bits_and_pieces the road to my salvation I can't remember exactly when I stepped into this dream. Just bits and pieces. But isn't that all a dream turns out to be in the end? Just bits and pieces? You experience the whole thing with stunning clarity and upon returning again to the here and now, only the memorable moments remain. That's how it's been, and all that I can recall anymore: just the events that shaped the dream; the forks in the road. When I first perceived of anything, I was with my mother still, protecting her; fierce and loyal. (No doubt the memory would seem quaint to her upon recollection. It still falls heavy upon my heart.) Four at the time, I had no way of knowing that she was absurdly immature for her age. I only knew that she needed someone to look out for her because she was incapable of doing so herself. It was a motel room, somewhere in California. I can see only glimpses: dusty parking lot, a pool swimming with bugs and bits of leaves. It was at this same pool that my little brother almost drowned one day that she was too busy getting high to look after him. He flipped, then began to flail at the surface of the water. All I could do was look on helplessly as his legs kicked froglike in the air from the center of his styrofoam "lifesaver." Someone pulled him out, I don't remember who or how, only the blue of his face and his sputtered, gurgling cries between mouthfuls of puked up water. That's how it went for us, as I remember: fending for ourselves and lucking out. How a woman chooses to throw her life away is her own business, but she didn't just throw HER life away, she threw ours away as well; a sacrifice to her sacred lover. She dispose of the kids and kept the needle. 040721 ... Syrope there's just something odd about a guy who can calmly sit through me breaking up with him and then invite me over for chinese. the sex was still mindblowing though... 040722 ... ivyducktwilightseto all that's left of me now . 040722 ... the road to my salvation Still, I remained loyal; call it the curse of a Cancer Moon, but I clung desperately to the three people in this world that I knew were mine. She was one of them. In spite of the fact that she locked us in the closet to spend time with her boyfriend. In spite of the fact that she would let him pop the door open unexpectedly and scream at us. (An almost demonic look of delight on his face when we jumped.) In spite of all of these things, I still loved her, remained attached and protecting. Such a pity that the loyalty began and ended with me. We did other things when she wasn't around, my sister, my brother and I. Dougie was still so little, he probably doesn't remember much, but Marie and I remember. Ask her sometime. She'll tell you about how I set fire to that shed and the firemen came. Shaking like a leaf, I can't believe they didn't cuff my mother right then and there. But those were different times, and the authorities didn't respond to signs of neglect the way they do now. No, the fireman just made me promise a solemn promise not to play with fire again. It was a promise that I would break repeatedly throughout my life. Who's to tell a young boy what's wrong and what's right when there's noone around? What's right is what's interesting and what's painful is what isn't. Being alone was painful. Being hungry was painful. Fire? That was interesting. So were the airplanes. Those I remember too. A pleasant bit that had been all but forgotten. The big kids taught us about the airplanes. They were the wind-up kind made of balsa wood and plastic. You know, the kind with the landing gear? They showed us how to take back soda bottles and use the deposit money to buy one. They were the most amazing things I had seen up to that time, and remain a pleasant thing to this day. Shiny red propeller and wheels. If you wound them up just right, they'd take off from the ground and sooooar. Oh how they sailed into the sky, taking me with them each time. Away from dark closets and screaming strangers. Away from hunger so hard it made you want to eat the chapstick that a stranger had left behind in a dirty ashtray. When those toy airplanes flew, they were beyond pain, beyond fear, beyond loneliness and so was I. So why do I only recall flying them for one afternoon? Why do the rest of those bits and pieces seem so dingy and winceful? I'd chalk it up to selective memory, but I've always been an optimist. "Things will be alright." "Nothing else bad is going to happen." "Mom's going to get better." "It could be worse." Looking for the silver lining becomes a diversionary survival tactic when you're trying to cope with a reality that's more suited to sweeping little girls from their Kansas homes. I had a brother and sister to care for. I had a mother to mother. I had a little boy's sanity to think of and I'd like to think that if I hadn't kept my chin up all of those years, things could have been much worse. Who knew that the bits and pieces of a little boy's shattered childhood would someday hold a key to changing the world? Some of the greatest miracles humanity has ever known aren't carved from stone, you know. They are glued together, piece by piece from the bits and the pieces that others throw away. 040722 what's it to you? who go blather from