No Limits For the Strange

Nothing suppressed the constant feeling of alienation since the circumstances surrounding me cloaked me in a world of solitude.  I looked no different than any other kid, but I didn't retain the same level of innocence regarding a care free time for growth.  It felt as if every incident that transpired hung on me like the mark of Cain.  Since I decided not to discuss the matter to avoid further humiliation, it left everyone open to their own conclusions.  It's hard to describe the level of seclusion that comes from being persecuted, especially when it comes simultaneously from two different planes of existence.  The whole concept of feeling unaccepted physically and spiritually leaves little to no avenue to follow for a sense of belonging.

I realized that nothing out of the ordinary ever happened away from the house, so I purposely spent time exploring the neighborhood and did other things to avoid being home.  I frequented the downtown businesses on Main Street, spending hours in Woolworth's, Kresge's and Lucky's Record Store.  My father's side of the family kept a strong influence with music, so I naturally followed in step and started a collection.  The music became therapeutic, playing on my imagination and drawing me out of the surreal, enough to take me out of the void and avert my focus to something positive.  I spent hours browsing the selections each store carried, then went home to indulge in a new world of sound.

The more time I spent outside the house I noticed odd things occasionally happened with no explanation.  One afternoon, I anxiously waited for the final remaining minutes to pass as I sat watching the clock from my classroom desk.  I spent the day overcome in earnest anticipation with a focused intent to do something once the school day ended.   When time for dismissal finally came, I hurried home following the same familiar route.  I ran non stop for a couple of blocks and drew closer to the parking entrance of a local grain elevator.  I kept up the pace, oblivious to my surroundings and ran in front of a car that turned into the parking entrance.  The speed the car traveled should have easily run me over, but an inner reflex caused me to hold my hands out to place on the hood of his car and we stopped at the same time.  Once my hands touched the hood  of the car I noticed for a split second that another pair of larger hands were on the hood with mine.  The driver and I shared a puzzled glance.  The confused expression on his face vindicated that he also saw something.  No words exchanged as we slowly set off in separate directions, trying to make sense of what we just experienced.

I spent a hot summer afternoon walking the crowded sidewalks of Main Street, being one of my favorite pastimes.  It became a convenient habit with walking distance only being a few blocks.  I kept the same routine every time I went there.  I knew the downtown area like the back of my hand and frequented the same businesses obsessively.  The area usually remained crowded since the majority of places to shop lined the blocks of Main Street.  Midland kept a slow expansion growth rate at the time, but the downtown area remained the choice for many people to go to.  I walked for hours among the crowds, sharing in the discomfort from the humid ninety eight degree weather.  A group of about twenty of us waited at a crosswalk for the light to change.  Habitually, I trailed behind to observe people in the crowd.  I scanned the area to discover familiar faces while I waited for the light to change.  Across the street, I happened to glance at another group of people waiting at an adjacent crosswalk.  One person stood out of place from the others, yet in a strange way, no one appeared to acknowledge him.  This seemed impossible since he stood over six feet tall, wearing a fedora and trench coat with the collar turned up.  His face remained hidden from view while his attire stuck out like a sore thumb, yet no one offered as much as a glance.  The crosswalk light changed, forcing me to follow the stampede across the street.  I kept the formidable man in sight, improving my view in the process.  I seemed to avoid his detection, but nothing really gave me a feeling of comfort.  I looked closer and saw something that defied everything..   everyone cast a shadow on the sidewalk except him.         

Hidden Taboos of a Spectre

I never discussed the experience with my mom, though she obviously knew something was wrong.  My brother conveniently side stepped the issues, simply from never being confronted with anything.  I felt singled out and really didn't have the means to be taken seriously.  I knew if I opened up and began describing the events I witnessed, all rational explanations pointed back to effects of my medical condition, or possible hallucinations from the medication I took.  I knew the things I experienced weren't products from an overactive imagination, or any other form of hysteria that caused them to happen.  The only defense to avoid scrutiny became silence, as I decided to deal with the happenings on my own and suppressed the fear that came with them.

The occurrences became an integral part of my life, almost to the degree of an expectation.  My religious upbringing multiplied the effects of my worst fears.  As scary and unimaginable the experiences were, they came sporadically without warning.  Weeks or months often passed without incident, then when I least expected it ... something happened.  Little things became easy to shrug off..  like watching a glass move across a counter by itself, or to see a rocking chair move back and forth on its own then suddenly stop.  I simply accepted the suggestion of my eyes playing tricks on me since it offered an easy dismissal that didn't prod for any further investigation.  The things I saw remained unnerving, but they never impacted me to the degree of hearing things or being touched.  Those memories still stay with me.  Through the progression of time, I noticed subtle occurrences with everyday activities that seemed downright strange and out of the ordinary.  As with the occurrences that truly frightened me, these unworldly added bonuses happened in the same manner.

My mom bought a copy of William Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist", the perfect  family companion guide that every God fearing Christian home should never be without.  The introduction of a story based on actual events of demonic possession didn't offer much comfort, yet my mother shared each disturbing highlight in great detail.  This perfectly entertained the discernment to the living nightmares I dealt with.  I still grappled with the uncertainties of being right in the eyes of God and heeded the thought that the Holy Spirit dispatched upon me to scare me into righteousness.  The most profound realization I connected with in the story became apparent through understanding the similarities described in the pages to my own experiences.  Although possession never posed to be an issue, most of the preludes leading to that event in the story remained comparable.

Understandably, I lived in an era where taboos remained prominent forces in modern culture.  Anything that upsets the balance to the moral fiber against the majority views of a society constitutes a taboo, but the whole concept reeks of implausible notions to me.  Many of these are tagged with blind sighted biblical misinterpretations from people too afraid to solely accept natural nonconforming realities that exist.  I always felt like I lived among a group of cowards, too fearful to upset the comfort or confines of their safety by simply addressing the elephant in the room.  It became apparent that I lived in a world of disillusion, where  people with great intellect chose to dismiss the things they didn't understand or didn't want to believe.  The most preposterous and borderline sacrilegious utterance given to me came from the new pastor the school hired.  He welcomed my classroom to openly ask any question regarding religion to him.  When I asked him about the relevance between the Holy Spirit and ghosts in general, he laughed at me like I was a fool and said "There's no such thing as Ghosts."   Granted, I can share my beliefs and interests with others, but my experiences solely come from what I live through alone...  and feeling mocked by a man of the cloth confirmed that silence remained my greatest asset.     

