OUR FATHER - PART ONE (chapters one to ten) who art in heaven ... hallowed be thy name. Aug. 16, 2026 (update) This completes Part One of Our Father. There will be 1 more part and will occupy a separate post in Substack over the remaining 5 to 7 months with a final completion slated for early 2027. You'll need to scroll down to read new entries ... Chapter two added below 14.06.26 Chapter three added below 21.06.26 Chapter four added below 28.06.26 Chapter five added below 05.07.26 Chapter six added below 12.07.26 Chapter seven added below 19.07.26 Chapter eight added below 26.07.26 Chapter nine added below 02.08.26 Chapter ten added below 16.08.26 Bookmark this Substack blog post for weekly updates to Annie's story every Sunday in the sermon. Tablet w/decent headphones recommended. THE SUNDAY SERMON - 21.06.26 A note to email subscribers. Link to my Substack below for better formatting and access to the clips/videos.
Chapter One THE BLACK ART A woman who writes, feels too much Those trances & portents, as if cycles and children and islands weren't enough; as if mourners and gossipers and vegetable gardens were never enough. She thinks she can warn the stars. A writer is essentially a spy. Dear love, I am that girl. Anne Sexton The following is an excerpt from the upcoming novel OUR FATHER by Jim Lamarche. MIDNIGHT - Sept. 23rd 1972 It's way past her bedtime and even the candle presents a problem. If it's seen - she may lose it. Freedom in Michigan meant something very different then. Being grounded for a month is sheer agony. Spilling a final thought into her flimsy diary like it's a message in a bottle about to be cast into the cosmos. Like it may be the last message she ever delivers and that documenting this is ALL she has left even though the chances of it ever being seen are slim to none. Pitch black after blowing out the candle and shivering in an early autumn chill - sinking under a gnarly wool blanket and aged cotton sheets emanating a hint of lavender that she left under the covers yesterday; a creative attempt at freshening her undercover twilight phantasms albeit messy. Torrential dreams on occasion. Not tonight but then again - maybe. There's a scuffle downstairs. Mom & Dad are fighting again. He's drunk, having just arrived and "WILL NOT be taking any of yer fucking SHIT tonight Agnes" before knocking her favourite empty vase onto the floor crashing into a reverberant chasm. Fuck that felt GOOD! Flowers in it would have been better; water everywhere? Agnes and her frikkin' bullshit flowers. Nice ... even more punishing as she scurries to clean the mess in tears. Her Mom gave her that vase. Dad loves to punish, just like his Dad did them and his Dad before that. A family tradition. It all started to fall apart shortly after he got laid off from GM in Detroit in '69 and it was all blame & pain from there. My older brother Devin is out. Always out. Sometimes all night then all day, then all night again. He and Dad don't talk and when they do (maybe once a month) it's a shit-show. Dad kicks him out. He's gone for a few days then he calls Mom and she patches it up, feeds him a good meal and does his laundry, hanging them outside on the clothes line to dry while he crashes on a mattress in the basement with his hidden stash of stolen cash and hash. Good for a week or two. Whomever said 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree' nailed it. Devin is a young version of Dad and he is clueless around how or why. It's the boys I don't get. Why they need to prove themselves to be the real deal. Legit. The constitutional card-carrying criminal mind casting shadows - needing to inflict. Welcoming cremation. Proof of pain. The pointless brother, the woeless husband and absent Father. VANITY - Dec. 19th 1973 We live in Flushing Michigan (Genesee County), near Flint. A few thousand people. Winters are brutal. I've been told that I'm pretty. One boy at school keeps staring at me from across the room. A dweeb but I'll take it. A couple of girlfriends who say they envy me. We're on welfare (public assistance) so the state partially paid for my braces. Granny paying the rest and she's poor. I've been told they're hot. That said, I'm a bit of a loner. My family presents challenges. I don't want people to know. Mom is mute. Damaged. Speaks to few and only for seconds out of politeness usually at the Walgreens, relegated to a world of cooking and cleaning. It's a small town. People talk. People hide. 14 year old girls are home by 8 and in bed by 9 on school nights (or else). Loneliness is abundant. The scent of another expired candle, hoping it stays in the room. Pillow over my head. Sensing terror. Wide awake after midnight. Trying to imagine a future in America with everything so damaged. Was it always like this? Will it always be like this? Watergate? Corruption in the Presidency? Unreal. Vietnam is surreal. Hiroshima, Nagasaki and nuclear testing? For what? Why? We went to see The Exorcist right after Christmas. My friend Maddy didn't leave her house for 3 days after that. I was shaken but not stirred. It is something already embedded in us - realized in film. Linda Blair was the emancipation of the young American female. Yes liberated. I've never shared that with anyone. I could get strung up and burned at the stake for saying it out loud even now. I am frightened of Christianity. We talked our way into an 'R' rated movie with a little more make-up than usual. Ronnie, the usher is a year ahead of us at school, just smiling and letting us through after a mild flirt. I'm now actually getting the reason why one needs to be 17 to take something like The Exorcist in. Makes sense actually. To this day I keep telling myself nothing changed after that.
FLINT - Feb. 10th 1975 Flint Michigan in 1975 is underwhelming to say the least. If it wasn't for my diary and the music I would have perished ages ago, moving into an Alcan bungalow that spring, downsizing after Devin moved out. Paul McCartney's 'Band on the Run' and 'The Air that I Breathe' by the Hollies on WRSR 'The Fox' rock radio every 3 hours. Marvin Gaye 'Let's Get it On". MOTOWN! An awakening. Love the hits. I turn 16 that summer. Dennis was this guy who I liked but not sure if he knew that. Filled out in all the right places and so cute with sun-soaked, long shaggy hair and his mischievous grin. He tattooed himself - a skull. Like, epic man-child. As a young teen I was an item. Makeup - lipstick all politely borrowed from the local Hudsons that month (5 finger discount), along with a copy of Seventeen magazine for inspiration. Short skirts were a big deal. A flirtation in Flint that went un-noticed. My undercover twilight phantasms evolved into words on paper. That's the year I discovered that I wanted to be a writer. Finding it far more satisfying to write than talk. Devin's marriage to Darlene later that year was what they call a shotgun wedding. When their son Troy arrived I could see it all beginning again. Mom, the church - men of the cloth. Substance abuse. Her dutiful subscription to a world of pain, like it's something you just had to endure to get any forgiveness/sense of peace. Dad got worse. More angry. Flint Central High School was a rude awakening. I dropped out in grade 11 and started working at the Dairy Queen. That's when Ronnie and me became an item. He was kind at first. It's a longing. Turns out most families were dealing with all the same stuff I was. I didn't feel so alone after figuring that out. We just want to be loved is all. Girls, women, grandmothers. Free from war torn family misfortunes. We don't want to be winners or losers. We just want to be reminded that we are special. Taken care of. More to come. OUR FATHER (part one) who art in heaven ... hallowed be thy name (excerpt).
Chapter Two ANNIE - May 30th 1977 When Ronnie and I moved to Detroit we did so quietly. No one knew but us and no one came looking for us. It was an adventure. I mean, I was born there 18 years earlier but moved to Flushing when I was 10 after Dad's job ended in '69. His thinking is that he could get hired at the new GM in Flint but that didn't materialize. Then came the drink. Then came the gambling, the bar hags and the harlots, promiscuity and infidelity. The Motor City showed potential so it was always on my radar to move back. More stimulation. Neither of us were employed. I had saved $3000 from the 2 years I worked at the Dairy Queen so I had first and last month's rent ($400) and enough to keep us going for a few months. Ronnie's contribution? Maybe $60 blown on weed and malt liquor in 3 days. At first I was ecstatic, elated ... elevated. The first thing I wanted to do after moving into our tiny top floor bachelor near Comerica Park (large southern roof deck) was to party, get high and get properly laid. Ronnie? Whatever. Didn't matter. He became dead weight in weeks. 'Wake & bake Ronnie' I called him. Loser. Just so NOT sexy. I was aching for a real man (or woman) with moxy and panache. By late June, reality kicked in. Downtown Detroit was a disgusting cesspool of toxic smells, rats, race riots, police brutality and long line ups around the block to see Star Wars which I had no interest in but Ronnie had to see so I went and slept through most of it in a piss soaked downtown theatre that had sticky floors. Gross. Space shows/movies? Boring. No. I was far more interested in glamour, party life, celebrity, fame, Grand Funk Railroad, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division. WRIF Rock Radio, CKLW Windsor and the flocks of seagulls sailing past Belle Isle Park that summer while I sunbathed on a blanket dreaming of laying on top of Ian Curtis's scrawny frame. Ronnie got a job ushering at the Atlas Theatre so his pitch was that he could get us in for free on a night he wasn't on shift and that he would take me out for root beer floats after the show just like we used to in Flushing. Yawn. I had zero interest in doing any of that. 'Are you serious? Star Wars? Please no'! Ronnie was on my short list of baggage needing to go curb-side like pronto. I grew up real quick. DANCE! I loved moving my body to amazing music. Neighbours downstairs always complaining about the volume and the thumping on their ceiling. It became an obsession. Joining a local dance troupe that rehearsed at DCDC - Detroit City Dance Centre where we sometimes performed in front of an audience. Spiralling in the park or in some random parking lot; in a nightclub ... on a stage in said nightclub wrapping my slender frame around a slippery silver pole and sliding sideways. Blissfully waving my arms above my gyrating torso barefoot on green grass is still my favourite thing to do. It just makes total sense. An affirmation. I partied backstage with Kiss in July at Cobo Hall and made out w/Ace. Ya bit of a groupie. Fun. LAURA - Aug. 3rd 1977 Dad came to visit me alone that summer. Turns out he just wanted to fuck me again. "Hi baby, thought I'd pop in and say hello". He looked awful. Serious weight gain and dirty fingernails. Yuk. His stay lasted 4 hours before my now 'roomie' Ronnie walked in on us, punched him in the face and Dad bolted. I survived unscathed. Ronnie and I fucked that night. Daddy died 10 months later. Miss him? Fuck no. Ongoing shit-show. Mom's alone now. Getting smacked around was no longer in her forecast. My sadness for her was omnipresent even though I not once travelled the hour long journey to visit her in Flint. Maybe the odd phone call once a month lasting an uncomfortable 10 minutes. I had no car but there were Greyhound busses making daily trips. She must have been lonely. I was preoccupied in my newfound narcissism, cigarettes and casual encounters. The thought of returning to Flint was unbearable to me. Brother Devin, Brenda and Troy moved to Wisconsin a year earlier and I hardly spoke to them after that. I met my new bestie Laura at a party in Dearborn that early summer. She was a total smoke-show, blonde. A young Sharon Stone (both 19 in '77) and a wild streak that came out after a few drinks. Laura was a budding photographer always taking pictures of me like she wanted to morph. A mutual fascination suggesting arousal that never really materialized other than making out a few times on a wayward sofa at 3am. Our tempestuous tapestry got us into trouble more than once. Laura suffered from an impulse control disorder leading to chronic kleptomania and had to repeatedly stay overnight in a jail cell as repentance for her rampant desires. She once told me that there was a sexual arousal in stealing shit. The more expensive, the higher the turn-on? Whatever. I just stole stuff because I wanted it - nothing else. Letting go. I got various jobs mostly waitressing. A short run dancing at The Duchess and then The Please Station where I could make more in one night than in a month working at Cardinali's Restaurant slugging hot chicken sandwiches, burgers and beers to married morons on the Chrysler assembly line who called me 'hun' and stared at my ass when I walked by. Honestly? I didn't see any real difference stripping than waitressing except for the money. If they could undress me with their eyes at work, then why not just undress for them on a public stage slowly sauntering to 'Don't Leave Me This Way' by Thelma Houston with $400 in my pocket after 3 hours instead of $40 serving grub at a grimy greasy spoon for 10 hours. THE TENANT - Oct. 22nd 1977 I gravitated to films. One early afternoon I spontaneously decided to take in Roman Polanski's The Tenant at the Detroit Repertory Theatre after a friend told me I looked like the French actress Isabelle Adjani and of course I was curious. Spellbound and hypnotized for 2 solid hours in a dark screening room occupied by me and a street person snoring in the back. That movie wrecked me on several levels. So twisted. It became a metaphor for my trajectory. Smoking dope every day just amplified my sullen mood. Some doom and gloom as the leaves changed colour and I myself started feeling lonely. I walked home after the movie, numb and indifferent to life, smoked a bowl, crawled into bed and slept for 12 hours. That early fall, my beautiful muse Laura finally hit a brick wall emotionally, physically and financially and had to spend a year behind bars after trying to steal an expensive Canon AT-1 SLR camera at Universal Mall. She actually got it home, had it unpacked and was taking photographs even, before the police showed up and arrested her. We lost touch after that. When she was released, she didn't even try to contact me. Ronnie met Brenda at the Atlas Theatre (where they worked) and he moved out on Halloween night. Their wedding was a somber affair that I had to get quite intoxicated at just to endure. My life was complicated and there were some wonderful moments that year. Disco became a big deal even though I didn't care for it. So many ups and downs. I felt increasingly alienated in Detroit, now beginning to wonder why I was even here. Right. My birthplace. Born Anne Edith Russo on February 10th, 1959, I became Annie Sparkles in late '77 even though the logistics of changing it legally turned out to be too much of a challenge so I gave up. Writing, dancing and dreaming became a 24/7 preoccupation living alone now in that same chilly bachelor apartment anticipating a cold winter in Detroit City and that is just what I got. More to come. . OUR FATHER (Chapter two) who art in heaven ... hallowed be thy name (excerpt). .
