Story Of My Life Ch 1

Since the begining of mankind, there has been one question that has plagued the human species. It's not a search for food, or shelter, or clothing, or any other bodily need. It is the search within. It is the search for the meaning of life. It's wondering what we will be remembered for. When we're dead and gone what will people look back on our life and see? Will there be people that will miss me? Will there be an impact that I make on someone's life? Will I actually do something that means anything? And if that's what you're reading this story for, then come with me. Take my hand and we'll find out together:

It all started about 4 years ago. You see, I used to live in this little hick town that it seemed I had lived in all my life. I'd forgotten ever being anywhere else and yet I knew that somewhere there had to be something more to life than this. Hell, ANYWHERE there had to be more to life.

I had worked the same stupid little jobs that everybody works when they're only a kid. But I decided that I was too smart for that. I was too smart to work ungodly hours, flipping burgers for minimum wage, listening to bosses who had the I.Q. of a bowl of pudding, and asking, "You want fries with that?". Besides, I had a plan...

Now, the thing you have to understand about me is that, yes I am intelligent. Now that's not bragging, just stating a fact. But that intelligence, at the time was also tempered with immaturity and impatience, not to mention an extra-large helping of your usual teenage angst.

Now being intelligent does have its' drawbacks. People always assume that if you're smart then you know the answers to everything; that you never make any mistakes. Well let me share some of my intelligence with you and educate you on a little something... WE SCREW UP! And probably on a more consistant basis than most other people. Arrogance and the assumption that people will understand what you're thinking and doing without you telling them has been the great downfall of many a genius.

And it was that intelligence and just inexpierence in life in general that lead me to do something that changed my life forever. I became a criminal. Now, I wasn't selling drugs or knocking off little old ladies for their bingo money or anything like that. I was a smart-ass kid, but I wasn't without a conscience.

The long and the short of it is: I got caught. I spent some time in juvie, during which I didn't get one single visit from my family. But I did get a letter from my parents. Basically it was: "We're so ashamed of you. We've tried all your life to raise you up to be a good person, and this is how you repay us? We can't look our friends in the eye anymore. We know that everytime they look at us they're thinking about our hoodlum son."

Oh wait, my favorite line was when my father said that he was: "washing his hands of me", which I thought was funny as hell. I mean wasn't that what Pilate said of Christ after he crucified Him? See now the reason that I know that little tidbit of trivia is because my father used to drag us to church every sunday. I mean, what kind of upstanding, child-beating, adulterer, drug-using, alcoholic, pillar of the community, doesn't show up with his family to sit on the front pew? To see and be seen, shaking hands with the pastor, before he goes home and knocks back a few to get himself worked up to knock out his kids. It's all just a warm-up to get himself nice and tired before he passes out.

And as long as we're on the subject of getting to know me, let me tell you a bit more about my childhood. I grew up in a military family. My real father was was in Navy SEAL team six HRT (Hostage Rescue Team). My stepfather was in the Navy too. And so was his father, and my brother too. So I grew up in a family that worked well together when we had a clear objective, but at rest we were about as organized as a chinese fire drill.

Now having said all this I'm pretty sure that you can guess that my stepfather and I had a pretty strained relationship. Come on a little walk down memory lane with me and I'll give you a little idea of what I'm talking about...

...When I was 12 or 13 the old man caught me smoking. Now the thing about my stepfather was, when he decided to punish you, and I mean really punish you, it was then that you'd wish that he'd just take a ball bat alongside your head. But oh no, you're not getting off that easy. He was a bit of a sadistic bastard so he was always coming up with evil little tortures, and this time it was locking me in a closet with a carton of cigarettes, a zippo, and a coffee can for the butts. The edges of the door were duct-taped and the light bulb was taken out, so it was just me and the Marlboro man spending some quality time together. Now I know what you're thinking, "stuff a couple of those packs in your shorts" . Well had that been any other person I probably could have gotten away with that, but not my old man. I knew that before he let me out of there he was going to count each and every one of those cigarette butts and check them all for nicotine stains so that he would know that I didn't let them just burn without smoking them, ( something I think he learned from watching 'Columbo' ). He just lived for doing things like that to show up his smart ass kid. Good ol' Daddy dearest. Now just so you know I'm not telling you all this to make you feel sorry for me, just letting you know who you're talking to.