I've Been Waiting For You

Intersection of Rodd St. & Indian

Winter passed without any further event, as the eve of summer drew near.  I spent my last day in school trying to catch up on homework I needed to finish, since the week in the hospital put me behind.  My teacher allowed me to work at my own pace to complete the vast amount of homework.  I finished the majority of it during the remaining days of school but still had a few pages left to complete.  I stayed an hour after the school day ended to finish the assignments then walked home.  I moved in a slow pace, enjoying the warmth of the sun as I traveled the five blocks to reach my destination.  A multitude of thoughts filled my head regarding occurring changes that came in the previous months.  My mom ended her relationship the day after I went to the hospital, so that alleviated any worries of being assaulted again.  I thought of all the things I wanted to do during summer vacation.  I imagined the places my brother and I frequented together and pondered the possibilities of returning to them during our time off.  My greatest vices never altered as most interests always remained shared with my brother.  Our multitude of toys, comic books and music became items we collected together.  We basically shared everything we had since no other kids in the neighborhood were in our age group.  Being the last day of school and realizing the hour deficit, it became a safe assumption that my brother chose to cruise somewhere in the neighborhood on his bicycle.

I cut through the connected neighboring backyards and made my way past the northwest side of the house and entered through the front door.  The landlord came weeks earlier and opened the doors to the main floor to help circulate the air.  The rays of sunlight filled the foyer from a window on the northwest side of the room.  It almost felt like I brought the sun home with me. I closed the front door and heard my mom call out for me from the upstairs floor "Tim, is that you?"  "Yeah, it's me" I replied.  "Hurry and come here, I need your help with something" she answered.  I moved to the left side of the room and made my way up the stairs.  When I entered the upstairs landing, I turned to my right and peered into the kitchen to find it empty. I took a few steps forward and looked into the living room and discovered the same.  I moved through the corridor opposite the kitchen and figured she had to be in one of the two bedrooms, but took note that the opened bathroom door didn't reveal the presence of anyone either.  I walked into my mom's bedroom.  Nope, not in here either.  The bedrooms offered an amenity that I really didn't care for.  Each came with a deep walk in closet that felt like the passage of a tomb.  I felt apprehensive about venturing inside them since strange things happened in the closet my brother and I shared.  Battery operated toys we kept inside turned themselves on, and the light in the closet occasionally did the same.  We grabbed whatever toys we chose to play with and immediately shut the door.  Being faced with the inevitable, I looked in my mom's closet and found nothing.  This left one final room to explore, and the likelihood finding her there seemed pretty scant.  With reasoning being the driving force behind me, I searched the bedroom and the closet and still came up with the same results.  I bolted from the upstairs back to the foyer on the main floor, feeling scared and confused.  Out of desperation I yelled "Where did you say you were?"  "I'm in the basement" returned an impatient reply, "Will you hurry up?!!"

I walked from the foyer straight ahead to the hallway with the stairway leading to the basement on my left.  The stairway walls filled with cobwebs, faded from years of being untouched in a dingy white painted brick.  The entire basement offered the same unappealing adornments, with gray painted walls and floors instead.  A dirty horseshoe shaped work bench wrapped with three of the basement walls, while the remaining wall offered a built in root cellar.  The conditions always seemed dank, dark and dungeon like.  I searched the basement with the feeling of being in a crypt.  No one occupied the open floor, which meant the only place she could be was in the root cellar.  I slowly opened the cellar door,  ..then panicked.  It's three-thirty in the afternoon and a bright sunny day outside, and I'm hearing things?  Some kind of logical explanation needed discovered, so I ran from the basement to the main floor and searched every room...  and found nothing.  The only logical conclusion that made sense became the question of an oversight when I originally looked upstairs.
Still feeling shaken and confused, I slowly walked upstairs.  Instinctively, my curiosity drew my attention to the bay window in the living room that overlooked the driveway.  I moved to the window, pulled away the sheer curtains, looked outside .. and watched my mom pull into the driveway.  The entire living room instantly filled with the sound of a strange woman laughing hysterically.  I raced out of the room and down the stairs in time to meet my mom at the front door.  She greeted me and asked "Are you feeling okay, you look like you've just seen a ghost."        

Something Bad in the Air

When I awoke the next morning, the reality of where I was and how I got there became clear to me.  A medical staff monitored my condition and administered medication three times a day.  Prior to this, the only pills I'd ever taken before were children's aspirin and Flintstone vitamins.  It became a question to the medical staff what caused the granwal seizure, but with my medical history showing previous epileptic seizures, they suspected an electrical imbalance with my brain function.  Many electroencephalogram (EEG) tests followed for the next two years.  My stay in the hospital left me feeling restless and bored.  I received a get well card from my classmates and my grandmother brought me some coloring books and crayons to help occupy the time.  Of all the visitors who came to see me, my mother spent the most time with me.  When my father came to see me, I felt reassured that his presence never drifted too far from reach. His appearance gave a few affirmations to a few uncertainties.

My stay in the hospital lasted a week.  I spent the days getting into mischief with the nurses at the front desk by turning on my "emergency" light and asking for help with crossword puzzles.  The staff admitted a Japanese boy to my room my last day there.  We played together endlessly, having no skills with each others language.  We seemed to have enough innocence to take away the barrier of audible communication and built an understanding through our actions.  My discharge from the hospital came a few hours later.  A nurse entered the room with a wheelchair and asked me if I was ready to go home.  No doubt I was ready, but didn't really feel the necessity of the wheelchair to make a departure.

