan got a few lines in on the song, and we all had a grand ol’ time. It was a Bob Dylan song but ours was “I got my Ass in Trouble”, a spin off of our own. Somewhere, I have the audio recordings of that evening- a four-track cassette tape that we mixed down to distribute to friends. The video would be a fantastic supplement.

Life goes on, I guess. I still wonder if Ryan wasn’t confiding in me for another reason- maybe trying to ask me to look in on his child in the future, to tell him a bit about his dad. Hopefully, I will find him someday.

There was a house to the south of my building, facing to same westward way, in the evening shadow of the Devos Children’s Hospital. A Mexican family occupied this house. They had two little girls, approximately six year old. They were twins, and were absolute darlings. They would come up to where I had the puppy tied up to the porch, to play with him. His name was Brandy II, a caramel colored Boxer with short hair. Brandy II was a replacement pup to Brandy that died of Parvo a few months earlier.

My job was to care for the dog and keep the apartment until Jimmy came back from jail. The children would get comfortable with me quickly and began to actually go right into the apartment. Having the children’s hospital looking down on my apartment made me a bit nervous with this whole scene, though I couldn’t put my finger on why. Sitting frozen in place on my porch until they came out- either instinct or maybe a supernatural awareness, I don’t know but something felt terribly wrong.

The twins were always “helping” by straightening up the coffee table clutter and sweeping, putting food in the dogs bowl- even trying to wash the dishes once or twice but, hearing the water running and the clatter, I’d dash in and stop them- shooing them out and returning to my chair as quickly as I possibly could. My senses were piqued, and I was fearful but my self was distracted with the alcohol and substance that blocked my conscience from receiving the messages that I was being given. All I knew was there was something that was trying to be communicated to me- something that I needed to worry about… what was it?

Their company was enjoyable even though we didn’t have a very comprehensive means of communicating. They didn’t know any English, and I knew very little Spanish but they would try to teach me, daily, pointing to items and giving me the words for them. Having them around was uplifting, just like the girl on the other side of me, only double. They rekindled my passion for parenthood and re-opened the wounds, once again exposing the grief over the loss of my own children- a bellows working at stoking my simmering anger and hurt into a blazing fury and a quenchless thirst. It was bittersweet, as they say but that all came to an end one day- the dog, the kids in my life, my renewed hopes- everything.

While sitting on my porch, drinking a double-deuce and smoking a cigarette, I noticed movement out of the upper left corner of my eye. It was the girls in the upstairs window. At first, it was nice. They were vying for my attention but I think they were suppose to be taking a nap or, at least, out of the way for something or another that the adults in the home were doing. It went from their smiles and waves, to them lifting their shirts up to bare their chests. Yeah, that’s right- flashing me.

My first thought was that they had been exposed to a lot of things they shouldn’t be exposed to but my second thought was, that they had been molested. My world went black. Suddenly, I became mortified that I would be accused of something that scared me to death.

Today it doesn’t matter. An accusation, alone, will destroy you. Jumping up from the porch, I went inside, shut the house up, and retreated from all view. Now that I think about it, I wonder if I should have called the Child Protective Authorities but then again, there’s the accusation effect. There is no telling what the right thing to do is sometimes. Soon after, I left the house, going to the Singh family’s home on College Street, to get away for a while. My goal was to put my mind at ease and smoke a little of their grass, while hearing what they had to say about it. Robert McVoy introduced us recently- Dave, his wife, and two little girls, and two dogs. One of those dogs was named Brown Dog, which fell in love with me. It would come out that Dave was much older that his wife, that they had become acquainted when she was very young- 14 or 15. Now that I look back on it, my inquiries about what to do about the situation weren’t received as well as I would have liked but, then again, that could be my own misperception. The next problem I had was, when I got back home… Brandy was gone. After asking the people in my building, all of them claiming not to know a single thing about it, I went to ask the Mexican family next door. The woman of the house reiterated that she saw the dog being put into the van belonging to Mrs. Goode who then drove away with him, only to return without the dog. This was dumbfounding. There were a whole lot of questions coming out of me but the only answers I got were my own. All of these people in my building, these women, were obviously not my friends. This reality was more reinforcement to my own resentment brought on by a life of continuous mistreatment from women.

The Singh family became a regular spot for me- clinging to everything about them that resembled normalcy, in order to discuss life and my developments. During the next few days they would find a home for Brown Dog, in me, mostly because it was too much for them to feed two dogs and a family of four on their income. Originally, they had rescued Brown Dog from the street. Without a second thought, I gladly took Brown Dog, and he gladly took me. We were inseparable, yet, I could only think of Dusty, and that thought couldn’t go through my head without thinking of my kids, which only kept adding fuel to my thirst.

Brown Dog was a great companion. For the next several weeks we would do everything together- go to work, walkabouts, fishing, playing music, even going to the bar. The people at Mulligan’s Pub let me bring him inside. Consciously, I wasn’t aware that he was a temporary replacement for my losses. At night I’d put him in the backyard but he would get out and roam the town. As the days would pass, I learned of his romps- clear up to so and so’s house, and all the way over to what’s his name’s- everywhere I had taken him to on our jaunts.

My hopes were for this dog to make up for the loss of the other but when Jimmy came home he wouldn’t see the beauty of, a house broken and trained animal, over a pup that needed all of it’s shots and the expense of that, yet, to be incurred at the Vet.

Jimmy was furious, especially since there was nothing in the house to drink but reality. The girl I made the flower box for was on her porch, with her phone in her hand that day, ready to call the police if things got as violent as they did the last time he was home, I imagined. It isn’t hard to admit that I was pretty frightened over that confrontation, especially since I don’t like being on the defensive end of things, and I hate to see people get hurt. Never having gotten into it with Jimmy before, I was worried how it would turn out, particularly since he had just gotten out of jail. And here’s the girl in the end apartment with her hand on the phone, who more than likely called the police before. With my having been on the defensive end all of my life, it would seem that I would be accustomed to it but maybe being frightened is being accustom to it.

However, it didn’t come to blows that day. Even after I explained about the neighbors, and how they did it- to take the dog away from the bad home they felt the dog had. Still, he wouldn’t accept Brown Dog and said that he couldn’t take “my” dog from me. Brown Dog would not have liked that anyway but, then again, he wouldn’t be given any choices in a moment- either one of them.

Brown Dog and I had grown accustomed to going to Eastown, going to the bars there, where he was allowed inside. One particular night I had gotten a half of an ounce of compressed weed and went out drinking with Brown Dog. It never mattered how drunk I got, Brown Dog had always gotten me back home. Well, on this night, our trip homeward was interrupted. Some guys who had been drinking on their porch, for some reason, called the cops. The cops came and arrested me for trespassing, taking me to the Kent County Jail. Shortly after waking up in the drunk tank, I would scratch at an area of discomfort on my calf to find a one half ounce piece of marijuana, that looked like a buffalo chip, tucked inside my sock. After spending some time in holding, I decided to eat it before I got caught with it, which was a good idea because, little did I know, I was going to be taken to another county on another charge.

One day they said, “Polk, pack your stuff,” so I gave away my useful stuff to people in need, expecting to be released but when I got up to the bubble to get my discharge papers, I was told that I would be going to Gladwin County for a warrant! ARGH!! Now, I would be going to jail for another six months.

Well, six months quickly shaped into three months because of the day for day good time credit, which I think is just another scam on the taxpayers but honestly, nobody cares enough to give two minutes of themselves to see or respond to it. If you pull the plug on one scam, you might disturb your own, so everyone pretends everything is all right, just doesn’t miss church on Sunday.

One day, while sitting in the ten-man cellblock, a chubby female guard came to the window with a newspaper- pressing it against the glass. It was a Bay City Times, and the article read, “Polk the Impersonator, Back in Gladwin Jail- This time as Polk”. Oh, it was a hilarious article- all lies, of course. It remains on my list of things to tend to, and I always swore that I would get the real story to them someday but have not been able to do so. That has not happened yet, mostly because the Editor will not get back to me. When I was released I didn’t try hiking home again- not right away. I figured I’d visit but other than finding a way to drink, I’m not sure what I was thinking.

I ran into a guy with a bum arm whom claimed to be a small engine mechanic. He asked me if I’d be interested in working for him or helping him make up for the shotgun blast that removed the piece of arm bone that connected his elbow to his shoulder- Humerus it is, though it’s nothing to laugh at. He tripped with a shotgun, falling on his face while hunting, which all but blew his arm completely off, more or less, so he claimed.

He was living in a trailer that should have been condemned. It was like an old sardine can with a little dried up sauce, and some scales and bone left behind. It was as old as they get, and looked like it was abandon forty years ago. The trailer was beyond dilapidated, and what was worse was that he had two children and a wife. She was a pretty good-looking woman and he was seriously mental. This reminded me of the movie Overboard- the house, the kids, and her. The place stank like several different odors of urine, and would have been condemned if the health department ever stepped in. Not to mention the kids would have surely been removed. Whoa, Gladwin!

Well, this wife of his had a female friend from Flint that was visiting at some point soon after I arrived, and after I had mentioned my story. The woman friend of hers was offering a ride as far as Flint. It was better than nothing, so I jumped at the chance, leaving with her that night or the next day. Whichever way it was, I was free from their reality.

The sickest part of it all was that this guy’s mother lived on the right side of him, possibly sharing the same property. Her place was beautiful- with all the trimmings, and extremely well kept. It was a strange dichotomy, and very creepy. What was I to do but resist the desperate attempts of this wife of his- her subtlety, implying I was to rescue her from her helplessness- her reality? My reality had become so convoluted that it barely had enough room for me to fit in it. Oh, Life is strange and unfair sometimes.

This woman’s name, I cannot remember but it’s easy to recall that she had a serious weight problem- bad enough that you couldn’t tell if she was male or female. One thing was unmistakable, she often smelled like dirty ass. Her friends that socialized with her, at the trailer park she lived in, would whisper in her ear sometimes, that she needed to, “spruce up”. She was a nice enough person. Don’t get me wrong- just another unfortunate soul to which her life became accumulated with a variety of contamination that all but robbed her of her existence. It’s sad to see people surviving with the psychological damage that comprises a decent living standard and how they feel about themselves. Good parenting is, ultimately, the foundation for every creature on the planet. You might as well outright kill your kids if you aren’t going to, at least, care enough for them to give them up to someone who will. You might as well kill yourself while you’re at it. Oh, but we’re far too self absorbed for that.

When we finally got to her trailer, I was a bit shocked of how degraded that area of town was. The park was, really, pretty small. Maybe there were forty trailers, if there weren’t only a dozen. A few of them were fairly well kept. A couple of the trailers were nice but most of them were typical of very low incomes. When I set foot in her place, I was shocked at how well kept it was. The place was spotless- I dare say beautiful. A woman friend of hers was inside, standing at the sink. She had been washing the dishes. Soon, I learned how her friends had all pooled together to delouse her house. My benefactor was shocked, (I’ve got to find a larger vocabulary. I think I used “shocked” four times in the last paragraph, and I’m not even speaking of electricity!), and overwhelmed with joy, becoming moved to tears as she realized what they had done for her. Now all they had to do was sterilize her and her vehicle, having already treated her daughter since that’s where the discovery was made.

Since I was there for several days, I had plenty of time to get to know her friends. We went fishing a few times. One of those times I realized that her, maybe fourteen year-old, daughter was crushing on me… Uh-oh.

This woman had to go to Bay City to pick up her roommate, giving them plenty of time to pick my brain. It was her roommate’s addictions that controlled the situation now. Again, the best answers are often too easy to see, and always overlooked. I could have sought refuge with relatives in Bay City but my wit and intelligence, however minimal, was not employed. Two hours may have passed when I was informed that we were ready to leave, only it was more like, ”How would you like to go fishing with us tonight?” well, I don’t’ know about where you’re from but where I’m from that means drinking, so I said, “Of course I’ll go fishing!”

Well-water. When the mother asked the daughter if she wanted to go, instead of staying there, and that I was going too- she came running out to the van and said she’d be right out. Twenty minutes later she came out of the house in high heels and giddy. In the euphoria of flowing hormones, and drunk on my Pheromones, she tripped and fell with the tackle box in her unfamiliar cloak of womanhood. It was at this time that I put it all together. It probably didn’t help matters any when we talked about music, and I sang some of the lyrics from one of my favorite songs by Leon Russell, called, “My Cricket:

“I was just thinking about you today, and the evening was hefting a mountain; But I cannot get through to you, find words to say, oh my darling you’re so far away; Oh no, I’m not crying these ain’t tears in my eyes, I’m so happy I’m dying with laughter; If you’d only come over I’m sure you would see, we’re not lonely- my cricket and me.”

When we got back to the trailer park, a reference to me finding work, locally, was made a few times, casually mentioning a strip club. That made me afraid of being set up to be used sexually, which is probably why I avoided their bait- that is, if it even dawned on me. Someone spread the word about going fishing to the gang, so they got things together and we were gone by sunset.

When we got to the river, where they liked to fish, the golfers were leaving the course, staring at us as they took the only way out of the country club. Everyone claimed a piece of the riverbank and set up to fish. The woman’s daughter spent her energies staying in my sight, and at my side. As I think back on her tripping over her borrowed heels, I still feel embarrassed for her and wonder where she is today. My only hope for her is that she has found good things in life, and connected with someone to properly care and share with her.

It doesn’t seem like we caught any fish that night but we had a few bites and beers, and just enjoyed the moments- people enjoying being together, thankful to have survived the day and pulled through all of it’s agonizing demands.

My fright between the girl trying to gain my affections, and the mother hoping I’d stay, has left little more than a blur from the time I left Gladwin until the time I had her drop me back off there. It was my escape attempt, “There’s people there that I can work for”, I told her.

My sorrow for their circumstances, and for the realities of many like them in the world, made me wish that I could be in everyone’s life who is in need but the only way I can have a hope to do that is with music. The songs I would write for all to share, an uplifting message and my bottled up love and understanding for the world’s heartbroken to use to quench their thirst for an unavoidable human need.

Chapter

The husband, Tom, wasn’t home from work yet on the day that I showed up near the Wooden Shoe Bar on the Tobacco River, which is six miles east of Gladwin. This gave his wife, Kathy, plenty of time to vent her frustrations onto me. After sitting and listening attentively; thankful for having escaped the reality I had just managed my way out of, I found myself in another world that was very much the same. Her husband was a recovered drug addict whom became a minister while in prison- if not the prison he had created for himself. California comes to mind. Yes, he was from northern California. Recently he had been experimenting with their son’s A.D.D. medication. She had become suspicious, and eventually, it all came out in the open. My own experiences told me it was behavior triggered and motivated by the vermin he was working with in the construction business. Either way, there were no clues to what kind of situation I had, unknowingly, volunteered to be a part of but come sundown the games would surely begin.

Shortly after dinner Kathy suggested going out for a drink- leaving her husband, Tom, home with their two sons. Oblivious to her plans, motives, intentions- her manipulation and, well, resentment I guess, it was music to my ears. Mostly, I was interested in the drinking.

Kathy was a minister also but today that doesn’t mean anything that it would insinuate traditionally. As far as I am concerned it just means you’re an acceptable criminal with actions having become tolerated by a heedless society but that’s just my cynical nature. Or is it?

Her and I sat and drank for what seemed like quite a while. She may have had some pot too, I don’t recall. She had let me know that she smoked the first day I met her, back when I was introduced to her and her husband byway of ‘Mike on a bike’. She got a thrill from taking out her one-hitter and smoking it in public, especially if someone offered her a light, being that it had all of the visual cues of being a cigarette and, in every way, was a cigarette.

If it wasn’t closing time, it was pretty close to it when we finally left. The next morning, Tom went to work. Since I was sleeping on the couch, I had been stirred awake by his rustling around that early morning. A couple hours or so later, the rest of the house got up. The boys went off to school, leaving Kathy and I alone in the tiny house. She made us some breakfast, while we talked about her family some more. This thing with her husband was quite a disturbance in their relationship. She felt her trust was violated and feared Tom to become swept away by a relapse.

Working in the construction trades happens to be a very tempting environment when it comes to relapses. Typically, tradesmen are free thinkers. They most always drink alcohol and use drugs. Having worked the trades for over twenty-four years, it has been my privilege to observe and study the habits and nature of those who make up the trades as a whole. The guys I stayed away from were usually drywall hangers, roofers, framers and concrete workers but then again, everyone stayed away from the Finish Carpenter.

After hearing my story of what had happened up to the point of showing back up at their house, she offered me a ride. It appeared as though she was helping me to get back on the way to Grand Rapids, and for that I was truly thankful. After washing up and gathering what little affects I had, we hopped in her truck and headed out towards a place where she felt was conducive to me getting “home”.

After driving for over half an hour or more, we came to the edge of a city. It may have been Midland or Flint, I cannot remember. She found the on-ramp for a highway that was going west towards Grand Rapids, dropping me off at a car-pool parking lot where I could easily wander to the roads edge. Little did I realize, she was taking one last jab…

It must have been lunchtime because Tom happened to pull up with a couple guys that he was working with, heatedly asking me what I was doing there. Amid our mutual surprise, we now understood what had been choreographed. Kathy had placed me there so that Tom would see me. She had led him to believe that she had her way with me- her deliberate abuse of the trust in their relationship in exchange for the abuse of trust he had done by using their son’s medication. What a scandalous and conniving woman! Either way, between his imagination and my persona, I’d definitely worn out my welcome- no thanks to her.

A guy eventually offered me a ride. He had been up from Chicago, where he had been visiting with relatives. He was on his way back to Chicago after being in northern Michigan visiting his boyfriend. He was on a vacation break from the Middle East, where he was an English teacher in Iraq. This person ended up driving me all the way to the door of Jimmy’s apartment. Whether Jimmy was there or not, I cannot recall but the nightmare was the same regardless.

When I settled in that day, though I am not sure how much time lapsed before it dawned on me, the dog was gone. What the neighbor told me was that Jimmy had gotten rid of Brown Dog. Later, I would find out that Brown Dog was taken somewhere on the Westside, where Jimmy had left him- trading him for his fix. Brown Dog was never seen again.

The Kettlewell’s would be selling the building pretty soon, for one reason or another, though I am certain it had to do with the fact that Jim Kettlewell was in the hospital with some kind of cancer, needing a financial boost to help pay for the treatment he was receiving. Michelle’s catting around had depleted their finances, on top of his losing his income during the hospitalization, to the point where they had to liquidate some of their assets.

It wasn’t until after returning to work for them this time, that I had to deal with a lot of her crack cocaine and meth addicted associates. Having an agenda of her own, Michelle took full advantage of being the middleman. She preferred her own acquaintances in a lot of property maintenance cases, since the difference in the money she paid went to feed her drug habit, not to mention the fact that they always had dope to use.

A requirement of myself was to keep busy no matter what, whether it was with work, writing. When Michelle ran out of things that I could do for her, I would pound the pavement in search of other work. Her mother and father, Pierre and Sydney, were living in the same neighborhood as much of their rental properties. Their son, Robert McVoy, lived with them. Often, I would stop by to visit. Since Robert usually had grass, we’d sit and smoke on the porch, while having Martini’s. Mrs. McVoy would usually have a tip for me, on where to find a repair or two that a friend of hers needed done to their house. She also has things for me to do, as she could afford them. The last job that I did for her was repairing a swinging door between the kitchen and formal Dining Room. Michelle’s mother provided a welcome change of pace from time to time, although hopped up on martinis, judging by her grinding jaw.

It would come out, how Michelle had gotten her knees bashed in by a dope man that she owed some money to. Her claim was that she injured them on the golf course. She might have been attacked with golf clubs, if there is any amount of truth in her story at all or maybe she had golf clubs in the vehicle at the time. Whatever.

After a while, as her marriage continued to crumble, the work was less and less. The issue was that Michelle was the middleman, positioning herself between the hired help and her husband, who was ordering the work to be done. She would always create access to the money, while padding our costs and then shorting us- whatever she could do to get a chunk for herself to feed her habits.

Jimmy Huckleberry would end up hooking up with Terry Lynn, most likely meeting up with her on a dope run one night. They became an item, and she was, again, in need of a residence. Terry still had her job, only because she was such an addict that she couldn’t go very long without one. Jimmy couldn’t keep a job or an apartment, so between the two of them it was a real pathetic attempt at cohabitation.

Terry had just gotten a new job working at Tilman’s Steakhouse since she could no longer travel all the way out to Standale to continue working at Agape’ as a material handler. The two of them managed to secure an apartment on Barnett, west of Lafayette, on the south side of Leonard. It was an upstairs apartment overlooking an apartment complex that Jimmy referred to as “Little Africa”. It was all black, heavily populated with children and wannabe gangsters, crack dealers, and your general one-size-fits-all hood rats. It was a sad sight at any hour of everyday.

Jimmy offered me a room but it was only because I had a purpose in his eyes, with an income source and all the trimmings. Since it was convenient, I took the room but not without a plan for myself to move on as soon as I could.

The people who lived downstairs were two gay men, in the fifties. One of them had a tracheotomy. They both were users of cocaine and crack, as well as smoking and drinking heavily, which made them a convenient hang out for Jimmy whom rarely had money of his own for anything.

My first day was a barometer for what the goings on would be. Jimmy had claimed my orthopedic mattress was stolen right off of the porch. Truth is that he traded it for crack. Anyhow, eventually I got the mattress back, only after constant protesting but it was not easy to get over due to the fact that the addict that had been sleeping on it had funked it up so badly that it took over five weeks and a whole bottle of FeBreeze to get rid of the sweet smell of fermenting garbage juice and a powerful and perfectly pungent brand of Nigerian toe cheese. I’d have to say it was aged for at least three months.

So, I had a room but I wasn’t safe although I really didn’t have too much choice available at the time. It wasn’t an environment lacking entertainment, by any means. Next door, on our west side, was a house that also faced south. A Mexican family lived there, spending quite a bit of time outdoors in the summer.

There was an empty lot between our houses that may have had a house on it at one time but they may have torn it down. We all used that space to work on vehicles at times; since the road was so narrow you couldn’t do much of anything, only being able to park on one side of the road. We had no driveway at our place so we parked in this empty grass covered lot.

Jimmy had been drinking whiskey and using cocaine for, I don’t know how long. The Mexican guy next door had some friends over and they were out in the yard drinking beers, and barbequing with the hatch back of their car open to let the festive sounds escape out into the open air from their car speakers- Mexican music playing on the radio. Hung over, and probably still drunk, Jimmy ran out yelling and screaming at them. He knew no Spanish, and they knew little English. “AM-PM”, they kept trying to say but Jimmy kept yelling. “AM-PM”, they kept saying, “AM-PM.” Jimmy, at some point further into his tirade, shut up long enough for his brain to start working as they kept repeating, “AM-PM.” By now I am yelling at him that it’s almost five o’clock in the afternoon.

Jimmy was, and is probably still, known as AM-PM but that’s just an example of a person sleeping through life. It’s never time to wake up, and if it is, you don’t know or care anyway. It really began to be clear to me, to take my life seriously. The environment I was steeped in, and the criticism I had for those around me, enabled me to see my own problems. It really surprised me that I was, once again, in the same environment that Terry made into her reality. My guards were always up against becoming a junkie. My reality was bad enough, and quite frankly, I was literally scared to death.

I began volunteering for the community outreach at BelKnapp Commons. Robert turned me onto it after I lost my job for Shawn Dusendang. Before the work stopped I made friends with a painter on the Rivertown Crossings project who happened to live a block away from the Commons. His apartment was right on my path when I went to it to get food and to use the facilities, like for a job search on the community computers etc…

The place he lived in was a two and a half story brick house that was divided into two residences. He lived upstairs, mostly because the downstairs was haunted. The painter’s name was Tom, and just like everyone else I knew and met, he was tormented with substance addiction- alcohol mostly.

On one of the nights that I visited Tom, since staying at home was so expensive, he told me the story of the ghost in the house: The lady of the house had been in love with the mailman. One day she discovered that the mailman had interests in another woman on that block. She had known the man for a lengthy time and had a friendship established with him but when she learned that he had chosen another woman for marriage she hung herself in the living room.

The night he told me that story, and others about his own life, I wrote a poem out for him. It started out with: “It’s times when life’s got you in a poke, when there’s not enough cash and there’s nothing to smoke, and you just can’t think of or hear a joke that’ll make you laugh enough to forget…” It was a beautiful poem about friendship- the value of it, I guess.

One day, after having been visiting with him, I noticed a house that had a Ministry sign in the window. The ministry was looking for computers to salvage. My computer was in need of some work, and I hoped to become able to repair it- thinking that they could help me become somewhat educated enough to do it. They led me to believe that they had a job for me there, invited me to a fellowship meeting that was held once a week in a community building that was part of the “Little Africa” complex.

