this is the sound of my soul starving.
side note: my grandfather’s back & hip are giving him a lot of pain lately.
let me sing you a song of despair…
today (yesterday now) was my sister’s birthday, and i am ashamed to say that not once did i even think of her until just now, when i remembered that my very first girlfriend’s birthday is the 20th.
i wonder where she is… what’s she’s doing… what’s going on in her life… i wonder if she ever remembers that i’m Out There, somewhere… or if she cares at all.
i haven’t had contact with my mother‘s side of the family in many years now. in fact, i only MET my mother when i was 18. and then, just a year after i’d moved to Jacksonville, FL (in the winter of ’94), she got out of jail and moved down there from smacktown, West Dayton. i spent a little time with her then, and… well, i now know what a monster really is. yes, kids, there ARE monsters in this world. to make a long story short, i bought her some rock (got ripped off, too) (it was her 80-some year-old Cassanova Sugardaddy’s greens), because she told me that up here in Dayton you have to have dirty blood to get into a clinic. i wanted her off that god damn junk bad, too. so i hooked her up with the crack. right after i gave it to her, i freaked. i mean i just flipped. i never screamed that loudly in my life. something about “get[ting] the FUCK out of my house.” i avoided her like the plague not long after that, and i haven’t seen nor heard from her in about 7-8 years now. her father just croaked, too, not too long ago. i don’t even remember the date. bastard lived just two miles south of here, and never had the nerve to call me once in his godforsaken life. i actually made an attempt to show up at his funeral. it was over before i could even get there. lucky me!
once, i called my sis (she lives or lived in North Little Rock, and for those who don’t know, that’s gangland up there) on the phone from our apartment in Ocean Oaks in Neptune Beach. i was a little tipsy. she’s 6 years younger than me, so i guess she would’ve only been about 18 or so. something like that. i was trying to be the big brother, all made of evil, but love for my lil’ sis. tryin’ to buddy her up to me i guess. i made a fool out of myself, was asking her if she liked to drink, what she liked drinking, yadda yadda. i worked in a liquor store, so i was real into that shit then. i like real fine brews, but don’t get me wrong, jack. i’m a malt liquor afficionado.
anyway… so for a couple of years, i’d send her letters every once in a while (i’m still talkin about my sister here… stay with me man, stay with me!), and on her birthdays i’d try to scrounge up something nice (cheap as shit, but nice for what i could afford at $5/hour).
i never once heard back from her. i think in all my life she’d called me once.
i don’t blame her.
so the last time i ever sent her a letter, it was all sad and i told her that i didn’t get the feeling like she really wanted me in her life. i mean, it’s not like we grew up together, and she’s black, i’m white, so maybe she didn’t feel any substantive connection to me at all (not just cuzza that, cuzza everything i mean you know). so i told her that if she wanted to have a big bro and build a relationship, then she could just go ahead and get ready, maybe she wasn’t ready for a dramatic change in her family tree, so just contact me when you’re ready, sis, i said.
and it’s been maybe 7, 8 years now.
i tried googling for her name. no dice, no dice. she’d no doubt be moved out by now, but i’ve often thought of just calling her father‘s family in NLR… but what am i going to say to them? “yeah, hi… this is jeremy, is Karma around or can you tell me how i can blah blah blah,” and they’d say, “Jeremy who?” and me again with the “i’m her fuckup older brother’s who’s just as good-for-nothing as her mother and her father,” and they’d say, “no, she’s not here anymore” and CLICK goes the phone and that’s the end of that. but what else can i do? i suppose i can wait. maybe she’s still not ready, or maybe she hasn’t yet forgiven me for being just another dying branch on her family tree. i’m pretty sure she understands that i just never knew about her until i was older.
all i ever wanted in life was a sister. that’s all i ever wanted! you can ask any of my stuffed animals, my Micronauts, my Evil Knievel, my Bionic Man, or the drivers in any one of my Hot Wheels cars. they all knew. all i ever wanted was just a sister to love. i’ve resented my parents for many things over the years, and rightfully so, but the first thing i ever resented was the fact that they dropped me off in this fucked up world without even giving me someone to hold onto in the darkness of my life and my childhood.
it’s not my fault, Karma! it’s not! sure, i’m a fuckup, but it’s not my fault!
and this night, it looks like, will be the first time i’ve cried in many months.
Kali nichta.