Returning home to the comforts I missed became an appreciation I greeted with open arms.  We only lived in the apartment for a few months before my incident put me in the hospital.  I never  fully explored the amenities this dutch colonial home offered, and now the opportunities presented themselves again.  When I entered the front door, my mom introduced me to the new tenant who recently moved in on the main floor.  He was a Northwood student who came from India.  He took an instant liking to me and my brother and asked for our assistance to watch his apartment for him on the days he traveled.  No big deal to most, but he was the only person in the neighborhood with cable and a color tv.  He became a joy to be around as our downstairs neighbor.  Though he never really doted on my brother or me, he always remained very courteous and inviting to us.

Winter came before we knew it and brought a few discoveries to light regarding the home.  Each unit came equipped with their own hot water tank in the basement, so any chance of running out of hot water seemed impossible.  The furnace heated the entire house.  The center of the basement held a huge antique wood burning stove that was big enough to put a person in it, later converted and modified to accommodate natural gas for a fuel source.  Wall ducts supplied heat from the basement to the main and upper floors.  The only disadvantage with the wall ducts on the upper floor became the smells created on the main floor, as they permeated every room upstairs through them.  We suspected our neighbor attempted to create ethnic cuisine for himself on one occasion and burned it, leaving us to deal with the awful stench for weeks.  When my mom questioned him about the smell, he claimed that he never cooked for himself and lived on fast food. The intensity increased when the furnace kicked on, but ultimately it subsided.   We had the pleasure of sharing the house with our downstairs neighbor for only a few months, then one day he left without saying a word.

We became the sole occupants of the house during the middle of winter.  The unit on the main floor remained locked from every entrance and no longer inhabited.   Strange things started occurring soon after we became the only tenants in the house.  A week after our neighbor left, the smell came back in full force.  Oddly though, it only became noticeable at night.  My brother and I shared a room together that had a wall vent.  We started paying less attention to the smell as it became annoyingly familiar.  Within days, I started hearing the sound of sizzling meat echoing from the vents at night coupled with the smell.  As the nights passed, the smell grew worse and the sound changed to a hiss.  I asked my mom and brother their opinions about the sounds and smells and to my surprise, they didn't know what I was talking about.       

Parental Adversaries

The move back to Midland proved to be a phase for rebuilding our family structure and securing a safe haven in most respects.  The absence of my father became a consuming burden that seemed to overshadow everything I did.  The lack of having a male role model left many questions of uncertainty.  Instinctively, the lack of sources meant that my path in life needed to be built on influences since a permanent connection no longer existed with my father.  Almost every succession I learned to experience came through surrogate others or my own persistence.  Learning how to ride a bike, playing catch or dribbling a basketball became uninspiring since the interests lacked appeal with the people I knew who already knew how to do them.  It became a time when my vital needs of interaction and instruction faltered to meet with the importance of others.  Living in a time when children were seen and not heard really added to the frustration.

The dissolve of my parents marriage became a reality when my mom started dating.  She secured a position working in the maternity ward at the local hospital.  It offered us more of a feeling of independence as we started acquiring the necessities we lived without for so long.  She bought a  blue green Plymouth Fury from my grandparents which gave us more freedom to explore places outside the city.  We moved into a two unit three and a half story home located between the downtown business district and the school I attended.   The upper level of the house offered more living space than the small house we previously rented.  Tenants usually occupied the main floor, but the foyer, basement and garage were shared.  It seemed like we were really moving up in the world.  Before we knew it, we had a car, a telephone and our first black and white television.

As we settled into our new comforts, it didn't take long for prospective suitors to come knocking on the door.  The first two big winners were door to door salesmen.  One tried to sweep my mom off her feet by selling Fuller brushes, while another tried to suck her in with a Kirby vacuum cleaner.  Needless to say, we added a Kirby to our growing arsenal of house gadgets, but my mom remained single.  She kept company with a friend she worked with in the maternity ward, who coincidentally had children attending the same school that my brother and I did.  Through one of their discussions, my mom's friend suggested meeting a single guy she knew with three boys.  She gave it a chance, and soon we were doing things like a surreal family together.

The apparent influences my mom's boyfriend had with his sons remained questionable to my liking.  Perhaps I kept a subconscious prejudice because of my real father and never relinquished any chance to see how this guy was going to measure up.  One thing without question in my viewpoint remained the fact that his influences held no validity for me to grow on.  My mom took it upon herself to engage in functions that involved his extended family.  On one occasion we met for a cookout and planned to go fishing in a stream.  His two sons, my brother and I took our poles to the rivers edge and tried our luck.  After about an hour of futile attempts, his oldest son reeled in a small trout about three inches long.  I felt a strike on my line and reeled in a three pound bass a few seconds later.  Thrilled with my catch, I received a rally of praise from everyone I showed it off to.  Then my mom's boyfriend told me I had to throw it back.  I couldn't fathom what I just heard come out of his mouth.  I took the same chances and finally have something to show for an effort I took upon myself without the help of anyone else, and now I have to throw it back?  It never occurred to me at the time that I outperformed his own kid, and he didn't like the positive attention I received.  I argued with him insistently to be allowed to keep what I caught. Then without warning, he physically pummeled me into a state of semi consciousness.  My level of sheer outrage masked most of the infliction, but some effects altered the feeling of my condition.  I appeared normal to everyone around me, but felt sick.  He apologized to my mom for his actions, yet never said a word to me.  We went back to his apartment where I passed out.  I awoke shortly before midnight still laying on the floor in a dark empty living room.  Drenched in a cold sweat and feeling nauseous, I went into the bathroom and prepared to vomit.

