That Which Lies Behind the Sun

A mentally deranged single mother who physically tortures her children. A no look stepfather. Their love and need for each other and his education from her love and care take him to the FBI.

That Which Lies Behind the Sun

By, John Sheridan

Forward

A man’s life is lived not far removed from that which gave him his exit from behind the sun.  Into the light he emerges.  From this, his atomic fleck of dust which covers some seven to nine decades, the creation that is he, all that will ever be, all that can possibly be, fight one another as the darkness from whence he came battles the light in which he exists.  Love, family, faith, loss, joy, and anger occupy the space within the atmosphere of his days and nights.  

Sounds of the earth silent to only himself roll within him without stop, as he is reduced to what must be faced, as all are faced.  Neither defined as good or bad, worthy or useless, but of a call (heard or not) to that with which he has left.  What remains?  The life of man ultimately provides one small chance to return to that same mystical plane above, but still placed behind the sun, the unknown.  In the infinite there rests in peace, all hidden from the universe, that which he has ever done. Herein is where the power of light and the energy of darkness cease their battle, call for truce and rest, for he has come home.

I am a man of misplaced anger.  I can singularly cry at the beauty of a perfected baseball swing and stand feet trapped by solid earth while spying on my children playing alone with imaginations racing as a tuned engine.  I can raise cain with those I feel have crossed me (real or perceived, much more often the latter) and before an eye can wink, ease the pain of almost any person who seeks (usually under a tender guise) counsel, friendship and insight and maybe even at times provide the answer they always knew they simply needed be heard aloud. However, for half a century since I left my space behind the sun, birthed from the universe into this world, I have lived a life fueled, punched, mandated, crafted, rotated, stored, digested, ingested, candle burning and fire crackling and time extending anger.  My identity was created by it and my life to this point can be labeled as an old can resting on a shelf deep in an old man’s pantry “ herein lies anger, use with caution.”

In telling this story, as my own light and love of my life so directly shot at close range, “You still have a percentage that may be needed or even have to be experienced.”  With the insight so quickly defined as a wife, friend and woman can only posses, herein lies a story.  In so telling, all events, places, and self identity are real.  I do not have the luxury of a full family tree from which to draw, but feel that which is known shall stand on its own.

Chapter 1

I entered this earth on July 31, 1967 and was given the name John Michael Moritz by the two people who created me from that special area unknown to man, my mother Clorinda Moritz and biological father John Moritz, Jr. I was born in Frankford Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and spent some weeks in the hospital’s early version of “babies at risk” as I needed a full blood transfusion at birth.  My father did not visit myself or mother as there were any number of local taprooms which called to him surely louder than his new son.

Being born in the city of Philadelphia I suppose is not much different than New York, Baltimore, Boston, Seattle or any other location in the United States.  I came out, got sick, got better and was taken home.  Perhaps if there is a difference, (though countless thousands at the same time returned to similar structures of “home”.) the place my parents (and where I call my home birthplace and primary years), was the Liddonfield Housing Project in a section of Philadelphia called Holmesburg within a larger area that is known to Philadelphians as “The Great Northeast.”  Like Mainer’s call Portland “Down East”, but they don’t paint pictures of landscapes of the Great Northeast, Holmesburg and certainly not Liddonfield housing project.  The structure was originally built as an army barrack in the 1940’s .  By President Johnson’s New Deal/ War on Poverty, they were converted into subsidized housing for the poor people of Philadelphia, of which we were and would continue as severely poor people for a number of years.  The buildings were three floors and were connected at right angles with a space in between the elbow like shape, only to cross into another similar building.  A gold, mustard, faded paint was first applied, but was later covered into what I refer to as “Housing Project Green.”  Our door was green either side of the front door was green, the whole damn structure was just plain ugly green.  

I was brought home to the green to meet my three year old sister, Regina Monica Moritz.  Just past the front door was a small table for cigarette ashtrays and nothing else.  Upon entering there was a place to wipe your feet and see the aforementioned table and living room.  The living room walls were plaster with a rubbed out brown couch pushed along one wall, a sitting chair (also green) which rested alone next to a television on the opposite wall.  The television was of typical size for the time, too heavy to move to any other place than that which was closest to just put down whenever the heft of it cried out for it to be so.  An entry to the kitchen was on the right of the couch.  I have very little memory of the kitchen table, but know we had one.  The cabinets were housing project tin, off white and never fully closed without an extra bump.  On the side of the living room where the TV rested was another entry leading to a bedroom where my parents stayed and single bathroom attached to the bedroom.  Within their bedroom was a second point of crossing wherein I was placed in a crib, while my sister had less a twin bed than a fluffy cot with aluminum posts as legs.  This was the home the celebratory parents brought their recovered sick infant into the turbulence which was the late urban 1960’s and all the wonders of a major city, with its buses, elevated trains,  (The “L”), mom and pop businesses nearby, a Nabisco and Sears factory not far from the area and a promise that living as four poor people in a single unit project had to offer.  In fact, the promise was so blindly bright, my father quickly decided to pack his bags and leave his infant son, three year old daughter and twenty three year old wife with but .64 cents to her name.  I never saw him again.  Through curiosity I learned he died in Tomball, Texas at the age of 73.

Of course as an infant I have no memory of any of this, only the accounts of both my older sister as I grew to be four years old and memories began and my mother, while even now during the writing some come back like a two by four to the a*s.  The memory of how this little project unit aesthetically appeared was far less important than what occurred within the dwelling.

My earliest recollection, my first memory at either late three years old or perhaps four, was not of playing, but of being repeatedly hit open hand upon my upper right forehead and ear against the same wall where that ugly brown couch sat.  The length or reason for this beating by my mother is not known, but I do recall my sister yelling, “Mommy, please just stop it.”  This was a refrain which would be exalted too many times to count, but both sister and (eventually me) did direct this plea on countless occasions to my mother as she was either beating me or my sister.  These were not spankings or paddles, this was plain torture to the defenseless.  A ruthful purpose that had no beginning of reason to a child.  Day after day, night after night, the coming presented itself, left its internal stain of forever and exited as two children, the eldest my supple and soft caregiver, holding me and myself her, locked to one another until no more tears were tapped and the life of living peaked beyond the walls of our small world, to finally lift us from the place of infliction, our embrace lifted and back to our existence we wandered.  Confused, hurt, emotions to worn to be felt and ultimately buried under the deep earth for their mentally wicked misplaced surfaced time in the future and with wounds tended to with stained warm wash cloths or more often than not, just left to heal in the molted air.  The atmosphere of this s**t home with its s**t mother in this s**t neighborhood surrounded by all that should have, but didn’t care.  On we lived, existed as the play toys of a mentally deranged mother, who to this day sits in a nursing home, physically broken, but with a mind that houses a darkness and eternal fugue no normalcy can touch as she is called to as the willing patron of an evil Messiah.

