Beginning at "0" 30 OCT 2000

The run on of emotions... Come back home four years later different than when I left. It seemed like another life before. I wrote about glimpses of it when I was emotionally rattled by my graandfather's death. In 2002 it was different: America had changed, friends had died, people who mocked me for how I was living before I left were now doing worse than me. I had seen more dead bodies than anyone should, I had gotten clean and sober, I had a car, I had money, and I had my creations (stories, music, art). Didn't want anything to deter me. Never want to go back to how I was before I left.

This is what I started writing by hand 30 October 2000:

Page 1 It was July 4, 2000 when Papa finally saw a doctor about a strange bump on his left side underneath his armpit. Much to my mother's and grandmother's dismay the doctor said it was Cancer. And he quickly deteriorated in weeks. I had a year and a half to go in the army. I was stationed at Fort Lee Virginia. My job was a grave digger (MORTUARY AFFAIRS). IN BETWEEN ALCOHOLIC BLACK OUTS AND HANGOVERS, COURTESY OF CAPTAIN MORGAN, COORS, DEAD GUY ALE, ARROGANT BASTARD ALE AND WHAT EVER ELSE I COULD CONSUME, I KEPT MY GRANDIOSE EGO Sane Enough to convince my platoon sergeant to send me to a pre-promotional board for my sergeant stripes. I did the best out of nine other soldiers in the company. My sergeant was very proud. A week later I came up on orders for deployment to Kosovo. A week before I left for Kosovo, my mom called me on the phone in tears desperately begging me to visit Papa. Therefore, I got on that plane with Vodka chased with White Zinfandel buzz. Smoked like a dragon in the taxi on the way to Papa and Grandma’s house. When I got there I was in utter... BEFORE KATRINA- The Blow Fly Inn had the Southern Charm of hospitality with its carpet floors, antique ceiling fans and lights. Had checkerboard cloth tables perfectly spaced for walking. Had a bar located center point and was divided by a wall that had rectangular squares in it where windows could have been. Seemed like from any seat in the place one could see the bayou. The best place was on the other side of the wall. Oh the moon’s reflection on Brickyard Bayou is truly a work of God’s beautiful creation. The waitresses had been there for at least two decades. They remember me as a child when my father took us there on his motor boat. Yea, my father had such good credit with them that sometimes he didn’t have to pay. He’d always get upset at me for ordering the same burger most of the time. Used to watch him and my mom get very inebriated. Morris didn’t drink. He almost reminds me of a jolly Buddha: always content, not much for words, and only seemed to smile when asked a question. I reckon a more operative description of him would be a ZEN SHAPORONE. YEA-I chose to change up the frequency to my highness with GooD ol’ boy beer: “the king of beers” Budweiser. Momma did the classy thing ordering a glass of their most expensive wine. Elegantly and solemn she proceeded to tell me how Papa’s ordeal started. As she told me the tale, which lasted through me drinking three “good ole’ boys,” I pondered the irony of my grandfather being the last of a dying breed. A dying breed of men who built this country. A dying breed that was forced into war to learn he was dying of Cancer on the 4th of July. Momma was pacified after the food came by Morris prompting, “it’s gonna get cold dear.” We ate the food in silence. Due to my buzzed thinking I reasoned eating with my hands. Yea, I could bring myself tranquility by caveman means. Momma was embarrassed by my conduct and I could tell by her quick glances-and Morris was shaking his head every few seconds in sly disapproval. Yea, the waitresses stared in shock as well. Like their eyes were X-rays that savagely penetrated my physical self: the self-proclaimed bastard child of a spoiled American Dream. The boy who lost his mind for a few months as he was awaited in fear of a forced change. Lost my mind (gave it away) on hallucinogenic induced Black Majic Rituals in a band that never escaped the unnamed trailer park . .. The waitresses knew me as the obedient child who was always polite and barely spoke a word. A child that dared not to have branding marks and skull tattoos on his white Anglo Saxon body. Good ol' boys reared by Cadillac’s, Mercedes driving, two story house having parents didn't dare to do. Yep, it was like they saw right through my drunken induced macho facade and even knew when i was living in Morris and mom's dilapidated garage apartment. Where for entertainment i watched the wood ants devour the cockroaches on wooden floors that were stained by ash, vomit, and garbage. The boy who could only get employment from temporary job agencies working around crack heads and drunks. Yea, this bastard of the american dream fit right in with the reprobates. And it only took less than a year to do so. When momma got up to use the bathroom she would have fallen flat on her face if it wouldn't have been for Sir Morris sneaking a chair in front of her that she grabbed hold of.