I began to dream of being surrounded in a haze of gray.  Bars of light passed horizontally every so often in a seemingly endless concession.  An odd dream I thought, since no people, places or color ever came into view.  It felt as though my vision turned into white noise on a television screen with the occasional white bar cascading down.  I no longer felt sick, but this dream started to get boring.  I averted my focus to the overwhelming feeling of comfort I felt and chose to drift to sleep.  I woke up again later, not knowing how much time passed, feeling sick again.  My body felt like a used punching bag, but something new replaced this odd dream.  I now donned a white gown as I laid in a strange bed with white covers. In addition to feeling sick, I noticed my jaw and tongue were sore and my throat was dry.  I decided to explore the room, still in awe of how realistic this dream was.  Before I knew it, a nurse walked in the room and asked if I felt okay.  She explained that I had a granwal seizure a few hours earlier, and that I would probably be in the hospital for awhile.            

Dumb White Kid

Returning to Midland gave us the opportunity to understand the true meaning of a family life, since the majority of relatives lived there.  We moved into a small house a few blocks away from my grandparent's sardine packed bungalow.  Unlike most of the homes in Hazel Park, a greater abundance of trees shaded the street and the houses yielded more than four feet of space between them. The familiarity of the neighborhood offered an accepting sense of belonging.  Our cupboards contained an overabundance of the necessities we needed, despite the only income came through A.D.C. (Aid to Dependent Children).  We still lacked the luxuries of most other families, such as a car, telephone or television, but we always seemed to do well with what we had.

I returned to the same parochial school to finish first grade.  The imminent challenge I faced grew from falling behind my other classmates, due to the loss of time from moving back to Hazel Park a few months prior and realizing Detroit area school curriculum faltered at maintaining the same pace.  Realistically, everything the parochial school taught in kindergarten mirrored the same things I learned in first grade in the Detroit public schools.  The expectations placed upon me seemed impossible to grasp.  All my other classmates read full sentences, while I struggled to sound out words.  The slow move forward proved to be a long one that didn't come without a price.  I kept enough charm and enthusiasm to keep in the good graces with my teacher.  She took the effort in a guarded sort of way to boost my apprehension to catch up with the rest of the class.  The next three consecutive years proved her efforts to be in vain.  I came close to being caught up with my other classmates by the time I started second grade, but still fell a little short.  My second grade teacher lacked the compassion of wanting to understand the circumstances that put me in my current academic position.  I became the underdog runt of the litter who never got the chance to be treated equally among my peers.  I spent the next three years feeling superficial, inferior and downright stupid from feeling overlooked and ignored.  Being called a dumb bunny constantly never really did much to boost my morale either.  I struggled with uncertainties that no one person of authority ever thought to question.  No one ever asked me how i felt about the impact of my parents divorce, living in a time when divorce maintained to be a taboo, not knowing if I'd ever see my father again .. or if the strange things I experienced would come back.  It's more than any seven year old should ever have to handle, but eventually those worries earned me the titles of "slow learner" and "academically challenged".  In the irony of it all, the "epileptic seizures'" my mom reported in the medical information for my school records, became a valid reason for me to be viewed and treated as challenged or incompetent.  The experience took away what frail little self esteem I had left, while other occurrences helped build a feeling of oppression.

The Reception of Deceptive Perceptions

The time lost in Tennessee felt like a trip in limbo.  I still recall everything vividly, but it seemed like a negative energy at work that left us there in a helpless way.  The fears that loomed earlier seemed to transform in a totally different manner.  I always felt an unearthly presence in the apartment, but instinctively noted a change in the atmosphere.  It still existed, but the fear and the seizures no longer occurred.  Who knew, maybe it followed me and stayed at the farmhouse in Tennessee. The scenario seemed unlikely, although I felt it transition without knowing what to expect later.  It seemed obvious with the changes in my parents.  Most people refuse to believe in realms that take hold and alter the effect of action and reaction.  I've always felt it to be hypocritical not to, especially from living with experiences that suggested so, even if  I met invalidation from those who didn't.

Another family of four moved into the third floor apartment.  Their son, the eldest of their two children, fell in between the ages of my brother and me.  We became a trio that did everything together, he and I even shared the same classroom at school.  Our mothers became friends and both started working together at the K Mart deli making ham and cheese sandwiches.  It became apparent that the relationship between my mom and dad was falling apart.  We no longer attended functions together.  My father took my brother and me places, or sometimes my mother did, but never the two of them together.  One time he took us with him to a pool party, hosted by one of his employees.  I learned the basic idea of swimming without being coached by anyone.  I wanted desperately to show my dad what I learned on my own, but the curvy blonde standing next to him proved to be no match for me.  Now that my parents were both employed full time and part time, their relationship turned into a powder keg just waiting to blow.  Everyday pressures turned into volatile confrontations, and selfish temptations appeared to be a deceptive choice of finding an easy way out.  It all reached a climax, after watching my parents purposely play against each others boiling points for days until finally one of them snapped.  The fear that initially came after me, now had a hold of both my parents as one was literally trying to kill the other. I yelled and pleaded with the full capacity my small lungs for the violence to stop. When the confrontation ended, pieces of plaster littered the floor in the hallway and my mom laid semi conscious on the floor with a concussion.  To my disbelief, I saw the shadow of a figure at the other end of the hallway.  It was the same woman my mother befriended, the mother to my new friend.  She stood there throughout the entire altercation, without as much as even intervening to take my brother or me out of harms way.  Upon my mother's request and against my better judgement, my brother and I left with my father and the other woman.  He drove us to the home that she and her husband moved into a few weeks earlier.  Still shaken, we entered the house.  I remained quiet and refrained from saying a word, feeling possibly like a lamb being led to the slaughter.  The two people who led me here weren't the same people I knew before.  Later my father approached me and asked "You didn't really think I was going to kill her, did you?"  I remained too scared to give him an honest answer and said "No".  The landlord took my mom to the hospital where she was treated for bruises and a concussion.  She stayed with relatives who lived near Cobo Hall for a few days to recover, then picked us up to go back with her.  We lived there for a few weeks, until my mom earned enough money to move back to Midland.  It didn't take long for us to reach our goal to finally get out of the motor city once and for all.  Our new foothold would be in Chemical City USA instead.

