this morning i woke early with a restless heart.
i smoked in the dark listening to my horrible mind.
it spurred me to leave my apartment and walk out into the cold october morning.
above my head the sky was a deep purple hue. it was a color i had never seen in the sky before.
it was beautiful.
every day since i was very young i have thought about death. not the death of others but my death. what it means. or doesn't mean.
it has been a psychological burden on me. i see that now.
i always think what's the point. i'll be dead today.
when i thought maybe whatever the illness is that is taking my eyesight and causing all this neurological fuckness to breakdance in my head, my goal was to finish a novel about my early life.
a few people kept asking for it. i don't know why. every one is as interesting as the next.
something is still in my eyes and head and still there is no diagnosis but it seems to not be cancer like i had feared.
brain cancer spread to the eyeballs scared the shit out of me. not knowing is kind of worse i think.
i'm not sure.
anyways i think i'm going to focus on something else. something not as easy and patent as my life story.
i feel like i have been neglectful of many things, including this blog. including you.
here is a portion of the outline i wrote for my "life story" novel. whatever the fuck that means:
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Born 1977 to seventeen year old Crystal Dean/Alfred Gomes (late twenties) at Chapman Hospital in Orange, CA. Father was in prison (armed robbery/heroin) and not present for birth. Iris Sexton, grandmother, was there for my birth.
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Lived with Crystal/Iris in several apartments located in Anaheim, CA.
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Cypress Community College magazine takes picture of me playing in the day care sandbox while Crystal is in class.
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Earliest memory was crying on an ottoman because Crystal was ‘going out’. Iris tried to console me. I remember thinking ‘you are not my mom. I just want my mom.’
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Iris gave me sips of beer on her lap before bed. Iris was an alcoholic. I remember thinking I felt loved.
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Visited my Great Grandmother, Velma Barkley, often at her house in Hesperia, CA.
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Velma had a blue kitty named Suki. I fed Suki her wet food. Velma painted a picture of me feeding Suki.
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First memory of my schizophrenic uncle, Michael Dean, at Velma’s house in Hesperia. He was clutching me in his lap, my mother was screaming at him to release me, he threw her across the room while holding me, she hit the corner of a coffee table splitting her head open. Velma took us to the ER. I remember sitting there feeling helpless and stared at the dried blood covering my mother’s face.
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Found a black widow in the bathroom and told Velma. She killed the spider by using a little bit of toilet paper to capture and crush it in her hand. I remember thinking she was mighty.
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Often hunted alone for rocks to paint in Velma’s desert back yard.
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Velma and Iris would go play bingo on Friday nights. They would bring back a box of cracker jacks if they won. The little prize inside the box always made me happy. I remember feeling excitement trying to stay up until they came home.
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Crystal worked/schooled day/night. Was often alone at home.
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Played until 10-11pm with no supervision.
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Mike was sleeping in our apartment garage.
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Velma was diagnosed with brain cancer. I was covered in varnish from playing with cans in the garage the day I found out.
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Family outings with Velma. Went fishing for the first time. Remember feeling scared of Velma and avoided physical touch from her. I did not understand what brain cancer was.
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Velma dies. I remember Crystal and Iris crying and not understanding why.
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Velma’s funeral. People kept asking me if I was okay. I felt apathetic. I was okay. I saw her corpse and thought ‘this is the only person who has ever loved me and now she is dead and I will never be loved’ and started crying. Tried to put my fist through a car window several times. I remember seeing people laugh and joke at the wake and thinking ‘every one is a liar’.
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Walked alone to school. Got lost my first day and felt fear and anxiety.
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Moved around frequently with my mother. Went to 5 schools in 1st grade. I did not have friends.
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Mother left me in a Lucky’s grocery store. I panicked and started to cry. She drove back and picked me up 20 minutes later.
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Cops swarmed outside my apartment courtyard when I was alone on a Saturday. I walked outside to see SWAT yelling at a Mexican man positioned on the second floor. He had no shirt or shoes and was bloody and had a knife. I ran back inside and watched from the window. SWAT killed him inside the apartment he lived in.
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Mike baby sat me and another girl (daughter of one of Crystal’s friends) while Crystal and her friend went out dancing at American Bandstand. Mike read “Hustler” on the couch and did not pay much attention to us. Played doctor with the girl. I did not see her again.
