The tree in the cave
Part 1
No matter where you live in America just about every hot summer day in a small town city like Omaha Nebraska is pretty much the same all across the country, everywhere there seems to be a lot of hot tired people with bad tempers returning home from jobs or just not getting there soon enough for them as the heat waves from a Midwestern sun refuses to let them be.
Just another day in the Big “O” on it’s way out after nothing more to offer then a punishing heat as the setting sun fires off it’s last few rays of light in a early August sky before speeding off like a drunken gang-banger in a stolen car, another useless day is brought to an end in a life where someone gets attacked in some form every five seconds, some will lose their life, others will lose other things as the evenings last light’s in a distant sky turns into a hot sticky rain of depression that hangs in the still night air like a spider web that seems to be falling everywhere suddenly blanketing everything in sight.
Darkness slowly takes over what’s left of another useless day, making this all become little more than part of the shadows where I struggle for my life with these feelings of anxiety and depression growing like a tapeworm inside my head instead of what’s about to be another attempt to do better in life after failing to keep the things we already had.
It was the most painful thing to ever happen to me that wasn’t of a physical nature, to watch as your family becomes homeless by the careless actions of your own doings can be more painful than anything you’ll ever experience even though it’s not physically so makes it no less as bad in your mind where it feels like your back has been slammed against the wall in life by you own foolish actions right along with the sinking realization that it’s more than just your ass being done this way by your mistakes now, it’s not just your back that’s being slammed against it it’s the back of your family as well that you put in this position.
As of lately it seems like the once mild depression felt by the stress of being a single parent has tripled in intensity to the degree that it’s becomes this giant dark ugly monster that’s an almost all consuming force beating me down every moment as I struggle to face another day and complete my appointed task.
There’s four teenage boys and my live in woman (sometimes wife) who for the pass ten years moonlights as the stepmother/common law wife; this is the family I’ve made homeless just when it seemed like things were about to change for the better in our lives, things that had me so happy to see change that I decided I’d remove a wall in our house and do one of those “Makeover” on the house so when she returned home from her personal little “makeover” she’d find the house had did the same while she was away making part of the big change our life needs most from her; she’d come home to a equally changed house as well.
I was feeling really good about my life again for the first time since the last cancer procedure, it seemed like a new start in life for me in a way now I’m so happy about all the work I’d done toward seeing that she’d come back to a new change in our home as well as our life, it’d be a new look for a new start for us as a couple and a family.
Life was just starting to look like it was ‘breaking even’ for someone who had taken a huge gamble (it’s the biggest one of my life so far) with his future and that of his kids as well to give us all someone who would try to be more of a mother to them and a wife to me, did it ever pay off, well it depends on how you’re looking at it I’d say first and foremost, it paid in full in most cases by my way of seeing things but I let all who would say they’re the judge of things tell you whatever they think they see about it as well, but to me and mine; yes it was ‘breaking even’ time for all of us, thing’s between my woman and me were starting to improve in so much as her just seeking help for her drug problem for the first time in her 30 odd years of life (and our ten year relationship).
We (me and mine) are very proud of her for doing that, in those moments of her doing so she tried to be everything we needed from her in our lives, we’d never judge that in any way other then that because one’s life can speak for itself telling you all you need to know about someone in a way words could never do.
We had made plans to get married after she returned from treatment, she’d been gone almost a month when Mark the sixteen year old son we raised together returned back home where he needed to be after leaving because I caught him trying to break in the neighbors house with some punk ass kid that didn’t live around here.
He moved in with his birth mother for the first time in his life, and from there thing’s got considerably worst for him very fast in so many ways.
To say it was mostly her fault would be wrong of me even though the truth of the matter may be so, that information is God’s to say on judgment day, but what I do know is this; nothing she’s ever done for any of her six children has ever been of much if any true value to them.
The life I lead has in it some of what her life is about as well, living a life in the streets, being a criminal and using drugs, but for the good of my children I struggled to find a better way to live, one that wouldn’t one day make it possible to be removed from their lives by my actions, or one in which I put a feeling you get from a drug before taking care of them.
