Ninth of December

I left Raleigh the morning of January 28th and made it to my parents’ house in Morganville, New Jersey, later that night. My father, Arthur, 79 years old, is in fairly good health for a two-pack-a-day smoker. He stands at 5 feet 9 inches tall, and he looks a lot like me, or I look a lot like him, depending on who’s doing the describing, I guess. My mother, Ethel, is 77 years old and is confined to a wheelchair. She’s a vain woman who struggles with coming to terms with aging and her current life situation.

Ethel is pretty by anyone’s standards—6 feet tall, with blondish-brown hair and the lightest green eyes you’ve ever seen. They are so faint that it seems like you can see right through them. To me, my mother has always looked like she is constantly crying. I’ve viewed her that way for years. I’ll never write about the reasons. I have too much respect for my mother to do that to her. Even the person I see in the mirror has his boundaries.

I was to start my new job on February 3, and my plan was to stay with them until I got my first paycheck and then get a place of my own. That notion lasted for three days. My parents are good, hard-working people who supported me through the darkest of times, and they are people who were extremely proud when I experienced my greatest successes. I used to love looking at my mother’s face when she’d visit us at the St. Mary’s Street house. I’d see her beaming and know exactly what she was thinking. Chloe and I were the Princess and Prince, and Ethel, the Queen, while living in our own version of fantasy land. Anyway, like I said, my stay at their house lasted three days. The first 24 hours were a welcome home love fest, and the following 48 were a constant fight over the person I’d disintegrated into since my glory years in the satellite truck business.

Not wanting to hear what they had to say, I left. I packed up the four bags I came with, got in my car, and just drove. It was dark, cold, and damp. Driving aimlessly, I decided to pull into a rest stop between exits 11 and 12 off the New Jersey Turnpike. That’s where I ended up living for several days and through the first week of my new job. In my car, in the parking lot, under a light post, where it felt safest.

I remember going to work that first Monday morning and taking my clothes out of the trunk, along with soap and a toothbrush, to get ready in the building’s bathroom. I wasn’t proud of what was happening, and I certainly wasn’t excited to start a new job under these circumstances. I didn’t want to be there, or anywhere, for that matter. But, I took the job, and I was going to show up, no matter what type of tailspin my life was in. Those first few days at work, I was useless. My mind was all over the place, and I’m pretty sure my boss knew it.

Having not received my first paycheck yet, I didn’t have much money and didn’t want to spend what I had. There was a hot dog stand in the building next to my new parking lot palace. It closed at 9 PM each night. I’d go in as they were breaking down for the night and ask them for the food they were going to throw away. I’d accumulate hot dogs and buns, which would provide me with three meals a day.

After that first week of work and living in my car, my body and my mind had had enough. I asked my parents if I could come back. I pleaded with them to just let me rest my head for a few days. I didn’t want anything, and I didn’t ask for anything. I just needed a little mercy, and they gladly gave it to me. The pleading of my case was unnecessary, as I knew it would be. My parents have never, and would never, turn me away. These are the people I rejected turning into for most of my life, and now they are the role models for who I aspire to be.

I stayed with them another few days before the next episode of fighting began. I was talking to a friend of mine about returning to the rest stop, and he told me he was booking me a four-night stay at a hotel. Relief. Sadness. Embarrassment. Gratitude. A flood of emotions, but, as a sign of respect to him and our friendship, I used my time in the hotel wisely—I found a more permanent place to live.

That place to live is where I live today. Where I woke up this morning, where I’ll lay my head down tonight. It’s a little house off Route 9 in Freehold, New Jersey. I probably drove by it a thousand times as a kid, never dreaming I’d be living one of my worst nightmares, in this nondescript white house, out on the edge of town, right next to the St. Rose of Lima Cemetery.

What’s so bad about it? It doesn’t sound horrible, right? I guess I buried the lede there. Well, I share it with six guys; it’s a rooming house. Seven guys, five bedrooms, two bathrooms—do the math for yourself. Some guys are there for a long-term stay, some guys just passing through.

There are some nights I lay there, staring at the stained ceilings and punctured walls, and think that it’s no coincidence that this house is next to a cemetery. I think of the pain of those who laid in this bed before me. I glance over at the Peabody Award sitting on my night table, one of the only things I took with me from Raleigh besides clothes, and I think of my own struggles which landed me in this situation. I imagine that this is God sending me a message: “This is the final stop before death, little boy.” A sort of preview, if you will. My own personal purgatory.

Many nights I cry myself to sleep, not bawling—just slow and steady tears uncontrollably streaming down my face. I feel alone, unloved, unwanted, unfulfilled, and underachieved. I feel discarded. I think of the inevitable and uncomfortable notion which is that I will die alone in this dark and dirty bedroom, not even worthy of a marker in the graveyard which I wake up to each morning.

One night, not all that long ago, I sat on the edge of the bed around 3 AM. I let my feet dangle off the side as I stared up at the bare wires hanging out of the ceiling. I hadn’t had anxiety like this in a long time. I needed to get out of that room and out of that house, before I let my mind run away with itself and before I returned to the destructive behaviors which landed me here.

Without a second thought, almost as if my mind cleared at that moment, I jumped up, sprang to life, got dressed, packed a bag, and got in my car. I had my mind set on two people—the only two people who could relieve my pain, if only for a little while. Under the cover of the early summer’s night darkness, I drove towards the Turnpike, and I wasn’t sure I was ever coming back…