hopefully that man is rotting in prison as we speak.

hopefully that man is rotting in prison as we speak.

My thoughts exactly

Ashlee

I', uh uh absolutely uh uh speechless.

I don't remember.
I want to, because I think of everything else that will come back. Maybe.
All of the good time. There must have been good time. I mean, I'm functional.
I have a family and kids and two dogs and a mortgage. I just can't remember.
Oh, I have "little" memories. Maybe that's all there is. Maybe there are people who just don't remember. Anything.
But the little memories... picture really, seen like dim, dingy photgraphs under plastic through the window of a door. Snapshots of time. I don't remember the events, but I remember people talking about the events. Remember the time when dad gave the dog away and you went to church and told everybody that dad gave your dog away and he had to go out and get him back? No? No, but I remember someone telling me that when dad gave the dog away, I went ... etc. Documentary memories. Not really memories at all, but comments on memories. Kind of like memories abstracted. Kind of like a description of a map of an area of real land. The map is not the territory. I don't even have the map... just a sparse description of a map. Some map. I've seen the map, I'm sure. I've been to the place. But I don't remember either.

So, what did happen? I don't know. I don't remember.

I do know what sometimes I kind of "go away"... and curl up and don't/won't/can't talk. And don't touch me because it's threatening. To me, the grown man. The man that, as a child couldn't protect himself -- wasn't allowed -- but studied, really hard, on what to do to protect someone else. The man what "shuts down" at violence. Comatose? No. Catatonic? No. Just... "not there" for a little while.

So. What do I have left? The genius boy -- the man who never grew up...? I don't remember stressful things. I don't really remember un-stressful things. I don't remember HAPPY things. I have some documentary knowledge. I can find my way home, so I remember that. I remember what the back yard looks like. Where I planted and what I planted. I remember feeling like a failure, an imposter, most of my life. But I don't remember FEELING. Snapshots. I remember the last bad Christmas. No, I don't. I remember that "we" were left to celebrate it. I left and drove around town... I listened to a tape of Glenn Miller that I had recorded off of the radio. I drove a stick shift. I drove. I don't remember much else.

I don't even remember what I don't remember.

I remember being sexual at a too young age. Kids don't have those concepts... not by themselves. And not like that. Show and tell, maybe. "Doctor", maybe. Not oral sex. Not inserting things in your rectum. Not at 3, 4, 5 years old. How old? Well, it was in a place that I can't remember, but I know when we moved to Virginia, and it was before that. 3? 4? I remember the documentary way.

I remember I lost a balloon. Standing on a crust of snow in what to me was a huge front yard. It slipped free and floated. I watched it, feeling sad. There's not much you can do at that age. I remember some girl at the front door. She had my balloon. What else? I remember the rug downstairs. Braided. The TV. The back room where dad made beer. The foreign lady who babysat me sometimes. She made me cottage cheese and ruffles sandwiches. And pb and karo sandwiches. I remember being up early Saturday morning and having no cartoons and finding matches and lighter fluid and thinking that if I mixed them I'd make the matches light again...

I remember waking from a nightmare, thinking I saw Frankenstein's monster on the back of the door. In my sister's bed. I remember standing in the dim hallway at the top of the stairs and yelling at my mother "I hate you! If you don't let me come down, I'll KILL myself!" Sent to my room for doing something bad. The result? SOMEbody came up and spanked me again and left me in my room. See? That's what you get when you threaten. heh heh.

I remember a beagle. That's it. I don't remember the BEAGLE, I just remember "a beagle". About that much detail. That's what it's all like. I remember hiding under the bed, w/ a test-tube stuck somewhere. That's it. No detail. I was what... all of two at the time? Three? The oldest could be 4.

I'm starting to forget even what I don't remember. Writing these few words brought back one and then another little tickling memories. What DO I remember? Little bad things.

Being in grade school at some pre-Christmas or pre-end of year party... having my choice of plastic toy 1 or plastic toy 2, and not knowing what to decide. So badly that I was crying because I didn't want to choose the wrong thing. So badly that my mom was called from work to come get me and take me home. That's been a theme for me... don't give me a choice, because I can't decide. I became an engineer... which makes it easier, because I can test and analyze and compile and evaluate and still have a hard time deciding. "Best"? I can measure and some up with a quantitative analysis. What do you want to do? Frozen, because I can't make a wrong choice.

Where did all this come from? I just wanted to type that I don't remember. Sheesh. I hate the net.

I remember him. I remeber like it were one hour ago. Whisky breath and a knife in hand. He liked what was beneath the pure white panties of a 6 yr old girl. The threats, The cold sharp feel of the knife, Dirty nicotins stained hands muffling my screams. I could deal with the physical pain,...go to another place in my mind. But the shame and the stench. That was the worst.
The woman who birthed me from her womb scalding me in hot water to rid of the filth said it would never happen again,......until she once again longed for the thing that ruined my childhood......

I wanted to say something. But there's nothing wise to say except... I'm listening.

-- Chris

Johnny,

I have truly appreciated getting to know you through your art. You speak to pains in life that are far more common than they should be.

Keep blogging, man, and I am going to keep hounding you about the idea of being a minister. I truly think you have much to offer the world in ministry, seriously (the opinions of conservative bible college deans notwithstanding).

I am new to the blog.. and i admire those of us who don't blend in with the flock. I will read the other articles.. There is more honesty here than in the daily paper... i appreciate.. it ...
Two of my kids were abused by family members... >> right the worst kind of predators.. yet the piller of religious .. straight laced god fearing rich evil masked by the image that society see's as real.......

thank u for sharing.. and your being yourself in all u do..

Liz