Trubadour

My mom had a bikers wedding. Real punk rock, real horrorshow.

That was dad #2, but I didn’t know that. Not at the time.

He was good at getting to the bottle, and the bottle getting to him. Then she remarried. A real stiff guy, the kind who could make diamonds.

We moved away from the continental US. That was the first time I became the black guy; attacked and ridiculed for nothing more than the color of my skin.

I’m a white kid.

Guam attacked me with a rage that I’ve never really lost. My first taste of real life, the first real look beyond the facade of peace, love, money, business, family, morals, happiness.

Then it was jail. Two years of my teen life I gave up for things I know I shouldn’t have done.

Then it was Hawai’i, where again I was beaten, humiliated, harassed, all for being a stranger in a strange land.

Now, here I am;

an adult, on my own, hundreds of miles from any family. I ride trains now. I ride the rails until the land it ends and then I set sails. It’s been more than half a decade since I’ve seen most of my family. Most of my friends.

I have a character of myself in my head and he’s jumped for me countless times while I stand still facing him shouting “I didn’t jump”. I didn’t jump. I can’t. For no matter how alone I am in this world, how empty I am; there’s something telling me I’m not finished.

But then I’m still empty.

My father’s been rotting in a cell for the past ten years or so. Probably will for most of the rest of his and my life.

But that only bothers me sometimes. That just makes me sad.