Chapter Three SILENT NIGHT - Dec 24th 1977 It's like Dec. 16th or some shit. Arriving home after dark, looking forward to a hot bath on a cold night. A message on my machine from Mom. She wants us to come to Flint for Christmas (with a pressing need for that wish coded into her tiny depressed voice). Beep, next message ... Tom at the club wants to know what I did with the violet nail polish. Beep, next message ... Mom again - long pause. 'Right I'm sorry, I want you to come on the 24th please and sleep over ok? please?' Every other word that comes out of her mouth is sorry. Pathetic. Right. I was in Florida the year before so it had been 2 years since my last Christmas in Flint. No way! Sleep over? Jesus. (wondering how that's going to work in a small 2 bedroom Alcan prefab and a pissy shitty toddler screaming and running around the whole time). Big meal she's promising? Sounds painful. 'Oh and we don't need to do gifts'. Of course we're going to do gifts Mom. It's fucking Christmas! What I soon realize is that she wants an old fashioned Christmas. Like the ones we had as kids, when we were a 'happy family', only we were never a happy family. A call to Devin in Madison early the next morning (first in months). Darlene answers. Like WTF? Yep. Mom wants Christmas in Flint. Kill Me NOW! I haven't seen Devin, Darlene or Troy in almost 3 years and it's NOT on my bucket list. Right. Christmas presents that will work on a Greyhound? Small obviously. This stupid Detroit Red Wings snow globe will work for the kid. Troy ... killing myself laughing while thinking about that. I mean - who names their kid fucking TROY? Jesus. . I arrived by taxi at around 4pm on the 24th, already starting to get dark. The drive from the Flint bus station was actually soothing - memories that felt nice. Like 2 feet of fresh snow on the ground; people shovelling. Cars stuck and more people helping by pushing them out of the winded drifts. Such is Michigan in winter. Gazillions of Christmas lights and a small group of kids singing carols on a downtown street corner taking donations for Salvation Army. The arrival. Walking in with my bags, dropping them on the floor. Big smiles. Happy. 'Devin and family coming soon' so I'm told. Hugging Mom actually feeling good. Pulling my fur lined hood back and shaking off the loose snow. Mom staring into my eyes, putting her warm hand on my frozen cheek. So sweet. 'I like your pigtails dear'. I'd braided them days ago and just left them. Right. "I'm home, yay!" lifting my arms up before taking off my mitts and boots, dropping my stuff in my old room. The room I wouldn't be sleeping in tonight (sigh), carefully placing some wrapped presents under the tree and helping her in the kitchen with what looks like an amazing Christmas dinner in progress. Days in the making and in micromanaged detail. 90% of the work already done? 'Wow Mom, this is all out amazing'! 'Oh it's nothing' she quipped even though it was obvious that she loved the praise. Gravy, sauces and dressings time (2 salad dressings; a ranch and an oil & vinegar). 'Oh and the rolls; can't forget the rolls'. Fresh, warm dinner rolls ... yum. Plum pudding, rum cake, home-made apple pie and ice cream for dessert. She seemed stressed. 'So how are you Mommy'? Stirring the gravy and turning the oven off. 'How are you feeling'? Silence. I hadn't seen her since our mysterious departure in May so ya, 7 months. Some mumbling. Nothing discernible. Sad I think. I brushed it off to it being a holiday thing. As the minutes passed, I got there was more to it than that. Substances? I sensed tears. Alone with her in that kitchen pouring balsamic vinaigrette into a crystal cruet that her mom had and passed on to her. She had a younger brother Warren in Lansing who passed far too early. She had no one left really. Devin & family arriving. Greetings & salutations! It was all quite wonderful. Darlene was 5 months pregnant and was frightened of everything including me for some reason. That all went away when the food was served. Devin carved the turkey like a 'real man' and we all made fun of him for playing the part. Dev was softer, more withdrawn. He knew he was challenged emotionally after a gruelling 9 month stay at the Old Genesee County Jail in '75 where he was beaten up by inmates a few times. A break and enter conviction seriously knocked the wind out of his sails, so he really appreciated that we loved him still. All of us laughing at the same time is a treasured memory. Loyalty is embedded in us. A right of passage. Free spirited freedom. I firmly believe that some (few) become rehabilitated after serving time in our public prison system. Most aren't. Grace. Holding hands. Even Troy's as he looks around totally confused. Mom leads ... Heavenly Father, as we gather together this Christmas, we thank You for Your love and the greatest gift of all—the birth of Your Son, Jesus. We ask You to bless this food to our use, and our family and friends to Your service. Surround us with Your peace, keep us in Your care, and help us to remember those who are less fortunate today. In Your holy name, we pray. Amen. FOOD! There are many awkward silences while eating this delicious dinner, thankfully our ravenous hunger circumvented any required conversation. Devin was easily 20 pounds heavier than the last time I saw him and he was woofing it down like he hadn't eaten in days before sloppy seconds and thirsty third helpings. Stuffed and sitting around the living room after Darlene and I cleared the dishes and emptying leftovers into old Tupperware containers for the fridge. The tension continued; plates rinsed and left to soak in the kitchen sink, drinking tea and quietly staring at the Christmas tree with Bing Crosby on the record player and what appeared to be a subtle look of satisfaction on Mom's face. The tree was decorated in the same lights and ornaments that I remember as a kid growing up in Detroit. Presents under it albeit fewer. Gifts for each of us from each other that Mom insisted we open that night. A departure from the Christmas morning ritual. We were all just fine with the change. I was quietly hoping to get back to Detroit by early afternoon anyway. The gifts were inconsequential. Scarves, hats, gloves. Clothing mostly and the snow globe that Troy became instantly fascinated with. Shaking it and snow filling the glass dome was totally new for him. He sat on the floor and shook and looked, shook and looked for a solid hour laughing and smiling at his new muse. I was rewarded just watching. . Troy, almost 3 but technically still in his 'terrible twos' was a handful but not so bad. He was fascinated by Mom's elderly grey tabby Muffy but the fascination was not at all reciprocated. She tried to hide but unsuccessfully. A preoccupied Darlene chasing Troy all over the house while he chased Muffy all over the house, afraid he might break something; holding him tightly for a minute before he broke free and tore around the house again saying 'kitty kitty' over & over. 'Kitty kitty'. 'Kitty kitty'. Mom smiling briefly felt euphoric. Devin sat there on the worn La-Z-Boy that Dad sat in for years, staring into the same fuzzy first generation colour Zenith, slowly getting inebriated with an open bottle of Jim Beam within a comfortable reaching distance. It was a haunting deja vu for me. Dark outside now. The Fat Albert Christmas Special was on. Devin was oblivious, occasionally laughing at the silly cartoon while Mom quietly sobbed and said nothing to anyone. I felt so sorry for her. Darlene was confused, having no idea what to do. I sat beside Mom on that continental beige/green paisley reupholstered sofa. I hugged her and asked her what was wrong but she didn't answer for the longest time. Finally, "oh it's nothing Annie, really" she said reaching for another tissue and blowing for the hundredth time. It felt like an old wound surfacing. One that she didn't want to talk about so I let it go. She'll work through this. All I could do was to comfort her (thinking). Shortly after 9pm, Troy finally down and a serious relief on Darlene's face like she had just finished working a long 16 hour shift. Tired. Devin passed out in the chair and Mom getting up to go to bed still sobbing even heavier now, following her. Worried. I stepped outside for a smoke while Mom got ready for bed, slipping into her long flannel nightgown and pulling the blanket up over her leaving the light on (knowing I'm close by). Brushing my teeth, I crawled into her partially sunken queen bed and slept beside her that Christmas Eve, shutting off the light. "Good night Mommy. Merry Christmas" with a quiet "Good night dear" back. Not a creature was stirring - not even a mouse. My arms around her as she shook and cried like a little girl having just lost her best friend, only Muffy was sleeping soundly on the solitary chair next to the foot of her bed. Darlene and Troy bunking down like I used to in the adjacent bedroom in my bed. A quiet submission in an overly warm house where the heat was cranked up because Mom was always cold. I got up to crack open the window a bit so I could breathe, returning to bed, wrapping my arms around her until her sobbing stopped and we peacefully fell asleep together. . I woke just after 7am, looking over at Mom's bedside clock ... 7.11am. The first hint of light seeping through the bedroom window. Wide eyes up. First thought? Honestly? Coffee. I wonder if Mom has decent coffee? Little laugh. Soft stretch and release. Probably not. So warm. Too warm. Turn the heat down. Jesus. Whatever. Christmas morning at home again. Felt nice. Looking over at Mommy sound asleep and thinking maybe I should just let her sleep. Looking up at the ceiling. Counting my blessings. No not religious really but still. Life is a gift. Thankful to someone, something. A higher power? Thinking. It won't be long till Troy is bouncing around like a bowling ball crashing into the gutter and that familiar slash enters my game score card. Sitting up. Pants on. Right. Coffee! Cereal! Christmas! Looking back at Mom. Something isn't right. My hand on her shoulder. She's cold. A shake of her arm. 'Mommy'? Pulling her to her back. Her face is blue! Mommy's gone! FUCK! Stillness. Shock. It's a wave of numbness that kicks in first. A slight fog in your peripheral vision and a brief lapse in motor skills, dizziness and a covert nausea threatening to spill followed by a calm 3 minutes of assessment that will never be reimbursed - reassessment. Bullet listing the options in an attempt to contain this tsunami I see on the horizon threatening to wipe out all life in its path. Of course there is no real connection to reality now. This is nuclear. I sat in the chair, Muffy gone and just looked at her for the longest time. Frozen shut. Troy bouncing in, 'kitty kitty' then Darlene chasing him into the room, looking up like a doe in the headlights staring at Mom then me. 'Mom's gone' voicing my words quietly in a doomed delivery as Darlene looks at the unintended dysphoria laying there in horror. Screaming for minutes ... Devin having slept on the La-Z-Boy all night is stunned and unresponsive, just staring at Mom like she was someone he had feelings for but not in this moment. There then gone. Devin was devastated eventually, once the nightmare kicked in. Disappearing? Right. Just what I would expect. We were shaking in disbelief as Troy kept running around chasing the cat. Oblivious. The ambulance came. That I remember. Darlene on the phone. Right. Police coming and going writing notes in their insipid pads with bic pens that I wanted to stab them with and a wish that they weren't really there. All a blur. Devin, Darlene and Troy just suddenly leaving in their rusting blue Plymouth Fury parked in the driveway now gone. Right. Just leaving. Got to get out of Flint like NOW. Thanks guys (thinking). Leave me here to deal with this. When the dust settled and the house emptied, I sat on Mom's side of the bed and wept like I had never wept before. Shaking, shivering. Helpless. Torrential tears that had been building up over my 19 year lifetime and finally releasing all at once. Looking over on the bed table and seeing an empty bottle of Diazepam and a half empty glass of water, remembering a phone conversation and Mom telling me she got the prescription to help her sleep months earlier. A feeling like I was going to choke. This was all planned. Finding Mom's cat carrier in the basement, gathering Muffy and a few of my things and getting into the taxi. I don't even know if Greyhound runs buses on Christmas Day. The driver confirming that they do. Looking at my Timex. 3pm. Turns out they did and a bus leaving for downtown Detroit at 3:45. Muffy meowing in the carrier. Knowing I had to return in a few days, just needing to get out of there. I don't remember the trip back, only arriving home to drop kitty off and my stuff, then the 15 minute walk to the club that was actually open and a smattering of lost and lonely souls gathered to celebrate Christmas in a stinky bar where I sat for several hours getting shitfaced. No dancers today thankfully. Sensing my dark aura, trying to cheer me up was Tom the bartender. Pulling out his Philips Super 8 cam and filming me for fun. "Smile Annie" pointing the lens in my direction. "Hey, can I borrow that"? Asking politely. "Ah, sure" he said and handed it to me. I stumbled out into the dark weather and started filming everything as I headed back to my flat a few blocks away. I kept mumbling the words over and over the whole way back ... 'I am not intoxicated right now; know where I am and where I'm going'.
. OUR FATHER (Chapter three) who art in heaven ... hallowed be thy name (excerpt). More to come. .