Within two weeks of becoming acquainted with the “Ministry”, I would be asked by a person, from the BelKnapp Commons, to help out with a neighborhood carnival that was being held at a tiny park located directly east of this particular apartment complex. A small building that housed the restroom facilities had a large official area- an office, where a covert operation of in cognito police investigators worked. What I learned was that they were part of an undercover operation of this area of town. The guy who ran the ministry was a suspected drug dealer. The carnival was held under the pretense of motivating family activity, all the while it was working on identifying people, pairing kids with adults and helping them connect the dots in the community’s drug activity. There could have even been listening devices in their prizes that were awarded- who knows.

The two female investigators had already told me enough. This was the information that helped further motivate me to get away from Jimmy and Terry, and the rest of the lurking evil. Going to jail again, for any reason, was not on my list of convenient things to do.

Going to jail only made things worse for me. Having no support group, I ended up losing what little I had gained- starting with my job, every single time. In order to recover, the expenses are fifteen hundred dollars at the least. Unless someone is loyal and responsible enough to take care of the bills, and even then, you’ll come home to a place empty of all of your possessions that even had the least of value.

The meetings that the ministry held became a routine before the carnival. Even after what I learned, I still went. It was better that hiding at the bar to avoid the house. It was a support base despite anything else. The Alcoholics Anonymous meetings on College Street also became part of my routine. It was at these meetings that Dan Doyle and I crossed paths.

Dan Doyle was about to begin working on a project that involved woodwork in a log cabin. He had another project or two going on that involved electrical service. He was happy to offer me a job, knowing my skills in the trades. Now I was gainfully employed again, giving me a seemingly safe escape, and filled me with new Hope as well.

The first project was a community building in a trailer park on the south end of Wyoming off of South Division, where we installed the electrical system. Dan had already completed most of the groundwork, leaving the light cans to be laid out in a grid pattern, symmetrically spaced. Being a finish carpenter, I handled this part of it while Dan and his helpers pulled the last of the wire and installed the switches and fixtures.

Working with Dan was enjoyable, especially since it entailed gaining some hands-on experience to the electrical trade, which I knew little about since I never had the opportunity to work with an electrician. The end of the day would come and Dan would drop me off at Jimmy and Terry’s. It was always the same- they’d bum smokes from me and ask me to buy drinks, so you can easily understand my going to the local bar after work to buy drinks and time before I could go home for bed. So, the Scoreboard Bar became my routine hangout, until one night when Jimmy and Terry bumbled in- learning my secret.

Terry’s job at Tilman’s involved waiting tables, putting cash in her pocket every night, which enabled Jimmy to squeeze booze out of her anytime. The Scoreboard was right on the dusty trail.

Tilman’s was a regular hop for a lot of older affluent women. Terry tried to get me to apply for a job there, claiming the women would line my pockets with gratuities. No amount of money could get me to work or relate with Terry after the nightmares she gave me in the past. A room in the same house was already too much.

My secret motivation behind going to the Scoreboard, in addition to delaying going home until the last minute, was hoping to find someone to fill the huge void in my life. Since recognizing approximately how big that void truly was, I became anxious and as desperate as I could ever become. It would be here, at the Scoreboard that I would come into the acquaintance with, Michele Shackleton.

When I sat down at the bar, I instantly recognized a man who had come to look at the Suzuki Stinger that I had advertised as being for sale before Joe and I were evicted from the Lake drive house. My drinking was reprioritizing everything important in my life, so I lost it. He stole it rather. Anyway, this guy who was at the Scoreboard was celebrating having just had a baby boy but he was acting like a fool on a stool. He claimed he was, “Robo-trippin”, off of a bottle of Robotussin, a fairly common thing people do for kicks.

His stupidity got me laughing and the next thing you know, we were both laughing our fool heads off. He was rehashing an old Monty Python bit- Sir SpamAlot. Michele (with one L), was on my left but I hadn’t noticed her yet. She was vibing on us, and was also laughing like a fool, just riding along. At some point he had bought her a drink. After a while she was trying to get me to follow her home to hang out. I was up to do anything that didn’t involve going back to Jimmy and Terry’s place. What I found at her house was just as bad, if not twice for the worse.

Shortly after getting to her house I passed out, while sitting there on the couch. She had put one of her Trazadone pills in my bottle of beer. When I came back to life the next morning my harmonicas were gone along with my money and my smokes. It took a month to get my harmonicas back. She had taken them to someone down the block for some reason or another. At some point I realized she had sold them for beer money but that wouldn’t be until much later.

Insert the college inn story and that I had been off that day .The missing harmonicas were a good excuse to go back to Michele’s, instead of home. Eventually Jimmy got so upset about me being there, and not at his place with my money, that he busted in the door one night with his brother- thinking we had crack. Michele was a lot closer to the door. She jumped up and started freaking out. They grabbed her and were roughing her up; hair pulling and smacking her. Then it appeared that one of them had choked her out. They had shoved me across the room where I flipped backwards over some furniture, trying to get up by the time she was falling into a motionless heap.

Jimmy’s brother was going through the house, looking for drugs, money and booze- taking a few twenty-two-ounce bottles of Icehouse from the fridge. Now they were calm, like freaking Jekyll and Hyde. Jimmy responded to my asking him to help me put her on the couch. Then he started yelling at me about being down here instead of his at house, and actually commented on me spending my money with her and not them.

Michele had responded with instinct, going limp during the moment he had his hands on her throat- probably the smartest thing she had done in years. I knew that in my gut, when it happened but that didn’t make Knuckleberry any bit less of an ass at all.

Earlier that day had been a no work day for me, so I played benefactor, taking Jimmy to the only place around that he thought might serve him. After all, the day was young and he wasn’t drunk, so there was a chance everything would go smoothly. We walked up to the College Inn, which is kiddy-corner from Michele’s place. After managing to slide in, we made our order for a couple beers, only Jimmy chimed in that he wanted a rum and coke instead- a difference of about three bucks. It must have been three or four minutes later when I heard the statement from twelve feet away, over my left shoulder: “I don’t think you like me very well,” and then the stools went flying. The lady behind the bar, Kathy, said that she was calling the cops and told me to get him out of there. Kathy yelled at me, saying that if I ever brought him back, even just to the parking lot, that I’d be barred from there too. When I did go back there was a sign on the wall with a list of names on it. The sign read: Barred till Pigs Fly. Jimmy’s name was at the top in big fat red letters. There were four other names on that list; Michele Shackleton’s name was among them.

When Jimmy decided to throw me out of the house for not supplying the various consumables, his brother helped him swap a bunch of wires around in my computer’s hard drive. It isn’t clear if they did that before or after they made off with my acoustic guitar. They were kind enough to load up my belongings or what was left after helping themselves to things, and bring them to Michele’s house for me. The orthopedic bed disappeared again but for the last time. It was doubtful that I would want it back again if it ever did resurface.

After a few days of pleading with him I did manage to get my guitar back. He knew how much it meant to me and had hidden it behind the television. Terry, most likely, had a hand in him getting it back after selling it for dope, probably harping on him until he actually began to feel like the bum that he was, so I am thankful for her in that matter. It wasn’t anything special, just a hundred dollar Jasmine made by Takamine but it was mine just the same.

Dan Doyle started picking me up again once he got to the point where he could bring me in on the log home project. We would start the day off by going to a place called, New Beginnings, on Alpine Avenue for breakfast. Eggs over-hard with garlic, fried potatoes with cheddar and onions, whole-wheat toast, ham and coffee was always my order. Dan would keep lamenting his Harley Fatboy that he ordered from a dealership on Twenty-eighth Street, anticipating the call when it was finally delivered, which would be any day now.

The engineered log home was owned by Mark and Connie Minster, and was located on the property that the Adrian’s Romano Terrace occupies. The terrace is a banquet hall used for wedding receptions and business gatherings, and is located off of West River drive on the westward hilltop. It was overlooking the river, on the east side of West River drive, in Comstock Park. The house sits behind it, and is way back in the woods, accessed from a different road off of Pine Island Drive. Connie’s family has owned the property for a long time.

Mark was a nice enough guy, balding and recently receiving hair transplants from who knows what part of his body. His head looked like a grid pattern of planted follicles, where the bald part was used to being. His wife’s family made jokes about him being that his wallet was fat but he never paid for much. The wallet was fat all right, fat with receipts. This was his defense, and his insecurity, over her family being rich, it seems. They had money, and he HAD money, adding it up once in a while to say, “look how much I have spent.” Actually, I can’t say I blame him for it; I would have probably done the same thing.

Sooner than later, I would find out that Dan Doyle was not a skilled carpenter. Working at an hourly rate, he mocked the trade, climbing up and down the ladder for hours, virtually doing nothing but time, and the Minster’s could feel it. When I started on the project a huge contrast began to appear. My intentions were to show my gratitude through my performance, not to make them look like bumblers.

One day, the Minster’s came up to me and put a couple one hundred dollar bills in my shirt pocket and thanked me for being there. That day I told Dan and Bill about it, offering to pay for lunch. The guilt that I felt for being associated with the mess that was being made of the project was too much for me to handle quietly. That was a peculiar lunch.

Chili cheese fries sounded like a calorie packed greasy-ass meal, so I ordered a full order of that. The waitress was having some kind of issue but I really was more concerned with going outside to smoke than to recognize anything more than the time it might take to get our food, hoping it would be a while.

We always went to Brann’s on Alpine for lunch, and my group didn’t smoke. When I got back in to my table, the food was coming. The waitress brought it out and came right over to me. She was so nervous that she almost fell from her legs buckling, dumping the plate on the table at my right. Cheese, chili and French fries went slopping all over my area of the table. A bit traumatized, surprised to say the least, I kept it together, acting natural and offering comfort to her by telling her that it was okay. She was pretty messed up over it, saying that she would get me another order. After repeating that it was okay, I scraped it off of the table and back onto the plate, and proceeded to eat it. The embarrassment I felt for her was so much that I couldn’t go on to humiliate her any more than she already must have felt, by complaining. And I know they get charged for mistakes like that, depending on who’s the shift supervisor. After all, I was partly to blame. If I had not caught her senses, causing her to be light-headed due to my body’s desperate production of pheromones, it wouldn’t have happened- maybe.

The guys told me that she was awe-struck with me but I failed to see that then. It is understandable now but that’s the first time I actually saw someone fall head-over-heels, let alone over me. Dan’s daughter, Mandy, explained it all to me during the time we would work together, thinking that they were all messing with me until it actually happened to me later in life.

Another time we were there, the waitress watched me eat a large wet burrito from an inconspicuous corner, while I was left confused over what they were interested in. Was it that impossible to eat or was my eating it a seductive art? Was it the way I licked my lips? Did someone recognize me from playing music somewhere with Danimal? Maybe I wasn’t ready or healthy enough to understand.

Bill got really bad with his drinking issue. Everything went from bad to worse. He would show up at the job, when we would always pick him up since he had no car or license. He would come in so drunk that he didn’t realize he was at the house that was in front of the job. How he got there or where he’d come from, we never did learn. Dan just hung his head in sorrow for Bill’s struggle with addiction. It was never clear, how often this happened. Coincidentally, I had known Bill and Dan for about the same length of time. Dan would come over to Bill’s and drink with us during the time that I was with Dan’s sister, Mary Beth Doyle.

My mom had introduced me to the Bolthouse family by way of Bill’s dad, Bob. It was a bankrupt plumbing outfit that maintained a customer base from the past, mostly bars, with just enough money coming in to keep everyone high. Bob was always recruiting new apprentices for Bill and Bill hated it. Bill lived in the front portion of the building that the plumbing business occupied, while Bob had a small building out in the back that he used as an office and sleeping quarters. Since the building was paid for, no one had to worry about rent. Bills brother Mike ended up creating a bit of quarters for him self to use when he wasn’t lost in the crack cocaine reality that he had become known to steep himself in. His throat was roached because of it, as if he had chronic bronchitis or strep throat.

Bill and I became very close friends, like brothers we never had but then again it was like me to become close to those around me very quickly, which is strange because I have always had trust issues.

Bill had been in and out of rehabilitation and jail for alcohol and cocaine numerous times, and had been released from prison more recently for drunk driving and battery on a L.E.O. He did three years and was released- with herpes, of all things. Poor Billy. I loved him so much. It tore me apart to see him in the condition I had witnessed at that time working with him and Dan.

Dan Doyle also had a drinking problem. He and I became acquainted because his sister, Mary, worked at Florentines in Grandville, where I met her at the same time my mom introduced me to Bob Bolthouse. Dan had an incident involving his stepdaughters, where he did a year for a CSC charge. He was now a twelve-stepper, sober and married to a school marm. What I would find out is that he wasn’t totally reformed. Suddenly, he couldn’t pay us for our work efforts. He claimed the Minster’s were to blame, and not his purchase of the Harley Davidson Fatboy. He gave me a phone to use that had been his son, Josh’s. It was one of many phones he had as part of his cellular package. It ended up being kicked it into the Grand River, accidentally, while I was fishing on a boat dock about a year later (alcohol related).

Somewhere along the line he had told my daughter, Sarah, who happens to be his niece, that he paid me six hundred dollars a week, and that they should have money from me by way of child support because he paid me that much. This wasn’t true but I would soon hear of it from Sarah, in a short while.

Why don’t adults think about what they say to kids and how, and what, it will affect before they say it? Is ego and pride more important than how a child views their parents? What a selfish, selfish man. Little did he realize, he would pay for the wrong doings he did to those that trusted him so much- causing him a grief that he would have to have in his mind for the rest of his life…

In the meantime, the job was grinding to a halt. Dan had been telling us that he had a draw coming up- only paying us change to keep us hanging on. After all, Bill was satisfied as long as he had money to support his habits. As for me, it was easy to get by since I had no real demands of myself, financially, getting by on the change he gave me. It was going to work out better for me, since I had addictions I was battling that would steal away the money just as fast as I could get it. More money later was better that no money tomorrow because it got spent on booze or dope. And it was typical to get paid out when the draw came sometimes.

Before this all came to a head, my job had grown to working with Mandy, training her how to work with the power tools and offering her the guidance and patience that her own father seemed incapable of. He would soon stop her from coming to the project because of our becoming close. His story was that she had school, college but the truth was that her image of me became much different than the one created for her by him, causing fear and jealousy to interfere with something that was platonic and beautiful. Her and I wouldn’t see each other for about nine months, after she had fallen off of the wagon.

Mandy was the first one to get pregnant at too early of an age, and the first one to get mixed up with drugs and, eventually, prostitution. She had recently been released from the Kent County Jail after serving a year. Mandy had recently gotten her kids back and had a house that she shared with another young woman. The status of that relationship I do not know. My every prayer was that Sarah didn’t take after the misfortune of her cousins on her mother’s side of the family. Fortunately, she did not get pregnant, and graduated from high school. Sarah was the only one to do that on the Doyle side of her family.

It wouldn’t be long before Michele went to jail for a DUI charge, having been out on bond and awaiting a trial.

Sandy and I met at the College Inn shortly afterward.

The Minster’s turned out to be a bickering couple of drunks as well, the catalyst for the blowout with our crew, ending Dan’s mining operation. Bill let me stay at his place for the time being, since eviction papers were served at Michele’s place- so much for me sitting her house until she got back home.

Kalamazoo and Burton became my new locale for a bit, moving what was left of my belongings to a closet in Bill’s upstairs apartment. He was doing his best to live, seeking safety by reading books in his bedroom- a routine he had picked up while in prison, no doubt. Yet, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get out of the grip of addiction. For a reality check, he’d save the liquor bottles in a recycling container by the sink but all that did was provide a few drops from each one to make a pretty good-sized drink when he couldn’t muster the few precious dollars it took for a bottle of rot-gut. Having done that a time or two, while living with Danimal, I was all too familiar with the reality.

Bill was totally broke but every time he put his card into the ATM it would miraculously spit out a twenty-dollar bill- like magic. That went on for two months that I know of. Work ran out for Bill within a day or two of my last day, which left me to call Salih, to beg for work once again.

In addition to Bill, I also had a friend named Ralph, who had a house near Bono’s Pizza, where I crashed when I was in the area and in need of being off of the street. One night, when I didn’t have anywhere else to go, I went to Jimmy and Terry’s. I slept in a recliner in the living room. At one point, maybe around five a.m., I opened my eyes to see Jimmy and a couple other fools smoking crack.

Earlier I had heavy thoughts about what I was doing, and where I wanted to go in life. It had been my attempt to find my safe haven within the local meeting with the ministry group. They had offered me a healing attempt after my confessions, where they gathered around me to put their hands on me in prayer. This was after telling them the intimate details regarding my life, the heavy drinking, and my struggle to get away from drugs that I tried to poison myself with. My body trembled hard during that prayer- bone rattling hard. Having recognized that I was in a bad situation in life, and knowing that I needed to take the first step in the right direction, was what motivated me to reach out to them despite their imperfections. It had been read somewhere by me, that I should not ignore the messenger- though the messenger is imperfect. The decision to get away from the dope, and away from those that made up the environment that I was surrounded by was the most important decision I could have made at that time.

When I saw the demons alive around me, in the living room that early morning, it was in-my-face confirmation. It was easy to just closed my eyes and think to myself, “You’re right, Zach. It is definitely time to move on in life- away from these people and their poisons. It’s the right thing to do. Do not let the streets steal away your days any longer!”

After sleeping another couple of hours, I got up and left, and never went back or thought much about them again. The most logical thing I could think to do was to cling to the friendship that Sandy and I had developed.

Salih kept a steady stream of home and roofing repairs that enabled me to feel normal. My only slip-up with cocaine happened after I finished working for her son, Richard, on a remodel that he needed done after a serious water damage situation caused by an upstairs snafu. It was suspected by Sandy, to be a supernatural situation caused by an eerie ghostly presence in the upstairs of the home. Sometimes you could see a person in the upstairs window when you walked by the house. This I saw myself, on more than one occasion.

On the day I finished the job, I took the money and went to visit my old friend Jimmy Zemiatis, while Sandy was at work at Vitale’s. Jimmy and I met at Tommy Brann’s Steakhouse, on South Division and Thirty-sixth Street when he got off of work at Erb Lumber. After a bunch of beers, he started mentioning coke. Since I was fool enough to buy the beers, he figured he’d dig a little deeper. Eventually, he managed to coax me into getting a “teenther”, meaning a sixteenth of an ounce of cocaine powder.

After throwing down the money for the coke, we went to his house, where we sniffed powder and drank, and ate the last jar of venison stew that his dad canned before he died of cancer. There were mushrooms in it, Stumpers that he had picked that summer. Since I hated mushrooms but I hating being destroyed too, I ate the stew anyways.

At some point I tried to rock up some of the coke. Shortly after that, his unfaithful beast of a wife, Glenda, finally dragged herself home- only to demand that I leave. She hated me with a passion, which was probably because I provided Jimmy with a bit of insight that he was not capable of having on his own- complications caused by his emasculation. She had no secrets with me, since I knew things that people wished I did not due to my ability to see inside people. Eventually, she trumped my hand by actually bringing the guy home to meet Jimmy.

Glenda Palmer had been waiting for him for years, ever since he went to prison. Now, she had five children with Jimmy, who was poisoning himself over it all. She didn’t know anything about what we had been up to. All she knew was that I was there, and that she didn’t want me in HER house.

After hitting the streets on foot and heading for home, I decided to do something that I knew better than to do. It was too early for a bus, and I had to walk through the area, fully exposed to the filth and demons that made up that part of town. There were addicts all over, looking for other people who were trying to buy more dope so they could keep going. My big idea was to try to sell what cocaine I had left to get back some of the money I had wasted, which was basically all of what I had earned. In the end, I only got twenty bucks back for the one hundred and fifty that I had gone through between the dope and the booze. It was sickening.

When I finally made it back to Sandy’s house, she said her son had seen me, and that he could tell by my appearance, what it was that I had been doing. She kicked me out, which lasted a few weeks. My only choice that made sense was to go back to Bill’s for that period of time, having no other place to go. That was the last time I ever knowingly used cocaine of any kind. It isn’t clear if it would have helped any, knowing where or how to get a hold of Danny but I am sure it would have been better than going to – or staying in a relationship, with Sandy, for that matter. It seems as though think of these things that happened, these people and the situations I had exposed myself to, as part of my preparatory courses for what I was inevitably supposed to do- my mission, my purpose, my contributions, while in pursuit of my rewards. Maybe I’ll know for sure, when I get further into this story of events.

A few days later Jimmy Zemiatis came by Bill’s apartment to do some drinking and fish around for some coke, knowing Bill had coke around a lot in the past- no thanks to me telling him that.

Anyway, Jimmy’s father was an alcoholic and had served in the military, doing a tour in the Korean War. Jimmy tried to keep from becoming a hard drunk but ended up a coke addict, and it had a lot to do with the area he had taken up residence in, as well as the messed up logic behind urine screens, since they did random drug testing at his place of employment.

Soon after we got a bottle, Bill became way beyond messed up. Being in prison, only to return to his old drinking habits, had taken a toll on him. He was curiously drunk after two drinks, disappearing to his room to lie down. A moment later we heard a big commotion and a very loud thud. Somehow the room spun, throwing Bill into a piece of furniture, severing the outer rim of his right ear. I still can’t understand how he was so drunk off of so little.

The next day, I put the stitch in his ear that I had suggested when he was too obstinate to think that it was a good idea. It was a really big task trying to get the needle to pierce through the cartilage. Now that I think about it, I should have done a topical flesh stitch on the back and front but oh well. How many bad ideas did the world endure because of alcohol? What’s one more? Geesh! This was another one of those situations that told me alcohol was a serious problem. I just wasn’t ready to take that path or maybe I still had some things on my list to do before that ascension. It was one more thing to put in my pipe, I suppose.

The possibility of love had me so blinded that I never considered any need for growth other than an off and on willingness to see that alcohol wasn’t good for my “roomatism” anymore. Sandy’s consistent imbibing only made it seem acceptable to not worry about it, as wining and dining almost always made up the most part of our courtship. I’d quit when she quit but she’d quit when I quit, so it became clear that we’d never quit as long as we were together.

As great of company as Sandy was to me, I’m not sure she would have been a long-term toleration without alcohol. By long term, when you’re in between drinks, I mean like a few weeks to two months. That’s forever when you’re aggravated. [Sandy era>>>>end of era]

Since I was still working on my mom’s house in Conklin when Sandy finally lost it entirely with me, I had a place to stay. Like I said a while back, she left me because of my association with Danimal. Reluctance over losing my female companion was paled by relief and gratitude. It meant that I could make myself happy by being myself again- by following my forever desire to play music. Music made me happy when I played. It didn’t matter what I played at all. Even if it was just a Playskool xylophone with a plastic drumstick, with the rainbow colored strike plates, sitting on the floor with a child, and with a mess all around- just banging away, I was happy. That happiness, that spirit, was almost entirely stripped away. Thank God I found what was left to rebuild.

Danimal was a guy that I really got along well with. He didn’t hide from himself in sports and television or by judging others. The drinking was probably the only wrong thing that we did. And him, being influenced by the Jazz Age- it was just a tool and part of the environment. Maybe it was Danny’s lot in life, to be an example to people, since almost everyone liked him. Then people would easily see the destructive forces of denying love to a child, and what alcohol does to a life on top of that hurt. The drink may not be as bad as combining it with a damaged person who has a hunger for something that can only come from another human being. Like the damage done to a young mind caused by an improper balance in nurturing and development. It’s the pain of what’s missing when a young boy needs a father. The pain of the unanswered questions that only a dad or mom could give you. It’s the sting felt by a child because dad was too selfish to be dad, not caring enough to give anything of himself to anyone.

Why do we let the heartless live? Only because we hope they will find what they are looking for. We hope they will change for the good. We hope they will learn the importance and value of love and how it affects the whole world, virally. But who’s to say who is heartless and who won’t change? Who’s to say who is what but themselves of themselves? Wouldn’t that require honesty? I begged myself to find out of myself. I begged myself to see. I fought against man’s diseases to live. I have learned to struggle to become freed but my struggle is not over nor is my work done.

My lessons in life would continue with, yet, another seriously dysfunctional relationship. My efforts with my mother were contributing but so was the struggle with trying to work with her. It seemed like the project would go from difficult to highly improbable as it progressed, almost like a dance or a war. It was like, “Oh yeah. Well then see if you can do…this,” as if she wanted me to struggle, to fail. But I kept on at it, trying to prove my worth to her; trying to give of myself so that she would accept me. All I was looking for was a thank you, a hug- something but nothing came. My heart was crying out and I was getting nothing. The truck that she was going to pay me with was merely a tool I needed but without the rebuilding of the foundation in our relationship, it was useless to me. What I wanted to stop drinking but my broken heart was burning, and I couldn’t function with that constant burning.

