Author Archives: bennyk1972

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When The Change Began

 

After the long, uncomfortable hours in the precinct with angry desk cops and detectives, and after the questions that came while being handcuffed to the side of a gray-painted steel desk in a small detective’s office—after the yelling cops screamed, “Tell us what you did,” and after the detectives smacked me around, beat me, and played their version of good cop/bad cop; after the several rounds of different accusations and the phone call home to alert my parents of my arrest, the alcohol in my system gave way to the sobering moment that I was caught. I sitting behind a chain-linked fence on a wooden bench with my left wrist handcuffed to a pipe that ran beneath the seating.

After the hours of processing, and the trip to a holding facility where I went through the normal Continue reading →

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About a Boy

Sean stood a little more than five feet tall. His hair was shaved close to the scalp and his eyebrows were thick and dark. He had blue eyes. They were the wild kind. Sean’s eyes were the kind that explained his lack of sanity could arrive at any moment, and if prompted, Sean could switch his temper like the flick of a matchstick.
Sean had a large nose, which had been broken several times. Most of those times were from his alcoholic father during a drinking binge. Sean had three scars on the back of his head from different street fights. He had a thick scar that came from a gash, which began Continue reading →

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Letters from a Son: A Change in Direction

I remember there was snow on the ground. Outside was the kind of cold where the sky was perfectly blue and the sun was so bright, but yet, there was no warmth in the wind. I sat on the second level in the main house of a farm where kids like me lived.  To explain what I mean by kids like me, I mean kids that needed to get away from a troubled life of drug addiction.

The view from the windows was spectacular. I could see out into the distance as large, tree covered mountains wove together and interlocked like fingers from the hands. The trees were without leaves and the branches were crystalized and white with frost. There was a blanket of snow that covered the field behind the tall red barn. The cows were close to the barn. As always, the pigs were inside, grunting in their pens and the sheep scampered in a flock upon the hill behind the main house. Continue reading →

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the sights and sounds . . .

Not always, but when I hear the sound a cigarette lighter makes after a thumb rolls down to spark the flint that starts the flame, it immediately brings me back to a time of wild chaos.
I am reminded of a place where the curtain was drawn closed and the thin off-white horizontal blinds beneath them, which were beaten and bent, were Continue reading →

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Counting Days

The hardest part of my fall from grace was not the next day or the day after. The hardest part is when I could not run away anymore. I could not deny what I had done
I held on to the secret of my relapse like a dirty lie that continued to whisper in my ear. Six months away the farm, and I gave in.  The actual time of my relapse happened long before I found myself on Rockaway Parkway in a minivan filled with stolen equipment. There were steps leading up to my failure. There were obvious warning signs, but noticing them meant I would have to do something about. Noticing the signs I saw meant I would have to face some painful truths.

When asked about this time in my life, I always explain that I Continue reading →

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From The Daddy Diaries: The Little Girl

Something I know and I will always know is that Daddy’s little girl, no matter how she grows or where she goes; she will always be Daddy’s little girl. I cannot say what it means to have a son. I never had a little boy. I only have a little girl. I cannot say what the bond is like to have otherwise; I can only tell you what it feels like when a tiny girl’s life looks at you for the first time and says the words, “Da-Da,” which eventually transforms into the word, “Daddy” or Dad.”

There have been books written about parenting. There have been men, very much like myself, who have recorded their Continue reading →

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planting seeds

I can only control so much. The rest is out of my hands.
And I know this.

When I was a boy, The Old Man decided to plant a small garden on the side of the house. He chose the side of the house because our dogs had run of the backyard. We cleaned after the dogs—we even set up a dog pen, which our dogs, Tammy and Devin eventually learned to use, and rather than Continue reading →