Chapter Four AN AMERICAN DREAM - April 9th, 1978 An American Dream is for some and not for others, bought and paid for by American people who subscribe but don't necessarily benefit. A trickster's delight because 'we the people' love magic, vitriol and black masses; rewarding sycophants and punishing traitors. Just distract me. Show me your tits! Gladiator spectacles that dazzle with slashed torsos and severed heads, an empty vessel. A lamb at the slaughter. 'Oooh! Weapons that destroy shit? Cool. Bring it on!' Some simple and most dangerous. Some desperate, some greedy and most made of stone. Complacent. Indifferent ... pissed. 'I'm angry so yeah. What of it and what the fuck you lookin' at? What's your deal anyway?' Massive wheels on monster trucks driven by enraged 30 year old boys needing fuck - wanting to be like their Dads and failing. This spinning earth makes promises and all too often fails at delivering them AND it's always THEIR fault. Those who look and sound different than us. A con. Right. Doesn't matter. Fuck that. So where's my cut? My stake in the claim? This nation built on immigrants, suddenly has a problem with immigrants. Blacks are low life scum who don't deserve a fair shake or a decent life and entire cultures are becoming more and more marginalized/targeted for crimes they didn't commit, jailed for that which they didn't do. Incarcerated for being 'un-American'. Those 'white' Americans not supporting a growing animosity towards minorities? Labelled 'bleeding heart liberals' and essentially cast into the same stew of vermin who need to be disciplined then removed. Sounds like a whole lot of ... more for me, less for you AND you?? ... Locked up just like THEM. PLEASE PLEASE ME - The Please Station When Manny bought the club that early spring, I was still dancing there on Friday and Saturday nights. 8 hours over both nights paid my rent, bills, food and 'sundries' (wink ya drugs & booze) for a solid month but I did it every weekend and saved money. It was a dive bar featuring exotic dancers out on Gratiot near 8 Mile Road in North Detroit and it was home. I inherited Mom's '71 Buick so I was driving. Desolate but the club somehow drew big crowds, especially on the weekends. Friday night was golden. I typically made $200 in tips alone. $300 if I wanted to spend 30 minutes in the back of a Ford LTD 4 door making out with a married white guy who had kids and needing a specific kind of release, facilitating said release with my right hand. Manny wanted to make it a slick disco style strip club, closing for 6 weeks for renovations and a massive new sound system installed ... dancers from 8 - 10, disco from 10pm - midnight and dancers again from midnight - 2am. It was the only nightclub of its kind in Detroit then. I loved his entrepreneurial spirit. It worked and I was steadily employed. Manny was a real character, in from Atlanta and wanting to 'expand' so he kept reminding me in his small office in the back, undressing me with his eyes like he wanted to expand in my general direction. There's no doubt he wanted to fuck me but was careful about that so it never happened. In his late 40s I'd say? Greek, married, spoiled teenage kids, slimy and smarmy but actually kind, honest and generous. We became friends and I got hired on after the renovations were finished at double my base rate while the other girls stayed the same. . The Please Station was always a play on 'The Police Station' in that it was a decades old hangout for Detroit's finest law enforcement goons and continued to be only not in uniform now (only in street clothes) after it reopened as a 'proper' entertainment establishment. Hilarious. Ah the American Dream. It was all about who had who in his back pocket and who could be fucked over next and cops could be bought just like everyone else. Patrons? Girls came from 10 till midnight to disco dance then left, leaving the guys who didn't score for the second dance show. Most were married and most white, in their 30s discreetly looking for a lil somethin' somethin' if you catch my general drift? First class, grade A assholes who needed to show some slut how much of a 'man' he was in the back of his Pontiac GTO where he tit-fucked them and jammed his average size cock into their slippery red glossed mouths. In those early days, my limit was hand-jobs for $50 cash, maybe some making out and touchy feely if they were cute for an extra 50. Revenue simplified. Remove the nightmares. Stick to the basics. The adjustment in my wardrobe reflected my upward mobility and shift in lifestyle. Yves Saint Laurent and Anne Klein suggesting an understated elegance. Serious artist, modern dancer and writer Anne Russo through the week for no money to Annie Sparkles, exotic dancer & entertainer from Friday - Sunday for BIG money; sometimes waking up in a bed at Eastland Motel with some guy I would never remember $1000 richer after an honest night's work. Slipping out early and driving home before sleeping with my kitty for 2 days. Just necessary. My limits shifted and my goalposts kept moving. The lifestyle becoming more and more lucrative but equally provocative and precarious. My resentment for these mercurial misogynistic men slowly festered and resulted in my increased consumption of Dubonnet on ice and cocaine. One invited the other. I mean it was a disco/strip club in 1978 so it was around and drinks were always free so a couple of Dubonnets over the course of an evening became 4 then 8, then 4 more after getting home by spring. My connection to getting blow was actually a cop who gave me a special deal in exchange for 'favours'. A euphoric blast for the first few months. Fun, but eventually? It was like the water spiralling down a flushed toilet and the contents of said toilet was me, round and round I go until the poo poofs. Gone. What was once a Friday/Saturday muse became a daily deal by that summer. I knew I was in trouble when I lost my keys for 2 days and the cleaner finding them in a men's bathroom stall at the club that I don't remember being in, likely doing something I shouldn't have been doing. I kept missing rehearsals at DCDC. When the AD confronted me saying 'if you miss one more you're out', I realized I had to take drastic measures. I had become a mess. Dancing was my passion so being let go from that was not an option. ONE DAY AT A TIME - July 14th, 1978 “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; The courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference". My first AA meeting at the East Side Alano Church was inspired by my new sponsor Emily whom I met in a Walgreens parking lot that summer. I had dropped my bag of groceries strewn everywhere on the hot pavement and was crying. Emily came to my rescue and it became a long benevolent relationship that I grew to cherish. The 12 steps were gruelling only in that they exposed the total lie that was my life and I fought it the whole time. The good news is that I consistently made my dance rehearsals and quit stripping at the club by late summer, realizing that it was the catalyst for my deterioration and totally unnecessary but all that was replaced with pots of coffee, 2 packs of cigarettes a day and 16 plus hours banging words into an IBM Selectric II typewriter into the early morning hours. I had saved $30,000 so I took the year off to focus on recovery, serious dancing and writing. . I first met the San Francisco born, Toronto dancer Danny Grossman when he was mime performing at a street festival in Greektown with 2 other dancers that late July. Brilliant man. I told him I was a dancer at DCDC and invited him to attend a show that evening at the theatre there. He was openly gay, dancing publicly in one of the most homophobic Republican states in America. I was so impressed by that. A real maverick activist so I later found out. I fell in love with him probably knowing he presented a zero threat; no ulterior motive and was only interested in the real me. He loved my dancing and we talked into the wee hours on the patio at Europa over coffees and cigs. He had just been approved for a serious grant by the Canada Council to assemble a new show called THE NATIONAL SPIRIT, a satire/parody on American patriotism that would be touring the following year AND he wanted me to be in it! Right. Now I'm REALLY in love with this man! I followed him to Boston then New York where he performed and participated as an activist at various planned events and I too became an activist carrying signs at protests with Danny and friends; more and more clearly seeing the hypocrisy under America's dark underbelly. I wanted to dedicate myself to exposing the facade. What I learned that summer became the subject of many memoirs dedicated to those who lived in the shadows and whose voices would never be heard. In my extended essay entitled An American Dream, I wrote the cascading fear. . Danny Grossman had become my inspiration, salvation and my liberator. Those 2 weeks were incredible. I returned home a whole new person. When Danny and I hugged each other at JFK that late August Sunday morning, I sobbed before boarding my own flight to Detroit City Airport with something real to look forward to. Talk of rehearsals in November in Toronto and that I would share an apartment in Cabbagetown with other dancers. Time passed and the phone call I was waiting for never came. I later found out that The National Spirit toured all over North America and Danny won several awards for it. . I just kept dancing and writing, moving into a new apartment in Midtown with high ceilings, a stone fireplace, more light and space. Mom's kitty Muffy died that October (kidney failure) and I attended weekly AA meetings religiously, settling into a new calm in my life. That said I'm consistently reminded of my dark past, dealing with my vulnerability and entertaining monthly relapses, staying in regular contact with Emily who becomes my guardian angel. Jimmy Carter is our President now and there is an optimism I have never really experienced up until now with Nixon gone, Watergate under the bridge and Vietnam being yesterday's news. A time of rest. Who would have known that a peanut farmer from Georgia who taught Sunday school classes to children would ever have become our President? That said, the skepticism is still embedded in our national culture and the country's resentment just goes underground for four relatively quiet years. In November, the ESA AA group had their annual Thanksgiving dinner that I helped with. Service is always a healing experience for me and a chance to talk to others struggling with addiction. A helping hand is always a confirmation of intent and a commitment to the cause. I learned to enjoy it, meeting artists, writers, musicians and even rock stars having fallen off their wagons and seeking another round of recovery after relapsing again. In the short meeting before dinner, as I sat there in the group reciting the serenity prayer again, I noticed a newcomer sitting alone in the back corner of the room, head down, frail, emaciated, shivering and obviously in a lot of pain. I later approached and sat beside her after the meeting was over introducing myself, taking a closer look. It was Laura! I almost fell off my chair. She looked horrible. Looking up and through her dirty blonde hair and smiling. She was so glad to see me! A long hug and mutual tears, giving me an abbreviated version of her sordid story. Much like mine only far worse. So sad. She then told me that the state was forcing her to do both NA and AA meetings regularly (thinking right, a cheap solution to a big problem) ... or go back to jail for a third time, this time for years; living on the streets - in shelters, park benches eating in soup kitchens a couple of times a week and turning cheap tricks for smack and liquor. Probation officers, Social Services, the whole shebang. She was really sick and stuck and REALLY did not want to be there. I offered to help but she didn't seem to be very interested in any help except for where she could get her next fix. I suggested she stay with me in my new apartment but she disappeared into the night, skipping the free roast turkey meal and I never saw her again. She stopped coming to the meetings shortly after that. Almost a month later, I found out she committed suicide by jumping off the Ambassador Bridge into the icy water of the Detroit River. I was devastated by that. What followed after for me was extremely difficult.
OUR FATHER (Chapter four) who art in heaven ... hallowed be thy name (excerpt). More to come.
Chapter Five UNDERWORLD - The Reckoning - 4 years later - May 12th, 1982. “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” F. Scott Fitzgerald Losing Laura was a nosedive for me. A Mom revisitation just one short year later. I had ignored both of them for eight months before they took their own lives. It was an open wound, an overwhelming sense of grief, self betrayal and a confirmation of my unbridled narcissism now guilt multiplied by 10. The tsunami had arrived and it was about to pull me up, roll me over then under; tortured by what matters. That relapse I had been entertaining for over a year? Right. Full throttle starting right NOW. An extended bender that lasted into 1979 and kept swirling for 3 more years! My reckoning years. Best part? I still go to meetings. Every week, always relapsing the next day. Over and over. Over and over. A functioning alcoholic who incessantly writes. Hey, if Hemingway and Bukowski can do it? So can I (my flimsy justification). My first novel 'The Reckoning' picked up by Viking Press was a success. 1.2M sold. Times best seller's list for 9 weeks? Vivian fought for me and got me in there - long story. Turns out they were glad she did too and promoted her. Enough to continue paying my rent, groceries, booze and Friday afternoon 'special deliveries' ... an imported Parisian Musée d'Orsay Absinthe and Emerald Triangle. A Californian sinsemilla cannabis drop from a dependable local who shall go nameless, who I tipped well. Oh. Right. A new blue sapphire BMW 323i convertible, 2 door 5 speed (had my name written all over it), having moved to a studio apartment in Orchard Lake Village. Summer into fall into winter again. My second novel ... 'An American Dream' ... nominated for an American Book Award made me a millionaire on February 11th 1985. A check in the mail that late morning for $166,000 put me over the top. I celebrated that night by inviting people I didn't really know over to get shitfaced. I bought a house on Owasko Lake in upstate NY and entertained the likes of a young Polly Jean Harvey and Nick Cave (at the same time). 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and a huge cedar back deck overlooking the wooded lake. So, it would appear I'm a real writer now. A liberal media is alive (good to me) and well thankfully or I wouldn't be here. All in all? I approve of this comfortable outcome. Checks and balances seem to appear when you need them (for now). I'm simple and sloppy. Almost 25. 20lbs heavier and dancing? It's what I do in the kitchen listening to The Police (Synchronicity) while cooking home made pasta and baking shortbread cookies at the same time; on my third glass of Cabernet Sauvignon at 4pm on a Tuesday. Sting? Ya I'd tap that, thinking Carbonara, the sauce for this pasta. New cat. Feral. A brute. Troy (don't ask). A male obviously. My big orange boy toy who slays dragons and eats them for breakfast. Big balls. He just showed up at my door one cold February morning and after a few weeks I convinced him to come in from the frozen tundra with some kitty treats I picked up. That was that. My new best friend. He had never been loved before and he returned my love three fold. Wildcat? Na. I give him kippers right out of the open can a couple times a week on my kitchen floor beside the fridge. I order in pizza once a week and masturbate on average 4 ok 5 times a week. No boyfriends ... no girlfriends. I just get lit and write for the most part. Cold swims in the lake from May to October. Music? Ya lots. Obsessed with words. Great lyrics. Despite my fancy new digs, I lived in a dark cloud most of the time. A new IBM 286 DOS computer running Word Perfect which made writing a breeze now and an untitled third book in the works, this time with a $50K advance and a dreaded deadline. Vivian in Manhattan has left her job at VP and is a literary agent now ... my agent. I was her first. I became an avid reader. American history, literature, the classics. Tolstoy, Aldous Huxley, Orwell, Ayn Rand, Hemingway, Doris Lessing, John Steinbeck, Bukowski to name a few. Subscriptions to The New Yorker, The Times, Washington Post and Rolling Stone (for vanity), all regularly delivered in my mail. If I wasn't writing, I was reading or sleeping. THE GIPPER Ronald Reagan became our President in '82 firing up the far right again, raising more and more questions about the church and state and the invisible line that now separates the two. The Reagan years clearly re-established the role of the masculine man, 'in control' of any given situation and a need for compliant, complicit female counterparts who put their hearts, souls, devotion and loyalty solely into their men. 'Stand by Your Man', Loretta Lynn's late 60s anthem was reinstated and fortified after a decade of all this women's liberation nonsense. Back to basics! His wife Nancy was the quintessential and dutiful wife and role model for boomer women in their 30s, now carrying Mom's torch; having passed through their childish hippy dippy 'flower power' stage. Needing to 'get serious' about their lives as proper housewives, bearing children and affectionately waiting on their husbands, seeking constant approval, guidance and advice from their surrogate fathers. 'Please Daddy. Tell me how to dress, what to say and how to act when we're in public and how to perform in the bedroom. Please? Can I get $20 so I can buy groceries'? Please and sorry ad nauseam. Taking the time to touch up her make-up and look pretty before her man comes home from work, fixing him a drink and asking about his long day. His favourite pork chop supper in the oven. Reagan's 'Make America Great Again' campaign slogan pulled on middle America's heartstrings with a return to traditional puritanical values. Translation? Racism moves back up to the front burner - again. My activist years were returning with a vengeance and into my storyboard it goes. This President's timely trick to harvest the religious vote was an insipid reminder of the delicate balance in America'a gullibility. The ticking time bomb that separates the men from the boys ... the righteous from the rabid. Upon taking office, Reagan argued that the United States faced a 'dire crisis' and that the best way to address this crisis was through conservative reforms. His major policy priorities were increasing military spending, cutting taxes (to preferred customers) and tempering federal regulations that impair financial markets from operating freely. Throwing out rules that protect us from corruption and abolishing environmental safeguards that stifle progress. 'Capitalism must become unfettered and unhampered' he once said, paying homage to his wealthy donors. Reagan believed that reducing the role of the government would lead to a robust economy, which in turn would lead to higher revenues AND would help pay down the national debt. A win - win for all Americans right? Yay! Let's do Ronald Reagan for a second term people! Hallelujah. Our national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan, by far the worst of any President before him. His numb narrative was full of holes and his promises were empty and erroneous. Minorities became more marginalized. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer and the country significantly suffered as a whole. The most disturbing part? The restitution that he promised us never came. America still believed in him however. Enough to vote him in for a second term. With Reagan in the White House again in '85, evangelism took center stage. Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Phyllis Schlafly, Newt Gingrich, and The Heritage Foundation launching a whole new mainstream circus of new cable broadcast ministries on new networks with daily televised 24/7 programming. The Christian Nationalism train was roaring down the track and nothing could stop it now. Captioned 800 numbers scrolling across the bottom of our screens so that those living in trailer parks could effortlessly donate on impulse to a new breed of multi-millionaires preaching the gospel, rolling in by helicopter then limousines, to giant venues with thousands of worshippers cheering in the stands like rock stars, all seen live on millions of fuzzy Zeniths all over America and all legal. Right after his first inauguration in 1982 a conservative evangelical Christian consortium called the "National Prayer Committee" was formed to coordinate asset allocation and divvy up the proceeds, establishing a fixed annual day of prayer. Amen. Our National Day of Prayer was formalized as a holiday for some but not others on the first Thursday of every May. A respite for devout hardworking patriots eager to pound back half a dozen Budweisers in their first back yard barbecue of the year in North Carolina. Ah the good life. Dad's in his element. Red meat sizzling, kids jumping in and out of the lawn sprinkler with squirt guns and the wife in the kitchen pulling the apple pie out of the oven to cool before making macaroni salad, anticipating the arrival of Don, Mary and their two brats (Brock and Bradley). Perfect. THE MARTYR The American grift becomes all encompassing and all under the radar. Corporate religion becomes exempt from paying taxes but has free rein on cleaning up on unsuspecting followers needing salvation and reassurance of their place in the food chain in exchange for their credit card number. Praise the LORD! Reaganomics preaches this idea that 'trickle down economics' justifies increased taxes on the middle class while cutting taxes on the wealthy/corporations, touting the idea that profits 'trickling down' from the top would benefit everyone. Profit sharing was the angle only that was never clearly explained nor did it ever happen. Like somehow those lower in the food chain would eventually receive their fair share and even more. Right. A certified grade A 'bend over, yer gonna like this' ream job and the American people buy it hook, line & sinker. Why? Because the message is delivered by an all American charismatic cowboy taking his Hollywood B list actor celebrity status into a B list presidency where entitlement dominates the mainstream media and campaign promises become con fodder. The messages are clear, and even reflected in the literary charts in exchange for allegiance. A prosperous America begins with YOU! That red white & blue star spangled squeeze play and a propaganda machine in full swing, working just the way it's supposed to. God Bless America! Tom Clancy writes three best-selling novels that articulate and illuminate the Reagan era: The Hunt for Red October (1983), Red Storm Rising (1985), and The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1987), which all reflect Reagan-era Cold War values. The Soviet Union as an evil empire and the superiority of American resilience and technology are all themes in Clancy's thrillers and Reagan's rampant rhetoric. When Tom spoke at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in '85, he praised Reagan's gallant fortitude and commitment to restoring democracy, law and order into an 'international foray of unpredictable intent'. Policy elites used these novels (and even the filming of one of them) to promote their ideas on national security to the American public and American Exceptionalism became normalized as a bi-product of a newly charged pseudo religion in of itself. The patriot who goes down fighting for the cause becoming a hallmark of American heroism; a symbol of sacrifice and unwavering principles. The martyr. The 'cause' becoming more and more precarious as the Reagan era came and went. Continues.
