being a passive spectator will get you nowhere in life. of anyone, please trust the anecdotal rant that follows. raised as a soldier by dad, and as a puppet by mom, i learned to simply not give a shit. as explained in my first memory, the intrigue of anything new was met with a hollowed gaze of wonder and meaningless contemplation. in seventh grade, i was a pretty damn good basketball player. my own criticism of my game is that i never took my skills and utilized them to their full ability. to be a great player, you need to have blood on your hands by the end of the drill/game. mine were always covered with powder. the futon i had lay directly underneath a rotating fan. when taking a much needed break from street fighter 2 and getting a rest before the upcoming basketball game.without any inquiry, i'd try to track the blades of the fan from clockwise over while seemingly entering a trance of... nothing. there was no sadness, there was no pain. no contemplation for the future. i would just sit and stare at this fan for hours on end. my mom would barge in the door and gleefully proclaim that her son was getting "psyched up" for the game (whatever the fuck that means).
when i look into why this lack of emotional state or empathy arose in me during these early times, i can vaguely retrace how i was raised. dad was an intense man. there was no fucking around. one time i was making my brother cry in the back of our ford bronco when we were driving to disneyland with my friend adam. i was showing off obviously like a dumbass. without warning, my dad pulled the vehicle over and stormed out to face us. i can still remember the terror in adam's eyes. me? i just stood there b/c i knew it was coming. nothing said, no wasted motions as he reached for my collar, dragged me to the edge of the open window, raised me up and slapped the shit out of me right across the face. upon arriving to see mickey and minnie, my eyes were puffed up in tears as i felt like i was walking on egg shells. i didn't know if i could joke with my brother anymore. i didn't know if it was appropriate to joke with my friend adam as a host. i had no clue what my dad was thinking. i simply followed his march as a soldier who had been disciplined would.
mom just fucked with my head in a different way. and her games extend up until today. dad's were more noble. they were card games laid out on the table that quite simply read "don't fuck with the bull, or you will get the horn." mom was a snake. she read my diaries. emphasized my weak points, attacked me methodically. confronted me with a kind smile while hiding her metaphorical knife which inflicted emotional breakdown once stabbed into my wounds. she blamed my depression on my stolen bike that year in 7th grade.
i remember that bike like no other. we were a poor family w/ 3 boys who had made the jump from dublin to pleasanton... where the schools were supposedly nicer and the grass was supposedly greener. in middle school, you were too young for a car so the next best thing was to make damn sure you had a bike that ultimately was supposed to be a reflection of you. this meant one thing and one thing only: it better not be a fucking huffy. gt bikes were near the top of the line. at paquette's i found the dream bike. it was a fire red orange with a "splatter paint" effect added to enhance the logo of it being the "outpost" model. it costed $300.
my birthday was coming up, and the deal was that if i put in 1/3 of the price my parents would cover the rest. i don't know how they did it, but they genuinely wanted the best for me. they saw through my interactions with friends and the neighbors that a bike was a status marker. they didn't want me to be the scrub of the school so this plan was put into effect. i worked my ass off for that $100. mowing lawns, pretending to be a boy scout and selling candy door to door, washing cars, anything that i could do to get that money. i should have mentioned that even though we made the move from dublin to pleasanton, we were poor by pleasanton standards. we ate fast food dinners. it was a friday, and nothing was a better evening than finding out we were going to be eating mcdonalds. i remember sitting in the front seat of my moms new car, and her handing me the food. while stuffing my face greedily with french fries, i noticed the clerk had put the change in the bag. a $20 bill just kept calling my name. this would put me over the $100 mark, and without hesitation i grabbed it and put it in my pocket. at that moment i was officially a thief, from the people who fucked up as parents but were doing the best damn that they could.
that was not the end of it. dad's partying was spinning out of control. the nights before i remember waking up to thumps in the wall in the middle of the night. in a groggy state, i peaked into the living room to see 2 policeman restraining my dad who was in some sort of alcoholic rage. my mom was crying. i had no idea what was going on. dad was not trusted with money because he spent it all on booze. he was given a strict allowance of money to last him through the week, so his money was tight. the night of the mcdonald's, as i put my stolen money in with the rest of my horde of cash i could hear screaming, yelling, and crying. my mom was blaming my dad for the money being gone - insinuating that he had been drinking and was using funds that were not available to him. my dad, enraged and rightfully so, was smashing holes in the door in his own defense by saying he did not have anything to do with that missing $20. as a thief lying in the shadows, the thought to give the money back never crossed my mind. fittingly, the bike was stolen that next summer. my depression blew up to an unprecedented level for me at the time. it wasn't necessarily because the bike was gone. it was due to the process of me getting that godforsaken bike, and the trouble i had caused my parents. i hated being poor, and i hated being a thief even more so. so in a sense, my mom was right in that ever since the bike was stolen my whole persona changed. but it wasn't the bike. it was the recognizable, vivid loss of innocence and the eye opening experience of having a thief take something from you in a deserving manner. i deserved to be punished.
another incident i can recall was when my dad had entered my room in a surprisingly vulnerable state. steve & i shared a piggy bank full of change. we noticed dad had tears in his eyes but we did not know what was going on. at this age i'm able to recognize that he was on an alcohol binge. conversation was cut short, and he asked if we could help him out. seeing his vulnerability, we would have given our lives if he asked us to at that moment with full eagerness. he simply asked us if we had any quarters in the piggy bank. with enthusiasm to please, we emptied that fucking brown pig quickly and upon unveiling the collection of half dollars, silver dollars, quarters, and even some leftover dollar bills... a small half smile of pain came over william. with much shame, he took the money and helped us re-pack the brown piggy. he feigned interest in our video games until our attention was "off" of him as he slid out of the room to the liquor store. my attention was never off of him.
in a paralleled frame of mind, i imagine a suicide would be a collection of non stop images from my past that would haunt me unmercifully until i mustered the strength to pull the trigger. being a thief to my own family, i can empathize with dad. william, if you are in any way still connected to this universe - know that i forgive you. and at the same time, please forgive me. i'll miss you until the end of all eternity, my flawed protector... i have inherited your life.
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