I was proud.

It shocked me when I got older to realize I shared things with supposed great men.  Not ever having a real male role model I have always constantly looked for them.  It turns out that the only place I have ever found good male role models are dead guys who wrote books before they died.  I've seriously never found a real male role model in person in my entire life.  They are always found wanting.   More than a few times I have woken up to realize I had been idealizing the worst of men simply because I wanted an older male in my life.  Until recently in my life I was always searching for replacement parents.  I'll save that lesson for later in the story though.  This part though, has always been true about me; if I were to get rid of my pride, I would only be proud that I had done so.  When I make up my mind to do something; I do it.  The problem was, when I was younger, I was making up my mind to do things that were not good for me at all. 

Fifteen years old, hyper masculinized, ignorant, crazy, and no longer giving a fuck.  There were only two things that were keeping me in check, my girlfriend and wrestling.  It would be hard to say which I loved more.  Teachers would always comment that I was a much better student during wrestling season.  It was a way to release all that energy physically.  That year was the best I had done wrestling wise.  I qualified for state as the lightest heavy weight.  I could legally take it out on someone else and not get into trouble.  There is great freedom in doing this.

JoAnn had me on a tight leash, or so she thought. Her stupid ass was working evenings so there was no way she could control me.  Her and my probation officer talked regularly I think, but like most people who take those jobs they have no clue as what is going on with kids like me.  JoAnn was also working at the county jail so she knew all the cops.  But because of wrestling season and my having a girlfriend I was not in quite so much of a hurry to crash and burn.  Don't get me wrong.  When I say I was being good that is not the same thing as actually being good.  I was being good for me.  Looking back on it now I have always pushed the limit no matter what I am doing.

JoAnn was stupid and crazy.  There will never be a way for me to express this appropriately.  I'd say she was as promiscuous as they come.  My brother Josh met up with one of his friends from back then, later in life, and says that this guy, liked to come over to our house when he was a kid because you could always hear our mother having sex at night.  It was the norm for us.

I remember once my girlfriend came over.  JoAnn had a boyfriend over.  They were watching a movie on the couch.  My girlfriend and I watched like fifteen minutes of the movie, went downstairs to my bedroom and had sex, then went back upstairs twenty minutes later and watched some more of the movie.  It was obvious as can be that we just had sex.  JoAnn never said a word. JoAnn said that she couldn't stop me from having sex so she said she would rather I was doing it at home than elsewhere.  The only time she ever said anything about my having sex was if I left condoms out in my room.  She didn't want my brothers to see them for some reason.  As if they could not hear her fucking her boyfriends every night.   If I had alcohol though, she would immediately call the cops on me.  The woman was dumb.  She still is dumb.  That is all I know to say.

I was still sneaking out at night.  I was going to parties when I could.  I had been trying to work my way into the tough crowd, but this was no easy task.  Tough crowds don't just let other hyper masculinized alpha males walk into their click with open arms.  You have to earn a spot in their click.  I understand this well.  Respect must be earned.  One must prove worthy before it is given.  I learned pretty early that when you have a hot girlfriend you pretty much have to fight whether you are trying to get into a click or not.  Guys will not make it seem like they are fighting because of the girl, but that is what is going on.  This group that I was trying to get in with was rough, and also all older than me.  They were all already mostly eighteen, some were twentyish.  They were cool as hell to me.  Fighters.  As always I was in way over my head.

In high school I was never in a clique.  I always had friends in every clique, but I also had enemies in every one of them too.  It was a weird dynamic compared to what was expected, compared to what is considered the norm.  This is a pattern in my life.  I am my own clique you could say.  I had friends who were nerds, geeks, jocks, preps, religious, older, younger, whatever.  I have always had a soft spot for those like me.  To me, I either got along with you or I did not.  I did not care about cliques, and I don’t think that I was ever in one.  She always moved a lot anyways, so I never stayed in any one school for very long.  Whatever you want to call it, wherever I went, I had friends and enemies.  More often than not my friends were friends with my enemies.

