Getting out of that town was the best thing I ever did. Nothing good came of being there. Nothing. Except a lesson learned. The hardest way of all; through experience. I can still remember every day, even though it was almost ten years ago, like it was last week.  Every single word of this is true. I’ve told it a hundred times, and it’s been the same every time. And, as you could expect, the best place to start is the beginning.
    It was fall of ’96. My parents had split up about a year earlier and my sister, my mom and I had moved out. But we weren’t far away. Not far away enough for my mom though. So, shortly after my 9h birthday, we sold everything we could, except for the bare essentials and headed out. We moved to a little suburb outside of Atlanta, Georgia. The town was called Flowery Branch. And we lived in a lower class suburb called Paradise Point on a street called Samoa Way. It was about as far from paradise as you could get. Ironic really, given that we’d just moved from Antigua, which fits most peoples’ descriptions of paradise.
Samoa Way was a street that was about a mile long, and had around 25 houses on it. Each house was identical to the next. Except for the bungalow that was next door to ours. The only defining characteristics of the houses were the colors. Ours was baby blue, with dark blue shutters and a black shingled roof. It had three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a living/dining/kitchen room. And one little area behind the car park for a laundry room. It was cramped with four people, two dogs, and two cats. The family consisted of my mother, uncle, sister and myself. My sister and I shared a room in that tiny one story house while my mother and uncle took the other two.
My mom and my uncle started their own business. Installing cellular telephone antennas. At first it was small, and run out of our dining area. It consisted of my mom, my uncle and two of my uncles friends, Jared and Dale. Their beginnings were slow, but that’s all fairly irrelevant.
I started fourth grade in Mrs. Bailey’s class at Flowery Branch Elementary School some time in January. Whenever the second half of the year started. I did fine in school. My teacher liked me, I had some friends, it was going pretty well. I made a few friends in those first few months. My best being Robert, the neighbor kid from three houses down. We hung out all the time, and his little sister was best friends with my little sister. It was one cozy little group of kids. We played together all the time.
It was the summer after fourth grade that everything started to go downhill. I can remember almost exactly when. It was one of those hot summer nights. The kind where you have to stay indoors all day, and you play all night. Simply because it’s too damn hot to go out in the sun. It was about 10 o’clock, my curfew, and I was heading home. Robert and I had been riding bikes, and so we rode to his house, said goodbye and I took off toward my house. As I rode out of Roberts driveway, a beat up car full of kids with heavy metal music playing came to a screeching halt in front of the house next to Roberts. Out stumbled the coolest kid I’d ever seen. An 8th grader named Adam. I’d only seen him a few times, on the bus to school. He sat in the last seat with the older kids. All of the elementary school kids had to sit in the front. I sat on my bike, staring, as he slowly staggered toward his front door. He was about halfway down the driveway when he noticed me. He asked what I was doing and I, panicking, didn’t reply. He asked me if I’d ever played a Playstation before. I said I hadn’t, which was the truth. He invited me over the next day to play some with him. I nervously accepted and thanked him, then rushed home. He only lived two doors down from me. On the other side of the bungalow. So I had no problem just walking over, undetected the next day.
The next day rolls around. I woke up late in the morning, close to noon and slowly got myself together. Around 1 o’clock my mom went into the bathroom and I shouted through the door that I was going over to Robert’s. A lie. And I sprinted out of the house, down the street and to Adam’s.
I stood in front of the door for what felt like a week, although it was probably only a minute or two. I knocked. I could hear Adam’s voice shouting to use the other door. I sprinted to the side door. I knew where it was because it was in the same place as my side door. Before I could knock again he’d already opened the door.
He stood in the door wearing only gym shorts. He was huge for an 8th grader, at least he seemed it at that moment. He was a good ten inches taller than me and five years older. He had long black hair that covered most of his face. Dark skin and dark eyes to match. Everything about him was dark. He stood there eating a piece of cold pizza. He asked me what’s up and moved out of the way.
The first thing I noticed about his house was the music. From somewhere down the dark hallway ahead of me I could hear angry, dark music playing. Otherwise his house was pretty standard. Tackily decorated, as are most suburban homes, mine included. It smelled vaguely like old potpourri and wet dog.
