stranded in a zip code; how it all began

In other words, neither Hediye nor the subject of this narrative, were what they thought they were; either to themselves; or to each other… (and) He hadn’t yet made the connection between the buried parts of his past; the secrets in his family’s history; or his own, overall, mental health; a state of mind… that would be sorely tested; in the weeks, months and years to come…

So, there he was; Our Boy; laying on top of the blonde Hediye; excitedly, trying to, smoothly remove his socks and shoes; his lips fastened to hers; his tongue darting in and out of her easy mouth; almost as if he were a honey bee, drinking nectar from a flower; his nostrils flared at her scent. At first she responded to his caresses; his summer’s night-warm hands cupping her Granny-Smith-sweat covered; sweet and sour breasts; from the plains of her cleavage; to the apex of her nipples; and then; she felt sick; sick to her stomach; as her body tensed up; her once welcoming arms; now rigid posts of wood; pushing Our Young Eager Go Getter; up and off her prone and supple frame.

“No,” she groaned as Our Guy fell back; allowing her to sit up and put her bikini top back in place.

“No?” he heard himself — half whine; half beg.

She smoothed out her clothes, slipped her sandals back on and stood. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

The T-Rex song that had been playing in his head; had long since stopped thumping; as he sighed deeply, looked around the room for his tennis shoes; and got himself together.

Hediye smiled weakly as she gestured for Our Young Man to get his things. “No offense, you’re a real nice guy; but this is making me sick,” she whispered; which Our Young Friend thought was a little odd; since they were the only ones in the room at the time.

He sighed one time before she gathered him up in her tanned and well muscled arms. “Thanks for coming,” she said; showing him the door; while he, thinking she was going to kiss him on the cheek; surprised him with a gentle, friendly peck on the lips. “Good Night,” she grinned shyly; closing the front door of the apartment behind him.

It was late, he thought. He didn’t know where everyone was. All he knew is that he felt weird; like he was stranded on a desert island somewhere; with little or no chance of either rescue; or escape; but he still had a place to go.

He could go home; which is precisely what he did. Our Young Suburban African American Youth; who still saw himself in the somewhat Blue Collar terms of Ypsilanti; where boys kissed girls all the time; even if sometimes boys would make a mistake and kiss other boys; everything always turned out for the best; with the girl usually winding up; on top; so to speak.

In the cat bird’s seat; but that was Ypsilanti; and Marsha and Lynn Adams; not to mention David Daniels; might as well have been on the moon. This was Bloomfield Hills Michigan; a place where nothing made sense.

So, as Our Young Friend made it back to the bedroom; in the apartment he called home; he wondered the same thing Karen and her friends; most likely often asked themselves about her middle brother: How come he can’t get his own friends?

This question played itself; over and over again; in his mind’s soundtrack system; not quite T-Rex’s Banging a Gong; more like Pink Floyd’s: Wish You Were Here.

He was still awake when his sister finally made it home; practically waltzing back to her bedroom; as if she were Cinderella; dropped at her doorstep by some kind of Prince; or some such crap.

Their mother; having finished her double shift, from the night before; appeared just moments after; none the wiser; it would seem. She dutifully, quietly (so as not disturb) crept back to each of their rooms; brother and sister; whose bedroom doors were both closed; peeked inside one, then the other; satisfied that both were fast asleep; went back to her own room; for some much needed rest.

Their home was once again silent; everyone had either gone to sleep, or were pretending; until they actually were; everyone except for Our Young Man; who kept wondering to himself: “How come I can’t get — my own friends?”

Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy That was the album their mother bought both Our Young Man and his sister, after the dust had settled; from the divorce; after they had returned from their visit to Tulsa; the days until his seventeenth birthday; passing by in a kind of post-father and mother; suddenly single-parent-suburban; just barely middle class; holding-on-by-the-skin-of-their-teeth household.

From where We sit, here in 2019; We know, or at the very least, we can surmise, that Our Kid was, like a lot of kids his age back then; in similar circumstances.

At the very least he was smoking a lot of weed; if not also ingesting a host of other mind altering substances; really strong alcohol, included. We also know now, that back then; not diagnosed as either depressive, Autistic or Schizo-Affective; Modally predisposed; he was more or less throwing lighter fluid on an open flame; even though many of his interpretations; about who he was; and the world in which he found himself in; happened to exhibit; a sort of soundtrack; always playing in the background of his thoughts; his language and his behavior.

Yet even before his drug use, Our Young Man was sometimes prone to, and oddly enough, getting away with, doing some odd; sometimes dangerous stunts; particularly when he flied solo; like the time, a year or so before his parent’s final divorce; when he couldn’t find Peter Frampton’s Live Album: Frampton Comes Alive at any of the stores around him, where he was staying with his family; in Bloomfield Hills; not at K-Mart; not at any of the nearby malls; no where.