Everything was going just fine, the wall was down between the kitchen and dinning room and I had already repainted our bedroom into a theme like mural on the whole room, I painted the sky all around the room with a huge ribbon that covered part of the ceiling and all four walls in the sky blowing as a plane flew under it on one wall through the window (the one I filled with a big mirror I placed in it so it seems like you’re a passenger on the plane as you stood by the bed or sat looking at it fly) from one side to the other and down below you could see the tree tops and a house that looked like ours as the bed in the corner seemed to be up in the air as well.
My four boys watched on as I did mostly everything by myself, they helped move the furniture and clean up but everything else I did three other rooms had also been painted by me, I’ve always did everything that got done to the house inside and out; including setting the fire that burned it all down that year.
I’d just paid off the last part of a tax lien against the house earlier this month before all of this, I had just enough money left from my small income (SSI and a ADC check) to get some paint and afford to do a little work on the house after it had taken me a whole year of making payments of 600$ a month to pay off the lien and keep our home in the family name, I’ve done just about everything ever needing done to this house ever since my mother started buying it, she’s the main reason I’m living it today she told upon her deathbed at my project unit me to return home with my kids.
There were only the two back then, just Mark and Wolfgang that I was raising by myself in the South Omaha Projects when I got the call from the hospital saying my mother is asking for me to come get her, they wanted me to understand that I was about to be on a “Deathwatch” from cancer which no one in the family knew anything about her having.
Them wanting and me understanding were two different things that couldn’t come together in my mind at the time; how could this be, why hadn’t anyone known in time to stop the cancer from taking my mothers life?
That a story for another time which is too personal to share like this in details I only bring it up to say how I came to be here in this house in the first place and what it represents to me, it’s my families first real home in the Mallory name which I was sent back to take care of; it pains me to see just how badly I failed to do so but I don’t give up on it because to do that would send the wrong message to my kids and the family I came from.
I paid off the lien against it that year and couldn’t afford the insurance all in the same month which really didn’t bother me that much because I’ve always been it’s best insurance ever since I got here; once I climbed up a 80 foot dieing tree that needed removing and did it all by myself with a electric 16 inch power saw with a really long extension cord, did it because I couldn’t afford to pay to have it done so it couldn’t fall on the house.
That’s the kind of message I was sending to whoever wanted to receive it in my life, it said this is the kind man I am who just so happens to be a single parent too.
I figured I’d be able to put home insurance back on our house the next month, that year had been one of the worst ones of my life before it ended I had to go to a hospital for a second cancer operation in my life ten or more years from the first one which I vaguely remember, I was trying to forget about this last one as well no one wants to remember such a bad time in their life, a time when life seems like it can all end any minute for you, you don’t want to even think of those times even when they’re all right still there in the moments you’re living in.
My way of taking my mind off my problems is to work my ass off and that helps me heal while keeping my thoughts from dwelling on what’s been done to me down there where a mans most valuable part is.
Been there once before with memories of the ED (erection dysfunction) that followed still very fresh in my mind, I worked through it avoiding women for almost a whole year before I fully recovered so I meant to do the same this time too even though I have a woman living with me now which made the avoid women part impossible, before it was just me and my four boys, the experience was a disaster in and of itself; that year instead of helping myself heal and recover from another cancer procedure I’d been so set on working myself so hard to return to the man I was before the cancer that in the process I burned down our home.
Now everything has changed for the worst and in my mind the pressure is on even more so now then before for me to return to being the man I had been before any cancer, the one who could still sexually please his woman and make everything work out right for a small group of people who depend on me to do so even though they all act as if it isn’t so, like they all somehow do whatever their life needs doing on their own and I’m no more than just something that seems to be in their way; the family I cared so much about seemed to have all turned on me abandoning me while I struggled to get well again from another fight with cancer; this is about those things and more as I struggle to become a writer capable of supporting a family from my own efforts at writing something to sell fast enough that it can aid in our recovery from a fire that took every thing we had and turned my family into just another sad case of homelessness.
