She went to find herself.
She left us behind.
When she finally came back for us, she left the oldest one behind.
What she did left a mark on that one.
That’s for the future telling. Now it is time to fill your cup, your glass, your chalice, and your neck from the bottle. This is called necking the bottle.
DRINK.
When you arrive in a large city at the end of the world, there is a place that allows you to spend one night for free. The name rhymes with Good Hell. Now, never harsh them for what they attempt to do. They are safe haven for those at the end of their noose.
...So to speak.
There, they will feed you soup and a slice of bread, and you can get a shot of fleas on top of lice. The place smelled of booze and body odor when we arrived in the night. It had taken us all day to find the place, walking along from the bus station with our garbage bags of clothing and mom’s suitcases. Back in the day, luggage did not have wheels, if you were poor. Poor people hadn’t invented wheels yet.
Odd men might stare at three children alone with their mother in the huge sleep arena. There were bunk beds almost side to side, all throughout the old basketball court. If you were a hobo sleeping on the bottom bunk, then you might get a warm shower in the middle of the night from the mattress in the top bunk.
It is always a good idea to not stare too long when children are with an Injun momma bear. The mother is fierce.
We did not sleep well with all the strange smells, coughing, vomiting from death, and slow walks by in the night.
In the morning, we took our baggage and mom made phone calls. She used dimes. This was in a different world, a long time ago. She held the phone near her ear with her red bandana over the ear piece. She always had plenty of those. Bandanas. Ears, too. She heard everything. Probably still does, rest her soul.
Her friend picked us up in this huge, old station wagon. It was painted gold. It was an Oldsmobile. This is true. Here’s an image of what that old boat looked like.
(I learned how to drive a vehicle in that behemoth. That was how I got my driving license when I was fifteen and a half in California. I wanted to drive legally, ever since I understood what the word “Escape” meant. I would later find out the difference between legal and illegal, on a personal level. Someday, I would escape from there. But to where?)
Her friend drove us from that wrought iron, cobble stone city with the golden gate bridge, to the desert of the Sans Joking river valley. We had an appointment with a social worker to help us get into Section 8 housing.
In the US military, Section 8 means crazy. Nut job. Reason to be sent home from the war.
It means about the same thing in public housing.
Let’s have a Klinger shot, shall we? Cheers to Jamie Farr of M*A*S*H*
GUZZLE
The kind woman told us where to go for housing assignment. She said that after two months, we could get a new place to live, under government subsidy. We drove to the temporary shit hole, and then we found out that we would be living with a family of cockroaches. Those are very large families, and they have many tiny babies that get into every personal orifice. Always sleep with your eyes closed, your nose, your ears, and your mouth as well. When you walk outside in the night time, is sounds like tiny firecrackers under your shoes on the walkway, or your bare feet, if you are poor.
I have become fastidious because of this, even though those are rare here in what is now known as Maine.
I listened to my tape recorder that I had saved up money for form different opportunities one could find at the back of the Superman comic books. I sold sad, cheesy greeting cards and such, door to door on my reservation, and folks would buy them out of pity. However, they always liked to hear my new sales pitch:
“Hello Sir or Ma’am, would you care to take a moment out of your busy day to find out how to save time and money from having to visit the Name of Store in Nearest Town?”
I bought my black tape recorder at the Radio Shack, which was the coolest place in the universe for a gadget geek like me. I eventually became a science nerd. Some graduation, huh. This thing ran off of C batteries, since we did not have electricity all that much back there, then.
On it, I recorded the themes to television shows, like M*A*S*H* and Dukes of Hazard, and CHIPS, and even the one form Dallas, while visiting friends late into the evening who had electricity and those cool television things. Those were pretty cool songs for a broke ass Injun to hear.
"Here comes little Urb with his tape recorder. Hi Urb, have you eaten since the last time that we saw you?"
My later favorite ones were form Knight Rider and the theme to Dr. Who
You know, Dr. Demento played that one on his great radio show late each Saturday evening. It was Dr. Demento who introduced me to Dr. Who
Amen.
Eventually, I purchased a cheap transistor radio, and listened to Public Broadcasting Service that played the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio play. I could relate to Marvin. Boo fucking hoo, huh.
Anyways, we arrived at our new home, which still exists to this day, and is located on Chestnut Lane, right next to the water reservoir. It is a reservation for city water, and it spoke to us. Water, rez.
However, it had been recently constructed. We were the first tenants. How about that? We were introduced to this thing called “air conditioning” and we became addicted to it.
There was no carpeting, no rugs (thanks goodness for that, because them things are gross) but the industrial tile on the concrete slab was cold as well. There was nothing in there other than the stove, fridge, cupboards, two bathrooms (one with a shower/bathtub and toilet and also sink) and the other with a shower stall, toilet and sink) and even a washing machine and dryer! We felt like we were rich. We had finally made it.
Except, we had no furniture.
Mom showed us how to make beds out of our clothing on the cold floors, in our rooms. Towards wash day at the end of the week, the beds became softer. On wash day, we slept on sheets on the floor. I read up about Ninjas and that they did the same, to keep them tough.
Yup. All true.
See you next time. This is very embarrassing to tell.
Time to drink.
Cheers to doing the best you can.
Tahoo.
.
