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Cheyenne . . . The Beginning.
What the Sam Hill (as my father used to say) does that mean? It means the start of my completely mismanaged life. While at Lackland everything was organized right down to when and how long I brushed my teeth. Beginning now I would have a little "private" time allotted to me. Although the Air Force still regulated my life, it wasn't so in your face about it. I was allowed to make decisions and this was new to me. For eighteen years I had had decisions made for me by mother. For the last six weeks the decisions were made for me by the Air Force. Now the Air Force was going to attempt to train me in the strange world of teletype communications, plus crypto, where I was allowed to carry a .45 while on duty.
I was ready for all this new found freedom. Freedom! That is how I felt about it. No more would I be at someones beck and call twenty-four hours a day. Finally I was in charge of myself. How stupid and naive I was to think that. How wrong I was in thinking that I knew all the answers and did not need to abide to any rules. But these points would take many years for me to understand, and in the meantime I fell headlong into the world of teletype, it's coded tape, which, by the end of the school I was able to take the perforated tape and pull it through my fingers and read it like I was reading a newspaper. I thought I was a hotshot.
Man, did I ever think I was in seventh heaven? The communications school they send me to was right up my alley. I took to the teletype keyboard and its intricacies like a newborn to its mother's tit. Later on in my life, and not all that much later either, I would again find the keyboard of an entirely different machine, one which would help me roam this great country, from one city to another, one small town to . . . well, you know, and make a decent living as I did it. Being able to operate with professionalism this machine was always my ace in the hole when I had my back up against the wall. To put it bluntly, I was what they called a "tramp printer," and the machine that allowed me to do that was the Linotype.
But as I settled into a routine in Francis E. Warren AFB, those days weren't even a glint in my thoughts. As I said, this was the beginning. This was the open door to my future and what would I do with it? I had no idea, and the future was NOT something I was worried about. It was the here and now which was important, and although I got through communications (teletype) school in good shape I was forming thoughts and habits which would evolve into the person I would become, most of these thoughts and habits would prove to be self destructive . . .
Chapter 19 coming up . . .
MY BOOKS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Finally! The day is here. Chapter 17 finds me on my way to seeing what lies beyond the city limits of Taylor, Arkansas. My indoctrination into the United States Air Force was lackluster compared to what I had been facing in the Marines. Still, it was such a drastic reversal of my life that it seemed quite radical, and at times, almost unbearable. I understand the reasoning behind basic training where you are treated much like an animal, the T.I's (Technical Instructors) in my case were complete buttheads. That, of course, was their job, but it didn't help matters when one of the two T.I.'s put his face inches from yours and screamed at you, showering you with his spit and rage.
I was one of the unlucky ones who was spotted for a trouble maker as soon as I deplaned on the base. T.I. Knox let it be known to one and all that he thought my job was to be ridiculed, among my other duties as an Air Force recruit. I had thought I would only spend one chapter at Lackland, but it looks as if I need another one to get through basic, before they fly me on to communications school in Wyoming. We'll see.
One thing about writing this book is I am dragging up people's names and faces I haven't thought of in years, many years, like the two T.I.'s Erwin and Knox. There will be more as my life continues to unravel and spin completely out of control. some of these names and faces I won't care to revisit, some I will. Also, there is the problem of not remembering certain people's names. I am not sure how other memoir writers approach that, but I'm just going to be honest and tell the reader I can't remember their names. Is that kosher? don't know. Don't care at this point, I just want the story told.
The story told.
Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir is something I never thought I would write. Yes, I knew I wanted to writer a novel about my life, but an autobiography? Never entered my mind. Maybe I thought my life wasn't interesting enough without me fictioning it up. I do know that the main players, mother and daddy, Marionette and Nanette and Dottie, plus the children were one of the main reasons I didn't want to write a "tell-all" book. Like I have said, the fact that all of my children are account for has spurred me on to thinking and doing the memoir. And it is going quite well, which surprises me. The first batch of chapters, the early years, were difficult to deal with and write. But about a week ago everything began to fall into place.
Do I expect for the book to start getting harder as I really get into the core and wastefulness of my years on the road, going from town to town, woman to woman, seemingly on a quest for destruction? I thought so when I began the write. Telling things about yourself, even in a book, that you might not be so proud of is always difficult. But I really feel that I have turned a corner insofar as the writing of the book is concerned. That pleases me, for if I had to deal with the book like I did in the earlier chapters, by the time I got through with it, I would have been a mental wreck. I think who I don't believe that will happen now, is simply the fact that I have accepted the fact that I am going into this telling truth. When you can come to grips with that the battle is won.
