First let me get this out of the way, I don’t claim to be a writer.
This project began as an outline for self portaits (photographs) that I wanted to make about sex, sadness and being a superhero. As I started making notes, they slowly turned into short stories. The first seven stories were turned into hand-bound booklets called CAKE WALK. That can be purchased HERE.
I’d also like to give a big thank you to Jon Kinnally for all of his support, as well as his incredible editing and profreading skills.
This project began as an outline for self portaits (photographs) that I wanted to make about sex, sadness and being a superhero. As I started making notes, they slowly turned into short stories. The first seven stories were turned into hand-bound booklets called CAKE WALK. That can be purchased HERE.
I’d also like to give a big thank you to Jon Kinnally for all of his support, as well as his incredible editing and profreading skills.
Good To Go
The Oatmeal Boy
Colonel Mustard
Señor Wolff
New Wave
Learning To Fly
The Accidental Fister (XXX)
First Time
The Oatmeal Boy
Colonel Mustard
Señor Wolff
New Wave
Learning To Fly
The Accidental Fister (XXX)
First Time
Learning To Fly
His grip on the back of my neck was cold.
I felt like the limp prize in the glass box at the arcade being awkwardly lifted out by the mechanical claw. Instead of falling into the hands of a wide-eyed kid who just won a prize, I was being tossed up six stairs with my feet not touching a single one.
Is this what flying feels like?
My forehead greeted the bedroom door with a firm whack. Carroll gave the door a hard kick and it opened with a bang against the poster covered wall; The Bay City Rollers caught in the melee.
“Clean? Clean? Clean?”
These were the only words he seemed to be able to release from his Budweiser soaked mouth. Drawers were pulled out and emptied onto the floor. Books and toys thrown across the room. Bodies of GI Joe, Big Jim and Barbie lay scattered amongst the debris.
“Now clean!”
This room was once my paradise, but now its history has been tarnished by an enemy invader. I couldn’t imagine feeling safe in there again.
The door slammed shut and then there was nothing but a terrifying silence. Finally, after taking a breath, which seemed like years since my last, I slowly returned the drawers to their places in the cabinet and began to return my room back to normal. I slowly picked up the casualties off the floor and began to fold and sort, while taking stock of everything. Do I need this t-shirt? These corduroys? I was assessing everything and deciding what was important, trying to minimize my belongings; the less I had to carry, the easier it would be to run.
When I was done, all I could think was that I had to escape from this monster, forged from aluminum cans and nicotine. I packed my school bag: clean socks, my “I Hate Losing” Snoopy t-shirt, paper, crayons, a stack of comic books and my magic blanket, which also doubled as a cape. “Blanky”, as I called it, was a gift from a couple of Christmases ago. It was actually the wrapping for three pairs of jeans that were purchased at the local Goodwill. The pants were neatly folded and enclosed in a small blanket, red felt on one side and a delicate red and blue flower pattern on the opposite, and bound with a shiny polyester light blue ribbon.
Most of the time “Blanky” lived on the end of my twin size bed, just opposite a glass tank that had housed gerbils, hamsters, a turtle and at one time even fish. Nothing seemed to survive in this house very long.
When the blanket wasn’t keeping guard on my bed, it would be attached to my shirt with big safety pins, like a cape, the weight of it stretching out the neckline of my t-shirts. I would run in circles in my backyard with the cape fluttering behind me, pretending to fly. Pretending to escape. Sometimes I would go to my school, which was only a few blocks away, and climb up to the roof from a drainpipe in the back. This I would only do on weekends and in the summer, or a long holiday break when I knew that no one would be around as it was long before security at schools was a necessity. I would stand up on the corner of the building, which was only one level, with my hands on my hips, my head up, feeling strong and the cape billowing behind me. The bright red shell was a warning to anyone who might try to sneak up behind me and the flowers on the interior, flttering in the wind at my sides.
I spent a good part of my life like this; hiding behind a shell with the delicate and vulnerable insides hidden, and only exposing that part to a few who felt worthy. It took many years to feel worthy myself.
Back to Carroll and my flying lesson.
He was an ass, and was always drunk; from light and silly, to the dictionary definition of abusive. I believe his picture was beside the word for a while but then Webster removed it after complaints from many other deserving candidates. My mom had a knack for picking men like this, and I inherited that trait from her. Thanks, mom. I’ve tried to look back and see if there were any redeemable qualities and I can’t find a one. He was just an ass. My mother didn’t help with the situation much either. On Carroll’s birthday, she bought him twenty-four cases of Budweiser and had a giant cake made that looked like a beer can. He loved this and she loved that he loved it, fully aware of how he behaved when he was drunk and how he treated her three children when he was drunk. Again, thanks Mom. She stayed away from the house as much as possible, mostly by throwing herself into her work. That’s where they met. They both worked at a company that would refill vending machines with pre-made sandwiches cut on the diagonal, and cheap flavored sodas: grape, orange and strawberry. The upside was our house always had plenty of pre-made sandwiches cut on the diagonal and cheap fruit flavored sodas. Ok, maybe that’s not an upside, but when you’re seven this is how you imagine royalty lives.
So this was the last straw for me. Funny to have a “last straw” when you’re in the third grade. Funny and sad. Flying up the stairs, smashing through my door and watching my world be literally torn apart. I didn’t have superpowers to fight this. I curled up on the floor and covered my head. Peeking out to see my brother hiding behind his bed, eight feet from me. Both of us silent as beer-stained screams filled the air.
