CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

In which I am born again into the realm of human affairs

 

My new life as an upslider was oh so sweet.

The first matter of importance was to exorcise the demon of religious stricture from my being, and since my friend Prunesquallor was also a new upslider, he had the same item at the top of his agenda, and became my partner in this endeavor.

Our newfound lust for life needed an outlet, and since our social circle hadn’t yet expanded beyond the Rabid Flockers that we’d been closeted with for the past year or so, it was only natural that the Rabid Flock should bear the brunt of our vicious need to live life to the fullest.  We still remembered what the Rabid Flock had once been, and we wasted many words trying to preach upsliding to our former brothers, and more especially, to our former sisters.  When it became apparent that a frontal assault was not going to bear fruit, we found within ourselves the creative drive to settle for lashing out at our favorite symbol of what the Rabid Flock had become in its latter days.  That symbol was locked doors.

No longer was the Rabid Flock to be found open whenever a person needed to get away.  Larry Love was seldom there, and the doors were locked when he was gone.  But Prunesquallor wasn’t intimidated by the hook on the back door screen, and we went in whenever we wanted to.  Once we were in, we needed something to do, so we would grab all the religious propaganda we could carry, and run over to the Pizza Hut down the street and celebrate.  We spent so much time in the Pizza Hut that we became friends with one of the waitresses, Dutch, and her roommate Toni, who thought we were very brave.  Bolstered by their attention, we would jump into Prunesquallor’s car and drive up and down the back alleys of the neighborhood, throwing handfuls of religious tracts into the back yards of the Rabid Flock’s neighbors, laughing our asses off.  The tracts were all stamped with the name and address of the Rabid Flock, and it was our intention to show that Rabid Flock what their closed-door policy was going to get them:  closed down.

Pretty soon we grew bored with that routine and started exploring Larry Love’s apartment upstairs.  I ran into the manuscript of the book he had written before he was a Jesus Freak, The Adventures of Fat Porgy, and was so insulted that our fearless leader had not destroyed this devil’s work—as I had destroyed my own manuscripts—that I took it with me, leaving a ransom note:

 

Dear Larry,  Until you return Tony and Brooksie to their former post at the Rabid Flock, and stop locking the doors, and go back to the old days when the Rabid Flock was a cool place to hang out, I am going to hold your bawdy and indiscreet novel as hostage.

Your friend,  Fat Porgy

 

Being in possession of stolen goods, we deemed it advisable to lay off the break-ins for awhile, and instead spent much of our precious time at the Rabid Flock, before and after meetings, preaching upsliding and creating as much disturbance as possible.  Then a funny thing happened.  We were in there one evening because we had heard that someone had scrawled graffiti all over the Rabid Flock’s newly painted interior, and we wanted to see what had been done.  As soon as we walked in, Larry Love strode up to us with steam pouring out of his ears and promised to hang our hides up on the wall if this sort of thing ever happened again.

But we were as innocent as could be, and Prunesquallor, who has a way with words—being the son of Reverend Jim Racey, the pastor of the Presbyterian church that my Mama and my Daddy belonged to—spoke with him at some length about what an unchristian and unmanly thing it is to falsely accuse an innocent person of a heinous crime.  Convinced by Prunesquallor’s obvious sincerity, Larry Love apologized and promised that he would not accuse us again until he could prove our guilt.

Well, now we were pissed.  The next day we hung around in the Pizza Hut waiting for Larry to get into his car and drive away, and then we scurried on over to the back door, got the screen unhooked, and lo and behold, a dead bolt had been installed on the back door.  Well that just meant more fun for Prunesquallor, who was a burglar in his last life, and we went over to the kitchen window and I boosted him up and he was in.  We found some tools and removed the dead bolt and every other lock we could get off the doors, and split with them, laughing hysterically, and went over and had another pizza.

Late that night when we finished cleaning the Presbyterian church where Prunesquallor’s Daddy was pastor, we drove over to Brother Headfull’s Foursquare Gospel Church, which was still kept unlocked, though not for much longer.  We parked down the street and snuck in there and laid those locks out oh so nicely on the altar, along with a manuscript entitled The Adventures of Fat Porgy, by Larry Love.

Then, being nice boys from good families, we went home and went to bed.

The next evening, we took the bag of marbles I had collected as a schoolboy and went to the Rabid Flock after the meeting, where we induced some really fine-looking Christian chicks to play marbles with us.  We all had a fine time, and every time it was Jodi’s turn to play, we would reposition ourselves for the best possible view as she bent over to shoot her marble, and we knew we were in the right place at the right time.  Since Prunesquallor had been around Christian leaders his whole life, he wasn’t impressed with the concept that these were moral Christian girls; he thought maybe he could get his hands on more than an eyeful, so he offered to drive them home.  I stayed behind; I had something important to do.

I waited till Larry Love had finished his post-meeting socializing, and hauled him over to the back corner of the Rabid Flock, and sat him down and told him everything I had done, and why I had done it.  I told him I had no apologies, but since reading his novel I had come to see him as a human being, and as such I could only pity him.  I informed him that my reign of terror was over, that I had made my point and didn’t care if anyone got it or not, because it was just something I had needed to do.  I felt terribly close to him, and thanked him for trying to help me when I was down and out.  Then I walked home.

