Homeless - 34

Hello,

I was wondering earlier this week if my half brother thinks of whatever the hell became of me. When I was a homewith person, we'd talk a few minutes every month or so since we reconnected in the mid 90's when our mother died of cancer. I'd send him some money, usually a $100 or so, on his birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas...and a few other times during the course of a year so he could buy stuff; mostly DVDs, CDs and whatever else took his fancy. During that course of time, he even wrote me a few short letters comprised of 3 or 4 sentences, printed out in large block letters. When we talked, he always told me about what was going on with him and asking when I was coming to see him. He'd talk of his roommates, girlfriends, counselors, what he cooked and stuff he bought, to name a few topics. The things he knew about me was that I lived in Dallas and did something with computers. During the course of our conversations, he never asked any details about my daily life. That is not difficult to understand when you consider that he is in his late 40's with the emotional and intellectual capabilities of 10 year old...maybe less, maybe a bit more - hard to say.

He is the product of my mother's second failed marriage and we look nothing alike. He is shorter than I with brown hair, light skin, oval face and the last time I saw him, somewhat pudgy. Come to think of it, my mother, him and I don't favor each other at all. Maybe somebody ought to check the DNA of the milkman. Regardless, at the start of my 6th grade, he became my responsibility since mom worked two jobs as a desk clerk in the hotel industry. During that tenure, it was up to me to ensure that he was clean, fed, clothed, protected and dropped off at school. I was the one who cleaned the duplex/apt/dwelling, shopped, cooked food, washed clothes and dishes and protected his dumb ass from bullies. Got my butt slapped around a few times because of him. One of the better points of that time was that a couple of the bullies started to watch out for him and me...after they slapped me around first, though. Maybe their destiny was to become defenders, too. Maybe they realized that bullying, in whatever form, was just a cover for their own inadequacies. And, of course, I had to take him with me wherever I went, whether attending to chores or my own playtime which really wasn't. I was also disciplinarian at certain times under the express orders of mom. She'd order me to swat him a few times with a belt as punishment for some BS. I hated that. I hated that with a very deep passion. If I said I did and she found out that I didn't (she asked him), then both of us would get it and he would get it much harder than he would've from me, enough to where he really cried. And I hated that, too.

Anyway, several years later in the mid to late 70's, when mom and I was trying to get along, or she was again attempting to control my life, she told my girlfriend at the time about her suspicions regarding his retardation and then the girlfriend told me. It seems that the birth technology of the late 50's included a drug that they would administer to the mother if the birthing process was more difficult than usual that caused the birth canal to contract even more forcibly than usual. It was her contention that this procedure was responsible for his retardation due to the fact that a newborn's skull is still soft and pliable and her birth canal's enhanced contractions exerted too much pressure on his skull thus causing...a short circuit in some of his neural pathways. When I was in the 9th grade, I remember that she had some medical tests performed on him and those tests confirmed what his teachers suspected and what everybody else who came in contact with him knew. I remember asking her what she was going to do and she replied that she would have to think about it. I ended up running away from home at the start of the 12th grade. Shortly after I left, she ended up committing him to the state for placement into a group home with others like him under the supervision of state appointed mental health counselors for specialized care where he remains to this day and probably for the duration of his life.

I remember going to spend the summer at grandma's place in southwestern Louisiana after the 9th grade; me and him, for the last time as it turns out. During that time, I didn't care too much for the city and always looked forward to those trips by bus. Maybe it was because of my responsibilities at that time. At grandma's place I could hangout with friends, go to the town swimming hole which as about a mile behind her house, catch lizards and let them go, roam in the woods, play baseball and basketball. In fact, Grandma raised me until the end of the 5th grade, so properly speaking, I'm the product of her upbringing more than anyone else. Anyway, during the summer, many times I would leave after breakfast with grandma telling me to be back before dark 'or else!'. There were always 2 or 3 dogs that would tag along and I would be back in time for supper looking like a heathen; dirty, barefoot with just just shorts on...kinda like these days except I'm cleaner, don't having any dogs tagging along and I have to shave every couple of days. I'd wash up behind the hen house where a hose and facet were; the only indoor plumbing was for kitchen use. In the winter time, you'd heat up some water on the stove and dump it into a large aluminum tub and bathe, for those of you wondering.

I only got lost one time during those treks and it was that summer. The darkness came faster than I was paying attention and I lost my bearings and the dogs were no help. I guess they thought this little sojourn was an allnighter. I heard a shotgun blast not too far off and I knew that was for me. Yes, there were several weapons of several types at her place, enough to arm my several uncles more than twice over. There were pumas, bobcats, poisonous snakes, rabid dogs and wild pigs to deal with but those are other stories. I got back and saw grandpa at the back door framed by the inside light taking off his belt to put a whupping on my young self but grandma brushed past him. I told her that I was sorry but I got lost. She hugged me said she knew and told me to clean up, that she saved me some supper. She also save me an ass whupping. Grandpa never did care for the Jones family. He thought that my mother was a harlot of Satan for being divorced twice, that my brother's condition was the incarnation of the dark lord himself and that I was a smart ass because I asked questions. I'm serious here, people; he was a 'fire and brimstone' kind of preacher. It seemed he always had a scowl on his face. I never understood that union. To me, he was a despot, the ultimate authority that you responded to with 'yes, sir' or 'no,sir' or risked his righteous wrath while she was the other side of the coin. I could talk with her and ask questions. She told me of Indian legends, taught me how to cook, pointed out star constellations to me while sitting on the front porch in the dark and quiet with the night insects wailing away. The environment was so rural that you could see the ecliptic of the galaxy which initiated a whole new line of inquiry from me that continues to this day.