Did I have friends, play or even leave the unit, yes.  I played on the sidewalk just outside our door with a little Asian and Black boy who lived in the next building.  One of the boys was named Benny (the Asian boy), but I don’t recall the other child’s name.  Just beyond the sidewalk of each unit was an open area of grass where mothers would meet, some would bring out their small grills, older black men would put out nylon weaved chairs, as the sun usually kept the (again) green area relatively tolerable in the heat.  I can still see two of the men, proper hats, short blue and yellow shirts with one chest pockets with little notebooks inside, worn but presentable pants sitting side by side, one with a newspaper (the morning edition of the Inquirer or Bulletin (back then we had multiple daily newspapers with morning and evening editions) and the other man shaking his head emphatically no (apparently whatever horse was running just up the street at Philadelphia Park was not a good exacta play).  I don’t remember having toys, but for a baseball (no mitt), a ball to kick and a plastic truck.  Between these three items and whatever Benny and the other boys owned, we did play, tumble, laugh, and always at the watch of my sister, Always Regina, with many times all of us led by my sister to jump rope and play hop scotch and even one uppity brother and sister who owned both hot wheel cars and jacks.  Us really poor kids could not play with the cars, but the jacks were allowed, as directed by my sister.  She knew the rules.

This was where it started.  A white kid, white sister, young mother, black and asian kids all living in a converted army barrack and we had no idea whatsoever that there was black or asian or white.  What we DID know was that we were all poor and there were very few dads around coming home from work.

Breakfast was usually cereal with milk and water as a drink.  I wore clothes given to my mother from some of the neighbor mothers and relatives of my abandoned father as did my sister.  My father’s sister’s were good people.  They knew their brother was to spend his life dwelling on a stool, far removed from the outside air while spending his little earned money on Schaeffer (a now defunct local brew) and Canadian Club.  Based on the handouts and hand me downs, we were never the kids looking like coal mining children, but “new” was not part of our wardrobe.  After breakfast, my sister would clear the table and sometimes I could hear my mother cry as she lay on the bed staring at the ceiling.  Another refrain “I wish you were never born.  I should have aborted you or hit you harder enough against the crib.” was often uttered in between these cries as I entered the bedroom and asked if she was ok?  Regina, always Regina, would wander in and lead me out.  

After breakfast me and my sister stayed in our room for quite a while and I would just listen to her talk.  We didn’t play dolls (didn’t have ‘em) or any toys, just sat and talked.  She talked about her friends and school (we both went to a local elementary school during the school year), but I have little memory of school other than our “GET SET” lunch program which was another Johnson War on Poverty version of the “Head Start” program.  Lunch consisted of a bologna or cheese sandwich, lilted celery sticks and the famous mini carton of milk, which always ripped and was more sipped at an angle then drank as the funnel its design intended. School wasn’t school for me, as I was in a pre school level, but at recess my sister always came to invite me to play with her older friends and made sure I listened to the whistle when blown, as our recess monitor Esther did not play when our time was over.  We were in line, quiet and in our seats as if we had stepped out of basic training at Quantico.  All in all school and ALL time with my sister was an escape from the beatings.

I didn’t dread going home, as I knew what was to come and I also knew my sister would do whatever she could to either ease its induction or lessen its length.  Like I said I didn’t fear the entry, but one thing i did dream of with my legs kicking into the night (still happens)  was when during a good kicking while fetal, with Regina wrapping her little arms around my mother’s waist was seeing mom foam at the mouth.  Not spittle.  Pure foam that would bubble from her throat, store in her cheeks and let loose with a right kick to the shins (shins hurt like a b***h).  Interestingly enough as I grew to adulthood and injury found me it would almost always include my shins arms and hands. Unfortunately, internal scars also would creep out as I aged, most physically debilitating a back now with three disc fusions, two more unattended to discs herniated and and what I’ve been told is an S1 joint of little use.  Such injuries are to be lived with as best my spirit and physical motivation will allow. All the same, the shin kicking hurt, but it was having this viscous white mess of stringy foam, emerging from her ugly mind and spirit strike my cheek as I huddled, or an exposed part of my neck receive a stream of the liquid that sickened me.  

Allow me to quickly be clear.  We were GOOD kids.  We cleaned our room, brushed our teeth, carried the laundry from the mat down the corner, put the clothes away, used a broom to clear the entry way and wiped down the furniture and kitchen table (I really just kind of followed, but did my share as Regina taught).  Did the neighbors know, of course.  Back then you kept quiet because YOUR unit was always ready for another on a list of those waiting.  If a neighbor left, it was to another project or someone died and a small home was left in which to move.  So ultimately we were two kids who were left at the mercy of a mother who seemingly either enjoyed beating her kids or could not help herself from doing so.  This leads us to work, we weren’t free loaders for goodness sake!

Chapter 2

Yes, my mother worked and it was actually where I learned how the area outside my project lived and I enjoyed the experience when we were taken by her to go to her work.  Like a day we all have now “bring your child to work day.”  The exception in 1971 was she was a waitress at a Woolworths section of eatery and me and my sister were not to sit in booths and sitting on a crimson stool that (of all things did not spin as all should for four and seven year old girls and boys.)  So we went outside (there was a nice awning if it was raining) and were asked to sit a bit down from the main doors of the store and watched Philadelphia live.  People buying the paper at a drugstore a few doors down, women dressed in simple dresses, stockings, wrapped in print head scarves, cat’s eye glasses, men in the same short sleeved shirts, pleated (they were always brown) pants, cigarette in mouth, but still talking as they walked.  The buses constantly letting passengers on and off, wondering where they were from or where they were going. We traveled to my mother’s work by walking through the patch of green outside our door, crossing a large park area (funny, we never played there) and walking the steps to the train platform.  I didn’t have the same wonder of the coming and going of these passengers, I just sat and listened to the crackling the machine made as it passed a city block.  I knew it was time to get up when Regina grabbed my hand.  We walked down the platform and took in this giant place of, well everything.  Tall buildings (back then not much more than eight stories), brave pigeons at the water intake picking good eats, even men who wore suits and ties who almost always said hello as we sat and leaned against this building with NO parent to be found.  We sat and the neighborhood breathed in and exhaled with a too young to be tired sigh.  Having lived in Philly, Baltimore, San Bernarndino and visited almost every modest to large urban named place throughout the United States as a twenty three year old traveler and later as an FBI agent, it occurs to me that all cities breath the same.  Like all of us, morning brings promise, while night can make one submit.

I remember one day Regina pulled out a superball and we bounced it just to see if we could make it go higher than the Woolworths awning, we could with ease.  Of course (remember I had no mitt) catching was a work in progress and I missed it and it bounded into the street.  I wanted so, so much to get it, but there she was, Regina, always Regina, telling me to let it go, it was too dangerous and probably long gone.

We only went with my mother to her work when school was out, otherwise we stayed home alone.  This turned out to be a blessing and a curse.  We owned bread and peanut butter and could eat and watch the soaps on WCAU or try to give Popeye a try on channel 48 through fuzz and lines (and we did).  We sat on that s**t sofa, me sometimes just napping next to her and feeling like I was wrapped in a warm hole somewhat deeper in the cushions, the world I was tunneled into me safe and above me somewhat safe as I could periodically periscope an eye and see the world without being seen (another refrain to occur to this day).  However, right around the news came on the TV, the curse would show and I knew it was coming when Regina checked the kitchen, the bathroom and led me to our beds and partially closed the door as mom entered.  At this point Regina had an 80% chance of a beating and if for reasons never to be known it did not happen to her, my chances were far better than any horse running at Pennsy Park. It’s worth repeating I held not dread, but we would lose dinner and have to make a third peanut butter sandwich quietly or if the learned atmospherics told us it could come again later we would simply go without.  However, if mom would have worn herself out, made some soup, taken it into her room, smoked and turned the TV up loud enough to hear her shows we could then manage sandwiches or peanut butter on saltines.