Shanghaied to Chattanooga

Occupancy in the apartment complex changed sporadically, with the exceptions of the landlord and us.  We maintained residency in the two units on the main floor.  Newlyweds became the newest members of the building to move into one of the apartments on the third level.  The couple brought a breath of fresh air into the complex, being of good nature and still exuding an unavoidable level of bliss from just being married.  The young bride sometimes greeted me when I arrived home from school.  The interaction with her became a way to shake off the lingering smell of diesel fuel and tar soap from the long bus ride home.  She gleamed with hospitality more so than anyone else I ever knew, but I couldn't help notice her accent when she spoke.  She defied all the rules of enunciation that I went to school to learn, so I tried to teach her how to speak correctly.

It didn't take long for my mom and the young woman to become acquainted.  Within days, they went shopping and spent hours at the laundromat together.  Her company filled a void in my mother in a way that made her feel accepted and appreciated.  They conversed about relationships, aspirations, family history and most other things. One topic that kept popping up in discussion involved the idea of hitting the open road to see other places.  Though it always sounded like a dream of something to do, the young woman kept eager to turn the dream into a reality.  A few days later, she encouraged my mom to take a free overnight trip with her and her husband, insisting they took care of all the expenses.  After being cooped up with two kids in the same apartment for days on end, an adventure sounded welcoming.  We all piled into a big red convertible and hit the freeway with the top down.  One city looked almost the same as the next from the view of the freeway, but as night drew closer I grew tired and fell asleep.  I awoke in a strange bed with my brother sleeping next to me. From the looks of the decor, we appeared to be in a small motel.  I got up and exited the room, discovering other indications of being inside the home of a stranger.  My brother awoke soon after and we explored the rest of the house together.  We found our way to the living room, where an old frail woman sat in a chair with a white cane standing next to her.  She immediately greeted us and asked if we wanted some cereal for breakfast.  We both happily accepted the offer and sat at the kitchen table while she made the accommodations.  Corn flakes appeared to be the cereal of choice, but she had a sugar bowl on the table to sweeten them up.  With the two flake filled bowls placed in front of us, I opted to start sweetening mine up with some sugar.  I removed the lid to the sugar bowl and three cockroaches slowly emerged from inside of it.  I quickly made the decision to eat the cereal without the sugar.  I haven't really cared for corn flakes since then.

About half an hour later, my mom emerged from one of the other rooms in the house and prompted my brother and me to hurry and finish up so we didn't keep our ride home waiting.  The old woman informed my mom that the couple who brought us, left for Michigan over an hour earlier.  After absorbing the initial shock, my mom asked the old woman if she could use the phone.  The old woman explained that the only phone was in her son's room and she didn't wish to disturb him since he was still asleep.  A man in his early forties emerged from the old woman's son's room about an hour later.  He allowed my mother to make a phone call to try to render a solution to our situation.  After being promptly denied help from the only resource available, it became inevitable that we were stranded.  The matter progressively got worse as the old woman explained that we couldn't remain in her home.  Her son, a relative to the jerk who left us, made arrangements for us to stay with relatives of his who lived on a remote farm.  Without being given much for options, we stayed with them for a few weeks.  In all my years of growing up, this was a first.  Everything I was use to seemed to be a whole world away.  There weren't any ice cream trucks making their way to this neck of the woods, and the difference between conveniently picking up a gallon of milk, changed from a walk to the store to finding a bucket and a pregnant cow.  Without a doubt, I came from the city and unknowingly developed enough street smarts that seemed challenging to southern backwoods folk who found solace chucking horse turds at each other.  The biggest annoyance came repetitively in an utterance, laced heavily with a thick southern drawl "Yoo sher dew tawk funny".  The experience of endlessly being poked at with the overuse of the statement, ultimately made it so I despised country music.  The only positive things I discovered while being stuck there were Pringles potato chips, Moon Pies and Royal Crown Cola.

A week after being ditched, my mom worked in a diner and gathered enough tips and income to purchase a bus ticket to return to Hazel Park.  Ultimately, we stayed in three different places in Tennessee.  We stayed in a suburban home after being sent away from the farm for being "too Yankee" for their liking.  Apparently the urban influences didn't mix well with their sheltered beliefs or lifestyles, as even a strange woman answered the expectations to the elders of the home.  A month passed before we found the means to afford our place on the seat of a Greyhound bus to take us home. Since the occurrence, I've never desired to venture anywhere near the southern states. We returned to the apartment and discovered the married couple moved out a few days after they left us in Tennessee.  Regardless of the time away, nothing seemed to change.  My father's demeanor even remained disturbingly calm.  It remained to be a matter of time to see where events would go from there.      

The Motown School of Hard Knocks

Living in a household with such strong moral religious values sometimes had its downfalls.  It was bad enough having to fight over the use of the bathroom on a daily basis.  Some topics weren't open for discussion, especially from an intuitive five year old.  A huge built in linen closet was next to the bathroom entrance.  It held the latest craze of toiletries for the time that none of us boys were permitted to touch, especially the "Five Day Deodorant Pads". One day, I heard my youngest aunt explain to my grandmother that she was having her period and didn't have any pads.  I had no clue what a period was, other than being taught how to use one in a sentence.  I already knew that I wasn't going to get any answers from asking anyone in the house, but occasionally my mom tried to explain things when she could. When I finally got the opportunity to ask her, she told me in very little detail that a period is when a girl bleeds and left it at that.  The next day, I crossed paths with my aunt as we were trying to get ready for school.  Unbeknownst to me, she nicked herself shaving her underarms and still hadn't applied her deodorant yet.  I observed as she grabbed the "Five Day Deodorant Pads" and in my innocent mind put two and two together for myself.  From that moment on, whenever the utterance of someone having their period became audibly available for my open ears to hear, I thought to myself "Oh that must really suck .. to bleed from you armpits for seven days and have pads that only last for five."