Toward the end of that summer with only a few days left before I started the 10th grade, we went over to a neighbor's house to use their phone to call mom. Nope, grandma didn't have a phone. Mom was glad to talk with me saying that she missed us and that she would meet us at the bus station to take us home where she would have our favorite supper ready. As it turned out, she wasn't at the bus station and I had to call from the bus station pay phone (no cells back then either) and she told me to call a cab. Taxis were our main transport since we didn't have a car. My brother and I arrived at the duplex we were renting at the time and the place was a mess. She told me she didn't have time to clean house and fix dinner and told me to fix something to eat and she went back to bed. I prepared some hamburger, potatoes and green beans. My brother asked what was wrong with her while I was cooking and I replied that she wasn't feeling good. As we ate, I remember hating coming back to that environment, a place of seemingly endless responsibility. I wanted to go back to grandma's and get lost in those woods again, this time forever, just me and those 3 dogs as my eternal companions.

The next couple of years passed with more of the same and myself getting more restless and impatient. It seemed the only refuge I had was in some of the classes that I really enjoyed and the homework that they entailed - most notably, science and English/Literature classes. Any science class from the 9th grade forward had my full attention; no passing notes (didn't have IM) or sleepiness. I found that science stuff fascinating. I fear that was the birth of the nerdy side of me. The English/Literature classes were mainly reading and writing. The reading part was what really opened my eyes to the possibilities, to the world full of people and places, of history, of other ways of life in both past and present...information! It seems that every English teacher that I had from grades 9 - 12 stressed writing; themes, essays, short stories, etc. I remember the first short story that I wrote in the 9th grade when we were tasked with writing an ending to a story that ended with a man having to choose between two doors - behind one was a hungry, man eating tiger and certain death, and behind the other, his lady love and long life. Later that week after the teacher had read them all, she announced that she was going to read aloud the one that she thought was the best and proceeded. As she started reading, I realized, to my horror, that she was reading my work. I sat there still as a rock, pleading to the gods please, oh please, don't let her tell who wrote it. When she finished, she turned to me and told me that was a great story. And, yes, the gods didn't listen to me in those days either. I enjoyed the respite those classes gave me. By the way, in my story ending, the guy kills the tiger, gets his lady, skewers the gizzard of the unjust, jealous king, gets the kingdom and lives happily ever after. Ahhhh, if things were really that simple these days.

At the beginning of the 12th grade, after another summer of frustration, continuing conditions and dropping hints, I decided for change. This decision wasn't a spur of the moment thing. I remember calling mom late one night toward the end of her shift telling her that I wouldn't be there when she got home, that I was leaving and she needs to come straight home because I didn't want my brother to be alone for too long. After hanging up, I hugged him and told him I was leaving and he asked if he was coming, too. I said no and he asked when will I be back and I said that I didn't know. I told him to stay in the apartment and mom will be home in a few minutes. It was nearly midnight on a Friday. I picked up the small duffel bay of clothes and walked out closing the door behind me. I walked over to a dark stairwell a couple of apartment buildings over to make sure he would be all right. Mom arrived about 10 minutes later and went into the apartment and come storming right back out screaming my name in somewhat indelicate terms. That went on for a couple of minutes then she went back inside slamming the door. I sat there for a few more minutes and then left, going over to a friend's house whose parents knew what was going on with me. I felt terrible. The friend's parents had prepared a room for me and when I arrived they asked if they could do anything. I told them thanks but no and I wanted to be alone and I went to that room where I cried for some time, hating myself, hating mom, hating myself even more because I wouldn't be there to protect and care for my brother. I promised myself over and over during that time that I would never have a family, that they were too much hardship and pain. I fell asleep and awoke a couple of hours later and left before the rest of the household got up. Odd...I wonder if that is why I don't have a family now. Do the promises that we make to ourselves as a child bind us as an adult.? If so, I have to wonder about other promises I may have made that I don't recall but are still adhering to at a subliminal level.

Throughout the following years mom and I would experience brief times when we would communicate long distance and it would go OK for a couple of months but it always ended with her trying to configure my life to her goals. The last conversation I had with her was in '89 when she got really intense about wanting grandchildren and what was wrong with me? Why am I not keeping in close contact with her and my brother? She was always trying to push my brother toward me and mold the three of us into a normal family. Why wasn't I married with children? Why haven't I bought a house yet? Am I gay? At that point, I realized people don't change and terminated the relationship once and for all. In the early 90's one of my uncles located me and told me she was dying of cancer and wanted to see me. It took him a couple of calls but I finally relented. He told me that she had changed and wanted to talk with me but, as it turns out, she hadn't changed...still running the same old program. It seems that people don't ever change even when a lifetime of doing things a certain way hasn't worked, they still persist in employing the same strategies. It would seem that with the force of death quickly approaching, it would grant some clarity but I guess not for some people unwilling to give up their egotistical goals even at the end of the road. She died less than a couple of months later and when I heard, I cried, and to this day I have absolutely no idea why.

So now you have an idea of the context of the family life that I was part of, some of the influences that shaped me and my responses to several environmental pressures. Some would say that it wasn't an ideal environment but what childhood is? Though they differ in style and substance, each of us had our challenges during those times and somehow we found the strength to endure. Maybe an important thing is that even though we carry some baggage around with us, we don't let it rule how we see the world or people later in life; that no matter how distasteful circumstances may currently be, they are only temporary. New ones will arise to assume their place.

As for contacting my half-brother and explaining my situation to him, I don't see the need. To do so at this time would be a waste of resources. One of the questions he asked me when we began communication again was to inquire about my relationship with J.R. Ewing. See what I mean? Our interpretation systems share very little. When things change, I'll contact him again and resume where we left off. He may have a question or two but that will be about it.

Good night, Snake Plisskan, wherever you are.

David