Always Regina;  she would get me dressed for bed, put me under the covers of our now pulled together twin/cots and always face me, say goodnight, and speak she loved me, “Johnny” (I’m still referred this way by some relatives ,though they are leaving earth quickly).  Regina always had the light out when mom went into eat her campbell soup and smoke her Newports, as the television light was just enough to give us  a nightlight for sleeping for what may come again at 3 am as two kids who woke as the partners they had to be, but more importantly, just were.

Always Regina.  My guardian, my angel, my taller, slender, skin of tanned sun, hair of shoulder length and light curl; brown eyes, an always opened mouth wide smile and a laugh so natural it turned heads, my sister, mentor, teacher of music, dance, books, love, hope and my best friend.

We owned a dog, a Shephard mix named Sandy which kept to herself and Regina.  I know she ate our crusts from sandwiches and liked to place her two paws against the TV when certain high piano songs were being played.  I wasn’t close to Sandy, but  l cared that she was happy, but more had her interest at heart as she was Regina’s dog.  When Regina rolled over at night, Sandy would be resting along her cot waiting for rubbing until she drifted off to sleep.

One fall morning in 1971, me and my sister awoke expecting to hear Sandy drinking from her dish, as she did every morning  (Regina took command of the generic Alpo, yes there was such a thing as wet dog food with a white label and a dog in silouette) and she would also fill her water dish (both were found near the dumpster in the rear of the complex and as such, to the motivated go the spoils.  However, on this day Sandy could not be found.  We looked from inside the unit to both ends of the project, but there was no Sandy.  With an intuition only a beaten and tortured child could possess, Regina asked, “What did you do to Sandy?”  The animal she was arched her back, bent low and grabbed Regina by the hair while closed fisted landed blows to to top of her head and face.  With her curls wrapped like a fighters tape into my mother’s hands she was dragged to the bathroom floor and the real torture began. To explain, back in 1971 broom dustpans were made of tin and aluminum metals and could be recoiled with hands and forearms and would leave little marking.  However, if a hand or finger were bent slightly during the defense, the injury would become internal to muscle, tendon, ligament and therein rested the pain without the evidence.  The other item was the very real possibility of the the broom handle and with a purposeful reach, mom grabbed hold and the whooshing of the one inch diameter bored pine reigned down on Regina. As I cried out for her to stop, Regina made not one sound.  And may have had a weak smile as the broomstick made its way from her thighs to her hips, ribs and collarbone.  It was then Regina, alway Regina, who silently gave her little brother a lesson and “watch this” lecture.  She did this as she always knew she was getting out one way or another, good or bad (bad won out).  This beating was her professor to teaching assistant example, to learn as I would later be alone with mom. As Regina was  being beaten by her mother with a broomstick she passed to me the “necessity.”  Leaving her light of knowledge and martyrdom of understanding. She knew what my mom did to Sandy and now she had her anger and her fuel and like a triangle is to the Pyramids of Egypt, a plan..  Now she could drop the clutch, spin her own tires, let the back end spin for a moment and give her ever growing engine all the rods and pistons could take.  She no longer needed to wonder why, she just needed to fill with white anger.  I witnessed this that early evening in our last season in Liddonfield.  Always Regina, I knew what she had done for me.  She gave me my first Garmin to both learn and channel anger.

Chapter 3

Mine would come within one year’s time when we left Liddonfield on the back of a stranger who was dating my mother, who was sexy as hell back then, who found a small cottage home just off Brownsville Road in an area just outside Philadelphia called Bensalem or what others know as the better part of Croyden. His name was Thomas Sheridan and he was a man in his early 30’s who quite simply was banging my mother and didn’t like driving into Liddonfield to do it. In fact, upon reaching the entrance to pick up my mother for their first date, one of Philly’s boys in blue pulled along side my dad in his is ‘64 Pontiac Bonneville and said, “You might not want to go in there, ain’t safe.”  The truth of the matter poor doesn’t equal crime and violence.  A mentally ill woman with two kids was the scariest part of the place in which he guided his Pontiac.

My “Dad” as I called him later (and still do) worked on a loading dock at the Sears and Roebuck building on Roosevelt Boulevard, illegally drove a cherry picker forklift and was also a somewhat angry young man as he had given up too early on a talented baseball career, a missed chance which was morphed into genius by relatives over time and by his own old man’s sense of “what should have been.”  He was good, but not that good.  The times I actually watched him pitch were something to a young kid.  A right armed, side armed, didn’t take s**t from a cocky batter and a curve ball that made right handed batters look like they were bailing on a phantom ball that would cross into the zone as it ripped roared passed their rib cage.  Later I would see Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson all pitch from front row seats.  My dad could pitch, but he was never making it to the big leagues.

Having been signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers out of Lincoln High School, my dad was as fast as a branded horse, could shoot a basketball  like Jerry West, hit any pitch thrown at any speed and look like it was as easy as getting a malted at the local five and dime.  However, like so many boys back in this part of Philly, he just so happened to be a good athlete.  Nothing more and nothing less (as I would later be).

As time passed he became the saint who moved this left for “dead single mother and her two kids alone with sixty four cents out of Liddonfield.” Later aunts and uncles, cousins, but NEVER his mother, my grandmother would turn him into a saint for getting us out.  What horseshit.  Not a chance!  He was banging her, didn’t like driving into the projects to do so, so he moved her down the street from his mother’s home where he bought a small white summer cottage (what I called the “Little house”).  Summer cottages were used in the summer to use as places to fish, work on your muscle car or just plain get laid near the Neshaminy Creek.  To be fair to me and Regina, he was a man and a man gave us a silent chance to possibly, against what we saw day to day as normal, not get the s**t kicked out of us.  So how did a young 30 year old guy who gave up on playing pro ball too early, worked as a teamster on a Sears loading dock have a cottage in Croyden?  He was half a crook!

He dabbled into boosting items from the Sears dock from time to time.  Again, this was a different time and place.  He did this out of earshot, but not knowledge of, management, providing the ITSP (FBI speak for the Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property)  goods onto a separate truck either he or another Teamster (guys like Jimmy B, Ray M and one half of the Torrance brothers) would drive, drop the items onto smaller guys to sell out of their basements, sheds or cars then take back his slice.  He worked hard and was not a pure criminal, just a guy who had a s**t job which allowed a small amount of extra dough from time to time slip into his front pockets with little oversight.  After a sale from the dock he used his profit to loan shark throughout not only Sears, Torresdale, but most blacks east of Torresdale and Frankford Avenues.  Not exactly unusual for the time and always good for me and my sister, as not only did he provide the two of us the full length Sears Christmas catalog, but we could also get our first new clothes since our birth.  I later learned he gave his nieces and nephews slightly higher end boosted bootie.  But then again myself and Regina weren’t Sheridan’s  and we had darker skin (as my mother carried a very hispanic heritage look, her mother hailed from Mexico) than the Sheridan’s.  

