Life... Another Sidebar

It's hard for me to accept that I am the one that decides my future. Is that normal? And if I were doing this future / decision making thing, and doing it correctly, wouldn't things have gone a lot differently? In no way do I mean to downplay learning from experiences but, if that's is what experiences are for and we all have our own personal experiences to deal with, was i really only going to understand the reason for my life one miserable event after another?

If any of this makes sense then good, you have successfully managed to fuck up your life. Maybe there is some truth to what I'm saying but you can't just do nothing and expect every thing to happen for you.

 Gratitude..? who thought of this shit? I can't even recieve a simple smile without returning a grin that comes off as borderline psychotic. Lame, maybe, but at least I live up to it. some people would say awkward but I don't believ that emcompasses the grotesqness of a life lived fully clothed in spears. every peel of this onion stings, and then burns. there are people i agree with completely in their life choices and there are those who i only somewhat agree with.

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the above introduction need's some r.e.a.l. attention, lol.
try to say here what you close with. differenlty and with arrogant but yet still shaky opinions.
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 When i moved to denton i didn't know what was in store for me. Leaving the pristine dallas life, more so my therapist's kindly care, to avoid being returned to the care of some slimy stranger at the intake window of The Dallas Life Foundation again. A homeless shelter to put all other's to shame. At this point in my life I wish I were back there again, scrounging for change to buy a cigarette off a fellow bum (it's funny how homeless people are more stingy toward other homeless than people that arent homeless,) or trying to stay unseen from the pastor giving us his third sermon of the day. I used to wonder if they did so many a day because they thought the homeless needed to hear more about god. I have since found that it was mroe a way for this guy to prepare for his sunday sermon (which he gave elsewhere), and we the homeless were subjected to listening to it until he thought he'd finally perfected it. but we're homeless right, so what were we going to do?

I don't know, it's just sometimes i felt more alive in the shelter than I do when I'm, as people would feel comfortable putting it, more stable. I never felt unstable when i was homeless. I felt fantastic. I was able to go where i want when i wanted and do whatever i want. I just keep hearing people from early memories saying, "when you grow up you can be whatever you want." How about i have never wanted to be more homeless than I do now.  nobody expecting anything more than homelssness from me. What's that, you want to give me some change? Give me as much as you want to. Oh, you want to take me to eat, sure. buy me a beer instead of giving me money, okay. I never asked for any of it, they just always offered.

my first day there started at the beginning of a bad comedown from meth. Two nights earlier, the one halloween i will never forget, i spent kicking people i didn't know out of a club i had been invited to by a gay man i knew i wasn't going to be picking up that night. Anyone who was wearing black. i was finally stopped by the door girl, she was dressed like an angel, ripped fish nets, a small top hat the she had pinned into her hair somehow and a pair of extremelly real looking angel wings.

"Here," she says, "the d.j. wants  you to have this, something about you dancing last time." she was nice to me the last time we met but after having to babysit me and watch the door she was a little over me. she had a pill for both of us. we would be friends again after they hit.

it was a red dolphin. i didnt even go to the bathroom to do this i just swallowed it right there on the cracked dance floor. I had learned to dance on acid when i was 17, in oklahoma. a girl named teshka taught me, and i will never forget. by this time i was ready for what he had given me. i had already been scared shitless the entire night, forgetting it was halloween, and x was just what i needed to calm me down.

after waiting about 15 minutes for it to kick in i just decided i was going to dance anyways. an hour later i was dancing with stars and bubbles in floating circles of colors. i was in heaven, dancing my heart out with an angel discussing how hot the guys are were.

the d.j. was happy and the music was great. i felt like this lame club was the best place on earth but my pill was getting involved with whatever else was still in my system and i needed to sit down. next to the dj's booth was a bench built into the wall with a black makeout curtain infront of it; the makeout booth. i pulled it back and made way to sit until i noticed to people lying there dead faced looking right at me. i pulled the curtain back and ran for the angel hysterically trying to explain the two dead people in the makeout booth. she ran over to inspect and i just watched as she pulled the curtain back. by now a few people had gathered and at that moment the dj looked over the booth wall to see what was going on, afterwards he would not be swayed on his decision to leave.