This was to be a “New start in life,” however after running it by my big sister, (whom I always turn to for the other “voice of reasoning” in my head.) it no longer seems like such a good idea, she tells me it’s probably best that I stick to what I know can help me such as my artistic ability, that I’ve made money doing it before so why not now?
I only hint to her about the depression because I know if I ever let it out about just how bad it can get I’ll most likely lose my kids, (the state will find me unfit to raise them unless I attend treatment if they ever find out about it) got to leave that alone when we talk about how I’m doing as I try to get on with my life after the fire that took everything from me.
I’m still standing though let the record show; no broken man here despite whatever life dealt me, I played the cards that came as best I could, and here’s how it went.
You can’t spend time dwelling on what might have been if you’d been dealt a better hand, or if the luck of the dice had rolled in your favor, if it wasn’t in the cards life dealt you, or the roll of the dice, then it’s best too look past such thing’s as being the reason you fail or your problems seem more then you can handle; life won’t let you out of your responsibilities on such a notion.
If you’re in it to win it like I am, you put up, shut up, suck it up, and play the game; life is what it is, we got choice’s to make that can change the outcome we see life throw at us, sometimes you get caught up in a disaster like I did; life beats you down without mercy, if you manage to survive that’s God’s Will; if it doesn’t kill you, or make you stronger you just simply try to pick up whatever pieces of your world you got left and move on.
Thing’s weren’t ever really going too good for most of us right from the very start, being ‘born with a Silver spoon in are mouth’ didn’t happen for most of us in life; a simple life filled with infinite chances of failure was the name of the ‘Game,’ and the ‘Only Show in town,’ that won’t change for most of us as well, but not settling for losing is what really counts in our lives, play to win, take what life throws at you and find a way to win, or at least break even.
Most times you won’t, maybe not even God does all the time when you think about his struggle with the Devil for our very souls, it seems life comes with it’s own sets of rules everything must follow.
Here and now, I haven’t had very many ‘wins,’ in fact at this very moment I’m just struggling on trying to break even; “Life’s a bitch and then you die,” nothing you’ll find folk say is truer then that, but you can’t win if you don’t try; this is my story of how I wouldn’t give up, it’s not filled with some success story or a formula for one, it’s done in the hope that other’s will take heed of one thing I’m telling you about, that one thing is this; you can’t win ever if you don’t try, or give up, take a few deep breaths, focus briefly then drop your head tucking it next to your shoulder going in swing, protect yourself at all times.
That may not do any good either, but realize you have nothing to lose for trying it, that in fact your chances of success increase considerably for taking such an approach.
My big sister Julie’s not fully in agreement with such an approach being used exsluvily the only family member that’s offered any kinda help at all to me and my kids after our home burned down; Julie’s the kinda big sister every family needs to have at least one of, she’s also been my editor ever since I started writing, the only person who’ll help at all is just now pointing out to me how I’m getting in the habit of repeating myself in these writings.
Wanting to become a writer actually started becoming a reality about four years before the fire, the idea actually started in prison for me not long after my 18 birthday, you’d think with no more than a 8th grade education to aid me I would just want to be an artist something that came natural to me, in fact it’s how I first started making a living for myself at that age, it wasn’t like it was making me not have to work a real job for a living it was more like a means to keep weed and met women who wanted to take their cloths off in front of me at that time in my life I wanted to be something much easier with bigger and faster rewards so I turned to a life of crime that got me put in prison because I took the easy way out after the birth of my first child.
Form there to here and now seemed to be more than a lifetime away at times while still seeming like only seconds ago.
I knew my life was at a stand still and in need of a big make-over after having survived my second cancer scare along with the accompanying operation to remove the very actual and factual cancer that was suppose to be cut out before.