OUR FATHER (Chapter five) who art in heaven ... hallowed be thy name (excerpt). More to come.
Chapter Six
CARNIVORE - August 1986
My choices around men were always perilous.
Needless to say Peter’s arrival in my life came with all the predictable baggage ... a tortured artist/musician with a crazy charismatic chemistry. 6’6” and gorgeous looking, long wavy brown hair, chiseled face and big tattooed arms. It was like inviting a male cougar into my living room and then into my bed. We wanted to fuck right after making eye contact that first time backstage at a Brooklyn rock club. My type? Not even close BUT. WOW! I had never been attracted to alpha males for all the obvious reasons. That said, there’s that something there that I can’t quite describe. At times, breathtaking and at other times repulsive. Right. Peter could be a serious moron but hey. The breathtaking part took center stage. His physical presence. He fascinated me. He’s my Nordic/Polish warrior man child and looks like something out of a Viking cartoon. I lost 10 pounds that year. Svelte with substance. Peter likes robust women. ‘Something I can grab onto’ he used to say. Right.
Of course he is a heavy drinker with a questionable temperament (sound familiar?) but that’s all part of what makes him interesting. Damaged? Of course (couldn’t have it any other way)! Dangerous? Most definitely. Petrus Thomas Ratajczyk aka Peter Steele had formed the Brooklyn band Carnivore (later becoming Type O Negative) which was this potty mouth, gothy crunch rock outfit that I first saw at L’Amour club in late ‘84 and we started dating shortly after, if you could call it that. We got trashed and fucked a lot. Lots of scraps. If you’ve ever seen the film ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, you’ll get our insipid neurotic co-dependent self destructive dynamic after a year of bashing into each other in drunken stupors and screaming violent obscenities into each other’s faces before engaging in THE BEST make-up sex ever. There was mutual fulfillment. I’ll say that.
It’s quite amazing ... the lengths we’ll go to. To feel some semblance of love.
He moved in - to my lavish Owasko Lake cottage in the summer of ‘85 and started siphoning my money; often disappearing for weeks at a time, back to New York doing gigs, partying and wrecking shit. I won’t even begin to describe what happened downstairs (Peter’s ‘reck’ room) after midnight when he was home. Nope. Won’t go there. Let’s just say that it worked until it didn’t. Exciting then terrifying. He talked me into spending $6000 on a sound system planted in that ‘reck room’ with thrash metal pounding until all hours. Slayer, Anthrax, Exodus, Megadeath. My closest neighbour lived a mile away and I still got complaints. At first it was novel but wore thin. I grew to appreciate the silence when he left just like I appreciated his overall absence after a while. The thrill ride was losing its appeal and I was really growing tired of him by the fall of ‘87, right around the time I got pregnant.
When Zak was born, Peter had already moved out. One last serious row where he kicked in my expensive JBL 4309 speakers and destroyed the reck room in 3 minutes when I was 7 months into my pregnancy and my unborn son was hurled into a tornado nearing term. We were both intoxicated and when he bolted that late summer evening I was immensely relieved. My gut instinct was that he was gone for good. Two months later, I saw him for the first time since that night, when he showed up at the hospital after giving birth. ‘Zak’ was Peter’s idea knowing he could never be a real Dad to him but wanting to give his boy a noble name. His visit was nice. When Peter kissed me on my forehead and left me laying there with Zak, I didn’t know it would be the last time I would ever see him.
PURGATORY - Postpartum - November 1989
It’s the music that conjures the images which conjures the words.
Decent headphones pop. The story continues in a revisitation.
I am living outside of time and space as I have known it. As I walk through the shadows of a neighbourhood street near the hospital one early evening with my son strapped to my chest, I watch the other people going about their tasks: returning from work or school, carrying groceries or collecting the mail. The pause; that suspicious stale smile. ‘That child looks odd’, I can hear one saying from a distance. It feels as though I am watching a world to which I no longer belong. A world where I am no longer loved. Their look of internal anguish and external judgement; some crusty old witch from behind me in line at Walgreens saying ... ‘is that a mixed baby’? Really? ‘So what of it?’ barking back. Asshole. Zak isn’t a ‘mixed baby’ but I sometimes defend him like he is. Damaged, deformed, a freak and quite possibly retarded? Bring it on! Something in Peter’s east European genetics made Zak look dark. FAK! This is all a bad omen in a series of wretched dreams.
In one dream, I have left my infant son at Barnes & Noble probably close to a drinking fountain, where I might imagine him drinking from it in some semblance of his near future. When I come back he has curled up and has made a nest on top of a roof gutter where I need a ladder to reach because he is a rodent. Dry and deceased, quietly needing to be placed in a garbage bag and into the trash. In another, I turn my back to speak to someone and when I turn back he is gone. Someone else tells me he’s gone down to the river. When I get there he’s on the bank; bluish pale and not breathing, but I give him my air and he shudders back to life. I am grateful. So grateful. What did I just DO? Motherly instincts. A mother will do anything for her child. Time to go home.
Zak is a fucking nightmare. Alone up here, in Owaska Lake. ALONE! WITH THIS FUCKING MONSTER! Screaming 20 hours a day and sleeping for 4 while I lay wide awake staring at the ceiling waiting for him to wake up. Am I in a Siberian gulag in the 1930’s, in minus 60 degree hell? ‘What am I going to do’? Over and over and over again. Day in and day out for months. No reading, no writing, barely eating, no bathing, no swimming and no fucking. My Doctor called it postpartum and had no answers on what I should do because he is a man and essentially has no interest. None. Pills and shit to calm my nerves? Fuck off! I call it madness. A cyst on my brain. An aneurism, a reason to die. Sending me home with HIM! ‘Learn to cope. DEAL. With him’ - was my official medical prognosis. Right. The doctor said it would pass. It didn’t pass. Motherhood was the cloak over my eyes and mouth. I prefer the pump to his mouth. The pump never cries or bites. The pump never rejects my worn sagging tits or black and blue nipples even if my supply is low. Gravitating to formula out of necessity. If you disapprove? Fuck you.
Wanting to be pregnant was about my experience; how empowered I would feel carrying a child, pushing it through the narrow canal. How after that I would be able to do anything. I felt beautiful with my pregnant belly. I was Earth Mother. Goddess. Bearer of new life. I read half a dozen books on giving birth; the miracle of it. I didn’t read a single one about what happens after, totally getting the romanticism in the sanctity of life and the ‘pro-life’ movement’s mission to abolish abortions. Then there’s the reality; the hypocrisy. Life begins as an embryo in the womb but once your child is born no one cares. That one hurt the most.
When I said I wanted a child, it was in the abstract. Having a child is not abstract.
It is true. Sometimes I leave the baby in the rocker swing after he’s started to cry, just so I can put a dish in the sink. Or pee. Or drink a glass of water. It is true. I have thought about throwing the baby out a second floor window like it’s a TV smashing to pieces on the sidewalk below. I have thought about covering its mouth, only so it stops crying for a second so I could think even if I accidentally suffocate him. I could not have known what it would feel like to hold this creature asleep on my chest, his tiny fingers hooked to my skin. His body across mine: tiny buttocks, legs curled like a frog’s, the soft hair on his head and arms and his beautiful smell. I am drunk on it and I want it all to end. Be over. There’s the occasional moment of bliss ... I love to change his diaper. I love to watch his anus open like a tiny mouth and release the waste. I lift his meaty legs and wipe his bottom, applying the soft Penaten cream while he smiles at me, then sprinkling Johnson’s baby powder all over him before wrapping the whole thing up in a clean white cloth. It provides a sense of accomplishment that little else about mothering does.
Before I was a mother, I was a poet and a writer. I lay in bed on Saturday mornings reading for hours. I walked through city gardens and in the streets with no particular destination in mind. I read my poems in bars where a parched thirst like thistles flooded our dry mouths, where we stood up when the words sliced through our thin costumes, where we drank in abundance and danced until 2am with little thought of tomorrow. There were no children there. I lived in the land of no children.
I find that my moods mirror my son’s. If he is delighted and gurgling I am delighted. If he is crying and inconsolable I fall into despair. This back and forth might happen ten or more times a day. Everything is better when we leave the house. When it is like this: his animal mouth on me, head back, eyes closed, no sound except the catch of his breath and the swallowing. I do not know how long I can do this. It’s as if we are figures in a painting. We can never leave. If there was one silver lining in giving birth to Zak is that I stop drinking - had to.
VANISH - March 1991
If I really wanted to? I could just vanish. It was a daily contemplation on how exactly I would do that in Zak’s first 2 years. There’s a large wooded area out behind my house in upstate NY that goes back half a mile before it gets to the creek. Some sleeping pills and a razor blade would do it. Mid-day? Sure. Let’s rock! Weeks becoming months and into a new year. Time passes. Dark times. Death? Sure.
Ya suicide. It’s cyclical. Sometimes it’s a couple of times a year and sometimes it’s a couple of times a day. Every human goes through the same thing only likely a lot less frequently. What I have learned from all this is that I love my son more than anything. He is my every breath. My reason to live AND he is sheer torture. A natural disaster. Having had a long luxurious hot bath, I return to my kitchen, still wet. Zak is in the upstairs living room having broke out of the reck room?? NO! He runs up to me ... ‘Mommy I polished the chesterfield’ ... slowly stepping into the living room and looking in terror - he has generously applied black liquid shoe polish all over my new $3000 Ethan Allen leather sofa. Then there was the time I stepped outside for 5 minutes to take out the trash while he sat at the kitchen table eating Count Chocula cereal and when I returned he had emptied out the entire refrigerator … eggs, milk, orange juice, fruit, vegetables and pasta salad dumped out all over the kitchen floor. Whatever. I’m adapting. There’s a shift when Zak turned 3. His terrible twos actually easier too. Three? Even easier still. He needs to destroy shit. Give him shit to destroy in a contained disaster proof space and watch the clouds lift and my sanity return.
We’re actually settling into a rhythm. His 9 hours a day in Peter’s wreck room wrecking stuff before watching cartoons, eating then sleeping for 12 hours. Thank you God! I’m buying anything that he can wreck, take it down to the reck room and take it to the trash after. Old tricycles, shopping carts, empty gum-ball machines, junk VCRs (that he actually dismantles with his bare 3 year old hands) and endless blow up, punching robots and inflatable cartoon rubber like Popeye that he can climb on top of, deflate and demolish. Like feeding the alligator in your basement. It’s self sufficient, keeps him occupied and wears him out while I read, write, paint my toenails and make dinner, thinking end of life becoming less and less. New reasons to live.
Writing again! Writing is like vomiting. Shiver, purge, pause, drip, shiver, purge, pause, drip and so on over several hours. Reading it the next day is like having my daily reaffirmation complete. It starts with a small shot of cognac and into familiar territory we go. Writing more and more and more. Hours, days, weeks. Months. Years.
Zak grew and grew and grew and grew.
Our Father (Chapter six)
who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name (excerpt)
more to come
Chapter Seven
WINTER - Feb. 10, 1999
My fortieth birthday party was me sitting alone at my kitchen table and getting hammered at 5pm on a Wednesday afternoon. Yes. The day after having attended an AA meeting and re-committing to some vacant idea that I could live my life sober for more than a day. Let’s just say that it’s a warm feeling. Quite clear. Swimming 2km/day in cold water kinda worked so I kept doing it. Getting slim, fit and healthy again off and on. It was almost seasonal. December to March was always the easiest fall off the wagon. Winter ... no man’s land. The Wild West? Yes!
Bill Clinton as our trusty President came with much optimism then trepidation especially after being caught with his belt unbuckled and his pants down in the Oval Office taking quiet afternoon groin play from White House intern Monica Lewinsky and wife Hillary remaining mute around the whole ordeal. Most revealing. It shone a spotlight on infidelity in marriage and a politician’s inability to keep his little pecker in check and out of the mainstream media. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” was wide open to interpretation and he was obviously hiding something. What surprised me the most is that it didn’t matter. Turns out married Presidents getting casual blowjobs on the side was actually no big deal to the American people. It almost appeared to be ok, like making him more human or some shit. It represented a shift in America’s moral code, condoning misrepresentation, hidden agendas and extra-marital affairs. In short, it gave everyone permission to fuck around.
America’s mounting imperialism was formally reinstated when George W. Bush was elected in 2001, having barely squeaked in on a technicality over Al Gore. In a country with 300 million, ‘W’ had received 543,895 fewer individual nationwide votes than Gore. Bush won the election with his Republican Party having greased the wheel, receiving 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266 (Gore had actually been awarded 267 votes by the states pledged to him plus the District of Columbia). Both major-party candidates focused primarily on domestic issues, such as the budget, tax relief, and reforms to federal social insurance programs, although foreign policy (American Exceptionalism) was surely not ignored. Due to Clinton’s sex scandal and subsequent impeachment, Gore avoided campaigning with Clinton as America’s heartland pretended to disapprove. Republicans denounced Clinton’s indiscretions which eventually gained traction, while Gore rightly criticized Bush’s lack of experience. Either way, it was a giant shit show where Republicans were able to take advantage of a dwindling moral code in favour of a worse one hidden from view.
George W. Bush was our first real look at how adolescence could prevail in American politics. For anyone with any sense of perception it was all too obvious that this ‘man’ was just a boy; emotionally stunted and with a pretentious maturity appealing to those who shared just that, even admired it. No. George W. was George Sr’s son who wanted to grow up and be just like his Daddy and his child-like posturing was on display for all to see (and be fooled by). None of that mattered. Why would a nation need a grown up to take charge when essentially they (as adults), have not yet grown up themselves? I mean if the Wild West lets us wear cowboy hats, holsters and shoot cap guns and as long as there are Indians around that need to be handled, then why not?
What most ‘normal’ everyday Americans were unable to see is that they were in fact the cause in their own undoing.