When I turned 18 and got out of juvie I packed up everything that I had into an old army duffle, threw it onto the back of my piece of shit Harley soft tail that was held together with bondo and a prayer, and I took off into the night, going as far as a tankful of gas would take me.

I made it about 4 states away and stopped into this little bar and stayed for a happy hour that lasted for three years. After a while most everyone there knew that I was too young to be in there but nobody really cared. I was an easy-going enough fellow, never started any trouble, and did more than my part to keep trouble out of there. I was shy and a bit of a pacifist, as long as you didn't go too far. In which case you'd better give your soul to God, 'cause your ass was mine.

I had stopped off one night to put back a couple, play some darts, watch the monday night game, and just relax in general. That's when I saw her. She was gorgeous. I swear on everything that I hold holy, it looked like she had just stepped out of the centerfold and into my little dreary corner of the world. Long flowing blonde hair, blue eyes, legs that went on for miles, and a smile that could make a man melt. I knew right then and there that shy or not, I was going to talk to her. I was going to drop every super smooth line I had ever heard. I was going to be Don Juan, Cyrano, and Romeo all rolled into one.

Well after she kneed me in the nuts, that's when my friend Rachel came over. Now just so that we have a bit of an understanding here, Rachel was just a friend. She worked 3rd shift at the all-night diner that I usually stopped off at after the bars would close. I'd sit there with a cup of coffee and a pack of smokes until the sun came up. Writing and talking and laughing about every stupid little thing that came to mind. She'd tell me about her kids and her ex-husband and how her sister and mother were driving her batty. Just the usual chit-chat you have with people that you know but don't really know.

Now don't think that just because I haven't told you how Rachel looked, means that she wasn't pretty. She really was. Not in the supermodel, drop dead gorgeous kinda way, but in the kind of way that you could see her from a block away. All you had to do was follow the smiling faces that she left in her wake.

At any rate, Rachel sat there laughing with me for a while to keep me from thinking about how I had just made an ass out of myself (she always said she was laughing with me, not at me... uh-huh, sure). I just noticed something in the way that she looked at me that night. Maybe it was the fact that we weren't meeting at her work, maybe it was the fact that we had both had just enough to make us a bit braver. But whatever it was, I noticed that her touch seemed to linger a little bit longer. Her sidelong glances at me became a bit more obvious, and her drinks seemed to disappear a bit faster. Liquid courage, we called it.

When the bar closed we went to the diner and sat and laughed at all the other drunks coming in. It's like you can always spot your own kind. We drank our coffee, smoked our cigarettes, and got to know each other a little better. But after the crowd had thinned out, she asked if I wanted to go back to her place, and not really thinking anything of it, I went.

When we got there we had a few more drinks and one thing led to another and I found myself waking up the next morning in bed with her. While I have always thought of her as a friend, that did make things a bit more awkward so, not that I was being rude or anything but I did tend to stay clear from her quite so much.

Well that is until the morning that she knocked on my door at 3 AM. Now this was another one of those points in my life that I can look back on with complete clarity and see as a turning point for me. What if I had just rolled over and went back to sleep? What if I had opened the door and heard what she had to say and just slammed it shut on her? But that's a story for someone else. This is what happened to me.

Well suffice it to say, that I was pretty well out of it. I was tired and I just really didn't feel up to having some deep emotional conversation and I had a couple to drink this night too, so all I really wanted to do was go back to sleep. I woke up the next morning trying to shake the cobwebs from my head almost laughing about this crazy dream I had. Rachel had come over and told me that she was pregnant. Oh now that's rich! That could never happen. I reached over to look at the clock and found myself looking over her wrapped in my covers. Ummmm....uh-oh... it wasn't just a dream.