Julie’s the only family member that ever showed any concern about me and mine, we keep in touch even though out of the three brothers and two sister still living she’s the one furthest away, she lives in Glassboro NJ with her husband and three kids and a full-time job yet finds the time to look in on me and reach back to help me, at times she wasn’t much of an editor but she’s always been one hell of a big sister.
She’s just now getting around to telling me (people sometimes spare you the truth of the matter about things allowing you to be a bigger fool later if you can’t figure it out yourself) that at times my writing consist of nothing more then the ranting of a love sick heart done wrong.
Well she never really just came right out said it quite like that, (you suck Lil’ bro) which I believe is mostly not done to spare my feelings, she really loves me dearly and always looks out for my best interest, the same can be said about how she feels about all of her family; she a real “Keeper” type of “Dear to the heart” kind of girl from back in the day’s; some people don’t have a clue about that though, they don’t know what’s meant by saying that thinking it can mean almost anything, let me tell you exactly what that means when folks say such a thing as “Back in the day’s,” it’s like the ones from back in the days when men were real men and women were ladies.
So here I am still kinda stuck on what kinda story to
write about, (should it be ‘actual or factual,’ or just something straight made up?) maybe if I just write words randomly about an every day life of no value to anyone other than those living it the story will find a way to tell itself, there’s always one to be told in the every day life people have that seem so unimportant to the rest of the world yet all important to them and some of the folks who make up a part of what their world is about, many times most folks life’s about a whole lotta nothing big or exciting, just a buncha little stuff like being a family and stuff.
My world is my kids life and how I’m just trying to be the best father I can to them while they are young, I always tell them to enjoy their childhood and I’ll do my best to make sure they get a true chance to; I’m not rich or even have a job other then taking care of them, so that’s what I do most of the time, I do whatever I can so they have the same chance to grow up feeling they come from a good family.
A lot has changed about life since me and my big sister were kids, raising a family now a days can be more of a challenge then most are up to these days, folks are giving up on the whole idea of family now, it’s become something unrecognizable to a whole lotta people my age.
The life I have with my children has changed in ways I never could have foreseen before, (I feel I should have though the signs were always there to see) even the way things have changed so much from what they once were like for everyone in this country, changes that bare no good is what they are, life is sometimes moving in mysterious ways we can’t understand because it changes so fast, I know I’m not the only person feeling this way about things now either, not much is still like the life we had as kids, the kids of today may not get too much of the good things our childhood had, we were given a common sense from our parents and people in general back in the days, back then parents rights weren’t interfered with by the government as they are now the one true way to pass this knowledge along has been blocked by the government in public schools and in how the state is violating it’s family and state separate thing, the only chance you got is; “being true to yourself;” it can prevent you from loosing your place in life,” hold on to that and work toward the setting sun each day, follow it down to rest and meet it in the morning to begin again.
(The rabbits are running again)
How’d that get in there, where does the focus go, things are all over the place; “if not ranting you is rambling?”
I looked at what I’d just wrote and almost wanted to give up on this whole reinvent myself thing; (the raining sticky gray web of depression is covering everything now, I’m caught up in it’s soft sickening embrace) a long walk on a hot night always seemed more likely to change the way this felt to me now, (walk fool don’t run cause you might not stop) it wasn’t as if I didn’t know becoming a writer would take more then just desire, it’d take a lot more education then I had too, but at the age of 56 there wasn’t enough time left in this life in me to feel I could return to a school and try to learn more.
The walking every night was becoming a regular thing to me now ever since we moved into this Salvation Army owed house, it was necessary for me to adjust in this strange place we now had to call home, I would walk aimlessly to help me fight off the feelings of depression that felt like spider webs falling from the sky; these thoughts took me every evening I’d go for this depression relieving walk to a place not far from my new home, nothing special about where I found me sitting on those occasions once the feeling to walk ended, it always ended here to just sit watching the night traffic pass; it was on a bus stop bench (it’s called the Stop) near the Sorensen Park Freeway on North 30th street.
For some odd reason these lonely soul searching walks always seemed to end up here, along a stripe of town where anything could happen next, working girls walked along here and often shared this very bus stop bench waiting for a date to pick them up.