After scrounging up what change I could find laying around, I would ride my bicycle six miles, in the dark, to Ravenna on Sundays just to get a jumbo. Six miles to a place that I had never been to, in the daytime before, was a challenge. Luckily the stars were visible, remembering their placement helped guide me home.

An old train trestle was converted to a bridge that crossed a deep ravine. At the bottom was a creek with rock crashing waters. Here is where I would stop to drink my beer and smoke with the sounds of rushing waters, and those beautiful stars- basking in the only love the world had to share with me that I could take and have for my own.

The Muskottawa Trail was an old train route that was part of a bike trail program. One night, when I was riding back from my evening Sunday trip to get beer, that I bought with beer cans that were left laying about by my mother’s boyfriend, and change from a coffee can in the kitchen, I hit a big bump in the path. Having bought two beers, I was now going back to the house with the one that I had left. The bump in the path sent me flying over the handlebars and onto the asphalt with my backpack and forty ounce bottle of Magnum- one dollar and nine cents plus tax and deposit; my bike came after me, making for a pretty ugly heap in the roadway.

When I regained my composure, to inspect my bike, and saw that the contents of my pack were, surprisingly, unharmed, my attention turned to the bump in the pathway. Then I recalled a very small bump in the trail but what I found was a long tree trunk laying across the path. The small bump was the thin end. Someone must have thought it would be real funny to catch a person in the dark with that, ruining the trip to the beer store! It was easy to imagine the giggling as they did it, seeing the Busch beer cans in the area that had been discarded by the perpetrator. Strange as it was, and as scary as it was to almost lose my beer, I am not positive that it wasn’t my own practical joke laid out from my last trip back. Or maybe it was my grandpa, working in my subconscious. I never actually recalled it, exactly, but I could see me doing something like that. Once home, I climbed into Uncle Bill’s old Chevy Camper van with Dusty and my jumbo and listened to the radio I had strung out there on an extension cord, and went to sleep- happy we both had those moments together.

It was easy to find other things to do than be trapped in Conklin, so I started spending a little time at Danny’s and got him to come out and help me at my mom’s house with some painting. He kept landing these apartment jobs and eventually came into a bathroom renovation for an excessively large breasted troll. She seemed nice enough but the bathroom was in a trailer for the twenty-first century- they call them modular homes now, and it was a culmination of corrupt cobbling. The heat flew right out of the place, and it was a pure mess but we could drink and smoke weed while we worked so, we didn’t really care. We were getting paid for it.

Yet, another teenage girl threw herself at my attention, the woman’s daughter, Casey. She went on and on about her friends and their band, the carnival and her dad, and music. Her father and I, strangely enough, had become acquainted when I worked for the carnival during a seriously low point of my life following the divorce. The child, having been what you call “over-exposed”, was seemingly mature with her manner of speaking, and with her appearance. She was a full figured girl with a D cup. She went out of her way to stay in my attention. At some point the girl’s mother, Julie, placed herself in my scope of vision, mentioning her own breasts.

Myself, very unaware of ego and the nature of the family relationship that I was in the middle of, I fed right into the madness and took the bait. I am not sure if I was genuinely interested or if I became interested by capitalizing on the possibilities that this simple matter of convenience created for me- although nothing about it was simple except for the mistake of allowing myself to become prey- “haste makes waste”. Oh but the words of Proverbs, “beware of the harlot, were clouded over by alcohol and selfishness, and the very foolish partaking of instant gratification. None of this would be realized until illuminated by the light of reflection, motivated by an untimely series of life changing events and catastrophes.

At some point I think I said to myself, “any woman with that pimply of a face has to be capable of loving a person.” Her Rosacea was so bad I figured she’d have to be loyal… This, I would think, but sometimes people are just truly ugly no matter their appearances. Despite her having to actually rehab the working bathroom for me to use, and that the place looked like a third world country or that the doors were ripped off of their hinges, which should have indicated a lurking violence, I overlooked it all and drifted into their reality with my foolish heart. At some point she set the hook in my ego with statements about past failed relationships and how men with no purpose and very little use had only wanted her for her money. A sensible, self respecting man with the least amount of dignity could see that bit of manipulation while in a coma but not me. My mother said I never did listen.

Your life, I have learned, is a business. Chose your business partner wisely- from some failures there is no recovery.

My decision resulted in a serious scolding from Danny, becoming involved with a customer, but he dealt with it while there was not much that he could do at the time to offer change to the situation. Few days would pass before she would come out to Conklin for a pint of Guinness at the Irish Pub by the house I worked on and stayed in. She soon wanted to go back to her house in the rental side of Rockford, and rather than ride with her and return with Danny, I insist on following her in my truck. Why did I do that? I probably did it because I could, and because my ego was imprisoning myself. After all, it was bad enough that I was living at moms, and really had no Monet at all- just an uninsured truck and the urgency for anything that instantly gratified me. So, seems how I really only had enough of Degass to get there, I was stuck for a few days only to need to make the VanGogh to the CMH in Grand Haven. I wish the appointment was to have had my head examined but it was not, just a routine medication check-up.

Afterward, Dan and I stopped in to visit RB at the music store, where we bought a strap for my guitar, and where I noticed the break in the transmission line that went to or from the cooling unit. The shops in the area held a hardware store that happened to sell JB Weld and after remembering everyone (even Paul Harvey) rant and rave about it, so I decided to try it. Cleaning the oil residue from the tubing surface was my main concern but I managed to locate some electrical cleaner for soldering. The repair was a success but also a failure because I did not locate an orifice to refill the fluid in the transmission.

The Conklin house was still on my routine agenda but was not as important as trying to escape the constant reminder of having an extremely uncomfortable relationship with my mother. Danny’s loft, in the Gezon building warehouse, was serving as a place to crash but not really for living. There was no running water, no sink- only windows and a freight elevator, and one lone toilet that was almost always trashed or plugged; repercussions of a biological hazard of life threatening proportions. So, we just pissed out of the window, which happened to face the office building of the City Housing Inspectors and building maintenance department- the cops in affect…

We’d, (I said weed), collect our dishes in a plastic tote to take to the places we were working on that had running water. In such cases where we had no place available to use for washing dishes or hygiene purposes, we would go to a friend’s house- like Julie Wickman.

Julie Wickman owned property and had two dogs that Danny walked for her, mostly as a consolation for using her dishwasher. She came by the loft one day to score some Delight from Danimal, and was already there when I arrived. During my animation she had whispered something that made Danny shout out his forbidding, “No! You can’t sleep with Zach! Everyone wants to sleep with Zach!”

It didn’t matter because I was already pursuing other interests, however poor. Her and I became friends, and she soon shared with me how she had wanted a baby for years but failed to discover a man worthy of sharing a life with, let alone being a father. So she adopted, finally, at the age of forty-five. And, that I know of, she never married. She served as a person of interest in Danny’s life, and had he gotten a handle on his drinking, could have been far more.

As for the woman with the bathroom repairs, sooner or later I decided to move in with her even after Danny’s protest. I am quite positive it was out of my anguish over my immediate familial dysfunctions- mostly the difficulty relating with my mother, that influenced my decision but I can’t deny that the constant availability of beer, weed and female affection, was high ranking on my priority list. Besides, bringing the issue up of curbing my drinking, I felt, would only impede on using the opportunity to, virtually, create an instant family, which would help in getting an edge on prying my way back into my children’s lives despite Minderella’s conniving and scheming.

This woman was clearly in need of a man in the home. The living standards were very low- no order, no structure. The kitchen was always a disaster, and “mom” was at work when she wasn’t at the bar looking for a sucker, I mean a mate. She had just filed for a divorce, not long ago, and the daughter’s father had just died of liver cancer from drinking and shooting junk into his veins. Story was that he was in the Hells’ Angels, did time in San Quentin, and was a heroine user who hid out in the carnival circuit where he met this woman after her failed attempt to get in the porn industry landed her there. A lot of it prodded my heart like there was some great task for me to do there. Yeah, she was probably the most unattractive female I had ever seen, which only made me feel that much more sorry for her. And I was willing to try anything to get away from my own torment.

­­“Danimal” was a guy that I really got along well with. He didn’t hide from himself in sports and television. The drinking was probably the only thing wrong with what we did. And with him, having been influenced by the Jazz age, it was just one of life’s everyday tools.

Maybe it was Danny’s lot in life to be an example to people, being that almost everyone liked him. Then people could easily see the destructive forces of denying love to a child, and what alcohol does on top of that hurt. The drink isn’t bad, it’s the damage done to a young mind caused by an improper balance in a person’s development. It’s the pain of what’s missing when a boy needs a father- the pain of the unanswered questions that only a dad could give you, the sting caused because dad was too selfish to be dad. It seems he didn’t care enough to give anything of himself to anyone beyond what he wanted them for.

Why do we let the heartless live? Only because we hope they will change for the good. We hope they will learn the importance and value of love and see how it affects the whole world. But who’s to say who’s heartless and who will not change? Who’s to say who’s what but themselves of themselves? I begged myself to find out of myself. I begged myself to see, while fighting against man’s social diseases to live. I have learned to struggle free, to be but my struggle is not over, nor is my work in this life done.

My lessons in life would continue with, yet, another dysfunctional relationship. My efforts with my own mother were continuing but so was the struggle with trying to get along, and to work, with all of my family members. Togetherness was foreign. It seemed like the Conklin project would go from difficult, to highly improbable, as it progressed- almost like I was being dared constantly, like: “Oh yeah? Well then see if you can do THIS”. But I kept at it, trying to prove my worth, trying to give of myself to gain their approval and acceptance. A ‘thank you’, a hug, some sign of affection, but I got nothing more than the truck I was going to get for my work. I was trying to stop drinking but my broken heart was burning. It was impossible for me to function in the least with that constant burning.

On Sunday evenings, I rode my bicycle down the Muskottawa Trail that led toward the town of Ravenna, so that I could decompress with some beer. It was always a welcome journey, enjoying the stars and the fresh air. It was a six-mile ride for a jumbo bottle of beer but I didn’t mind at all. Six miles to a place I had never been to before in the daytime was a challenge. I had no idea where the trail went to or if I’d even find Ravenna by taking it but it was better than sitting in the van, where I slept in the back yard.

After managing to find Ravenna, where the trail went right through, I purchased my beer and headed right back in the direction of home. The trail took me across a bridge that was an old train trestle, where a large stream or small river was rushing through, creating a roar in the distance below. The stream spoke to me with its rock crashing waters. This is where I stopped and sat to drink my beer and smoke with the sounds and the stars- basking in what seemed like the only beautiful love the world had to share with me that I could take for my own.

What seemed like miles later, I had stopped for a rest at a crossroads. When I went to proceed I became confused about which way I had been coming from. This confusion caused me to spin around, finding no sign to indicate where the trail was. Finally, I decided that the trail was the one that was a bit smaller in width. It then occurred to me that I may have gotten turned around in my confusion. A panic set in. A few deep breaths later, I recalled how the various explorers circumnavigated the globe using the stars. Feeling I could use the stars, I located the Big Dipper. It was the position of the Big Dipper that helped me to decide which way to go, and it’s a good thing I looked because I was going the wrong way- of course.

One Sunday night, on my way back home from getting my two jumbos of beer, I hit a bump in the path as I neared the house. Having already drank one, the other one in my backpack to have when I got back. This bump sent me flying over the handlebars, face first onto the asphalt. Somehow, I managed to land without busting myself up anymore than scraping a palm from trying to push the Earth out of my way. The bike came down after me, making a pretty ugly heap in the pathway. When I regained my composure to inspect the bike and the unharmed contents of my pack, my attention then turned to the bump in the road. It was then that I recalled a very small bump from when I had earlier traveled through. What I found was a long fallen tree that measured two inches at one end, and four or five at the other end, stretched across the path. The small bump was the thin end. Someone had placed the tree across the path to impede with trail-riders in the evening. There were a couple Busch beer cans laid by it, the same kind my mother’s boyfriend kept around the house. Someone must have thought it was real funny when they had taken a moment to think of it, probably laughing about the prank, while they imagined a person tripping over it in the dark- ruining their trip to the beer store. I imagined the giggling as they did it. Strange as it was, and scary as it was to almost lose my beer, I couldn’t be sure if it wasn’t my own practical joke. Or maybe it was one of my grandpa’s jokes, in my subconscious. I never exactly recalled but I could see me doing something like that. Confused about the situation, I proceeded back to the house, and climbed into my Uncle Bill’s old camper van with Dusty and my jumbo. We listened to the radio I had strung out there on an electrical extension cord. It made me happy that we had these moments to be together.

Chapter

When some money started to come together for me, I’d drive to Danny’s. He agreed to come and see what I had been doing, and to help me with some painting, providing a bit of a buffer between my family and I. He kept landing these apartment jobs, where people had been evicted, eventually coming into a bathroom renovation for an excessively large breasted troll. She seemed nice enough but the bathroom was in a trailer for the Twenty-first Century- they were calling them “Modular Homes” by this period and it was a complete culmination of cobbling and corruption.

The heat flew right out of the place and it was a Pig Sty but we could drink and work, and smoke weed, so we didn’t care- it was a paying gig. Her daughter threw herself into my attention. She went on and on about her friends and their band, and the carnival, and her dad. The child, having been what is known as being, “over-exposed”, was misleading with her seeming maturity between her being very well spoken and having what looked like a fully developed body complete with a D cup.

At some point her mother, Julie, placed herself in my scope of vision, guiding my attention to her and her breasts, saying that Casey was thirteen and that she had a habit of attaching herself to men. Myself, very unaware of ego and the dynamics of the family relationship that I was in the middle of, I fed right into the madness and took the bait. She was not a woman that I would have given any attention to if I had ran into her in public but she asked me to give her a chance. I’m not sure if I was genuinely interested or if I decided to become interested because it was there, capitalizing on the possibilities that this simple matter of convenience created for me- although nothing about it was simple except for the mistake of allowing myself to be prey- “haste makes waste”. Oh, but the words of advice in Proverbs, “beware of the harlot” were clouded over by alcohol and selfishness, and the very foolish partaking of instant gratification. None of this would be realized until illuminated in the light of reflection, motivated by an untimely series of life changing catastrophes.

At some point I think I said to myself, “Any woman with that pimply of a face has to be capable of loving a person. With Rosacea that bad, she’d have to be loyal”. Despite her having to actually “rehab” the working bathroom for me to use it but I never thought twice about it.

The place looked like a third world country. Doors were ripped off of their hinges, and the stops were ripped loose and hanging, which should have clearly indicated a lurking violence but I allowed myself to drift into their reality with my foolish heart. At some point she set the hook in my ego with statements about past failures at relationships, and how men with no purpose and very little use, only wanted her for her money. A sensible, self respecting man with the least amount of dignity could see that bit of manipulation while in a coma but not me…mom say’s, I never did listen.

Your life is a business. Chose your business partner wisely- from some failures there is no recovery. My business decision resulted in a serious scolding from Danny, becoming involved with a customer, but he dealt with it, while there was not much that he could do to offer change to the situation.

Few days would pass before she would come out to Conklin for a pint of Guinness at the Irish Pub near the house I worked on and where I stayed. For some reason, I insisted on following her home in my own vehicle, hitting a deer on the way, which ruined the front end of my truck. The plan was that I needed my truck for a buffer but not to provide a cushion for deer, it was so I could leave her house on my own, hoping I wouldn’t have to gnaw off one of my arms to do it. Part of me was also imprisoned by my ego, after all, it was bad enough that I was “living at moms” and really had no money at all- just an uninsured truck and the urgency for anything that instantly gratified me. So, seems how I really only had enough gas to get there I was stuck for a few days, until I needed to make it to a doctors appointment in Grand Haven.

A day or two later, Danny and I would go to Grand Haven for that doctor’s appointment that I had made at the Community Mental Health (CMH) department. We paid RB a visit at the music store, where he worked. We purchased a guitar strap and some strings for my guitar. We decided to look at the truck while we were there because the transmission was chattering and jerking a bit on our way out. What I found was that the transmission cooler had received a bit of damage from the impact with the deer, tearing a hole in the cooling fins. The auto parts store across the street had some J.B. Weld, so I purchased it to try for the first time in my life. Luckily, I had done enough repairs in the past to take care to clean the surface with some electrical cleaner that they had at the music store. The repair had worked like magic, and I was now sold on J.B. Weld- Paul Harvey was right.

Sooner than later, even after Danny’s protest about our plans of going south to find a new home in a musician community somewhere, I moved in with her. This, I am quite positive, was a decision made out of my anguish over the inability to relate with my own family. There was nowhere else to live, and I couldn’t provide to myself alone. Staying with Danny was always cool but I wasn’t really living there. There wasn’t any running water, and this woman clearly needed a man. The daughter’s father had just died of Liver Cancer from drinking and drugs. Everything prodded my heart.

Yeah, she was one of the ugliest women I’d ever seen but I was willing to try anything; anything to get away from the torment of subjecting myself to scenarios that left me without affection that I so desperately needed. The added appeal was that it was close to the music scene and doctors that I needed to get to, and it was right in the locale of the trout stream we were always trying to get taken to as kids- my friend Jimmy and I, the Rogue River.

It seems the kid learned to abuse my availability or maybe it was a combination of her and her mother preying on my ego, and my need to be useful, and my drive to prove my worth to them. Casey had just turned fourteen in December. The ride was necessary because they were not fortunate enough to live within the Rockford school district to be included on the bus route. Her mother, Julie, had taken her out of the Comstock Park School after the child’s tantrums caused her to become suspended repeatedly. This was coupled with pity over the father recently dying in the home while in hospice with them.

Casey had a friend at Rockford, and a chance for a fresh start. At Comstock, she had been the subject for much discipline and scrutiny that had to be the product of a lack of discipline in the home, making the child’s lot a miserably distorted perception of reality. Part of her grief was due to the repercussions of her unsupervised choices in clothing. Casey insisted on wearing totally inappropriate things to school, and had no sense or guidance at dressing or caring for her self. This was an extreme problem for the school, having a persistent and blatant disregard for the dress code.

She wore these boots religiously, that her grandmother purchased for her after a long pattern of begging, whining and badgering. They were in the fashion worn by Paul Stanley or Gene Simmons of KISS, the original Punk band. These were worn day in and day out, as if they were the only pair of footwear the child had. They were black knee-high with platform soles, and had a series of Velcro strap fastenings all the way up. They were cheap to begin with and were rank and cheesed out from lack of proper hygiene and the use of socks. I felt so bad for so many reasons, having no choice but to clean them up, putting polish on them to hide the scuffed off finish coating, picking the matted lint and hair from the Velcro because they wouldn’t stick, and replacing the insoles. It took a weekend for that. And, me, having no authority- it was one of the only things I could do to feel like I was helping.

Aside from the boots, she wore radical clothing like stuff that was very risqué for a thirteen year old girl- a skirt that was nothing more than a waistband with a six inch ruffle attached to it, possibly designed for an eight or nine year old child if it wasn’t actually for a toddler. It did not cover her full figured rump, leaving a whole lot of butt-cheek out in the wind. It was the same thing with the shirts she wore, so small they looked like sports bras. She was dressing to show these over-developments off which made her a target, a 36D, topping it all off with her mothers leather coat. It was now obvious that she was an early teen by the copious amounts of baby fat popping out everywhere that stays on youths who never leave the house for anything outdoors. I could see her being targeted. Just imagine being me, and being seen letting her out of my truck in the front of the High school in Rockford, an affluent community. It was a bad way to start the day for anyone.

As for getting the girl to school, the major difference between me doing it, and her mother taking her was that she always showed up to class perfumed with the smell of pot. I am almost certain that the school knew about it. Julie smoked it like the end of the world was upon her, leaving the kid to reek of it. Her slovenly and lackadaisical lifestyle was a constant mismanagement of time, along with every other resource that is crucial to running a household. Ten minutes from the time she had to be twenty minutes away, no matter what it was for or how important, she would stop to roll a joint for the road. We were always late for every appointment. For me, pot wasn’t about getting high. It was medicinal and disciplined for relief of anxiety and to focus, as well as taking the edge off of my arthritis pain. That was it. I smoked in the early evening during the week, and in the morning, taking a puff or two on the toilet.

So, between the mom, and acorns not falling far from the tree, I was a squirrel among nuts. My feelings that I was providing a great service by filling a familial void made me overlook the reality, which only fueled the façade. How desperate I was to replace my family, to feel normal again, to be the man I was. I wanted to be the father, the husband, the leader, the earner and provider again. In my mind, the keys to the equation were there, and the product was possible. I could see my own children back in my life.

The distractions and distortions of reality caused by the excessive amounts of alcohol and estrogen, combined with my enormous deficiency of…. something, I don’t know what, maybe just plain BRAINS or maybe my inner drive to do everything in life the hardest way possible was chiefly planting seeds for my grief. It was all too much for my senses, I guess. I suppose it was like Gremlins or an Iceberg- there was cuteness and a sense of wonder that attracted you, all the while a hidden force of destruction that, once discovered, is too late to combat with a favorable outcome. Had I not been so distracted, I would have paid closer attention to their claims of being “White Witches”, which I shrugged of as nonsense.

Oblivious, I walked right into the trap and started dancing to their songs. The magic went right to work, and the next thing I knew, I was cleaning up the disasters as soon as I got back from taking Casey to school that first day. My understanding of the adults operating in a household is that they set the living standards and see that everyone under the roof helps to maintain them- things like policing the cat box, as it demands in order to be tolerated in a living space. The kitchen has to be free of dirty dishes, and the counters need to be kept clean. The stovetop has to be cleaned after cooking meals while the foodstuffs can be wiped off easily. Oh, what a fiasco!

There was always a lack of dishes at mealtime. It seemed that the leftovers held some priority or sentimental value, being set in the refrigerator using the dishware for a length of time that could earn them rights of the unsalvageable, then to be tossed into the trash- programming or an accustomed practice in this particular households evolutionary pattern- either way, disturbing.

My secret inspections of so-called personal space led to the discovery of lots of missing dishes and flatware, mountains of soiled clothing, and items to prove a lurking deviance and lack of parental authority that could prove disastrous for myself. Some things I left alone, to be subtly coaxed from their locations by my seemingly innocent guidance through questioning the possible locations: …”get a chair and look really good in your closet, like up on the shelf, maybe it’s in there”. A future move would reveal more, maybe too much but I still didn’t get it.

Yeah, it was a nightmare but next to the unobtainable affections within my own family, and my outright fright of what I’d seen in the streets, it was a welcome challenge with rewards that were, to me, of immeasurable value and wealth of religious proportions- my Holy Grail. At least I was now closer to Danny, Bruce, and the guys. And even though having their own dysfunctions, they all loved me and believed in me, supporting who I was. That was important to me, to feel like people valued me as an individual. My life maintained a balance by having their company to surround myself with when I needed a break from the absolute chaos- to recharge.

Chapter

It was a nasty winter that year, with ice taking over the Grand River. The level of water and ice flow was so high that it came right up over the back of the property, over the decks, and up to the back door. It was a difference of about twelve feet, which really put Danny’s construction skills to the test, since it was him that helped Bruce build the deck. It was an impressive show of force from Mother Nature but not one board was disturbed. The river was a sight to see, especially downtown Grand Rapids where Julie worked as an accountant for Hunt Construction.

The project was tearing down the old police station and replacing it with an Expo Center. This was located right across the street from the U.S. Post Office, which is next door to the Seniors Housing building. The seniors had all been forced out onto the street. No one seems to care about family like on The Walton’s anymore, so they knew there would be little to no backlash to fear. There was a short-lived stink, and life went on. Just like the scandal over the VanAndel Arena- a short-lives stink, mostly due to the fact that the guy who had balls enough to make an argument about it in the Grand Rapids Press, vanished. When local taxes are being used, you have to hold a public bid for the work to be done but the deals were all done behind closed doors. No public bids were held. It was all left to cronyism and nepotism. What an outrage, a shameful travesty. It was my boycott references about that situation that coincided with my grief at the time of my seeming demise on September 3^rd, 1996. Coincidence, I wonder…?

Anyway, right in front of the Hunt/Expo project, a remarkable display of nature could be seen as the ice floes moved unhindered, like Glaciers. Bridge pillars stoutly cut through the massive floes of ice, leaving a spectacular sight. Long, deep gouges and lengthening trenches in the frozen mass like nothing I had ever seen. Come spring, when the ice melted and the water levels went down, a landmark boulder would be gone- removed by the glacial-like force, never to be found that I am aware of. Certainly, it was a terrible winter to be on the streets.

