Growing up, I kind of had the best and worst of both worlds.
The neighborhood I lived in was tucked into a wooded corner on the very edge of a mid-sized city. In such, I got to play and explore in the woods all the time when I wasn’t at school, but, being a small neighborhood, there weren’t really any kids my age to hang around with. This was both a blessing and a curse as the years went by, and eventually I attached myself to an older guy who had moved from the other side of the county. That is a different story though, and one I will tell later.
Since I was so far away from the schools for the city I actually lived in, they sent all the kids in my neighborhood to Pontiac schools (the city next to us). Pontiac is an industrial town (cars) and has a big mix of people living there. All was good until I got into the high school, but that’s when things really started to get ugly. There was a lot of gang activity, violence and stupidity. Very few people were there for the education. Although I didn’t get caught up in the gangs, I did fall into shit that really changed how I viewed the world around me. Much of it having to do with that guy back in my neighborhood and his influence on who I was. I didn’t really care about school to much, although I kept going because I had to.
On the last day of my 10th grade year two buddies and I were jumped while waiting for the bus because we were white long-hairs. We got off pretty lucky, but it left a pretty bad taste in my mouth and I refused to step foot in that school again the following year. In such, I transferred to another school district, attending an alternate high school. There I got my GPA up and stayed out of trouble the best I could. I was one of their top students, but mainly because I was one of the only people there that hadn’t been kicked out of the local school’s for being a disciplinary problem. It took a year and a half, but I ended up completing every single class they could give me that was at my level or above and had to find a different school.
I found myself taking night classes in what was then my 3rd school district. Four nights a week, four hours a night, one class each night. The shit was truly a joke. After the first semester I was only one class short of graduation (which caused me to graduate one semester late than what I originally should have but that was fine. After screwing off for two years in my first high school, a single semester wasn’t bad imo). I took a drawing and sketching class my first semester there, and then the second semester I took the same class again, but as an advanced student. The perk to that was running into the teacher over the summer at a concert … she was stoned as hell. She knew I had enough on her to get her license pulled, so when I took her class the second time, I was rarely there and still got a B. :-)
I went to college for a little while after I graduated, but, at that point I was pretty deep into drugs and was dealing with my depression (although I didn’t know what was wrong with me, only that I was miserable doing just about everything). I quit attending most of my classes within the first few weeks, and only ended up passing a single class, an intro to business course. All of the students were dressed nice and there I was, all black, long hair, stoned out of my mind and acing the class without any trouble. It seems I excel at things I enjoy … go figure.
It was that last semester of high school when I turned 18 and was introduced to the goth/industrial club scene in Detroit. I had never been to Detroit before, but walking into this run down hotel in the heart of the city and finding my way up this crumbling stairway was in and of itself an experience. The black and white murals which covered the walls showed dark scenes depicting the seven deadly sins and the rhythmic thump of the music could be felt deep in the concrete structure beneath my feet. I didn’t look like I belonged there, but, upon walking into the place for the first time, surrounded by the freaks and misfits of society, I knew I was home.
The years pealed away so easily while lost in the illusion of that place. City Club was the epicenter of a movement, but whatever the direction was, I don’t think we ever really knew. We could all feel it. We know it was start there, but in the end, nothing did. We were all growing old waiting for something … anything; but all for not.
We only grew older.
The millennium came and went, the music changed, yet we stayed the same. Our dances evolved, new faces came and went, yet we were all still there, counting the days until we could go again and speaking of the ‘glory’ days of the scene. Some escaped into lives proper and fitting to the society we dwelled within, but not a part of. Some just disappeared one day, never to be heard from again; no longer a face in the crowd. Some died; by their own hand or the cold hand of chaos, the end was the same.
After so many years living on the edge of society and drinking it all in, I too had reached a breaking point. An old friend, turned lover, turned goddess. I was so entwined in the excess of all that was, that I failed to realize just how bad my actions could hurt another. I made the mistake, one night, of kissing a girl while I was drunk and it caused a HUGE scene that eventually made it into someone’s blog … a blog the girl I was seeing was subscribed to and read the following morning. She was out of state for training (she was in the Army) and called me in tears. She asked me what happened and I told her the truth. To this day, when everything is silent around me, I can still hear her heart break.
That was the beginning of the end. I moved out of the apt I was in and into a house with some friends, which made my commute to work about 30 minutes. My car died and I couldn’t afford the work to get it fixed, so an old friend gave me her van since she was moving to California. The van was broken into that night and when they attempted to hotwire it, they fried out the electrical system. In a rage, they broke out all the windows and slashed the tires. Shortly after, a buddy had his car impounded and said that if I paid the impound fee I could have the car but it needed a new alternator. I did and replaced the part, but it left me broke and I couldn’t get it street legal. I still had to get to work, so I put the plate from my original car onto it. Little did I know that I had blown a fuse and my tail lights were out. Got pulled over, nearly arrested. 300 dollars in tickets. Missed work. After that, the girl who gave me the van sold me her 86 Grand Marquis for 800 bucks. I gave her 200, which was all I could spare, with the goal of paying her the rest when I could. I had been in that car many times and although it looked like shit, it drove like a dream. I drove it to work the next morning without issue, and then the damn thing broke down on me while driving home. I called her from the side of the highway and, laughing, asked her to guess where I was. She was stunned, and more so, was dumbfounded by the streak of bad luck that had fallen upon me.
4 cars in 3 weeks if you can believe that. I lost my job, had to move out of the house since I couldn’t afford my rent anymore. Ended up with another buddy, in another town, with the hopes of being able to walk to a future job. Nobody was hiring. What made it worse was that he quit his job after I had been there about two weeks, so neither of us had income. We were hungry, living on rice, no work to be found. I sold a lot of my things in order to survive, but it was never enough to get anywhere or do much of anything. Then, the eviction papers arrived.
With nowhere to go, nothing left to my name, it was time for some hard choices. I was at the recruiting office about a week later and started the process. I needed to detox before I went to meps, but, they didn’t have to sell me anything. I WAS going to join the navy and get out of the situation I was in. It was just a matter of getting clean, and picking a job. Seven months later I was on a plane to Chicago, and the rest, I guess, is history.