Generation X was fading and Generation Why came quickly to replace it.

Conceived from a couple of Boomers who held tightly to the old ways, I threatened to turn the world around like it or not. Punishment came not from creative parenting but from the strap of Dad’s old belt. When my Father beaconed to me for a talk, the end of the conversation ended with my already raw bottom, still being a throbbing slab of red meat from last time, being interrogated until a confession or an apology was realized. I called him the Butcher. My Mother came from England when she was three, and still maintained the proper values of the royal family. I wanted nothing to do with either save for the polite disposition of a gentleman. This I learned was an invaluable tool at manipulating the masses to do my bidding. I had a brother whom was two years younger than I was and served as my best friend during these early years. With a mile long driveway and forty-five minutes from my school, it was a world apart. A mini-utopia for the imagination of a child which it‘s yang is the hardships of the pioneers.

When we moved to this desolate outpost there was no running water just the start of some old well which we finished off in order to get a trickle to the indoors. In the winter the pipes would freeze except on the warmest days which we could enjoy the luxury of going to the bathroom indoors. My clothes were passed down from hippie to hippie but I rarely wore clothes, save for the cloak my Mom made for me and my brother so we could be Jedi Knights, the most esteemed position of any child prodigy. Not just any stick would do as a light saber; it constructed frequently from the dogwood tree with its bark removed, for it had a nice blonde glow about it. It was with sabers that we fought the dark forces of the forest. Like the tree that if you stared at it for long enough in the dark opened its giant mouth in attempt to swallow you whole. Strangely when we got close enough to hit it, the tricky demon within that old oak recoiled back into its lair. It was not until we turned around and regained our distance that it would show his cowardly face again. Boasting seven hundred archers in an increasingly voracious market for land and a dilapidated old farmhouse from the end of the revolutionary war, this plot would be the setting for the first twelve years of my life.

Under the porch dwelled fourteen wild cats and above them the two golden retrievers laid unrelentlessly ignorant to anything surrounding them. Like sticking a cone into a cotton-candy machine, I would coax the kittens onto my probe, which they would cling to and chew relentlessly. Depositing them onto the long golden curls of the dog’s manes, the felines became the weapon of child cruelty as they attempted to tease the fur into moving. In a strange juxtaposition to any other farm in the area, we hosted a pair of iguanas that would frequently escape from their warm caged habitat to roost in our hair at night. There was an old Franklin stove we used to make fires in, but served mainly as a bat cave. In the evening while, watching one of the two programs I was allowed, the bats would somehow find themselves in the living room hovering around our heads, threatening to swoop down for a bite if we moved even the slightest. We were symbiotic with nature.

Elvis movies and Doctor Who were the only two programs my parents permitted me to watch. It seems the rents had a divine plan to make my brother and me the coolest space explorers the world had seen. I was convinced of this before T.V. even existed for me. I took every chance I could to exalt the picture show on the boob tube, for the time came but only a few times a year.
During the school year, I was pushed out the door at 5:30am to make the trek to meet the bus. Forty minutes later, I would find myself standing at the edge of the driveway as the big yellow monster peeled out and spit dust in my face. Forty minutes after that I was, back home to convince my parents the bus driver hates me for the time I brought the iguana to show and tell. At that point, I either received a ride to school or a stern beating followed by chores to take my mind off the soreness of my rump. Chores on that old farm were much more than any rock star astronaut should have to deal with. Tasks for the day: Move logs Dad cut from one side of the lawn to the other, pulling weeds from the garden, tacking the shingles back onto the roof, making sure the chimney was clean, and no playing. Worst of all chores was mowing the lawn. It took twenty years for my Father to buy a lawn mower with a motor attached and strangely, when he did I did not have to mow ever again. Somehow, he knew that I wanted to try it, which meant one more form of punishment for him to bestow me. In the summer, it was much different. My brother and I, jettisoned from the house by my Mother’s steel toe boot, would frolic with the flying insects and the peepers living in the pond at the end of the road. I would fancy myself a wild human raised by wolves like those that I had read in the Tarzan books, while the dogs served as my adopted parents. I was a ninja of the woods, romping through my own personal proving grounds. These were the best times for me because I incurred much less wrath for misbehaving mainly because I wasn’t around to do so. At night my brother and I could hear my Mom’s voice from a mile away and started slowly back towards the house for a portion of wholesome noodles and eggs.