One morning, it was snowing pretty hard, and having a vehicle once again volunteered me to pick up the slack of negligence by taking Casey to school. I didn’t mind. I felt like I was there to help. Having a few minutes to work with, which meant no hurry, I decided to take the scenic route along the Rogue River, instead of getting on the North bound portion of Highway131. The route along the Rogue River was a winding road through the hills and valleys, east of US131highway. At one point, where I would get on, and at that time of morning, traffic was the last minute rush. The winds had picked up and a whiteout blizzard with heavy wind gusts struck. In a flash, it was impossible to see, causing a pile up of many, many vehicles- around sixty. It was the worst pile-up in the area, ever. I would have been right there in it. I was so thankful for my choice to not get on the highway that morning, for having not been involved, especially with someone else’s child. The guilt of that would surely have been too much for me but it’s possible my being there interrupted a more serious supernatural force. Maybe they were supposed to be in that accident. Julie would have been in a rush. Had I not been there, I would never have been there to be used for the option of driving her to school, and someone else would have been in charge of Jeans estate and the trust fund from Julies father. But then again, it’s possible that I was supposed to be there. A Guardian Angel- one of their deceased fathers maybe?

As for Danny, the Gezon building had been put up for sale some time ago, which meant that the days of the loft were numbered. Our hopes were that whomever took it over would keep the studio occupancies but we knew that was an improbability. It seemed that no one was really interested in purchasing the place or at least not the building. The property was the only thing anyone wanted. Dan had made a For Sale sign for the owner to hang on the side of the building only he was going to put “Fer” Sale instead. We’d laugh and laugh about that.

He was dividing his time between his friends and his mother, whom now resided in a condominium type apartment community of elderly people. Since she was not driving much, he had use of her Saab and taking her to Marz Hill Church for services every week. “Love Wins”, was the mantra. It was on the bumper sticker in the window.

Bruce let him stay in the guest house that he called the “Sugar Shack”, located behind the house but there was also a tree house across the river that he would go and stay in, built by Rick Todd, a friend who often hung out at Bruce’s.

And then there was Julie Wickman’s place, he stayed there too, walking her dogs while she was busy with working from her home office. Danny was all over town, and now with me living where I was at, he could stay there too.

My own time was being divvied up between my mother’s, Julie’s, and Danny’s, while working on the various projects, that were going on with all involved. Julie’s project was trying to take care of her adoptive mother, Jean.

Jean, having developed Alzheimer’s, had been declining in health and left widowed by her husband, Dick, whom died from A.L.S. a few years back. The local news featured him and his disorder that, once recognized, crippled him very swiftly and severely. A.L.S. had taken away his motor skills and ability to speak. This disease took his life by storm. It was a very sad situation to witness, which I did by way of the VHS tape copy of the news program, and through the various notepads that he had used to communicate with.

Julie would check on her mother once a week, in her home of forty plus years. It was off of Plainfield and Jupiter- back behind the old Witmark's store. This was only a token visit to say she did. She needed to be more attentive because the wolves lurked everywhere around Jean since Dick died. One sold her a brand new Saturn Ion even though she couldn’t remember what she was doing at the dealership. Another sought out more frequent tithe requests. And then there was Julie, waiting to sink her claws into the substance with all the guise of a faithful daughter, following the requests of her adoptive father, to take care of Jean. He was a rare man, loving his wife as if she was the only woman on Earth. Not able to have a child of their own, they finally adopted. Thank God, only once.

Of all the Evil, maybe I was there to buffer the Demonic forces, to add a bit of supernatural guilt that would deflect some of the negative somehow, somewhat. But I was no angel, not by any means. My motives were of the flesh and convenience, and of resentment. My rationalizations justified my actions, the good with the bad until the bad could be stamped out. My awareness of what was going on was becoming more and more, and it had a very negative impact on how I felt about the living situation and what I had become involved in. My drinking became more constant. Although I tried to curtail it, my sadness over the truth, and the reality that I kept finding in life, only seemed to give life right back to the beast that I fought to take life from. Everything was messed up but I continued to deny it by leaning on my Faith and Hope that there was Goodness to be found somewhere amid all of the chaos.

Chapter

Julie had gotten into a lot of trouble as a teen, finding her way into the carnival circuit where she learned to refine her skills at deception and manipulation, becoming a con artist. She played me out well too, speaking with an air of sophistication in the English persuasion with Casey feeding into the charade as best supporting actress. It seemed like it was all in playfulness but it was just part of a larger deception. Sometimes she would mention researching to find her lineage before being put up for adoption but even she speculated that she was descended from criminals. She had suspected gypsies because of her black hair.

She had an injury to her throat, sustained in a car wreck when she was seventeen, that required the routine use of a Teflon tune-up in the form of an injection from time to time. This was to help her speaking, since she had a hoarse ugliness that rattled the glass panes, chasing even the most incapacitated man away. I felt sorry for her. Her boyfriend and a couple of their friends were heading toward the west coast to do some “work” in the adult movie industry. She slept in the backseat while they were coked up and speeding down a dark stretch of highway. Somewhere, between wrong and right, they were in an accident. Who was to blame wasn’t going to change the fact that people were killed, including her unborn child. She was the only one to survive, and wouldn’t learn of her pregnancy until many days later. Her body was nearly severed in two, receiving massive amounts of care and hundreds of sutures and staples, leaving her badly scarred around her abdomen. Her throat was deeply lacerated, damaging her vocal cords. Teflon could only take the scratch off of the surface. Secretly, I felt a joy of sorts over the loss of that child, an uncontrolled voice of the ego, maybe, or was it that someone had escaped an undeserving hell of this family’s reality? This partly explained how she ended up in the carnival, maimed and disfigured, damaged goods and starved for attention…. Even if it was from a man who’s interests were purely superficial.

Jean went downhill fast, requiring someone to be appointed responsible for the finances. Julie was made executor of the estate, which was made into a trust fund, all the while letting her own home go into a state of delinquency as an effort to get out from under the debt. On the surface it appeared as though she was preparing to consolidate households due to her mothers caretaking needs but in reality she was just moving back in with mom. She put her moms house on the market and searched for a house that was big enough for the four of us. It had to be on a bus route. And it had to be in Rockford School district. Casey insisted on staying in that school but I had reasons to believe that the school could have done without her.

An impending sense of urgency created a hostile environment to which Kenny did not help. While I am at work, Kenny is sneaking underage girls over to have sex with. He knew his mother was at work, and that I was working. It was impossible to take them to his father’s house, and the cost of gas limited his driving, so it only made sense to take them to his mother’s.

Casey had tried telling her mother about Kenny’s perversions- that he had been trying to fondle her, and molested her in the past. Whether true or not, I cannot ascertain. There was so much untruth and manipulation that I could only observe and wonder. My concerns blew up when it was ME that was in the house, and in a position to be the responsible party in the home. I feared being the one implicated with accusations that any man fears. Thank God I didn’t get caught up in a bad scenario involving a statutory rape case with an irate father of a teenage girl who needed a good excuse why the school had called saying she wasn’t there. What a nightmare.

Chapter: Karma- Mandy has been found dead

As the snows went away with the arrival of spring, the business of eviction began keeping Danny and I busy with clean-outs and repairs again. When I went to the loft to meet up with him, the building maintenance guy from the ground floor business mentioned a power failure issue that they needed to have fixed. My question was, why Dan Doyle wasn’t there to tend to it, being that he was the person who handled their electrical issues in the past. That’s when I got the news about Mandy, Dan Doyle’s oldest child.

Dan was not available due to his incapacitation over the fact that she’s been found dead in her apartment, of an overdose. If that wasn’t bad enough, a guy was found in the room with her child, with his pants missing. It was obvious that he had been inappropriately handling Mandy also. It may be that he didn’t know she had an overdose, assuming her to be merely unconscious when he took advantage of her. My legs buckled and I fell to the ground, suddenly sick in my stomach, and groaning in sheer disbelief. I spent the rest of the day trying to understand what had happened to the young woman I had worked with, whom was so eager to learn the Carpentry trade, and was so thankful for her sobriety and getting her kids back in her life.

Mandy was just thirteen when I’d met her. Her mother, Lynn, had died in the arms of Mandy’s father, after crashing the motorcycle they had been riding. Mandy was a teenage mother. She got knocked up before her sixteenth birthday. And now, less than a year out of jail, she’s dead. The last time I saw her, she and a girlfriend that shared her apartment, had ran into Billy and I, after working on a porch rebuilding project for Salih. We spoke with them outside of a liquor store called The Bottle House. They asking Bill to purchase booze for them.

It was odd that they would be on South Division, where it was known for drug activity, after sundown but I dismissed it without much suspicion. Her person was one that was full of life and everyone loved her. She was spunky and she was beautiful in every way. I can still see her dimples and teeth on her bright smiling face.

That morning, I wondered if her father wasn’t being dealt his grief- karma at play for spending our money from the log home belonging to Mark and Connie when he bought the Harley Davidson Fat boy. Even still, I went to Dan’s home to express my sympathy that evening.

Dan was on his back, lying on the couch in a catatonic state. Saying nothing, I went to his side, knelt down and held his hands in mine. A few moments later I left him in the silence and never saw him again. I drove away, still crippled with the reality and sickness in my heart, while I agonized over how could this have happened. All I could think of was that Dan’s wrong doing brought this on. That’s just how I felt at the time. I kept thinking that he could have prevented this but that his selfishness and his greed made it happen. I couldn’t help but to blame him.

In the meantime, I was oblivious to my own selfishness and greed, and continued digging what was shaping up to be my own grave. The clock was ticking and no one would be prepared. Julie searched for a home that met Casey’s demands while the spring was progressing in winter’s demise.

A house was found that met all the criteria, which led to scrambling for boxes at liquor stores to move with. Kenny became too busy to assist the family, and Casey refused to help- still in a state of which no one on earth can understand except for a fourteen-year-old girl. What she needed was a paddling, the kind that breaks blood vessels in a father’s hand. This is a crucial moment that can’t be overlooked but the idea is to properly invest in a kid from birth, not from their teens. By then there is little hope.

Chapter

While her mom wilted away, Julie continued making plans to consolidate households, with me there to take on whatever burdens came along. Only Julie knew what was going on with the bills. The payments had not been made on the home but that was presumably in her ex-husbands name, in anticipation of relocating. The bank eventually foreclosed as things came to a head. Luckily, Julie had a real estate agent involved that she went to school with- a stoner buddy from the past who helped her along in the process from behind the scenes. Within a few weeks she was able to find a home that would work for her.

The house was on the bus route for school, had three bedrooms and an office, upper and lower level living quarters, large kitchen and dining area, fireplace, two stall garage with a third stall for a boat/utility or as a service bay, lawn sprinkler system, fenced in rear yard, seasonal porch, hot-tub, and it was right on the White Pine Trail.

We began moving in before the occupants could get out, filling their garage with her belongings. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a team effort. It seemed like I was spearheading the whole thing. I gathered up boxes and packed away everything that would fit in them. Casey had been continuously refusing to help do anything at all. Kenny had no job but was all of the sudden too busy, and Julie was not at all responding to the situation like a person who had to move. She was more of an invalid, as if she had no idea what to do, had never moved before, and never even been in a dwelling. It was almost as if she was on Earth for the first time but that was all part of the act to get my monkey to sing and dance… and it did, just not enough to beat the clock.

My words were that they needed to help, and of refusing to be the fool in the scenario but there I was doing everything like a good slave. Now, I wonder if she really had the ability to cast a spell, it seems she had me in one because there was not enough I could do in giving my all.

We moved the items using, both, her truck and mine, just the two of us. Since the new place was only three miles away, door to door, it was easier than it could have been. At the end of the second day of hauling furniture and boxes of crap, we went back for more only to find the house had been locked up tight by the mortgage holder. Julie got on the phone only to find out that the things left in the house did not need to be moved out any longer. They had placed everything in the dumpsters. She was now going to have to fetch them from the receptacles, which wouldn’t really be a big deal. I mean, who looks out of place diving in dumpsters at a trailer park in a bad economy? That wasn’t a big deal.

What was a big deal was that it was now pouring rain and way after sundown. Since she was the boss, in effect, my suggestions to work all night had been dismissed. Now I was hated for being in the position to say many things, one was, “I told you so”. The biggest part of it was that most of what was in the dumpster was Casey’s belongings. We had worked at packing and moving everything else in the home, leaving her things to be packed up by her. Of course, she maintained the stance that she was not going to help, and she didn’t. Much of it looked so much like garbage that it was hard to distinguish which of it was hers. It was a terrible chore. At one point I got in and watched from the cab of my truck, I’d had enough. My suggestion to get Casey to do it fell on deaf ears. Julie was not about to display that she had no authority, again. And although I kept saying that I refused to be the fool, I could not remove myself from this grave out of my own selfishness and compromised wit- my personal motives. After all I had been through it was just another difficulty, right? I maintained hope even though my own faults made it lessened. Neither of us were ever apologized to or thanked for what was dealt with or what was done.

While unpacking at 5904 Alcove Drive, I began to see that things were not all roses in the previous family’s lives. Money troubles were clearly indicated by many things. The sprinkler system was intentionally disabled, causing the yard to turn to a brown patchy mess- the only yard like it in the neighborhood. The hot tub was disabled. Doorstops on the master bedroom and master bath were ripped loose from the slamming of doors, which revealed fighting between the husband and wife. This was not a big surprise, given the fact that this was a time when there was a huge job loss in the West Michigan area.

Many of the jobs were outsourced to other countries with a significant pay difference. People were selling their homes and having to move back in with their elderly parents, in some cases, after already having downsized to smaller homes and liquidating their assets. Some took up the lesser paying jobs in retail and fast food, for the sake of keeping an income of some sort, which displaced the younger people who routinely took and depended on those jobs. This was a whole new aspect of the game- cutting the throats of our young to survive. That’s exactly what happened, much like when Sea Lions abandon their young, leaving them to starve to death while they try to find food to survive and breed again. So, quite simply put, the reality is that the young people are being extorted. Here I was seeing the sign of the times, instead of hearing about it.

My job was now tending the property, addressing those things that were in need of service or restoration, like the tub, sprinkler, interior repairs, water softener, and lots of other odds and ends. There was a scar in the back yard from a pool that I hid by putting a garden in, using eight loads of dirt from a supplier by the Grand River on Coit Avenue.

The tub quickly burnt up, having not been in service for who knows how long. The wires were brittle causing an electrical fire in the control box that ran the tub system. Under the scrutiny and dismay from the pool and spa store, I rebuilt the unit, which was a four hundred dollar repair that only cost me time and a fifty-dollar component. I was full of pride over that one. It all seemed so glorious, my finding myself in a home and a lifestyle to which my skilled trade had me accustomed to. The amenities and prospects of having my kids back in my life was becoming more of a reality. Everything was coming together.

As payment for doing all of the work on the property, and all of the domestic chores, and full-time care and companionship for Jean, Julie paid for an attorney to handle suing for my so-called visitation rights to be enforced. This began the process I had been anticipating so much.

On my birthday, she offered to do something special for me but out of pure mercy I only asked for some boiled eggs because I knew how scatter-brained and challenged she was. My fear of receiving grief later had motivated my choice and was an easy solution to her offer without rejecting her, I thought anyway.

Well, the water all boiled out of the pan. What gave an indication of a problem in the kitchen were small explosions that sounded like little balloons being popped from where we were in the lower level of the house. The air was soon flooded with the smell of burned chicken feathers. If you have ever had a chicken brush up against a wood stove you’d know what I’m talking about. Some smells leave a dent in your memory. We went to the kitchen and saw the mess. It looked like the eggs had all jumped out of the pan. The cathedral ceiling was plastered with egg yolk. Being that the ceiling was finished with a “crows foot” style texture with no sealer coat of paint, it was impossible to clean off without damaging the unfinished finish. I am sure the yolk stain is on it still. It’s the thought that counts, I’m told.

A week later, she bought me an old fishing boat with a trailer. It was a hundred-fifty dollar boat that she paid eight hundred for. We put it in the water and used it that day. The next day I returned to Bruce’s, where it was moored, to go fishing again but found her sunk. The guys helped me bail it out, saved from sinking completely by the rocks under her, and four hours later I got her running, taking her over to the boat launch to get the vessel back home. It had so many pinholes in it that it could have been a screen door, colander, and Flour sifter- anything other than a boat. Again, it’s the thought that counts but it should have been the thought that maybe I was being used in every way possible but then again it wasn’t really her money- it was her mom and dad’s. I let it all ride and buried myself in caring for Jean out of loyalty to her, and the fact that I had no place to go where my prospects would be much better. Here, I was on my way to being on top of things with having a shop, tools, my truck, and in a position to rebuild my business.

My identity was almost back. I almost had my children back. Now, I rationalized that the deeds I was doing were righteous. I felt a great sense of purpose.

Julie made the decision to purchase a real estate license in hopes of an easy income. As smart as she tried to be, she fell victim to another heavily used sales pitch used on a desperate society. Those who had a couple grand bought into an empty promise, only getting a piece of paper and a fantasy of not needing coupons to live. Truth is Grand Rapids had enough salesmen, especially Realtors.

Always scribbling, banking a little time in my songwriting added up fast. So, while Casey refused to do even the least of anything to help, my workload grew and grew to the point where I wouldn’t have a moment for anything but to write a few lines about it while stewing in my frustration and disgust with what I was now involved in, as well as with myself. A lot of that was voiced in a song I wrote about a subject in the news, Jennifer Wilbanks.

Ms. Wilbanks must have gotten cold feet regarding her wedding plans because she disappeared, causing her Bridegroom and their families to call the authorities, requesting to file a missing persons report. A lot of authorities from several states became involved. When they finally found her in Oklahoma, she claimed to have been abducted by a white woman and a Mexican guy.

Too many opportunities had been lost in the past, like the Joey Buttafuco and Amy Fischer thing, where someone had written a song about that. Although only a novelty item, I wanted to be the one to nail this one. I couldn’t miss out on the chance to nail a gig, so I ran over to the loft in order to pitch the idea to Danimal while it was still in the news, mentioning how people land songwriting publicity that way, and that maybe we could turn something out that would gain attention for our compositions. It wasn’t long between breaths when I had my notepad out to show him what I already had to work with. He looked it over and suggested an intro idea, grabbed his acoustic guitar, and laid down a twelve bar blues progression. After about ten minutes, we had a pretty cool little blues boogie that I could belt out harmonica leads on my A harp to. We were satisfied with ourselves and basked in the glow of completing another song.

The warm weather settled in about two weeks prior, and my excitement about putting it together before anyone else, could hardly be contained. It wasn’t hard to rally Danimal into going down to Tuscan’s Deli to soundboard it on a friend of ours that worked there as a clerk, and to buy a couple of beers in celebration. It was just about time for the lunchtime rush of customers, so we knew we had a perfect time to catch some ears. She was just about to snag a quick break when we got there, so we went out to a patio table in front of the building and started playing our song.

A minute or two into it, a man in a double-breasted blue pin-stripe suit pulled up, listened for a minute, and then entered the store with the clerk following. After he left, we played it again. As we were making a purchase, then to leave, the same guy came back in asking me for a business card or phone number, saying something or other about looking for acts. I really wasn’t paying much attention for the sake of all of the distractions and my enthusiasm over our sound-boarding the song.

Several weeks later, the phone rang. The caller identified himself as being with the D.W. Cassard V.F.W. hall, Post 3023, asking if we were available for Memorial Day. He said he needed an act, wanting to know if we could fill a two-hour slot in the schedule. I thought about it for a minute, remembering the hours we spent playing at our own art-jams. I told him we sure could, and it was set. I called Danimal right away to let him know that we were scheduled to play on Memorial Day at the Monroe Avenue VFW for a benefit to raise money for a new police K-9. All Dan said was, “We need a Ringer. We need to call R.B.”

Chapter; Sunk

As part of my plan to take back my time from Julie’s increasing demands, I returned to working for Bob. Being that Bob was a Gossipmonger; he could never resist a chance to capitalize on my trade skills. The fun part for him was that he got something new to talk about, AND my carpentry efforts that he called, “Amish Craftsmanship”. My ulterior motives were to put it in his face that I was in a two hundred fifty thousand dollar home, and that I was on my way to getting hands on the situation with my children, since he always deflected me as a bum and a piss-poor father.

Julie had made another impulse purchase, trying to keep me in her snare with another boat. This time it was a fourteen-foot Glastron with an eighty-five horsepower Yamaha outboard. It was a beautiful craft, metallic green and very fast. One morning, Bob volunteered to pick me up, jumping out of his red Savannah, rushing to the north side of my garage to urinate in the bushes, where most of the neighbors could have seen him if they were looking out their windows. I sensed something was wrong since he could have used the utility bathroom that was through the garage door to the house- a mere twelve steps away. Truth was Bob’s bladder and his conscience were both full. He had been up early, coming by before sun-up, and had been in the area drinking coffee while killing the extra time and concealing his deviance, which entailed using his Panasonic cordless drill and an eighth inch bit to put a hole in the bottom of my boat, just to the rear of the Captain’s seat. He immediately picked the drill up from the floor near his seat to show me his new purchase, bragging about the technology, while trying to compensate for his guilt with nervous chatter. The green material from the plastic and fiberglass was clinging to the fuselage with static electricity. It hadn’t dawned on me what it was that he had done.

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 her up, launching it off of Leonard, near Coopersville. We launched around noon on Saturday when the sun was high, and planning on drinking. 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, taking a toll but 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 children’s lives. There was no way in hell 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 it 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 it was around ten. A fire pit was blazing with a few kids sitting around it who were drinking. They were mimicking my tirade from earlier. 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.

Chapter

Our house backed up to the White Pine Trail. Originally a train route, it and others were part of an initiative to fight obesity and improve land value, driving up property taxes and home appraisals. And to use up some funds allocated for parks and recreation in order to remain eligible for yearly allocations of tax dollars, which means job security, basically. The trails were promoted as an instrumental leisure option, and as an alternative means of travel. The battle now, was getting people to set down their remotes long enough to get them outside for anything other than running to the mailbox or driving to the liquor store. Maybe that’s a bit cynical but it’s closer to the truth than anyone’s willing to take a moment to see.

It wasn’t long before I utilized it for everything I could: hiking, biking, walking the dog, going fishing, and as an express route to the Belmont Grocery store, which happened to be right next door to the Post office, where I had my P.O. box. I could sit in the hot tub, day or night, and see beautiful people enjoying the wonders of nature around, and in, my backyard.

In my nakedness, and smiling face, I waved from the bubbling jets while they strutted, jogged, and pedaled by saluting with smiles and sweat in the summer sun. This was my own little moment of paradise, somewhat of a consolation prize or a break from the madness and chaos that Julie, admittedly, loved so well. T

The money was a constant seductress but it was my earnestness in providing care to Jean, and faith that I was contributing something good to another seriously dysfunctional situation, that kept me going on.

To the south was a creek, a trickling flow that looked like it might have a trout in it or might have had, not so long ago. Tracing it up into the hills, away from the river, a small waterfall spoke it’s story in a sense of humor that’s only dry for a moment in August. It was in the backyard of what once was a farm, the house still being lived in. There was a small bridge big enough for a small garden tractor or for a couple to walk hand in hand.

After explaining the find to my mother, and that I now had a fenced in yard, I convinced her into bringing or letting me take, Dusty. Mom had a whole hatful of reasons why it wouldn’t work, chiefly, the reason being the Vet bills due to some kind of bladder infection that caused her to have a leaking problem, and her hip dysplasia. It was a long tug of war but Dusty was returned to me.

Since I had been given the dog by her when she was just weeks old, I felt Dusty truly belonged to me. She was my baby, and I was her dad. When I did get to see her, she could never get close enough. She was like a Spirit trying to climb into my soul. Dusty was now thirteen years old, one and one half years less than Cody, my only son. At this point, half of their lives were not shared with me. There were only pains in place of memories.

Dusty did have a leaking problem, and my hands were a bit full with that but I realized why. My mother had her own reasons for her understanding, so she was only giving Dusty half of the dose that the Vet prescribed. Since the medication was an antibiotic, it was now useless because the low dose had made her become totally immune to it. The meds are a bit expensive. My mom was only trying to use as little as possible in case of another problem when she may have needed the antibiotic because Vet care is expensive but the plan backfired because now she needed to be seen again, since the infection persisted, if not worsened. Finally, I broke down and took her to a Vet when I realized the problem just wasn’t going away, which did heal but now I had to replace the carpeting in the room she routinely laid in.