I was about to turn 18, and I had better things to do than trying to beat the shit out of my past.  It was time to move on.

To get the stale taste of gospel songs like “The Blood of the Lamb” out of my mouth, I was forced to write songs that had some personal meaning to me.  My favorites were “I Don’t Have to Be Like You” and “I’d Rather Be Wrong Than Bitched-At.”  I became quite enamored of Cat Stevens’ music, and nearly choked myself trying to sing like him.  My friend Paco and I spent a lot of time playing music together and evaluating each new Cat Stevens and Donovan album as they came out.  I must say that, in the long run, my musical career was influenced more by Donovan’s “Intergalactic Laxative” than by all of Cat Stevens’ music put together.  Paco was down in the dumps because his girlfriend didn’t want to do anything with him but have sex.  Poor Paco.  He ended up not killing himself over it.

Me and Prunesquallor had begun spending a lot of time at Dutch and Toni’s apartment.  They were a few years older than us, so it was not a matter of trying to get laid or anything, and for that reason it was a relaxing way to kill time and socialize at the same time.  I suspected that my Mama and my Daddy wouldn’t have liked it if they knew we were hanging out with older women who drank beer, smoked cigarettes, and looked at Playgirl magazines, but since I never told them about it, I was only assuming that I was supposed to feel guilty, and it later turned out I was wrong.  They just didn’t want me out past a certain time, and that was set in concrete.  What my life was actually like at the time, well, my Mama and my Daddy didn’t wait up all night to find out about that; they just didn’t want me out past a certain time.  Meanwhile, hanging out with our surrogate big sisters was fun and casual and a nice way to be ourselves around actual human beings who didn’t care what we thought or did.

By then I had me a nice dark beard, no more peachfuzz, and there were only a few bald spots left in it, which actually never did go away until a few years later when I finally stopped staring at them in the mirror.  My high school graduation was getting ready to roll around, and I was filled with consternation that I would get flunked at the last minute and held back in disgrace if I tried to show up on graduation night with a beard-on.  I was also fairly certain that the shit was about to fly about all those late nights at those older women’s apartment; I considered my Mama and Daddy’s silence on the issue to be a bad sign.  Anytime now, the ax was gonna fall.  I could feel it coming.  I would be held back in the hell that was school; I would be forced to live at my Mama and Daddy’s house for the rest of my life; and I would be permanently grounded and have my driver’s license taken away from me.

As the moment I had been waiting for most of my life, ever since the first day of kindergarten when I vowed not to go to school, came dangerously near, I responded by becoming despondent and hostile.  All my life my Mama and my Daddy had volunteered the information that I would go to college, and they would pay for it, and now that I had no plans to do so, my future was a surprise blind-date waiting to ambush me.  I could feel it waiting for me over the next hill.  My Daddy tried to help me out one day when we had a big fight over whether I should be getting better than a D in my Democracy class.  My opinion was that I had been so pathologically obedient throughout elementary and junior high school that I owed it to myself to screw around a little while I still had a chance, since I didn’t know whether I’d ever get around to going to college or not, which is where most people from my family’s social strata did the first and last screwing around of their whole life.  My Daddy followed me out the door as I was trying to get away from him, and made me sit down on the front porch and listen to the first lecture he had ever given me about Career Opportunities.

Yes, my friends, it was not until I interviewed my first air car builder at the age of 25 that I realized that not all engineers drive trains.  Until the fateful day when I finally found out what would happen to me if I ever brought home a D on my report card, the official slogan had always been, You can be whatever you want when you grow up.  After our little talk, nothing much was different except that along with knowing that I could still be whatever I wanted when I grew up, I discovered that I was not yet considered grown-up enough to choose to be a failure.  Not as long as I was under my Daddy’s roof.  Well this was just about the first time he’d pulled rank on me, apart from making me be home by midnight, so I just sneered and tried to walk out the front door, but he sat me down on the porch and told me for the first time what he really thought about what people should do with their potential.

It turned out that my Daddy wasn’t just some government stooge; he had purposely gotten into the Department of Agriculture because he was an idealist who wanted to do good things and make the world a better place.  He had been a small child during the Great Depression and had some first-hand experience with the Dust Bowl, when the farming practices of the day had combined with the forces of nature to make a complete disaster of the Midwestern farming regions where my Daddy was born and raised.  He had watched his Daddy work at hard manual labor every day of his life, and vowed that he would rise above all this and educate himself to be someone who could help out, and not just be borne along by the tides of the world’s misfortune.  Like everybody else who grew up in the Great Depression, once he got that first Good Job, he clung to it like it was the last job on Earth, and made a career out of it.  And that was the one thing in his life, except for his children and his wife and his home, that he could look on with pride.