i would later find out from the dj that he already thought this 'joint was shitty' but needed a place to play for extra money. he however was not cool with the couple i had thought dead, fucking right next to his booth.

two days later i was on my way to a homeless shelter. i didn't know it, had no clue. I thought i was being taken to get real help and to this day, had i known i would have just jumped out of the car on the highway. the moment we pulled up i was confused, angry and coming down.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" it was all i could say when he had finally parked. and again in the intake office where he paid for my first night and again after talking to a quiet woman about what kinds of programs the shelter offered for drug abuse. The woman told of a program where you pay to stay, cleaning the areas where the homeless sleep in return for all the AA/NA classes they offered, they called it the recovery program. this conversation between my father and her was outrageoues and when all was said and done i was certain she agreed with me after i asked again, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

then he left. in my car.

i had three days before my actual pay for stay started, a kind of detox; at least that's what they told me. i spent the first day avoiding any eye contact. the second I spent trying to get to my cousins a few miles up the road. and the third i gave in, nobody cared. I would not be seeing my dad for a few weeks but by then i would have made a few 'so called friends' and be even more involved drugs.

my first week there would mimic so many early mornings before school when my dad would wake me up with the light and some speech about how staying up late is bad for your health and nothing good happens after midnight anyway. but here... with the flick of a light, they began yelled obscene orders and threats to get the four hundred guys on my floors awake and moving at 6 in the morning.

My first week was okay, i had no real problems and was slowly pushing my hate for my father to the 'he's dead to me' portion of my brain. I had tried calling but, to the office clerks dismay, the phones ate most of the coins people put in them. She'd swear up and down there was nothing she could do. I'd eventually make my way up to being on the security team that stayed up late at night to watch the grounds for any late stragglers or crack heads being shady. Its was then that i saw the clerks dismantle the phones and collect the change, talking about how many people keep putting coins in expecting them to work.

Alot of things at the DLF were broken, the beds, the toilets and lucky for me, that first week i would be free from having to shower due to a broken water heater. I had heard from a passing group of older black men walking back to the sleeping area that the water was ice cold and not worth it. My mind was made up when i first saw the showers the night my dad dropped me off, I'd shower when everyone else was asleep. There was no rule about having to go to sleep when the lights went off, the floor monitor would just scream at us to, "get quiet" if the buzzing of voices got too loud. I already had problems just thinking about being naked in a 12x12 room, three walls sporting several shower heads and crazy men all behind me. Now, I've been in situations where this might seem ideal... But i guarantee you... this shower was uncomfortable for everyone.

 About half way through the second week I found the stench i'd been trailing around so bad that i doubted cold shower i could take would be any worse. There had been a few guys I'd seen in that first week, going in real late; so i'd decided that I'd be the last person every night. The following night, after lights out and the last guy i could keep track of stumbled tiredly towards his bunk. This was it, id make my way. When i get into the bathroom there are still a few guys getting out, I hadn't made any effort to look around upon my arrival at the shelter but the hall I never took led to a couple more rooms housing guys that paid to have a personal space or had been in the recovery program for more than thirty days. But by then i was already seen so i just went for it, dropping my bag of supplies on the bench and stripping off my smelly clothes. i reeked. I had already gone through everything in my head; had everything down to a science about how this shower was going to work out. I would take off my underwear last but not until i had placed my towel and supplies within reach of the shower i would be using. these thoughts slipped right through the cracks and nervously i flitted into the showers denying eye contact with anyone around me. I had no soap, shampoo or anything. Fuck.

I had decisions though... strewn all around were tiny, hotel brand shampoos and on the knobs for the shower sat a few pieces of soap. I wasn't going back for my stuff, I was already here and ready to get this over with so i turned on the water and stepped into a shower of  lovable shards of ice. If that water were any colder my penis would have sucked itself so far up inside it would have come out my ass. But i braved it, and the soaps of some strange.