The pads that I had bought for her were inexpensive but the issue was putting them under her where she slept, which only helped a little because she would move around to a place that wasn’t wet when I was asleep. The trick was getting them under her without hurting her because of her hips.

Chapter The Cleaning Lady

Julie was assisting me with the legal aspects involving my parenting time with my kids, and also helped me along in my pursuit of my Social Security benefits and medical needs. Living with her allowed me to need less assistance, since I was closer to all of the doctors and professionals that I needed to deal with. This also put me within reach of those persons, though dysfunctional, who supported me as an artist, keeping me in the social circles that met my diverse needs.

Danimal and I performed property management for many landlords, Bruce included. Bob was also game, only because no one else could stand to work for him, always having to play his twisted head games, which I knew but I was using him for the money and to get away from the everyday things I was doing sometimes, needing a change. Luckily, I had the ability to let it roll off of my shoulders, which really got under his skin. It only made me laugh and pity him when I saw how hard he worked, and how upset he would get, while trying to upset me- though not in his face. It was later that it would take affect, when I was home to feel the pain I denied him to see.

There were a few personal clients that held me in exclusivity for their home repair needs but not enough to keep me busy with them full time. One such person was an elderly Latina lady. We met by way of her daughter, when she had applied for a cleaning position at Julies/our house. For some reason Julie thought it would be a good idea to hire a cleaning lady.

This was a ploy to get me to shut up about things but when she found out that cleaning didn’t involve doing dishes, laundry, and cat boxes, like I had explained to her, the whole thing was pointless. And she was left to stew in her own juices. Face it, if you wash dishes and do the laundry, why wouldn’t you clean the toilet and vacuum? Telling myself that enduring this was all for my children, kept me pushing onward. Nothing would keep me from my goals of getting my kids back, getting my disability insurance, never to fear being sent to prison for four years for child support again. Now, I was working at gaining my independence and security, and in a large sense, my freedom.

The woman who had applied for the cleaning position had taken a shine to me, giving me her mothers address because she needed some repairs done to her home that couldn’t be delayed any longer. The floor needed linoleum in the kitchen, hall and utility room, and there was damage to doorways from a nephew with psychological issues.

The home, because of the wear, looked like it was long abandoned by squatters. She gave me the job but it wasn’t until about two days into it that she revealed that there was a flooring supply company that had given her a quote that was much more expensive. When it came time to pick up the goods, on Alpine avenue, I figured out that it was these condescending and unfriendly people, especially since I questioned why they had so many reducers in the material package. They were obviously hoping to do the installation. When I got to that part of the process, I found out that the material was short of the length needed. It was apparent that they were going to put seams in four places, which was unacceptable to me. It didn’t help relations any when I called to inform them of my sentiments regarding every seam taking life expectancy from the product. These were high traffic areas, dining room, kitchen, hallway into the laundry and half bathroom, as well as leading into the garage. They denied any wrongdoing, only to add remarks to the affect of me being an under-bidder and a cutthroat, which are fighting words in the construction business.

The truth was that they were over-charging her on goods and service, intending to hack the install in order to skimp on the product and the challenge of the installation, which only sets her up for repeat business a lot sooner. Had they been kinder to me as a tradesman, they may have gained an asset. Winning the battle against them was a moot point but winning the battle with the installation, using my problem solving skills, was especially satisfying. It was doubly satisfying when they later paid the homeowner a visit for a follow-up in the name of customer service. Success is always the best revenge, so there was no need to fire back at them over it. They saw that I laid the goods intact where it mattered the most, placing the seams in the least area of traffic.

The cleaning lady had a quite a bit different game in mind for me. This involved getting me to her Sparta home, under the guise of giving her a price to tear up and replace carpeting and linoleum in the kitchen, living room, hall and bathroom, as well as paint three rooms which included her bedroom. In the interest of developing a word-of-mouth customer base, I couldn’t refuse to look into it. The true extent of what she wanted wouldn’t be fully known until I got there.

It felt like a good Idea to take a buffer, so I brought Larry along for the look-see. Since he was a painter I thought he could give a better idea of what the cost of painting would be, while I surveyed the rest. What we found was a rats nest of a ranch style home. The place was rank with animal wastes- both kinds, fresh and stale. She had recently vacuumed, indicated by the smell of burnt rubber, improving the room. She was surprised I had brought someone with me, judging by an exuded nervousness about her. Showing me the areas of interest, she slowly coaxing me into her bedroom.

The bed was made in an interesting contrast, way out of sorts with the rest of the house. Her motives set in as she planted the seeds she intended to germinate in my imagination. Instinct told me to bring Larry as a buffer, and boy was I right! It would have been so much more comforting to be wrong, even though there were more horrors than just that.

There were tables at the ends of the sofa and in the opposite corners of the room, harboring neatly squared off piles of poop, some white from age, some with globs of hair, some mutli-colored with tiny maggots on them. Even a blind cleaning lady could have seen. How can you not feel the tapping on the vacuum as you moved it into them? There were roach carcasses left from completing their cycle of life. This could have easily been a stage, set-up for a horror film. Larry and I kept glimpsing at each other with screaming eyes. How could this be a cleaning lady?

A flash of setting up on a future job with the stench from her hovel radiating from our drop cloths and tool kits, scrambled through my mind, along with the call I’d receive that they now had an unusual roach problem, caused me to reach for my cell phone as if it had vibrated. Faking a call, I declared a plumbing emergency across town. There were several calls from her for the next two weeks that all went to my voicemail.

Chapter;

Needless to say, I maintained the caretaking and cleaning in our home, 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. 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.

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.

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.

Chapter:

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!” Arrgh! I suppose that’s what you get when you take the way out that seems easiest- and that’s closer to broke.

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. It was no secret to me that I was no better than those I criticized.

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 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.

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, and his band mate, Mike. “Ace music Dave” was there bringing orders of guitar strings 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. 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. 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. 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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

He 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.

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. 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.

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 woke from sleep, so I was irate as well but more so.

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, moving 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 that my life had become so infested and overrun with rats, 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.

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 beard-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. It was like I was looking in the window at something I wanted but could not afford for myself. Life went on.

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 communication, 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.

Really, I don’t think I ever 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. 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, was negatively influenced by her mother all those years, which constantly chipped away and destroyed my attempts at nurturing our relationship. It continues to be an obstacle that I hope time will, someday, heal.

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, 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. 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 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 came 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.

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. They 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.

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 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. 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 .024, 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.

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 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.

Strangely enough, offering envelopes were showing up more frequently from the Catholic Church 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 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 found.

The Memorial Day show came and went. When fall arrived, it was time for another Barn Party at a friend of ours 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. It only bumped the car but the kid called the cops because he must have had his dad’s car and didn’t want to get reamed out for it. 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 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 when 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.

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 seed 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 a 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.

It was a beautiful day in June when Julie showed up at the job. Nearing nine-thirty, I figured she had something to discuss, wanting to do it over my coffee break. This was a bit of a surprise since I hadn’t received a call, letting me know that she was coming. No, she didn’t want to have coffee. She had come to tell me that Danny was found dead that morning when his boss went to pick him up for work at Robert’s house. Oddly enough, it was Danny’s last day of community service. His mother immediately went to him, to try to wake him from his final sleep, finding him on his back with his feet crossed and arms folded across his abdomen. He had gently passed away in his sleep. It was the sixth of June 2006.

This news struck me very hard. Danny and I had been planning to go to the Keys when we stumbled into Julie’s life. The idea was to land a property management gig and take occupancy of a place near the beach or live on a boat, while composing and playing music around town. If we had done that, we may have not had the troubles that we ended up having, and would have possibly struck up something big in the music scene.

Dan had confidence in our act, seeing that as very possible if we got in the right area. He thought the Keys would be the place for that to happen. Then I remembered the list he had made that said, “The final move”, on it. I didn’t want to understand it, I suppose. It didn’t quite register to me what that meant but now I knew why he had spent a lot of time helping me ready the studio room at my house, giving me some lessons and guidance on working in there with the equipment he had given me.

He kept saying, “you’ll figure it out”, whenever I sounded confused about the recording process and with working on his compositions that he entrusted me to publish. He also gave me some art lessons on drawing portraits and scenery so that I could illustrate the children’s stories we had both written. He was making all the preparations necessary for the things he wanted me to do for him, tending to the business that needed to be handled so he could depart from this world. The road was being paved.

The strangest thing of all was recalling the dream I had the night before they found him. I was working on my truck but my truck and I were both in the river, in three feet of water. Something swam up along side of me and popped out of the water. This thing was a little over six feet tall, thin, covered in moss and other plant matter, looking very much like a rabbit or something. It startled me very much. Feeling a great sense of danger, I grabbed something and swung at the creature, striking it in the head, which knocked it out. After putting it in the bed of my truck, I took it to someone to explain what had happened. The creature stirred while I was showing it to them, so I grabbed a tool and struck it again, killing it. Then I realized that it was Danny. I had killed him. This really added a great deal to my grief, and was far too much to bear.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Dusty had mysteriously died three days after Danny did. She was found in the yard with a mouthful of grass. The other dog freaked out to the point where the neighbors called the cops. It would have been nice if someone would have looked out there first because when Animal Control came, Jean answered the door and said the dogs were not hers- costing me fifty dollars to get the dogs back, even though one was a corpse.

Andy called around the third week of August or so, saying that he’d heard about Danny, asking me to come down to paint for him. Since I was so desperate to avoid going to jail for child support, having not yet received my disability insurance from Social Security, I agreed to do it. It was only to last a few weeks, which was just long enough to gather up the twenty-five hundred dollars I needed to keep from getting put in jail again. He told me to make sure I “bring the old lady along”. In the planning stage, I called my kids and spoke to Cody, whom was receptive when I told him I was going to go to work for a few weeks because of the court thing, and that I would be out of town until then. We would resume our time together then. That particular three weeks was the longest three weeks known to man, a “Key West” three weeks.

Memory doesn’t serve up who took care of Jean when we left- maybe it was Aunt Rose. Julie booked a flight and reserved a car, and the bags were packed. Julie and I went to the airport to board our flight. We checked our bags and sat nervously while awaiting the prompt to board. After some time passed, I asked whether she had brought any pot for the drive down the keys to Big Pine, which she assured me she did. This was to be my first time on a commercial airliner, and boy, was I worried.

My thoughts of a “friend”, whining about motion sickness and having to take Dramamine to fly, crossed my mind. We opted to wait it out in the bar over a drink. Thoughts turned to crashing, as we boarded. Soon the force of the engines was throwing us down the Tarmac, tipping us back in our seats as the thrust lifted us into new heights. We seemed to just barely hang there, the weight of the plane dragging along behind the engines. Panic struck me for a moment but I stomped it out with other thoughts.

Now, I was all about the view of the earth below, and getting into the Mile High club. Curiosity somehow helped me decide it was a fair idea to try it… in the bathroom ALONE. It didn’t sink in, while the full surround of mirrored panels tried to tell me a story of security issues- things like surveillance cameras for anti-terrorism efforts. Aborting the attempt, shaving a few strokes off of my game, I finally realized it wasn’t a fair idea after all- Too Late. It must have been a sight, for who ever monitored the cameras, to see. Hopefully, I wasn’t the only case of that type of thing. It was pretty embarrassing.

We landed, retrieved our bags, and found a brand new Mustang waiting for us at the reception area. There was every rental car company to choose from. The car was gorgeous but that goes without saying- everything brand spanking new is gorgeous…. except for someone else’s newborn baby or someone else’s…. well, anything that belongs to someone else. Julie drove us out, finding a party store where I bought some libations for the drive. Julie used the lavatory to dig the smoke from one of her cavities. After I smoked four cigarettes in my wait, she finally came out of the restroom and got in the car with me. I had already soaked my shirt through, changing into a fresh one, due to the sweltering heat and humidity.

“I thought I was going to have to come in there, what’d you do, fall in?” I asked her.

She said, “No, I had a hard time getting it out”, handing me a pin joint.

I asked, “Hard time getting it out? You’ve had two kids- the hardest part of the job should have been washing your hands and drying them off, so you didn’t get the rolling papers wet!”

We got on the road, heading for the highway through the keys. Now, I was expecting a vacation style doobie but then again, if you have to throw it out the window, you don’t want it to be a lot, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt, asking, “How many did you roll? And what’s with the pin joint?”

“I could only roll one”, she declared.

“Isn’t it like four hours to Big Pine Key?” I inquired.

She said, “Yeah but that’s it- that’s all there was”.

Now, I am confused, really confused. She had spent a half hour in the bathroom, rolling one single pin joint. Obviously upset, I asked, “that’s all there was? What? What do you mean, that’s all there is??? I thought you were going to bring some weed? I saw that man-made phallus you had when I moved in. Judging by the size of it, you could have fit a couple ounces of kind buds in that thing. And that’s it? That’s all you brought? AND it’s SCHWAGG WEED!” I was so upset; I started mimicking a conversation with a fictional passenger:

“Oh, pardon me, what’s that weed you have there, … brick-weed?”

“Oh, no, it’s dick-weed, you fool, my girlfriend, slash genius here, went through the hassle, and risk, of a federal drug charge to bring a cigarette cellophane with a tenth of a gram of the lowest grade weed in Michigan stuffed inside of her cavernous Vagina… vagina… vagina... gina… na… na… na!”

Oh, GOD, how stupid could I be, to let myself be pulled into a void so black? There’s killer pot that they grow up to sixteen feet tall, all over Florida, that we could have gotten hold of when we got off the plane. We would have been better off trying to score at one of the party stores on the way or mail it down ahead of us, as a general delivery, to pick up at the Post office. I was baffled that this woman was in charge of a trust fund, and the life of an eighty-four year-old woman. Thank God, Jean didn’t have a clue what was going on. She would have died from an aneurism or heart attack if she were in a mental capacity to mind. And here I was, guilty by association, and oblivious to what was in store for me next- like a lamb being led to a slaughterhouse by, quite possibly, the world’s finest specimen of a village idiot.

Andy had painted a Fantasy Island kind of picture, where a huge house stood in an image of Paradise. There was a Sports car with a T-top, Sea kayaks, an ocean style fishing boat, among other things, Key Deer being one of them. He volunteered to come pick us up at the airport in his “T-top” but then stated that he had to work too, which was a clever ploy to un-volunteer. He knew that anyone who knows about contracting work would never insist on someone taking a day off of making money while it was there to be made. He was a con but I needed money. So, there I was, once again, ready to fraternize with vermin. The price to pay was, yet, to make itself known.

It was after sundown when we rolled up onto Big Pine Key, also known as “Big Stinky”. The Key Deer were in a group of about sixteen, munching on Birdseed and Celery. This was where we were to park. Andy had placed the food out there in order to have them in front of the house when we showed up. It was all part of the set-up as part of his con-job he was working on us.

We immediately noticed the bugs when we got out of the car but the sight of the miniature Deer, to a Michigander, was novel enough to disregard them. They were so docile that you could touch them, and they ate from your hands. The tiny antlers and bloated looking bellies reminded me of a pigmy goat we had when I was a child.

One of the does had been blinded in one eye by a vehicle injury. Several stories had been heard about the Key Deer but I’d heard of Jack-a-lopes too, so I didn’t believe it. Then the bugs could no longer be ignored. We started getting bit by bugs with stinging bites that were so tiny that they were invisible.

We went inside to find that everyone was in bed already. It was only around eight or nine p.m. There was an inflatable mattress in the kitchen for us to sleep on. It deflated as we went to sleep, waking up in a pile if Vinyl. Our genius host had put the rubber stopper in the cap backwards.

Andy was already gone by four-thirty in the morning. He had to run up to the Methadone Clinic, which was located all the way up near or past Homestead. When he returned, he decided to skip work for the day in order for him to baste us with his subtle attempts at seduction. That entailed going out on “his” boat.

Now, I love fishing, and boats, but I came to work and to enjoy a geographical change while I did it but this is my first day and it’s already off to a bad start, which means one more day without money for child support. Nope, Andy wants to go fishing instead.

Andy coaxed Julie with stories about his check being held for another couple days, while painting a tapestry of awaiting riches from future prospects, managing to get her to go buy poles, gear, bait and beer to go out on the ocean with. Under his spell, and holding the checkbook, she dropped a few hundred dollars at a local second hand store. And then at the marina fueling station, filling the very large diesel fuel tank as well.

The vessel was in the canal behind the house. Or was it the front? This was a Charter style fishing boat with a Pentax Diesel engine. He took it instead of payment for a painting job- so he said, admitting to still owing the rest of the money for the purchase. Turning the key, and steering was all he knew. As for the GPS, depth finders and the rest of the technical equipment that he knew nothing of, he asked me to try to figure them out.

Teaching people things has always been a pleasure, so I never thought anything much more than how unfortunate it would be to be as stupid as Andy. It took me about fifteen minutes to learn to use the technical gear, showing him the key points. Andy said that he had spent many weeks trying to figure these things out. Instantly, in his silence, I could feel that he hated me for it.

The quality of the area and the fishing didn’t impress me. The first day we went, we caught a few Grunts, a Triggerfish, and a couple Yellow fin Tuna- all were pretty small. The second time we went, we caught two Barracuda that we cooked on the grill that same night.

Andy fed Barracuda to the Key Deer that night. He trapped the doe with the blind eye, and then put her in the back of a cube-van, tying her up with a pile of food near her. The idea was to lure a male into the van, lock it inside, and to take them to a person up in the mainland that was ready to purchase them. He never shared the name of this person, and I can only assume that it was one of his dope connections. Luckily, for the Key Deer, they didn’t cooperate with his plans. He locked her up in the fenced in portion of the yard, claiming that he intended to train her as a pet. Whether he succeeded or not, I cannot say but Andy didn’t ever succeed at much anyway. There are photographs of the Key Deer being molested, forbidden by law.

Two young men lived and worked with Andy and his mommy. One of the guys, Andrew, was a zealously religious person, and probably my sign from the supernatural world that I wasn’t entirely among demons. He was my subconscious reassurance that I was not forsaken, no matter haw bad things may seem to become. These two guys did a lot of bible study, and a lot of Ganja smoking. I thought that I could smoke with the best of them until I met these two. Geesh!

One evening, soon after I had arrived, they were instructed to take me out for a beer and some pool, under the pretense that they were to become better acquainted with me, so they took me out to a local bar called, Coconuts, on Big Pine Key, pretty close to the house. Andy had arranged to have a couple of his dope dealer buddies show up there. When they walked in, the bartender noticed that they were well hammered, especially when one of them fell from their chair moments after sitting down in it. Soon one of them was trying to sneak a pull from the bottle he had brought in.

They took no time cutting into me, asking to play pool with us. They also didn’t waste time at trying to trip me up in their little dope game, to get me involved with what Andy wanted me involved in, for reasons only Andy knew. It was obvious that the guys I came with were uncomfortable with being put up to this very odd and questionable thing that Andy had them doing.

As for the other two, they were not tolerated by the staff for much more of their disturbance, and were escorted out by the bouncers after about thirty minutes. Within minutes of that, we finished our beers and went back to the house. There was a silence among us that really said a lot about the whole affair. When Andrew got out of the car, he mentioned that he didn’t care for going to the bars or being put up to things by Andy but because he was living in his house he had to go along with things or at least make it look like he was. They knew that I knew what was happening.

After a few days, Andrew told me that he was going to buy a Sailboat. He intended to sail to Jerusalem, where he was to go on a Pilgrimage, asking me to come with him when he went, explaining that he had been saving all of his money or most of it, and that he had it all planned out. As he explained it to me at work that day, I looked down at the floor, noticing an image that was created as a centerpiece in the mosaic tile. It was a Tall Ship with triple square sails and rigging. He took it as confirmation from God because it matched the ring he was wearing. He only needed a couple of hours off of work to go look at it, and since we were near where it was located, he walked there alone, stopping off at the Bike Week Rally to give a testimony, a message from God. He would later explain how he was filled with the Holy Spirit and moved to a great trembling and tears streaming down his face. He thought that the sailboat was meant to be his because of the scriptures that were written all over the walls of the cabin. He plopped down the fifteen hundred for the boat, and took it to where he could moor it.

Two days later, the boat had sunk. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Having no way to raise her, he planned to depart back to Texas, where he had friends, and had lived, most recently. He left with only the clothes on his back and the things he had learned of. The Keys of Florida had been nothing more than a Siren that pulled him from his course in life, momentarily. I was sad to see him go but I was also happy for his escaping. Or was it meant to be part of his trials and tribulations?

Despite my uneasiness, and my frustrations, troubles or difficulties, I was reassured with daily confirmations that I was being watched over. Danny, I wondered? One was that Sean Adams was here, and was also working on the project I came to help on. Joe Grimminck was here working on the same job, as well. We were all painting. They had been working for Andy up until Andy started doing what he does best, being an asshole and a tyrant, his little Napoleon complex- chasing off both of them with his antics.

They were immediately scooped up and put on the crew that the contractor holding the painting contract had working. Andy was sub-contracting for him, a pawn in the game. It was a typical scenario of the construction business.

On Key West, the condo project was a hotel that was being renovated for economic development. I’d see everyone when I got there to work. An interesting surprise, and to Andy’s dismay, was how elated they all were to see me. After a couple of hours, Andy’s statements regarding how we wouldn’t be drinking while at work, went to having lunch at the bar. We had started the day at four-thirty or five in the morning for our one-hour commute, taking lunch by ten-thirty or eleven, and calling it a day by one o’clock. Andy was drinking the whole time, starting off with the ride in, while he drove without a license. This didn’t help me in keeping my wits-end at all, especially with the whole “when in Rome” programming. My big “save the day” operation with staying out of jail was slowly turning into a big waste of my hope, and picking up speed towards what I felt was certain disaster. Had I any sense or wit in my employ, I would have paid closer attention instead of trying to stay focused on locking myself in as an asset where I had absolutely no business to concern myself with being. The worst thing I could have done, in my dependence on Andy, was to get recognized and praised for excellence by the painting contractor. Andy turned ten shades of red in a silent fury during the esteem I was given, while at Shannon’s Irish Pub, from the head man him self. Andy was now becoming fearful that I would ruin his gig, replacing him as the man for the job at hand. What he failed to remember was that I had my life in Michigan, and had no want for anything in Florida.

The next day Julie and I went to Bahia Honda to snorkel at the State park. This seemed like a great idea after all the great stories about snorkeling that Danny had shared with me. It was a fine idea… until I got in the water for a few minutes.

Unfortunately, for me, my stepfather had taken our family to see Jaws when it was previewing at Six-Flags over Atlanta Georgia- I was five or maybe six. When the diver, who was inspecting the sunken boat, pulled a sharks tooth from a hole in the hull, the Captains head rolled out into view. I went into shock and became instantly hysterical, peeing my pants. They ushered us out, and I have been traumatized ever since. Now, when I am in the water, everybody knows it. My body language screams out: “HELP SHARK”.

At about four feet deep I put my face in the water and started swimming around on the surface, slowly kicking my fins. The water was a bit cloudy from the weather stirring up the brackish waves, causing for great amounts of sediment to become loosened from the bottom. There were few signs of aquatic life but for a pair of antennae I saw pull inside a hole in the mud, it was a Lobster, so-called, protesting my disturbance. There was one or two small fish that seemed to have lost their way. The area seemed lifeless all through the Keys.

Looking around in the distance as far as I could see, I realized my vision was restricted to about eighteen or twenty feet. This limited sight made me very nervous. A slight panic snuck up on me. The water seemed to become murkier still. Hurriedly, I glanced around, looking for sharks, since the depth I was in was now a little bit deeper. That’s when I exploded with panic, scrambling for the shore like a madman. Snorkeling, for me, was done. Check that one off of my list of things to do. It must have been all of four minutes. Okay, now I was ready for a drink.

As I walked the area around the beach, land crabs scattered like cockroaches, and the place stunk of decaying vegetation and “low-tide”. Iguanas were everywhere. Bums were everywhere in the bushes. Thank God, I was leaving in a few weeks! But somewhere along the course of the weekend, Julie had decided that she was going to go back to Michigan for living needs. Little did I know, she was now seeking a job in the Keys and had plans of relocating the household to the area.

Julie made it sound like she was just going back for my tools and such, so that we could both make some money. Since I hadn’t brought anything with me, and Andy seemed to have a lot more in mind for me to do. Julie didn’t share her true plans with me in these regards. What I tried to tell her was that it wasn’t a good idea to go back, that we were going to be going home in a few weeks but all she did was conference with Andy, reassuring me that there was nothing to worry about, even though I explained how I felt like I was in danger- that I could feel something wasn’t right about all of this, that I was just there to get the money and we would be gone. There was something I just couldn’t put my finger on that wasn’t right. What I needed was for her to be here if something happened. It was hard to find a secluded place to do it privately but when I did I pleaded with her, begging her to listen to me, that I could feel something bad was about to happen but I didn’t know what it was, explaining that I sensed it deep in the pit of my soul. She said I was going to be fine, and off she went the following morning.