The kindergarten school year seemed to pass just as quick as it started. Since the church staff knew my grandparents for years, I became known to everyone almost overnight. Six teachers took the responsibility of handling the needs of the grade levels. Most parents volunteered to be part of the kitchen staff for preparing daily lunches, but since the kindergarten class only lasted for half a day, we usually headed home before lunch was served. By this time, my parents reconciled while Spring break was in full swing. We moved back into the apartment in Hazel Park.  Not much changed from our time away since the atmosphere remained dark and draining. The only apparent change that waited for me was having to finish kindergarten in a school full of kids I didn't know.  The nature of my character aided as a perfect catalyst to make the transition a smooth one.  It only took a few months for the seizures to return, though the level of fear decreased significantly.  My mom took me to specialists to understand why the seizures kept reoccurring.  Given their best explanation, they told my mom that my organs and bone structure advanced in growth at too fast a pace for my skin to keep up.  This didn't make sense to me since no seizures occurred during my time in Midland.  I experienced an occasional bad dream, but nothing more.  Ultimately as the seizures slowly progressed, my fears shifted away from the initial source that caused them and averted to my mother's level of frustration as it seemed to escalate with every occurrence of dealing with the aftermath. The experience of regaining consciousness after having a seizure and waking up to realize you're being spanked, really pushes the feeling of confusion to a new level. 


The neighborhood changed as new families moved in and others moved out. The discovery of kids my own age meant that playtime offered greater adventures.  Though my brother and I kept close with nearly everything we did together, a few times I was approached to take part in other activities. An Irish kid who lived across the street asked me if I wanted to buy some comic books from him.  It astounded me to think I looked wealthy to him, but I remembered discovering a shoe box full of quarters that my dad collected.  I took a couple coins and purchased half a dozen of them.  My mom totally freaked out after she found out what I did.  She took the comics and hid them so my father wouldn't see them to keep me from getting in trouble with him. 


The new school year started as summer rapidly ended.  I now faced the task of making new friends in a different school all over again, only this time I no longer had the company of my family to get me through it.  My first initial shock came when the bus arrived to pick me up. I stuck out like a sore thumb, being the only white kid on board.  The bus driver was a sweet older woman, who occasionally barked at the unruly misfits.  Many of these kids didn't want me sitting next to them, with good reasons to back them up.  The riots remained a sore spot with most of them.  I became the receiver to years of afflicted oppression and racism in a strange kind of role reversal.  I took my place at  the back of the  bus without any harbored feelings or reservations since I honestly didn't know any different. It worked out well for me later, as the jocks normally chose to sit at the back of the bus.  Before I knew it, I was their mascot. They looked out for me any given chance they could.  When the bus finally dropped me off, the biggest school I'd ever seen stood before me. As I stood and stared in awe of its size, I soon realized that I was the only white kid in the whole school.  This behemoth of a structure covered first grade all the way through twelfth. This posed no problem for me, since I accepted everyone for who they were, but how my presence appealed to them became a big question. My biggest adversaries were the girls.  They came after me with a vengeance, never to attack me physically but to see how dirty they could get my clothes. Going through the lunch line proved to be an ordeal on a daily basis.  It was nothing to have thirty to forty kids cut in front of me, unless the principal stood in line. So much for milk and graham crackers, it became a test of endurance that always followed with the daily ritual of having to run away from the girls so I could keep my clothes clean.  One day, I returned home from school and anticipated answering my mom's daily inquiry of how my day went. When she finally asked, I answered without realizing my father was home and told her that I had a new girlfriend. The following week, my parents placed me in a different school.  

Transitions Into Traditions

As time passed, I dealt with the seizures as they came.  Normally they would occur at least four nights out of the week and the fear that kept them going seemed to be more persistent as the days passed.  My mother tried changing routines to shake off the feelings that were constantly weighing on us.  Since everyone in my family were baptized Lutherans, she made an effort to go to a local church and enroll me and my brother in Sunday school. The Sunday school teacher read a few biblical stories and handed each of us a picture to color. The worse thing she said trying to give us instruction through her own inspiration was "Do your best to try to turn this into something amazing." We were probably the only kids ever thrown out of Sunday school after our first day of attending. The teacher took great offense at the amount of pride my brother had after he turned her color page into a well constructed paper airplane. I understood the reason why he was proud and took offense at the teacher for scolding him.  Apparently, we were too sacrilegious for her liking and were banned from attending Sunday school there.

By the end of summer, my parents separated and my mother took us to Midland to live with her parents.  They lived in a two story bungalow with a full unfinished basement. The household consisted of my grandparents, my mother, three aunts, two uncles, my brother and myself.. and a testy little chihuahua named Peppy.   Ten of us all living under the same roof and only one bathroom in the house.  Sleeping arrangements were just as crazy since there were only four bedrooms.  Three of us boys shared one bed, which always led to the nightly discussion of who was going to sleep in the middle before we turned in.  The eldest of my aunts finished school the previous year or so and moved out a short time later.

My grandparents were strict and avid Lutherans who kept extremely active in the local church they attended.  My grandmother continuously volunteered to help with social functions, while my grandfather taught bible study classes and maintained a position with the board of elders. The church already had more of a connection to me than I realized.  It held the events of my father's confirmation, my parents wedding, and the baptisms of my brother and me.  Sunday mornings were treated as a day of obligation, almost in the same manner as going to school or work.  No excuses held enough validation to stay home and not attend.  The only acceptable options became the decision between attending first service or second service.  Since we boys held the lowest authority due to our ages, we complied to expectations made for us.  Being such a sizable family, fitting all of us in one vehicle always became an issue that ultimately led to a simple solution.  Half of us attended the first service, while those who couldn't fit in the car went to the second service after the first group returned home.  The distance between the church and my grandparent's house was roughly only about six or seven blocks away, but promptness maintained to be one of the most important virtues in the family. Tardiness deemed to be a reflective form of laziness, that felt like a committed sin to the hapless soul who faltered and fell from grace when making an appearance to any scheduled event in an untimely fashion.  For being such a religious family, it seemed ironic how easy it was to catch hell for some things.

