Chapter One

Driving a truck cross-country gives a man a lot of time to think, especially when traveling through what seemed like an endless desert. That alone can stir up any long-lost memories as quick as a dust storm can kick up clouds of blinding sand. I was on my way back home to Okeechobee on a trip that started off in hell. . . Well. . . Hot as hell! Sin City. . . Smack-dab in the middle of summer. . . Here I was surrounded by nothing but vast desert, where every inch of land is withered from the scorching sun, so hot that even the tumbleweeds scurry to avoid the blazing heat.

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The God-forsaken land expanded my horizons, both literally and figuratively. I began to question myself as to why I was so isolated in the first place. And as if the barren desert demanded I give up my secrets, a territory infamous for its many holes in the desert, I began to travel outside of my comfort zone to dig up all the demons from my past. And just then, the lifelessness that surrounded me paled in comparison to the personal growth that had now embraced me. I intuitively knew that confronting my past was the only thing preventing my full self-actualization. So, I buckled up for the bumpy ride that lay ahead, knowing I was on a head-on collision course with my past.

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As I kept trucking down the desolate highway, a rabbit suddenly appeared from out of nowhere and ran directly in front of my path. And just when I thought it would make it safely across the road it stopped dead-in-its-tracks. As I continued barreling straight at the little critter, it remained perfectly still. . . Frozen in Fear. I instinctively knew I could not swerve an eighteen-wheeler to avoid hitting a little rabbit, so the closer I got to the inevitable roadkill the more I blessed the vultures soon-to-be next meal. I cried out, "Don't move little' guy!" I did not want to look back, but I did. Not at the rabbit, but at myself. I looked all the way back, to the very beginning. . . . .

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The heat, the terror in that rabbit's eyes, together, it conjured up a story that my mom had once told me, a long long time ago. It was a hot sweltering night in mid July, the year was nineteen sixty, my mother, still seven months pregnant with me laid next to my father in bed, when suddenly, she recalled, my dad clutched his chest, then gasp, and by the time she had realized what happened he was dead from a massive heart attack! The tranquility that I must have felt in-utero had to become an abysmal environment. In an instant, both of our lives were literally turned upside down. My mom had just lost the father of her six children, and soon to be seven. Me, "Lucky Number 7."

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Like howling winds that echo throughout the desert canyon walls, I still can remember hearing my mom's grieving over the death of my father coming from inside of that bedroom, even now, some fifty years later, weeping, that would only stop whenever I tried to reach-up to turn the door-knob to enter her room. Being so young back then I never understood as to why she was crying so much, particularly with it being several years after my father's passing. Furthermore, I don't recall seeing any framed pictures of dear ole' dad being displayed around the house, let alone knowing anything about him at the time. My mom must have thought that any stories about

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my dad's demise should not be told to me until I was much older, most likely in an attempt to thwart off any disturbing emotions that I might have experienced at such a young and vulnerable age. Nevertheless, my father's life-story would be a tale with a plot that never had a chance to fully unfold. Like a book, with many of its chapters ripped out of it. Slammed shut! With its bookmark stuck, dead-center, right in the middle of it. A very short-story without a happy ending, placed high upon a shelf collecting dust.

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Like being duped by a mirage on a sun drenched desert horizon, I felt deceived, like I was traveling backwards, as I continued going further and further into the past, where memories that were once lost in the sands of time were all now tagging along with me for the ride. Nevertheless, like an artist that changes a blank canvas into a vibrant piece of art with just a few brush strokes, the vast desert landscape soon gave way to northern Arizona's red rock canyons and vast pine forests. I sensed that there was something more on the horizon other than a change of scenery, and that I would soon be, in more ways than one, on the road that was less traveled.

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The various twists and turns throughout the mountain passes created a kaleidoscope effect in my mind's eye. The hypnotic like state-of-mind produced an array of childhood memories that played back in my head like scenes from an old black-and-white flick from the distant past. As I descended down the mountain every view became more vivid, as if now being seen in high def. From high atop the summit, down to the mere pebbles that lie beneath the surfaces in the creek beds below, so too was the hierarchy in my family of biblical proportions. And from the very depths below, it would be I who was fated to cast the first stone.<> <> <> <> <> <>

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I counted on my fingers. . . . One. . . . Two. . . . Three. . . . Four. . . . I knew if I added my thumb to the count it would equal five, and then and only then, would I be able to go off to school with my older siblings. But until then, my thumb sucked! Because turning five years old seemed like an eternity at the age of four, especially when I stood at the front door and hopelessly watched as they ran off to school in the mornings without me. After they rushed out the door, I’d run over to the kitchen window, and from up on my tippy-toes, get one last glimpse of them from my high window sill view, turning the street corner on their way to school, ever so slowly, fading from view.