It was during this time and our move into what I always called “the little house”, that moment after Regina took her beating after questioning the location of her dog, I began the necessity required to make this circus run and learn how to fit in as the hispanic/white kid from the projects who had a mom with big tits and who had stolen “Saint Tommy” from his family.  Fitting in meant simply growing up as the beating she used as “life 101” showed what was absolutely required to be placed inside me in order to simply live.  With this new man, new small cottage there was no sense of value and betterment to her birted soul.  In fact  her anger grew as now all was to be behind “Saint Tom’s” eyes, though he knew and as time ticked by, the beatings continued.  Saint Tom got laid, went home to his mom to have his dinner and ultimately didn’t give a s**t about me or my sister.  Regina, always Regina, continued to show me as she grew older how to use the internal centrifuge and spin it past all safety levels and produce the anger necessary for daily life, but this tutelage was equally as important to get past the disappointment of this shittly little cottage and it’s s****y saint that came by from time to time.     

Chapter 4  

Think of this with me for a moment.  The current 2017 calendar reads April 1.  Within ninety days here in central Maryland (where I have called home for 20 years and, in fact, is home) the daytime temperatures will hover somewhere from 85 to 88 degrees, with an occasional 92 for good measure.  As we live smack dab in the middle of the Chesapeake estuary and our home rests surrounded on three sides of thick mature woodland, naturally occurring leaf mulch, felled trees rotting and home to deer, turtles, snakes, squirrel, songbirds, raccoon, fox and groundhogs, all while the main living quarters of the two story home faces south; let’s just say our   land and its home get b***h hot from the aforementioned created humidity.  The slope of the residence and land rests in a bowl of this soup, though beautiful, hovers on a post modern cooling system of two central air conditioning units forced to work John Henry like for a solid five to six months a year.  All of this combined by the fact my wife likes to keep the home cool and the ying and yang of forcing a border between the reality of our location of residence versus the advantages of modern engineering. My family live here comfortable from the heat.  

In 1973 while firmly established in the little home, we had a front covered patio, entry to the front which (again) immediately opened into a shag carpeted area with a still ugly couch (this time two cushioned crush felt green).  To the far right of the couch rested an end table with a gold glass light and necessary ashtrays and in the far left corner, the same sitting chair from our time in our project unit.  Directly across the green and brown shag space was an improved size (smaller), but still far from catching only local NBC and ABC networks, but did allow for the viewing of the VHF channel 17 network where many a lazy summer day I watched the Phillies struggle against the Mets or Pirates (74 and 75 the boys of Bowa, Dave Cash, Willie Montanez, Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski, Garry Maddox and pitchers Steve Carlton and Larry Christensen) would turn things around and begin the process of becoming not only respectful, but eventually win 100 games and get to the playoffs), but even as the losing team they were, it was during this time my love of baseball, it’s look of ease made by professionals, the choreographed like motion of Bowa turning a double play.  Learning why a bunt sacrifice mattered, a lefty brought in to face a lefty, the lack of ending, this was a hard game with a hard ball, sometimes eating up Cash and he still made the throw.  A hard game, played by amazingly distant people,  but with faces to be seen on my screen and stolen corner store Topps cards  A game softly covered with how perfectly balanced it all was to a very unbalanced and hurt little boy.  To this day, as my useless back allows I help coach my son and daughter as they play rec ball and am silently crying inside as they learn its difficulty and its beauty.  One will even come down to our family room, anchored HD Smart TV (project be fucked)  as I watch the Orioles each night, scorecard on lap and my kids will (unsolicited) comment on some of their best plays, my son’s favorite a runner tagged out at home from a perfect relay, while my daughter replays with our remote control a right fielder launching a seed from deep in the corner of Camden Yards to an unsuspecting runner, the ball perfectly bouncing from the cutout into Machado’s glove as he slaps down a tag on the tips of the disgraced runner.  If it’s the communist like mistake of stretching a double into the first out of an inning, their dad is yakking at them how such a thing should never happen.  

I sat in front of that TV and consumed my love for baseball.  In doing so, I can say it has helped me to this day understand there are crafts which are not of mine, but it’s in the knowing such a craft exists, has reached its lofty and out of reach level and is not you, but the work of one single person wherein lies its personal love.

Continuing on from the living room, this section of cottage length space faced north and had a side yard with a well placed giant oak tree with a rock wall surrounding its base and a separate grove of smaller maple trees with azalea bushes which created a nice area to hide as few would dare to look inside its menacing depth.  Along the south side of the small yard was a cinder block retaining wall ranging in height from waist level at the street to a height of six or seven feet two thirds down the length of the small yard.  This wall had the advantage of creating its own shadow, which when added to the oak and middle grove, gave a pleasant shade during even during the hottest days of summer.  For sure, it got hot, but we were at least afforded a chance as there was no air conditioner to be found on Avenue E’s little house.  The kitchen did not have a table, but rather a two seated aluminum green table with silver fake chrome border and foam green table top, with matching chairs.  There was a sink and rinsing area and pale yellow wash board for dish drying.  The cabinets remained tin and continued to be determined to hold steady unless one put some a*s into their final closing.  Just beyond the kitchen was the aluminum slatted screened door which actually had a functioning oiled piston sleeve preventing us kids from slamming it, which seemed to send relief throughout the home, as saint Tom despised slamming of any kind.  If one entered the kitchen from the rear, three steps would cover its length, approach the end table and look to the right to see the TV (now on a stand, scratched and chipped on each leg) and immediately to its right the stairs.  These stairs lead to me and Regina’s, always Regina, bedroom.

This all leads us back to our room and the variance of our current home, nestled in the heat bowl of what is known as a “flag lot” and the little house with its natural position of North, trees and retaining wall.  This comparison is covered for one reason.  I sleep with my wife within a home battling the mentioned modern AC with a naturally warm bedroom that cools perfectly by 6 pm, while the bedroom me and my sister shared in the little house,  was its Attic.  The attic/room was pitched as a roof on each side leaving a small space to rest two single beds a shared dresser between each bed and western installed corral doors (installed by a soon to be cousin’s father, a good man who was a twin to Tom Jones in appearance and dress) to separate her side against mine.  We lived in an attic with a real attic outtake window which was used to ease any unable to live heat during the day and somehow create a liveable temperature at night.  It did neither.  

During daytime we still played upstairs, she dressed me up and we played  with legos that were given by a relative or pinched by saint Tom and at night took a quick bath together in the bathroom just off my parents room located just off the front entrance closest to the front porch.  After our bathing, she lead me the steep climb upstairs of twelve to fourteen steps with white straight posts for protection and helped me dress for bed in shorts and tshirt pajamas, Always Regina.  As we had no window to look out, we took to our not too far in the past project days and talked.  The subjects changed to our teachers at our new school, me taking mighty extra beatings at school.   As the new out of place skinny kid I was locked in on and whether just past the swings or in our “cubbie” area bigger boys took their turn unloading on me, stuffing me in outside trash cans, rubbing pigeon s**t in my hair or simply ganging up after 3 pm to all pile on.  I wanted to fit in and I worked at taking the knocks and eventually my athletic skill and a good sense of humor won over a couple of guys and the end of the whipping would come to an end, and though they had kid strength, they had nothing on “her.”  My sister spoke of her own handling of being called a N****r, as she was dark skinned with a flatter nose.  She too got into fights, but she finished them, leaving screaming girls running home to lie to their mothers as to how the new girl whipped the tar out of them.  All this taking place, Regina always returned to a positive outlook that she was making a few friends from just around the corner on 2nd street and she would mention I was her little guy and the wolves we battled didn’t have anything on us.  It was here, with the western doors resting still, her bed already with my pillow lying next to hers above the off pink sheet, I always made sure I would be sleeping side by side with this soul of beauty, safety and love.  For a short while the talking would continue until the day’s events pulled out weariness.  I would listen and somehow feel better about what I was experiencing at school, with mom, life and the heat of this attic which was our room would become one with us.  Again hearing the TV downstairs we would settle into bed, she in a rose patterned cotton nightgown, would let me slide into place first before she nestled on top of her sheet then we lay side by side, face to face, giggle as she would mimic mom and her pre-beating look she made, saint Tom and his constant rumbling of coming home late from his mother’s home, located  just up and around the corner, tell me she loved me as she rubbed my sweaty back through my tshirt (I still sweat easily in the heat and sill like the feeling (to the questioning of my wife) and say, good night, Johnny.  I love you.  In an attic, upstairs from our beastmaker, I would drift off.  Equal nights she would later grab my hand or mine hers as the coming was about to yet again begin.