When i was done and a little more comfortable with my surroundings I managed to take in the rest of the room, it was exactly what i'd thought, a bunch of shower heads, so close to each other had the room been packed there'd be definite grazing going on. Then, I looked down at my feet. All over the floor in spots and trailing towards the drains, was shit. i had to shower again and then wash my feet in the sink afterwards. This would be the first of many encounters I'd have with shit, just lying about somewhere. What's worse is the amount of people that regarded this type of thing as okay because it happened so often. At least once weekly there'd be some random place that you'd find shit, as regular as a artist tags throughout the city, and just as shady. nobody ever saw it happen.

by the time my first month was almost over my few friends became a select group of people. These were the people i had AA/NA meetings with three times a day, and hung out with on breaks, the ones i could get a ciggarette from every time and they were the ones who would stick up for me when i'd get caught in awkward situations with crazy homeless guys that thought i was fair game.

Homer, a man i eventually met in the recovery program and slept in the bunk right next to mine, was one of the hottest black men I have ever seen. He had a cute lisp that caught on the right words almost strategically so to make him even hotter. And abs that had abs. He was an older man, well older than my 21 yrs. we'll say he was 37.

The first thing this guy said to me was, "what are you doing here?"
I could by this time at least respond sharp enough that someone would get that i am either pissed off or a little crazy, and I said "I got dropped off"
He smiled and tried not to laugh and handed me an old cubs football jersey that I could see hadn't fit him in a long time. It wasn't really my style but I took it not knowing then how much of a target I was just by being me. People called me, "The GAP" because I dressed like I could have been working at a retail store, a sore thumb against all the fashionable homeless.

Homer being totally aware of this knew i'd need looking after and would eventually explain that I am just, "too damn nice to people."


I thought I was fine. Things were okay since I moved into the recovery dorm. There were no crazy people, threatening to strangle me if they woke up with a headache. No sudden burst of ambulance, rushing into the room in the early morning when some random strange doesn't wake up, or security restraining a man, in the middle of the night, who decided to stab the guy sleeping next to him. The recovery dorm was safer.


One night, after the security team let us out for our last cigarette break (a perk of being in the program,) I decided to take a shower. Even though I had my routine I didn't mind that Homer had taken to showering whenever I showered, and I don't think he minded my stares. Of course i tried not to let him notice but I was caught more than once and greeted with grins every time.

This night there was a couple men in the shower, one of them was a guy I had recently had issues with while cleaning the intake room. He'd sit there and ask extremely personal questions and make lewd gestures while trying to grab at my body. He's the guy that makes you cringe when he leans in to talk and he was rude, a fucking asshole really. So it took me by surprise that he was in there but not completely when i saw the other guy he was with. Someone was definitely getting their cocked sucked. When Homer and I start our showers this fuck starts talking, making comments about my ass and referring to me as baby. I only looked at homer for a second and he knew I was uncomfortable. Nothing happened, Homer didn't say anything to him. Then as this guy tried to grab at me and Homer came unglued. I have never seen a man go that irate, that fast. Homer had this fucks fist in his grasp, twisted up making the man contort the rest of his body along with the twist. Homer, every muscle flexed, spoke very low and extremely clear, almost loosing the lisp. To the man he said, "Never speak to him again, try and touch him and it will be the last thing you ever do." I stood under the water for a good minute minding my business. Then, when i looked back at Homer he was back to normal and the guy was quickly finishing up. Looking content in his shower Homer spoke softly to me, saying, "You gotta learn how to be mean to the right people without turning hard completely. Look out for people to trust but don't trust everyone. And don't just let people do what they want to you"
I stood there, staring at him and all i could say was, "Okay."
He chuckled and turned to me and said with his lisp back and cuter than ever, "You just too damn nice."
when we finished our showers he walked me to the room, he barely ever touched me the entire time we knew each other, but that night walking back to the recovery room, he put his hand on the small of my back, pressing softly in guidance, and I just knew that this man was someone I could trust.

Homer would be there until I left, and I wish I had told him, just once, exactly how felt. I'm sure he knew, even if he hadn't caught me starring all the time, I'm sure he knew.