Tomorrow . . . Chapter 18, still in Texas . . .
MY BOOKS:Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
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/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Truer words were never spoken than what is aflame on the left. "You don't have eternity." Until you have something enter your psyche which is so dramatic and, well, important do these words begin to come into play. And when this important and dramatic thing suddenly, after all these years, appears in your life it is a wonderful feeling and you just can't wait to get started doing it. But this important thing you feel you must do, you have to do, brings to mind questions you really have never entertained before. Questions like what if you die before you can finish it? Unthinkable. The mere fact that life as tenuous as it is could cause you to leave the sphere of the living in the blink of an eye, and this important thing you feel is the culmination of your life's work will not be finished. It cannot happen. Ah, but it could, and you know it. Oh, I guessI have brought this same question up a few times before, but usually only in passing, like, "I hope I have time to get this done." That is an anemic way of putting it. I find myself lying awake at night thinking of the possibility that before Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir is finished I could die. Hell, I have enough wrong with me, that any one of a half dozen of things could take me out. Let's see, I have high blood pressure, thyroid problems, kidney dysfunction, emphysema, and diabetics. I am lucky, I suppose, that I live in an age and in a country, where research has made it possible to, if not beat these diseases, at least prolong life much longer than it could in the past. But that doesn't matter, because with all the miracle drugs I am taking, and I am taking a lot, I could go out before I finish this sentence. I'm not getting morbid here, it is just a fact of life, or rather, death.
Chapter 15 took place during the summer vacation between the eleventh and the twelfth grade. A very pivotal time in my history, because of something a little neighborhood boy said to me. What he said drove me into a drunken rage and I demanded some answers from my parents. They did not answer my drunken questions the way I wanted them to, therefore I became violent. Not with them. No, I never struck them, but I did commence to wreck mayhem in the kitchen where our conversation was taking place. That, at least got an answer from my mother, but it wasn't the answer I wanted to hear, because it was a lie. That night served to change the way my parents looked at me. It changed nothing about the way I looked at them, for nothing had changed in my way of thinking. The whispering rumors I had heard all my life had finally been addressed. It scared them and pissed me off, because I was still being lied to like I had always been lied to. It was getting close to the time I would be severing ties with Taylor and all that went with it, but if I thought I had cowed my mother into leaving me alone, within the next year I was to find out how wrong I was.
New chapter tomorrow . . .
NOTES:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
This chapter is one which begins to come to terms with what is going on in my head as I look forward to checking out of Taylor, Arkansas and taking on the world. In Chapter 14 I am in the eleventh grade and a lot is happening. I have finally learned how to "get around" mother and actually get out there and have some damn fun in life. Oh, she still rules the roost, but her bite isn't quite as vicious as it used to be. Either than or by this time I am becoming immune to it, and have also learned to bite back. She still has a lot of stamina left for lording it over her subjects, there is this brand new child to see after as only Orean Bolton can. Ssshhhhh . . . There will be two more in the next few years. She reminds me now as I look back on it, like some of the movie stars who go around the country and "adopt" babies of all nationalities. She told me once that she would love to have a little black baby. I wondered then why and I wonder why now, because she, as were most people back then, and I include myself, was a racist. Nigger was a word not to be ashamed of in those days, it was what it was. I notice none of her babies turned out to be black, however, and I know her, if she had really wanted a black baby she would have had one.
I know what I expected Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir to be when it is finished, but I wonder if that will, indeed, be what it will turn out to be. When Patricia sent me that email August 15 and asked me if I knew a woman by the name of Nanette Bolton, maiden name Schiavo my world nearly collapsed around me. With my heart beating crazily I managed to look at the email harder and saw the name Patricia Jurek and then I knew it was my sweet little Patricia asking that question. There are few who can relate to how I felt when I realized who it was. After answering a few more question to her satisfaction, we communicated for a few days. The only question she has ever asked me, and I know she must have many more, was did I ever try to find her. Yes, I did. Was trolling the Internet within the last couple of months before she got in touch with me. Anyway, in about a month of communicating with her the book reared it head at me and I knew what I must do. Write what happened to her father which could make him such a full-fledged bastard. She deserved knowing a few things. So I have set out to do that, but what will the book be when I am finished? Will it satisfy her hunger to comprehend? Probably not. then again, maybe. I just don't know. I can only write it the way it happened. I promised myself I would not make myself out to be anything other than what I am.
