Next Things Next: The Truth Is Out There – But While We’re Waiting, Make Sure That If You’re Going To Get Yourself Killed Or Maimed In Knox County, They Have A Weapon In Their Hand First

Today, 18-year-old Henry Granju’s life was celebrated by his family and friends and all who loved him throughout his life, as well as many more who cared a great deal about him – some that knew him, some that didn’t. And then he was laid to rest by those same people, which is something no mother or father of an 18-year-old young man should have to do except in nightmares – the ones you have while you sleep as well as the ones that sometimes, unfortunately and horrifically, happen that you can’t wake yourself up from because they’re real.

I didn’t really realize until late in the morning, while sitting here today reading and writing and thinking about Henry and his family and the then-upcoming service, what day it was. Today’s one of those several days throughout the year that have a special meaning for me.

I lost three very special people to me when I was still a teenager (or just barely not one). Three boys my age, all gone from this world before any of the three turned 21 years old. Two at seventeen, one of which took his own life and is much missed by so many. Another killed in a horrible accident when we were 20 years old – my dearest, dearest, very best and closest friend in my lifetime, and the one who really pretty much was my real “high school sweetheart”, as opposed to the one I very narrowly missed winding up married to.

And then there was the other one, who was killed in a terrible car accident when we were seventeen, during the same summer that the other 17 year old took his own life. He was the first of the three that died, and he and I were also very close.

He was also a very, very troubled teenager. There wasn’t an addiction – at least not yet at that point, or not that I was ever aware of – but I’d heard things. And besides that, he just had a lot of teenage problem type stuff going on at the time – some very extraordinarily so, really.

We had been separated for almost two years at the time he died because my family and I had moved to another town, and most of what I was hearing was being filtered back to me through others. But the troubled time and problems started long before I ever moved – a lot of them, to this day, I’m probably still the only other person alive who knows what some of those troubles were.

Things that I heard about later were disturbing enough that, at one point, I’d written several letters begging him to just come on up to where I was now living, telling him he could live at our house and finish school up there with me – all this without having consulted my parents, but I just figured we’d deal with that when and if he ever arrived.

My letters went unanswered, phone calls were never returned. I only saw him twice more before he died – once only for a moment, across a crowded gymnasium at a high school graduation; and shortly afterward, the other time, and only for a second. I thought I had dreamed it, because I was asleep. I hit the ground running to the driveway, just in time to see the vehicle with that other’s county’s plates swing out and take off up the street.

A handful of weeks later, he was gone forever.

Should I have told someone, an adult, all I knew? Probably. Would it have made a difference? Probably not. He had already made the choice not to accept help when he could have. The accident that took his life truly was just that – an unfortunate accident. But if it hadn’t been that accident and that night, there would have been another one – or something far worse than just a tragic teenage car accident.

Today, he would have been 44 years old, like me. But he, nor the other two, will ever be middle-aged like me, or old like I will (hopefully) be someday. They’ll always be seventeen, always be twenty.

Is that why I have been so wrapped up and vocal in my support of Henry and his family? Because I couldn’t save my own dear friends as a teenager that needed help, and lost another soon after? No, not really. Certainly their loss has affected my life and how I live it irretrievably, but this now is not because of that and them. Nor is it because of the “there but for the grace of God” aspect for me and PC, and the fact that my significant other was once a teenager very much like Henry, and very much struggling with the same demons of addiction.

And of course, yes, certainly it has something to do with that I know this family – without having had the opportunity of meeting any of them in person to date, yes. His mother and stepfather have been active in sort of the same circles online as me for many years now, but we also share many of the same friends and acquaintances both online and off – many of whom I’ve had to watch struggle with their sorrow these past several weeks, as well as that of Katie and her family. I’ve literally watched the Granju kids grow up in photographs and anecdotes for ten years now, both publicly on Katie’s blog and her writing, as well as slightly more private “among friends” type settings.

But my sorrow and – yes – anger and outrage now is not just because of that, either. It’s because what’s been happening in Knoxville this past almost six weeks – and especially right now – is terribly wrong.

I don’t really know what to say about the appalling statements that came out of the Knox County Sheriff’s Office last night. Much as I said earlier today, most of this appears to be a poor attempt at spin on what I’m sure has been somewhat of a PR nightmare for KCSO this week – but it was a horrifically boneheaded move in execution, timing, and content, and one they may very well not be able to recover from.The effects are likely to be a lot more far-reaching than anyone down there predicted, and it might be time to step back and cut their losses on this one.

Once again, Aunt B. has already outlined a lot of what was on my mind this morning about it all. And better, and with less of my rather habitual and usual rambling.

Here’s the thing – when you do something stupid, it’s usually best to just step back and admit you did something dumb, apologize, and move on and get back to whatever it was you were supposed to be doing.

But NOW – as if there wasn’t already plenty enough stuff messed up and wrong here – they’ve added yet ANOTHER factor to the mix of messed up stuff about this entire situation.

Now, everybody’s been made aware that if you’re in Knox County, and someone beats you nearly/almost to death with their hands and fists instead of a weapon – not only even if you die, but especially if you die – KCSO’s not going to do a thing about it unless they saw it happen. And if there’s no “weapon” but hands and fists – it’s only a misdemeanor.

The tire iron, as declared now by the KCSO to be fictional, not withstanding – this is what they said:

Because no weapon was used in the assault on Granju, the attack would be a misdemeanor offense. With Granju’s death, any chance of prosecuting the two assailants has passed.

“The only way we can charge in this kind of misdemeanor is if it’s witnessed by us or occurs in our presence,” Jones said.

Huh????

So, okay, let me get this straight. If I’m in Knox County visiting family, and someone – whoever - decides to beat me with their fists, and I wind up in the hospital for over a month with a skull fracture, a broken jaw, and a closed head injury, and am going to be significantly disabled probably for the rest of my life – and then to top it off, I die about five weeks after I’m admitted to the hospital -

Nobody’s going to do anything about it? Because that’s pretty much what that statement above says.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a 5’2″ female and I don’t weigh very much, and I’m not terribly strong. Someone would probably have a bit of a tough time doing any significant damage to my significant other without a tire iron or other weapon because he’s an athletic type who works out all the time and in excellent shape for a dude in his forties. But me? I can’t even get anywhere arm wrestling him, I have like ZERO upper body strength. Most men – and women, for that matter – could wrap their fists around my wrists two or three times over and still maybe have room left over for more.

Somebody could kill me easy without a weapon – absolutely no doubt whatsoever. But it really doesn’t matter whether you’re a pathetically weak little shrimp like me, athletic and strong like my other half, male or female, 100 pounds or 300. There’s people out there that could kill or severely injure anyone, no matter their circumstances, without aid of a weapon.

What they said was that if someone kills you or me, or almost does, and there’s no weapon involved, and it doesn’t happen in front of them or in their presence – they won’t do anything about it.

Makes you feel really safe now, right?