School was fun in those days, toys were made of primitive materials and math consisted of counting the superheroes. In Kindergarten I was the scissor wizard, whirling scissors around my head threatening to cut the shoelaces of children who played teacher’s pet. We would have milk and cookies then play the mating game for naptime. Around first grade recess was a time for my school friends and me to lean against the large boulders that lined the schoolyard and pretend to smoke cigarettes. If a girl wanted to come by and say hello, we would either bombard her with rocks or swallow her body with our hands. I was infamous for destroying the windows at school with my red rubber ball. Half of my front tooth is a cap caused from a rock fight between two groups of three boys, but I faired better than most of the others. I remember a kid who lived even poorer than I did who would come to school in rags and smelled like cat piss. He had holes in the crotch of all his pants and sat at the top of the front stairs to the school. The girls would point and snicker at the little wonder that popped out to greet them. I would too. I had one friend in grade school besides my brother, his last name was Friend. I saw him outside of school only a handful of times, and when we did, if we weren’t jumping our bikes we were engaging in homoerotic trampoline fun on my bed. This was the highlight of my fith year of life. Jumping naked on the bed rubbing our bodies against each other and watching closely as the little members, barely attached to our bodies yet, tried feverishly to get excited. Peeing in each others mouths was a proper way to allow our uninhibited jungle boy’s dreams realized. There was a fateful day I remember well, my dad couldn’t take the racket and stormed up the stairs to my bedroom. I wish I wasn’t into having my penis inserted into that other boy’s mouth, for I would have heard the clomping of boots up the stairs and down the hall, coming to rest on my door, which gave way easily. My Father had the typical Irish man’s temper and could see it right away in his face. As a steam whistle would, he commanded me to dress and for my playmate to leave. That was the last time I saw my friend. After said friend’s parents came to retrieve him, the Butcher and I went for a walk. We walked and walked and he said nothing to me save for a few words which rang through in my head till midway into my teenage years. He said very calmly, which took me by surprise, “Evan, they’ll call you a homo.” The sound of his voice had a resonating approach reverberating off my ear canals with an almost soothing quality. A parental skill I have yet to undermine; the deafening voice. Now I didn’t know what a homo was nor did he explain it, I only knew it had something to do with what I was doing earlier in my bedroom. It was perhaps, the only time I listened to my Father.

I was straighter than an arrow and the world was before me. At the ripe age of 5 I had to make a decision, was I to be a part of this small farming village or was I meant to be part of a bigger world. I decided to take this endeavor on in the manner of selective hearing. Whilst out in the woods logging a trail for more access to building materials and fire wood I put it to my father if I could possibly make a pilgrimage to the woods with my dogs. A sharp and curt no was followed, but in no way was that an answer I could be apart of, so sullying off slowly while my Dad continued his log chopping, I made it into the dark underbelly of my forbidden surroundings. There I was following my instincts and the dogs, for I have learned that dogs will find food and water. I was my hope to find and contact small woodland creatures and make them my playmates. It had occurred to me that the large ones might be on the prowl being the cusp of Spring has passed. I knew in the back of my head the way to deal with bears was to play dead or lather yourself with honey and just let them lick it off. Very much did I want to try this out and be brought back to their den. Basically anything was better than home. I realized that even though I was a trouble child and felt unwanted the whole town would be after me before long. This was a reason to do all the things that my mother or the Butcher would not permit me to do. So bounding of high rock ledges and going too far ahead of the pack was already apparent, so I stopped to play with my poop. I was covered from head to toe in mud with twigs sticking out of my hair. Well on my way to being the little jungle boy in my imagination. Darkness prevailed and so did the chill of the not-yet-quite summer weather. I found a nice nook between some rocks and came to rest there. The canines curled up with me and stirred not until they sensed oncoming traffic. Would be rescuers erratically moved their flashlights around in search of my remains. Focused and omniscient the lights came closer and closer until they were on top of me and my sleep-gritty eyes. My parents were at the helm of the rescue committee, although I commended them not. My contempt came rising to the surface and I flailed and fought for my right to dwell /amongst the woodland creatures and the harshness of the weather. I was to little at five, had I been bigger I would have overcome these giants of misfortune. My legs felt as though I could stride across mountains and my lungs could inhale whole clouds as I traversed the land. But in utter lose and rational, my legs were not even touching the ground while my overburdening parents grappled me in complete arrest. Maybe if I had been a parent at the time I would not have realized the cause and effect of a child’s actions as my parents had certainly not. My flogging was a brutal one. It seemed that my father was hurt by my denial of his authority and misunderstood affection. As the belt came to land with each blow, parts of sentences could be heard under his breathe, “you treat me like a piece of rat shit…”, “this hurts me more than it hurts you…”. All in all it very well may have if he didn’t use a belt. My butt was so hardened by the callusing blows that I could break sticks over it like a kung fu master. The next day, before my ass had time to heal, I set off towards the woods again with the dogs and made an effort to go deeper into the forest so as not to be detected. My plan did not work out as I hoped and was found sometime around the same time as the previous night and subsequently received my daily dose of punishment. It seems that my efforts paid off after all because the day after the debacle, my family was visited by a very nice woman accompanied by some police officers. I naturally hid from the authority figures and listened as they introduced themselves as being from the Department of Social Services and asked my parents many questions. My dad full of emotion assured her they were suitable to take care of me. I came back into the room with my bags packed as they were shaking hands and bidding each other good luck. Crestfallen, I realized my plan had failed once again. I dropped my bags and cried.
I did a lot of crying in my youth. One might have suspected me of being a titman if I hadn’t loathed the babying so much. I could never explain anything I was going through at any point to my parents. Butch would listen just to retort and with my Mom I could not get a word in length wise. She shouted to me once after I screamed at her to stop yelling, “My father was deaf in one ear so my mother and I always had to yell to him”. I came to realize later in life you change the to, to ,at and the old man just took a deaf ear. Much easier to fake that, than your interest in doing whatever they were telling you to do. Sneaking through the raspberry patch, becoming one with nature, the rabbit just within reach, “Evan, Graham, dinner”! Wildlife scatters everywhere and my brother and I leap from fright right into the thorns. This is the sort of build up and let down I am used to. So involved am I with what I can’t do, but want to so badly. I had set a precedent during these years. I was known throughout the whole family as the black sheep. They were so cliché. I knew I was a little crapper, I wanted the people to love, know and fear me, sure, but to call me a black sheep, come on.

