Perhaps it is outrage fatigue, maybe I am just getting old. But I am increasingly apathetic to the political process these days. And my personal life, well... All the flowery pedantic language in the world can't distract from the fact that it is a shit sandwich. Which, interestingly enough, was not invented by the Germans. So now I am forced to write about something base: My feelings. So pull up a chair doc, I am about to spill my guts all over this Italian sofa.
Another chapter in my life has come to a close. I sold my RV for a dollar. The good news is it was to a friend of a friend, so it is still in the family, so to speak. But I can't help but feel sad for an era bygone. Of course that era ended long before I signed the bill of sale. If I had to pinpoint it I would say it ended when my nephews moved out of the house I was stationed at. That was the true end of it, or at least the end of the limbo I found myself in for a year after I received my DUI. The events that would follow would put me in a state of emotional paralysis for about a year, but I will get to that later.
The era I am talking about started about six years ago. I had just came back to my childhood town with my tail tucked between my legs as a three year romantic relationship of mine came to an ugly end. After a series of failed temp jobs, I ended up doing pizza delivery, which at first, was very profitable. At that job I met a new group of people who had all known each other from high school. Even though I was much older, they welcomed me into their click and I spent many a night drinking and singing karaoke at the parties which were hosted by our RGM. He was very personable and outgoing, which is why I hated him at first. I thought his persona was fake, and it was. I know this because we are now close friends... he even attended my grandmother's funeral.
I mention him because in essence this era greatly involves him and his circle of friends which would become mine. Almost all my friends from high school were getting married, some even starting families--So I turned to a younger crowd... A crowd I knew that would enjoy and share in my bohemian ways. And for a while it was bliss. Sure work was mundane and remedial, but there was always some sort of an after party. I ultimately would come to living in the RV out in front of his house for a few months because it was closer to work, and I didn't have to drive home from his parties... I just walked across the lawn. At the height of it all I was dating a girl who could only be described as a nymphomaniac, which at first seemed fun, but eventually became the seeds of destruction for my bohemian paradise.
She ended up cheating on me with my boss's older brother, and it made things rough for everybody and I lost a lot of trust and respect for a few people. She would later try to make it up to me by agreeing to have a ménage à trois with this other girl in my beloved RV. Ironically, both were doing it to get on my good side in hopes of retaining me as their boyfriend. I had no such plans. Even though this all jaded me I still had this girl at work. Out of respect I will not name her, but I will say this: I loved her. I tried to court her for five years, and continued to hang out with her long after she was transfered and moved to the next city over. In fact, I was on my way home from to meet her at my RV for our Modern Warfare 2: Spec Ops ritual when I received my DUI. She was the one who picked me up from jail the next day.
Afterward we were closer than ever. She was over every night and I was just happy to be around her even though I knew nothing would come of it. Again bliss was shattered by another person I trusted when my own brother took it upon himself to feel her up (this is the most sanitized way I can describe what he did to her) while she was drunk and passed out.
"What the fuck?!?" she yelled out, startling me awake.
Through eyes still hazy, I saw him dash into his room. Standing there I looked over at the door he had slammed shut. I glanced at her, she was zipping up her pants and buttoning up her shirt. How I reacted surprised everybody. I calmly walked over to the door and knocked. No answer. The door was locked. I should have kicked the door down. I should have dragged him out and done some "enhanced interrogation" techniques on him. But to my ever lasting shame, I just froze. I didn't know what to do. I was in shock. And it wasn't until we were about to leave that I started to get agitated. Even so, I elected not to kick the door down. Why? Simple: I was afraid.
My incarceration had awakened me to how abusive cops were, and I was afraid of going to jail. And we both had been drinking, and if we got caught fleeing the scene of a crime, namely me stomping my brother's face into oblivion, I would have another DUI to boot. So we awaited a while outside, and sobered up the best we could. I would see her a few more times after that, but we were never close again. I decided to stop chasing her, she would never trust me again, and I would never have a chance with her now. I pulled away, eventually ignoring her half-assed attempt to re-establish contact by texting me an update of her life: she had began a jogging regiment with a local drill sergeant. Painfully, I ignored it.
People talk about hitting rock bottom, it usually involves alcohol. In my case it did for one evening three days after my brother's transgression. I had just spoken to the sheriff's department about the incident, and had noticed a peculiarity: I felt nothing. I wasn't angry, sad, or happy. In fact, I had an inability to feel these emotions for longer than a second before it quickly faded into numbness.
This must be what it feel like to not have latin blood" I thought.
But after a while it became obvious that I was emotionally numb, even for WASP standards, I decided to do the worst thing possible: drink profusely. The desired affect was achieved and the flood gates opened. My nephew described it like an amusement park ride from Hell. I was happy, laughing, chugging on my mug of straight warm vodka, when all of a sudden I remembered what my brother had done and went into a rage, punching doors and patio posts indiscriminately. My nephews tried to remind me we had neighbors. I was not having it.
Fuck the neighbors!!! Fuck them all!!! I am an American Goddamnit, and I'm going to sit on my front porch and enjoy myself, because I pay taxes, and I vote, and I am a Goddamn American!!!
Suddenly I went into catatonic despair, and started to muse aloud what might be the most painless way to kill myself. My nephew threatened to call my oldest and closest friend, Nash. That brought me back to reality... well sort of, and my nephew walked me back to my RV. I awoke the next day with an extremely vague recollection of the night prior, and had this nagging feeling I may have been out of control. I never got that drunk again, and cut my alcohol intake to almost zero. The next few months I would stare at the walls of my RV, hiding from the ugly reality that had become my life. My lawyer fucked up and as a result my license was restricted for a year. So I rarely left the property it was on. After reliving the DUI, the incident, and just past memories of my would be girlfriend and I hanging out in my RV; I couldn't stand to stay in my RV. I alternated staying between my grandfather's house and my mother's, occasionally returning to my RV when I needed time to myself.
After a week of being constantly inundated with hard rain, the RV sprang a leak in the roof that would destroy a lot of photographs: many of my father who had recently died. After getting sick from the mold and mildew that formed from the leaks, the RV was relegated to the status of a closet on wheels. I slept on the couch in my nephew's house and spent most of my time with them playing video games and biding my time until I regained my license. Life began to improve and I began to work from home. My nephews and I had company over a lot and despite minor hiccups, we were happy as a small family with our dog and two cats in the yard. Then we got the word that they would be moving into the guesthouse behind their mother's boyfriend's house across town. The house was to be vacated, and if not sold, rented out. The RV needed to go. Unfortunately, no insurance company would insure my RV after the DUI and I had $300+ in backed up registration fees, plus no money to smog it, so no one wanted to buy it. So after moping about my troubles on Facebook, a friend of a friend said she wanted it. So I gave it to her for a dollar. I didn't lose any money though, I paid nothing for it myself. It was the same situation, the lady before wasn't using it and couldn't afford to store it, so she gave it away.
Back then I joked that it was divine providence, I needed a roomier RV and this one had fallen into my lap. I even named it the "Divine Providence" which was settled on because of the irony of an Atheist claiming his fortunate find a "divine providence". The irony also wasn't lost that history was repeating itself. She was now in a new owner's stewardship and the rest of my former life lay in boxes, waiting to sold on E-bay, or in the garage sale this Friday. The other stuff I threw into the back of my car, to further be sorted, sold or thrown away. As I stood in the spot my RV had once been, I thought about how I have got to get down to the bare essentials: be able to live out of a backpack because I really have no place to stay long term, and I no longer have an RV to fall back on.
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