Is it that way all over the state of Tennessee? Is it a flaw in Tennessee law? I don’t know. Possibly. It shouldn’t be that way anywhere. That much is clear.

But in any case, Knox County law enforcement’s now made it abundantly clear, in print, that’s the way it is up there and they won’t do anything about it.

No weapon? Aw, too bad. Sorry about your kid’s broken skull and closed head injury. Sorry your kid died, but there’s no weapon, so you’re out of luck.

Whether that “fictional” tire iron (or any other weapon, for that matter) turns out to actually exist in the end of the full and complete investigation or not – one horrible truth has already come out, and that’s the apparent fact that nobody in Knox County is going to be held responsible for your death or severe injury if there’s no weapon involved and it doesn’t happen in the presence of KCSO law enforcement.

I have a pretty good idea of what Henry’s parents are feeling about all that, because I know how I would feel if my significant other and I were being told the same about his parents, his brother and sister-in-law, his grandmother – all of whom live in Knox County. Except as horrific and bad as that would be – I can only imagine the pain of losing an 18-year-old and beloved son must feel about a million times even worse.

KCSO all but called Katie a liar last night in that statement. In their version of the story, no tire iron or any other weapon exists, among other information as set forth by Katie and the family that last night’s statement has refuted.

Even if it someday proves to be correct that there was no weapon – that still doesn’t make any of this all right. Not by a long shot.

KCSO’s latest actions are, at best, appalling and unprofessional – and appear to be rather spiteful, from much of the public view. That’s disappointing to see from any public service agency – anyone, anywhere, anytime.

The preliminary autopsy results were just that – preliminary. There’s still forensic investigation left to be done, and many folks are of the opinion that some of the statements released last night regarding the preliminary autopsy results were both premature and unwise. Many (including, obviously, me) suspect that someone’s going to have to eat their words, so to speak, at some point in the future.

The Knox County Medical Examiner’s office has been afforded a great deal of respect by the public – especially in recent years over the Christian-Newsom case. While the preliminary autopsy results in Henry’s case were disappointing and baffling, there are many out there who still have some faith that Knox County’s highly skilled ME will find the truth – the real truth – before it’s all over with.

Katie Allison Granju has her son’s medical records, which she has stated publicly clearly state – in regard to Henry’s condition – terms such as skull fracture, broken jaw, closed head injury, and other severe injuries. And Knoxville has a host of highly trained and skilled physicians who, no doubt, can identify such injuries when they see them.

As for the, now as per KCSO, “fictional” tire iron/weapon? Who knows.

And in any decent society, who cares whether it’s a tire iron, a 1000-lb. grand piano, a baseball bat, or a hand and fist?

There’s something terribly wrong with this investigation. Even the naysayers out there who generally come out of the woodwork rushing to defend Knoxville and Knox County law enforcement every time anyone questions anything at all about anything have said as much. There have been several comments in various places stating that it appears someone’s lying, or that it looks like something’s being covered up.

What do I think?

I think there’s more truth out there somewhere, and hopefully it will all come out someday. And probably when it does, whatever comes of it won’t likely be favorable at all towards the current administration of the Knox County Sheriff’s Office.

Whether or not the current administration of the KCSO can bounce back and survive after the unfortunate errors in judgment and boneheaded moves that have been made this week – I guess that will remain to be seen.

Some folks who didn’t know anything about Katie, Henry, or the case until it hit the news this week are projecting that the medical records won’t be released; that the family will ask for privacy; and that this will all just go away. Maybe Friday night, KCSO hoped it would all mostly go away and out from under the microscope too.

Those folks don’t know Katie very well. And – I’m going to make a guess here – might have gravely misjudged, underestimated and failed to predict just who all might be fully in support of seeing that this family, and Henry Granju himself, get the justice they deserve in this case.

That’s just a guess. A not entirely uneducated one, no – but a guess all the same.

I just hope that the family, many friends and loved ones, and everyone else who loved and cared about Henry Granju were able to not let the ill-timed and absolutely appalling latest developments in the case cloud their celebration of Henry’s life earlier this afternoon. Many there were friends and acquaintances of mine as well, but everyone there, whether I knew them or not – virtually all of them were in my thoughts today, and still are. Henry’s loss has been an incredible loss to so many, and it’s been heart-wrenching to watch the suffering of so many, both those I know and those I don’t.

I hope everyone was able to get past the unnecessarily negative new turn of events today to find a little peace. By all accounts I’ve heard thus far, they did, and it was a lovely service and gathering after – despite KCSO’s horrible timing this weekend.

When it comes down to it, though – it’s just that it was a memorial service that should have never had to be arranged and carried out in the first place.

And especially not with thugs still out there on the streets of Knox County – somewhere out there – probably looking for the next person they can carry out such brutal and savage acts of violence on. Especially now that everyone knows that as long as you do it where law enforcement can’t see you, and you don’t use a weapon – you can get away with it.

After all, that’s the message the Knox County Sheriff’s Office put out today. They said so, right here.

And of all the many and varied points of information in that article last night, that’s precisely the one people are probably going to remember the most – and for a long time to come.

OMG WTF, I’m Old

As I’ve mentioned before, since I have now been without cable a few years, instead of watching TV I usually watch original comedy stuff on YouTube – guys like this one and this one and this one, gals like this one, this piece of citrusy goodness, and, of course – these guys, as they’re the home team.

A month or so ago, I was voting in a Survivor-type contest among YouTubers, and I kept seeing this one three-letter acronym used over and over again in comments on people’s videos. It was confusing me terribly as to why people were repeatedly writing this acronym in regards to YouTubers they apparently liked.

Because when I was in college and thereabouts in the Eighties – and into the Nineties, for that matter – all those bad boys with their Black Flag and Minor Threat and Bad Brains records (i.e., the ones I always wound up with – go figure) used to stencil this three-letter acronym on guitar cases and skateboards and stuff. Or my ex’s slightly nerdy, acid-dropping, D&D-playing friends would fake tattoo it on themselves. It was spray painted on the walls (always either in black or red) of at least three apartments I remember in Murfreesboro and two in Nashville, and on the outside of one garage.

You’d have been hard pressed to walk into Cantrell’s, the Exit/In, or Elliston Square in the Eighties and not seen this acronym scrawled on a t-shirt, an Army jacket, or a pair of torn jeans in black magic marker. After all, it was all, everybody’s an anarchist, yada yada and all that… way back then in the ol’ Dark Ages. After all. (I just wanted to fit “all” into this paragraph somehow, just one more time.)

And it – said three-letter acronym – it wasn’t very, well… nice. (And understandably so, since everybody was an anarchist and all that.)

So a month or so ago, I was really having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around why in the world people kept leaving in comments things like:

“(insert YouTube comedian’s name here)… FTW!”

I guess it’s one of the disadvantages to not having kids/teenagers to set me straight – and next time, maybe I’ll have enough sense to just go straight to Urban Dictionary instead of straining my brain over something like “For The Win!” for days. Or a week and a half exactly.

