The pages you see are gallies from the novel entitled "Epitaph of a Madman".
Tonight it was a song… the Outfield… “I Just Want To Loose Your Love Tonight” .. it literally ran through me into my parent’s basement in what was probably June 1983. It was about as beautiful as a summer day can be on the Atlantic coast, yet my older brother Ricky continued top make his appeal to the officials of the land that he really did own my ass, and yes, I was minion in the room downstairs.
For the most part, Ricky was harmless, only subject to the occasional temper tantrum spurred on by his biggest fan, my father. My father and my brother had a symbiotic relationship when it came to their relationship with me. I think that both of them knew that I was gay from a very, very early age, and they both made me pay for that dearly.
I was aware of this from a very young age, even before my younger brothers and sisters were born. Thank God for my mother.
But , back to Ricky… his temper tantrums could mount to many things, most of which had some type of destructive behavior aimed directly at me. Once, he was pissed that I wouldn’t listen to my mother when she was calling me to get out of bed, thus disrupting his sleep. I’m not sure why everyone was so accommodating to him.
He didn’t have a job, didn’t go to school (he smoked most of my smokes and sucked the rest out of my mother’s wallet). At the time, my mother was a full-time nanny and driving as a pizza delivery driver at night to support the household and pay for my alcoholic father’s drinking habit.
So my mother wouldn’t or didn’t stop hollering and Ricky got pissed at me. He got out of his bed, which was right next to me, pulled the feet of my bed off the floor and roll me, and the bed, into the folding doors closet at the end of the room.
Ricky was pissed, Ricky got consoled. One time he was really mad again so he washed my cloths in Javex. One summer when I was thirteen, my buddy Glen and I when out and got pasted. We were so drunk we could barely crawl up the hill home. When we got there, Ricky was up. He dangled the keys in front of us for about a half hour before he convinced us that we should take it for a spin. We coasted down the driveway and halfway down the hill before I started the car in neutral, jammed it into drive, and tore up the road, roared past my parents house and into the night.
Ricky was a dick. I don’t think he meant to be though. Ricky was the strong one between he and I. I can remember my father making Ricky have arm wrestles with all of his drunken buddies that he would drag home. Sometimes he would bring the wives too – then my mother was stuck with the stupid task of entertaining them; also alcoholics in various stages of the disease.
My Dad was a wild one. Every time Ricky would win a match, my father would give him a drink of his beer. You know that you’re pushing the right buttons if you get a drink of beer. My dad’s beer. I never qualified for that. It didn’t seem to matter what I did, or how much I tried to make a connection with him pretty much failed.
At that age, a kid needs his dad – but I didn’t really have one. Ricky sure did. Even my younger brothers expected the same. I would never get violent with them, but they pushed. To them, it was – well, I’m not really sure what it was. I want to believe that they just having fun, but something tells me that’s not the case.
When I came out to my mother, she was fine. So much so that I thought there was something wrong just because she gave me such an easy time of it. My father really didn’t have any “accepting” to do because his mind was quite absent of me long before I figured out I was gay.
-30-
The pages you see are gallies from the novel entitled "Epitaph of a Madman.. Check back for updated posts often. .
Tonight it was a song… the Outfield… “I Just Want To Loose Your Love Tonight” .. it literally ran through me into my parent’s basement in what was probably June 1983. It was about as beautiful as a summer day can be on the Atlantic coast, yet my older brother Ricky continued top make his appeal to the officials of the land that he really did own my ass, and yes, I was minion in the room downstairs.
For the most part, Ricky was harmless, only subject to the occasional temper tantrum spurred on by his biggest fan, my father. My father and my brother had a symbiotic relationship when it came to their relationship with me. I think that both of them knew that I was gay from a very, very early age, and they both made me pay for that dearly.
I was aware of this from a very young age, even before my younger brothers and sisters were born. Thank God for my mother.
But , back to Ricky… his temper tantrums could mount to many things, most of which had some type of destructive behavior aimed directly at me. Once, he was pissed that I wouldn’t listen to my mother when she was calling me to get out of bed, thus disrupting his sleep. I’m not sure why everyone was so accommodating to him.
He didn’t have a job, didn’t go to school (he smoked most of my smokes and sucked the rest out of my mother’s wallet). At the time, my mother was a full-time nanny and driving as a pizza delivery driver at night to support the household and pay for my alcoholic father’s drinking habit.
So my mother wouldn’t or didn’t stop hollering and Ricky got pissed at me. He got out of his bed, which was right next to me, pulled the feet of my bed off the floor and roll me, and the bed, into the folding doors closet at the end of the room.
Ricky was pissed, Ricky got consoled. One time he was really mad again so he washed my cloths in Javex. One summer when I was thirteen, my buddy Glen and I when out and got pasted. We were so drunk we could barely crawl up the hill home. When we got there, Ricky was up. He dangled the keys in front of us for about a half hour before he convinced us that we should take it for a spin. We coasted down the driveway and halfway down the hill before I started the car in neutral, jammed it into drive, and tore up the road, roared past my parents house and into the night.
Ricky was a dick. I don’t think he meant to be though. Ricky was the strong one between he and I. I can remember my father making Ricky have arm wrestles with all of his drunken buddies that he would drag home. Sometimes he would bring the wives too – then my mother was stuck with the stupid task of entertaining them; also alcoholics in various stages of the disease.
My Dad was a wild one. Every time Ricky would win a match, my father would give him a drink of his beer. You know that you’re pushing the right buttons if you get a drink of beer. My dad’s beer. I never qualified for that. It didn’t seem to matter what I did, or how much I tried to make a connection with him pretty much failed.
At that age, a kid needs his dad – but I didn’t really have one. Ricky sure did. Even my younger brothers expected the same. I would never get violent with them, but they pushed. To them, it was – well, I’m not really sure what it was. I want to believe that they just having fun, but something tells me that’s not the case.
When I came out to my mother, she was fine. So much so that I thought there was something wrong just because she gave me such an easy time of it. My father really didn’t have any “accepting” to do because his mind was quite absent of me long before I figured out I was gay.
-30-
The pages you see are gallies from the novel entitled "Epitaph of a Madman.. Check back for updated posts often. .
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