Once I asked my mother, “Mother, what was I like as a baby?” to which she instantly, a little TOO quickly, answered, “Oh, you kids were all alike!” And thus was my query silenced. I don’t have any snappy comebacks in my arsenal, still. And I certainly didn’t have any that day. I don’t “snap back” as it were, at all. Never have, really. Well, I’m not feeling it today, but let’s just press forward. I find, when I wake up in the morning… now anyone reading this may feel the next phrase coming… “and get out of bed”, but in this case that phrase would be out of place, if I am to be honest. To be honest? um, TBH? Where did I wake up today?

Today morning I woke up where I normally do these days, in my leased car, a 2022 import compact crossover, nondescript color, base model. I sleep usually more or less comfortably in the front seat, with the windshield blocked by sunshades, the kind that pop open when you untie them or release the elastic band from around them. Since Flagstaff, AZ, I have a wonderfully “cushy” soft blanket, a bedspread I think, made of fleece on the one side and crushed velvet on the flip side. It’s the perfect color, matches the interior of the car, so it’s not terribly noticeable. It blends in. But the main thing is that, since I got it from the homeless shelter there in that high desert town one night when it was raining like crazy, since that time I have not been cold while sleeping in my vehicle. I love it, and every night when I pull it from the back to the front and stuff the long end of the folds down under the steering wheel, which moves up and a little out of the way, to cover my feet, I feel comforted. I won’t have to freeze tonight! It’s easy to fall asleep.

That is except last night. Where did I park last night? And where did I come from? The last five or so days I have been traveling up from Florida, in fact, from the furthest point south I have ever been in this continental United States. Yeah, after I left my oldest sister’s house I sat across the bay from Saint Pete. It was odd to look out over the water and see tall buildings, sky scrapers apparently, grayish looking and distant, popping out above the water line on the horizon. I had just simply searched on my phone for a beach, not the nearest beach either. And I ended up at the end of a long and curving road, abruptly ending in a parking lot, a very small one, next to some moderately expensive restaurant, not upscale, more like lower middle class I think. The people entering the beach from the far side going around the chain link fence to find a spot in the sand were carrying their coolers and towels etc with flipflop sandals on past a sign that said, “No Coolers on the Beach”. It was a whole group of them. Some of them were mildly obese. Others, the younger ones, still looked more or less normal. They had arrived, I don’t know how. I didn’t see a vehicle capable of carrying ten passengers, probably they came in two or more cars. The parking lot was maybe 10 or so spaces wide and 4 rows deep and the beach, which was really the size of an overgrown sandbox was maybe a hundred feet wide with perhaps 30 feet to the water from the fence. There was no shade anywhere. I had been hoping for a little shade.

Before that, I had been at sister’s house, in a kind of swanky gated community 37 miles to the East, outside a little run down burrow in the midst of what had been farmland probably. It’s hard to describe those places. This is I think what one refers to as the process of gentrification. That is, the more well-heeled take over the neighborhood from those less well off, cyclically every 100 years or so, I suppose. So, farmland was giving way to generous plots of land with well manicured lawns full of “grass” that, where I grew up would have been fought as a scourge called “crabgrass” with a potent weed killer. The broad leafed variety glowed almost artificially in the brightness of the that green. But then Florida is extremely wet and there is most certainly no brown spot in any lawn especially since that wetness is augmented each night through automatic sprinklers, over “kill” in this case. The house was spacious enough, relatively new with tall ceilings, an open layout. The master bedroom at the far end tucked behind the living dining kitchen area next to the enclosed porch with it’s barbecue, was spacious with a walk in bathroom which had no door. At the front of the house were two bedrooms, a laundry room next to the garage and an alcove that probably once had served as an office, but was now being pressed into service as a sick room or recovery room I should say, for my 87 year old bed ridden sister. Who, I think might not actually recover. Or maybe she will, who knows. That depends on her alone.

By the time I reached Sis’s house, her husband of the last 12 or so years had passed away. She had been texting me messages on social media for the last several days that he was not in good shape, that her youngest daughter was not handling her care very well and could I come. I was her “last hope” was the way she made it sound. I was leery of going there, feeling that I was on very uneven ground with her. Yes, I had made the mistake of reaching out. That was on a day when I felt very close to death. And when you feel the grim reaper encroaching, all the walls that perhaps once protected you from such unwise decisions tend to melt or fall down and crumble in the sheer inevitability of your unpreparedness for that eventuality. My mind went numb, and my heart was screaming for my mother. Mother is gone, but here was one who would have been old enough to have been my mother, and indeed had already had children even a year before I had been born. And she looked like my mother, at least around the eyes.