Not that he expected me to follow in his footsteps, but he was just trying to make the point that a person like myself, who had a lot of potential and could easily learn any skill he wanted to, should seriously consider doing something truly great with his life, and this would require some effort and some sacrifices.  Take for example, the nuclear physicist.  This was just an example, mind you, not that it had anything to do with me, and believe me, it really didn’t have anything to do with me at all, but I’ll never forget what example he used because this was the first example he ever gave me of what an intelligent, idealistic young buck like me might consider doing with his life, and once those words “nuclear physicist” came out of his mouth I didn’t hear another word he said, and because of this sad fact, I am unable to finish relating what it was he was trying to get across to me, because I didn’t listen.

When he finally had said what he had to say, I was excused to jump into my truck and go pick up my friend Barb, who was my chief companion that week.  Although she was officially romantically involved with David Robert Olsen—who was giving me the most godawful glaring looks whenever we passed in the hall at school—she was a women’s libber and was not going to limit herself to one man at this point in her life, anymore than she was going to shave her legs.  Which was OK by me, because her legs were not my chief concern anyway.

Since Barb and I were just good friends and not romantically involved, we didn’t waste any time going to movies or dances or any of that boring nonsense.  We just drove straight over to the hill overlooking the river that had been made into a park because it was too small for rich people to build their houses on, and the rest of what we did that night is none of your damn business.  I will just say that we did not go all the way, because Barb was saving herself for David Robert Olsen, who she was romantically involved with.

Barb wasn’t the only girl I hung out with in those days; she was just the most cooperative.

And what was a timid, introverted chap like myself doing, running around letting it all hang out and pursuing social interests in the world at large?

It wasn’t me; it was my demon.  He was as happy to have a body to play in as I was to have his encouragement to play.  Our motto was, “If you’re afraid of it, do it!”  But my demon still had my worried mind to contend with, and when the time came for me to attend my graduation ceremony, I caved in and shaved off my beard, just in case.  I wasn’t going to give the Powers that Be any excuses to keep me behind in their dungeons.

Having set the stage in this way, how can I explain what a miserable experience it was to graduate from high school?

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I didn’t know anybody at the ceremony.  All of my friends and former girlfriends, except Paco, were younger than me.  The few minutes that I lingered after the ceremony, I lingered alone, surrounded by groups of celebrating peers who I knew by name only.  Only my parents were there to keep me from running home immediately, and as soon as they took their photos, I insisted that we leave.  There was no reason to prolong the agony.

When we got home, I turned off the lights and plopped down in a big soft chair in the living room in my long green graduation gown, and proceeded to celebrate my freedom in my own way:  with a steep descent into the further reaches of melancholy.  Melancholy, so thick you could cut it with a knife and serve it with ice cream for dessert, was my oldest and closest friend.  It could always be counted on to show up when no one else did.  I looked into the terrible mists of time, both backward and forward, and whether or not I liked what I saw is not the point.  It was mine, and that counted.  My past had always been mine, and now for the first time, so was my future.  I could make my own way now.  I luxuriated in the mystery and suspense of not having the slightest idea what I would do next, or where I would be in a year, or what I would be doing in ten years.  I sat there in a trance, unaware of my surroundings; I was working my way through something of crucial importance, and making good progress.  This was a celebration.  As I sat there, my chin on my hand, gazing at the carpet, I was a hundred years in the future and light years in the past, overwhelmed with a feeling of fullness, a confidence in my innate curiosity and enthusiasm to bring me the answers I needed as the need would arise.

I may not have known how to celebrate with my peers, but I sure knew how to go into an introspective trance.  I can’t blame my Mama and my Daddy for what happened next; there is a photograph floating around somewhere that was taken of me, sitting in that chair in my graduation gown, chin in hand, a blank stare on my face, and I’ll be the first to admit that I must have looked downright despondent.

My Mama and Daddy tiptoed into the living room, and they wanted to know what was wrong.

It took me a few seconds to get back into my body, and when I came to, I didn’t know exactly what was wrong with my Mama and Daddy’s question; all I knew was that they had crashed my party and demonstrated that they had no idea who I was.  Not knowing what else to think, and blinded by an inexplicable rage, I assumed that I was about to get in trouble for having become a hang-out artist and not knowing what I was going to do with my life, and I lashed out at them before they could lash out at me, defending my right to spend as much time with Dutch and Toni as I damn well pleased.

They tried to defend their innocence and claimed they didn’t know what I was talking about, but I wasn’t going to let them out of it that easily.  Before long, they had to oblige me, and we got into a long, drawn-out argument about what my rights and responsibilities were as an unemployed adult living under their roof.  It was awful.  I should have just said “Nothing,” when they asked me what was wrong, and patted them on the head and sent them to bed.  Maybe I should have gone to the park or hidden in the back yard or under my bed, and conducted my celebration where it wouldn’t have been misinterpreted, interrupted, and over-reacted to.

When I woke up the next morning, I woke up in an empty shell.

My demon visited me off and on during the summer, but when the accusations I had been expecting started to fly, he turned tail and set out for greener pastures.

Not understanding that I was just suffering from the fear of change and of the unknown, not to mention the irrationally guilty conscience that had always plagued me, my Mama and my Daddy had finalized their decision that I was smoking pot with my friends.

That was the end of my childhood.