The next day we left from the job in Key West. When we arrived back at the house, Andy decided we were going fishing. It wasn’t a choice for me to go along because he needed me to help man the boat. As we loaded it with gear I pointed out that the water line on the canal was ten inches lower than it had been, as indicated by the wetness on the coral. Though I am a novice when it comes to the ocean, it sure looked to me like the tide was out, which meant we couldn’t get out of the canal, past the coral flats that separated us from the ocean. Andy rudely said that we were fine, and that I didn’t know what I was talking about. Well, maybe I didn’t but it was a big boat with a draft that barely passed through the flats when tide was in. We only had one route to take that was marked by flags that were not very easily seen. Even though I knew it was a mistake, I got on the boat and he raced to get us to open water. As we raced across the reef, we kicked up a hell of a cloud of muck, leaving a grey and yellowish trail ten feet wide and spreading as we sped along.

Thoughts of the last time we had been out, and how I was working the bow, keeping at the ready for anchor duty, were running through my head. A sense of pride filled me as I held me eyes steady on the horizon that day, letting my knees bend in response to the waves moving the boat as it rose and fell beneath me. When I weighed anchor at his command, to move to a different spot, the turnbuckle had worked itself loose by the boat tugging in the rough waves. The pin had backed itself out completely, so we lost the anchor. It surprised me when I pulled only a line out of the water. I instantly sensed that there must be some kind of nautical folklore about it- perhaps an Omen or a superstition regarding some kind of doom. It was shameful of me to not have inspected the fastenings but then again, it was HIS boat, he should have said to do it. HE was the Captain, and I was in his care. That’s all there is to it. Filled with pride for having adapting to being on a boat in the ocean, I never revealed my thoughts or my willingness to foolishly accept responsibility for Andy’s boat and anchor.

We ended up cutting the fishing short because we were taking on water, as indicated by the lights on the dash that said the bilge pumps were not shutting off. We raced back to the house.

The next day, we awoke to find the boat sunk where she slept. Seawater was two feet over the water line, which meant that the bilge pump couldn’t keep up with the leaking. The battery had become shorted out when the water reached the terminals. The entire Pentax Diesel engine was under water- under SALTWATER. Andy became agitated and in a panic, while scratching a hole in his thick skull as he tried to awaken what was left of his brain in order to come up with an idea. So badly, I wanted to say that I tried telling him not to take it out when we did but I kept quiet as his rat ran on the wheel in his head, chasing cheese it would never get. We unloaded the boat in a mad scramble.

After the boat was emptied, I asked him if we could use the boat winches mounted on the seawall where she was tied up. They looked like they were used for lifting boats out of the water, to me. They were rated for fifteen tons each according to the stamped information on them but, of course, one didn’t work. The winch at the stern did work, which I explained is where all the weight is at, and most likely, the leak. He said that wasn’t what they were for, and that I didn’t know what I was talking about. His genius idea was that he was going to run to Home Depot-a two hour round trip, to buy treated lumber, so WE could build a dry dock to put it on, while making the repairs.

After remaining quiet and biting my tongue, I asked him, “How would we get the boat on it, if we could possibly build such a thing?” A long back and forth argument ensued, trying to get him to listen to me. We had the crane system, the winches or one at least. All we needed to do was attach it to the stern, take the weight off so it would stay afloat, letting the water run back out of the leak to sea level- at least. Then He could get under it to inspect the hole and possibly repair it, with some type of marine product for underwater emergency repairs, long enough to get her to a place where it could be tended to properly by a competent marine mechanic. He kept dismissing me- even though I was a highly skilled carpenter with a builder’s license, and all the expertise to help solve the problem at hand. Andy insisted that I was to bow to his supreme knowledge- even though he knew that I knew he could barley sling paint.

What was going on in his head? I can only intuitively speculate. He must have started feeling a range of worries and emotions that were a result of his own insecurities. Everything came to a head while on our way to Marathon to get supplies for building a failure.

Despite my assistance, he insisted on building this, so-called “Dry-Dock”. God only knows what he thought he was going to build. Every time he asked me something, my explanation or idea only conveyed to him that he was clueless, to which he’d say that I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Finally, it sinks in that Andy and I are not, nor had we ever been, friends. He had been jealous of Danny and I since we met him in 2000. He had ruined expensive equipment at Prospect Studio, bringing Cocaine, Heroine and dirty skanks with him. Andy had stolen from us, and ripped us off for over fourteen hundred dollars when we worked for him on a Crystal Springs project in Grand Rapids. What was I thinking? Here I was, over twenty five hundred miles from home, trying to salvage my reputation with the court, win my kids love and admiration back, while trying to piece my life back together- all while working for someone who has never treated me right or even deserved any of my time. Holy crap! Had I made a mistake or what? Even though I am realizing I am being abused, it doesn’t really sink in until the phone rang.

Andy happened to pull into a Tom Thumb convenience store, so he could buy a pack of Camels and some Sparks, when Julie called me. Andy then say’s, “You better not be talking to your ol’ lady when I get back”. As he gets these words across my ears, I see a claw hammer on the floor between the seats in my peripheral vision. Instantly, I saw myself bury the claws into the right side of his skull, ripping a large piece of bone from it, killing him. I imagined how I would spend my life in prison for losing control of myself, which frightened the hell out of me. Andy wasn’t worth that. What Julie and I said to each other, exactly, I cannot recall but as soon as he was out of the van and into the store, I jumped from the van and dashed across the highway to a marina Tiki-bar.

Coincidence or irony, I am not sure, but I immediately called my friend Dennis Smith who explained that he was in the Keys working with a roofing crew. I quickly explained that my distress was presently in the Keys, where it looked as though I might be stranded. Quickly, I became pleasantly astonished that my very good friend was also in the keys. And he was not just in the keys but right across the street from where I had ran to hide! How could it be that so many people that I knew, were here?

Dennis was staying in a beach house with the crew, right next to the store- a lifesaver. I explained the whole story to him while calming down at the beach house, telling him how Andy and I had hit a dead end, and that I was alone here because Julie went back to G.R. for a few days, to get some things from the house. As the day slipped away through time, I was observing these people he knew and worked with; so-called “friends” of his. They turned out to be a bunch of addicts- all smoking crack. Hoping for advice or a solution, I turned up empty handed. I had him take me back to Andy’s the next day, dropping me off on Big Pine Key to walk back from the highway, giving me a little more time to think about what to do.

Sure enough, shit was hitting the fan all the way around. Andy accused me of trying to kick the door in on their house, taking a crap in the yard, stealing from him, and if that wasn’t enough, he also claimed that his mom saw me in the nude- groping myself on the couch, AND that I tried to get in her pants! A barrage of insults came at me- all were absolutely absurd. He was clearly in a drug-induced state of delusion and paranoia. Little did I know, what drugs or how bad. All I knew was that he had instructed me that he was kicking me out. He ordered me to gather my belongings and put them in the van. While I did this, I said I would get a room for Julie and I at a hotel when she got back. That wasn’t accepted. He was making me leave right away, telling me that Julie could stay there with him and his mom. He told me that I’d probably have to get a room at the Heartbreak Hotel in Key West, which revealed his plans of running off with Julie, being the prize that she was. Otherwise why would he mention that place, specifically? There was not much I could do but just go along with the situation for the moment.

Andy intended to drop me off in Key West, where I knew I would be able to seek refuge with Sean, so I didn’t worry a great deal. Everything would get fixed when Julie got back. When I asked him about money, he gave me a small amount, saying that he would have a check in a day or so, and that I could come by the job to get it.

Along the way toward Key West, he stopped at a few different places with a claim he that was trying to get a place for me to stay but I doubt that was the truth. He was more likely bragging about firing another employee or scoring dope or both. OR maybe he was conspiring with others to try to destroy me while I was there stranded, to look for me on the streets. Everywhere we went there were no positive developments for me. When I asked for Sean’s number, Andy told me that wasn’t going to happen. Whether it was that I couldn’t stay because he figured Sean wouldn’t let me or that I couldn’t stay because he wouldn’t let me, is up for an otiose debate but when he got out of the van one last time, I gleaned the number from his phone and called Sean as soon as I set off on foot from where we ended up, which was at the painting project. The van he had parked there with tools and gear in it came in handy, leaving my belongings, which included a ten pound bag of chicken leg quarters that spoiled and smelled up the place up really well, giving Andy something genuine to bitch about.

In the meantime, Andy got on the phone with Julie, telling her his version of what went wrong: that I had wrecked his boat, wreaked havoc on the house, assaulted his mother, and made a mess of his van. He explained that he had given me my money but that I must have “blown” it, which insinuated that I spent the money on drugs- a crack spree. This only added weight to his con-job on her, which was certainly the plan all along. That is, if they didn’t work this whole thing out together- playing the situation out by ear but that may be giving them more credit than either of them deserve.

Of course, Sean took me in without a hesitation. It was a long confusing walk to Sean’s place, since I had no clue where I was or which way I was going but for a general direction- East. When I finally got to the apartment complex, it was around one in the afternoon. The sun had long since heated the whole island up to a steam, while my reality was turning into a genuine White Squall.

Sean was living with a woman named Desiree and her five-year old son. She worked on the Naval base, as a gunner’s mate or something, at the gun range. She got a cut-rate deal on the apartment because she was working on the military base. Sean was working nights, drumming in a band that had a gig playing at a place called The Island Dogs. The tourist season hadn’t really begun yet, so they weren’t playing but for a couple nights a week.

Municipal workers, and inmates from the local jail, were busy cleaning up the island before any real money showed up, hiding the reality with fresh sand and glitz, while filling up the jail with everyone they could sweep up off of the streets. Keeping the jails full meant having plenty of laborers to help clean the place up routinely. They were working all over the Keys, dressing up everything they could as they tried to conceal the massive amounts of storm damage, and even more degradation.

There were rotting whale carcasses that were washed up onto the sandbars, a Casino barge washed up on the coral flats, boats destroyed, half sunk, and washed up in the Mangroves, empty plastic bottles and Styrofoam in the waterways and bushes everywhere. There were homeless people with tents, and homeless people without tents. There were homeless people in the Mangroves, and homeless people living under the viaducts and overpasses. There were homeless people walking around and riding bikes. They hung out in any shad they could find, where they tried to hide the visuals cues that gave them away. They stopped you everywhere you went, asking for lose change or a cigarette. Key West looked very much like a scene out of the movie, Slum-Dog Millionaire.

My mother tried to warn me but I never listened, and of all the times I never did, this was the one time that she was actually right. Feeling like Gilligan, I found myself in a modern day shipwreck without a Ginger or a MaryAnn but most of all, without a Professor. Severe Depression set in quickly.

The shock of my realizations had me locked inside Sean and Desiree’s apartment but I knew I needed to find a job to escape, and to accomplish my mission. The local newspaper appeared to have jobs but what I found out was that those jobs were bait, fishing for Social Security numbers.

You see you don’t have to pay taxes and other employee expenses on the money you pay to someone who only makes five hundred dollars for the year. What these places do is pin an amount under five hundred bucks on every social security number they get, and they get those numbers by advertising for help wanted in their failing establishments. You never get the job. They get your information and use it to show where the money is going.

Anyway, the day I got up the nerve to go around to apply at these places, Sean say’s that he would let me use his moped to job-hunt with but he left it at The Island Dogs the night before because he had been drinking, causing him to take a cab home. It was decided that I take the bus to the area that I needed to be in, and that I would pick up his moped to ride back when I was done. His car was at the apartment complex but was not legal, so if I can get his moped it would save him from a cab fare later. It’s a plan he agreed with, so I set off to find work.

Julie finally calls me back, agreeing to meet up with me at the moped location, announcing our break-up, which really upsets me that she makes this decision after I told her that something bad was going to happen. Just like that, she is living in the Keys with Andy. She turned around, saying she would drop my things off at Sean’s. It didn’t seem like I could have been anymore flabbergasted but there I was, definitely, and royally, screwed. “Wow, how am I going to do this?” I thought. “She’s breaking up with me for ANDY?” Things just kept getting worse and worse and it would be quite a while before I could appreciate the true blessing of our separation.

As I walked to the moped, there was an argument that turned into a fight between some low looking people who were sucking down Hurricane Lager on the edge of the lot. I was splattered with warm beer as a can flew past my head. “Great!”, I yelled. “I am job hunting, you assholes!”

Riding back to Sean’s on his moped, as planned, but I having no idea where I was or how to get where I needed to be, caused me to call Sean to explain where I was at, so that he could guide me a little bit. It was my first day venturing out on “Coquina Rock”, as I heard it called. My ignorance of where I was going took me through some pretty rough looking neighborhoods but I found my way to a main road, stopping for smokes when I finally recognized where I was at from my earlier trips with Andy. When I got inside the store, I realized that I didn’t have my wallet in my pocket, causing me to have a huge panic. Frontal lobe syndrome strikes me again! Forgetting I had stuck it in the compartment under the seat, for fear I could lose it, I instantly felt I had lost it along the way. I went out and jumped on the moped to try to backtrack, hoping to find it before someone else did, which was highly unlikely in a land full of vultures.

No sooner than I got the moped turned around and moving again, I found myself immediately surrounded by police cruisers. They commented, saying that I had run a red light. There was clearly no red light in the area to run, and I tried to argue that point but was ignored. The five officers stood around me, taking turns asking me if I had any drugs or weapons. They were under the impression that I had drugs in my possession because of my long hair, bandana, and the fact that they had never before seen me in Key West. Repeatedly bombarded with interrogations, and having searched the moped and myself multiple times, they found nothing that they were looking for. The officer that wrote me a ticket was the female officer but then they all wrote me a ticket, all but one of them. One for the fictitious red light, one for no license, one for no moped registration, and one for driving under the influence. There was no Breathalyzer, no sobriety test, no evidence gathered- nothing but the claims they made against me. They arrested me and impounded the moped. My first day venturing out of the house on my own had come to this. “Welcome to Key West, Zach. Enjoy your stay”.

I found myself in the Monroe County Detention Facility, where I cried for two weeks or more. They sentenced me in a Kangaroo court, giving me ninety days. I soon learned I was front-row to what goes on in the area, like how they get some of their money for the local economy, which is by keeping their jail full.

They go to great lengths to bring people to jail. If you don’t spend enough money in a particular establishment, the place has one of their buddies on the force arrest you for anything they can get you for. If you don’t leave enough of a tip for your drinks, they will plant contra-band in your coat or cigarette pack when you go to the bathroom, and when you walk out, you will find yourself being stopped by a friendly police officer, only to surprisingly find yourself going to jail for whatever it is they claim to have found on you. If you happen to get in the way somewhere, they’ll arrest you for trespassing. You can walk out with a drink and be on the street drinking it but if they don’t like something about you, you will get arrested for open container because it’s against the law when it’s convenient for them. If you laugh it off, and go back home to Alaska, they will bring you back on the charge. Maybe you’re from Maine or Nantucket? Don’t try to duck it. They get extra federal money, in addition to their regular funding, to back them up, and they’ll bring you back in a bucket. They are getting their money at the taxpayer’s expense. It’s a license to rob people, and they use it every single chance they get. They are still, to this day, trying to get two hundred and forty eight dollars from me, that I refuse to give them, for the fine on the red light charge.

Dennis Reeves Cooper got kicked around so badly by the Key West Police Department that he started his very own newspaper where he takes great pleasure in exploiting the local absurdities. It’s called “Key West, The Blue Paper”.

Key West is sometimes referred to as Bone Island because of the human remains that wash ashore. The Keys were long ago used as sacred burial grounds by Native Americans before any Europeans arrived. It has always been a haven for criminals, that is, ever since the days of Columbus- 520 years. They used to throw up Lighthouses to coax unsuspecting sailing vessels into the shallows, where they ran aground only to find themselves being raided by thieves who came upon them in Skiffs as though they were going to help. Ships crew and Captains found themselves to be robbed and most often killed. The money in the area, originally, came from this practice.

Modern day Land Pirates now coax their prey into the area with the promise of work and good pay. Word on the streets of many states is always touting the Keys as having lots of work- a partial truth. Yes, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, just as anywhere you go. In the coastal region, where there are severe storms and hurricanes battering the shacks and businesses, as well as the constant dilapidation of extreme poverty, there is always work that needs to be done. And if you’re Cuban you get the job because they don’t really want to pay anyone from the states to do it. Between the Cuban people and the drunks, who are willing to work for whatever the pay is that’s available, things are easily dealt with. Everyone else is a sucker, becoming strapped for cash and unable to drive back home, losing their possessions to the pawn shops while being led on that tomorrow things will be different. Tomorrow everything will work out.

The tourists bring the money every other week for the numerous festivals they organize but when it’s gone they count on storm damage claims. Many people file claims that they lost a boat in the storm, to receive money from FEMA, money that does not belong to them nor did they contribute to the taxes that provide the funds to real victims. We mainlanders all pay for their claims, essentially taking the money and using it, in most cases, to buy Cocaine and other drugs, and keeping them supplied with Hurricane Lager and 305’s. They brag about how they seceded but they beg for our money. Every single festival is a beggar, and so many fools go to take part in the deviance. And when it comes to the drugs, the money is going to foreign lands that are waging their own wars against us as a country. Poisons.

Roosevelt declared the Florida Keys a national park. What happened to that, I wonder? It’s a sham and a lot of people know the truth, some of them thankful to have escaped with their lives, unwilling to relive the nightmares with revisiting the memories. Me? I had to have a hands-on experience. It didn’t occur to me, how much trouble I was going to have. It was suppose to be “easy-peazy”. It would have been, too, if I had not came with the fool I did or had some family with a lot of money living here or didn’t mind being robbed of all but my regrets.

Every single step I took along the way, there were people asking for change and cigarettes. Forty thousand people are on a two-mile by four-mile slab of crap for an island. I am told ten thousand are thieves, ten thousand are authorities, five thousand are employed and possibly respectable, four thousand live on boats, six hundred live in the jail at any given time, and four hundred live in the shelters, mangroves, streets and rooftops. And here I am, right in the middle of it because of my failure to do some of the homework first. What a fool I was, a drunken fool.

Now, as I am wondering how the world blew up in my hands, I remember Andy and Julie discussing the Witchcraft in the area. Julie tells him that she’s a “White” Witch, and Andy say’s that he’s a “Warlock”, which must be Floridian for Iguana crap because that’s closer to what he resembles than anything. Now, I don’t know much about these sorts of things but there were many clues that the witchcraft business was a bigger piece of the Caribbean area than I could imagine. Maybe it’s because of the excessive exposure to the sun and heat, evaporating the seawater. People are delusional from something, could it be they are drinking the water by breathing the heavy salt air? Am I hallucinating any of this myself? Stranded in the Florida Keys and stranded in my mind, I was just getting started.

They say we are given great difficulties to sort through in life, as we are capable of handling them because God wouldn’t give us challenges that we couldn’t handle. Truth is, I never thought that much of myself but I was definitely being challenged. Could it be the necessary evil to help me to quit drinking? Was it Danny and the angels that were keeping me from giving up in my spirit?

For the first time in my life, I needed serious help. My baby brother, Josh, was living in St. Pete but I couldn’t get him to help. Our father, (my stepfather), had recently moved into his place, so he wouldn’t let me have the address or phone number for fear that I was harboring a violent resentment towards “dad”. Whether that was true or not, obviously, was reinforced with our history and decidedly so, I suppose. Even now, I still have no address for him, and his dad has since moved to Pennsylvania, or so I’ve been told.

It sure would have been nice to have a little moral support from a family member right then. Making attempts to reach someone from jail was hard. A phone call was managed to Bruce, who was on his way down to the Bahamas to have a stay at his family’s resort home. He planned on coming through the keys first, shooting to the Bahamas after visiting Julie and Andy in Summerland Key. The place was fifteen miles from the Monroe County Detention Facility, where I sat in a dormitory-style cell that held sixty-four men. I hoped for a visit from him. What I hadn’t realized was that he could become negatively influenced by those people he was to visit, which is exactly what happened. He was right there, within fifteen miles of where I was drowning in an ocean of despair but came and went without responding to my distress signal. In the coming years I would discover that Andy and Julie used my identity to purchase a house and a vehicle, when I began looking into correcting my credit score.

There was a bookshelf in the dorm, thank God. It measured thirty inches by forty inches Even though they were very light from dry rotting, guys were using the books as workout equipment, filling pillow cases to lift with them or using them as a barrier between the germs on the floor and their little patties or maybe they were floor protectors... none of it made sense but then again, not much of anything I ever saw an inmate do made sense. “Another Vote to stay in school,” I thought, while trying to find a book to take to my bunk. It was hard to find a book that wasn’t too destroyed to read, let alone a book worth taking the time to read in the first place but I found and read them as often as I could.

About once a week we were taken out to the “yard”, which was a small part of the building having no roof. It was lame but it was “outside” in the heavy humid air and sunshine. Fighter-jets shot through the air above us, adding a layer to our senses in addition to the stench of island decay.

It was such a disturbing realization, what I’d gotten myself into. I was unable to handle my state of duress. My whole, so-called, life was being yanked out from under me and I couldn’t take it. The nightmares were so bad that they had to relocate me to another part of the jail, where people didn’t have to rest before their slavery on the island. Inmates provide the clean-up labor on the streets and beaches, in their preparation for tourist season and providing the labor for festival cleanup. Most of these guys had jobs to do on the street. But the place they moved me to slowly became interesting, and after a week or two I made a few friends.

The movie, Catch Me If You Can, had two key characters. William Hanratty was the cop, played by Tom Hanks, and Mr. Abagnale was the guy he was after. The Abagnale character is a real person- the uncle of Jean Paul Abagnale. Jean Paul had been living in the keys for some time but was locked up, like so many others, on charges stemming from Cocaine and alcohol. William Hanratty was in his late fifties or early sixties, who was also a Veteran from the Philadelphia area. He was a musician, and like so many others, was playing his guitar on the street for the tourists. He was living on retirement and Veterans benefits and had a mental condition residual from the military and alcoholism.

There were shiploads of musicians, artists, performers and treasure hunters and the like, locked up. It seemed like they all had been associated, in one way or another, with cocaine. There were witches, heathens, and once in a while a normal person- all victims of a struggling economy. Now, I was among them but only until my scheduled release.

When I walked out of jail, a day or two after Christmas, my olfactory senses became filled with the stale smell of cigarettes in the breeze. It was as if I was wearing an ashtray for a respirator. As I left Stock Island, all I could think about was how badly I wanted a cigarette, so that I could have a fresh stink in my nose, while walking along the road leading away from the jail, dressed in litter and filth. Tobacco packages, butts and alcohol containers were like the leaves of fall on the ground.

Crossing the channel was the only road to Key West. This was known as Cow Key Bridge, home to whomever could keep from being arrested, Cow Key being Stock Island. They called it this because it was the shipping port for receiving meat in the lower Keys.

There was a tattered American Flag jury rigged on a stick that was flapping in the winds. It was attached to the side of the guardrail that secured the roadway across the bridge. Looking around, I spotted a man below. I approached, explaining my circumstances and asking for a cigarette. It wasn’t hard to tell that he was another Veteran of the Armed Forces.

Bill Hanratty had told me, but now I saw, that there were lots of vets on the streets in the Keys. Rolling me a cigarette, the man filled me in on many key points to being on the street in the Keys, especially Key West. These were: don’t walk around with a backpack or a duffle bag, stay away from people with them, don’t stop and talk to anyone on a bike or drinking, keep away from the beaches, don’t try to hitchhike, and if you have no place to sleep you need to go to the Safe Zone. The cops cannot touch you at the Safe Zone but between seven a.m. and eight p.m. you have to watch out because if you get stopped, and you have too little money on you for a hotel or a restaurant, they will arrest you for whatever they dream up. There are all kinds of things from disorderly conduct and vagrancy to trespassing. It doesn’t matter if you are clean and legal. And if you try to take it to trial you will sit there while they file for numerous continuances until they give you time served.

Time served means you get out of jail but it also means you are guilty of whatever they say you did. If you try to go to trial, they will get a Psyche evaluation that says you are not fit for trial, which gets them the conviction too. You will not win. Come, spend the money you have and get the hell out. They will take you off of the street if they don’t want you there. You will find no work and if you do, the money will be so small that it will just barely fill your daily needs. Money is your only ticket to freedom, and you need lots of it or just enough to get out on a bus. If you can get some from a family member go to the bus station with it right away- GET OUT.