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After several months of listening to my older siblings talk about all of the friends they made at school, I took it upon myself to make a new friend, too. Literally. . . One morning, after my brother and sisters were away at school, I began my quest to find my very own BFF, and when I entered the laundry room, and saw a bunch of dirty clothes piled high in the hamper spilling out onto the floor, I immediately knew I had done just that. There, right in front of me, laid a lifeless pair of old blue jeans and an extra-large sweat shirt. To the non observing eye laid a bunch of dirty laundry lying on the floor, but I saw a friend, and he was about to unfold, right before my very eyes.

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I eagerly began stuffing the jeans and sweat shirt with any clothes I could grab, until my soon-to-be best friend's chest protruded out like a weightlifter. I added a pair of black rubber rain boots for his feet, and then cheerfully introduced myself. "Hi Herman! I’m Johnny!" . . . . . . . . .

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. . . I was devastated, but only momentarily, because I immediately knew what was missing. I ran throughout the entire house until I found exactly what I was looking for. A football helmet that my oldest brother Mitchell had left behind after he flew-the-coop a few years earlier. I raced back into the laundry room, topped Herman off with the helmet for his head, then greeted him once again, but only this time with just a big-fat smile on my face. And to my delight, Herman smiled right back at me with that bright, white face-mask smile of his. However, that eerie unsettling sound of silence loomed over me, as if I wasn't playing make-believe at all.

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Noble silence is not the absence of words, but the presence of awareness. A tranquil and focused mind that lets go of constant commentary, judgment, and fantasy. This state of inner stillness allows a person to access a deeper sense of presence and connection with their inner self and the world around them. By creating this space, we can listen more deeply to our thoughts, our emotions, and the world around us, and see things more clearly.

I dragged Herman very slowly into my bedroom, and just as we were getting acquainted with each other. . . Squeak! Squeak! "There! Right there!" Peering directly at me from inside of the closet were two black beady eyes. Its stare was intense. My heart raced! I screamed! "Run Herman! A mouse!" I ran out of the bedroom so fast, I left Herman behind in a cloud of dust! I knew I had to go back and save him, too, so I rushed back into the bedroom and pulled him out, leaving a trail of body parts all along the way. And despite "All the King's Horses and all the King's Men," Herman had meet the same fate as Humpty Dumpty, and could not be put back together again.

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As I continued piecing my own life back together again, I realized that Herman was more than just a make-believe friend, because it would unravel the huge disconnect I had with Butch, my last oldest brother still living at home with me. Butch and I were like distant cousins rather than two brothers born three years apart. And through the irony of Herman's own silence, I was able to correlate that same sense of estrangement that I experienced with Butch. And with a few suppressed memories that would come to light like the morning sun on the horizon, I would soon realize that my childhood fear of monsters under the bed, wasn't just all in my head.

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And, as if right on cue, ominous clouds suddenly blanketed the morning sun on the horizon, casting a huge shadow of darkness as far as the eye could see. . . . The initial sound from the rain hitting my windshield mimicked a drummer tapping violently on a snare drum.

rat-a-tat-tat-tat

Thunderous booms erupted, accompanied by a hellacious down pouring of rain that had my windshield wipers flapping back-and-forth like the arms of a musical conductor who was trying to lead an orchestra that was completely out of control, and totally out of tune.

As the storm intensified, my thoughts took me down a long and winding mental roller coaster ride. 'Around-and-around' and 'up-and down,' from the here and now to the faraway past. Suddenly, huge bolts of lightning lit up the sky, creating an electrical storm that exploded all around me, instantly transporting me back to what seemed like a thousand years ago. ‘Go ahead and count to four one more time, then see what happens!’ Butch said to me, with a sinister look in his eye. And when I stuck the knife into the electrical outlet, a flurry of fierce sparks violently shot out of the wall.

As if crying out loud, the windshield wipers began to screech across the dried glass. A perfect soundtrack for the ending of a tumultuous storm, and a brief sad story. As I slowly began to see more clearly through the eye of the storm, the specatular sight from atop the summit was surpassed by an even more extraordinary point-of-view. My mother's very own perspective at the time of my birth that I would eventually become privy to. I would learn first hand as to why she was so fixated with me when I was born. And why wouldn't she be? What else could be better for the psyche after the sudden loss of her beloved husband than giving birth to a brand new shiny little baby boy?