This is my entry into the Legends' day post. I want to thank Blackrandl1958 for asking me along on this venture and for her fine job of editing this piece. Oh and Congrats Randi. I also need to thank Naoko Smith for her help on some of the content of this story. To someone special I need to say, S'agapo Moro Mou.
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In addition to being a round heeled slut, my mother was a self-centered moron. She was 15 when she had me in 1983, so I guess I should be thankful that I didn't end up named "psyche" or "gag me with a spoon" or even "totally." It's bad enough that the stupid whore named me Rad, Rad Taylor.
My grandparents raised me from the time my mother decided she couldn't be bothered to fit me into her social calendar. Carly, my mother, would spread for any swinging dick that came along, so how I ended up an only child, I'll never know. She rarely stayed with any guy longer than three weeks, but luckily for me one of those flavors of the moment was a guy named Craig.
Craig and my mother hooked up when I was ten. He managed to settle her down to the point that my grandparents started allowing me to spend weekends with her, and were almost ready to give her custody again.
Just as it looked as if Craig might form a family out of the three of us, Mother's inner whore cropped up, he caught her in a gang-bang at Sulley's Bar and kicked her to the curb. At least she kept her whore side hidden long enough for Craig to introduce me to the love of my life.
The one summer they were together, Craig took my mother and I to Colorado. While doing the tourist bit, I fell in love with the mountains. Being from Texas, I had never seen mountains. We went hiking and Craig pointed out the different kinds of trees. He told me what the various scat piles came from, most were from deer, and he showed me how to climb the trails.
As we hiked up the trail, I lost count of how many times my mother asked how much further we were going. Finally Craig pointed to an outcropping of rocks above us and said: "We are going up there."
"Up there?" she groused.
I was enjoying the hike immensely. When we got up to the outcropping, I was dismayed to see that the trail had ended but there was more mountain that we wouldn't be climbing. I started to protest, but was immediately threatened into silence by my mother.
She and Craig spread a blanket out and began laying out a picnic lunch. As usual, once the task was complete they began making out. Traditionally, I was either sent outside to play or to my room whenever they got amorous. Craig usually suggested it as a game or adventure, "Hey sport, how about you go outside and see if you can find me twenty different types of leaves?"
Mother just usually said, "Get your ass outside and don't come back 'til I call your ass."
I learned the hard way to not come back in until I was called. One Saturday they were "playing" and I was exiled outdoors. It had started to rain so I went inside to get my rain slicker. "GET THE FUCK OUTSIDE!" punctuated by a flying ash tray to the face taught me my lesson quickly.
I sat outside in the rain while I listened to raised voices from inside. Craig came out and invited me back inside while applying a cold wash cloth to my forehead. He didn't say much to mother, but he talked at length with me about cartoons he knew I liked.
A bit later while he was in the bathroom, mother told me that if I told grandma about the incident, she probably wouldn't allow me to see Craig anymore. I didn't understand why my grandma would keep me from Craig, but I knew that adults knew things that I didn't, so I ended up telling grandma that I fell down.
So, as my mother and Craig started kissing on the picnic blanket I figured I better disappear until I was called. I could see that there wasn't much room to explore on the small outcropping; so I started climbing the rocks. As I climbed, I began to see a path upwards. As I followed it, I began to lose sight of our picnic spot, but I had not heard anyone call me back so I kept climbing.
I came out of the rocks and saw a trail similar to the one that had brought us up the hill. After walking up the path for a while I found myself at a small craggy cliff. Once again I saw a way and climbed up the rocks. When I reached the top, I realized there was no more mountain to climb.
I was in awe of the view. I could see cities off in the distance, and I could see clouds below me. I sat on the rocks and just drank it all in. I realized at that point that I wanted to climb every mountain in the world. I also realized that it was getting late and I was getting cold, so I began to make my way down the way I had come.
It was almost dark when I reached the bottom of the path that had taken me to the top. As I looked down the rocks, I could see flashlights below me. I could hear people calling my name, but I don't think they heard me when I called out that I was coming down.
I didn't get very far down before I realized that I could no longer see the way down. Before I could panic, a man in an army uniform appeared just below me. "I found him,' he said into a walkie-talkie. "Hold on kid, I'll get you down to your mom safely," he said.
In no time, he had me in a harness and we were moving steadily downward with me on his back piggy back style. His name was Lance and he talked to me all the way down about not wandering away from my parents, and how my dad was scared to death. I was enjoying the ride too much to correct him.
When we got to the trail I was amazed at the number of people there. Craig ran up and hugged me hard. He was telling me how scared they had been when I caught a glimpse of the fire in my mother's eyes. She did come over and give a perfunctory hug, I assume to put on a show for the rescue team.
We all walked down the trail for a short span to where the rescue teams had parked. I was given a sandwich, an apple, and a juice box, and a once over by an army medic. When he said I was fine we all got in the vehicles and they drove us back to Craig's truck.
That night in our motel room Craig never left me alone with my mother. The next morning we left for Austin. I don't remember my mother saying a word to me or about me until we got home and she told Craig to take me to my grandparents' house. I thanked Craig for the trip and said I was sorry for causing problems. He just smiled and reassured me that everything was fine.
The next time I saw Craig was the last. He was teary eyed and told me how much he was going to miss me. When I asked why he wasn't going to be with my mother anymore, he just told me that someday I'd understand. Later that evening, I overheard my grandpa telling my grandma that he heard about Craig walking in on my mother in a gang-bang. Grandma called him crude.
My mother never came to get me for another weekend, and I was fine with that. My grandparents never acted like I was an intrusion. They never threw things at me. I was loved, I was happy.
* * * * *
In the years that followed, the mountains were never far from my thoughts. I often day dreamed of climbing. At both the school and public libraries, I must have checked out and read every book about the mountains and mountain climbing a dozen times. When I got into middle school I knew I wanted to move to Colorado.
My grandpa didn't care much for that idea. "Colorado?" he asked. "Ah hell, all there is in Colorado is hippies, faggots, and granolas." That answer, even though I didn't fully comprehend all of his words, ended any possibility of living in Colorado before college.
I knew better than to ask my grandma about all of the words he had used. I once asked her what an "asshole" was, only to have my mouth washed out with soap. I would have to ask my friend Timmy North about "faggots". I had heard the word "hippy" on TV, and I knew that granola was something you could see in the store, so I was safe to approach grandma with those.
"Gramma, what are hippies?"
She gave me a funny look, "Have you heard this word from your grandpa?"
"Yes ma'am."
She sighed and muttered something under her breath about "impossible man" and said, "Son, your grandpa thinks any man who lets his hair grow for more than a week between haircuts is a hippy."