But I guess at least not having teenagers meant I got to spare myself the inevitable ridicule when Mom asked why all these people on YouTube were telling all these other people to f*ck the world, right?

Yep, That About Sums Up the ’80s

SHack: well you were at night court more than me
Lynnster: What? Only because before I met you I used to go there to watch and laugh at people!
SHack: and you never bailed me out
Lynnster: What! I was there every single time!
SHack: but jay always bailed me out
Lynnster: Because I never had money because nobody would have ever eaten if not for me!
SHack: you’d have left me there to rot
Lynnster: I probably should have.
SHack: then you dumped me
Lynnster: Because I was tired of narcissistic sociopath musicians.
SHack: that’s most of your ex-boyfriends
Lynnster: No, you were the only sociopath.
SHack: i played better than all of them though
Lynnster: When you were sober maybe.
SHack: that one night at cantrells
Lynnster: You were banned from Cantrell’s!
SHack: elliston then
Lynnster: You got banned from there too!
SHack: i never got banned from the exit in
Lynnster: Probably only because they forgot to.
SHack: i was never banned in murfreesboro
Lynnster: Well, there’s no accounting for taste.

A Peek Into the Now-Dusty Ex Files

In recent weeks, random information floating around the Internet has revealed that the being known here on the Zone for eons as The Freeloader Ex has apparently gotten himself a divorce in recent months.

One of my best gal pals from college days asked me in an e-mail yesterday: “So, shouldn’t you posting something over at DontDateHimGirl.com right about now?”

Tempting, yes. But probably not.

Oddly enough, and much through the same channels, right about the same time, I also found out another ex-boyfriend of mine has also apparently gotten divorced in the past year or so. That bit of news rather surprised me… unlike the above about FE, which really didn’t surprise me all that much.

In that particular case, no warning off needed for the female masses. That one’s not without some absolutely infuriating qualities, but he’d probably say the same about me, and basically, he’s okay. Me personally, I’d just be, like, been there, done that, I’d pass, thanks.

Probably needless to say, having been almost completely out of work for four months until March, even a small chunk of the literally thousands of dollars the Freeloader Ex owes me, my mother, and owed my late father (in the latter case a pretty largish amount) sure would come in a little handy right now. And since he got his master’s degree a while back, presumably he is well employed these days. But I suppose now alimony and child support will sop up a large percentage of that, and I haven’t held my breath any waiting to see a dime paid back the last, oh, almost 15 years, so I don’t suppose I’ll start holding my breath now either.

Short & Sneezy

Seems like most everyone I know is in kind of this collective mood, in varying degrees of difference ranging from contemplative and introspective, apprehensive and despondent, restless and expectant, and about fifty million other adjectives I could come up with right now.  There’s positives and negatives and plenty of neutrals and just all sorts of stuff going on, but it seems like most are just in sort of this collective funk of some sort; or if not a funk, some very potential life-altering kind of stuff right now.

Whatever’s going on with me is not nearly so literary.  I’m just plain in a mood.

I’m also sneezing again, which is making me mad because I still really have yet to 100% get over that last bout of crud that befell me right before the car wreck.  I’m hoping this sneezy business is just a temporary thing.

More later, because when I start typing and then deleting a sentence that includes Philadelphia, Atlanta, and NYC all in the same sentence, then I know I’m going in the wrong direction with my train of thought and I need to regroup.  None of those three cities nor anyone in them have anything to do with what I’m on about right now.  And I need a little sleep.

I really do not like Sundays, not at all.

Puzzled

I don’t understand men. Well, some men. Not to offend my blogging buddies, many of whom are male and several of whom I consider really good friends.

And I know men in general talk about how impossible to understand we women are. But some of you guys just take the proverbial cake.

Late last night I was on the phone with my friend and longtime partner in crime, the legendary Miss Jo Walker (that’s not her name anymore since marriage, so that’s why I freely toss it around the Internet the way I do, heh), and we were talking about all the people we’ve heard from who have sort of risen from the dead that we’ve come across from old college days and earlier on MySpace the past year or so. Just the other day I logged onto my account for the first time in months and found a MySpace mail from a guy from high school who I probably haven’t seen or talked to since 1985 or 1986, that used to live around the corner from me and was good friends with both me and my high school sweetheart. It just so happens we have lived across town from each other for the last almost 20 years, yet never have bumped into each other down here.

Anyway, so Josie asks me about this guy, have I heard from him yet. I wrote about my quandary at having found his MySpace profile and not knowing whether to contact him or not almost a year ago, before many of you that are reading regularly nowadays were here.

And the answer is no, I haven’t heard a word. And I really don’t know why. Sometime after I posted that last April, I finally broke down and sent him a MySpace add request, with a followup note that just basically said hi, long time no talk, found your profile, good to see things are going well with you musically, add me if you want, blah blah blah.

So he added me, and that was it. Didn’t write anything back or say a word. Okay, whatever.

A couple of times over the course of the past year or so, I’ve sent a note with a link to something I thought (no, knew) he might be interested in. Just music stuff. One band in particular that the only reason he knows anything about them is because of me, because I turned him on to that band – and one of the members who later went solo – back when we were still seeing each other and hanging out.

Again, not a word in response. We’re still on each other’s Friends list, but we have yet to communicate at all, except for the handful of one-sided attempts by me.

So at this point I’m kinda like WTF?! about it and I really don’t get it. The relationship itself certainly did not end the way I would have preferred, but it didn’t end particularly badly, there were no real hard feelings there. The main reason we stopped seeing each other (to my knowledge anyway) was because we lived in different parts of the country and he had professional plans for his future (which never came about) that we couldn’t really seem to make any of the twain meet, so to speak. And he was the one that dumped me anyway… so if I’m not mad and heartbroken and I’m over it, what’s the problem?

And we stayed friends and stayed in touch talking back and forth for about year after, until he just all of a sudden kinda dropped off the face of the online earth for a while. I’m pretty sure I didn’t do anything to precipitate that at the time. As for now, yeah, he got married and I’m getting married, so what? There’s nothing in the universe that says we can’t be friends, especially not ten years after the fact. Most of my guy friends are married (or otherwise attached) anyway, so again, so what?

I just don’t get it, but in any case, I haven’t made any effort towards contact since the last time it was ignored. It’d be one thing if I was making a pest of myself, but I have absolutely made an effort to not make a big deal there and not attempt to insinuate myself back into his life even remotely so. I haven’t been jumping up and down in his MySpace mailbox all the time screaming look at me, pay attention to me, nothing like that at all. Just the two other notes besides the initial contact, both about things that were pretty relevant to things I know he digs musically.

But I guess at this point I did kind of expect at least a “hey, how are you doing” or SOMETHING. I guess I expected too much, apparently.

It just bugs me because this is somebody I really, really just plain liked and got along rather famously with in a way that I don’t always with others. Sure, I was crazy about him when we were seeing each other, but after all that was over with, I was cool with just being friends, he was someone that I still enjoyed chatting with and e-mailing back and forth long after the broken heart stage. He’s just someone I genuinely liked a lot and enjoyed spending time with, whether it was in person or in e-mail or on the phone. Or at least I did. Someone who is absolutely hilarious, and who I have missed a great deal over the years.