He led me toward the music. As we walked down the hall I looked into one of the bedrooms. It was vacant. Except for a cage that contained an iguana named Richard and a small terrier mutt named Tetra. The dog was growling at the iguana.
We got to the end of the hall, last door on the left. It would have been my uncle’s room if it were my house. In the dim light I could make out a sign on the door that said “Devil’s Lair” and had some pictures of demons on it. I was scared shitless but maintained my composure. I didn’t want to look like a stupid little kid in front of Adam. I could hear the music muffled through the door. Pounding away like a psychopathic murderer with a baseball bat. He grabbed the knob and slowly opened the door.
    The room was cold and dark. It reminded me of a cave. The lone window on the far wall had been covered by a black comforter and absolutely no light was coming through. The only sources of light were four black lights, one on each wall, and the TV that was under the window, at the foot of his bed. His bed was nothing but an unmade mattress with another black comforter and some pillows on it. Next to his bed was a small table with a drawer and a cabinet built in. There was a bean bag chair in the wall to my left, also black and a red guitar next to it. The walls were plastered with posters of bands I’d never heard of. And there was writing in highlighter all over the walls. The floor was covered in heaps of clothing. He had incense burning on his bedside table.
He sat down on the bed and told me to pull the bean bag chair over and sit down. I obeyed. We played a game called Twisted Metal for a few hours. The point of the game was to blow up the other persons car with various weapons. Then we played James Bond: Goldeneye. The point of that game was to kill the other person.
    After we played that for a while I asked him if I could use the bathroom, he told me where it was. Even though I already knew. As I was in the bathroom I heard him coming down the hall. He told me through the door that he was going to be outside. I finished up, washed myself and headed for the back porch. When I got out there I wasn’t sure what he was doing. He had a bag of pot, I thought it was some kind of herb for cooking, and a gallon jug for water that he’d converted into a bong with some tinfoil and a knife. I had no idea what was going on. So I sat down next to him and watched silently, to avoid sounding ignorant. He packed the bowl with pot, making sure not to let any water get out of the tightly duct taped hole slide. When he was done packing the bowl he asked me if I’d ever smoked before. I told him I hadn’t, and he offered and I declined. He didn’t try to pressure it upon me. Which is probably why I was so comfortable around drugs from that day forward. I watched him smoke a few bowls before he said something about the weather then suggested we go play more video games.
I was amazed at how much fun he was having with the game. He seemed to be so involved with it, and he was laughing and yelling at the TV. I wondered what it felt like to be feeling whatever he was feeling. After a few more games he said he had the munchies and then promptly got up and went to the kitchen for more pizza. When he got back he laid down on his bed and started at the writing on the ceiling and we talked. We talked about things I didn’t understand. It was actually more of him talking about things and me listening to him talk. I idolized him. He was my hero.
That night I couldn’t get to sleep. I was thinking about Adam all night. When I finally fell asleep I had a dream. In the dream my family was sitting in the back of a taxi cab. My family being my sister, my mother and I. The taxi stopped at our old house and they both climbed out, but I couldn’t get my seatbelt undone. I started screaming to my mom for help. And she just looked at me through the open door, then closed it. She walked around the car and paid the driver. The car took off, and I watched my sister and my mother waving as the car took off down our old road. The cab came to a stop sign and I looked back to see my mother crying. The cab began to drive again and I heard the blaring of a horn. I looked to my left and I saw a truck coming straight at the side of the car. Then I woke up.
That day I went over to Adam’s again. It was essentially the same scenario every day for the entire span of my 5th grade year. I never smoked pot, but I began to listen to heavy metal music. I began to rebel against my mom, just as Adam did. I began to wear all black and I grew my hair out, just like Adam.