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Crystal took me to a drive in with her friend Starla. We watched ‘Children of the Corn’. The end car scene terrified me. Had anxiety walking past cars at night until my mid twenties.
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Listened to Crystal watch ‘The Exorcist” from my bedroom. This was the beginning of my insomnia.
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Mike randomly apologized for doing that ‘thing’ to me. I have no idea what he meant and have no memories of him doing anything to me physical or otherwise.
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Accidentally lit an apartment building basement on fire with a couple other boys.
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Crystal/me would go to the Anaheim mall. She would give me $5 dollars and leave me alone at the arcade for hours while shopping.
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A specific time at the Anaheim mall arcade, I felt very anxious after being left and shit my pants. I sat outside the mall alone for 3 hours waiting for Crystal to come get me and take me home.
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Crystal dropped me off at a Filipino woman’s house and told me I was going to live there a while. I ate rice every night.
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Started wetting the bed.
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A caucasion lady visited me one day and said she was a Christian and a friend of Crystal. Her name was Denise. She took me to McDonald’s every weekend.
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Denise stopped coming. I still had not seen Crystal in months.
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The Filipino family didn’t want me there anymore. Crystal picked me up one day. She was living in a Motel room. She left me alone in the room and I took the cover off of the air conditioner and stuck my finger against the rotating blade, almost severing the tip of it off.
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9th birthday Crystal took me to Chino Prison to meet my father Alfred for the first time. I specifically remember seeing the rotating food vending machine dubbing it ‘prison vending machine’ from then on. I was wearing a pin that said ‘kiss me it’s my birthday’.
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Conjugal weekend at Chino Prison. Crystal/Alfred/me stayed in a trailer on the prison campus. Made shrinky dinks alone while Crystal/Alfred had sex. Alfred taught me how to throw a punch, paying attention to rotate the fist as it accelerates forward.
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Without notice, Crystal told me Alfred was out of prison and I was going to live with him. She dropped me off at his apartment in Santa Ana, CA. I met my half-brother Alfred, Jr. and half-sister (I can’t recall her name). They came to live with Alfred too.
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Alfred was not allowed to have children in his apartment and would drop us off at Hart Park in Orange, CA every day before work (around 7am) and pick us up after work (from 5-6pm). He did not give us money or food. Called random numbers collect from the park pay phone.
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Alfred, Jr. informed me that Alfred was present for his birth.
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Crystal came to take me back and Alfred picked her up and dangled her over the balcony and beat her.
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Crystal dropped me off to live at Iris’s house.
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Enrolled in little league baseball, had to walk alone an hour and a half to practice and an hour and a half back home. Remember watching the families drive by and wave.
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Iris’s alcoholism worsened. She would drink brandy and beer every night and yell at me. Most nights she would retire to her bedroom and moan cry for her mother.
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Alfred made an unannounced visit to take me out for ice cream. He went to a house to buy heroin, left me in the car, went to his apartment telling me to stay in the car. Four hours past. I was shivering cold. He came down from his apartment and told me to go up with him. He let me lay in the bed with him for about 10 minutes to warm up, told me to ‘get the fuck out of his bedroom and go to bed’. This was the last moment I would communicate/see him in my life. I never got ice cream.
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Iris started working graveyard shifts leaving me alone at nights. I only saw her on the weekends.
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Crystal would visit once a month with her new boyfriend Dutch. Dutch was a 6’6 350 lb biker.
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A few times I would stay with Crystal/Dutch at their biker house. There were 9 or 10 bikers living there. Constant drug use around me. This was the first time I saw marijuana. It was packed in huge plastic freezer bags.
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Crystal/Dutch got married. Dutch sold his Harley motorcycle and bought a truck with a camper on the back.
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Crystal/Dutch decided to move to Oregon where Dutch had a machinist job waiting for him and took me with them.
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Dutch’s new job was graveyard shift. Crystal and I slept in sleeping bag at a local Oregon park for the first 3 days while he worked.
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Moved into a month to month motel in Gladstone, OR. The motel was owned by an Indian family and the smell of odd spices was strong.
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Watched ‘Spaceballs’ 25 times that summer on HBO and walked around Gladstone alone.