We were a lot alike and had many many things in common, and he’s funny, and I’ve just missed him. I wish we’d never fallen out of touch (for whatever reason that was) and I’ve missed talking with him and hearing from him. Not unlike the way I miss KC and those guys, except this one’s, you know, alive.

That’s kind of saying a lot, really. I wouldn’t say that about most of my past relationships, the ones that are still living anyway. The majority, I wouldn’t welcome so much hearing from.

I think he probably doesn’t read my blog, though it doesn’t matter anyway.

Anyway, I just don’t get it, the silence. But I guess I will just continue not to get it, ‘cos it doesn’t appear that it will change anytime soon. I can take a hint, but in this case it just doesn’t really make any sense to me.

Ten Years of Babbling About Nothing

So I have to post NOW, because yesterday (Sunday) was my anniversary of ten years of blogging and I totally missed it being so blasted sick this weekend. GRRRR. Although I don’t really have anything extraordinary to say about it, it’s basically a decade of babbling about nothing much and a few rants here and there. At least I’m persistent, I guess.

OK, so, well, I’m semi-alive. I thought I was doing better and even said as much to Hutch earlier today, but after dinner (supper, whatever, I’m not getting in that debate ‘cos in my house we always called it both) I started feeling like death warmed over again, so I’m hurrying up and posting before I wind up attached to the bathroom floor again. Name a symptom, I’ve probably had it in the last 72 hours.

The pics from Sista’s birthday party at the Mothership are great, dammit, and looks like so much fun was had. I am especially upset at not having gotten to meet Scout or Finn at the soiree this weekend, plus Beth who I’ve heard so much about. And I heard Little Knuck was there, too, dang it. And then I got even more miserable because there were several people there I didn’t know beforehand were coming, all of whom I didn’t get to spend as much talking with as others when I went up the weekend before and would have loved to talk with more this time, as well as spending some more time with, well, everyone, so now I’m even more mad about being sick. And apparently there was a rock star there too, disguised in badass shades. And dang it, it was Sista’s birthday. I’m just sick about this being sick and missing everything. Poop. Well, I know I’ll be in Nashville again soon enough and I’ll have to make a point to head up northward for coffee at Jack’s Java some Saturday afternoon soon or something. But I wish now I’d just tried to go anyway, even though I guess I shouldn’t have. But still.

I hate being sick. Having worked in the medical field for most of the last 25 years, I can say in no uncertain terms that no, I am not a good patient.

Anyway, I still need to post some memories and reflections on my last trip to Nashville ‘cos I got something to say about everybody and everything, but it’s much too much to post right now when I may be speaking in tongues in any minute due to this fever creeping up again. I have to tell you all about one thing in particular that was super super cool. But I’ll post about it sometime this week.

In other news, last week at work really sucked and I got some kinda bad news that has me a bit worried, so I’m just keeping fingers crossed and having faith that maybe I’ll still have a job a few months from now. When so many others I know have been going through that horror lately and I just hate it for them ‘cos it just stinks to be dealing with that, I’m hoping I’m not going to be the next one out of work.

I actually have several other things to write about but it’s going to have to wait, as I’m now starting to feel dizzy. And if a dizzy blonde anyway is feeling even dizzier, it can’t be good. UGH. What IS this, the bubonic plague?? Holy cats.

If I were Kathy T, I’d kill me, but she WILL have her new blog within a couple of days. And next project is the complete and unabridged Tiny Cat Pants. If it takes me the rest of 2007, Aunt B. WILL have her entire blog in one place.

Anyway, yeah. Ten years of babble. I bet some of my ex-boyfriends wish I’d just shut up. Not gonna. Nyah.

River Deep, Mountain High

While catching up on all the commentary and tons of great photos following the Nashville blogging community’s Holiday Blogger Meat-Up at the Mothership last weekend, it quickly became obvious to this reader that one young man had definitely made a big impression on the ladies. So much so, in fact, that his mom was later seen apologizing him getting, shall we say, a little handy in the boob department with some of those smitten females, heh. He really is one of the most adorable little round headed babies ever.

Anyhow, all that hangin’ out with precious little babies stirred up a little motherly instinct and baby lust in some who attended, discussed earlier this week (I’ll not repeat where since she was having second thoughts about posting such stuff as it was :) – which I should probably be having second thoughts about right about now myself). But I can’t really say that I didn’t get a little of that myself just looking at pictures of all the cuteness. Babies and children are adorable, no doubt.

And in recent weeks elsewhere at another spot I hang out a lot, there had been some questions posed about one’s reasons to have kids or not, which I didn’t really get involved in at the time. But I’d been thinking about that stuff anyway – and listening to the biological clock I used to be pretty sure was broken ticking – for a while now.

ne important thing about all this is that originally, kids were never NOT supposed to be in the picture. I grew up fully expecting I’d have kids someday and never thinking anything different. Arguing with my mom on dozens of occasions when there was resistance to whatever teenage scheme I was trying to push and get permission for, I got told time and time again that I’d understand when I had kids of my own.

But that day never came, even though at one time, it was most definitely supposed to.

Though I have not lived in a small town in over 20 years, somewhere deep down in this jaded city dweller’s heart, I am still a small town girl. There was a small number of us that left for college elsewhere after high school, though several of those that left did eventually return. Most of my friends and acquaintances, however, are still there and never left.

Consequently, when I find myself back home, two things always happen: one, I’m reminded that they all think I’m crazy to have stayed in Memphis. I think this is just me, rather than others who left town years ago – if I’d remained in Murfreesboro/Nashville instead or gone permanently to Knoxville/Maryville, I don’t think the issue would be quite the same. Memphis, however, is like the big bad awful city of crime and other negative things to most of them, and I just won’t even go further into that right now or this post would be 50 miles longer and go off on a whole other secondary subject. Let’s just say Memphis is bad and scary to them, OK to visit but they wouldn’t wanna live here, and leave it at that. So therefore, I’m crazy for staying here, especially for 20 years.

The other thing that inevitably happens – and I don’t even have to be there in town, if there’s someone here in Memphis or anywhere else that I went to high school with, it always comes up – is that my high school sweetheart’s name comes up in conversation. Sometimes it’s directly asking where he is and what he’s doing these days (I do know, although there’s no logical reason anyone should expect that I would know that). Sometimes it’s just brought up as an offhand comment or remembrance that has nothing to do with me; sometimes it’s a little more involved with me, like, “Remember when y’all went to (wherever) with us?” That kind of thing.