    Skipping ahead to summer after fifth grade. Adam’s mom, Melodie, was out of town to visit her ill sister in Nebraska. She was going to be gone for about a week. You have to understand that Adam’s home was a broken one. His dad walked out about 10 years earlier and they hadn’t heard from him since. Melodie was a postal worker and when she wasn’t delivering mail she was at the bar. Adam decided to throw a party one of the nights that week. The night of the party there were a bunch of high school kids there. And I was the only person there not in high school, in fact I was at least 6 years younger than most of the people there.
    The party consisted of smoking copious amounts of ganja and drinking way too much beer. It was that night that the downward spiral truly began. I gave into peer pressure fairly early in the night when offered a beer. I didn’t think it would do too much. So I started drinking. I was drunk after about a beer and a half. I stayed up that night talking to people and making a fool of myself. After the party began to clear out it was around 2 in the morning and there were only a few people left. Maybe five of us. We went outside onto the porch and the water jug bong came back out. I denied the first time it was offered to me. But Adam’s friends weren’t as understanding as he was and the began to chant “Smoke!” over and over again. In my inebriated state I decided it couldn’t hurt too much. So I did. They told me to cover the small hole on the side with my thumb, then put my mouth over the hole and breathe in. So I did. I took a deep breath and proceeded to cough for about five minutes. I didn’t get high that night, but I would as we kept smoking all day for the next week or so.
    Later that night, around 4 in the morning, the rest of Adam’s friends left, and we retired back to his bedroom. I had my own bed in the Devil’s Lair at this point. That night I had the dream again. And I woke up sick to my stomach and spent the next morning throwing up and the rest of the day with a splitting headache. This trend continued for the majority of the summer and most of the way through the next school year.
    Fast forward to January of 1999, I’m 11 years old. My mom had a new boyfriend, Bo. I would learn to hate him, and would blame him for everything. Even though it wasn’t entirely his fault. My mother is out with Bo on a date and I’m home with a babysitter. My sister is at a friend’s house down the street. The weather called for rain, but at some point in the night, it turned into freezing rain, and there was a coat of ice over the entire state. My mom called to say she wouldn’t make it back from Bo’s and asked the babysitter if she could stay the night. She could. My babysitter was a friend of mine from school. An 8th grader named Angel. I forgot to tell you that my uncle had moved out some time before, and was living across town. His house was now the centre of operations for their business, so I was home alone with Angel. Angel was 14 and, in my opinion, incredibly attractive. But what young guy doesn’t have a crush on their older babysitter?
    It was around 10 o’clock and South Park was on. We were laying on the floor watching the show. I’m not sure when it happened, but at one point I realized that Angel was holding me hand. I could feel myself turn red and I felt my pants getting tighter, if you’re still following me. She must have known that I noticed because she slowly brought my hand to her breast and pressed it against her chest. I stared wide eyed at the TV unsure as to what I should do. She looked at me and I slowly turned to look at her. Now you must understand this wasn’t my first time making out with a girl. But it was the first time that it was with a girl I wasn’t involved with and that was older than I. She rolled over on top of me and we started to kiss. She moved her hand down to my crotch and began to grope. I think to spare the long story I’ll just say that I was taken advantage of that night. And so added another addiction to the growing list. We slept together and slept next to each other on my bed that night. That night I had the same dream again.
    In the months that followed Angel and I kept seeing each other. Mostly in the spare bedroom at Adam’s house while he was in his room with his girlfriend, Brandy. Every day after school Angel, Brandy, Adam and I would go to Adam’s house get stoned and then retreat to our designated rooms for the afternoon. Over time the girls changed. Sometimes we traded or shared, depending on the situation.
    One of Adam’s girlfriends, Bobby, was heavy into cocaine. Which meant Adam was too. Which meant I was too. One day after Heather, my then girlfriend, and I emerged from the spare bedroom we walked in on Adam and Bobby doing lines in the kitchen. They offered me some and I accepted. Heather said she had to leave, so I kissed her goodbye and she left. I don’t remember ever talking to her again after that. I sat down at the table at did a line. I had the dream that night, too. That time, though, the truck hit the car before I woke up.