The first time Chris and I went to one of these parties it got sketchy really fast.  Chris is the girl I fell in love with by the way.  She was a year older than I so she had a car already.  The party was at some clay pits outside of town.  Back then everyone drove out to spots in the countryside to party in order to evade cops.  In small towns there is generally nothing for kids to do but party and have sex.  Most of these guys were just like me, raised fucked up, hyper masculinized and always looking for trouble. 

We were not at this party for very long and there was already a fight.  All I saw was them kicking some guy into the side of his own car.  It was dead quiet when this was going on.  It was eerie.  Usually at fights everyone is yelling and talking shit or whatever, but it was dead silent as they fucked this guy up.  Being in proximity to such violence made me feel alive inside.  All my senses were heightened to the max.  Without thinking it, my body knew my life was in danger.  They fucked this guy up really bad.  I never found out who he was.  When they were done with him they shoved him into the car and someone drove it out of there. I was surprised he was alive the way he was being kicked.  They even ripped the door off of his car and hit him with it.  That guy showed up at the wrong party.  Turns out these guys understood violence like I did.  Just like me, they were born to it.

It was just my luck to show up at this party right when the meanest of the group was in a rage.  I knew I was in trouble.  Chris wanted to be there too so we didn’t leave immediately while they were still fucking that guy up.  It spiraled so fast it was like a movie.  They saw Chris, and then eyes locked on me.  The dude was yelling for me.   I took off running for the car.  Chris and I both had friends at this party and they were trying to slow these guys down. There were actually a few people who did not want to see my pretty face smashed believe it or not. It may seem like a bitch move to get to the car without Chris, but they were not after her; they were after me.

I made it to the car.  She got in right after me and she was freaking out.  Soon as she started the car the main guy that wanted me was on the hood.  There were guys at both doors.  Just like the movies her car was not starting.  She was really freaking out.  Finally, it started.  Time was slowed down.  I didn’t want what the other guy got.  The engine came to life.  Chris was yelling, “What do I do?”  I reached my foot over the console and stomped on the gas.  I know from personal experience it is quite easy to punch a window out so I was not going to give this guy the chance.  About 100 yards down the road she slowed to let him off the hood, only to have him still punch the windshield.  Soon as he got off the hood she floored it.  We were out of there.  She was so freaked out that she missed a 90 degree turn completely.  We had to drive in a field next to the road looking for a break in the ditch just to get back on the road.  We could see headlights coming, they were not happy.  I was not sure if her car was going to make it.

I escaped.  Barely. 

There was one particular individual in this group that really had it out for me.  I never knew why.  If he knew I was around, he would come for me.  Some friends took me to a party a few weeks later and this individual was there, the same guy that jumped on the hood.  My friends didn't want to leave, so there I was.  I tried to get them too, but they would not bend, for them this party was a must.  They just kept saying it would be okay, that he would leave me alone.  They said people had talked to him and that he didn’t want to kill me anymore.

I knew I was fucked because as soon as we pull up to the house this guy was so drunk and pissed off that when he went to kick a cooler that was sitting on the ground he flipped himself.  Literally.  His feet flew up in the air and he landed on his own head.  Soon as he saw me, he came straight for me.  As they say, run Forest run.  This guy was older than me, bigger than me, and tough as fuck.  I simply did not stand a chance.   I took off for the woods.  I don’t know how long his drunk ass looked for me.  Eventually he gave up.   The dude passed out later and someone came looking for me.  I was covered in mud from running blind in the woods.  I ran right into a swamp practically so I was literally thigh deep in mud at one point.  I was so pissed.

When I was young I could not see that my friends didn't give a fuck about me.  I was too proud to give up.  I was proud that he wanted me so badly. I was being made famous simply because the toughest guy around was head hunting me.