I really wasn’t into that kind of thing, dates of any kind had stop being a part of life for me a long time ago, the last ten years of my life has been spent with one woman who helped me raise my kids by another woman years before we met, memories of that time in life still haunt me and make it hard for me to see myself with another woman ever again.
I don’t have anyone in my life now, nor do I want anyone to be in it; it just me and my boys which is just fine with me, no dates of any kind for me anymore, the freedom of being alone again is of more value to me now, it’s lonely and peaceful to me which suites me just fine, but sometimes me and whoever I find sitting next to me here would just start talking to each other, never about what it is either of us did in life, just things like; ‘you got kids?’ stuff like that and how was your day?
Sometimes I meet a woman who’s not selling themselves and we might end up in bed as time goes on, despite recovering from my last cancer procedure and the pain of a broken heart I’m still wanting the touch of a woman that truly care for me in my life even though now I realize I can’t live under the same roof with one I’m not really trying to be sexually inactive, I just want to be alone at this point in my life.
Loneliness suites me just fine at this point in my life, it gives me the best chance of staying focused on what must be done by me if I’m to restore our family home that burned down on my watch.
Nothing can change the fact that it happened, all that’s left is to go on in life and show my boys that all is not lost, that a real man does real things.
Walking no where in particular was the only way I knew to set my mind at ease and let this day end in peace for me, they would end this way more times than not lately in this very spot; it was just another restless night on the “Stop” in the life of another wannabe writer who couldn’t find a thing to say, the old beat up laptop that always seemed to be my only companion looked silently on as we watched the night go by; there wasn’t nothing to say, it was holding onto its secrets as my thoughts about it all changed like the wind taking me far away as if I’m no more than a blank piece of paper allowed to blow away because of nothing on it.
The heat of the day hadn’t given up yet even though the light of it went on home, the air feels like a flat hot blast of a furnace as smaller bits of papers blew along on the sidewalk where I sat alone thinking of nothing in particular while whistling with eyes rolled up in my head as if I’m so really into this that it’s got my eyes rolling in my head along with the beat; when the car jump the curb everything happened so fast that there wasn’t any time to think, my eyes rolled back down outta my head and snapped open at the sound of the on coming car.
My only companion found itself in my arms as I leaped from the bench barely missing being ran over before the car came to a rest three feet from where we sat moments ago.
It wanted to say something then but right now just somehow really seemed like a “really bad time;” I was already reaching for the door of the car that contained the young woman’s dead body, how could she be anything else, her head was nearly half cut off sticking through the front windshield with the neck twisted and bloody but still held together by the bones in it, the sight of it all will haunt me forever probably, but it wasn’t until the door opened that I realized a baby is crying, that’s when I knew this would be one of those wakeful nightmares that’d definitely remain with you for the rest of your days.
What usually followed in such a situation comes natural in most people, which is why they actually don’t recognize it later like they did anything special when it’s mentioned; you become caught up in a hero’s moment that’s defined by life saving action on the persons part, you move without truly thinking about what to do next; they say in cases like this you shouldn’t move the victims, but who really thinks like that when the moment comes that you have to do whatever you can to help someone in need?
Save the baby or die trying is all I knew at the moment, you never really think much during times like this, you mostly go into some weird automatic pilot type a thing and you just do as it would have you do.
Without thinking I picked up the baby who’s life had actually been saved by the use of a car seat, it took a moment to release the straps and pull the child free, even as I did so my thoughts were on my own children who were at home doing what they always do, I imagine they’re messing with girls and sneaking around smoking weed like I use to do at their age; not somewhere along a lonely strip of town nearly losing their life.
Somewhere between the “Stop” and getting the baby to safety my old laptop managed to get itself caught up in all of this in a much different way than expected, even though it now lay kicked under the bench lost and forgotten for the moment along with any secrets it held, by the next time I saw it again it’d given up a lot of it secrets, not to me though.