Every day there would be a different group of kids, church or school. Either way they were there, the glory of their high school or the pastors daughter, people that had things gone any other way I could have been. Only a few years older than most of these kids, they would all look confused to see me in line stuck right between the old bag lady from elm and main and an old man that pissed himself earlier that morning. no, neither of them smelled good and yes i did still eat. but not before answering a question that a few of the kids had. The question I had been asked numerous times since I showed up,
"Why are you here?"
and the answer was always the same.
"I got dropped off"
With them I should have added, "Watch out, kids. Or the same thing might happen to you."

Every monday the one of the local hospitals would send out a bus to come and give free checkups. The first time you go, they ask a lot of questions.
when they asked me the dreaded question of, 'why am I here' i told them the truth, that i was a fuck up, an addict and needed help, more so, rehab. i told them that this was my fathers decision for rehab. that moment, when I told them I was living in this homeless shelter, trying to get help for addiction, i realized what was true before they even said it. This was not the place i would be getting help. After that first day, spending three hours on the bus just talking to them and getting every test done that they could think of, trying their hardest to keep me there as long as the could, they requested to see me every monday, just to check in.

After that first visit and the revelations the ensued, depression set in. they prescribed pills. without any supervision and no one to tell me no, i was hooked instantly. Before then I had mostly only smoked pot, and did a lot of ecstasy or acid on the weekends. But when I felt the release of pressure from the first pill I took i was relaxed, for the first time in a long time. It was the only thing that offered that kind of luxury.

I eventually got kicked out of the homeless shelter and went to my cousins apartment. He was more than helpful and allowed me to use his car to go back and pick up the rest of my things. So I did just that, only I ended up picking up a friend from the shelter and keeping the car for a few days until it died in a prestigious part of dallas. Luckily this place was close to the gay bars so we walked. After spending two days in this cramped car watching this douche bag screw me out of  my dope right in front of my face, every time, I was done with him. and done with the shadyness. I remembered what Homer had said about trusting the right people and at that moment I knew that this guy was going to get screwed over.

We walked to the strip where there was barely anyone still out. the last place we stopped to ask for help is a country western gay bar called the round up. I was utterly impressed by the flair of the men coming and going. This fucker with me decides he wants to go wait at the bar down the street and while i deal with the getting help for the car. He walks off and decision made, he wont be getting picked up later.

The first guy i see, walking out of the doors as Im walking in, looked like a redneck version of my old youth pastor so I targeted him. I would like to say i got lucky on my first try but had I asked any of the men in that bar for help I would have gotten what I wanted.

He says his name is bobby and that although he is not working tonight his best friend and fellow tow truck driver is. Score.
"But," he says, "It will be about an hour." something about dropping off his last pull.

An hour... long enough for me to realize that this wouldn't be happening without a favor in return. bobby moved fast but not fast enough, and he was hung and huge. I was scared just looking at his penis. I would have thought it'd be awkward for him when john showed up early, but Bobby got off and left me leaned over the corner of the king size bed occupying the terribly small room. He didn't say anything but his face said, "Oh well."

I had no clue what I was going to do after they towed the car so I asked them to take it back to the parking lot behind the round up. Before they left, john asked me what I was going to do. when I didn't have an answer he asked me to come with him. We went back to the house bobby and I had met him at, this place served as a base for the drivers in this company to sleep at and stay close to the city when working. John said that I could stay there while he finished his days on the job and since I had nowhere else to go and hadn't slept on a real bed in over half a year, I was game.

i passed out soon enough and when i woke up the next morning I was in his arms. I recalled the events from the night before and tightened his grip around me thinking how john must be my prince. He held me and asked me questions about my life and where i came from. I told him, he didn't care. He loved me instantly.

when he was done kissing my neck i headed to take a shower with my freshly prodded emotional wounds. Balling into the drain, as the warm water washed off the past few months grime and sorrow. I had no idea what I was doing but I knew that I felt like I could trust this man.