    In the weeks that followed I couldn’t think about anything except cocaine. I would do lines in the bathroom at school. I would come home and do lines at Adam’s house. You might be wondering how I got the money for this. And I’m ashamed to say that I resorted to stealing most of it. I would break into my neighbors houses when they weren’t around and I would take jewelry, money, CDs, and whatever else I could get away with taking and not have them notice. And then I would sell it to kids at school or give it to Adam to sell at the pawn shop in town, then I’d give the money to Bobby for coke. Which she got from her older brother.
    Some time in the fall of my 6th grade year my mother announced that she planned to get married to Bo. I ran away. I didn’t pack, I didn’t leave a note. I got up from the dinner table and ran. I ran through the woods until I hit another subdivision and then walked down the lonely dark streets all night. When the sun rose I found a tool shed to sleep behind. That day I planned to walk back home, get some things and then go stay at a friend of Adam’s house until I could figure out what to do next.
    When I got home I didn’t realize that my mom had parked her car in the back yard and was waiting in my room for me. She knew I’d come back at some point. After she cried, scolded, and yelled at me she grounded me for a month. I can’t remember if I mentioned that we moved to the neighboring subdivision. It was a much wealthier one. And Bo and his two kids had moved in, so we needed a bigger house. I hated them all. I was locked in my room for a month, and although I’d sneak out some nights, it was still a hard task to pull off.
    For the most part I spent all of my time in my room sleeping, listening to my music too loudly and doing lines. I had stolen a few grams of coke from Bobby’s brother when he was passed out at Adam’s one night, and I still had some left. But when my stash ran out, and I had no money, and no way to get anymore I became self destructive. I would spend most of my time when my mom and step-dad weren’t home outside in the yard smoking cigarettes and cutting myself. This went on for a few weeks until my sentence was up.
    In the spring of sixth grade I was in the depths of a coke binge and I came home for the night and my step dad got mad at me for leaving my music on and not cleaning my room. It escalated into a full out verbal war and he eventually hit me. I’m not saying open handed or on the arm. He punched me in the side of the face and I hit the ground crying. Let me take a minute to describe Bo. He’s a north Georgia redneck. 6”4’ and built like a brick shit house. Not to mention an alcoholic with control issues.
    That night once everyone had gone to bed I went to my sisters’ bathroom and got a razor. I broke it and took out the blade and went back to my room. I sat down on my bed and thumbed the blade for about an hour before deciding that I had to do what I had to do. I slowly pulled up the left sleeve of my shirt and put the blade to the base of my hand. I pressed and slowly pulled down toward my elbow, following the big tendon you can see when you hold your hand at about a 45 degree angle to your wrist. The cut was about three inches long. I sat staring blankly at the blood that was slowly escaping and running down my arm. I dropped the blade and rolled over to go to sleep indefinitely. I woke up in the hospital the next day with a bandage around my wrist and my mother sitting in a chair next to the bed. She was just looking at me. After what felt like an eternity of staring at each other she asked if it was really that bad. I nodded and rolled over. She sobbingly apologized and I went back to sleep. I had The Dream. But that time it was different. The cab driver turned around and it was my dad. He said everything was going to be alright. And my mom came back into the car and unbuckled my seat belt, and my dad drove away. And the car accident never happened.
    Later that day I overheard the doctor talking to my mother. He said that since I’d cut vertically I’d managed to miss any major veins and all of the tendons. I was lucky, he said. And given the way I’d fallen asleep, with my arm bent to my chest, I’d slowed the bleeding enough for it to not be fatal.
    After that incident I moved in with my father. My sister came too. My mom eventually divorced that douche bag and I’m fine now. But I’m still being forced to see therapists like you who are convinced I’m still a danger to myself. You don’t seem to grasp the concepts of self-realization, acceptance, forgiveness or change. I realize what I did. I accept what I did. I forgive myself for what I’ve done. I forgive my mother for marrying that scum bag. I forgive my parents for getting divorced. And I’ve changed. So I really don’t see why I have to keep coming to these damn things.
    “What about the dream you talked about having?”
    I haven’t had it since. . .  So, you’ve heard my story. Take it for what you will. Make whatever assumptions you will. Prescribe whatever pills you will. I won’t take them. But can I go home now?