Just Ego Trippin

Where the Sunbeams End: Chapter 4

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The problem was loneliness. Ray was 4 years younger than me, Abby was a newborn, and Rundgren was gone. There was no neighborhood gang to adventure with. Most of the neighbors were older couples or folks without children. A couple of guys from school seemed to be looking to me as a new friend, which was flattering, but I wasn’t ready to make new friends, I wasn’t ready to forget my old friends yet.

So, most days after school I’d fall into boredom and I’d long for what once was. If the problem was loneliness, then the solution was books.

I read a little bit during my childhood in Maryland, but when we moved to Clarke County, Virginia I began devouring books. Hiding them under my desk during class. Most of the time my teachers would turn the other cheek and ignore the fact that I could care less about the current lesson. I’d sit up nights on the bottom bunk, with my little book light, reading deep into the night.

It wasn’t long after Rundgren died that I stumbled onto Stephen King and his novel Pet Sematary. I’ve been reading King for over 25 years, but I’ll never forget driving home from Books-a-Million with that small paperback in my hands, trying to envision what I was about to get myself into. Maybe this King fellow knew of the same pain and loneliness I was trying to bury deep inside.

When you’re a reader, books have a way of finding you. Admittedly, I was probably too young to read King, but not for the reasons you might think. Many folks probably chalk off Stephen King as a trashy horror writer. I can remember overhearing my aunt questioning my dad about if it was a good idea to let me read such trash. The worry always seems to be that a child may be exposed to sex and violence.  I must admit I enjoyed the way my heart would seem to speed up during those more intense passages, but it's the lasting affect that a novel can have on a child that I believe is at the root of book banning efforts.

Pet Sematary showed me that I actually enjoyed being scared, it made me feel like a man when I would push through my fear. But really, that book is a meditation on life and death. That’s why I think I was too young to read King. Not because of the sex and violence, but because of the power of storytelling. I know people still read novels, but I get the feeling that many have forgotten the transformative effects of novels and stories. Perhaps there is a fear that a good book will ruin your life or something. I think there is some truth there. Sometimes I know I’m not ready for a certain book, but I have no regrets about diving into Stephen King at a young age. After Rundgren, I couldn’t help but think about death and King functioned as a kind of guide through the dark shadows of the inevitable.

But books do change you. And in a way I think I grew up too fast.

                                                                        ~~~

They chose Jamaica for their honeymoon. Back when you could still smoke on airplanes. They arrived at the hotel resort and the bag man asked my father, “You like the Bob Marley music maaan?”

“Yeah. I like Bob Marley.”

“I do ya right.”

The gentlemen returned some minutes later with marijuana buds still on the stems, wrapped in brown paper.

I imagine it was a good honeymoon. Legend has it, that my mother walked topless on the beaches, but preferred that my father kept his shorts on. I like to think of them before they were parents. Just kids themselves.

“You better flush the rest of that stash.”

“Yeah, of course.”

But he didn’t. He stuffed the brown paper into a dirty pair of socks and crossed his fingers.

They had met in college. Davis and Elkins in the mountains of West Virginia. Mom says she knew that first day that she was going to marry that man. Dad didn’t have a choice and perhaps Mom didn’t either.

I like to think that I came from love, but maybe we’re all just droplets of love before we’re born. Maybe we’re all destined to be here, and it is us that brings love and passion to our parents. And when our loved ones pass we lose that unique flavor of love, they leave a space within our soul that can never be filled. However, that same emptiness serves to remind us of who and what they were.