The police arrived seconds later and started in on me like I had something to do with the car crash as I held out the child and turned on the ole “motor-mouth” telling them “I’d removed him (I realized it was a boy without really know when I took this information in) from the car before anything else could happen without thinking if I should or not, I know I probably shouldn’t have, but I felt I should do something to help; can I just go now, I don’t know anything else to tell you about any of this and my own kids are at home without me, which could be a bad thing since they’re all teenagers.”
They weren’t done with me yet, their hands were on weapons as they approached indicating I should give them the baby, even before I could fully release the child I felt the handcuffs being placed on my wrist as the baby was taken into custody while I was placed in the backseat of a police car, I asked why the cuffs and was told to just shut up unless somebody asked me to say something and this will go faster for me so I could be on my way if cleared from any wrong doing in this matter, they said the cuffs were just standard procedure to insure my own safety by preventing me from doing anything other then what they say I can do.
Police are often the same no matter where you live in America it can be a small town city like this or a big one or even out in the country, at times the police can be more of a problem than the situation is by itself, they can come along and assume a position of authority while ignoring everything anyone already there says about it.
Even though what really happened here wasn’t all that clear to anyone yet (and may never be) the police acted as if they knew something about it that wasn't plain to see yet somehow visible to their well trained eyes, they seemed very strongly focused upon stupidity to the point of being almost fixated on making it seem like I had something to do with this other than what I said I had to do with what they found here, other people who saw it said I did just what I said yet even though I’d done nothing wrong they treated me as if I did; I was starting to get pissed-off with it all and about to tell them what they could do with insuring my safety when a plainclothes cop looked into the back seat and told them to take my information and cut me loose.
Afterwards I still wanted to say what I was feeling about the way the blue suit had treated me but knew it was best that I just keep it to myself and move on, being an ex-con has a way of teaching you when it’s in your own best interests to shut your mouth and suck it up; I was getting a chance to return home to my kids, that was really all I wanted and the best I could hope for at this point, nothing was even thought of my old companion who shared the “Stop” this night with me, and I’d probably not given it another thought for no telling how long if not for what followed three days later as I found myself once again not feeling to good about the progress of my new career, it seems this writing for a living wasn’t something that could be said I had a ‘Calling’ for.
The day had started just like so many had before it ever since moving into this strange house we now call home, with it ending as usual here sitting on the “Stop,” just sitting here thinking of not much of anything before these two guys show up looking to me to do much of the same as far as I can tell at first; after a few seconds go by though they began to give me an uneasy feeling because I couldn’t help notice how one of them kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye, in fact it was getting to be too much for comfort as far as I’m concerned; when a couple of “Nut-buckets” get on either side of you and start doing something like that it’s always best to pay attention to them because you never know what’s up with them, or what might happen next, you get the feeling something else may follow though, in this case it did.
I found out fast enough too, caught ole “Shifty-eyes” doing it once too many times so I started to ask him why; “you some busy eyes shit eating lip licker looking for some lumps or what?”
That’s when everything changed for me in my life, as I spoke a car pulled up then the ‘Nut-bucket’ on the other side of me let me know it was time to go.
The knife he placed in my back as I spoke to ole “Shifty-eyes” said get in the car better then the door seeming to open on it’s own as it pulled up could ever have made it more clear to me, I got in to go for a ride I didn’t want without any idea of what came next.
We ride on in silent for awhile then ole “Shifty-eyes” spoke without looking at me anymore, he seemed to be looking at some spot on the back of his hands as if this whole affair had soiled them; “we want to know where you came up with the idea to write the things we found on your laptop left behind from the other night,” but before you say a word we want you to think about this, we’re not here to be played with, think about what you say next as if your life depends on it because in a way it really does; be useful or die.
Who’s we, what’s this all about?
“That’s a wrong answer,” ole Shifty-eyes says with closed eyes while the guy on the other side of me moves violently as I feel him grip me firmly and the sharp pain of something being poked in me makes me realize what a really wrong one it is because that’s all I remembered said after I felt the needle go into the side of my neck while I wondered what could he possibly mean?