NINE ELEVEN
Americans watched in horror as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Patriotic sentiment and resentment surged in the aftermath. After that, the U.S. and its allies launch hundreds of airstrikes against Taliban and al-Qaida forces in early October 2001. Right. Let’s not take a good long look in the mirror people (at the real cause of our woes); no, we need to lash out. Punishment. Vengeance. Payback NOW! 79% of adults said they had displayed an American flag. A year later, a 62% majority said they had often felt patriotic as a result. Interfering in the affairs of other cultures comes with blowback, fall out ... reparations. This ‘right’ that we think we have to dominate other countries will come back to haunt us. I have been saying it for years and now here it is AGAIN. Like a deer in the headlights we are righteously recycled in a coma where our awakening is delayed indefinitely.
Americans were enraged by the attacks. How dare they! Three weeks after 9/11, even as the psychological stress began to ease somewhat, 87% said they felt angry; anger that turned inward and towards all those even domestically who weren’t white nationalists and needed to be purged or incarcerated. All American Muslims are targeted; mosques, their homes and public places of worship and congregation are burned, damaged or vandalized.
Fear is widespread, not just in the days immediately after the attacks, but throughout the fall of 2001. Most Americans said they are very (28%) or somewhat (45%) worried about another attack. American imperialism, entitlement and exceptionalism becoming first and foremost front and center in an immediate quest for survival. When asked a year later to describe how their lives changed in a major way, about half of adults said they felt more afraid, more careful, more distrustful or more vulnerable as a result of the attacks. Those twin towers were a symbol of our infallible superiority. Crushed. Fuckers! A growing insulation permeates a need to punish anyone who doesn’t fit the role of a ‘real’ American patriot. Bush and his consortium of war zealots like Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and VP Dick Cheney manufacture the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ narrative to justify a trillion dollar ‘crush the bastards’ war campaign that demolishes Iraq and Afghanistan where nothing was gained and the planet’s insecurity proliferates.
I am increasingly quite content to shut it all out and even take a break from writing for a month or so to clear my head, throwing my cherished NY Times, Washington Post and even my Rolling Stone in the trash before even looking at them.
Doubling down on Remy Martin VSOP Cognac and sativa influencers.
THE BIG LEAP
2002 turned into 2003, 2005, then 2007. Time flies when you’re having fun. Zak is a torrential downpour. Every week there is another big problem whether it was being detained for stealing or pulverizing some kid at school who looked at him the wrong way. In and out of juvenile detention and not even going to school at all by grade 9. By the time Zak turned 14 in 2003 he had grown to a towering 6’4” and was still growing. He was essentially a mirror image of Peter, his father whom he had never met, only pictures of him from heavy metal magazines that he had on his bedroom wall with skull paintings, Megadeath, Black Sabbath, occult symbols, swastikas and Confederate paraphernalia. Our relationship was hot then cold much like mine was with my parents at his age and later with Peter before it blew up in a massive explosion before dissipating into thin air.
There are moments when we hug on the couch usually watching TV. Affection is abundant mostly initiated and carried out by Mom but Zak quietly loves it. A lot of snuggling. My big honey bear. He can be very gentle. Truth is, my love for my son is bigger than I am. Sometimes he crawls into my bed in the middle of the night and spoons me, having an erection almost every time. I turn to face him and we hug and kiss. Sexual? Almost. He never forced himself on me even though I almost invited that. It was complicated, intense and volatile. Like his Dad, he is prone to moodiness and flying off the handle, destroying stuff and leaving me to clean up the mess. After a violent clash one night, Zak took my car keys and totalled my BMW after which time he disappeared. Gone.
I later found out that he hitch-hikes all over; this time to Texas in a pilgrimage to find Peter and joins a far right wing group as a warrior for the cause in 2004 at 15. Jews, muslims, niggers, hispanics, faggots, socialists, democrats in that order. I became numb out of necessity. Perhaps an ample reason to put back a 1.5L bottle of Merlot every night. It is quite conceivable that Peter was out there as he had expressed his desire to join such a group in the late stages of our relationship and Zak was cognizant of his Dad’s ideology and maybe even his location. Zak’s disappearance is unsettling. By spring of 2007 I was ready for something bigger.
I’m devastated and immensely relieved. I need out. Out of New York; out of America! I sold my house, gave away most of my belongings, gave my kitty Troy to my neighbour (who he was was spending more time with anyway), bought a laptop (Apple MacBook Pro) and moved to India.
SALAAM - Oct. 21st, 2008
Boarding Etihad flight EY21 in Abu Dhabi was exhausting, having landed from JFK six hours earlier and sitting at the airport drinking Pepsi ad nauseam and peeing every 20 minutes. NY to Abu Dhabi was 17 hours before that. I’m jet-lagged ad infinitum. I’m on my way to Delhi, India hoping to make it before the Diwali. I’d heard about it. India’s festival of lights, rich in history and colour especially orange. India speaks to your soul so I’m told. The Diwali’s kind of like our Halloween and Christmas rolled into a 3 day thing in November there and positioned somewhere between the two only it’s still warm and summer like even in November. Surreal. Yes costumes, fireworks, perilous rickshaws with everyone beeping their horns; disoriented drivers swerving to avoid a crash as a gazillion people collide together all at the same time. I was just looking forward to seeing that. Oh and the smokey smell of curry everywhere. Street dogs & cats. Spellbound kids looking up at sky lanterns ascending. This airport looks like the inside of a beehive. Right. I need to pass out for three days and this flight is finally boarding. A few more hours and I can sleep for days.
Carry on up in the overhead, that familiar sanitized air being pumped in; sitting - the window seat, looking into my new iPhone. This new thing. Oh right. Internet. Sorry ya. Important detail. Yes! Looks like the seats are all mine. What’s this? Late arrival? What the fuck. This woman’s fumbling (dropping shit) followed by a swear word and spilling Coke on the floor splashing all over her sandals. More swearing. FAK. Flight Attendant on scene. Finally plopping herself down. She smells nice ... ‘Salaam - I’m Hamsa’. I’m stunned as she reaches out her slim hand and we faintly shake. ‘Is that patchouli’? Asking. Thinking, flower girl. Free spirit. Her laugh was infectious and she was a total smoke show. I immediately wanted to have sex with her. I actually thought she was Laura visiting me from the afterlife at first but then seeing ... no. Not Laura but wow! The resemblance is striking. I’d say Hamsa was in her late 20’s and she was like Laura only having circumvented her callous karma and having arrived in the here and now (twenty years later). Healthy, blonde and beautiful and wanting to get naked with me (a fantasy). I mean, I’m almost old enough to be her mother but it was fun to imagine that. Instructions from the front, thinking Etihad flight attendants are so beautiful. Every one. Must be a prerequisite. Immaculately presented. Jesus now I’m aroused. Lights lowered looking out. 5 hours to Delhi.
Bring it on.
Right. Hamsa is Arabic. Her father is Jordanian and her mother, French/Algerian and ya. Olive skin but blonde is a freaky combination. Riveting. So hot. When I told her I was American and going to see the Diwali in Delhi she gasped. “Me too!” she said in her one of a kind middle eastern accent. It felt like she had just come out of something nasty and just wanted to move on. I didn’t pry. That was the beginning of a long, stimulating relationship. Separated for a day as she needed to visit her sister there then it continued. Our first partial week in Delhi was amazing. We eventually took a 5 hour bus north to Mohali just before the national festival began, stayed at the Majestic Hotel, slept in the same king bed and explored India together.
Being in the Punjab was magical. It was like rediscovering my youth - my 20s returning only different. It felt like where it could have gone in an alternate reality. I rented the top floor of an amazing house in Sector 10, Chandigarh. Hamsa lived with me off and on (moving around) for several months before returning to Dubai; visiting me every year for the Diwali. I was no longer interested in the drink. No. For me now, it’s all about hallucinogens and sparingly (maybe once a week). I’m pushing 50 and becoming more health conscious. Castaneda. Journey to Ixtland, Tales of Power, The Eagle’s Gift. MDMA, opium, psilocybin, peyote and hashish fuelling my prurient prose. Indian culture, history; reading and writing and writing and writing. I travelled all over in overflowing rickety busses or cheap taxis with my laptop, staying in 3 star hotels, sharing my bedroom with harmless geckos on ornate wall paper, all of whom I befriended in Ludhiana, Patiala, Jalandhar, Jammu/Kashmir and visited the Golden Temple in Amritsar on the way back.
Living in India feels like I’ve finally found home.
Our Father (Chapter seven)
who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name (excerpt)
more to come
Chapter Eight
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE - March 2005 (three years earlier)
Hey. Could you do me a big favour? Suck my fucking dick.
There is a growing movement that serves up salacious sarcasm with a side of impish intimidation intended to smear. A beautiful blend; bold with a crisp, satisfying finish. Safe/secure. Reaction & resentment appears to be on the menu so let’s do one of each. Let’s bring it home shall we? There’s nothing like a home cooked meal after a run with the mare out on the 13th back in, just outside of Cheyenne Wyoming, hanging up my stetson, hands washed and ready for supper. Kids are grown up and gone. Life is good. I’m hoping the gravy is good tonight. Complacency is a pleasant valley Sunday sermon. Three nights later - looking soulfully into your 24 year old mistress’s eyes on a soft romantic night out (that you’re paying for), wondering if she really loves you or is just ‘in love’ with your fucking MONEY! ‘Let’s not talk about my wife tonight Linda, (or when I plan to leave her). I need this to be perfect’.
It’s warm, cozy and familiar. Billy Joel, ‘I Love You Just the Way you Are’ tenderly played by a soused lounge pianist who thinks he can sing, promising unconditional love regardless of how flawed but fuckable you obviously are. It’s that fairy tale we were told as kids by our Moms after our bath, in bed after dark with our flannel daffy duck pyjamas on and hugging Teddy. It’s Mommy giving me a hug goodnight, while a belligerent tipsy Daddy yells at her from the kitchen, waiting for his late supper after stumbling in from outside. It is what’s REAL? What I remember; long for. It’s what’s here now. Back again.
Returning to my diary with a single candle burning. Finding solace in my quiet resolve.
Rules:
1. You do not talk about Fight Club. 2. You DO NOT talk about Fight Club. 3. If someone yells “stop,” goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over. 4. Only two guys to a fight. One fight at a time. No shirts, no shoes. 5. Fights will go on as long as they have to. 6. If this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight. Them’s the rules.
Right. This is intense and deep. I’ll try. We are pulled one way or the other. We often follow our parent’s lead. In the case of Zak he was following his father’s lead. I mean, they’re both the same size now with the same alpha male ideals.
It’s genetic. Kids just want to go home to what’s familiar - even if home is in flames and wants to engulf you.
MUD RACES - April 2005
National Alliance. William Pierce.
World Church of the Creator
The Creativity Movement was formed in 1973 by the late racist Ben Klassen under the name Church of the Creator (COTC). Its adherents believe that race, is the embodiment of absolute truth and that the white race is the highest expression of culture and civilization. Jews and non-whites are considered subhuman “mud races” who conspire to subjugate whites. While Klassen’s “religion” attracted few followers at first, by the late 1980s, increasing numbers of white supremacists found a home in his Nazi-like belief system, which was spelled out in a whole series of Klassen books that included such titles as Nature’s Eternal Religion, Rahowa! This Planet Is All Ours and The White Man’s Bible.
Creators, as Creativity followers call themselves, have sometimes literally taken up the movement’s calls for RAHOWA — or “racial holy war” — by committing violent hate crimes. So many in the movement doing unquestionable things. Illegal and dangerous things. The darkish world is mounting an offensive. A kamikaze like attitude in America with authorities quietly on-side. Then there’s the flip side in a more optimistic outcome.
Liberty, is the fundamental state of being free within society from restrictive external authority, arbitrary control, or physical constraint. It encompasses civil rights and political freedoms. The concept of liberty branches into several specific areas, ranging from philosophy to local amenities and is generally inclusive in nature. Wiggle room? I mean ... you could flip this over like a pancake and no one would know the difference; freedom being a double edged sword. There’s freedom then there’s freedom from ‘them’.
This is the disconnect. The alienation is intended to provoke disorientation. Somewhat predictable. I mean - it’s happened before only that doesn’t matter. It has this preoccupation with immediate order and resolve. Take stock and move on. Some call it survival in a food chain, some call it extermination. It all still exists. It’s just hidden better.
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When Zak found Peter in early 2005 he had become an ultra-nationalist organizer at COTC Austin TX branch, having given up music and taking a stand for the cause. Peter welcomed his 16 year old son with open arms and they coexisted together there as conspirators in a movement to remove America’s vermin from the face of the planet. This apparent flirtation between populism and fascism could be interpreted any number of ways with populism being more of a mainstream component and fascism remaining more on the fringes. Nonetheless they are connected and intertwined albeit quietly. Recurring themes of this political ideology include neo-nationalism, social conservatism, economic nationalism, and fiscal conservatism. Frequently they aim to defend a national culture, identity, and economy against perceived attacks by ‘outsiders’. It is no coincidence that nationalism gained serious traction after 9/11.
Being a curious Mom, I researched all of this in an attempt to understand my son’s trajectory, inspired by his father. I read all of Ben Klassen’s books, wanting to get a better idea of where Zak’s future was headed and all the dangers involved. It was also during this time that I read Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler’s rampant manifesto finding many abundant and troubling similarities.
Right-wing populism in the Western world is sometimes associated with ideologies such as anti-environmentalism, anti-globalism, nativism, and protectionism. Some forms may also delve into libertarian themes, with federalism, anti-central bank - key themes in the libertarian spectre with Ron Paul and some parts of the Tea Party movement being a notable example of this. Modern COTC operations are very much a ‘boys club’ rife with caustic colloquialisms, male bonding, metastasized misogyny, fight games, hidden hyper homosexual encounters and military style drills/manoeuvres using automatic and semi-automatic firearms in an active preparation for any number of ‘end of days’ scenarios.
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The American narrative is ensconced in a pious, sanctimonious sermon that plays and replays ad nauseam. In churches, on TV - kids singing hymns on our computer screens. The message is loud & clear. The movement makes no apologies for being superior; having rights that others don’t have. Even if they break laws, molest minors or violate the constitution themselves. It’s a new world, with new priorities. What goes on behind closed doors is none of my business AND if you knew what was good for you? You would just STFU and take it like a real man. Perks dude. Credit card. Whip that bitch out, NOW. Time to party! It’s what most American voters wanted. So shall they get. Zak was signing up to be in an exclusive club of real men with real plans to dominate the American landscape, take no prisoners and be leaders of their courageous clan.