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Moved into a house in a poor neighborhood in Southeast Portland, OR. We had no furniture and used an igloo ice chest for a refrigerator.
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Sat on the hardwood floor in my bedroom for hours after school until I fell asleep.
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We got some furniture/refrigerator.
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Crystal worked graveyard shift and I did not see her often. Dutch started working the early day shift.
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Dutch became depressed. He would sit in the chair in the living room and glower at me. He would not allow me to turn the t.v. on or eat. Days would go by before he would say a word to me.
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Got in trouble frequently at school.
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A boy on a bicycle rode past my class room and pointed a loaded pistol at the class. This was the first time a gun was pointed at me.
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Had one friend, Robbie Krietzer, who lived next to the middle school. I stayed the entire 3 months of summer at his house without going home. I did not tell Crystal where I was going.
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Robbie and I played ‘Legend of Zelda’ for 70 hours straight until we finished the game.
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Went back home the day before school started. Crystal did not seem to notice my arrival.
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Robbie attempted suicide because he thought me and other boys were mean to him and did not like him. I saw Robbie one time afterwards. He moved away.
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Started spending time with a boy named Wally. Wally’s parents were separated and both heroin addicts.
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Played dungeons and dragons with Wally and his skin head friends. The skin heads did not like me much. I fought a lot with them.
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Wally’s dad paid me to rip apart pallets in his backyard.
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Started getting bullied by a kid who lived on my street. I lived on a dead end with a cemetery behind me. He lived at the front of the street and I had to walk past to go/come home. At school he left me physically alone due to adult supervision. He would punch me in the face when he caught me walking to or from my house. I would try not to leave my room and would cry from the anxiety of getting beaten.
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Wally attacked me over a joke I made at school. I did not fight back because I was scared to lose the only friend I had. Wally and I were not friends for a long length after.
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Crystal and Dutch would fight the nights they were both at home (think it was Tuesdays). Crystal would scream at Dutch and hit him until he would show emotion. I watched Crystal punch a plate glass window and cut her arm in several places. Another night, Dutch broke Crystal’s toe trying to drag her outside to prevent Crystal from hitting him any more.
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Existential terror started. When alone, often while in bed for the night, had panic attacks over my imminent death and resulting nothingness. I could stop the panic attacks by crying, shaking my head violently left to right, and screaming ‘no no no’ repeatedly. I started elaborate escapist fantasies in my mind to distract myself from the realization of my death. Many hours of nights/days were spent pretending I was someone else while hiding in my bedroom.
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Thanksgiving was spent alone watching television and eating food Dutch cooked. I remember Dutch sitting in the dark living room in silence staring at the wall.
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We had no Christmas tree because Dutch/Crystal were fighting and ‘punishing’ each other.
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Crystal took me to Damasch Mental Hospital where she worked at. Crystal wanted me to ‘see and meet the really neat patients she worked with’. I remember the place felt cold and evil and the schizophrenics scared me and would say random things about killing me or stare and whisper at me. Crystal was infatuated with the mentally ill and showed more interest in them than me.
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Started my first of many round trips from Oregon to California to visit Iris. Rode an Amtrak train alone for 25-26 hours. I would go to the bottom floor to be alone and watch the country speed by through a little window next to the bathroom.
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Steve Reedmer, Iris’s brother, came to live with her. I shared a room with him when visiting. Steve was an alcoholic like Iris. Steve would often scream and flail in his sleep. The severity depended on his drunkenness.
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Steve gave me $20, told me to ‘wash my balls, armpits and face but not in that order’ and left me at the train station. I remember feeling sad and did not want to go back to Oregon to live with Crystal/Dutch.
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Crystal was not at the train station when I arrived. I sat there and watched people come and leave the station for 3 – 3.5 hours. Crystal arrived finally and said ‘sorry’.
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A mentally ill woman, Karee, escaped from the hospital Crystal worked at and arrived at our house. Crystal talked with Karee for a few hours and had the police pick her up some time after I fell asleep. I don’t remember how Karee knew where we lived. Crystal had a cat she named Karee.
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Crystal became pregnant and gave birth to Montana Sue Karee Betzhold.
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Crystal would leave Montana with me for hours every day. I became very protective of her.
