What Am I?

A Story by Robertrevansjr

Finding Me.

WHAT AM I?

In your 20’s you try and “find yourself”, you discover your philosophy and your spiritual side. Then you apply this in your 30’s and 40’s to your career, marriage, raising of your children etc. Constantly modifying and tweaking until at last you reach your 50’s and you have become comfortable with yourself. You are predictable to yourself. You know yourself.

One year ago I turned 50. As of today I have no idea who I really am. My role in this world has changed so many times, it’s as if I am many people. I have been the little country kid, whose mother had him in church every time the doors opened. I have been the wild teenager whose father had working in a boot leg joint as early as 13. I have been the Soldier who yearns for battle. I have been the broken.

At 17(1983) I enlisted in the U.S Army. During this time, I went to Egypt and Germany. I have served on and off all my life. This last hitch was 10 years long . 2006 thru 2016. I went to Iraq, Afghanistan, and twice to South Korea.

In between my service I held such an array of jobs, raised two children and lost a marriage. I worked for minimum wage one year and grossed 6 figures the next. I walked up the aisle and got saved and baptized in one state, and then became a disciple of eastern philosophy in the form of martial arts in another.

I have been an avid hunter of animals, and an advocate for animal rights. I have been a destroyer and a builder. I ask myself daily, what am I ????

I am going to use this manuscript to try and answer my own question. I will start at my beginning and try and discover who I was at that particular time, and then what it was that changed me. Hopefully at the end I will have some understanding of myself.

At the end of this I will include my contact information. I plan to try and publish this, not as a financial vehicle, but as a self-discovery and hopefully someone may read it and give me advice or maybe just tell me something of themselves. Or maybe any reader will simply look upon this as a piece of literary trash and condemn me for being an old sentimental fool.

CHAPTER ONE

THE BEAUTY OF IT ALL

At the age of 9 (1974) the world seemed full of promise. God was everywhere. The beauty of the country, the smell of the wet dirt road that lead to the little farm house. The horses in the lower field playing.

Such a happy time. A thunderstorm rolled across the skies in all its awesome glory and the child thought he saw the face of God and his beloved Jesus in the clouds. He thought of the alter he built in the woods for the holy ones. Rocks stacked up and flowers as gifts on the top.

This would be the last day of this childhood innocence. The very next the whole world turned upside down and into a dirty, lawless and faith destroying pit of misery. Was the boy too sensitive? Was he weak? I only know of the pain. The shock and then an insecurity that would last a life time.

Up to this terrible day, the child believed in the wisdom of adults. His parents had protected him from the harsh realities of life. Was this fair to him? Should he have known that people are basically a mess and incredibly selfish in their wants, desires and some are just plain sick?

The childs mother found the evidence. Her and her 3 sons had been away for several days due to the union where the father worked had been on strike, and the whole area was a danger zone, or so the woman had been told. The day after the beautiful storm the wife began cleaning her house. There beside the bed lay the used condom.

The father was at work, there was no telephone in their house. The mother in rage and grief ordered her 9-year-old son to walk to a distant farm house and use their phone to call his father. The confused and bewildered son obeyed.

The scene when the father appeared was like a nightmare. The once proud and cool woman was in a state of complete ferocity and shock. Over the next few days the situation became worse. The mother actually tried to shoot her husband with a .22 caliber rifle, in front of the boy.

Sunday, always a day of promise, started as usual. The mother and the boys ready for church, chicken half fried in anticipation for dinner later. The father outside working on various things. The family had but one car and the father needed that so the mother and children waited for the church bus.

There was a hollow feeling inside the child but there was also a single ray of hope. Prayer! Today he would ask that his family be restored. Surely this will be granted.

The church bus sopped at the little farm house. The father’s car was gone. A sinking feeling hit the boy in his gut. That he would not see his father again for 6 months he didn’t know, but he knew even before going inside that his whole world was changed forever.

The cruelty of hunger was new to the child. The cruelty of cold when the electricity was cut off was also. Learning to deal with this along with the nightmares that followed gave the child a fight with anxiety daily.

Down the dirt road lived the tobacco farmer. The boy had respected this man very much. He constantly hounded the man for jobs so he could bring in money. Big John always had a smile and a job for the child. He also had an eye for the boy’s mother that did not come to light until the father left. Additionally, a deputy from the sheriff’s department found out about the separation and began stalking the house in the late night and early mornings, scaring the family constantly.

Then the screaming began. The mother slowly sinking into the dismal began to have nightmares so vivid and horrifying, that she could not tell what was real and what was not. In her nightly dream, a figure she referred to as “Death” came to her bedside and offered his hand to her. She knew if she took it she would die. Sometimes she thought maybe it would be better if she did.

The home became a nightmarish and oppressive place for the child. The mother sought help from her church, and the pastors answer was that she had “demons” and should be excommunicated pends and exorcism. This may sound crazy, but that’s exactly what took place.

No small wonder that shortly after the pastor pronounced this judgement on her in front of the entire congregation her nerves went to pieces. A friend had come to pick us up on a Wednesday night for church. Half way there the mother became very ill. Then began to scream, pull out her own long black hair and claw her beautiful face. I did not see her for a month. She was in the hospital and I and my brothers were in the care of an incompetent aunt.

I could probably write several manuscripts on this period, but what’s the use? It’s all the same. Man’s fall from grace in the eyes of a 9-year-old boy. Six months of this and the father returns. He moves the family out of their home and into a trailer park in the middle of the night. The boy sleeps well that night thinking his prayers have finally been answered. The next morning, he awoke to find that the father was gone once again.

The mother with an iron will and more bravery than anyone I have ever met, dug her way out of the darkness and into a life. Her other sons, became well-adjusted and productive men. The 9-year-old boy in this story pretty much went wild. He was the eldest and witnessed all this with an underdeveloped understanding of the world.

Gone was his unwavering faith in a good and just God. Gone was the feeling that Jesus would answer his desperate prayers. In its place was fear, hatred, and the beginning of an uncomfortable feeling of anything of beauty. To this day the sight of a beautiful sunset, or misty mountain mornings, or even the beauty of someone beating all odds only bring tears. Melancholy feelings and a desire to avoid them.

So, who is this person now? What is he? What does he believe in? As crazy as it sounds the only thing he had to hold onto was the past. His belief was that everything would be put back in order if only his father would return.

After a few years of trying to manipulate both the mother and the father into a reconciliation, and failing at it, he decided to go live with his father and try there. to manipulate both the mother and the father into a reconciliation, and failing at it, he decided to go live with his father and try there.

CHAPTER 2

GLORIOUS HELL

Danville Va (1978). Always referred to as “Dodge City” by the boy’s mother, was now his new home. He had picked a fight with his mother to use as an excuse to live with his father and it had worked. He did not intend to hurt her, but his mission was to get them back together and this was possibly a way.

Now he is 12 years old. He is distrustful, and depressed. He is a lone wolf at his Jr high school, preferring to stand in the shadows. He begins to answer any confrontation with fist instead of wit. He wins some, he loses some. He doesn’t care, he just wants the release of the battle.

His home life was miserable. His father remarried to a woman 15 years younger and she was a conniving, hateful w***e. She never let a day go by that she didn’t ridicule or purposely hurt the young man. Somedays she would sense his weakness, and throw him a bone in the way of a sweet word or maybe play a board game with him, only to stab his back as soon as he felt comfortable.

The young man’s distrust grew even keener. The odd thing about all of this is his popularity with the young girls at his school. At 13 he had already lost his virginity to the most popular girl in town, even though he was skinny, frizzy hair, glasses and a horrid complexion. Soon his father was introducing him to adult women in every bar in town. The attention from all these females did absolutely nothing for him after climax.

The father always interested in making money, opened his first bootleg joint in an old cabin in Pittsylvania county. Opening when legal bars closed (around 2am) and serving drunken, and often belligerent customers until 7am or so. The boy served as bartender and at times back up bouncer.

Once again, there was plenty of attention from much older females, and the respect for adults continued to dwindle. The one thing that could not be argued was the amount of respect his father commanded in any circle or situation. If any man stepped out of line the boys father would strike so fast and so hard that there was nothing but a bloody pulp of a face left.

The boy was involved in such a violent fight at school that year, that they decided to expel him for the remainder of that year. The father picked him up and took him straight to a legal bar. The boys hands were swollen from bruises and a few broken fingers.

The waitress came to take our order, the father ordered two long neck Budweiser. The waitress asks if he intended to give one to the 13-year-old and his father’s reply was “What f****n business is that of yours?” “Bring my two beers NOW!”

The waitress brought only one and the father exploded, wanting to see the owner. The owner came over, very nervous, and ask the father what was the trouble? The father explained and the owner ordered the woman to bring the beers and to shut up about it. From that day forward the 13-year-old boy could drink in any bar in town.

Sitting in the booth drinking with his father, the boy was given a lecture. The father wanted him to know that he was going to start treating the boy as a man. The boy had freedom to do as he wished, only never to get the idea that the boy was better than the father. If so, the father told the boy with very cold hazel green eyes that he would shoot him.

From this point on the boy became a complete punk. Fighting, drinking, and even started carrying a hand gun under his leather jacket, worn no matter the weather. He had cut his hair and was pulling off James Dean fairly well. To his peer group he was lucky and cool. To himself, his hatred of life and depression was consuming him. He tried to out drink it, out sex it, out fight it. All to no avail.

The next few years are all about the same. At 17 he enlisted in the Army. Having to have his father’s signature he begged to go. The morning he left, his father was on the telephone and didn’t even say goodbye.

His main reason for enlisting was to get away from his stepmother whose cruelty knew no bounds. Just after signing up and only 2 months from actually shipping, the father and stepmother split. It was too late to back out. The scene of the breakup was horrible, comical, unbelievable.

Midnight, the boy is across town at an all-night Hardees talking to a little Irish girl that worked there. It was her break. As the conversation began in earnest, the boy’s father came by and made him leave. He informed the boy that he had just caught his wife cheating and was now going home to throw her out along with her b*****d son from before they met.

The Father was drunk to say the least. As they walked into the house, the stepmother screamed something, and then was immediately picked up by the neck, taken outside to a neighbor’s house. Beating on the door (after midnight) the elderly neighbor answered and was greeted with the stepmother swinging from the father’s hands. The father bellowed over and over, “This is what a w***e looks like”.

The father let her go and she ran back inside the house to get her son. The father followed and threw her into the street with the small child following. To accentuate his desire for her to hurry, he began shooting near her feet with his rifle.

After this, the house became a party house with the boy’s girlfriend’s being paid to clean up all the beer cans and dirty dishes. Wild days at the house and wilder nights at the bootleg joint. The two months wait to leave for the Army flew by.

Once again, time has not changed the fact that this now 17-year-old young man, had no creed, no spiritual belief, no moral compass. WHO? WHAT? Why did anything good or beautiful or meaningful bring first tears then a desire to run away? The young man sitting at a friend’s house picked up a children’s book of Bible stories and lost himself until his friend’s mother woke him by asking, “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

CHAPTER 3

WHO THE HELL CARES?

From the first moment the 17-year-old young man stepped into an Army uniform he knew he finally had something to believe in. He watched as his Drill Instructor struck fear into the hearts of older men than himself and he loved it.

All the problems of his platoon did not affect him. He was not homesick, he was not fatigued, he did not feel any anxiety whatsoever. He listened in the dark barracks at other Soldiers crying in the small hours. He even had a few sit on his bunk and dump their problems out.

All the young man knew was that he felt like he had a real purpose. His attention to his uniform and all tasks and training did not go unnoticed by his instructors. Always his uniform was immaculate. The spit shine on his boots was unsurpassed. He went through what was considered hell by everyone else with ease.

At the end of his basic training he was an expert shot, had mastered the hand grenade and bayonet, and maxed his physical training test. At the time there were 40 common Soldier tasks that you were tested on before graduation and he passed all 40. He was in his mind, a hard and lean, mean fighting machine. Thirsty for battle. Disgusted by the civilian world.

Graduation day, he marched with his platoon on their pass and review, proudly saluting the reviewing stand where officers, stern faced returned their salute. This was his great day. And as history repeats itself, it would soon end in ridiculous, bizarre and hateful ways.

The young Soldier was then transferred from FT Knox Ky. to Ft Sill OK. He was to train to become a Fire Direction Controller for the field artillery. He arrived at his training unit full of polish and swagger. He was greeted, to his astonishment by a drunken Sergeant on duty and hordes of sloppy drunken trainees. Granted it was a Friday night, but damn!

The young Soldier had no idea how to understand this. Confusion and hostility creeped into his disciplined being. He decided to get out of the barracks and within a few hours he too was one of the drunken horde. He awoke the next morning, his finely trained body protesting over the nights treatment. He swore he would not do this again.

For one month he kept his promise. Then he was told to see the First Sergeant, and was informed that he could not receive the security clearance for the job he was enlisted to do. He would be in a holdover status until this matter was cleared up.

One month later, a drunken heartbroken Soldier boarded a plane for VA. The Army had decided to just let him go due to the clearance issue and also the fact he did not possess a H.S diploma or even a GED. In his mind this meant he would never be a Soldier. He met his father at the airport in Richmond Va. They shook hands.

He arrived back in Danville Va. that night. His father had seriously upgraded bootlegging location and it was now housed in an old animal hospital inside the city limits! That first night he was quite the celebrity in his dress uniform, and as usual the ladies were drawn to him. Back to square one.

This establishment was much bigger than the one before and therefore more dangerous. The young man still had the thirst for battle inside of him and would fight at any time. This was his only release.

By this time his mother had remarried, the Army had dumped him, God had forgotten him. What was there to believe in? Drunken brawls with drunken men? Drunken liaisons with drunken soiled doves? There is a certain freedom being at the bottom of humanity, no one expects anything “beautiful” from you.

The night the bootleg joint got raided was unlike any other night in that the young man was not behind the bar working. The night before there had been an unusual amount of people there and the worst fighting broke out to date. The young man had to get involved in order to help his father throw everyone out.

At the end of it the young man’s face swollen, both eyes black, and ribs busted. He asked his father for the night off, to just play pool and be drunk like everyone else. So when the doors came crashing in, he was standing by the pool table while his father was behind the bar.

The end of an era. If anyone that ever reads this would like a more detailed description of those bootleg joint days, I will be more than glad to give this. However, my mission is self-discovery and not razzle dazzle anyone.

The end of the bootleg operation came as a relief. Both father and son felt their deaths were only a matter of time. Now this left the young man with a complete void of identity once again. After a nominal stay in jail, both father and son met at a Waffle House where the elder suggested the young man go live with his cousin in Petersburgh Va.

The young man’s cousin, was a shrewd, cunning drug dealer. Neither the young man nor the father knew this. The young man was introduced to this life style in a quick and efficient manner. Get a normal job, push powder for your cousin. Of course once again the females were present. The cousin looked like Brad Pitts younger years and the girls were crazy about him. So women were always around.

The young man now thought once again, that he had a home. He idolized his cousin and began to think of himself as a mafia style goodfellah. This of course was not the case. The young man was almost shot in the head by his cousin with a 30-30 rifle over a card game dispute.

The next day the young man quit his job at a local slaughter house, and packed his duffle bag, and began the 137 mile walk to Danville. At 18 he was effectively homeless. On the road that night a trucker with the handle of “Corn Stalk” picked him up for about 20 miles. Corn Stalk loved life.

Once again the next day after about 10 different rides and God only knows how many walking miles, the young man met with his father in a Waffle House over coffee. While sipping the brew an argument between a man and his wife broke out. The man hit his wife in the face and the young man jumped to her rescue.

The angry couple cussed the young man out and to his amazement the woman spit in his face. The young man walked out with them, and they got into their little red sports car (MG). As they passed him in the parking lot the angry husband shouted a curse at the young man, and he in turn kicked a good sized dent in the door.

The angry husband then pulled about 50 ft ahead, got out with a pistol and threatened to shoot. The young man began to laugh hysterically and begged him to pull the trigger. The angry husband either lost his nerve or caught some common sense, and made a quick escape. The young man wanted to murder this guy, and probably would have.

The father looked at the son and said, “If you don’t get married and settle down, you will be dead in a year”. This kept ringing in the young man’s ears for another year. It became his every night companion. He would constantly envision his own death in many scenarios.

At this point I believe the young man has become nothing more than an animal, a wounded animal. I wish he would have slowed down at this point and took some type of control. Two more years of this craziness. During this time frame the young man also witnessed the ignorant murder of a man affectionately known as “The Babe” at a small bar with a small owner with a small man’s complex. As always these times can be discussed in finer detail.

Chapter 4

IS THIS A REAL LIFE?

At 20 the young man is so wild that even he thinks he is doomed. He has nothing to believe in, no hero’s anymore, no love, no beauty. He finally gets a break when discussing his prior military problem with a recruiter who gives him hope. He applied for and was accepted back into the Army as a PVT E-1. His job was to be a tank mechanic.

At the same time, he met the woman who he eventually married. Although there was no love in his heart, he knew it could mean a type of stability. After dating a few months, he asked, knowing that she was pregnant with his child made it easier to pick her as opposed to the others he dated at the time.

So back in the Army, and now married with a child on the way, he settled into a sort of numb existence. The only excitement was an order for his unit to deploy to Egypt as a show of force against Libya in 1987. By this time his daughter was born and his wife was pregnant with their second and final child.

In the desert for only 45 days the young father returned with no war record. Kadafi had backed down without a fight, and the young man found he was on orders for Germany as soon as he got back. His second child was born there at Ft Campbell just prior to his departure to Germany.

The original idea was to take the whole family over with him, but he ran into a lot of trouble with a weak chain of command there. Once again his illusions of honor and selflessness in the armed forces was torn apart. No need to go into detail, but after this hitch he returned home and left the regular Army for a number of years.

Working as everything from Coca Cola route salesman to factory to truck driving, the young man turned into the not so young man. Always providing for his family but never anything for his own soul, he appeared to his family as a distracted, depressed, and unusually high tempered boss man. He tried to show softness that simply wasn’t there, or was so choked up it couldn’t come forward.

Everything therefore was an act, and as such was much more dramatic that it should have been. This kept everyone on pins and needles. Friends, family, coworkers etc never knew what was going to happen.

Then, the man got a break. A company in Alabama noticed he had a unusual talent in understanding Department of Transportation regulations and hired him as safety officer. The man threw himself into his work and soon was promoted 3 time finally to General Manager of the companies trucking division.

As in all business there are always politics. The man was by no means an alumni of the “TIDE” so the man walked on eggshells his entire career there. His one and only ally was an All American for Bear Bryant back in the late 60’s with Joe Namath and Ken Stabler. He was a VP but was also hunted by those much less in character than he.

After several years of playing this miserable game, the Man’s ally left him all alone. It happened in Helena Arkansas at the companies’ duck camp. The great legend was killed in a hunting accident. One by one the man’s friends and associates turned their back on him as the biggest fake and brown nose took everything the man and his ally had accomplished and trashed it.

Shortly after this the man became very interested in going to fight in the wars on terrorism. He was in his early 40’s now. His son had just enlisted and been sent to Iraq and was having a tough time there. The man thought, why not? He reenlisted in November and instead of going into a unit deploying to either Iraq or Afghanistan he was sent to Korea.

Having forgotten all the bad parts of active military life, the man thought only of an honorable death on the battlefield. Still having no faith or love, no beauty no plan. No direction except as the wind blows.

CHAPTER 5

THIS IS ME TODAY

Those 10 years went by so fast. The old Soldier got his war record. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan with a measure of distinction. He also came out of it even more disillusioned and sad as ever.

Diagnosed at the end of his service with Anxiety disorder, depression and PTSD. Children who never speak to him and a failed marriage. There is a little light however in the form of a very conservative Korean woman. She has stuck by him for almost 2 years, yet her patience is growing thin also.

Now just an older man, no other identity, he works hard every day to try and bring something beautiful into his life and therefore into the woman’s. He is failing for once again there seems to be all drama of an over dramatic and lousy actor. She feels she is building a life on sand.

She insists he take better care of himself and continue his education. More importantly that he sees the beauty in music and art. He is trying but he has no real direction. He becomes exhausted easy. He wants to see and experience something of worth, but all he has is a longing that cannot be filled.

He has no real talent, he can’t paint his world, he can’t sing his laments, he can’t put his demons in verse. In reality he can’t even talk about himself in the first person.

He sits among people and is totally alone. He has found one person he can identify with. A 18^th century painter by the name of Hogarth. He wishes he could have known him. Maybe Hogarth could paint the story of his life. Maybe then he could understand where he went wrong, much as you can see the story of Hogarth’s Rake or Harlot.

I am going to submit this poorly written manuscript in hopes that it could be published if only for the amusement of the winners of the world. Perhaps someone could see through all of this and say something useful.

Alone in spirit, tossed by waves of humanity and blown into all directions. This weakness has been a misery.

Robert R Evans

3 July 2016