From their perspective, all this is a no-brainer. Coming to terms with the inevitable is all part of growing up. First intimidated, then initiated then informed. Invisible, invincible, inebriated & infected. Isolated. Years practicing preparation in a rural compound with a propensity for provocation. The new narrative is primarily focussed on power over people even though in the earliest scriptures, it was the other way around. What exactly? … is up with that? Even later, in John’s Book of Revelations, after a myriad of heroes & martyrs conquer & perish, he reveals the church’s mission. To imitate the loving sacrifice of the lamb. Giving up one’s life for another’s redemption - finding faith & fortitude in forgiveness seems feeble and frail. Today’s patriotic warriors are out for blood and vengeance.
The birth of Christian Nationalism is riddled in hypocrisy where the rules can shift according to the whims of those calling the shots while remaining unaccountable.
Even those living in poverty willingly pay; are struggling to stay afloat themselves, living in tornado torn trailer parks in Oklahoma, Kentucky or Alabama or fucking Florida. Eating Kraft Dinner and chicken weiners for supper (yet again) while paying out of pocket for basic healthcare and those ‘in charge’ clean up. Those devoted are still sending money to wealthy politicians and evangelists travelling in private jets and limousines in exchange for a sense of security that remains illusive. This has turned out to be a WIN-WIN for the hunters and less so, for the hunted. Those unaware, lose.
God bless America … this is where my son lives now.
Peter and Zak’s plan has absolutely no interest in changing any of that.
Our Father (Chapter eight)
who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name (excerpt)
more to come
Chapter Nine
MADISON - June 2005
Remember Devin? My dysfunctional older brother? Darlene? Troy? Kitty kitty? Christmas in Flint? Right.
They moved to Madison and are still there 27 years later. Devin settled into insurance managing to work around his criminal record simply by saying nothing about it; leaving it blank on all of his applications. In the early 80s states weren’t really paying attention to what other states were doing with few computers or communication other than phones really so his black mark in Michigan didn’t really translate in Wisconsin unless someone was specifically looking (and they weren’t). He was 35 when he landed in insurance after working in a family run electronics/stereo shop for 5 years talking his way into the insurance game like a pro. American Family Insurance Group, based in Madison was a big deal and a serious step up for Devin, with $9.6 billion in yearly revenue nationally, AFI is one of the biggest insurance companies in America. Devin was really good in sales with a special talent at closing deals; becoming an Associate Manager then Regional Sales Manager at the Madison head office in ‘95 heading up a staff of 26 sales field reps and 7 secretaries.
He bought a four bedroom split level ranch in the upscale neighbourhood of Maple Bluff in ‘92 where they lived with Troy and younger sister Trish until Troy moved out in ‘98; Trish in 2003. Darlene became the dutiful housewife much like Mom was in Flint ... cooking, cleaning and shopping for groceries once a week, having her own car; saying sorry a lot and scared shitless of everything. Darlene made Devin’s favourite pork chop and scalloped potatoes supper every Friday, before having the only sex they will have that week later in the king size bed they still slept in together, always around 9pm, a rear entry and always lasting about 3 minutes. She always read Danielle Steele for 30 minutes before turning off the light and sleeping while he got properly hammered in the rec. room downstairs watching TV in the finished basement till 2am. The sex was more charity on his part than a real wish to meaningfully engage with his wife and she knew it. Darlene was depressed, smoking 3 packs of Virginia Slims every day and watching a whole lot of cable TV. Her favourite show was The Young and the Restless that she watched religiously every weekday at 2pm just before Oprah and Jerry Springer. Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! It’s all rather sad.
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Devin is almost 60 and prone to mischief. Namely brief naughty encounters over the years with assorted office staff mostly - blinds closed, door locked and a slender little honey bunny with her tight little skirt jacked up, heels, Chanel, hoop ear rings, hair up in a bun and panties down around her knees bent over his desk. He prefers them young and hot so that’s how he hires them even if they’re terrible at their jobs, irrelevant. If they even came somewhat close to resembling Demi Moore or Gwyneth Paltrow and fucked him with her eyes in the interview they were almost always certainly hired and desired. HR always caved to Devin’s wishes because he is a big shot in sales. Fuel in the tank to the boys club in upper management and the Directors up on the top floor of this 10 story building in downtown Madison with a roof garden, fountain and mirror pool. The men all wore $3K Armani or Jay Kos suits, drove new Benzes or Lexus SCs, saw mistresses (their daughter’s age) once a week and lived in million dollar plus homes in Shorewood Hills or Nakoma with 90 foot old firs, birch trees, poplars oaks elms and maples, circular driveways, meticulously maintained landscapes, statues and swimming pools. Very upscale. The insurance racket was massive. Still is.
‘Give that boy whatever he wants’ they would say during their monthly board meeting. Lavish recreation and expensive restaurants were all part of what Devin’s entourage could expect. Perk city and of course all ‘business’ and (wink) - always on the company’s dime. Darlene saw the lipstick on his collar when she took his shirts to the dry cleaners and didn’t say anything - too afraid to. Afraid she might get turfed or lose her comfortable home and Volvo S60. She always found evidence in his clothes. Suit jacket, pants or coat in the winter. He was either careless or didn’t care. Receipts for restaurants can be difficult to interpret but local motels on week nights? When he said he was out of town on business? Two, maybe three times a month or more? Bastard. He didn’t even care if she knew. Darlene found room receipts, even keys a couple of times in his coat or pants pocket. Almost like he was daring her to leave him.
Right. Devin is ... well endowed. Honestly as his younger sister? I’ve been on the receiving end of that way more than I want to remember. Me? These women? Honestly? Different and indifferent. Molested by our husbands, fathers, step-fathers and even our brothers. Women being desperate for real attention and affection; daughters, wives, girlfriends - secretaries at the office; all lonely. It was like they’re never getting enough care at home so they gravitate to those outside the relationship to fill the void only to realize that it’s all the same ... everywhere.
There’s this subtle saucy thing going on too, even if they’re married. Married women are often the most provocative. Devin is a good looking man and he knows it, staying slim with a wisp of grey in his dark mane of greying hair. Special memories in his locked office or at the Christmas party. A festive encounter on the fourth floor in the Xerox room with the lights off while Darlene stands alone petrified and tries to mingle on the third floor below with snooty wives gossiping about other wives or their delinquent kids wondering ...’where’s Devin?’ They’re all laughing and having a gay old time. The one thing he loved most about being at work was that it was away from her. Darlene was a downer; an emotional drain. No. The office is fair game because if they say anything? They could lose their jobs and be disgraced and all it takes is one quick blowjob in the front seat of a car in the parking lot to hook them in. Any man on the receiving end, instigating and choreographing the dirty deed? No problem. Always swept under the carpet and the harlot quietly fired. I mean she must have been asking for it right? Brilliant if I must say so myself. All too familiar too. Always starting with the subtle flirtations, perhaps a hint at a promotion in the staff room over a sip of coffee. His eyes dropping to an obvious violet push up bra supporting her succulent mammaries ... “Jesus Brenda, that pink silk blouse is a perfect 10” he would playfully say smiling. Ya it’s partially see through for a reason idiot, she would think but not say, smiling back, sip of java.
Devin was a functioning alcoholic having been one for 30 years having his first snort of whisky in his coffee thermos every morning and having a couple of mickeys in his office bottom desk drawer at any given time. He got good at hiding it with colognes, gum, mouthwash and sprays so upper management looks the other way, knowing but disapproving. I mean you would never know. He inspired his team and knew how to crack the whip when he needed to, hiring and firing guys every few weeks, sometimes loudly. Their collective 70 plus million in sales every year ($7M+ in commissions between them) made it all work approaching retirement, a decent pension and his plan to move to Florida.
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Madison is a beautiful little city almost surrounded by water but having brutal winters. Very white collar and a massive state wide University system educating America’s future business, tech, legal and healthcare professionals. Less than 10% of the population were either Chinese or Black African American at the turn of the millennium. Everyone else was white and most disapproved of ethnicities living there so racism was definitely a thing. Wisconsin’s capital, Madison is the second-most populous city in the state (after Milwaukee), with a population of around 200K in 2005 and a downtown centrally located on an isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona, the city also encompassing Lake Wingra.
During the Civil War, Madison served as a center of the Union Army in Wisconsin. The intersection of Milwaukee, East Washington, Winnebago, and North Streets is known as Union Corners because a tavern there was the last stop for Union soldiers before leaving to fight the Confederates. Camp Randall, on Madison’s west side, was built and used as a training camp, a military hospital, and a prison camp for captured Confederate soldiers. After the war, the Camp Randall site was absorbed into the University of Wisconsin, and Camp Randall Stadium was built there in 1917. In 2004 the last vestige of active military training on the site was removed when the stadium renovation replaced a firing range used for ROTC training.
FIGHT CLUB
Devin’s Troy and my Zak are very similar. Both sexually repressed alpha big boys with a propensity for physical contact and a need to be the center of attention. Publicly hetero and privately bisexual (but never ‘gay’, God no). As with most men in this bitstream there is no amount of fame, fortune or length & intensity of orgasm that can satisfy this hunger for pain. This dubious duality. The tortured soul constantly looking for an outlet to inflict. That said, intimidation helps. Punishment. Let’s hurt others! Good idea! Great distraction. This insipid streak of narcissism ran in our family with seeds planted by our fathers.
Troy gravitated to physical education in high school where he excelled at the expense of the basics, like English & Math. To this day? Troy can barely read and write and struggles to figure out the tip at a restaurant so he doesn’t leave one. He actually graduated in grade 12, having failed most of his academic courses because he didn’t show up to them. Nope, he’s in the gym and most of his grades were fudged in the office at the request of Peter Boyd; James Madison Memorial High School’s Head of Physical Education because he had a special fondness for Troy. That’s all I was told. Exercise machines 6 hours a day. Half a dozen protein shakes a day. Extra curricular was the wrestling team mostly, quietly hating the football team while dating their poopsie mascara clad cheerleaders with cute smiles and perky little tits, in spite mostly - participating in a good bang up. Multiple partners like a tag team in wrestling. Loved kicking and kissing ass. When he left home in Madison in ‘98 he was almost 24 and toured the northern states first as a coaching assistant then professional kick boxer making a modest living at that. When he turned 28 in 2002 he signed on to TKO, the national conglomerate which owns UFC and WWE where he became a multi-disciplinary prize fighter doing both circuits as a kick boxer and performer. He first went by the stage name Troy Russo, to Chuck Liddell, eventually known all over America as the “Iceman”. Troy is famous. He is Chuck now.
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The Ultimate Fighting Championship is an American mixed martial arts promotion company based in the Las Vegas, Nevada area. It is owned and operated by TKO Group Holdings, itself a majority owned subsidiary of The WME Group
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is an American professional wrestling promotion and the largest wrestling promotion in the world, it also branched out into fields outside of professional wrestling, including film, football, and other business ventures, such as licensing its intellectual property to other companies to produce video games and action figures. One is essentially the flip side of the other.
As in other professional wrestling promotions, WWE does not promote a legitimate sporting contest but rather entertainment-based mock combat performance theater, featuring storyline-driven, scripted, and partially choreographed matches. However, matches often include moves that put performers at risk of serious injury or death if not performed correctly. Troy endured multiple fractures and 3 concussions but kept coming back for more despite the risks. Pocketing $12K per fight twice a week may have something to do with that. Three months with UFC, three months with WWE and six months off to rest and prepare for the next round? Bring it on! The pre-determined aspect of professional wrestling was publicly acknowledged by WWE in 1989 to avoid regulation by athletic commissions. WWE markets its product as “sports entertainment”, touting professional wrestling’s roots in competitive sport on the surface but entirely engaging in dramatic theater. Wrestling is all fake - a show.
It was consistent shows, after-parties, boys, girls, blow ... money. Let’s fuck. Troy bought a house in Boulder City just outside of Las Vegas and married show-girl Candy Mansfield in 2006; having a son Eric in 2007.
Our Father (Chapter nine)
who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name (excerpt)
more to come
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Chapter Ten
MONSOON SEASON - August 2010
If the rain comes, they run and hide their heads. They might as well be dead.
John Lennon
It was a vision I had in one of my Castaneda inspired excursions in the foothills of Harmukh in Kashmir north of Jammu in early May. I take no responsibility for my absence under the influence of entheogens. I often lose all sense of time. Sometimes I lock my car and walk away and when I return to it five days have gone by and I remember nothing around where I went or what happened. There was one clear remembrance from this trip. A haunting voice with specific instructions ... ‘go south’. Even better, ‘go south during monsoon season’ was the dispatch that I received from the Oracle. Divine insight with clear direction will not be ignored. Footnotes. ‘Get drenched, cleansed. Dance! Fall in love. Let the rain wash you clean. Make new friends. Find eternity’. Right. I can do that.
Yes. It was my idea and my new girlfriend Hamsa was all for it arriving in late July, flying in to Delhi from Dubai earlier this year with the intent of staying with me until December. I’m thinking a month long journey, maybe six weeks travelling by train in an incremental yet epic discovery of this majestic, immortal country. Delhi to Mumbai ... Goa, Kerala and our final destination in Sri Lanka at the peak of the rainy season before flying back in September in time for the Diwali. When I met Hamsa at the airport in Delhi we took a rickshaw to Delhi Junction with a 2 hour wait for the train to Mumbai sitting outside in the heat sipping on cold mango lassis and catching up, wearing minimal clothing, stared at and consumed by the men around us.
A curious, scrawny brown and white street mutt with one functioning eye and half a chewed off left ear befriended us. ‘Oh shit, smells” I said and Hamsa laughed. I would guess him to be a year old. A fully grown pup I’d say. It’s a spark that grown one year olds have over those even a year older. This dog might be about 17 in human years. Puberty? Check. Survival instincts? Check. Attitude? Check. Street dogs are everywhere in the Punjab. I later found out that they are everywhere in all of India. Millions of them. Astoundingly sentient. Very friendly, almost like he has done this many times before, scrounging for edibles from locals or tourists and all too often getting what he needs. Unusually big dangling balls for a male (obviously) and ya, he smelled pretty bad but we still petted and conversed with him. Kinda cute actually. We have a new friend licking out of our large clay lassi cups in a frantic desire for liquid sustenance before Hamsa broke down and gave him half of her energy bar that he inhaled in one gulp without even chewing. All we could think about was that moment we could get on to an air conditioned train and cool down. Trains in India always run late and this one was no exception.
When our ride, the August Kranti Rajdhani Express bound for Mumbai Central finally arrived, we walked towards the platform with our new little friend following us. Knowing he could never actually get on the train we tried to shoo him away but with no luck. ‘GO!, go away doggy’ clapping my hands loudly in a gesture meant to scare him but nope. Not going to happen. Standing in the short line before boarding the train while the conductor cursed and tried to hit him with his baton specifically designed for that very purpose. Our hero scurries around him - up the steps and into the train he jumps behind us! The now angry conductor chased him around for 10 minutes until the train slowly pulled away. That’s when I decided to call him Toby. He looked like a Toby and was obviously coming with us. It was hilarious and the best move he ever made. He was pampered, fed and loved by multiple travellers and their kids for the whole 22 hours, where he got off the train and kept following us around like he was now our dog. That said, there was a concerted effort by train staff to catch and remove him every 5 hours when we stopped and sat for 20 minutes but they didn’t even come close. Toby was a terror and a mischievous boy toy. It was all very entertaining fun. First Mathura then Kota, Vadodara, Surat and finally Mumbai Central almost a full day after our Delhi departure.