Shortly after the door was closed, our belongings were back in order and a bag was packed for each of us, we decided to head for the window. We tied my Yogi Bear bed sheets together to make a rope to repel down past the hedges and safely to the fresh cut grass. I’m sure we saw this on an episode of Emergency! when someone had to escape from a burning building. We were on the second floor, but it was really only about a half floor, so there wasn’t a sense of danger, especially since I’d already had a lot of practice climbing up onto the roof of my school. Our older sister was babysitting across the street so we ran there to hide, carrying our most valuable possessions in our backpacks. We waited until our mother came home from work later that night and then were begrudgingly forced to go back into that house, and I was left wondering when the next opportunity to fly would come.
His grip on the back of my neck was cold.
I felt like the limp prize in the glass box at the arcade being awkwardly lifted out by the mechanical claw. Instead of falling into the hands of a wide-eyed kid who just won a prize, I was being tossed up six stairs with my feet not touching a single one.
Is this what flying feels like?
My forehead greeted the bedroom door with a firm whack. Carroll gave the door a hard kick and it opened with a bang against the poster covered wall; The Bay City Rollers caught in the melee.
“Clean? Clean? Clean?”
These were the only words he seemed to be able to release from his Budweiser soaked mouth. Drawers were pulled out and emptied onto the floor. Books and toys thrown across the room. Bodies of GI Joe, Big Jim and Barbie lay scattered amongst the debris.
“Now clean!”
This room was once my paradise, but now its history has been tarnished by an enemy invader. I couldn’t imagine feeling safe in there again.
The door slammed shut and then there was nothing but a terrifying silence. Finally, after taking a breath, which seemed like years since my last, I slowly returned the drawers to their places in the cabinet and began to return my room back to normal. I slowly picked up the casualties off the floor and began to fold and sort, while taking stock of everything. Do I need this t-shirt? These corduroys? I was assessing everything and deciding what was important, trying to minimize my belongings; the less I had to carry, the easier it would be to run.
When I was done, all I could think was that I had to escape from this monster, forged from aluminum cans and nicotine. I packed my school bag: clean socks, my “I Hate Losing” Snoopy t-shirt, paper, crayons, a stack of comic books and my magic blanket, which also doubled as a cape. “Blanky”, as I called it, was a gift from a couple of Christmases ago. It was actually the wrapping for three pairs of jeans that were purchased at the local Goodwill. The pants were neatly folded and enclosed in a small blanket, red felt on one side and a delicate red and blue flower pattern on the opposite, and bound with a shiny polyester light blue ribbon.
Most of the time “Blanky” lived on the end of my twin size bed, just opposite a glass tank that had housed gerbils, hamsters, a turtle and at one time even fish. Nothing seemed to survive in this house very long.
When the blanket wasn’t keeping guard on my bed, it would be attached to my shirt with big safety pins, like a cape, the weight of it stretching out the neckline of my t-shirts. I would run in circles in my backyard with the cape fluttering behind me, pretending to fly. Pretending to escape. Sometimes I would go to my school, which was only a few blocks away, and climb up to the roof from a drainpipe in the back. This I would only do on weekends and in the summer, or a long holiday break when I knew that no one would be around as it was long before security at schools was a necessity. I would stand up on the corner of the building, which was only one level, with my hands on my hips, my head up, feeling strong and the cape billowing behind me. The bright red shell was a warning to anyone who might try to sneak up behind me and the flowers on the interior, flttering in the wind at my sides.
I spent a good part of my life like this; hiding behind a shell with the delicate and vulnerable insides hidden, and only exposing that part to a few who felt worthy. It took many years to feel worthy myself.
Back to Carroll and my flying lesson.
He was an ass, and was always drunk; from light and silly, to the dictionary definition of abusive. I believe his picture was beside the word for a while but then Webster removed it after complaints from many other deserving candidates. My mom had a knack for picking men like this, and I inherited that trait from her. Thanks, mom. I’ve tried to look back and see if there were any redeemable qualities and I can’t find a one. He was just an ass. My mother didn’t help with the situation much either. On Carroll’s birthday, she bought him twenty-four cases of Budweiser and had a giant cake made that looked like a beer can. He loved this and she loved that he loved it, fully aware of how he behaved when he was drunk and how he treated her three children when he was drunk. Again, thanks Mom. She stayed away from the house as much as possible, mostly by throwing herself into her work. That’s where they met. They both worked at a company that would refill vending machines with pre-made sandwiches cut on the diagonal, and cheap flavored sodas: grape, orange and strawberry. The upside was our house always had plenty of pre-made sandwiches cut on the diagonal and cheap fruit flavored sodas. Ok, maybe that’s not an upside, but when you’re seven this is how you imagine royalty lives.
So this was the last straw for me. Funny to have a “last straw” when you’re in the third grade. Funny and sad. Flying up the stairs, smashing through my door and watching my world be literally torn apart. I didn’t have superpowers to fight this. I curled up on the floor and covered my head. Peeking out to see my brother hiding behind his bed, eight feet from me. Both of us silent as beer-stained screams filled the air.
Shortly after the door was closed, our belongings were back in order and a bag was packed for each of us, we decided to head for the window. We tied my Yogi Bear bed sheets together to make a rope to repel down past the hedges and safely to the fresh cut grass. I’m sure we saw this on an episode of Emergency! when someone had to escape from a burning building. We were on the second floor, but it was really only about a half floor, so there wasn’t a sense of danger, especially since I’d already had a lot of practice climbing up onto the roof of my school. Our older sister was babysitting across the street so we ran there to hide, carrying our most valuable possessions in our backpacks. We waited until our mother came home from work later that night and then were begrudgingly forced to go back into that house, and I was left wondering when the next opportunity to fly would come.