Chapter 5

For children, being beaten and tortured by their primary caregiver I can emphatically say with no clinical training leaves a mental capacity for normal maturation (which is to the later adult) lifelong.  Moreso, to this same child, the idea of anything “life long” is foreign and to myself and sister, lifelong was as far away as only the distance a bike ride through the streets would allow.  While, I don’t recall how I came to own a bike (a handed down big wheel from a neighbor was my first set of wheels and were used to escape to the streets immediately), I did own a Sears bike entirely too large for my ridiculously small size and weight.  I also have no knowledge of how I came to learn to ride the mode of transportation.  However, after the big wheel graduation, my a*s was on the banana seat and gone!  Once out the back door and riding to a number of newly made friends within a four square block area of the little house.  That little boy shot out of the shelter of hell like a .22 caliber fired bullet.  Fast, accurate and certainly more quiet, as my beast lay sleeping.

By now I was six or seven years old and the bike held equal parts excitement of the speed my small, but strong legs created. Clearing the house (as I would later do weapon out and move with the care of a military on patrol and take flight away from my world of madness.   

I would rise no later than 7 am, eat the same meal, corn flakes and a piece of untoasted white bread, dress, brush only my teeth, as I could have given a rat’s a*s about my mess of hair which was perpetually too long and cut crooked as a drunk’s smile by our mother, using kitchen scissors as I would sit at the small table.  Mirrors were not used and my appearance proved the amateur style outcome.  I didn’t care.  If it was a day without too much rain, I had my cut off Sears “Tough Skins”, one of three pair of yellow striped tube socks, worn with holes dime store sneakers, and always a laughingly large tshirt with generic sporting number.  Picking out clothes from our shared dresser was quite easy, as the pickings were slim.  I didn’t care.  With some food inside of me, my sister still sleeping, mother racked out, as this was when her “nerve pill” habit began to blow up into a life long addiction to prescription medication (which continues to this day), I would slip out the back door, scamper to the front porch, lurch the bike upright, hop on with one foot and weight to move the first yard or two, swing a leg in front of me and over to the waiting second pedal, push down with all I had and within a short distance was in full flight and away from whatever come to life nightmare had been inflicted the night before.  My a*s was gone and off to play.  My destination?  Any other home of a buddy who was running on the same circadian clock, gather and move on to the next until we had a gang of three to four ragged a*s looking children.  Playing.

The yard of the little house was actually a pretty nice area of use, but knowing she would awaken and screw the pooch for anyone simply making an attempt at fun, my yard was off limits unless one of her friends came to have coffee late morning.  Any visitor of adult age was a small reprieve, as the shadow would be tucked away and the figure would slip into the world of small talk, smoking in the kitchen or on the porch.  If such a person would arrive, it was like having a home safe base that all kids used to play via any rendition of play.  The call would come out “this is the safe base.”  We played city perversion of wiffle ball, kick ball or even the standby game of “tag.”  Her peers arrival equaled a reprieve, of which we took advantage.  Most days, me and the boys would play on Avenue E, which was a double parked uphill side street which allowed for games of rubber or half ball known as common back so many decades.  Other games of entered into included anything with a bat (no, it wasn’t mine and yes it consisted of screws and electrical tape to maintain a reasonable level of accetance).  Other games played included kick the can, hide and seek (my favorite) street hockey (I was always to borrow Jeff’s collection. This was  play and all was played hard.  Most days we started an activity before moving on to the other mentioned games.  To be blut, our first gathering was bike “jumping.”  We used our bikes like an extension to our bodies and when ot to “jumping) we made possible any form of kamikaze set ups to create a feat of daring with which would drop the jaw of those watching.  Such a gathering of play and “jumping” were almost always met with colossal failure, a wipe out, blood always drawn to be followed by the sounds of “that s**t was radical” and and the hearing of laughter like hell at the other’s physical damage to their body, but more importantly at their dumb a*s attempt in even committing to the feat in the first place.  Why flirt with a possible ER visit?  This was the era of daredevils, comic books and the cinder block a boy named Steven would take from his garage (his dad always had some piece of s**t Dodge or Pontiac he was working on.)  This kind of car engine work, cylinder boring, stolen carburetor installing noise making attempt to turn the whole mess into something that would turn over only to make a dying and coughing reach for respectable “muscle” like sound, needed cinder blocks.  Yes, having a second car on blocks resting over a weed infested driveway was E street.  With cinder block in place, a usually half rotted piece of plywood lifted from the Acme grocery store back field placed on said block and slick as the oil left on every driveway, we had a ramp.  If we had a ramp, we had a chance at immortality.  

Every day fair weather allowed, we would “jump.”  From the broken cold days of after school in April through summer, the stakes were always raised, wheelies were “popped” and distances cleared marked with a rock placed on the street as the length to beat.  If lucky enough to land a back wheel just past the placed rock, the bike would be turned hard to the left, body leaning like a Grand Prix Super Bike rider on the Nurringberg, pedals reverse stomped leaving (with practiced technique) a crescent skid mark of triumph.  Next fool up.  As time went by we would include a brick or two to increase our lift until either injury won out and the maniacs would of our collective group would know our own version of “The Right Stuff” was sufficiently now scared shitless.  On to the lunch call we would be beckoned.  If I was lucky I was invited in for a sandwich at Steve, Jeff or Bobby’s place and wouldn’t have to pedal home to face mom alone.  As by lunch, Regina would have dressed and left to visit the older girls she had as friends.  She was a bit of a tomboy and would swing by on her piece and laugh at our stupidity, only to pedal off to Linda or Karen’s place to swipe cigarettes and walk to the outer four block area of my landing spot and smoke or listen to 45’s on her friend’s record players.  

On the day would go.  Wiffle ball in Jeff’s back yard, as he had the perfectly distanced fence which made for a realistic homerun if cleared.  Street hockey, checking allowed (these were the days of the Flyers and the Broad Street Bullies), until I would see Regina again, walking from her areas of mystery to tell me it was time to go home.  Dinner.  The end of the day.  The beginning of our night.  The little house and its secret monster waiting for her own personal catch of the day.