In that drain I cried, begging for a sign or a miracle or something to tell me that this was wrong and I shouldn't be here. I was completely overwhelmed by the events of the past few nights and there were two thoughts reverberating in my head along with the rest of my mess.  "I got dropped off," was first. Then, "I got kicked out" popped in. I recognized the convenience in similarities, both thoughts started with 'I got' which i then agreed for the first time that 'I got' myself where I am.
I pulled my self up repeating the small phrase over and over and even with a quick attitude about it started saying it with mocking faces. Standing back up in the tub, letting the shower continue to fall, thoughts seep in, thoughts about how I need to make a change, do something different.

before I get out john asks, through the door if i'm alright. wiping my fingers across the fogged mirror i answer him with a quiet, "Yes" in my reflection I see I kind of mean it. I haven't been this okay in a long time. I'm happy, why not go with it.

Maybe i dont agree with being dropped off at the shelter but i guarantee my father had a reason. A reason, and a set of events that lead him to believe this was the best decision for him and I. And that's what I think he was expecting me to learn. How to not just make the right or wrong decision but to make the decision that is best geared for my progress. Too bad it wouldn't be a while before I realize the wisdom that makes up who my father is.






the cold watercheck
the man in the bed next to me
 the guy who threatened me
 the threats for being gay in a homless shelter,
Elderly man. Blake. Daniel. Stacy.
homer
Getting kicked out.

the truth about pills

I don't want to write about a conversation that i am making up. You know? Wouldn't you rather, actually have a conversation, with all its flaws; nerves maximized due to the reality of the situation, fumbling over simple words already spoken a million times in your life right until this point. This, I guess, is my problem. I want to live fantasy and believe it so much that i cant write about it. That's what I try every day to sit down and do. Oh, no forgetting this is how I want to achieve a lifestyle I feel is suitable for me. Taking drugs that I used to ensure people I was only taking because they helped me write. Now, I can't seem to go a whole day without taking any pain pills or smoking pot. i used to think, when i was younger, that this would be the prime of my life. Indulging, all day, taking whatever drugs I could get quickest, pushing out novels and partying the rest of the night. As long as I had three hours between me and the time I had to be at work, things were going alright.
I just spent all week trying to do this same exact thing. Pills for my writing. I go as long as possible without making the call. yeah i managed to stop asking Paula; an employee of mine that's been working at our store for like 30 years. She's nice and I can get them when ever I want because I have her conned into thinking I have permanent sever damage on my lower back. (Something that never really existed until I stopped taking the pills). But i can't continue to be seen on camera getting little yellow pills from an elderly woman, right next to the cash registers. I might be an addict but I know how to keep a job. At least, the one I have now I've kept for three years. then i got fired, but not because of the pills paula would 'accidently' spill onto the register when paying for some candy. She's just now going on break, a fifteen is what we call them. only thing is she'll walk around the store asking the other employees if they want some of what she's just bought. fifteen minuets later she'll walk back by my counter and I'll, "yes, please" her candy and see her off to start the break that really just ended for her. I don't care though, cause I'm completely fucked up by the time she gets back up to the front of the store and the only thing on my mind is if she's going to take her whole fifteen cause I need to smoke. But no, I didn't loose my job because of the pills, I lost my job from stealing money out of the safe. I needed to pay back people on some pills I'd got fronted. There was a song I heard once when I was younger, a rap song that one of the lines said, "Do it like the white man IOU." I hated that I lived up to that standard but then again I didn't care because at this point in my life I had more connection than I had ever dreamed of... and I loved it. Paula and I don't talk anymore and I hate that the last time we did talk I used her for pills, telling her that I would take care of her extremely unkempt yard for five yellows. I got the pills up front and her yard never got finished.

how do you say gay

i like to think that i was born this way, as me, a gay man. then i have conversations in my head with the devil telling him that he has no control over my life or who i end up with. In my head he just laughs shaking his horny head, then he'll look at me and say I'm not the one who made you that way...

This is all due to my parents lack of blending common sense with their religious beliefs, something that didn't happen until way later in my life.