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Mike had been committed some time during the past few years and was incarcerated at a mental hospital in Norwalk, CA. The hospital was more like a prison. Crystal and Iris helped him escape and flew him up to Oregon. Crystal had him committed to Damasch Hospital where she worked.
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Started hating my birthday. Crystal would promise to take me some where every birthday and then ‘forget’ or ‘be sick’ the day of my birthday. I got a Supersoaker from Toys R US the next birthday and had a friend spend the night. It was the happiest birthday I can remember.
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Rode the Greyhound bus to California. Played Street Fighter II at 4:00am with a black crack addicted male during a layover in Sacremento, CA. I remember it was the only social interaction I had had in the previous 20 hours.
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8th grade teacher told me she was a Wiccan and that she did not cast a curse on me because she was scared it would bounce back on her.
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Started high school at Marshall High in SE Portland. I was put in the ‘high risk’ freshman class.
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Enrolled in football because it would be a reason to not go home and see Dutch sitting silent in the living room. Did very well at football. Played starting offensive/defensive line.. I felt ‘accepted’ and remember being happy.
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First time masturbating.
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Made friends with Rick Curry and his younger brother Robert ‘Little Bob’ Curry.
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Crystal would give me $2 a day to ride the bus to/from school. Some days I would get too hungry, spend the money on lunch and walk home after football practice.
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Started shoplifting from grocery stores to feed myself.
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Stole the Anarchist Cookbook from the library.
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Joined the wrestling team at school. The wrestling coach, Monty, had a giant scar over his right eye brow. He received the scar while chainsaw cutting a door frame above his head. The saw bounced off the frame and went into his skull.
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Rick and I befriended James, a 30 year old black man who worked at a gas station. He would often invite us to his house in NE Portland to drink 40’s.
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Rick, Bob, some other people and me went to James house in NE Portland. I noticed we were the only white people around. I watched two black women fight in the street until one pulled out a steak knife from her purse and stabbed the other one. The stabbed black girl ran back to her apartment and reemerged with a butcher knife. The cops came and we ran inside.
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James had a naked roommate sleeping on his couch who would not stop talking about Prince. We drank 40’s of Old English and St. Ides. James and his roommate were ‘closet gay’ and tried to lure one of the teenage boys to stay and hang out alone.
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Began graffiti tagging with a few boys from high school. A couple of them were in a tagger gang named “DK” short for “Devil Knights”.
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3 of the boys I associated with died by the end of the school year. Dean, the ‘leader’ of DK, committed suicide by shooting himself in the head while sitting on his girlfriend’s lap, Richie was murdered while sitting in his car and I never heard the details of Tom’s death.
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Rode the Greyhound bus to California again. Read Stephen King novels and X-men comic books.
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Iris and Steve would get drunk every night and scream argue. Spent most of my nights alone at the $1.50 double feature movie theater at the Orange Mall. Iris/Steve would (usually) pass out around 11pm. I always tried not to be home until 11:30pm.
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Arrived back in Oregon the day after Labor Day causing me to be late for the start of football. The coach and I did not get along. He refused to allow me play in games as punishment for not starting practice in mid-August with every one else. We argued a a lot. I ended up crying on the sideline of a game and quit the team.
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Stopped going to school. Spent most of the days at the mall playing Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat.
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A senior from high school named Brian pointed a laser scoped pistol at my chest while I was eating at McDonald’s one night. Rick noticed the glowing red dot on my torso. I saw Brian in his car smiling and pointing the gun towards me and ran into traffic to try to escape.
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Rick left Oregon to live with his father in Washington. Bob was my only friend and we became very close. I spent the entire Christmas break at Bob’s house.
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A few nights before Christmas, Bob and I went to the liquor store late at night to play Street Fighter II and buy soda drinks. Inside the store two other boys said “hello” and waved at us while leaving. Bob and I left 15 minutes later and started our walk home. When we cut down a dark alley the two boys from the liquor store were waiting and started to hit Bob. Bob ran away and shouted something I could not understand. I got punched in the mouth which broke my front tooth and then had a gun pointed at my face. I realized Bob was trying to convey that the boy had a pistol. I immediately ran away.