When I listened to him, part of me was concerned but another part of me was not willing to take his warnings as reality, figuring he was another alcoholic with some type of weird mental condition. Thanking him for his time, the cigarette and his advice, I left for Sean’s.

My walk back to Sean and his girlfriend’s apartment gave me time to think about the words from the Prophet of Cow Key Bridge. It also gave me plenty of things to observe along the way. My hope was for some contrast but I observed much to support what I had just been told. Even still, I had the mindset that I could find work to make the money I came for, and then some. If nothing else, I would be able to sell what tools I now had here to buy a bus ticket home since Julie did me such a huge favor by bringing me a bunch of crap that should never have been brought. The stuff she dropped off at Sean’s was just about every single thing I possessed, things like Danny’s guitar, Four Track recorder, my prototypes of the Dice sculptures I had made for a desktop pencil caddy, air compressor and all sorts of tools and things that I needed a truck to cart around. God bless her pointed little head.

When I got back to the apartment, Sean’s girlfriend explained that she and Sean had broken up. She was moving to the mainland near Jacksonville but I could stay there until she moved out. Sean had come home in the wee hours of the morning with a white crust in his nostrils. Assuming he had been screwing around after the bars shut down, with another woman and drugs, she threw him out. Her generosity included buying me a cell phone to use while trying to find a job- a means of receiving communication from any prospective employers, since mine was now lost in the shuffle.

In the meantime, I had been dragging my tools and air compressor all over the island hoping to be able to sell them to a pawn shop but the pawn shops were filled to the gills, revealing the history of people who spent what little they had to come to the Keys with, hoping to find work. They left what little they had left in life there in order to go back to where they had come from. And those are just the people who were lucky enough to make it out with their lives. It sounds like a bit of an exaggeration, I know, and wish it were, but I swear on the lives of everyone I share love with that it’s the truth. I witnessed it and almost lost my life as well. I was beside myself in shock that Julie had dumped me to be with a junkie. I was enraged that I fell into Andy’s scheme, and that I failed to remember he was no good. How could one man be so stupid, so consistently, as I had been?

My brain worked rationally long enough to realize my wisest decision would be to find a Community Mental Health office. By now, Sean’s ex-girlfriend had moved out. I was sleeping in Sean’s Oldsmobile that was left in the parking lot at the apartment complex. Before she moved out, I set up an account on an Internet social network. It was my hope to make some friends in the area that could help me. It made sense to use every avenue I could to find a solution. What I found only added to the problem, which happened to be three women who were friends of Julie and Casey- area witches who were always in communication by computer with them.

When they had me over for dinner, which was everything mushrooms, a lot of hints came out in the open. Everyone who knew me knew that I couldn’t eat mushrooms. They added comments about “other” people, conveying things that went on in the past with Julie and Casey. They suddenly vanished shortly after we started hanging out, removing all traces of our “friendship” on the computer.

My days were now being spent getting to know the area. Internet access was found at a K-Mart and the local public library. The K-Mart thing was new, an effort to help bring in a larger customer base but when they found the boat people and homeless to be the ones using the computers the most, they began organizing “technical difficulties”. There was a huge war on the island between the haves and have-nots. The majority are individuals suffering from addiction and poverty, casualties in the game of consumerism- the scrambling to give us an income, only to target us to take the money back. Consumerism makes us work more to have more to spend, making us need and want more of everything, while what we really need becomes neglected and unimportant. Eventually these people become unheard of or from.

Among my thoughts about what I was seeing, I remembered Danny saying that we’d live on a boat. “Yeah, that’s what I’ll do”, I thought. Having a boat to hide on would be better than having to keep walking around for fear of being arrested for vagrancy, and I could find someone else who’s been trapped here that can sail the vessel. With a Captain, we’ll make our way up the coast, up the Saint Lawrence River, into the Great Lakes and up the Grand River- RIGHT BACK HOME! It’s “easy-peazy”, as Danny would say. Now all I had to do was find a boat. And since a hurricane was just through the area, there should be sailboats all over for free or next to nothing. It doesn’t matter what it looks like. It has to float, that’s all. Hoping for a break, I put my ear to the vine.

My feet found the local CMH office, where I was reunited with my medications that I had been prescribed back home. The guy I spoke with seemed genuine, giving me a camouflage Velcro wallet that he had just picked up at a flea market, after I mentioned how I lost my wallet in the process of the moped being impounded. He directed me to some shelters in the area that also served hot meals, explaining that one was a men’s shelter where I might find a room to get back on my feet. All I needed to do was find a job within two weeks. He also gave me the address of an employment center that housed the Department of Human Services, suggesting that I apply for assistance and build a resume for the talent bank. All of these bits of information were uplifting. My confidence in him soon built to what felt like a comfortable level of trust and friendship. With a smile and a renewed spring in my step, I set off for these locations.

When I came out of the building, I had food stamps, Medicaid, and a resume in the Talent Bank that I also submitted to several employment prospects. Finding a bench, I sat down to get my head together, deciding on what to do next. A man was already sitting there smoking a cigarette while waiting for his wife. He gave me one, and we talked about how we both played the Harmonica.

This man and his wife were both homeless, living in a van that was parked somewhere. There was work on Stock Island, at the crab shacks and on fishing boats. He told me I would find some work there. There was also a place called Anchors Away, an A.A. meeting place. The only problem is that you have to walk by every bar, liquor store, drug addict and dope house to get to it. Little did I know, he and his wife were both Crack addicted, and I found myself right in the middle of some kind of drug transaction that I wanted nothing to do with.

I started going to Anchors Away that night for the six-thirty meeting, and then attended every night, hoping someone would see me in my struggle to do good for myself, that would help me to get back home somehow. So many people had ulterior motives that I couldn’t blame any of the A.A. patrons for shutting strangers out. It was not as fruitful as I had hoped, and I never received much by the way of an opportunity but I did receive a kind word and a few dollars.

The men’s shelter served a mid-day meal, so I made it a point to find my way there to get acquainted with how things worked, and whether there was an opportunity for a place to stay there. Eventually, I got to speak with the man who ran the shelter. He reminded me of Danny in so many ways. He was a musician with lots of equipment and guitars. A Golden Retriever named Bailey was his companion, the two of them making for a jovial pair. The fact that he was so unintimidating in appearance and nature, made me at ease. He took me in with requisites that I get a job and stay clean of drugs, alcohol and filth. This provided a huge relief for me.

Soon after moving in, I found that he and the man from the CMH office were friends. One night I was called into the end of the building that he was occupying. There was some paperwork that I needed to fill out, along with some further interviewing questions about my background that he thought of. Oddly enough, a television was on in the room where they were watching Porn together at the time. I thought that it was strange that two men would be watching porn together but didn’t really take interest in what they had going on or why.

The next day, I received my general scope of responsibilities, which was to police the grounds for trash every day, and to mop the bathroom and laundry area. The day I began my duties, the facilitator decided that it was a good time for him to shower, coming in and stripping down as he tried to engage me in a seemingly innocent conversation while I worked. Quickly, I became uncomfortable but continued mopping, while minimizing my interaction, and avoiding his insistence to impede upon my ocular sense. When I refused to glance his way, he became hostile and short- no pun intended. It started to sink in, after awhile, and I realized it was weird, that he pointed out where his bed was, and how he made references to Cheetos stains on his penis from snacking and masturbating. It finally dawned on me that I had been selected as a playmate, preying on my situation and my medical history. Shocked that I had been set up to be victimized by the guy from the CMH office, the images of the two of them running some kind of freak show became more real. The shelter started to show that it was nothing more than a roach motel. Well, I was definitely checking out as soon as possible.

It happened to be Sunday when I decided to check out Stock Island for work but I don’t think I knew that, since I rarely know what day it is. The island environment has that affect on a person. The choice was to wander around to find work or stay in the trap. Anyway, the fishing doesn’t stop until the season does, unlike regular employment that generally doesn’t work on that day or so I told myself. The fish houses were open but I was told that there was no work and sent to another place where I might find a job. It wasn’t long before I had been all over the place, coming up with nothing but another dead end. Stopping a High-Low driver, he sent me to a salvage yard where boats were scrapped, saying that there are always people working on boats. My feet couldn’t get me there fast enough. The day was nearing six pm. After going into the office of the yard, I was sent to the end of the lot to see if there might be a boat owner around who may need help. I doubted anyone was going to be around or willing to get off of a few dollars but I made a last stitch effort to fulfill my mission for the day. When I got to the end of the yard full of boats in dry dock, I found an expensive looking vehicle parked next to an old Shrimp boat and a very large tourist fishing cruiser.

There were two older gentlemen working on the keel of the Shrimp boat with some body filler and fiberglass. One of them asked me if I knew how to work with the body filler, asking me to prove it by mixing some up and applying it, which I promptly did. They hired me on the spot and I worked the rest of the day. They laughed at my sales pitch, saying that I was willing to work for the first week at no charge.

The job was cash, and I was tickled- elated. Now, I was getting to do something I had never done, and I was filled with hope that I would recover from my mission at getting the money I came to the area to get. The first money I received was taken to a bank where I immediately started an account.

Eventually, I found out that these guys were all ex-cons, and the boats were distressed vessels that had been sunk. They had no value what-so ever but these guys were making them look like they were safe by patching them up in any way they could, asking me if I had ever seen M.A.S.H.- mentioning the phrase “meatball surgery”. They were brokering the junk for the scrap yard to sell to people who wanted to use them “one last time”. It didn’t matter all that much to me, I had my own problems to handle. Their con job was a bit alarming but meant little to me, that is, until two strangers started snooping around.

Instincts told me they were investigators, and when the guys came around that I worked for, they also said that they were detectives. That’s when they brought in a third man, also an ex-con, who put me to work on his Dive boat, a Manta, once the boats we had been working on were done. This was another D.V. that he intended on taking across the gulf to Honduras. He mentioned that I could go with him, illustrating the scenario of the adventure with all the seductive trimmings.

The idea was that the boat was going to be turned into a dwelling that he would use to go take his son from a Honduran woman he had been married to, and then disappear with his son, who would live on the boat with him. Lots of red flags went up in my head. I played along with him, seeming to entertain the idea for myself in order to keep the money flowing until I was to be done with him. Soon it was revealed to me that he was another person in the grip of cocaine addiction. Now it made sense when I recalled the guys I worked for talking about their associate getting hung up on the rocks. I thought that they meant with his boat.

A short while later I was told, by the original guy that hired me, the company was being “run out of the area”, and that I could meet up with them in Alabama to continue working. There was no way I was going to take them up on that. I had eight or nine hundred dollars saved up, and that was enough to get me out of there and back to Michigan. It was short of my goal but what was I going to do? The day they left the area, I had them take me to the bank at lunch to close my account and cash the last check. They paid me for the rest of the day before they left to head back to the mainland at two o’clock. My work was to last until six p.m. that day.

When I returned to the yard, I had all my money in my wallet. The plan was to finish the day, get paid from the Manta job, and go to the bus station in the morning, cutting my losses.

About sunset, I headed for the shelter to pack up what little I had left of my possessions. Passing by a small road through the mangroves that had been blockaded with a pile of broken concrete, I was stopped by a young woman who asked me for a light. This was a place where I had seen and avoided people who hung out there drinking, and who knows what else. Subconsciously, I could feel fear of the area but today, with a pocket full of money, and filled with the joy that I was getting out of the Keys, I decided to be friendly- giving her a lighter to use. “Keep it.” I said to her.

She asked me a series of questions typical of acquainting one’s self, which I was happy to answer. And since I was starving for attention, I soaked it up. Then she asked me if I had any dope, to which I answered no but that I was leaving in the morning and would love to have a puff. Pulling a brass pipe from her pocket, and holding it to my lips, she lit it and I smoked from it. The taste was strange, like vanilla.

The next thing I knew, I was sitting in the mud without my pants. My red duffle bag that held my meds and personal belongings was missing and so was my wallet. It was pitch black out and Mangroves surrounded me. In a panic, I stumbled around looking for my things- my pants, anything. The Moonlight penetrated the thick overhead vegetation in few spots but I made out a trail, stumbling franticly through the Mangroves, muck and trash.

Struggling for what seemed like forever, I found another pile of concrete near the edge of a road. Exhausted, I sat on the cement pile to catch my breath and think. At some point I looked around the pile, my eyes catching a spot where the moonlight glowed on the rubble. There, on the broken concrete, was my Camo wallet. Happiness was but for a moment when I realized that the money was gone. Of course it was. In tears, I searched through the pockets inside, hoping to see a stash of cash through my watering eyes but all I could find were business cards and some receipts that I had been accumulating to tell a story of their own. As I pulled them out, sadly lamenting the loss, I found a Bill enfolded in the receipts- a One-Hundred Dollar Bill. This single bill made me so happy that I forget I am sitting there in my underwear, or that my bag, filled with some very important things, is gone.

Determined to find this girl to get my stuff back, I set off down the road- a road I was not familiar with at all. A group of four or five young men are walking toward me on the road, commenting: “Nice pants.” as they pass by. It’s then that I realize I am now walking around in my underwear and a t-shirt in public but I am so mad that I insist on passing it off as swim wear. They, of course, have no idea who I am asking about.

It seemed like I had been walking for miles and miles, and maybe I had ,by the time I found my way back to where it all started. My bike was the first thing I found to have disappeared. Going in to the Mangroves, I was happy to find my bag. Further in, I located my pants. The losses were: one bike, one phone, my dignity, and all the money but for the hundred bucks. It was an absolute travesty. It’s so cliché to say, “I’ve never been more humiliated,” but I hadn’t ever been more humiliated. And the strange thing is, just when you think that, you discover that you can be more humiliated, which I was about to find out.

Still, determined to find this woman, I stomp off down the road of fools to find a group of guys in front of a two-story house but I am so angry that I storm right past them. They were asking something that I assumed to be an attempt to sell dope, so I ignored them. Then it dawns on me that they may know, or have seen, this girl.

Turning around to go back and ask them was somewhat pointless. They weren’t going to tell me anything I wanted to know but I tried anyway. As I am standing there with them to make my inquiry, flashlights, assault rifles and a whole squad of goons grabbed me and rolled me up in a wad. They cuffed me, taking my wallet and removing the last bank note I had been lucky enough to retain, threw me in the back of a paddy wagon with two other guys, and then hauled us off to jail.

The officer had commented on his keeping my money, and they would be charging me with soliciting to sell cocaine. Certain I was going to be found innocent, I worried little about it. In a while I would see a judge, explain the whole incident, and I’d be on my way to Michigan.

Several “continuances” later, I demanded to speak directly to the judge. My “Public Defender” said it was a pretty gutsy move on my part, explaining that it was a Felony charge, and that there was digital video evidence. Well, conveniently enough, all the evidence against me had been lost. My council did nothing to provide a rigorous pursuit of defense. He did not motion to have the case dismissed.

When I went to court to be heard, the judge said how he couldn’t believe that I was in such denial of my drug problem, sentencing me right then and there to a day short of a year in jail, which stuck me with a year of probation that wasn’t transferable. This kept me in their little system, which made it extremely unlikely that I would get out. The routine was to violate people just before it was over- another part of the scam on the funding for programs. One way or another, I was going to pay for my time spent in the Keys. This shattered me.

The one thing that helped me to stay sane was, writing. The other thing that helped was working in the kitchen. Ideally, you try to get into the kitchen, so you can eat a little bit more than what they normally serve. It was all garbage but you get a bit more of it. Eventually, I was fired for my antics and practical jokes. There was a Log Book that we had to sign but the page was left empty and wasted, to me. I took it upon myself to enter actual log entries akin to a Ships Log, entering things that portrayed the actual goings on only in metaphorical illustrations. The guys I worked with got a big kick out of it, and a star was born. Now I was invited into the mop closet to smoke cigarettes that we got from the kitchen employees.

The cameras were located in many places, especially on the mop closet entry. It was always comical to think of the guy manning the surveillance monitors, who would see us coming out of the closet like a bunch of clowns getting out of a V.W. Beetle at a circus. Fifteen guys coming out of the room one by one, carrying a broom or mop or dustpan- whatever they could carry out, like it was normal routine activity. As if the guard didn’t know what was going on. It always cracked me up when they did that, wondering why the surveillance system didn’t have audio as well.

One day, I was fired from the kitchen. It wasn’t for the butter that I put on the backside of the cooler door handle, or the baking grease I smeared on the mop handles, or for the balled up cake residue left in the pan- that I placed on the floor near the bathroom as if someone crapped their pants. It wasn’t for switching the contents of the barrels that held the powdered sugar and the Corn Starch or for smuggling salt and pepper back to the dorm or for being caught smoking. And I didn’t get fired for playing the pots and pans like percussion instruments or for doing unflattering impersonations of Mrs. Alverez, the kitchen lady, or for eating an entire roast beef that I took from the O.R. cooler. And It wasn’t because they found twenty containers of peanut butter while doing a routine search of my stuff or for putting jelly in someone shoes before they got up to go to work. I was fired because an English chap, that started working with us, decided to try getting in on the fun by urinating in a cup he had been drinking lemonade from, which he placed in the O.R. cooler after trying to offer us “lemon tea”. Someone had taken the cup from the cooler thinking that it was actual lemon juice because of the seeds that were in it, and either drank from it or added it to a batch of tea. They took me directly to the disciplinary wing called, Alpha, telling me that I was on thirty days confinement for pissing in the tea. What could I do?

The cell they put me in was on the upper tier. A young guy was already in there, so I was glad to have company… for about two days. He had very long hair, like I did before I cut it to work in the kitchen. Noticing the dirty nails and scratching made me suspect that he had a hygiene problem. The problem was that the dirt turned out to be blood. It didn’t take long to talk him into cutting his hair a bit, so he asked me to help him with it. I agreed and we went to the officer’s desk, while we were out for our one-hour a day to shower and what not, asking to use the clippers.

When I dove into his hair with the clippers, dozens of Nits were easily seen. I freaked out because I was dealing with lice and didn’t want to be. They sent us to Medical to be seen and we were sent back with some chemical solution to treat with. We both had to stand naked in the shower area for almost and hour with the stuff on us. After we finished I was relieved to have gotten past it. There was no more sleep disturbing scratching going on after that but my sleep was disturbed anyway, when a ruckus two cells down made me jump out of bed.

Looking out the window of the door, I could see the clock that said three thirty, as well as, a guard on the floor below, watching the cell doors to see if anyone was up looking that way. There was a guard standing at the door of the cell with the commotion, and some muffled shouting. Then there was a bunch of thumping and screaming, and a loud crash as the person being beaten was slammed into a stainless steel cart on the catwalk, that for some strange reason was in front of his cell. Blood was everywhere. I will never forget the faces of the officer’s that did it. One kept his head shaved and had a nasty scar on his head from a bullet wound that he received in Desert Storm. Later, I found out that this was retaliation for filing a complaint and suing the officer. Whether that’s true or not, I cannot say. What I do know is that they attacked and nearly killed him. Four officers were involved.

The very next morning, in what I understood as an attempt to keep any lawyers from trying to find a witness, our cell door windows were completely covered with a plastic coating that prevented us from seeing out. A recipe file card was taped over a small hole they left in the center to peek in at us with. When they delivered breakfast, I asked the trustee what went on. All he could tell me was that a trail of blood two feet wide was left on the floor that led all the way to the medical office.

Just before my thirty days were up, I started scratching at night. I thought I was going mad. After putting in a kite to see a nurse, I was told that it was Scabies. They gave me some cream to apply to the areas. Here I was, fearing that I would get lice from the kid.

chapter

Joe farmer was one of the many Homosexuals in my dorm. He, like a lot of gay men, took an interest in me. Laughed it off, I developed a report with him, even hung out a couple of times when we were released. He was another crack addict. When he worked at a gas station that they trusted him with closing, he stole fifteen hundred dollars from the deposit bag for his habit, eventually fleeing to another state. He said all the right things and sounded sincere in his rehabilitation. After going back to the shelter to find that my belongings had been given or thrown away, and that I was not welcome to stay there, I had no place to go but the Safe Zone. I asked if I could entrust him with some writings that I had accumulated while serving the one year long sentence for the solicitation to sell cocaine charge- whatever that means.

Joe Farmer had an apartment that he was sharing with a family he became acquainted with. It seemed like I could count on him to keep my papers safe for the time being, so I left them with him, along with my food stamp card to let him get a few things he needed. He ended up getting thrown out for drugs a short time afterwards, taking my card and causing for my papers to be thrown out with the trash.

The time of day became late in my worry, and I found myself the farthest I could be from the Safe Zone. You have to check in by a certain time and the gate closes a little while after that, putting me on the streets for the night once again. Left to wander, I headed for Duval Street to find an opportunity.

What I found were these people who were palm weavers. They made hats, baskets and bowls. They fashioned roses and crucifixes also. All while sitting at the foot of the carnival style buildings that lined the street and sidewalks. It was a routine sight in the shopping and drinking streets, which was pretty much all of them.

The city has street vendor permits, of a certain number, that people can purchase for things particular to their “trade”. My questions began, asking each one of them if they needed help with anything, finally finding a couple guys who said I could help them sell their goods- roses made from Palm fronds. Soon, I discovered that this was a big joke because they would sell a couple roses and just go to the store for beers with what money they received. Then they would leave me to watch their spot and handle sales, barking at tourists as they walked by- same as the Carnival or County Fair.

Feeling and looking like a clown, I tried to play the part. It became obvious that these guys were addicts when they came back, talking strangely about where they stuck “the pipe” in the bushes and asking me if I “smoked”. The night proceeded while they squandered the money as it came in, spending it on drinking and drugs. I had accumulated only eight dollars because for every item I could sell they gave me a dollar bill.

It was turning into a far desperate situation than I could have imagined myself being a part of... I lost hope and turned to trying my hand at prostitution when three old ladies came along. What made it easy to think of was that I had been drinking and became hypnotized by the strong sexual overtone of the adult environment, like the festival that they call Fantasy Fest. The three of them were here on vacation though, and had just got off of a cruise ship to stay for a while and fly back home. One in particular was perky and upbeat, looking around sixty-five year old. Though a difficult decision to make, I put the bait out there and began flirting to let them know it could be had. All I could think was it could be worth a couple hundred bucks, and how I could be gone in the next day or two- finally escaping from the Keys. Things developed between us and it was a go, they were interested. Now all I had to do was stay drunk enough to actually go through with it. OH GOD! What have I done? Bring on the beer quick, before I change my mind!

Now, it’s been over a year since I arrived in the Keys. Fantasy Fest is in full swing and the crowd is freaking crazy. Everyone is doing private things in Public places. Many are naked but for body paint that looks like clothing. There are people having sex in many places out in the open. There are people everywhere drinking alcohol and smoking dope. There are people who have brought their children.

Amazed at what I am witnessing, I fight my way through the crowd to find a place to clean up. My eyes meet with the eyes with a man who has a jar in his hand. He quickly waves me closer and dumps some marijuana in my hand from the jar, telling me to enjoy it. The smell of blueberries perfumes the air from it. This pleases me because I needed to be intoxicated for what I was about to do, bumming a rolling paper along the way.

The little old ladies are meeting me at The Bull and Whistle Bar in a short while. The Garden of Eden is upstairs- a clothing optional place. When I get to the bar, I notice that the side entrance is dimly lit with a lot of shadows between it and the store next door. The bar bathroom made it easy to roll the joint and get cleaned up in because everyone was too interested in what was going on around them to take time to use it until they had to. Exiting the bathroom, I went to the shadows to smoke my weed.

As I finished smoking and pitched the roach, a cop car stopped at a gob of people about forty yards away. The officer got out of the car and looked around. He was looking for something, turning his head my way as I exhaled the last puff of smoke I held in my lungs. Then I turned to go back into The Bull and Whistle but he yelled for me to come his way. In the end he arrested me for possession of Marijuana, saying that he saw me blow out marijuana smoke from where he stood, and that he could smell it in the air. I had to laugh, like I was the one person who had smoked weed that night and he was out trying to sniff me out. There are sixty thousand people in Key West during this festival, very many smoking pot but I am the one he comes looking for.

Well, luckily for him, he had a roach he kept in his pocket for just such an occasion- evidence for whomever they want to take in. Moments later I found myself right back in the very same jail cell for the third time. It was just like everyone else that I saw get out and come right back within days. Catch and release, catch and release, catch… big money. It was purely madness.

Even my P.D. laughed when I explained the situation of the charge but it didn’t change the fact that I would be sitting in jail for another length of time. By now I am emotionally numb. Life has pretty much ended for me. I was happy if I woke up the next morning but for what, I don’t really know. Prosecuted on another charge got me forty-five more days, much to my dismay. But what I got out of that was more information.