My first day of school came faster than I anticipated.  Since the church we attended every Sunday was also a parochial school that taught kindergarten through eighth grade, if felt welcoming since some familiarity already existed.  The morning came in its usual manner, but felt different, almost in an enlightened, uplifting sort of way.  It seemed curious enough in the months staying with my grandparents that I never had a seizure, but I no longer experienced the onslaught of the fear that sent me into them either.  I felt protected with the people around me and by a greater force I couldn't recognize or understand at the time.  Even the rays of the sun felt like a cloak of warm hands on my shoulders that shielded me with a peaceful acceptance. My two youngest aunts, uncle and I finished breakfast and walked to school together.  It felt like I was following three mentors who were leading me to a world of great experiences.  I entered the kindergarten classroom and for the first time, met with the classmates, some of whom I would eventually grow up with for the next nine years.  Initially, the focus for the classroom was basically for us students to get to know each other.  After the initial ice breaking session was over, we colored pictures.  The table section where I sat had no pencils or crayons available, though everyone else seemed amply equipped.  The teacher asked for someone to share with me, and then out of nowhere..  I spewed all over the table.  Not exactly a positive way to start making first impressions. She sent me outside the door with a small wastepaper basket where I sat and hurled, occasionally greeting a few hapless people who happened to walk by, as I waited for my mom to pick me up and take me home.  


 

  

Welcome to the Motor City

Madison Heights suburb, a few blocks from where I grew up

In late 1968, we moved into an eight unit apartment complex located in Hazel Park, a small suburb of Detroit south of Madison Heights on East Woodward Heights Boulevard and Dequindre Rd.  We were now literally living about a block away from the ghettos, in a predominantly black neighborhood.  Racial tensions were extremely high, due to the riots that occurred just under a year prior and because of it.. EVERYONE seemed to be walking on eggshells.  The highlight of living in this new location was being a few blocks away from the Better Made potato chip company. We would go there often to get free samples.

Since there weren't any other kids in the neighborhood the same age, my brother and I would play together all the time. One day we were playing, in a fenced in area attached to the rear of the apartment complex, with little plastic horses and cowboys in a sandbox. To our surprise, we saw a brother and sister our age of Italian descent playing with plastic army men and jeeps on the other side of the fence. The girl spoke English and before we knew it, we decided to trade toys. They were called in for dinner a short time later, so we decided to go back to our room to play there. My mom got the shock of her life, when a woman came banging on the front door yelling at her in Italian a short time later.  It took her half an hour to figure out that they wanted to trade the toys back.

My father now managed the W.T. Grants that was located just off the Chrysler Freeway. My mom, brother and I managed to navigate through town using public transit when we had to. We lived on a very tight income that my father allotted my mother every week.  We would make do with what we could afford every month from the local Farmer Jack's a few miles down the road. I lived on Pillsbury Breakfast sticks, Kabooms cereal, Pizza Spins, Sunshine pink frosted animal crackers and the occasional Good Humor strawberry crunch ice cream bar.  All seemed to be good, but as the months passed I saw less and less of my father.  He would be gone every morning when I woke up and would still be gone by the time I went to bed.  The toys he would normally bring home weren't coming as frequently as they used to either. It almost became a habit to expect to see him on the weekend, but very rarely would we stay home on his days off. Normally, we would take a two hour drive to Midland to visit my grandparents.. meaning HIS mom and dad. Very rarely did we ever visit my mom's parents.

A visit with my grandparents was always an anticipation to look forward to.  Usually, my grandmother would spoil my brother and me while my dad, uncle and grandpa would go off and do their own thing.  Never being one to want to stray too far from the action, I would often approach my father to see if I could take part with whatever he was doing.  On one occasion, he was showing my uncle and grandpa a matching pair of pearl handled Colt 45 revolvers that he had purchased.  They all proceeded to the backyard to shoot them off at targets they measured off in different locations in the yard.  Without getting in the way, I stood on the porch and watched them shoot the guns..  soon covering my ears so they wouldn't ring from the gun fire. My father turned and saw me standing on the porch and said "Okay Clyde, you wanna try it?"  I never knew where the nickname Clyde came from, but my dad and uncle called me it ever since I could remember.  I readily agreed and took my stance while my dad held the pistol for me to take aim.  He said "Okay, you have to focus, aim at the target and slowly pull the trigger." I told him "Okay." and proceeded to empty all the rounds in the gun in a matter of seconds. With a look of discouragement, he verified that I wouldn't be doing that again anytime soon.

The excessive time that my father spent working, really began to show through his demeanor.  As more time passed, his temper grew more excessive and unpredictable.  I never understood why little things would set a rage in motion, but I soon learned to be extremely cautious if he wasn't talking.  Times were much different back then.  Domestic abuse and child abuse were unheard of.  If you had a whooping coming, chances were likely that you did something to deserve it.  There were countless times I recall feeling the sting of a belt or paddle, but there were occasions I received  welts from willow branches and clothes line too.  I never harbored any resentment for the punishments I received, but usually felt like a burden to the person who administered it as their anger and disappointment often seemed to consume them for days. One beating left a scar that I still carry to this day, after a belt buckle embedded in my lower back. The pain was so incredible that I passed out.  I was only five at the time, remembering waking up in the backseat of a moving car.  I shook and shivered from being cold after wetting myself while I was unconscious.

Something definitely changed in the atmosphere in the apartment a few months after we moved into it.  My mom seemed more depressed and my father's temper was so uncharacteristic.  Nothing was ever physically out of the ordinary, but there was a feeling that loomed and became more noticeable with each passing day. One night I awoke from a bad dream, got out of my bed and looked for my mom for comfort. As I stepped out of my room, I saw something in the hallway that terrified me.  I turned away and tried to run to my mom and dad's bedroom, but I could hardly move.  I tried to scream, but could only utter a whimpering sigh.  With both eyes wide open, I tried to move as fast as I could  since I felt what I saw getting closer. Before I knew it, the effects of tunnel vision started to occur until everything went jet black.  I woke up an hour later with a gauze taped tongue depressor in my mouth and had relieved myself of all bodily fluids while I was out.  It would be the beginning of what was described as epileptic seizures.  Most people who have epilepsy can't describe what it's like to have a seizure, let alone how they feel before they have one.  I could with every detail and it was always fear that brought them on...  and mine would occur only at night??!!