The journey was a story.
MUMBAI - August 6th, 2010
This hard metal compartment of the Kranti Express lost its initial depth and dimension as more and more people boarded and crammed their belongings into it: footwear, utensils, bundled clothes, pots & pans, water jugs and earthen ware. It was as if some of these people were moving to new homes that didn’t exist yet nor did they know what that even looked like. These thin padded seats felt inconsequential after several hours. When we pulled in to Vadodara, Hamsa was leaning against the window sound asleep. There would certainly be no sleeping for me on this train and the AC was seriously waning as the doors were open for 10 straight minutes letting hot humid air in; cooler air out and never recovering, as more and more over heated people boarded at each stop. Arriving in Surat at 5am was the most challenging test of my patience. Tired, irritable train staff had given up on the ‘fucking dog’. Toby shook in delirium under my seat peering out across the aisle and I’m sure he was wondering when we would arrive at our destination like I was.
Finally a family of 4 squeeze in tight and have no place to sit as all the seats are full so they find a bit of room on the floor. Six foot gaps every 16 feet for situations like this. Two or three families needing to cram into a smaller space on a hot train for several hours because their seats are inconveniently designated as ‘unassigned’. Obviously a regular deal on this Delhi to Mumbai train. A little girl squatting by the window near me looking scared. I smiled and asked her name and she hesitantly whimpered - ‘Vaishali’, looking up at the ceiling and sucking in some smelly warm air, rummaging her eyes over barren land running up to a point of the low early morning sun held in place by a sealed iron window frame offering no air. It was right around then that I wished we could open up all the windows but that was not possible. I could tell these people had no idea what their future looked like. Vaishali noticed Toby under my seat then she smiled, looking up at me. “Is that your dog?” she asked. “No not really” I replied. “He snuck on in Delhi and I think he is mine now though” I answered. She was so sweet; so endearing. Her voluminous eyes shone like an old soul in a new world full of faint possibilities and a solemn scarcity. I felt sorry for them. Humans struggling to survive in a harsh world.
The doors finally closed and the train started moving and Vaishali let her thoughts loose over the sill until they brought back tears and wetness over her cheek. The world she knew in Surat would be replaced by the crude unknown of a big city she had never seen just 5 hours away now. Her older brother and both parents looked exhausted and defeated, especially the Mother. Father just looked pissed off. An old man pressed his shins to Mom’s back as she squirmed for an extra inch of room. She could sense his hovering gaze over her and she adjusted the covering of her sari in a gesture of protection. Indignation. Sadness. Regret.
The scenery outside had started to blur, with more and more warmer air. My thinking now is that the AC is on the fritz. Like everything else in India, mechanical stuff always breaks down. People sleeping, sitting, standing, eating, burping, farting and snoring as the train picked up speed. Shifting her weight from one leg to the other obviously in pain; Vaishali chose to remain silent. But if this long journey and its outcome were to get any better, she’d have to make some effort, she thought so she said, “I’m just thinking about home.” Standing and looking out the window at the rising sun, she was fondly reminiscing. She obviously had friends there who she would probably never see again. “Where are you going?” asked the old man seated behind me. “Mumbai” Vaishali said although it was obvious that she had no idea where in Mumbai she was going. Long silences followed by yawning and day dreaming as she fidgeted with a plastic bracelet that she probably made herself. Nasty smells? Check.
The train finally screeched on its rails and people began pushing in hordes against themselves, readying to disembark, eyeing the exit. A small child buried thick in the layer of limbs somewhere, cried shrilly pressing for the nearest way out. Hamsa finally waking up. “Where are we”? She asked. “Mumbai Central” I answered. “Jesus, I’m sore all over”. She said. “A cold shower in a cool room with a comfortable bed is in my immediate forecast” I confessed and she laughed. “Ouch, it hurts to laugh” stretching her cramped legs. We were spent. That said, she was the perfect picture of sensuality, curiosity and courage. This is how you meet new friends on a train.
We bolted and got off first. Got lucky. Air. Need air.
We walked out on the hot bustling platform buzzing with furor; the din of rushed travellers seeking some sense of closure, hail of tea and snack vendor or if luckier, a small bowl of chicken biryani, samosa and lukewarm Campa Cola. The yelp of a long-waiting relative shouting in Hindi. Bathed in the searing Mumbai sun and seeking transportation in any way shape or form.
With a slow motion wave Vaishali watched us walk away through a cloudy train window as her family collected their things and stepped off themselves disappearing into the thick late morning smog in sepia light and not looking back. The only reason Toby got off that train in Mumbai was because we did; dutifully following Hamsa and I like he had always been ours.
Like he had finally found home.
GOA - August 9th, 2010
What was originally going to be 4 - 5 days in Mumbai was 24 hours and we were out of there. The city was still reeling from the Taj Hotel terrorist ordeal and everyone was still scared there could be another attack anywhere at any moment. This was India’s 9/11 leaving a large permanent scar on the country and all who lived there. Mumbai was Delhi on steroids - loud, polluted, frantic and sheer chaos. After a good sleep, some amazing food and some walking around we got back on a train the next morning travelling south to Goa, this one with no AC but more comfortable seats and the windows opened. We were just fine with that. Goa had always been on my bucket list. Hamsa had been once and said it was amazing so I relished the thought of spending a week on the ocean, drinking lassis, getting tanned and wet before moving on to Kerala further south. The Konkan Kanya Express was a very different experience. Firstly? They allowed animals on (for an extra 1500R) and provided we cleaned up after our pet. No problem there. Secondly there were fewer people, even empty seats. No one had to sit on the floor and they served cold drinks and snacks for 100 rupees. Yes! Questionable smells were minimized with an abundance of curry, jasmine and patchouli and the fresh air was wonderful.
We arrived 12 hours later at Madgaon Station. It was dark, just before midnight and there were thousands of coloured lights and tikki torches everywhere. Hot and very dry but breezy and unlike anything I had ever seen before; no sign of rain well into monsoon season. It was a 30 minute rickshaw ride to Palolem Beach on the ocean where we were going to figure out our stay arrangement; sleeping on the beach if need be that first night but our friendly rickshaw navigator took us to this place called The Nest right on the ocean and they had an available cabana so we snapped it up. Toby jumped off the rickshaw and bolted for the water, jumping in and blissfully splashing around while we sat on the open thatch roofed wood and bamboo patio eating area and woofed down chicken tikka masala with fresh naan bread and cold Kingfisher beers. It was heaven.
Our cabana was rustic and very basic with twin beds, a small kitchen; a tiny fridge that hummed and propane camp stove, eating utensils, sink and a few counter appliances, a bathroom with a toilet that barely flushed but a 30 second walk to the water. There was a crude, technicolour lit nightclub with an ornate Indian DJ playing American dance music where the Nest’s patrons gathered, abundantly drank laughed loudly and danced, all a bit too close to our sleeping situation but it was closing, lights out at 2am and suddenly got very quiet falling asleep with a resident stationary gecko over the door, drifting off to the sounds of the ocean and the odd seagull flying overhead.
We woke to the chatter of people walking by our little hut, talking in clear English on route to the patio for a buffet breakfast of fresh fruit, eggs, sausage, bacon, ham, pancakes, Corn Flakes and white toast with jam; all overtly western foods. As we sat drinking our delicious coffee looking around I noticed a whole lot of white people. Up in the Punjab and even Mumbai there were hardly any, maybe seeing one or two on any given day. Here? Half were white tourists from Europe and America vacationing in Goa and I totally get why. Now that said, most of them were young! I’m thinking in their 20s and looked like American hippies in the 60s. So odd. Beautiful boys with long hair; stunning girls with flowers in their hair and hand made jewellery barefoot or sandals. It was trippy. Tie dyed shirts were common and a pungent smell of weed or black hashish permeating any given space.
We spent that entire first day laying on the beach and into the ocean every 30 minutes to cool off; Toby following us every time. Hamsa thought we should give Toby a bath so she bought plain Castile soap from a local dispensary and we both went at him for 20 minutes scrubbing every morsel of dirt, grime and numerous colonies of fleas, ticks and assorted critters from his stinky body while he squirmed in total pleasure, brushing him before letting him run around on the grass to dry off. He was like a whole new dog.
We had lots of passing visitors who stopped and talked to us on the beach. There was one very cute guy having a bit of a Christian Slater thing going on, his hair up in a man bun who came back several times and obviously liked Hamsa, sitting beside her sparking up a joint, passing it to her talking and laughing together. They sometimes disappeared for hours at a time and she always returned with a big smile on her face. I felt a bit like the Mom visiting India with my daughter and it wasn’t that far off. That evening and every night that followed we left Toby with friends or in our cabana where he peacefully slept, took a taxi into the city and danced at one of the many amazing trance clubs that played this hypnotic music that I had never heard before gyrating, hands up in the air sometimes on ecstasy till 4am. It reminded me of the disco and later rave clubs in New York with the massive lights, strobes, mirror balls and explosive sound only infinitely hipper. There was Hill Top Goa and 9 Bar in Vagator, Shiva Valley in Anjuna and Club Cubana in Arpora. Our favourite was the Hill Top and we went to a new club every night returning on our last night in Goa to the Hill Top.
By our last day, we had met many new friends. All young and so enlightened. These people sparkled, laughed and celebrated their life with a collective vigour I had rarely seen. I didn’t want to leave but our mission was to take in the monsoon and rain was in the forecast further on down the line as we took yet another train south.
KERALA - August 15th, 2010
Right. Goa was frikking spectacular! That was a painful departure. Hamsa, Toby and I are now on the Netravati Express to Kochi - 14 hours along the western coast down down down we go. Air conditioned and windows sealed again but a relatively comfortable ride and not that busy. Toby had to be crated and transported below in the baggage department for this journey and he really did not like that. We heard him whimpering and yelping the entire way leaving him with lots of kibble and water for the duration. It was 10pm when we boarded at Madgaon Station so we arrived in Kochi just before noon the following day and it was pouring rain. No I mean a torrential downpour that lasted for hours, stopping for an hour then starting again for three; off and on the whole four days we were there. Tap ON. Tap OFF. If you were in it for any more than a few seconds you were totally drenched. I had never seen rain like this in my entire 50 years on the planet. It was monsoon season and we were walking into it head on.
We met Anamika on the train and we became instant friends. A sweet soul, tiny; wise piercing brown eyes, black facial hair not uncommon in South Indian women and a huge black spotted mole over her thick left eyebrow that almost joined the other eyebrow. She had a one of a kind high pitched snicker/laugh and a smile that melted my heart. Her broken English worked just enough for us to communicate and that we did, the entire ride to Kochi absolutely enamoured by each other. She had been at her niece’s wedding in Udupi, returning back to Kerala to her humble home in the hills and to her practice as a midwife up in the Idukki region an hour east of Kochi. Doctors were a scarcity and ‘they just get in the way’ she said giggling. The closest Doctor was in Munnar, an hour away and when you’re in labour further south? ‘Not an option’ she said. So there’s Anamika 10 minutes away. We had no real plan around where or what we were going to do in Kerala so we took her up on her invitation to accompany her as her guest; taking a packed rickety bus to her home up in the Western Ghats mountain range for a few days before moving further east to Sri Lanka, our final destination. It poured almost the entire time we were there with the odd respite where we could hike the trails in mud boots and walking sticks she had and the dogs in tow, our Toby and her 2 mongrels Sheru and Rani. These dogs were like siblings who had been together since birth knowing each other’s moves long before they happened and having an affectionate rapport with each other. Good company.
Hamsa and I slept in the same bed in her small spare bedroom once occupied by her son Dinesh, having moved out the previous year and now living in Munnar with his new wife and baby daughter where he works at Thottam Farms as a foreman processing and packaging fresh organic Indian spices for a world market. It should be noted that Kerala is the spice capital of the world and almost all of India’s curry, masalas, chili powders. turmerics, cumins and coriander originate there and the monsoon rains play a vital role in their development. Anamika is so proud of her son showing us pictures in a well kept photo album of their new family and baby Maya. We are treated like royalty and fed like queens, having multiple friends over for dinner one late afternoon. Anamika is a fantastic vegetarian cook sitting out on the screened back porch on her densely wooded lot overlooking the Idukki Reservoir after hand washing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen; quietly sipping on chai tea as the downpour continued. “It’s like this every year” she said ... “sometimes for 2 week, sometimes for 2 month, one never know”. I was curious ... “What is the monsoon for you Anamika?” She was my age and I wanted her take on this amazing phenomenon that she was born into and grew up with. There was an extended pause as she tried to articulate its significance ... “Monsoon is about divine cleansing, emotional release and renewal. Across many traditions, this seasonal downpour is a breaking of intense heat, washing away negative karma, and trusting the natural cycle of life”, saying this like it was almost rehearsed but not.
It was then that I thought of Kashmir and what originally inspired this trip south, like that was the message I received then and being replenished in this moment by our Kerala hostess; a patron saint of the rain Gods and all living things. We were sad saying goodbye to Anamika just before getting into our taxi north east to Munnar hugging her as our tears dropped like the dribbling rain around us. I invited her to come to Chandigarh to visit me but quickly realizing that would likely never happen after extending it. Toby jumping into the back seat of this taxi going north. Munnar to Nagapattinam after on India’s lower east coast would be a gruelling 10 hour bus ride proving to be the most challenging in our trip thus far where we would stay overnight before taking the 5 hour Subham ferry to Jaffna Sri Lanka in a pseudo plan to stay for a week before flying home.
JAFFNA - August 21st, 2010
Getting off the ferry at Jaffna was surreal. It’s like we were on a different planet. It must have been 100 degrees or hotter and no AC anywhere. Power was down. I later discovered that it was common especially in the summer months here. Hydro was spotty even on a good day depending on where you were in Sri Lanka and if you had it you were most fortunate. Sellers of pineapple snacks laden with chilli and clinking bottles of Fanta and Elephant House Cream Soda scattered the steamy parking lot and platforms covered with tattered umbrellas either for shade from the blazing sun or the relentless rain which was on and off like the flip of a switch. For now it was the former. Climbing onto a dreary bus and an interior that needed to be hosed down weeks ago at Jaffna Central station with Toby at my side tightly leashed, Hamsa had to move to the back to find a seat and it smelled really bad. That said, the bus was a testament to Indian ingenuity, engineering and Sri Lankan perseverance. These red rectangular aluminum-sided buses have no creature comforts, hard seats and like a metal monster come to life, rattle, growl and whistle through every busy intersection. Our destination? Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital 8 hours south where we would seek a cold cleansing shower, a decent meal and a clean air conditioned roof over our heads. It became most evident within a short time that Colombo would one of the few places where we would find that combination on the island.
