Beating a Dead Horse- Part Four

Beating a Dead Horse1

Part 42

“You cant keep a secret if it never was a secret to start.”3

-Brand New4

I moved into another house, and this one I stayed in for the next year. It was an adjustment, I was no longer the only child, but I was still having trouble coping with all the events of the fall. And the transition into foster care wasn’t a very easy one, either. I wasn’t sure what to call these people, mom, dad, Mrs., Mr., I had no idea. I’m pretty sure I made almost no verbal communication with them for a bout a month for that exact reason. There were at one point 8 children in the house, and that to me was painfully too much. I felt completely rejected, and the absolutely NO attention I was receiving from them was even out weighed by the negative attention I was used to.5

The only thing I found appealing about these new arrangements was the garage band next door. I had just had my fourteenth birthday, and the world of music was one that I had decided would fit me nicely, even if it had to squeeze a little to make room. I’d go and sit in the garage with them while they played, and critique the music. I loved it all though. That’s where I learned to play guitar, and probably where I learned to write poetry. I wasn’t a very emotional kid until then. 6

During that summer, the lead guitarist moved to Arkansas, and I was offered ‘a spot.’ Not his spot, notice, but I was allowed to now consider myself a ‘part of the band.’ I resided in the BGV’s and backup guitar reps, but it wasn’t really what I wanted. I wanted to scream. The music they played was about as close to garage band screamo as you can get, and I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream my goddamn lungs out, and I wanted the whole world to hear it. When emotion hit me, it hit me hard. I wanted to cry and scream and mean what I was saying, and I felt like if I did that, I’d stop feeling so depressed about my being. So I waited around with that band for a ‘spot,’ and after about three months, it opened up.7

I think that was the sappiest most cliché paragraph I have ever written in my life. Just thought you might want to know that I realized that! Ok on with the story!8

We were called ‘Closed Show,’ and we only played on Fridays. I don’t know who the hell made up that rule, but we stuck to it. We played at local bars and clubs, most of which I was too young to get into, and my contact list widened immensely. Drinking became ‘just one of those things’ and I really regret that, because my family has a history of alcoholics and I was determined to get out of that loop. I haven’t yet, but I’m trying really hard. We weren’t too popular with the clubbers downtown, so we began to hold our own shows wherever we could get a setup; school auditoriums, for example. It was a crazy existence, but one I’d live over and over again if given the chance.9

I didn’t really have a girlfriend all that year. Sure, I had girls who were friends, some who I’d consider to be ‘a little more’, but I didn’t have a real relationship with any of them. Same with the guys. Even though I’d improved a lot in the past months, I was still very shut out from the rest of the world, and didn’t get close with anyone for fear they’d kill themselves or ditch me or something terribly like that. My respect for authority had dropped extremely low after those events, and at school I was constantly in trouble for simple resisting authority. My main problem was that the only kind of punishment I was used to was corporal, and everything else to me just seemed like a slap on the wrist. I felt like somebody wasn’t serious unless they hit me. 10

I’ve noticed over the years that people just seem to like to hit me, and I guess that’s why. Nothing else really affects me. One instance that really stands out to me about this was one time, this year, when I was going to a movie with some friends. My foster mom told me I couldn’t go until I cleaned my room. I, of course, said ‘ok,’ but threw away her words and tried to leave anyway. She kept sending me upstairs and I kept trying to leave and, finally, she slapped me across the face. It didn’t really hurt, but I cleaned the room. And was late to the movie. I don’t know, my mind works in weird ways. 11

Also, Thanksgiving that year was a memory fest. I couldn’t stop thinking about my mom, I thought so much it drove me over the edge, and I slit my wrists. I didn’t die, though, once again I was taken to the hospital and sewed up before I bled to death. I can’t seem to make death work for me, I guess even the Grim Reaper hates me. I guess that’s not necessarily a bad thing. 12

Back to the topic: I was beginning to think that this might actually work out for me. The family had decided to adopt me, and that was both exciting and depressing news for me. I didn’t know if I was ready to call these people my ‘family’ less than a year after my mother’s death, but I was not in control of the decisions. It fell through, though, two days before my fifteenth birthday, in 2005. I wasn’t so happy about that: I had to move on my birthday. After that my emotions really went crazy, and that when things really got interesting. 13