When I reached out to her, I started spontaneously to cry and say, I want to be with relatives. I had told her that I was homeless, living in my car, and that my life had become a hell of isolation which I was unable to bear more or less. Well, I didn’t really wax all that poetic. But I gave the impression of vulnerability and helplessness. Then I said, I would like to come, that I was ready to start driving and would be there in a few days; and I could help her, take care of her, that physically I am still strong and that I have some training, at least that years ago I had worked in nursing homes. I never heard anything then for weeks, not much anyway. And I had forgotten it. That very day I had run into someone and spontaneously I had moved in with her. That was in California in the mountain town where I had been living for the past 6 years or so.

And that itself was a very odd situation. I kept getting pushed out. The town was trying to spit me out it seems. To any outside person it would have been obvious that it was time to leave. You cannot just walk away from a narcissistic relationship with a prominent personality in a town that size and expect to just get on with things. It doesn’t work. They send their flying monkeys out to make sure that you won’t. I had been warned that I would be homeless. And it seemed that there was some force working always towards that end. And who am I to argue? I don’t have snappy comebacks. But all this going back and back and back… I still haven’t explained.

Where did I wake up this morning? Well, it was an odd situation. I had driven up from Florida taking several days. I didn’t have anything better to do. I have a new car which I don’t really want to keep, but anyway I don’t have to really think that I will get stuck anywhere. I just have to try to pay attention that I don’t drive recklessly in any way. So, I thought, let me go back to where it all started, back to the Midwest, to my state where I grew up. Let me see… And I passed by even within a few miles on my trip near my oldest brother’s house. Why didn’t I stop there? Well, I was scared. His wife has always given me a very cold feeling, like don’t you even think of it! And Sis #1 had been less than happy at the end. I knew I should not have gone there. 2700 miles and that means an oil change is also pending soon.

What surprised me was that after a month in which I had not heard anything much from her, she suddenly pops up on my feed after 9 pm, that was midnight her time, saying that she had decided to “take a chance” on me. The phrasing was odd, a big red flag. I most definitely should not have gone there. But, that is where we get into trouble. Whenever there is a vulnerable spot, as in, we need something, or we want something, that is where we get into trouble DEEP. In this case, I don’t really know how much trouble. But I did express the sentiment that I was not going down the road of DRAMA with them. Well, that didn’t pan out either. It ended, if not with a bang, at least with a bump. And no, I didn’t slam the door on my way out. That is not my style. I tried to slip away quietly. Hence, my trip to that sorry excuse for a Florida beach. I think, or I should say, I know, what she thought she was getting was free nurse and maid service, and a cook also, and someone to run to the pharmacy and the store ten miles hence, etc. And she never had to pay a dime for it. There was a promise to reimburse me for gas I think, that came indirectly through the mouth of another person. Yes, and the whole time she kept bragging about how much money she had. I was not interested in that. Up front I had demanded a round trip ticket and a car to use once I got down there. Well, she never went into that. She never actually even spoke to that question. No, she started working on my consciousness from another angle. That the husband would pass away soon. Well, I had remained pretty staunchly resistant to that hype for most of the several weeks this had been going on. Finally, one night I caved and I started driving. My friend, a few streets away from where I was staying, another friend, she had told me flatly, “this is crazy-making”. She had experience with narcissists. I knew it. I knew it, but… I had to go. Those were the eyes of my mother.

But this was not the depth of the betrayal. No. The whole premise had been another story. I don’t even want to go into it here. It’s too machiavelian. It’s just too complicated. These people make your life a hell by departing so far from simplicity and straightforwardness that you end up tripping over wires and falling over cliffs, just trying to understand them. In the end I called the cops. I told them my story first, just to get out of it somehow; it was damage control and it probably didn’t work. I tried to slip away and that’s when she pulled the trigger on treason. Never leave a narcissist? They will do their utmost to destroy you. And they have the upper hand. Because usually they have all the money and that means, they look like they are the “honest upstanding one”. Because, if you live in your car, even if it is a new car, you MUST be wrong, right?

I bypassed my oldest brother’s house and I drove, I drove. I had to choose some direction. I didn’t know where to go. So, I just said, ok. Let’s go back “home”. And the thought of running into these relatives, mostly with dubious motives… well. I headed for the southern border of a northern state. Another friend told me in a text I received en route that she didn’t like the South. “Why not?” Well, she was a liberal, and this conservatism was making everyone sick. And beyond that, she’d had relatives from Georgia once. Ah… that was it? Well, if her relatives from Georgia were anything like my relatives from ANY goddamn state, then I can understand. No further need of explanation.

