And This? This Is More

And there was nothing like it . . .
And there will never be anything like this again.

Of course, I should add more to this preface. I should obviously state the facts and give background so that you know where I’m coming from.
And this? This is where I came from.
This is what it means to have a room or a place, like, say, the bedroom I had back when I was young.

This was my spot and my corner in the world.
This was my safe haven, even when life was unsafe. This was the only place I could go and be safe enough, even when my actions were set on defying gravity or the safety of living a normal life.

Nothing was ever like this place to me. And nothing will ever be like this again. Of course not.
At least not in the same regard.
Maybe one day.
Who knows?
Maybe I will have a room again that I can retreat to and call this place my special sanctuary.

East Meadow, New York. 1990 Summertime

My room.
This place knew my secrets. This place knew where my secrets were hidden and why I hid them there.
The only difference between the moment which stood in front of me and the times before is that I had changed or undergone a transformation.
I was cleaned up. My long hair was cut short.
My scars were less pronounced and I had put on some weight too.

My previous room was designed with certain ideas in mind. I had hiding places behind posters and secrets buried in a closet.
This is where I hid the tools of my trade.

The worst thing anyone could be seen as was a rat or stoolpigeon.
Worse than being called a junkie, which I was at the time, or worse than being called a loser, which was also true is to be a squealer. Nothing was lower.
Nothing was lower than to turn on your friends and drop a dime or tell on them.

I say this for a reason –
My room knew all about me. My room saw me at the worst, of course, and equally, my room knew about my dreams and my hopes and mirror too.
The mirror is where I used to rehearse my speeches or where I’d practice my routine. I rehearsed what I would say, in case I was ever brave enough to stand up for myself and walk away.
And equally too, my mirror showed me who I was or who I had become. Good or bad, my mirror never lied to me.
 

I can remember the look in my eyes back when I was demonized by a white powder. This is the same powder demoralized the soul and fueled my shame with the escapes of euphoria.

I could see my eyes, as if I were a man on the wire, electrified by the speeds of a narcotic that was mind numbing to say the least.

I could see my truths and the cracks in my façade. Yet, still, no one told on me. No one spoke up.
My room kept me safe and sound.

There was no one else here but me and my secrets or me and my demons and the recollections of 8-balls and glass pipes, which turned into a different devil, altogether.
This was a new god that inevitably sent me to a local hell for a temporary luck-up.

I was gone and yes, I had returned to the scene of my crime.
But there were no tales or proof of what took place.
I stood in the doorway of my old place of worship, so-to-speak.

I knew the spots and the secrets. I knew where I hid my lies. I knew where I wept when I was small. And I knew where I sat when I pleaded with the ceiling, as if Heaven above could hear me through the roof.

It is amazing what we can do with a transformation.
 It was amazing to me how the room had changed. Just some paint and some wall covering.
It amazed me how much a little construction and home improvements can rebuild a place like this.
But still, the core of my room knew all about my details.

And still, the room never spoke. The spirit, however, and the core of me knew that yes, this place had seen the dirty parts of me. The walls remember me when I was crawling on floors like a man possessed, looking for tiny white crumbs of a flaky powder that soared me up to the sky and kept me sick.

I had new walls. I had new paint. I had new clothes and a new bedroom set.
I had a new chair, which was perfect for my new television, which was also perfect for my new gaming station, which fails when compared to the games of today’s standards.

I had a stereo with huge speakers. I had Jimi Hendrix and his music in rotation—and I remember the first encounter between myself and a girl or two.
This experience was accentuated with music from Hendrix and a song called, And The Gods Made Love, which led to the question, “Have you ever been to electric Ladyland?”

I was young.
Hopeful.
Afraid.
There was a new chance that perhaps I might redefine myself or find myself in a better way.

Maybe I could finally have a real girlfriend.
Maybe I could change direction.
I could switch course and become someone brand-new in the sense that yes, perhaps I could be my authentic self.
Maybe I could do this without apology. I could see the world through my truest eyes without hesitation or the insecure worry that something about me is out-of-sorts or off-center.

Ah, to be young.
Ah, to find the real or the truest version when it comes to pleasures of the flesh. Amazing!
How amazing it is to enjoy someone without the casualties of my secret wars.
Ah, the realization that love-making is an actual art—and that the features of the body are meant to be consumed and enjoyed, both delicately and sometimes, intensely or even ferociously.

This was my new bedroom and my new place of worship.
No more skeletons in the closet or hidden truths that stained my heart with a habit that never quit.

One night –

I met two girls at a nearby place. This was a place where new friends of mine used to gather.
I liked that no one knew me from my past.
I liked that no one knew about the critical times or the junk sickness or the reputation that I swore would always follow me.

The distance between me and the article in the newspaper was forgotten and my name was less soiled than it was.
I was clean for more than a year . . .
There was enough room between the moment at hand and the merciless hours while sitting in a holding cell.
I remember this clearly.
I remember hearing about a planned rape that had my name on it—which I knew was all hazing. But still . . .
I was the small one, the young one, and at the time; I knew that I was the white one because I kept on hearing two men scream “white bread,” from their jail cells

What I remember is the long hours and the late-night hobos and winos that reeked of urine and armpits.
They had a scpial on wife beaters that night in the can . . .

I remember the man who had sat in my holding cell.
He beat his wife with a baseball bat because she lost his car keys, and as a result, she tried to get him drunk so he would pass out and forget.

The cops must have beat him up before bringing him into the same cell as me. He was a big man. Bloodied and stinking from alcohol.
He kept screaming, “I’m not drunk!” to which I naturally agreed.
“Of course not!”

Then I was alone for a while.
Then I was ina cell with a Jehovah’s Witness with a thick accent.
he threw his wife down the stairs.
Then I was alone again.
Then I heard the two men who called me white bread screaming their version of rap songs.
Then it was quiet, but nothing was ever quiet for long.

Then I heard whistling as if a woman can on the scene. But this was not a woman. This was a tall, chubby man, feminine as ever, Hispanic and flamboyant with chubby tits that were mentioned along with his chunky fat ass.
Man . . .
this was not a good place for me.

I heard one of the two men call out, “I guess we’re gonna have to leave white bread alone.”
“Why,” asked his counterpart from another holding cell.
“Because you know what they say in jail?”
“No, what do they say in jail,” inquired the other of the two.

“No better joy than a fat butt boy!”

And right there . . .
I knew this life was the wrong one for me

But I was far away from that memory.
I was nothing like the person I was before.
I looked nothing like that boy
I spoke nothing like him.
I thought nothing like him.
More to the point, I behaved nothing like him.

This was a good thing for me to think and believe.

My new room was good for me.
I met these two girls who wanted to leave and go someplace else.
I never assumed they wanted to go back to my place—with me, and nor did I assume they wanted to come back to my place with me and do things with me.
And they did . . .

I have a much different appreciation for Jimi Hendrix.
I have reasons to love music and while the experience was not an “all the way” affair, I can say this was good enough to be memorable.

My room . . .
It might not be mine anymore
But my room knew all of my secrets.
And I’m sure even now, decades later, my room would know me because the core of my heart was born there—
secrets and all.