Turns out that the girl that robbed me was busted in Marathon at a motel within a half day of the incident. The cops had kicked the door in on the motel, finding her and a drug dealer with guns and drugs, landing her a prison sentence. My bunkmate, Moses Torres, was at the location that night when I was robbed and arrested. He was smoking cocaine. He told me how he was there, saw my things in the mud, and was also arrested that night.

My spades partner, Oneilio Garcia, was in for cocaine as well. He was actually a friend of Andy’s- more or less, supplying him with his cocaine. Oneilio explained how he had routinely delivered whores and rocks to Andy. It all became quite clear that I was set up from the beginning as I had suspected but now I had proof and witnesses.

Andy had planned on working at getting Julie to bend his way, painting me in a bad light, in order to get his equipment back, and suckering Julie out of all the money he could get, while knowing she was in control of her mother’s estate. That is, if she wasn’t conspiring with him all along. Knowing that didn’t do a whole lot for my situation except to reaffirm my awareness related to what my drinking had done in conjunction with my needs, like the need to be wanted or be part of something.

It was overwhelming, my wanting to file charges against him but I was not with any way to do it, so I thought about it all the time, remembering how Andy’s mother had told Julie about Andy doing a year or so in Florida Prison for being involved with a situation where they cut a guys stomach open to get the Heroine out that he was trafficking. It was odd that she would tell Julie this. Maybe she was involved in the scam too. Was that why she bought Andy the Jolly Roger flag for the boat? The whole thing was making me crazy.

Once again, I was released from jail. It was around noon when I left. It is easy to remember, only because I wanted to eat first and they wouldn’t serve me. My feet quickly took me to the area of activity where I thought I could find some assistance at. Lots of people had told me of a church that would give you a bus ticket to get home if you were stranded but this proved to be untrue.

At one point, during my hike, I met a group of hippie kids from upstate that were hanging out for whatever festival was going on at the time. They were down here selling pot and mushrooms, planning to leave in the morning. I was given a pair of shoes and some mushrooms. Seeing no point in not eating them, I did. We wandered around as a group and I felt safe. They took me to where they had been staying, which happened to be the rooftop of an abandoned building. There was a ladder to get up with that they pulled up onto the roof to conceal their whereabouts.

We hung out and talked about our travels that day and into the evening. We drank a little bit and smoked a lot. They invited me to leave with them in the morning and I gladly accepted. Then they gave me more mushrooms. As we wandered around, finding cell phones and money that had been lost by people, the drugs took affect and it became very difficult to manage. Feeling out of sorts, I had to get somewhere to rest out of sight. We headed back to their camp on the rooftop. Somewhere along the way I became separated from them.

When I was able to think, I found myself being walked back to the room where I had spent the majority of my time, in the Monroe County Jail. It had been all of fourteen hours.

When I woke up from my coma, I found myself in the same bunk I had been in for the past three arrests. Toilet paper was wrapped all around me like I had been mummified. Moses and the guys were laughing at me when I broke out of the bunk. It was funny to them, that I was wasted when I came back, and that I had been so adamant about leaving but repeatedly failed after they had told me it was near impossible to leave this place.

The officer’s had given me the charge sheet when I came in but I wasn’t able to read it. Now, I see that it says I have been charged with trespassing. When I finally speak with my Public Defender, I explain to him that I want a trial.

My chance to go back was gone, just like Gilligan’s Island. The kids, I would learn, had made their way up to Miami. They were staying in a hotel when they met up with a grave situation. The girl that was traveling with them, “Rose”, had been killed by the slitting of her throat, one of the guys was dead of an overdose of Heroine, and another guy was beaten badly and left for dead. Prison sentences were handed out but probably not for the people who did the killing. Had I not become separated from them, I would have been right there with them- dead or going to prison that time. That’s where the kid they found in the room went.

Was it that I was guided from that or was it just a coincidence? It sure wasn’t feeling like I was being guided.

People I had known on the streets were being found dead in many strange places. One man, who claimed to be a Veteran of the Marines named, Sonny, was found dead near mile marker fifteen. His throat was slashed. He was lying in the ditch on the side of the road when a motorist found him. Another man was killed while he slept on the beach by a hammer blow to the head. People were being killed by methadone overdoses. All of these people were homeless people. Of course, no charges were ever filed.

Within a week or two they sent a Psychiatrist in to evaluate me because no one goes to trial with a trespassing charge. He interviews me, tells me to “Keep fighting champ”, and then leaves. Several continuances later, they tell me that because I am unfit and incompetent, that there would be no trial. Forty-five days after they brought me in I am sent to court where they give me time served. I was released on Valentines Day.

Chapter; fourth release

That very night, I went to the Safe Zone. When I awoke the next morning, a truck had arrived that was driven by an elderly man looking for people who wanted to go to work. Wiping the grease from my face, and grabbing my belongings, I ran to the vehicle. It seemed only one other person was interested. It didn’t seem peculiar at the time; that no one was really interested. And I didn’t care about anything but the question of work. After I got in the truck and we headed for a marina, where a boat was being loaded with tools and supplies.

As we waited to leave, I was told that we were to be working on a home on Ballast Key, ten nautical miles west of Key West. Smiling and filled with a renewed hope for a change, I was able to finally enjoy the moments as we cruised out to Ballast Key.

On the way out, we were told that the job entailed storm damage to the home used by the servants and guests, one of two that were built on the island. The project was at the drywall repair stage since the work had already been done to the exterior.

The first night there, I slept under the stars in a hammock on the beach. It was beautiful to have the sounds of the surf, the warm air blowing, and the starlit sky for company. For some reason, I awoke from a dream at about two thirty in the morning. My eyes focused in on the stars, and I looked for meteors and shooters. That was when I saw the red streak shoot across the sky at a great distance. It went from south to north. As I attempted to understand what I had just seen, a blue streak shot across the sky from east to west, traveling from as far way as I could see to the farthest it could be seen traveling. This was perpendicular to the path of the red one. It was a very strange and confusing sight.

Later, I would inquire many places about it but received no comments of any sort. Why the coloration? Why did they intersect? Why did it seem like one was responding to the other? Was one or both meteor or comet? What was it that I saw? I want to know.

We were going to be staying for several days, I found out, possibly a week or more. On the third day things got ugly. The guys I had come to work with turned into pirates, attacking me for my cigarette tobacco, taking my food, kicking me out of what they had going on and beating me up in the process. Now without food, I used the moon, lighting the waters up in the shallows, making it easy to find lobsters among the rocks for my supper. It seemed like a great idea to relocate my bedding area, moving to a new location to sleep at that night. It had to be somewhere they would not find me, for the fear that I would disappear.

That night, while the property owner slept in his home, they had looted the property, throwing the rifles into the oceans surf that they found in the home. They raided food stores that were hidden, as well as vandalized the entire home, starting by slinging cooking oil all over the walls that we had just repaired, demonized by the liquor they had stolen.

The next day I asked them what happened, thinking that refugees had come ashore. They said it was a “power play”. That was a curious thing to say, and I am not sure what they meant but it seems like they were trying to extort money from the owner, David Wolkowsky. That’s when the guy I joined them with decided it would be best if we stuck together. It didn’t matter by then because we were loaded onto the boat and taken back to Key West within the next few hours. It was a silent and uncomfortable ride with evil but for the sounds of the boat cruising on the ocean.

When we arrived back at the marina, they asked me to join up with them in going up the Keys to another location to work. As I took down their phone number, I thought “Yeah, right”, while gathering my things. In another ten seconds I hit the bricks running. They probably had plans for me due to the fact that I had witnessed what they had done. This I was certain of.

Back on “Coquina Rock”, I searched for a place to hide like an animal. Finding a marina on the north side of the island, I met some street people who also resided in the area. They tell me that if I take five dollars to Dante’s Inferno, I can hang out there by the pool all day without any hassles from the Key West Police Department. They explained that I would be a paying customer, giving me the right to be there, which turned out to be true but that only lasts for as long as you can come up with the daily five bucks.

After the money that I had was gone, I began hiding my clothing that I had acquired from the thrift shop, underneath a low hanging palm tree, so I wouldn’t be seen carrying a bag. It was one of my only defenses to blend in.

As for the thrift shop, even if you have no money, you can still get what you need to have. The Salvation Army will gladly outfit you with whatever your needs are, taking down your social security number to submit for the accounting. If you ever need help, don’t hesitate to go to the thrift shop for help. No matter what help you may need, they will get you on the right track. And the best thing for you to do, if you ever find yourself down and out, is to stay away from anyone else on the street accept for the one person in the crowd that you can grow to confide in. Usually it’s the old man in the wheel chair that will be the most instrumental in recovering. Everyone else will keep you down and out, and don’t you forget it. This could prove to be life saving information if you ever find yourself on the street. The most potentially deadly situations will be found while searching for change, booze or a little dope. Keep to yourself and go without anything you think you need. All you need is air to breath, warmth, and a place to sleep. Anything else could get you killed- instantly or slowly but certain and definite.

Very quickly, I became acquainted with an old man in an electric wheel chair who was a Musician. He had a place that he stayed at behind a building that was condemned. There was an awning on the backside of it that was helping keep it concealed very well, along with trees, bushes, and fencing from the surrounding backyards. The awning kept the weather off of us pretty good, and it had a safe feeling about it. He said that it was the safest hide-away on the streets. Adding that he has used this particular spot for several years.

The first night I slept there with him, I had a dream about this humanoid demon. His chest had a cage door and behind it were my children. Their screams for me to release them were ear piercing. The head of this creature was extremely large and made of, what seemed like, Paper Mache. The head grew in size as I fought with this monster. Hacking at the head with a knife, I tore a large hole in it from the right temple to the chin on the opposite side. It laughed and said that I couldn’t destroy him, and that he was one hundred and forty eight years old. Terrorized by this nightmare and vision, I awoke, only to lay there the rest of the night wishing I could sleep again without the visions.

During the days, I hiked the local harbor where I would check in with boat Captains for work. There was a public head with a shower facility for the people who lived in the harbor on their various types of boats. If I stayed by it, I could manage to get inside before the door closed all the way, since being a person renting a slip or mooring ball is the only way to get a key to use it.

One day I had managed to acquire some money and went to a Tiki bar to sit and get a drink, while watching them feed the Tarpon from the docks with chicken scraps. The Tarpon were huge. Marveling at the sight of these Tarpon, I sipped my drink. That’s when I noticed a woman with a baby carriage walking along the dock in front of the Tiki bar. She had a sun hat and large sunglasses on, the air blowing her sundress around at her knees. It was Yoa, Sean’s new girlfriend, and an Icelander.

Yoa was the woman Sean had been seeing when he was thrown out of the apartment. She was from Iceland, here on a Visa to work as an Actress. She had become pregnant, which concerned Sean. He would often ask me about the situation but I just told him that it could be the best thing to ever happen to him if he let it be.

Yoa, of course, wanted to marry, becoming a U.S. resident but he shared his fear with me that she may have been using him. They had the baby just months before this, and were living together somewhere on the island. Routinely, I had been checking in with him at The Island Dogs bar when I was not in jail, only hoping for some news I could use.

Speaking her name got her to look my way. She was quick to join me at the table, where we talked for a while. It wasn’t easy to explain to her that I needed a friend and some guidance at finding a way home. It felt as though she may get the wrong impression, so I was careful in explaining my situation and the circumstances surrounding it.

There happened to be a place that was having a Grand Opening that night. Yoa mentioned that it was a new bar/restaurant that was having an Open Mike and outdoor dinner and drink special. Fifteen dollars got you a plate of food and all the beer you could drink. They were going to be there that night. Happily, I agreed to meet them there, with hope of getting some help with my dire needs from Sean.

Sean and Yoa showed up after I had been there for a few minutes. We got a table and were served our food and first round of drinks. Yoa snapped a photo of me that evening, and they brought me back to their pad, where I stayed for about two weeks.

During the time that they let me stay at their apartment, I managed to get a call back home. Calling Bob, practically begging him to help me get home, was a bit humiliating but I got over it. He agreed to help me, purchasing a bus ticket on the next bus leaving Key West for Grand Rapids. With the help of the last couple hundred dollars Bob had to work with, I would be leaving Key West within the next few days.

Before I left, Sean got a job working as a home stereo salesman for a well-known department store- Sears. We would sit on his porch when he got home in the evening, smoking cigars and talking about things that were important in life. Yoa didn’t really like it that Sean would be gone all day, then come home and sit outside until they went to bed. There isn’t a woman alive that would appreciate that but I think he was afraid of the strange new environment of being a father. Feeling it was my job to put him at ease, I did what I could to reinforce him about the situation. He was doing the best he could at the time.

Andy happened to drive through one day, stopping when he saw that Sean’s car was home. Andy soon found out that I was there and quickly worked himself into a frenzy. It was hard to keep from getting into a brawl with him over all the wrong that I felt he had done to me but, because I was at someone else’s apartment, I kept from being moved to creating a disturbance in the community.

Andy persisted at telling me that I had to leave Key West. His fear that I was in the area only reinforced my understanding of his malice towards me. It made me feel a sense of satisfaction that he and Julie were together as a couple. The way I figured, they deserved each other.

When he finally left, Sean commended me for being a “class act”. All I really truly wanted to do was pummel Andy into a bloody, quivering heap, load him into a fishing boat and put him into a chum machine. That’s exactly how I felt. It was with a sense of gratitude to Sean, that I controlled myself. And I was just thankful that this didn’t happen to me. Finally. I was leaving.

Chapter; Going Home

It might have been a Friday when I boarded the bus. So many emotions were running through me; happiness, relief and nervousness, especially since it was March, cold up in the states. All I had to wear was a pair of sweat pants and some other scraps of northern clothing that I managed to find at the thrift store.

Settling into my seat, I wondered if the drama was over. It made sense to start seeking out, through the people around me, for a traveling partner- someone to bond with on some level. Feeling that I needed someone to be a second pair of eyes to sense danger before it happens, I did a quick profile of the people around me, examining the clothing that they were wearing, their shoes- anything that would tell me something about them.

Picking out a person, I introduced myself. We exchanged short versions of what we had been doing in Florida and where we were off to now. This person was going to Indiana. Perfect, I thought. Since I am going to Michigan, we will be traveling the distance together or at least as far as Indiana. He and I had much in common, making me feel at ease about the trip, for the most part.

It was pretty wild seeing the sights along the way. There were things like wild hogs along the highway, and various stretches of some of the most beautiful mountains I had seen.

Georgia was pretty scary when I got off to transfer. There were cops, DEA agents, and what seemed to be drug pushers. It seemed likely to think they were Narcotics agents who were posing as pushers.

Kentucky was pretty cool also, with the famous Kentucky Derby Horserace Track.

When my traveling partner got off in Indianapolis, there was some downtime before the next departure. He invited me to a sports bar for a drink. It was easy, at this point in my big adventure, to decide that it wasn’t a good idea. All I wanted to do was to get home. Enough had happened to me already, and I was so close that it didn’t make sense to chance another mishap. Amid the baggage and chaotic clusters of citizens, I stayed at the station, waiting patiently.

Chicago… when I got off at the Chicago stop, I wanted a drink. Of all the places to be alone, this was not the one to go exploring in but I decided to anyway. There wasn’t a place in sight that looked like a store or a bar, so I began walking to find one. It was a bad time to explore to, since I was under a time constraint. Feeling like I could manage, I set out to find a place to buy a drink.

After asking around, I found a place, buying myself a twenty-two-ounce bottle of beer. Walking back, I was asked for a cigarette. This person also asked me for a sip off of my drink. Handing him the bottle, while thinking that I couldn’t drink the whole thing without being busted anyway, he slammed down over half of it, asking me if I was from the country or something. It must be that only a fool would give out any handouts in Chicago. It’s a good thing I was there.

Boarding the bus bound for Grand Rapids, I felt a sense of closure on the detachment with my home. By the time I finally got off of the bus in Grand Rapids, it had been almost a full twenty-four hours and I hadn’t had much more than four hours of sleep. Bob picked me up at the station and drove us back to the house he had most recently built, anxious to hear the whole story and to put me to work completing the odds and ends that needed to be done before he and his family could legally take occupancy. I would be staying there for a period of time unknown.

Within the next four days, I had done many of the major tasks that only I could have done with an acceptable level of quality. I was thankful to be back performing my trade, and it showed. He took me to the shop that he had been spending much of his time at, to give me a shot at working there. It was more like dragging in fresh meat to abuse.

The company manufactured, and sold, high-end cabinetry. By the end of the day I had proven myself and was offered a job for very little pay for my skills but I was very pleased to have something to build on, and accepted. When I attempted to ask for a better wage, I was told that I would have a very hard time finding anything better. There was little I could do to argue since I felt an indebtedness to Bob for assisting me with my flee from Key West, and out of my gratitude for that help, I stayed. It didn’t make sense to complain any further. It didn’t matter much either way but I couldn’t just accept the pay without trying to get a better deal negotiated.

Everything was great at the job, especially since it was right on a stream that the salmon ran up to spawn. About a week into it, we were on our way to the “rat-factory”, as Bob called it, when we noticed a brand new Dodge Charger that the Michigan state police were driving on the expressway. It had passed us. My surprise at seeing the State Police using these Dodge Chargers caused me to make a comment to Bob about it, so he sped up a bit to get a better look at it.

The car was sweet. And then this sweet looking Michigan State Police cruiser slowed down and got behind us. His bubbles went up a minute later, while Bob was asking me if I had anything on me. The cop came to the window and told Bob that he was in violation with his window tinting, and that he had a tail light out. That’s when the officer asked me for my I.D. The officer went back to his car and ran our information, came back and handed Bob his license, telling us that he had to take me in on a child support warrant. Great. Here I was again- lucky enough to get back home in time to get a job somewhere. Now, I was probably going to lose it because I was going to jail for Child Support, AGAIN.

My court day rolled around the next day or so, where I told them that I had gone to Florida to work but failed, explaining how I was waiting for my disability insurance to go through. The judge said that when I got it, I should bring it in to them framed, as the prize that it would be. After proclaiming to them that I would, she handed down a sentence of ninety days. Bob had been in contact with the court to verify that I did, in fact, have a job, earning me the work release program. They moved me into the old Animal Control complex, once a residential mental hospital. How fitting. Within a day or so, I resumed working and saving my money up.

On the weekdays I worked at the rat-factory, and on the weekends, Bob sprang me out to work on his house in the cornfield. It worked out very well for me because all I had to do was sleep in the work-release program and bring them my rent, saving the rest of my money for something useful. That something ended up being a brand new laptop computer that I intended to use in order to fulfill my promise to publish the music that Danny and I had created.

Now, the problem I had was in the factory setting. Adam and Bob taunted each other with their seemingly friendly badgering of one another. It was part of the “fun” they had at work. Keeping as busy as I could, while refraining from being a part of it was nothing new to me, at all. Trying to ignore them, I couldn’t help but understand that Bob was finally getting a taste of his own medicine.

At some point in their head games, Adam must have said something along the lines of replacing Bob with me. Bob began trying me at my abilities to decipher how to use and understand machinery in the shop. He normally took it upon himself to belittle me by giving me extensive instructions, as if I was lacking experience with woodworking machinery. This also gave him an excuse to be doing very little.

Bob had tried to make me look incompetent by sending me to change shaper bits, set the machine’s equipment up to do the machining, and run the cabinetry parts on that piece of machinery- machinery that I had never, ever, seen before. It really displeased him that he didn’t have an example of incompetence to give to Adam.

Bob was becoming more nervous about me replacing him, and doing what was within his power at making things worse for me. Because Bob was my ride, I absorbed the impact on the ride home with the head games that would accumulate, having a destructive affect on my psyche. My stress level was going through the roof, triggering my Paranoia, which caused a lot of disturbance for me. Things compounded until I began to make a lot of mistakes on the job. My first instinct was to think that someone had moved my parts that were stacked in a certain way, in order to be cut or shaped properly. And maybe they had been.

On another occasion I was working materials through a machine fed overhead belt sander that always accumulated a large pile of sawdust beneath it despite the dust collection system. Deciding I had to sneak a cigarette, thinking that my nerves would calm down, I used the vacuum of the system to evacuate the cigarette smoke from the area. Since I was at the other end of the shop, they wouldn’t be able to see me smoking, and since they frowned on my taking a cigarette break I would be able to conceal it with the help of the vacuum.

Well, I had set the cigarette down and the cherry fell off into the pile of sawdust. The smoke started to come from underneath the unit, filling the area. They thought I had burned the belt but it was the sawdust pile smoldering. I panicked, trying to find the fire before they came over. It was now a glowing spot of ember about eight inches around. Luckily I managed to take care of it before it could be a serious problem but part of me thought it would really be something they deserved for the dangerous games they were playing with my head. It was well known by all involved, that I had been coping with psychological issues as a result of my automobile accident. Fortunately, my Social Security claim was finally granted to me- a full award of benefits.

A very short time after that, I quit and moved in with my sister, Amanda. The house was the one in Conklin, where I had been helping my mother before the Julie fiasco. It didn’t feel safe in Bob’s company any longer, and having my disability award gave me the independence needed to get away from him once again. Although we have had our many differences, I would continue to think of him and his wife. And although he may never know or accept it, I understand why he has issues enough to see past his Ego, and care for him as a friend, though scarred as we both are.

Now that I had a job, and a goal, I decided to try, one last time, to find someone special to share my time with. Having heard the many commercials for eHarmony for a few years, along with many other dating sites, even though I scoffed at them, I decided to start looking into the idea.

EHarmony’s site was the most logical to me. I mean, if you’re going to try it, you need to be logical. Things began with trying the offers to check out these places for free, and then I figured that the eighty or ninety dollars it cost was a glass ceiling- a way of grading the prospects. If a person wasn’t concerned with the fee, they were probably worth my time, even if I wasn’t what they were generally looking for in life but then again, I was looking for a particular person myself. It was all fair play.

Never breathing a word to anyone about my plans, I set up a free account to browse with. Using the photo that Yoa had taken of me in Key West, I filled out my profile information, went through all of the protocol for getting my matches from the database, and started surfing for potential women to interact with.

When I knew I was onto something that looked meaningful I bought a money order, mailed it to them, and waited for the notification that I was able to start the process. That’s when I met Jenny.

Jennifer was not the first girl I tried to start interaction with. There were several women that I had screened, all rejecting me for something I had written in my profile. The question of what that was got me to wonder if I had said something wrong, so I inspected it, deciding that I had said nothing wrong at all. Something I said might have sounded strange to them but I wasn’t going to go in and change it to improve my chances. If they didn’t like what I stated in my profile, then it was only because they weren’t worth my time. It was only a matter of time before I would meet the person who could appreciate what was there to move on with, which is exactly what happened.

Jennifer had posted a photo that was taken by Siena, her four year-old little girl. It wasn’t a flattering photo but I instantly knew when I saw it, that she had used it for a reason. The photo, for the sake of what she looked like was unimportant. It was what that photo said to me that was important, and it spoke volumes. We started out by picking the questions that were prewritten, the ones that help you get to know something more but providing a buffer from the rejection a person might feel if it goes wrong somehow. We read each others answers, continuing the process until she decided that she was interested in taking it to the next level, which was direct chat communication over the computer.

Our cerebral connection grew until we decided that it was time to meet and see if there was more, even though her friends told her that I was probably bald because of the hat I was wearing in my photo. That was in September of 2008.

My mother insisted on driving me to Jenny’s apartment instead of me taking the bus, so she could lay eyes on her, determining if she was a good idea for me to be dabbling with. Knowing my history with all the wrong women, it was possibly the most loving thing my mother could have offered me in our relationship at the time.

By November we knew we were compatible. She liked how I got along with her two children, and I liked being with them. By Christmas we were comparing notes to be certain that we had something that was real. Before the winter had begun, we knew that we wanted to end our search, and before winter was over we knew that we had finally found what we both searched for and wanted to keep.

This new birth between Jenny and I led me to move to Lansing with her. There were a few inconveniences with re-establishing my medical care but I didn’t care. Certainly, I am not about to say that life has been a bed of roses. Anyone who thinks it is, clearly, hasn’t actually had to do anything for their self, and will find that they are helpless when they are forced to have to carve an existence out of the Earth on their own.

Roses need tending to and only become as beautiful as you care for them to be. Ours are growing just wonderfully where we are in Boyne Falls, Michigan. She and I have never been happier in life despite the wolves that always seem to be at our door. Without those wolves, we wouldn’t be able to fully love and appreciate each other as much as we do, and can only hope for the rest of the world to one day have for their own.

Not having found what you do not want in life, how will you know what you do want? Joy, Love and Pain go together. Life is Good when you let Love Win. Don’t go through life without feeling it.