It’s like this parallel universe there, where my name and his will always be inextricably linked. They see me, they think of him too. I wonder if they do the same thing when they see him (which is much less than they see me, in general – he’s been several states away for many years now). I am guessing that most of them do, if not all. I think they probably don’t ask him about me nor mention me at all though. Probably mainly because so many of them wanted to string him up and tar and feather him when we split up, and after all these years, they’ll be pleasant to him, no doubt, but they’re still holding a grudge. They’ve got my back, even though I never asked for it nor expected it, nor have felt it even necessary for a couple of decades.

It’s a little bit odd that this word/name-association continues after all these years if you look at those still in my hometown, mainly because many of them are on their second and third, and even a few on their fourth, marriages. And some of them have married folks that I never in a million years would have guessed they’d have wound up together. Those people have become mentally disassociated with their past lives and past relationships, in the minds of others around them. This type thing doesn’t generally happen with them. At least I think so. But all of them see each other all the time; I think that’s the difference.

The difference with me is they don’t see me but maybe once, twice a year if even that much. And actually, admittedly, I’m kind of guilty of the same thing – even if I don’t say anything about that person from the past, I see so-and-so and I immediately think of whoever it was they were with way back when.

I don’t know, maybe we ALL do it, and I just don’t know this. Maybe everyone, in the back of everyone else’s mind, is inextricably linked with whoever from their past, in some weird small town way. I just know I’m the one, and seemingly about the only one, who always gets asked about him, or he’s mentioned when I’m around. At least I never hear anyone else get asked some of the things I do, or hear their high school sweetheart’s name dropped every single time like always happens to me.

But that might be, I’m going to guess again, because I am just about the only one left who has never gotten married or had kids. There might be one or two others left, but I’m probably the only one who actually is seen at some hometown functions from time to time.

And that’s the other thing about this whole dynamic. Besides thinking I’m crazy (maybe the better word here is “eccentric”, heh) for never leaving Memphis in all these years, it’s that it really, really kinda bugs them that I’ve never gotten married and/or had kids. In fact, I’d go so far to say that it has often been thought, and also probably verbalized, that I “ain’t been right” since aforementioned HS sweetheart and I split up – solely because I have never gotten married and had kids, and exacerbated by the fact that I have chosen to remain in, god forbid, Memphis for so very long.

Has this ever actually been verbalized to me? Nope. But I know it’s true, and furthermore, the bottom line here really is the fact that they blame HIM for me having never gotten married, not having children, and not living happily ever after.

I suppose there is some logic there because, at one time, that was exactly what was SUPPOSED to happen. It was not only all practically planned down to some of the smallest details, but we came dangerously close to blowing off all the traditional and formal plans and running off to elope, get married a few years before planned. Somewhat fortunately in retrospect, we were both too drunk to drive – the discussion taking place at a college football game between his school and my school – and upon sobering up the next morning, the immediate urgency of the nuptials from the night before was all but forgotten. And can I just add – whew.

Because while I appreciate the friends I have who would not only fight to the death for me but hold that grudge for me for all these many years, I know that marriage would have been a mistake. Granted, it took me a few years to come to terms with that conclusion, but I know that relationship would not have survived intact to today. We’d have been divorced before either of us turned 30, no doubt. In fact, the person he did end up marrying, he divorced, though they later remarried (and are married still, far as I know).

Like I said, though, when we were still planning to get married eventually, we had everything planned out right down to various wedding details, the cars we would drive (he was a car nut, so that was muy important to him), and had picked out names of at least firstborn male and female children. (I know, it’s sickeningly sweet, ugh.)

He has a son. It just so happened that his wife’s maiden name is the same as the name we had picked out for the firstborn male child. It threw me for a moment when I’d first heard, yeah, but I had to get over it pretty quick. Under the circumstances, it’s not like I could be really angry about THAT.

For many years after, I kind of took some pride in the fact that I had gone on to have a life that had a few adventures and such, and certainly doing and seeing things and going places that someone in his position couldn’t really do. He was one of those people so bright he could have gone to college anywhere, and ended up giving up the college education he was in the middle of, and a doubtless promising career after graduation, in order to work full-time to support the family he had within barely a year of our split. I can’t say I fared much better with college seeing as how I kept dropping out, but for a long time I was still in and out of school, and certainly doing things and going places that I couldn’t have if I’d been a working mom with a baby to raise and a husband at home in my twenties.

For a long time, I thought, well, I wound up having a life, and he didn’t have one. That was, of course, coming from a still pretty bitter and resentful, and still fairly young girl in her twenties who maybe needed to feel that way for a while to be able to move on to something else where things like that didn’t matter. I’m not particularly proud of all that residual bitterness and resentment, but things between us ended on a pretty ugly note, and that’s probably really kind of an understatement. All of my friends wanted to kill him at the time; some of our mutual friends were pretty angry with him at the time, though maybe not quite as homicidal. The last time we were both in the same room 20 years ago, he himself admitted to one of my friends he was scared to death to try and talk to me – which, if you know me, that’s pretty laughable, I’m the easiest person in the world to talk to.

In any case, yes, it was ugly when it ended, and may be the only ended relationship of my life that I ever truly walked away with this huge upper hand, even though my failure to marry and have children later has rendered me “irreparably damaged” by well-meaning friends who I love very dearly. So for a long time I was happy I’d had this “big life” while he’d had “no life”. And then I got over myself after a while, and grew up, and none of that mattered anymore and was all but forgotten.

Well, obviously – my allegedly grown up self can now recognize – he probably had the life he wanted. And he certainly has something I’ve never had, like a family of his own. A child of his own.

In that regard, I’ve got to wonder – sometimes – who really missed out.

When pondering such issues (which I really don’t do often – nay, I mostly try to avoid this direction of philosophy!)… well, it probably doesn’t help matters, in my mind anyway, to have to remember that I pretty much wasted my twenties, and most of my thirties. It was sort of an accident, almost as if one day I was 21 or 22 with alllllllllllll this time ahead of me to do whatever, and then all of a sudden, I’m pushing 40. And where did all that time go?

Well, a good nearly seven years of it was spent with the Freeloader Ex, who I moved down here to Memphis with in the first place. Well, seven years if you count the four years we were actually a real couple, plus the next three years we spent as roommates with occasional delusions that everything might be all right and we’d be okay as a couple again. His extreme drug and alcohol problems kind of kept taking care of those delusions time and time again, which was certainly all for best, all things considered.

But the first couple of years we were together, it wasn’t like that yet. His problems had not evolved to what they eventually became. I don’t know that at the time I was really active thinking marriage and children at that point, with him anyway, but I still always figured that eventually I would, indeed, one day have kids.

Before I ever even got to the point where I was thinking in that direction, though, something came up that forced the issue. We had been together probably less than six months at that point, when we learned that he might indeed already be a father. The child was already born and the mother was requesting a paternity test. Stress, stress, stress.

In the course of a conversation about it all one afternoon, that’s when I learned that it was his intention to never bring any children into this world – or at least not any more children, if this child turned out to be his. He didn’t want to be a father, didn’t want to have children. Not with me; not with anyone.