So, he picked a Saturday (again when no one was looking) took his black on chrome Schwinn Varsity Ten Speed bike; got on to East Square Lake Road; riding the shoulder all the way; got onto I-75 going East; not realizing that doing so was actually against the law; as well as very, very risky.

He took I-75 going East; all the way to the Walter Chrysler Freeway; on his bike, mind you; traffic whizzing past him at many miles per hour; he, not seeming to mind at all; until I-75 turned and bootlegged South. He followed the freeway down; all the way; past West Long lake; further on, past West Wattles; and still further on to East Big Beaver Road; in Troy Michigan; where he got off the freeway; luckily enough, with no incident; even though, something inside him; advised an alternate route home. Maybe Cooks Road; going north, would be a good place to start.

All this trouble was to get to a store; in the Liberty Plaza; at the corner of Big Beaver and Livernois; the only store he could find; that sold Frampton Comes Alive; and he was bound and determined to get that album; and when he did; and safely returned home; by way of sidestreets; like Adams, Squirrel, Wattles and Opdyke; that was the sweetest album;with the sweetest, baddest guitar centered, rock orchestrations he had ever heard; especially the track: “Do You Feel Like We Do?”

“Totally awesome,” he thought; as he listened to the record; over and over again. “Totally.”

But as his seventeenth birthday approached; and so much of his world had changed so quickly; and he had no way of knowing, let alone understanding, that at his core, was an undiagnosed, impossible to ignore, developmental predisposition; itself unwittingly exacerbated by the kinds of general substance abuse; all too common among teens of that place and time; Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy was on his mind; and he was not necessarily; all that happy about it; even though, as the years eventually would pass; and times inevitably would change; he, like the Writer of this narrative; would grow and mature into an appreciation; of one of Elton John’s and Bernie Taupin’s best efforts.

In his mind, Our Young African American Suburban Juvenile was getting mixed messages; which at first, he failed to adequately understand; at least, comprehend enough; to not get so worked up about inconsistencies; some of the obvious dissonances that eventually arose; from what he perceived as either fact, concept, procedure or awareness of self.; especially, as things changed so radically around and within him; and he kept so much of what he was thinking and feeling; to himself.

We must remember; among the three children of the family; he was the only one with relatively few friends; at least, friends he made on his own; and that, in and of itself, is pretty significant; since, on the one hand, it leaves us, here in the present, with very little, if anything that could point towards something we can declaratively point to as pre-meditative; and on the other hand; it leaves the door open to Our original assertion (from many installments ago) that even at that early age, there may have been, an unconscious design; taking place in Our Boy’s Brain; one that ultimately, over ruled and or thwarted; many of his learned inhibitions and hypercritical self pronouncements.

For instance, when the final divorce proceedings had commenced, his mother had cautioned both his sister and himself; that things (standard operational procedure (s)) would get a lot harder, before they could be expected to get better. Things being, of course, how their new family would have to be, now that their father had left the picture; and then, after wards; after everything had run its course; and they returned from their trip to Tulsa; Our Boy’s mother bought a copy of Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy for both his sister and himself.

For his sister, already predisposed to favor her friends; not necessarily over her family; but as a kind of “found” family; the significance of the music and its lyrics; involving adhering to a special sort of trust in a forged bond between, partners (for lack of a better term) facing, as it were: a long, lonely climb; from her perspective, she mainly saw that “long lonely climb’ as chiefly focused on: found family-types (her friends, their friends and their friends’ friends); and thus, she found her spiritual strength in those uncertain times; outside her primary relationship with either her mother, or her middle brother; a trait that would persist; over the coming months and years the two were, at first together; and then; after an unsuccessful trial move to Tulsa, separated, after returning to Michigan; where their mother settled in Pontiac; and Our Boy’s sister went back and forth; between her father and her oldest brother; who had moved back to Michigan; from his own dysfunctional adventures in Minnesota; for about a year or so; until she finally moved back to the South and Southwest; and finally found; her own way; but for Our Young Man, where seemingly endless self-carping, was often the norm; throughout his life; the long lonely climb, lyricized in the Elton John and Bernie Taupin melody; had to have evolved; from an alternate set of psychological factors.

In the case of of Our Young African American Bedroom Community, soon to be, lost and frequently wanderer; those alternative set of factors, would not protect him; from his own eventual hostility, confused apathy and categorical yet underlying cynicism; directed mainly at his mother; but mostly, as time would tell; unto himself.

In fact, it was precisely the range of his, often; what We here in current times, must view as Schizo Affectively shaped perceptions; that would come to serve as his ticket; to a trip that would leave him stranded; high, in every sense of the word; but far from dry; in a zip code; way over his head; and totally; out of his league; a virtual Twilight Zone; he still occupies; in whole or in part; to this very day.

This is how it all began…

(to be continued)