This crammed bus had little room to even stretch an arm, even if you were seated. We traveled south along the A32 out of Jaffna which meandered next to the sandy beaches and the lagoon-filled coastline letting more people off than on (thank God). It’s summer and the beaches are empty of tourists for the most part, out of the heat and impending rain or frightened by the violence that surfaced from time to time. On occasion, a waft of salt-encrusted ocean air came through our open windows past the sweaty passengers who welcomed any reprieve from the harrowing humidity.
After 30 minutes on the road the trip became quiet, marked by the ebb and flow of the growling engine. My arm getting tired of hanging on to a handle on the seat in front of me that steadied my balance and prevented me from falling into the aisle on top of Toby from the jerking movements when the bus slammed into pot a pot hole every couple of kilometres or swerving to miss another; maybe an animal, bicycle or electric scooter. Cows on the road? Right. Once coming to a full stop where the driver had to get out and shoo them to the ditches. I’m astounded at how it all works. The obvious dangers and the gentle resolve with minimal damage. How so? A slow steady acclimation ensued within the hour, passing famous Portuguese forts of Nawaladi and Chunnavil and then inland into the dry-aired countryside of Vannamoddai, a holy place for Buddhists and Hindus. Buddha was supposed to have visited after he had attained enlightenment and remained a solid thread in Sri Lanka’s heritage to this day. Toby at my side. Proud to serve, looking up at me with his one functioning eye and me dropping some doggy treats into his mouth. Are we welcoming religion? Would appear so. I spoiled that dog and he loved me for it.
Still no rain as the hours pass and we enter the outskirts of Colombo Fort. It even felt like the bus itself was relieved from travel, spewing diesel, spitting and spirting like it could just die at any moment but would never, at least not until we reached our destination at Colombo Central on the island’s southwestern shore. ‘Oh my God, POWER! Yes’ Looking down at Toby who looked affectionately back up at me and barking in a welcomed affirmation. ‘Power Toby’! Seeing lights on now early evening. Jumping into a taxi and thankfully a driver who spoke English ... ‘where can we find food and air conditioning’? Hamsa asked. He smiled saying ‘I know good house for you’ shaking his head and swerving his right hand around like every Indian adult does He drove us to Sayura House where we garnered the pleasures of an air-conditioned hotel in a very plain, white-walled, conspicuously clean, vegetarian, alcohol-free and pilgrim filled respite that we so desperately needed.
We filled our faces on the amazing veggie buffet, drank many glasses of ice water, returned to our room where we had previously turned the AC to high, showered and watched Bollywood before the 3 of us fell asleep on our king bed at 9pm with the TV still on. Cool as cucumbers and yoghurt in a fresh raita salad with mint and dill, sleeping soundly for 12 straight hours. Nighty night.
KATARAGAMA - August 22nd, 2010
It was always a loose plan. Waking up just after 8.30am with Toby all over us licking our faces in a not so subtle message ... “Wake up hoes! Time to move!” - Hamsa scowling ... “Toby no, go away” rolling over and covering her head with a pillow. Truth is, we have no idea what is going to happen today or where we will be tonight. That’s all part of the fun of doing it this way. Twenty minutes later I’m up, in the bathroom for a cold shower then briskly opening the curtains to a new day while Hamsa squirms in revolt. “Guess what baby girl. Today looks just like yesterday” in this short news bulletin weather update. “Sunny and hot, yay!”, taking Toby out for a walk and to do his business before meeting Hamsa downstairs in the dining room for our complimentary continental breakfast of Corn Flakes with skim milk, white toast (no butter) and coffee.
“So watcha thinkin” I said. “What’s the plan Stan”? Woofing soggy Corn Flakes and gulping down coffee. Hamsa was irritable and Toby gobbled down 3 pieces of toast in about 20 seconds under the table. “Shit, I don’t know Annie, you decide since you appear to be a lot more awake than I am”. I opened my laptop, connecting to their wifi and scoured south Sri Lanka for a few minutes. “OK, I say we keep going south to the bottom of the island and maybe around to the eastern side” I said. “Fine whatever” Hamsa said. I laughed. “Come on baby girl, this is fun yes”? She tied her hair back and put on her sunglasses, “whatever”, picking up our bags and started walking back to Colombo Central for a few minutes before flagging a taxi. “It’s only a 3 hour bus ride today; way easier” I said in an attempt to cheer her up. “So where’s this monsoon Annie, when is that supposed to happen?” What she didn’t know is that I had already researched it and southern Sri Lanka was going to get slammed tomorrow afternoon. On-line weather forecasts were starting to get really accurate and this was going to be a biggy. Also finding out that there’s an elevated risk of a tropical cyclonic storm or typhoon rolling through but keeping that to myself for all the obvious reasons. “I’m thinking this is it. The big one starting tomorrow and I want us to be positioned in its epicentre on the southern tip”. Onto the bus, Hamsa petting and hugging Toby sitting beside her was a good sign. She’s coming around. Toby is a keeper. I’m now thinking about how we’re going to get him back to Delhi and how that’s going to work if we’re flying. I guess we cross that bridge when we get to it.
This bus was a huge improvement to yesterday’s. Cushioned seats and way less busy and smelly - thank you AND we got to sit together. Toby even had his own seat! We took the E01 south through Ventura Beach and around towards Galle taking a couple of hours before the bus stopped for 30 minutes, getting off to stretch our legs and having lunch, getting back on and a longer trek out to Kataragama on the southeast side by late afternoon. This was to be our final destination ... The Safari Lodge Yala where I booked us in for 3 days thinking a possible extension and a loose plan to rent a car and drive down into Bundala National Park; a 30 minute drive tomorrow morning. Reason? You’ll see.
It was almost 7pm when we got off the bus and took a taxi to our reservation at Safari Lodge, checking in. The sky was already starting to get dark, wind picking up and the temperature dropped significantly. Here we go. AC was no longer necessary and the first thing we did was to open up all the windows in our large ground floor corner suite so as to let the fresh air through. This place is spectacular. The main area of Kataragama is walled with hut-like temples, the main one being dedicated to the god Kataragama (Murugan), where hundreds of monks lived and prayed and welcome anyone to pray with them. It was a beautiful little town with centuries of history and groves of Bodhi trees and many miles of rice fields just south where mostly women worked just after the monsoon when the water was high and the rice had fully matured. The special sweet holy rice called Murathanag is said to be a staple of the Buddhist monks hosting ceremonies that were designed to assail every sense; the colours, the sounds, the chanting, the clanging of the bells and the clouds of incense in exchange for donations. It was quite clear that they were meant to be there.
BODHI - August 23rd, 2010
I had gone to pick up our rented car early the next morning before Hamsa had awakened. I had a good feeling about today, the sky even darker and it was calm and hot again. Not a drop of rain ... yet. I picked her and Toby up driving south towards Bundala on the ocean in a scenic ride taking about 40 minutes, all the windows down arriving just after 10am. We saw no one there. Quiet, like the calm before the storm looking out over the ocean and seeing ominous black clouds on the horizon slowly moving towards us. “Jesus, that looks frikkin’ scary Annie” Hamsa said. Laughing; “We’re going to get fucking slammed” I said, walking along the narrow dirt road now with water on either side of us and Toby closely following behind. The road was lined with Nipa Palms and hundreds of seagulls soaring overhead anticipating mayhem. Not one soul to be seen anywhere. So odd. Sitting on a solitary park bench overlooking the water and watching the black cloud formations moving closer and closer and closer over 30 or so minutes until they were only a few kilometres out.
The temperature dropped 20 degrees in less than a minute and lightning sparkled the black sky with thunder close behind as the rain started. First just a few heavy drops then BAM! It got so dark it almost felt like night with wisps of sunlight occasionally gracing our unique perspective through the clouds, gently reminding us that it was still day time. We stood and raised our arms up, getting drenched while Toby barked loudly getting drowned out by the booming thunder every few seconds. Epic. I started dancing with Hamsa. Yelling at her ... “It’s glorious”. Hamsa was in bliss and Toby was both scared and ecstatic. Witnessing our celebration eased his frenetic canine cerebrum as he ran around like a child in an amusement park. The palm trees and willows were twisting and bent over like they could snap and be carried away but remained steadfast like they had been through this countless times before. Yet again. The wind was ferocious blowing us over onto the soaked grass, laying there, staring up for the longest time into the spiralling sky overhead, getting absolutely sopping saturated, in a wet affirmation of life and love in this momentous arranged marriage, both of us now crying in sheer joy as the storm slowly passed over us. Ten minutes later the rain and wind eased and we stood back up. “I have never felt so alive in my life” gasping, looking at Hamsa and hugging her for five straight minutes, picking Toby up and dancing some more before making our way back to the only car parked in this national park parking lot, getting in and driving north.
.
Ten minutes later on the highway ... “Ok, that’s done, can we go home now?” Hamsa inquiring. It almost felt like we had just climbed Everest reaching the summit in a blizzard and needed a helicopter to come and pick us up, only helicopters don’t fly that high. “Jesus baby girl, what’s the rush?” Granted, in that moment we were shivering as the temperature had taken a huge plunge and we were still drenched in monsoon madness. It was the first time we felt cold since entering our air conditioned room in Colombo 3 days ago only then it was a relief; here it feels like winter in Detroit with no coat, hat or boots. “Even air conditioning feels warm compared to this” she confessed. It didn’t even register in either of our preoccupied minds to bring warmer dryer clothes for the post storm. No it’s a solid hour of cold in the aftermath. “I’ll fix you a hot bubblebath and order us room service when we get back” promising a nice long foot massage in front of Thalaiva, our favourite Bollywood movie tonight. That helped her settle down because that is just what we did returning late afternoon, stripping out of these wretched clothes and climbing into the patchouli, bergamot suds together before yummy butter chicken and mixed veggie korma after. Suddenly Hamsa was in no rush to get back. My arms around her watching the TV with the sound off. I reiterated; “I’m thinking we stay for a few more days ... room is paid for until Friday. Let’s visit the temples and meet some of the locals” I suggested. Gobbling down the last of the Korma scooped into a warm chapati. “Sounds good” she replied. Convincing Hamsa to do something was really easy. With the right touch and timing, she would do anything I wanted. For me the monsoon was about surrender, letting the waves wash you clean in a full appreciation of love and life. In this moment, I feel more alive than I have ever felt and I chose to be here.
After months of relentless heat, the monsoon arrives like mercy. The sun in late July loosens its grip, the cracked ground softens, and the air, once sharp and unforgiving, becomes tender. Children lean out of balconies to feel the first drops. Street vendors smile at the darkening sky. Even the trees seem to stand differently, as if bracing themselves for renewal.
During the monsoon, rain does not fall politely. It pours. It floods streets, rattles rooftops, interrupts schedules, and rewrites plans. Trains are delayed even more that usual. Traffic halts. Clothes refuse to dry. Life slows whether we agree to it or not. The rain insists that we pause.
FAREWELL - August 26th, 2010
Friday rolls around and it has been established that taking Toby back to Delhi is doable if he is crated and towed in storage in a dedicated baggage compartment below for an additional 59K INR (around $500 US). Whatever. It’s just money and I have lots of that and I really need him in my life now. Our flight from Colombo to Delhi departs at 5pm putting us in around 9pm. With the 5 hour taxi home to Chandigarh making it a 2am final arrival. What this means is we check out first thing in the morning here in Kataragama leaving no later than 9am.
I was awake at 7 while Hamsa slept, realizing I needed a few things from the dispensary before starting our journey back. Toby and I slipped out early for the 10 minute walk that clear cool morning, waiting for him as he did his business en route and would be my final farewell to this lovely place. Strolling along and reaching the dispensary, reading the large sign NO DOGS IN STORE. Right. Not uncommon, leaving Toby out to wait for the 5 minutes I would be in there was standard procedure in most businesses, stores and restaurants actually. Exiting the store with my things and seeing a small crowd of people standing in a semi circle on the sidewalk looking down. Walking over to see why. It was Toby laying there by the curb of the street, shaking with a large gash and blood on his head. I was both numb and in shock realizing that he had been hit by a car, dropping my shit on the ground and rushing to him. When I put my hand on him I realized that this was bad and that I was likely going to lose him here at 7.35am on August 27th in downtown Kataragama Sri Lanka. It all felt very familiar. I carefully picked him up and sat on a bench close by as he violently shook and gagged. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going through his little mind as he peered up at me through his one functioning eye. Like that first gush of rain 2 days earlier in Bundala, the tears flowed down my face in the many minutes following, Toby shaking and shivering made me shake and shiver too, like we were joined. As the oblivious morning rush hour traffic was picking up all around us, we are alone here now. I finally realized that he would not be coming back to Delhi with me and that my time with this beautiful little creature was coming to an end.
Two monks in white cotton and long red robes passing by sat on either side of us and I looked at them teary eyed and asked them “what do I do?” I’m feeling like I’m 6 years old again. Helpless. Maybe like Vaishali is feeling right now wherever she is remembering her soft smile when she first saw him. Both of these holy men put their hand on him, then putting their hands on my arms. Long pause ... both looking down and one asking, “What his name?” ‘Toby’ I replied affectionately looking back down at him. With 4 hands on him over the following ten or so minutes Toby stopped shaking and became still. He was gone. This realization was a jolt of cruel reality I hadn’t felt in decades. “We take Toby” the same one said. “We bury him in lotus garden for you.” I gently handed Toby over to him sobbing like a child who had just lost her best friend and they quietly walked away cradling my beautiful little boy, sitting there and watching them until they disappeared out of sight. I was devastated; totally defeated. Hollow.
Hamsa was up and just out of the shower when I returned shortly after 8am, closing the door. “Where’s Toby?” she asked. I hugged her and she jerked away. “What’s going on Annie?” She asked alarmingly. “Toby is gone Hamsa”. “What do you mean GONE Annie? - fuck off. Talk to me” now visibly upset - “He was hit by a car. The Monks took him and are burying Toby in their lotus garden”. Hamsa sat on the bed in shock saying nothing in the 4 hour ride to the airport in Colombo. Nothing. She just blankly stared forward in total silence.
Boarding our flight taking our seats. Hamsa cried all the way home while I stared out the window at an early night sky.
Our Father (Chapter ten)
who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name (excerpt)
more to come
NOTE: FUTURE ENTRIES WILL BE IN A SEPARATE BLOG POST
OUR FATHER - PART TWO - coming soon.
Anne Sexton 1928 - 1974
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