Well, okay. I spent the next several days being bothered about that, as well as being kind of puzzled that it was bugging me so much since it hadn’t really been an issue or even a thought at that point. And it wasn’t so much that I desperately wanted to have children and soon. And at that point in time in my early twenties, I didn’t really feel like I was ready to make that jump yet anyway. But it had never ever occurred to me that I wouldn’t ever have children of my own, someday. And at the time, having just started a new life in a new city with someone I was really in love with at the time, I certainly hadn’t been looking to leave that relationship anytime soon.

I struggled with it for a while until it got to the point where I knew the decision was going to have to be made. Should I stay or should I go? If I stayed, then I was settling for never having children. Should I stay, or should I walk and possibly have children and a family of my own someday?

You know how that turned out – I stayed. And eventually, I actually convinced myself that I really didn’t want kids anyway.

And I love kids, I enjoy them. I spent years being “favorite aunt” and godmother type to dozens of my friends’ kids, some of whom are almost grownups themselves now, and that’s always been really cool.

And yes, at that point of my life it probably would have been a bad idea. We had a few really good years, and then a few years that were a complete and utter nightmare as his substance abuse problems escalated. When we finally made the mutual decision that he was moving out (albeit before I was going to have to just kick him out) – once he was gone, I felt like I’d been run over by a few dozen trains. Putting my life back together again wasn’t easy, but god, it was such a relief to be rid of all that craziness and negativity.

But you just don’t expect that what starts out as a fairly normal relationship and a pretty good thing is going to turn into something as horrific as that did. I get angry with myself sometimes for not having been able to predict what would happen. But in reality, I couldn’t have.

I dated a while, even ended up in another long-term relationship that wasn’t bad at all; we just never really belonged together in the first place. Some more shorter relationships after that, none of which ever really stuck, save for one; and in that one, had things gone in that direction, I would have ended up being a stepmom, which I would have been pretty cool with had that worked out.

In any case, for that entire time I was still pretty certain I really didn’t want to have kids of my own anyway. And as a family member or two or three made a point of pointing out, I was getting a little bit old for that kind of thing anyway (oh, yes, thanks for reminding me).

Then around my mid-thirties – 34, 35, 36 – three things happened. First, I had a routine test turn up bad, and spent the next eight months under a cancer scare and dealing with the possibility that I might well be having a hysterectomy before it was all over with. Fortunately, at the end of those eight months, all was well and I got a clean bill of health.

But it’s one thing to think you probably don’t want to or are not going to have kids. It’s a whole other thing to deal with when that choice is potentially about to get taken away from you without you having any say in the matter.

Second, I fell in love with my best friend, someone who had been pretty much right under my nose for well over a decade anyway. In the old days, I had been with Freeloader Ex, and his significant other at the time was one of my best, longtime girlfriends – and, in turn, he and the Ex had been close pals. NOW, it’s as obvious as the nose on my face that the wrong two couples were together at the time, and it’s obvious that there were already some pretty deep feelings there on both sides. But the timing would have been bad; and chances are, had a relationship evolved at the time, it never would have lasted. When the time was right, the time was just right. Four years later, we’ve had ups and downs like everyone else – some of them maybe a little more extreme than a lot of people – but we’re solid.

So there was that, and I guess anybody out there who did find the right and perfect person for them knows that when that happens, strange things happen. Like, even though you may have just felt absolutely certain for the last 15 years that you just really didn’t want to have kids, have a family – that hmm, maybe it would kind of be nice to have those things after all, maybe.

Though in our case, it really is starting to get kind of late. His mom had his youngest brother when she was in her forties, and older than I am now. And he loves kids, is great with them, would be a terrific dad. It’s still a possibility, certainly, and not only that but there’s the adoption and foster options too, especially older kids that they have such a hard time finding adoptive or foster homes for. But we’ll be okay, too, if it winds up just being us.

The third thing that happened around the same time as the other two, though, was undeniably the most bittersweet and the hardest to swallow.

I wrote (joked) about the detox effort with my ex a few weeks ago, in a short post That was close to seven years ago, and the next chapter of that little story is that we came very close, once he started getting clean and sober again, to getting back together again. Prior to his going into rehab, we talked about it some, and basically mutually agreed to talk about it again later on down the line, once he had gotten through rehab and gotten his shit together again. It was not the time to be discussing such things when he needed to focus on getting straight. I had made the arrangements for him to get into residential treatment, with some financial help from a family member, and drove him down there, a few hundred miles away, and let go, for the time being.

That future planned talk never happened. In the end, when it came down to it – when the answer was going to have to be either yes or no – I’m 99% certain my final answer would have had to have been no. The water that was under that bridge seemed way too deep, and I guess the feeling was mutual. It just wasn’t supposed to happen.

I wasn’t prepared at all for what did, though. He went back to college while still in rehab. Eventually, he graduated, and even went on to get his master’s. Which was great, fabulous, of course.

He also got married, and had a child.

Yeah, well, it took Mr. Edge (Not of U2) about a month to talk me down from the cloud of anger and venom and bitterness and resentment and all manner of rather violent wanting to go kick his ass to Timbuktu and back, or worse, over that little bit of news. I was so mad for weeks I was practically spitting not only proverbial nails but proverbial poison darts, dammit. My outrage got crazy and twisted enough that Edge – who dislikes him intensely and for reasons that mostly have little to do with me and are more about leftover garbage from what was their friendship of the past – was almost taking up for the ex, in the face of all my venom-spewing. I was picking apart every little incident and occurrence from that past relationship and tossing all kinds of evil theories out there, and poor Edge would be saying things like, “Look, I know you’re angry, and you have a good reason to be, but I was there, remember, and I really don’t think it was that way,” or “I really don’t think he meant it like that.”

And eventually he said, “You’ve just got to let this go.” And he was right. No matter how angry I was at this person who’d insisted he was never having children, we were never having children – and no matter how much a part of me really wanted to just pick up the phone and scream that he’d “robbed” me of my twenties and any dream I’d ever had of a family and children, and how dare he have a child of his own after that – no matter all that.

He might have been the catalyst, but it was ultimately MY decision. I made the choice to stay, knowing what I knew, and I stayed for years. It was on me, totally.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have the potential to still sting a little. If my mind goes wandering in that direction, which it doesn’t often, I very quickly remind myself it was my choice. End of story, fini.

I regret some things I didn’t used to, I guess. One thing I DON’T regret is having helped him get clean and get his life back together and back on track when I did. He hit bottom a bunch of times in many years, some of which I witnessed and some of which I wasn’t around to, but that last time – which was the first I had heard from him in over five years – I knew if I didn’t do something, he probably wasn’t going to make it. So I did what I felt I had to do. Presumably, he’s still alive, safe, well, and these days pretty successful. No regrets.

And me, the whole kid thing’s not much in the forefront of my mind, if at all. Something, like some of the discussions and questions posed in recent weeks, I’ll get to thinking things like, “Well, you know, I don’t know.” Deeper than that I suppose, in truth, but that’s the Cliffs Notes version.