After whatever slopped together casserole had been eaten, Saint Tom would come “home.”  At this point, all child fun stopped and to our attic we would return.  He wasn’t mean, just never happy.  I now know why, but to us he was a figure of something always out of reach and never to offer affection either to or from.  He was just there.  From exiting the car, into the house, he would strip off his polyester pants and work shirt.  Leaving a tshirt, underwear and sit as the meal was served to him alone on the bed they at times shared.  As dishes were cleaned, he would eat, read the Inquirer, drink his beer and night would fall upon us.  He stayed until just past our time to enter the attic for the night, slip on his pants and roll up to his real home, his mother’s.  Escaping any form of role model or creation of safety we hoped for.  If the two argued, we listened from the upper rafters, hearing the obvious slippage of crazy our mother would spit out toward him.  Making his exit validated and our next beating guaranteed.

After one particularly bad argument, wherein something was broken during a fuselage of cursing hurled toward him, things became different...  For herein was a man having items thrown at him, cursed at like a maniac street w***e, while HER children remained upstairs.  Having been fed, beer drank and waited on, only to come face to face with what we knew was a deep sickness of some kind, he couldn’t fire up the engine fast enough and return to the bachelor life of his mother’s home.

 

The fact is, he was a bachelor.  He never wanted to marry this lunatic or be some kind of bullshit stepfather.  He just wanted the “best of” edition.  He had no intention of committing to this broad or her funky looking kids.  He was in his early thirties, good looking, had some cash in his pocket as he lived a free life and had a group of guys (to include two older brothers) to drink, play in adult baseball or softball leagues, lay down a bet or two and get laid.  Why on this holy earth once seen, would he think it ok to marry, live a life of never ending insanity and have us in tow?  As I grew into my early teens and thereafter, his deepest words of advice to me were always, “Never get married.”  Yet, he did.

The evening of the broken item and the rip out of his parking spot escape, was to be one for the books.  As we lay side by side on Regina’s bed, sleeping, a screaming animal sound woke us as its volume was carried up the steps, with a stomping of a released big cat.  All speed, ear splitting roaring at us, “I’ll kill both of you m***********s” with a kitchen knife in hand.  In the faint light from the downstairs we could barely make out the knife, but once we did, we were paralyzed.  From God above, the paralysis was but a moment, as she began to swing it down toward our now parted embrace and land its blade into the mattress.  Like some kind of twisted game or dance of leaping and dodging cats we maneuvered our bodies away from each downward launch of the knife, hearing it rip the top sheet, removed and repeated.  Two children screaming like trapped animals.  We remained on Regina’s bed, as if somehow dropping to the floor would mean being caught by the open hand, held down and finished.  On we scurried from side to side, top to bottom.  Her lunges becoming weaker and her screams finally turning to tears, until the knife was placed at her side and she collapsed as if in prayer, her upper body pressed against the mattress, she on her knees.  Regina grabbing hold of me and moving the two of us to the opposite end of the bed as far away from the length of her limp body as we could.  Listening to her sob, “I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean it.  Come here.  I love you both so much.  I’m so sorry, please come here.”  With our own bodies in shock, our minds blinded by terror, our only way to somehow end this was to crawl side by side to the now extended arms (knife no longer held) that had just been used to attempt murder.  As she placed her arms around our barely reachable bodies she continued to weep, speaking, “If he finds out, he’ll leave.”  To us this meant the secret beatings were guaranteed, but at least this homicidal attempt was over.  

I could feel Regina shaking as she tried to cover me up and roll over to watch the steps for any movement.  Keeping the nightwatch for any upward sound or movement our mother may make as she returned to the ground floor.  “If he finds out, he’ll leave.”  After future beatings this was driven home as literal to our own sense of just having the slimmest of chances that he would find out, throw us in the car and drive us the f**k away from this b***h.  On this night, I would later learn all was started by her telling Saint Tom earlier in the evening she was pregnant.  Now he too was trapped.

Through this madness, cigarette smoking on Regina’s part notwithstanding, we were respectful, highly empathetic, if not forever emotionally smashed, well behaved kids.  The beatings were not born of missed chores or misbehaving.  We never tested that water.  I believe somehow, even with the later to be awakened broken chromosome which would take my sister to the other side and me to a still in progress mentally fragile adult life, we were given an extra heavy dose of decency from that place of mystery, behind the sun.  

As an example of this, the week of the knife attack, we were summoned to their bedroom and told to sit with the two of them, and ceremoniously told we were to have a younger sibling and they were now married.  As I put the timeline together, the attack occurred, was kept quiet as demanded, realized he had knocked her up at which time and haste took Saint Tom and our mother to the place of his own birth, the hills and valleys above Scranton and were married.  

Upon hearing this news, I summoned the silly courage to extend my young child’s hand to Saint Tom and said “Congratulations” with an over

the top up and down shake.  He did actually laugh.

Regina, always Regina, however sat silent.  While we were good kids, she now realized she was to be the life ring to be tossed from a deck to make or try making a save toward yet another child.  In that moment, she left the age of 10 and entered, ignition turned over, her teenage years.  Not out of want, but necessity.  It was on that bed, I began losing her, as no ten year old could be expected (as she would be) to stand between a woman of deepening madness, addiction and loss of reality and be the protector of two younger children, one to be an infant.  I began to lose her, as she knew her own time of strength of will was coming to an end.

Approximately seven months later, Saint Thomas, Jr. was born.  During the months leading to his birth, Saint Tom and my Uncle Carl (a good man, a good carpenter, but damaged from his time dodging death on a destroyer in the Pacific campaign of World War II, and who would be dead via a crapped out liver from alcohol within three years) began to build a split level home at the corner of the yard of the little house.  The large oak tree remained, the right angle azalea bushes which bordered the yard also stayed, but the rest was a work zone of hard men.  All contracted by Uncle Carl.  They worked like bulls from sun up to sundown and then all sat in the little house living room drinking like the sailors they were until the early hours of the morning.  During this time, Saint Tom slept in the little house almost every night, as he would get up early, perform his own version of “figure it out as you go along” carpentry, then leave for Sears, come home and continue building with the motley crue.  The nights he didn’t stay, even with a growing belly, belts (metal buckle end use) would be pulled from Saint Tom’s pants in the hamper and our hips, lower backs and upper thighs (all areas which could be covered when dressed) would be worn out, only to come to an end by the lack of strength my mother exhibited as a pregnant woman.  The foam would still come, the “If he finds out, he’ll leave” repeated and Regina, always Regina, herself losing will and strength, would either take the first blows or step in if mine were beginning to jump off the sliding scale of pain measurement.  Days of waking and wondering how to escape.

As the foundation of the house had been completed and the framing and rough wiring and plumbing completed, there remained a towering pile of soil taken from earth to create the lower floor of the construction.  It was at the top of this seemingly mound of mountain height dirt, that I would scale its side.  Its pitch steep enough I had to dig my skinny fingers deep within it subduction like weith.  Creating hand and foot holds I learned to ultimately reach its apex.  Once there, I sat on the cool soil and looked over the bushes, through the branches of the oak tree, through to a pine tree which rested just at the entrance of the little house entrance path, over the roof of our still shared bedroom and watch the guys play on Avenue E.  They were not allowed near the home being built and I was expected to always be around to help lift two by fours or sheets of plywood.  Always with a half drunk worker, being told to “use some goddam muscle” as my seemingly never to grow past four and a half feet, fifty pound body would ache as time simply stopped by the sheer effort.   