I had the gentlemanly disposition of a young English master to anyone that was civil to me, and I could make any crowd laugh. My calling was to be court jester, but without the court or fear of being beheaded. I expected my audience to pay, I was an uninhibited mule, kicking people in the gut as I made them laugh. The rigamoral was ceaseless until the fateful year of 12, when I was sat down tot the kitchen table for a talk. Upon hearing this I issued an “aww” and pulled my pants down. They actually laughed and told me to pull them up. Their laugh was nervous and this was something I had not come to expect. The told me of money and real estate and the powers that be. Thhey told that if just because you live somewhere, it is not your home. This was very confusing to me as I had only really learned to count on my fingers and the little characters in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were called the short didvision. It had happened that the ownwer of the grand scheme of land was selling off parcels for there was terrific demand, and all those inhabitants, meaning us and a portion of woodland creatures would have to vacate. None of this sunk in very much until the actual move, where I said my goodbyes to anything and everything I had ever touched on that farm. When I arrived at my grandmother’s urban home in I threw myself into my pillow and sobbed for a week.

Oh what a wonderland! People playing at every age and language was used which I had never heard. For instance I was waiting for my brother to get ready and come outside while I waited and talked to some of the natives. They said after some conversation I was a boner and had Gaylord blood. I was really excited by this talk and agreed with them so I could walk with the gang. Even though in my excitement I was able to fit in, I was desparatly alone for the trees of my childhood became the the rugrats of the streets, and they talk back when spoken to without the aide of imagination. I was ready to jump into this with full on gusto. Within the first six months I had met a pair of twins and became fast friends. I think they liked the way my jungle boy nature shined though in the little daily activities, like boundaries and property. I was arrested for the first time at the age of 12 for breaking into a hotdog concession stand at the ballpark. It seemed all okay to me. No regrets. My dad had to pay three hundred dollars for a new hotdog cooker that I had damaged trying to get in. I actually never succeeded in getting into that shed, which was why I had no regrets I suppose, my father’s toil was of o consequence to me. (the twins were browsing the contents of the cruiser while I was being interrogated).

The house that was to be my home for the next Year and a half was the home of my Grandmother. Inside it was the standard colonial structure, staircase moving up to the left with a living room to the right and a den to the left. Following the hallway you would come across the kitchen where everyone could be found and kicked out of at the same time. It was funny like that, family would filter in, to engage a morsel of the food that was being prepared and turned right around with a yell or slap in perfect flux. My Grandmother was sentry to the chips and soda in the pantry like the Royal Guard but would hand out rations to us kids so as to help us grow up faster. Little did she know cigarette smoke, soda, and potato chips stunt your growth. The demographic was all family including my eldest aunt the aunt next youngest and her two children and her husband. My father and mother my brother and I came to join to make the grand total 10 persons living in the house. There was a period of a couple of months we endured the coming and going of some more relatives, but it wasn’t all bad when all the cousins got together, we were a force to be reckoned with. Most usually we would be told to go to the basement to cause our trouble and emerge a half hour later bleeding from our noses and crying about who started it. Then being separated, for our own good apparently, we would make faces from across the room and begin throwing any found object that wouldn’t immediately bring attention to us. The tossing of items would always end with large pillows and shoes, with great want of a hit, coming to rest on the floor next to the lamp it somehow came to connect with, and the parents storming in to separate us further. Effective for the trained watcher, but for parents who have other concerns, making us do anything was fruitless.

We had kept one dog from the farm and gave the other to owner of the property. My Grandmother hated dogs and always yelled at it for just sitting there. I almost thought that the dog, from fear of wrath, would get up and help with the dishes someday, but f I didn’t do it the dog probably wouldn’t either.