Chapter 16 is important in two respects. One, I was disappointed again. I had asked someone to inquire from his parents if they would tell him who my real mother was. He did and they clammed up. The other important thing was that, at the age of eighteen, my mother actually whipped me like I was a child. I could have stopped her, but I allowed it to happen without a sound from me. That angered her to the point that I thought she was going to have a heart attack. She had one last beating in her black soul, but she knew, as did I, the beating was not having the affect on me she wanted it to. If I hadn't grown up hating my mother before that night, the beating would have done it for sure.
But it was my senior year. Graduation. Freedom! Leaving Taylor, Arkansas in the broad daylight to rephrase the words to an old song. This was what I had been waiting on for so long. Eighteen! Old enough to join the Marines. Well, that kinda fell through and I wound up in the Air Force. The reason? The Marine recruiter was out to lunch when I came calling and the Air Force one wasn't.
If I wanted to leave my hometown so bad, why did I wait until I finished school, you might ask? I don't know, in those days, in small town America, running away from home just wasn't done that often, at least not around where I grew up. So, I never even thought once about cutting out until I was old enough to do it right. But my mind was dizzy with expectations about what the world would be like when I crossed the Taylor city limits for good. At least I though it would be for good. It didn't quite work out like that, I would be back . . . Many more times.
Looking back now, older and possibly wiser, I was ill-equipped to tackle the world in the frame of mind I was in. I'm not exactly sure what I thought I was heading into, but I do know I wasn't prepared for any of it. I left Taylor with a chip on my shoulder that seemed to grow and get heavier as time went on. I wound up in places I never thought I would. I did things I never thought I would be capable of. I turned into a lost soul adrift on the ocean of man and THAT, my friend, was treacherous and filled with rip tides which almost carried me into an early grave on more than one occasion. It also filled me with hate, self-hate for the most part and thus I came close, again, on more than one occasion, of taking a life, not my own. Misdemeanors and Felonies: A Memoir is about to become something more akin to its name. The fireworks are about to commence.
Tomorrow . . . The United States Air Force . . .
NOTES:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621
Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842
My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
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