One day after a morning a*s kicking, by now mostly legs were used to kick me down the flight of stairs from our attic, even sometimes in only my underwear.  Only having to return to the top to get dressed to then be followed, dressed by now, by another kicking as I tumbled down the stairs, out the back door and wait to be called to help.  

However, this was a weekend and no men were working on this day.  I wandered to the building site, found a cement caked shovel and dragged it along with me to the top of my mountain.  Once on top, I began to dig.  Down into the dark soil I dug.  Jumping on the shovel with what weight I had time and time again, tossing each shovel full down the side of my mountain.  Finally, after what felt like hours, I had created my own cave atop what was now a volcano, opened at the top.  Though this self created geological find would not leak lava from its now exposed and bored into crater, but to be entered by me.  Deep and wide enough for me to clamber into.  One inside I could bend at the waist, turn sideways, lay down like a tired dog and see the walls of dirt surrounding me and the sky above me.  Curled and safe.  Escape.

Part II

Our family, joke it was moved into the new residence with little fanfare during a very special time in Philadelphia, the Bicentennial celebration, squared nationally on the birthplace of our Nation.  

The home was far removed from our project unit of our primary years, complete with enough bedrooms for myself, shared with Saint Tom, Jr which resulted in my ignored movement to sleep with Regina in her room.  Her room was complete with a pink canopy bed, a lite brite, barbies and a hand me down record player.  The room I had abandoned was truly set up for a baby, with a full crib, accompanying changing table with the requisite drawers for the too cute outfits, diapers (cloth) and the assorted salves and lotions Saint Tom demanded.  His son was going to be healthy and ultimately special.  This attention toward my younger brother would continue into his late teens.  A Great Santini he never had the heart for.  
My mountain was long gone, so as the quiet beatings continued I had to find places of escape on my own.  By now, Regina was lost in borrowed records, reading in her room and using all of her mettle to both separate while ticking and tacking at the creature she now knew her mother was.  She had grown in maturity, through no fault of her own, and with her wanderings to some of the kids who would only serve to spur on her efforts of aggravation of the beast, she began to crawl into herself, creating a plan I read, but sought to ignore.  My places of hiding included the laundry hamper, under my bed (always to the rear right against the wall for this was out of reach of mother’s broken nails while she swiped to grab hold of a loose pant leg, and my best place, diggin myself deep into the thick azalea bushes.  The cuts created while burrowing left me wondering if there may be another option.  The relief came when I realized I had leg and arm strength to climb a sixty foot pine tree I used to peer through atop my mountain.

The lower branches were thick and full of sap, but easy to navigate until I stealthily worked the thinner branches beyond the power lines and found a neaty placed area wherein three branches afforded an area I could slip into, knees to chest, back uncomfortable, but manageable and read a Hardy Boys book in one simple spring afternoon.  I enjoyed this hideaway much more than the dust mites of the bed floor and the damp smell of Saint Tom’s underwear and work shirts which were overpowering in the hamper.  Besides, I found my burrowed azalea secretion bent their structure and I came to love the outdoors and hated I was possibly causing each injury.

School as a 4th grader was completely uninteresting for within five months of Saint Tom, Jr’s birth my mother began to have mental breakdowns which required hospitalization.

At no point did I care or even wonder where she was or how long she would be gone.  My knowledge consisted of Saint Tom grumping to leave him alone (always happy to oblige) and the coming and goings of various Sheridan relatives to aid in my brother’s care.  This usually consisted of my Aunt Fran, much older (late 20’s) niece to Saint Tom and every now and then another Aunt (Kay).  Each would stay in my brother’s room taking time to mix similac,bathing with a music waterproof ball and get him to bed, all the while Saint Tom walked the home as this was all normal and expected.  During this time, Regina operated as the sinking of interest in looking after a growing boy who could by now wake and work his way through the day until bedtime with no supervision.  Though at bedtime, we would still crawl into the canopy bed together, sometimes after a lights out game of lite brite and fall asleep.  We had very little contact with our visiting relatives, but they were always kind.  All in all, if mother was gone, Saint Tom and Jr were cared for, school being an afterthought, we were a brother and sister operating on cruise control, which was its own version of escape.  Then she would return, medicated, with stroke like features (total bullshit) and our peace would come to a sudden and violent end.  

With my established hamper and tree, I had means to flee.  On the other hand, Regina was finished being the toy of stomping, punching, scratching and overall canvas hanging bag of prime meat.  While she could not go toe to toe with a grown woman, she found two ways to set the odds at three to one.  She would take a punch to the face and offer back a kick to mother’s shins, just enough to create space.  Other techniques included her increased use of cursing and spew forth what a crazy f*****g b***h she was and would end with either “I wish you would die or I wish I was dead.”  At this, she would take her last good odd and flee to another broken home, which was all too willing to accept her, as the parents of her sought after friend smoked weed or used the needle.

Once gone, I was alone and fleet footed found the hamper, it was always closer.  On one such occasion, within its darkness and foul odor I could hear the footfalls of the wolf circling each room with a beast smell of prey.  Suddenly the hamper door was flung upward, and though covered by the top clothes, I was dragged out by the under area of my skinny shoulders and thrown to the bathroom floor.  No broom handle in this room.  In fact, I was ready for a submissive a*s kicking, ribs stomped and torso slammed to the linoleum (again my back would suffer later).  While this sounds heinous, I kept my anger focussed (as taught) and lay waiting for the beginning and end.  However, mother had a better idea.  She was wearing white shorts and a tank top of blue.  A typical style of dress she employed daily.  The difference was she had recently smoked and fished out of her front shorts pocket a zippo lighter taken from Saint Tom’s night stand.  This b***h had no clue how to flip it open and use the proper amount of pressure to light the wick.  With each failure, she would grab my brown and blue trimmed “54” tank top and drag me back.  This dragging only created a stretched waist line.  Finally she used just the right amount of pressure of her thumb and the zippo lit.  With no words or even care, she placed the flame to the now stretched tank top, igniting its waistline immediately.  I was on fire.  SHe watched as I desperately grabbed a towel from the open hamper to put out the flame.  My mother walked out.  As the towel was damp, I had to take to using my hands to pat down what was now burning up to my hips and lower belly.  Again, providence entered, and I managed to rip the shirt off and throw it into the bathtub.  I didn’t think to look at my own body, but turned on the bath to put the shirt fire out.  I repeatedly turned it over and felt each crumpled area to ensure it was no longer a risk.  Again, with no thought to any injuries I may have incurred, I took the charred shirt and walked it out of the bathroom, down the stairs, out the back door and disposed it within a tin garbage can under a pile of empty Schaeffer cans.  It was only when I climbed the tree, shirtless, that I noticed my upper left hip had been burned red and my lower belly was beginning to turn red.  The pain quickly set in, but the mental event was just another ramped up version of compartmentalized anger.  Sure I was hurt as a child, but when a fragile mind such as mine was met with attempted fratricide, the only means of moving forward was anger and the burying of the moment.

After a long time looking and touching my wounds, thoughts of how this was going to end, how Saint Tom lived the life of riley, as his stepchildren faced potential death at any given moment, I began the long climb down my hiding tree.  To add to the event, my thoughts and pain caused me to miss the last six feet and only remember lifting my torso from the ground in more pain than what could only be described as second degree burns (back pain now added).