Ok, for Pete’s sake, where did I wake up this morning? After driving through several southern states, and by the way, it’s election season. I saw billboards, yard signs and I kid you not, there was one Sheriff Wimpee. And then there was a congresswoman I think, Wiseman. And I saw another one last night. Why don’t I just take pictures? I won’t remember the name. It was a doozy. And it just said “Believe… Sheriff Wampee”. What in the heck was that other one I saw? The thing most people don’t know is that the names are made up. Yeah, made up. It’s not their real name. Yeah, just believe. Believe that this guy is a sheriff and his name is actually wampee! Go ahead. Drat! Why can’t I remember the last one? Because it was late last night, that’s why. Kind of like Bernie Madoff. Because what did he do? He “made-off” with the bucks! 64.8 billion. That was the net. The biggest ponzi scheme in history. Wikipedia says he died in 2021 in NC. More like faked his death, if you ask me. That’s what they all do. My lord. You think I’m kidding or delusional? No, they really do make up their names and it’s just that easy.

My whole life I was really unhappy with my name. I could not figure it out. It was repugnant to me. I was disgusted with it. It made no sense. I couldn’t figure out so many things: why my “Daddy” had dark skin (I’m blonde); why he never really talked to me much or seem concerned about me for anything, even the times I would approach him, he was always silent; the way he had of tickling me walking around the edge of the dinner table in the evening. It seemed playful, but unattached; he was more like a babysitter than a father. And he deferred to Mother in everything concerning me. It was like he had absolutely no say. And why would he have had any? And when I was thirty years old and it was going to be my birthday I was homeless in NYC. I mean, I think I had a place to stay for another night or so, but I was in the middle of getting ready to fly to Europe. I had given up my apartment or something. I cannot remember all the things that were going on at that time. I just remember taking my parents to the storage locker. I picked them up at the airport in a rented car. And we had the party at my friend’s apartment. It was too crazy. I remember driving from Newark International into Manhattan and I was telling them from the driver’s seat, what the heck did you do? What was your idea? You didn’t teach me a damn thing! And they were both protesting, my mother from the back seat, that, “Yes, we did! We taught you!” And I, “No, you didn’t! You didn’t at all! Nothing!”

I guess I am proud of myself that I at least was honest with them, even though they never told me anything. Never owned up to it. And how different my life would have been if they had! Would I be homeless right now? Would I be married? Would I have children? But I have none, had no real career, had no comfort, no happy life, no wealth or harmony. I don’t want to blame them for this, in fact. No, I feel that it all must have happened for some reason, for some really glorious reason. Glory.

So, just another thing and then I will really and truly cough it up, the answer, about where I did sleep last night… I am not really stringing you along on purpose. I don’t mean to do that. It’s just that I keep finding more and more coming up. More things I want to say.

Yesterday I fulfilled a dream, well a small dream, a little fantasy. I went to see someone famous. A little bit famous. Like Andy Warhol said, everyone will get their fifteen minutes of fame. He said that before he died, supposedly a virgin, at 52 of a heart attack? In NYC in the 80s. After his protege Jean Basquiat had OD’d at was it 24 or 27? After I was pushed out of the group, after the “Supreme Divine Mother” had flicked me away, after the narcissistic abuse had “ended(?)” and I didn’t want to be homeless, I started buying cars, like mad. Really mad. I went crazy. That’s really another story, and it’s all so complicated, so machiavelianly incongruent and topsy turvy.

I first got a Ford Escort 2001. But, back up a little bit… when I left the group, I had walked out with just my clothes and a few papers. Not much else. I left a lot of my stuff there. These were things I was not able to grab at that exact minute. I barely made it out with my checkbook and a few credit and debit cards in my name. Those had been locked up in a desk in a remote office building. But one day I had gone in there; it was a few weeks before I finally departed the group suddenly, thereby surprising even myself. So, I was technically on foot. And I stayed with a man just a mile away from the restaurant, where I had worked 16 hours per day for 7 days out of each week for 6 straight years for no pay. A few weeks before I left, and I think this is the reason I don’t have all my papers right now, the reason I lost a lot of pictures and documents and precious things… a few weeks before this, one day, in the morning, right about this time, around 10 am or so, the verbal abuse had started. Someone started to poke and needle. I had done something said something, and it was this or that… blah blah blah. I just stopped them and said, “No worries, I’ll be gone soon.” It just came out of my mouth. The retort back at me was, “OH, you ALWAYS threaten, THREATEN!” I said nothing in return. It was just that. It just came out of my mouth and I thought little of it.

In fact, I had never thought I would leave, even though I had wanted to leave so many times, and yet that avenue was cut off. And what was it? There was no means of escape. There was little or no money. There was a constant threat that I would be homeless. There was nothing else to do. Where to start? If I leave, If I go, If I stop being this person, being here? