"Dancing with the devil by the pale moonlight".

Bio

"Dancing with the devil by the pale moonlight"

Three or four years into my sobriety, things couldn't look any brighter. It was a new day and age for me, new place, new imáge, new everything. I was enjoying the fruits of my labor. What i didn't imagine is that with success came great adversity. I dont think you know me. My name is J. Román Vega. I like to wear fidoras, french cuffs, and three piece suits. I'm the kind of guy that always makes the team. I attract alot of attention just minding my business, and I'm a hopeless romántic.
My story begins in New York City, where i relocated to, as a Puerto Rican born grade schooler. It was the age of my renaissance. That once misled young man from the other side of the tracks, finally developed into the beautiful swan. After battling with drug addiction, i finally managed to be a few years clean and sober, and i became the guy who people probably never imagined i'd become. I'd just turned thirties and my grandmother's conditioned worsened, her aide couldn't take her for a walk anymore. So since the rest of my family didn't take the initiative, i, dressed in a black suit and derby at the time, would carry her and her wheelchair from the third floor to get some air at the park. It was moments like this when I would be the one setting the example throughout New York City, never thinking for a moment that society had their own opinion.

Page 2
As a boy, I watched TV and was fascinated by science, and anything that seemed popular. At an early age I could be quoted telling people that I wanted to become a scientist, and I'd use the most intellectual talk I can muster (the kind of talk that makes me popular with troublemakers). It's no wonder I grew up to constantly be concerned with politics, always trying to solve the worlds problems with my philosophies. New York was a really active place, before my age reached the double digits I started playing sports. Around that time I can recall my first time being bullied. One of the first moments life was getting me used to experiencing a nightmare. It was terrible, the guy was twice my size and very agressive. I don't remember how, but that situation came to pass. In the big city what my inexperienced mind didn't realize is that alot of people where bad examples. It's almost like what I was learning in elementary and middle school, went in one ear and out the other when I was having the time of my life with my freinds. My parents never really taught me about the birds and the bees, but they scolded and spanked me whenever I misbehaved. The political scene on the other hand, didn't help a bit. Crime was really high (like second nature), and the sounds of HipHop music blinded my inexperience by romanticizing a criminal lifestyle, leaving me to be distracted from the reality of paying consequences. I was growing up in the Reagan administration. The "Just say no" campaign was a great strategy. I was tested a couple of times by guys in the neighborhood. "Here kid, hit it", an acquaintance would say but I would say no. Then one day me and a couple of close aquaintances had the chance to huddle and they wouldn't take no for an answer. They persuaded and reasoned until I sympathized, leading me to try marijuana for the first time. At those times marijuana was illegal, and it was just as corrupt as any other controlled substance, potentially making you sympathetic to other substances, despite an incrowd appeal that swares to never use anything except marijuana. That was my first fall from grace. My inexperienced conformity to fit in somewhere continued with "doing what they do in rome" sort of speak, when I began being mischievous.
I had just turned fifteen, and it was the fourth of July. That's when an acquaintance told me "Gotti paid for this block party". That was the first time anyone I knew made a direct connection with me and someone famous by mentioning they have something to do with who, what, where, when, and why I live, and years later I would realize that, that was a warning.

Page 3
New York City was a vicious cycle. By Seventeen years old i realized that i wanted to be someone. I had dropped out of school and took the G.E.D. examination. Then i began working and started attending vocational classes. By eighteen i felt like if i didn't get out of the street life fast i was going to lose my mind, and not to mention my life. Luckily I fell for every line, hook , and sinker at a college recruitment in vocational school i was attending, which caused me to take a tour of the place and realized it's what i wanted to do. So i enrolled, and before i was nineteen, i was a first year college student in a school out of state.
The change of scenery was a much needed retreat from stressful pressures of the high crime inner City, and i have reason to believe that people saw a change in me after completing my degree. My years away allowed me to involuntarily prove that i was a huge carebear, who sees and knows no corruption, as compared to the menace to society i might of seemed like from being spoiled by rotten apples. My life continued, and i was yet to struggle with a few more years of drug addiction upon my return to the city where my deviant behaviors would resurface with the people, places, and things that once again influenced me before i began to become sick and tired of being sick and tired, and began learning recovery.

To be continued.......

Reviews

[emmajoy]

The above is completely out of my zone of thinking, but have learned that the floral can become much of muchness, one needs to look at the weeds.. and that isn't meant as a pun. You write very fluently, and whilst there's no dialogue to break up the details/descriptions, the long expanse of prose makes a very fine read. Your comment about turning into a swan is certainly right.. and if so, shows great courage and determination. A case of one giant step and .. and things are different than ever before.