I quickly and silently entered my room, grabbed a similar shirt and passed the kitchen where my mother was sitting, crying.  No sorry, arms extended or sorrowful yearnings.  Only, “You’ll live.  Remember, he’ll leave.”  “It’s ok, I’m fine.”  Gingerly I walked passed her, exited the back door and hopped on my bike.  

I have no idea how long I rode, no friends homes were visited, but ended up in the Shop-n-Bag field, dumped my bike and sat down in a crevasse which ran along the backside of the store.  It was here I discovered a pile of dumped albums and magazines.  The music was unknown to me, but I remember some of the records were Son Seals, James Cotton, Koko Taylor. Carey Bell and Hubert Sumlin, among others.  Later learned to be mid-70’s Motown.  I never listened to the music, as I had no means of a full LP player, but read the cover, back, inside jacket and the notes written on each (such studying would lead to obsession later and the link of a one of my savior teenage and life long friends.)  These records were from a long distance away and included people who weren’t suffering from burns and bruised backs sitting on dry grass behind a supermarket.  The magazines include McCall’s, Good Housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal.  The combination of records and magazines took me away, far away.  As distanced I had ever felt.  People making music, creating plastic grooves filled with knowledge I was not yet aware of.  In reading some of the boring articles on domesticity, the anger returned.  This was a universe of calm mixed with cardboard covered worlds of “away” which instilled a deep and resounding idea, definitive and “to be had at all costs” decision to create my own self, not defined and do what I could to monitor my slipping away Regina, always Regina.

During the celebration of the Summer of ‘76 I marched in a tri cornered hat, fake playing a piccolo like tuner to the background music of “Stars and Stripes.”  This fake playing is important, because I simply didn’t care what familial attempt this horsehit Sheridan look of middle America created.  As ey I passed the judging platform I met Regina’s eyes who was  rocking Saint Tom, Jr. in his stroller.  She knew I hadn’t practiced, but her smile as I fingered miscellaneous holes caused her to laugh like I had never witnessed.  Not at my silly act of rebellion, but that Saint Tom and beastmaster actually believed I was a proud patriot among a throng of kids blowing their asses off to impress.  I can count the number of times I saw my sister laugh so hard and without the fear of consequence.

Later that summer the little house was occupied by a motley crew of unemployed, motorcycle riding and in no way interested in paying the rent Saint Tom required.  One of the group had an orange engine, highback, long chrome chopper which roared to life (and me with it) each morning.  The house faced the “jump area” which was at its full apex of insanity.  Injuries to knees and elbows were by now no longer laughed at.  “You p***y, you weren’t even close.”  During one such session, Regina was watching from the front walk of the little house.  Upon completing a radically successfully jump on a buddy’s five speed stick bike, she called me over.  Looking down at the end of the little house walkway, lay broken needles.  Regina, knowing she had been in homes with such paraphanalia, knew right away her plan of action.  If she didn’t report this find and Saint Tom found them on an inspection, the whole neighborhood would be questioned, leaving her own places of escape partially exposed in the group living within denials.  Instead, she (smart as she was), told me it was time to go.  Upon entering the new home, she found Saint Tom and dragged him to her find.  Saint Tom was blissfully ignorant of our day to day hell, but (to his credit) walked straight through the front door, one broken needle in hand and announced the whole lot of them had until the next morning to “get the f**k out or all will have both he and the police to deal with.”  
The following morning, Saint Tom and mother sat at the kitchen table talking, as the little house was emptied like the squatter’s domicile it had become.

Before dinner, Regina and myself were called back to the

Kitchen and informed we were moving (again).  “We like it here.  We have friends and school.”  There was no argument.  “Where are we moving to.”  Saint Tom piped up, “The country.  I am looking at a building lot about an hour away.  It’s called Boyertown.”

The packing, being used as slave labor, a new school, running the new guy beating gauntlet, my sister visibly slipping farther and farther away, distanced from any link to a relative of Saint Tom’s, alone in the “Country.”  Such news could not have been more devastating.

Epilogue

The boy in the dirt hole became an FBI agent twenty three years later.  I did get “out.”  The first four years of my career I was yet to run at full song as an FBI agent, but as I had observed early, an agent has two in top 99 percentile in one or two investigative strategies.  Through constant study and a dedicated sense of purpose, I began to specialize in terrorism and the “interview of the bad guy.”  As unfortunate events would dictate, I was thrust into the position of one of the case agents for the events of September 11, 2001.  I went on to have a career of remarkable fulfillment and adventurous fraternity with some of the most amazingly bright and good people I have ever known.

I made several attempts to find a place of center with mother, but even with my return to my Catholic faith, belief in Christ as my God, I have failed miserably at turning the other cheek. From my mental side, escaping turned from a mound of dirt as a means to leave the world, to a bottle of bourbon or vodka.  Like an empty plastic water bottle floating on the surface of my own life, I drank, stepped out on two wives and lied like a son of a b***h to keep the high wire act in motion.  Such living will always cut the achilles eventually and so it did mine.  

I became friends with a local priest who is now a close friend.  Without his guidance and the acceptance he and my wife simultaneously offered, I would not be the sober, only two thirds crazy man I am today.

I would lose my sister to a drug overdose when she was 36. The news came via Saint Tom as I lay with the “at the time” girlfriend.  She would later join my personal Mount Rushmore of women who saved me, loved me and never gave up on me.  These include the girlfriend I had when I was told of Regina’s death with whom I still share love,  my ex-wife (a force of will which also stirs love in every time we speak and see one another and (of course my port of call, quiet brilliance and current best friend and wife, Karen.  Lastly, Regina, always Reina..  I miss her every single day, and still find myself wishing at times to call her and just talk like we did in that housing project and the bedroom attic.

After hearing of my sister’s death (embraced on a couch with the first of Mt. Rushmore) I returned to the project like apartment where she was found dead, hiding in a closet, as I believe she was embarrassed her recent claims of being clean would hurt her brother.  I entered the chamber and began the process of claiming all that this person had, while recalling her death was that of a saviour to a young boy, young man and responsible adult.  An FBI agent, father of an academic scholarship daughter, respected by my peers for my own craft as a tireless investigator and called upon to “get the confession.”  No criminal had ever been attempted to be burned alive by a mother, smashed like pie dough with a powder blue corded iron.  Whatever he/she thought could be “gotten over”, I had the lead from the dropping of the green flag and with one “tell”, it was over.  The fact is guilt wants to be heard.  Evil is quiet.

So I gathered her items, photos of me as a child outside the project unit, us hugging in the backyard of the little house and her smiling as she, arm around my neck, celebrated the college graduation of Saint Tom’s son.  A week later she was dead.  

After the photos, some AA literature, clothing of little note, her driver’s license and a notebook paper birthday card I wrote her while in 5th grade, with color pencil orange which ended with,”I miss you, I wish you would come home soon.  I love you, Johnny.”   All told the life of a woman, girl and little girl who showed this man anger’s neccesity.  Covered in a fog not for the mind, but for that which once was and always will be,  I was left crying, as I am now, seeing that the anger she traded was my beauty she revealed to me in her love all neatly sealed as an entire life to be placed gingerly in three green trash bags.  Regina, always Regina.  I love you.

The End