Tomorrow . . . Chapter 15 . . .
NOTES:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Chapter 13 was all about the arrival of Joe Steve to the Bolton family. Steve, like me, was not born from my mother, rather he was adopted sort of clandestinely from persons unknown. Again, much like me. That my father had no earthly idea he was going to have another mouth to feed was about par for the course. Mother never was one to consider other peoples feelings when there was something she wanted. It was a case of full steam ahead in Steve's case. I can only assume because I have never been told, but I imagine my Aunt Dick (yeah, it's Dick), who lived in Shreveport, Louisiana heard about some young girl in trouble and was looking for a way out of it and she called mother. Anyway, Steve arrived in 1955 I think. I was sixteen-year-old. It took me a few days to absorb the fact that I had a little brother, let me tell you. And although after I finished high school and left Taylor I came back and lived there many times, so I got to know him and love him. He did me also, in fact there was a time he probably idolized me, but of course the years found a way to tarnish that somewhat. He probably finally realized that Buddy (his name for me) wasn't as fantastic a guy as he thought I was.
Another good day for writing. Yes, it is coming easier, this makes three days consecutively that I was able to sit down and DO IT without much of a problem. I'm beginning to believe that I had so much trouble with all the early chapters because those younger days are more blurred to me than other, later days. Also, the last three chapters, at least the last two, were about things very important to me. The discovery of rock and roll, via Elvis and today's one about bringing little Steve home. Both those situations meant a lot to me, so therefore I was able to recreate how I felt and what happened with a little more clarity than some of the others. Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir as as I hoped, is becoming easier to write. Still, I'm not getting cocky, the tough chapters are yet to be written.
Short entry today.
NOTES:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
This is a red letter day. I put Chapter 12 together in recod time. I started writing it around 7:00 a.m. and I just finished it a few minutes ago and the time now is 12:55 p.m. This is a good feeling, let me tell you. I have been telling my wife, Dottie, ever since yesterday that I think I have "turned the corner" insofar as how Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir is progressing. Today chinched it, I believe, for the time being at lest, I have a good handle on the book. The words are coming easier and I have a better feel about each chapter that I write.
Chapter 12 takes place as Elvis Presley comes screaming onto the world stage and rattles my brain. Actually Jerry Lee Lewis coined the phrase "rattle my brain" in the song "Great Balls Of Fire." But it was Elvis who affected me the most early on. There would be pleanty of time for The Killer, and actually I liked Jerry Lee as a ballad singer rather than rock and roll, but that's just me. The sudden appearance of Elvis Presley on the radio and even television was really something else. I sure had never lived through anything like it in my young life, and I don't think most people even older than me had either. His songs, his in-your-face persona took hold of me and I began to think seriously at that time about about leaving Taylor. I was in the ninth grade and it would be three more long years before that could be accomplished. The book is about to take a drastic turn as I, myself, took a drastic move in my life . . . The begining of my misdemeanors and felonies as it were.
There is something very strange, however that is going on with me as I turn this corner. Although the words are coming, and are coming pretty easily, something is going on inside of me. It is like, as I write the words onto the screen there is a very pronounced "hollow" spot inside my chest. It doesn't exactly hurt, this hollow spot, but it is there and it is real. I have a funny feeling that this sensation will continue as I go continue knocking out chapters and may even start hurting for real. Just now, in fact, I had to get up and take an anti-acid pill because, well, my chest began to feel like indigestion. Do the things I write about, and will write about, cause a physical reaction? I think that it probably will, and already is. For someone to write about his life when his life hasn't been such a steller one can give him pleanty of tension, I can already see that. Can that tension promote chest pains and even eventual physical problems as I write about my life when it really get to be bad? I have a feeling that it also can do that. I don't care. Well, I do care that it could affect me to such an extent that I am unable to continue writing the story, but the "hollowness" and other feelings inside my body will not deter me from my goal, the finishing of the book and its eventual publishing. I imagine I'll go to Lulu for the publishing, they turn out a good product.
NOTES:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Cheyenne . . . The Beginning.