Or I’ll be talking to or hanging out with my mom, who is, like, the coolest. With the exception of the teenage years, which were kinda tough on both of us, we’ve had this really great relationship, and especially so since I’ve been an adult. We don’t see each other in person as often as we once did, but whenever we do get to hang out, we have a great time. And we’re really, really close.

And I guess that’s when it occurs to me most, to think – well, maybe I HAVE missed out on something here after all. What my mom has with me is something I’m quite probably not going to have the opportunity to have.

Not going to lose a whole lot of sleep over it, no. But yeah, it’s there. At least a little.

So, obviously the latter part of this week has been kind of uncharacteristically deep in thought and serious, ugh. But like I said, sometimes I write just to get it out of my head and be somewhere else. And now it is. At least, until and unless writer’s remorse gets the best of me. Then again, I’ve always been pretty much an open book and could care less.

So I’m done with the deep and serious this week, everyone will doubtless be glad of that. Blondes shouldn’t ever, ever think this much, it makes our head hurt, heh heh.

Deep thought moratorium officially begins. Now, pardon me while I go see what Britney Spears has been up to for the last 24 hours.

Memory in the Making

Warning – rocky road ahead, so to speak. You don’t have to stick around and read for this one. It’s probably really just for me, and someone else who might never read it. But it’s okay if you do. Doesn’t matter to me.

Sometimes I write because if I don’t, it’ll nag and nag and nag at me until I finally just do it and get it all out and be finished with it. I would say I make a habit of that, but there’s boxes of notebooks and typewriter-typed pages and all kinds of other such stuff tucked away in a box in the back of my bedroom closet that would prove that to be the contrary; that I always finish it, that I always get it out and over and done with. Which, actually, probably explains a lot about, oh, everything. I think I’ve come to terms with the fact, lately, that after 20 and 15 and 10 years, none of that stuff in those boxes is ever getting finished.

And sometimes it’s just the stuff that has no potential entertainment or literary value whatsoever – it just needs to get out of my head and be somewhere else.

So, here.

Having written about Nashville, non-country, music past this week and reading a bit about the same genre in the present – and having been involved in a couple of long conversations that included a lot discussion about Nashville past and present this week – I find myself over here at the sorry, flat, ugly southwest end of the state a little preoccupied, both with past memories and a few present troubles. And also a little homesick, I suppose.

It’s never been any secret among my friends and family that I never really wanted to leave Middle Tennessee. I basically moved to Memphis because I was young, stupid, and in love, and thus I convinced myself that moving here was the right decision to make.

Actually, if I’d HAD to move somewhere and had no choice at all about staying in Middle Tennessee at the time, I would have rather gone to East Tennessee. That was where the object of my affection was at the time and had been for a while, and where I was quite a bit of the time anyway at that point. But he decided he wanted to go westward for school. I came with him, and here we ended up in Memphis.

Sort of eerie and what may have been a portent of things to come – fortunately he was driving – I became violently ill, sick to my stomach, before we even left Rutherford County on the day we moved, and stayed sick for a couple of days after. I couldn’t even drink a couple of sips of water without it coming back up.

In retrospect, it was yet another really bad decision to go right along with all the other thousands of bad decisions I have made in life. Still and all, I was a pretty big fan of Memphis for a while, and there were some good years here with him, and still some more good years here after him and without him. It wasn’t all bad. Sometimes I think I just outgrew this city. I don’t think there was any one thing or one event that soured me so, such as I am. I think I just stayed too long.

And again, the longer I’m here and not that happy about it, the more I regret ever leaving Middle Tennessee in the first place. The last year I was there was the best ever. I had finally moved into an apartment that I absolutely loved, after years of bouncing from place to place every six months or less, on a quiet street a few blocks from the MTSU campus. I was taking classes again, at night. My job at the time, I worked with people I genuinely liked a great deal. Three very distinctly different groups of friends to hang out that were all great fun – friends from school, some of which were also from my hometown; friends from a former job to party with in Murfreesboro; friends I hung out with, most of the time, in the clubs and indie music scene in Nashville, a couple of whom I had actually known since childhood via church camp and other Episcopal youth statewide stuff throughout childhood and teen years.

It was that last group I was closest to, always have been, all these years still. What’s left of us anyway. Kind of like everything else I had, all those great things I was so happy with at the time in Middle Tennessee that I left behind. They’re just gone, mostly.

Many of my friends from that time are gone, not only from Nashville and that old scene, but gone from this world altogether. Accidents, drugs, a murder, illness – you name it, most of the usual culprits have whittled down what was a very close-knit group of twelve or thirteen-odd or so people down to a meager group of six. The oldest one is only 42 years old.

I know, “only” 42. Maybe that sounds old to some people. 40 sounds old to me lots of days. But it’s really not, not in the grand scheme of things. No, it’s not.

Anyway, that – coupled with many more friends I have lost from my hometown crowd, and some other friends – it’s just stunning. You’re not supposed to be 40 years old and have lost count of how many people are irretrievably missing from your life. You’re not supposed to be 40 years old and have outlived so many of your peers.

I’m kind of afraid though, lately, I’m losing another one. I’ve been down this road before – and with the same person, no less, as well as others – to know you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. Or find someone who doesn’t want to be found.

Way back in those old days, technically I lived in Murfreesboro at the time, but most of my friends and my boyfriend for a good bit of that period were in Nashville. Throughout much of the last half of 1986 and almost all of 1987, I was really pretty much living in Nashville, even though my mail was still being delivered to Rutherford County and I was still paying rent there.

One of our gang had this little apartment that’s no longer there, almost within spitting distance of the good old Exit/In. Even though there was, like, NO room – it was a tiny place, really small – the core group of a dozen of us were living there almost ’round the clock. Between all of us, plus all the people that were always coming home with us from the clubs as well as some of the bands from out of town, there was hardly room for that many bodies. Somehow we managed, as long as you didn’t mind getting stepped on in the dark in the middle of the night sometimes.

I wrote about that time earlier this year here in the blog (at the time, my intentions being to poke fun at my good and old friend Josie Walker’s gigantic boat feet, which really are huge, you wouldn’t believe):

“…way back in the old days when everybody used to flop at Scott’s old apartment in West End, which was small to begin with, sometimes it was even harder to find sleeping space because not only the twelve or thirteen of us in our little group, as well as any assortment of dates and girlfriends and boyfriends, would be crashing there as well as, sometimes, most of whomever had been at whichever club that night. As well as, sometimes, whatever band from out of town had been playing at whichever club that night. Sometimes it would just be wall to wall people crashed in every available chair (not many) and the couch (only one) and the floor and you’d have to watch where you stepped if you had to make one of those middle of the night sneaks to the bathroom. This was always especially fun if you’d had too much to drink that night and were, indeed, trying to get to the bathroom to throw up or something.”

Some of the best and funnest (sic) times of my life were spent in that little hole of an apartment. As long as you had no immediate need for the restroom facilities – since there was ALWAYS someone else in there – it was actually a pretty cool little place to be, at that age anyway.