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Bob called his eldest brother, Phil, and explained what happened. Phil dealt drugs. He drove to Bob’s house, picked us up and we went and found my broken tooth on the asphalt. Bob said he recognized one of the boys from a tagger gang. Phil drove around a neighborhood by my house describing the kids to people on the street. We found out where they lived and went to their house. The boy would not come out of the house and was scared of Phil. Phil took us home, drove back with a friend and threw bricks through the front windows. He then physically beat the boy when he ran out to see what was going on.
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I phoned Crystal and told her I needed to see the dentist. The root in my tooth was exposed and the pain was very intense. 8 or 9 days later Crystal scheduled a dentist appointment. The root was dead and the dentist made a fake tooth to replace the broken one.
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Won a trip to Disneyland from a radio show. Spent the entire weekend alone at Disneyland. I saw Crystal, Dutch and Montana once for about 20 minutes. We flew back to Oregon on July 4th.
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Moved to a small rural town called Sherwood, OR.
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Crystal pregnant with Cheyenne Ryen Betzhold.
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Kicked out of my house for the first time. Crystal was depressed and told me she hated me and to leave. She hit me and screamed until I left.
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First time Homeless I slept in a fort at a playground in a park. I was wearing shorts and tshirt in Fall and shivered most of the night. I watched Crystal drive by the park on her way to work. Found a closed gas station with an open bathroom and slept on the toilet. Pan Handled for bus money to get back to Portland. Stole food and clothes. One night it was freezing and windy. I slept behind a handball court at an elementary school, slept another night in the grass under a freeway overpass, another night on a rattan chair sitting on a random person’s porch, and a couple nights at Rick’s. The police found me walking by the side of the road, arrested me, told me I was a ‘runaway’ and took me back to Sherwood where Crystal and Dutch scolded me for running away.
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Read Catcher in the Rye.
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Crystal would lock up the house and not give me a key. I started breaking in to sleep in my room.
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.Dutch became increasingly confrontational and started to threaten to beat me.
- The day after Christmas I told Crystal I was going to Portland for the night. She forbade me to go and became very upset. She started hitting me and screaming. I let her do this for about 5 minutes until I couldn't keep the anger in, grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her and begged her to leave me alone.
- I stayed in portland sleeping at various people's houses for a week.
- Visited a friend named Wayne. We were in his dad's bedroom and he unexpectedly pulled a revolver out of the closet, aimed it at me and said "i could shoot you right now and no one would miss you." He stopped pointing the gun at me after a couple minutes.
- Crystal was to check in at the hospital and give birth to Cheyenne. I took a dollar in pennies from a friend and rode the bus to the hospital.
- I could not find Crystal in the normal maternity rooms. I found her in a room and she explained she gave birth to Cheyenne the night I left on a friend's couch. They could not make it to the hospital.
- Saw Cheyenne for the first time. He was very small and looked sickly. He had just had surgery to repair hereneas in his scrotum.
- Crystal and Dutch did not talk to me much and I sat in the hospital waiting room alone for hours.
- Dutch pushed me around a little one day and told me never to touch his wife again.
- Dutch pushed me while I was doing dishes in the kitchen. I grabbed a large carving knife and pointed it at him. He backed off. I threw the knife in the sink and ran to my room. I grabbed a metal ring measurement gauge and waited in my room for him. Crystal stopped him outside my door.
- Homeless again.
- Shoplifted to eat again. Oreos and coca-cola mostly. Slept in parks/public bathrooms. Wally let me sleep in a camper on his property a few weeks until his mom found me. Smoked hash (for the first time) with Wally for 5 hours straight. His mom said I couldnt stay t here. I was walking at 2am looking for a place to sleep when my friend Blue saw me from his bedroom. He told me to climb in through his window and let me sleep on his floor.
- Blue's parents let me stay there a week.. Blue told them I was homeless and they wanted me to call Iris.
- Iris paid for me to fly back to California to live with her.
- Enrolled at Villa Park High School.
- Made friends with Steve Critchfield and Aaron (forget the last name).
- Steve and I would write humorous stories during class and exchange them after school. My best story was about his stepfather, Perry, who had a high pitched voice and a smooth hairless region where his penis was supposed to be.
- Iris bought me a computer for school work. It was a IBM PS/2 25mhz 486 with a 1200 baud modem.