The next thing I know I’m tied to a chair blindfolded and totally naked; this can’t be happening, I just write about a crazy fantasy detective story, it’s not related to anything really happening that I know of, I use to spend most of my time at home dealing with my kids and crazy-ass woman, there was never no time to be a part of nothing else, I don’t know what you guys want to hear, what I wrote got nothing to do with nothing going on, I just make it up to pass time.
That was really the wrong answer they didn’t want to hear, the chair was tilted backward hard and fast just seconds before the water being poured in my face had me thinking; how long they planning on doing this shit, they should know half of the country has tried weatherboarding each other just to see what the effect is, everyone knows you got to stop in order to learn anything, so who can’t wait that out, as kids every summer we use to dunk each other at the local swimming pool till you almost passed out.
This was much different than that, but not totally unfamiliar.
One thing I knew without ever being in anything like this before; once you’re done talking they’ll be pretty much done with you in every way but one, the only thing left to do afterwards is kill you; I knew if I want to see my kids again I knew I couldn’t tell them anything they wanted to hear, the thing is I couldn’t figure out what it was anyway, I seriously doubt if they even knew either.
They were wasting their time while I was biding mine; I was mostly just wondering how to get my ass out of this more than anything else.
Seems at some point fiction started imitating real life, like a cartoon I’m caught up in a cross over dribble running head first into a wall of unknown, nothing was making any sense anymore; the water they poured over my face had lost all power to mean anything to me, my thoughts were only on seeing my kids again.
Thoughts were running everywhere like rabbits in my head as I find I can’t help thinking back on how the day began, it started like so many others had since we lost our home, Wolfgang and Malykai snuck around the house trying to smoke weed if they had some then at some point they’d go up the street to our old home and do whatever they could to help get the family back home.
Kumi wasn’t into the weed even though he’d sometimes do the same about going to do some work at the old house, the life he’s reaching for is different from those two, they put the law after them until their backs kind of got against the wall, but when the moment came for them to grow up a little more and take things to the next level they never missed a beat; children like these are a blessing in these days and times, they truly learned the value of what they as a family were raised to understand about life; together we are stronger, family is where it all begins.
The “Pothead” family is more common then most want to think about how life’s really going in the “Hoods” all over the states, it’s like those who know to use pot won’t accept how it’s looked upon by those who don’t agree with how helpful it can be in ones life.
I couldn’t see how any part of how they spent today could have lead to what’s happening now to me, my mind wants to insist there must be some kind of connection between this morning and how the day came to this for me, (the rabbits are running again) my own personal part in how it went is equally devoid of any information leading to a reasonable conclusion, we done nothing to nobody, of that I know for sure.
My day started as usual that day, one pot of coffee and a joint or two (if I got it like that), I call it my double-joint-jolt and it really helps get the engine started I’ll tell you what!
Smoking Pot does three things needed in my life, for one it helps me deal with the pain and depression caused by just living my life and from the two cancer operations done, I do that and then it’s a few moments doing this (weed helps me start writing, which would be the third thing needed that it does in my life,) next it’s onward to the phone calls; these phone calls are almost an every day thing in my life now, calls go out to as many people or organizations I can think of that might help get us all back home, so it goes without saying my plan is to at least try to restore our home, maybe it’s more than one man can accomplish, I’m piss poor with three teenage boys to care for, at 56 with my health being as it is there’s only so much I can do each day to help my family through this period in our lives, if God grants me the strength to rise and face another day I’ll do whatever I can to restore our home no matter how little it seems because it’s in the effort to do so that I feel I’m truly doing something about it all and I’m not going to stop trying until we can return to our home or God grants us another one in some kind of way no matter what; if I can just get the roof back on it this year it’ll mean we’re one more step closer to home base, we’re a strong family regardless of our ways, we roll like a pro team as we go.
There are no superstar homerun hitters on this team most of the time, but every now and then some of us step up and knock it outta the park, we all hit the ground running more then not though.