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Detroit Breakdown "We need you to come home. I'm about to have my knee surgery and…" As my Mother spoke to me on the other end of a pay-phone, I was standing outside of my motel room on 4th Street in St. Petersburg Florida, listening and chiming in with the usual "uh-huh's, yea's and o.k.'s" which I've learned to interject in my mom's conversations. I began to do this at a very young age when we used to live on Six Mile and Gratiot in the city of Detroit. Now, some years later, I was doing it again only this time I could multi-task on the other end of the line; lighting a cigarette, checking the coin slot, all the while wondering who might have used this pay phone before I did. Was it someone who wasn't clean? As a matter of fact the receiver felt a little greasy. When her conversation came to an end (talking with my Mother is always a one-sided conversation) I told her I'd hop the next days Greyhound bus and head on back to Motown. Looking at the greasy receiver I embarrassingly realized that it was actually my Royal Crown hair pomade which I had forgotten to wipe off of my own ear. My parents had moved from Detroit to St. Clair Shores, a place of which I knew nothing about. All I knew was that deep down inside, I was relieved not to be going back to that two story house at: 14267 Seymour, Detroit Mi, 48205. A place I moved out of right after graduating high school and never looked back. I hated that house, that neighborhood and all the bad habits I learned there…all of my own volition. I've now come to realize that these phobias are ghosts, whose haunting days are long behind them. Only thing was; it took me almost five years to convince myself of this. At the time of my arrival, back in the D. it didn't take long for these creepy feelings to reemerge and rear their ugly head. Only this time the faces didn't belong to all of the uniquely strange characters that used to surround the old hood. The ugly head was my own. It slowly began to emerge as I became reacquainted with my Mother Margaret and my step-father Anthony. Tony came into my life when I was about eight years old and by the time I entered high school, he and my mom got married. Both of his parents were Sicilian and spent most of their time and money at the race track. This lead to Anthony's rail bird-equestrian ways and was always (and still is) a point of contention. When I arrived home, it was in November of 04'. One of the first things I did was to call the National Guard with the hopes of signing up for duty. The Michigan National Guard Air force base is stationed relatively close by and I would rather have put myself in some type of harms way than to live with my parents again. Sadly the cadet on the other end of the line informed me that they had plenty of cannon fodder. Now let me be perfectly clear; I love both my folks whole-heartedly. I would do anything for them. However, to live with them unleashed ancient, miserable feelings, that had been kept suppressed for nearly thirty years. The ugly head of the monster living in my closet, under my bed or in one of the many abandoned houses of the old neighborhood was back. Only this time, the Cyclops was me! Staring me right back in the "eye" each time I looked into the mirror; Every time I drank a beer. Every time I lit a smoke or a joint. Every time I took my parents car down town, cruising around looking for coke or heroin, there "he" was. There "I" was. I hadn't been living in Florida for very long, but it was long enough to catch another dope habit. The bus ride to Michigan took two and a half days and I felt every pot hole of it. We stopped at some town in one of the Carolinas so I walked across the street and bought a 22 ounce can of beer. I sat on the curb and slammed it down my gullet as the high noon sun shun down on my face. I began walking back to the old coach when I was stopped by a security guard. "You ain't riding on no bus here!" I explained that my bags were on the 870 coach heading to Detroit and he explained that he didn't care. "You can't ride drunk or high up on this bus." I became furious though soon I pulled it together enough to explain to him that one tall-boy can of beer just put me straight. "I had no idea. Shit, I remember when you used to be able to score smack, crack and pussy all up and around the bus terminal." This caused my man to show a smattering of a smile and finally he informed me that it simply isn't that way no more. "Things change." He said. They sure as hell do. He threw his head and said: "Go on." Allowing me to climb back inside as relief washed my body clean and the booze coursed through my veins. My parents have a summer porch out back where I could drink my beer and smoke my cigs. I'd take extra care to press my face against the screen window when I'd blow out the marijuana smoke. Trying to disguise the odor, as I did back when I was an adolescent. The fact was; I was beginning to have some serious coping problems. Masking my struggles with illicit substances, I was still able to help around the house, i.e.: cooking, cleaning, and vacuuming while attending and dressing my Mother's wounds. She eventually got both knees replaced, but as time went on my psychosis got worse. The hedges and manicured lawn looked great, as did the inside of the house, all the clutter cleared up and looking spiffy. Still, every night I sat on that sun porch in the dead of winter, smoking and drinking about a twelve pack of beer every night. The last time I was on a Greyhound bus I was thirteen and me and my sister Leona went down to Kentucky to see our blood Father. On the way back we split a pack of Camels and took joy in the lack of parental guidance, billowing smoke out the sliding glass windows. Those days are long gone. So are the "other" days. The bad, sad, depressing days of my youth. The days that I had ran away from so long ago. The days that I had feared would come back and tap me on the shoulder, filling me with dread and (what I refer to as) the creeping death. I've been back in the Motor City area now for the last five years. I've worked a series of temporary jobs and blown most of my money. I recently stopped drinking beer everyday and quit smoking cigarettes as well as giving up pot. Seeing a counselor has made this sacrifice worth while. I have slowly been recovering from something nameless. I know it will always be there, but as long as it remains in check, I'll keep busy with school, playing music, reading and studying film. I believe that the mighty Cyclops will someday allow for my emotional outbreaks to subside and he'll go back to that place between the underworld and the light. In Mythology it's known as Tartarus. To Me? It will always be right here in South East Michigan. ◊ |
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