An Origin for the Memories

My father became the store manager for W.T. Grants, located in the Green Acres Plaza in Saginaw, Michigan back in 1968. We moved into a  two story house in the suburbs that was scantily furnished. It would be years before we even owned our first television, but keeping most of my attention was a neighbor girl my age named Susie. She was cute, with dark hair in pig tails and beautiful blue eyes. We played together quite often, enjoying the time together. She, retrospectively, was my first girlfriend.. as so, I declared to my mother.

The house was fairly big and had plenty of room, and since it lacked having adequate furnishings to accommodate it, anyplace was suitable for playing. With my father being a department store manager, he would bring a toy home for me almost every evening when he came home from work. I literally had more toys than I had time to play with them all.  Most days, Susie would come over and we would play with the latest thing that my dad brought home for me the night before.

The house always felt comfortable in the daytime, but it felt really creepy at night.. especially on the upstairs floor. There was never really any way to explain why, but something always seemed to be lurking in the shadow of my instincts.. just waiting. Given that I was barely four years old at the time, I was too inquisitive to be that imaginative and I was sheltered from any source of outer influence to create any irrational fears. It wouldn't take long for those fears to be validated.

One day, my aunt sent me a package in the mail.  My mother opened it, revealing two red toy telephones that were battery operated. They resembled the classic rotary dial table top models of the time, both being connected by a single fifty foot cord, but unfortunately no batteries were sent with it. Upon making the discovery, my mom phoned my dad at work to ensure that he brought home the right size batteries for it. My father came home a few hours later than normal and we ate a late dinner. After the meal was finished, he handed me one of the telephones and had me sit at the top of the staircase with it, while he took the other into the living room that was adjacent to the banister. I almost instantly felt cold and uneasy.  I just wanted to be as far away from the upstairs floor as fast as I possibly could, but at the same time I didn't want to disappoint or upset my father either.  I held the receiver to my ear, hoping to quickly appease my dad so I could go downstairs.  I heard a voice, but it wasn't my dad.  It sounded creepier than normal and made where I was sitting feel more uncomfortable. I couldn't stand it any longer and risked the chance of making my father angry by running down the steps.  As I turned the corner from the banister on the main floor, I ran into my mom.  She asked "What's wrong?"  I answered "I heard dad on the phone. I'm done, I don't want to play anymore." She said "That can't be possible, he hasn't even put the batteries in the phone yet. He needs a screwdriver to open the cover so he can put them in."

What the Hell was it that I just heard??  It's strange, but time has a way of hiding the details to the things we can't explain.  I remember hearing the voice, but have no memory of what was said.  The next day, Susie came over like she always did and tried to encourage me to play with the phones with her. My dad didn't have the right sized screw driver to remove the plate to insert the batteries, so they were still essentially inoperable.  With the experience from the previous evening still fresh on my mind, I didn't want to have anything more to do with them. She decided to play with them by herself and I went into another room and played with Matchbox cars.  It wasn't long after, I went back to see what Susie was doing but she was no longer there.  I located my mom and inquired about Susie, to which she had no clue or answer to her whereabouts.  She phoned Susie's parents and verified that she, without any explanation, ran home.  It was the last time she ever came over to my house and I never saw her again.

Many years later, my family finally purchased a color television. I could never understand why I would get cold shivers up my spine watching reruns of Batman.. but oddly enough, it was only when the red Bat-phone  was flashing that it would happen.  We moved to Detroit not long after, and luckily for me the phones were left behind.  It seemed like a new beginning for better things to come, but unfortunately worse things were still waiting. I can't fathom the reasons why, but I started having epileptic seizures after the red phones came.

Where it all begins...

Everyone's life has a beginning, and mine began April 15, 1964. I was born Timothy Neil Tucker at the McConnel Air Force Base Hospital in Wichita, Kansas at 1:24 AM. My lineage consists of a strong German influence, but also consists of Blackfoot Indian (Canadian), French, Scotch, Irish and Pennsylvanian Dutch. Quite a mix for a little guy with an English sir name and little English blood. I weighed in at 7 pounds 8 ounces, the first born to my parents who dealt with a miscarriage a little over a year earlier.

Thirteen months later, my brother was born two to three months prematurely. He was taken by c-section, due to the discovery of my mother having ovarian cancer. My paternal grandparents drove from Michigan to Kansas to take my brother and me back with them to raise while my mother was in Texas receiving cobalt treatments for cancer and since my father was soon to be stationed in Colorado.

I was separated from my brother soon after we arrived in Michigan. He stayed with my paternal grandparents for them to raise, while I was placed in the care of my maternal great uncle. They had a son who was five to six years older than me, who I grew to believe was my older brother. I was too young to notice the separation and thought of the family I was with as my own. Two years later, I was taken from them and reunited with my real family. It was an adjustment that even my brother found difficult, as neither of us knew each other or our mother and father.

I was just under four years old when my family became united. We moved into a small trailer in Sanford, Michigan. My father operated heavy equipment for a family friend to support us. We had three dogs, all mutts. Red was my father's dog, Stupid belonged to my mother and Shorty was a pup that belonged to me. We weren't even there for a full year, when my father became a department store manager in Saginaw, Michigan. It bothered me at even such a young age to know that my pup had to be left behind. I didn't interact as much with my parent's dogs since Shorty was my pride and joy. I remember feeling sorry for Stupid most of the time. She was a very good and well behaved dog, unfortunately my mother wasn't much of a dog lover.. which seemed apparently obvious with the name she gave her. I came up with "Good Ol' Shorty's" name on my own, inspired from a 45" record of Tex Ritter's single of the same name.