Also in that apartment, so were some of the worst times. One of the worst days of my life was the morning I had to drive down there after working the graveyard shift at the ER at Southern Hills, having had the misfortune of being the one on the front desk that night when the ambulance brought one of our group in following a wreck on Harding Place. The only explanation for why he was down that far south in the first place, and at that time of night, was that he must have been coming to visit and hang out with me at work. And instead, I had to be the one to go tell everyone the next morning, everyone crashed and hungover in that little apartment, what had happened and that he was gone.

But there were probably many more good times than bad back then, and if not good memories, extraordinary ones. It was a pretty wild time, crazy time. When the party ended at whichever club, the party relocated to that teeny apartment most nights. You never knew who you might find worshiping the porcelain god in the bathroom, since that door would never lock. There’s a few secrets I can never tell.

All of the great bands that came through town at the time, I had the privilege of getting to meet almost everyone I could have ever possibly wanted to back then – with the exception of Paul Westerberg and the rest of The Replacements, which is a humongous thorn in my side to this day. Every single time The Replacements ever came to Nashville then, I had to be somewhere else, one time back home for a funeral. I never got to see them play live until the last tour before they broke up, seeing them here in Memphis.

The only person whose name was actually ON the lease of the apartment – well, if it was three in the morning and we weren’t bailing him out of jail or picking him up from night court, he was frequently found hanging upside down off the balcony half-naked (or sometimes all naked) singing at the top of his lungs, sometimes with guitar in hand, sometimes not. Several in that core group of people living/slash/squatting there had serious drug and alcohol problems, but that one – he was completely out of control. So much so that people all over town were taking bets on how long he’d last, when he was gonna pull the ultimate Jim Morrison or Jimi Hendrix and, you know – ::poof:: – be gone, just like that.

And then he shocked the hell out of everyone by cleaning up, getting straight. Going back to and finishing college. Went out west for a while. Made a shitload of money, enough that he could pretty much retire before he was 40 years old, though he still kept working when he felt like it.

Fifteen or so really good years, and then in a flash, it was like all that good stuff never happened. He was using again. Things got ugly. There was a horrific argument between four of us – three against one. He told us all to go to hell, especially me. All of the addicts and alcoholics I have known except for a couple, it’s either my “fault” or I’m the first and foremost target when they’re lashing out. I’m used to it, I know how to stand my ground with them, they hate me for it, big deal. I’m only 5’2″, but I somehow become like the biggest threat to them being able to poison themselves with whatever they’re on at the time, like I’m someone who will take their drugs or their booze away from them. Not that it ever stopped any of them.

But then he got clean again, shocking what few of us are left to be shocked once again. And was doing so, so great.

And then he split town to go work on a big project, presumably for a few weeks. That was late August, or maybe early September. Supposed to be back long before Thanksgiving.

The cell phone’s still on, though goes to voice mail every time. Credit cards are still being used, and with the proper signature (very helpful when the best friend is also one’s accountant). MySpace profile has been logged into a couple of times. Shrug.

Back in the old days when we were all living/squatting/crashing in that little place in West End, young Greg, who was like my baby brother and was the only one of the whole group younger than me – he was 17, 18 at the time – had these delusions that we would just all be together forever. That we’d like all just go off and set up some bohemian commune somewhere. Since everyone there was either a musician or artist or writer, or a wannabe of any of the three (except Stevie Kane, who rather inexplicably went into accounting and will, by god, tell you himself that accounting is an art in itself – yeah, OK, Steve)… well, Greg just had these stars in his eyes about all this hippie dippie shit. Let’s all just go off and start our own little artists’ colony or whatever and just live there forever, happily ever after. I think it broke his heart when everyone started graduating, moving away and moving on, scattering as people do. Growing up, supposedly.

I won’t go so far to say everyone in the bunch was hugely talented in their respective art, but we did have a few that were simply amazing. Watching and listening to Joey or Greg or Scott play guitar; Joey crafting a new song from start to finish; watching Scot the Happy Italian draw or paint and his keen eye for capturing everything perfectly; reading anything Ev wrote – all experiences I was fortunate to be able to witness, day after day.

But the most prolific and constantly evolving piece of art in the house (and I use the term “art” here loosely) was one big giant long poem (also using the term “poetry” loosely) that was scribbled in black Sharpie, in the handwriting of a dozen or so different people, on this beat up old bulletin board that was hanging down almost the entire side of the refrigerator. That bulletin board was Communication Central for the house for about two years, and the rule was everything written there had to keep the poem going, no matter what it was about. Grocery lists, reminders, arguments and calling someone out on their shit, whatever – it had to be part of the poem.

A few I remember -

Paper towels, milk, and please some Cap’n Crunch?
Pork chops and applesauce – The Brady Bunch!

Can someone pick me up after work today?
That all depends, Miss Jo, how much you willing to pay?

Looks like someone forgot to pay the electric bill.
Oh, you’ll learn to love the dark, quit bitching and take another happy pill.

You fucking asshole, Scott! Where the hell is my money??
Ummmmmm probably in his dealer’s pocket, honey.

Nope, no stellar poetic talent there, but at least it was kind of entertaining most days. Two, two and a half years’ worth of it. Probably mostly arguing about money, since nobody ever had any, something always needed to be paid or someone needed to be paid back, and whenever the boys had any money anyway, it almost all went to colossal amounts of booze, weed, other party favors. If not for Jo and me, we’d have never had electricity.

I’ve no idea what happened to it after everyone finally moved out and left for good, it’s probably a shame no one kept it. I called Josie Thursday morning to ask about it. She remembered how it was about to fall apart to begin with when the boys slapped it up there on the fridge, so she figures it probably fell apart when anyone tried to remove it.

This below lives elsewhere on the ‘Net, posted late this past summer:

Photos scattered all around my floor
Twelve souls plus a couple or three more
But only a handful of souls outside 900 Broadway
Bitter gray cold February day
Walking along Church Street, pausing at a stop sign
“When there are two or three of us, it’s fine”
“When we’re all together, it’s toxic and sick”
And with that the wise little one stopped traffic
Don’t tell me you’ve never been able to see
The common denominator was always me?

I didn’t write that, you see.
But you who did, I think you’re reading here still – please, just call me.
Or Stevie Kane or Jo or Jay.
We just want to know that you’re okay.

The Fires of Hell Will Take You

Reason #1,274 that I am probably going to Hell for my smart mouth…

Year: 1999

On my couch: Freeloader Ex, for the first time in five years since we split up and he split town

On the table: Bottled water, ibuprofen, various bottles of herbal remedies like St. John’s Wort and others, vitamin supplements, wet and dry washcloths, and a bucket to throw up in

Why: In-home detox attempt (don’t try this at home, kids)

Him: “Okay, so now you know what to do and no matter what I say, don’t give me a drink. Do you have any questions?”

Me: “Yeah. This isn’t going to turn out like Leaving Las Vegas, is it?”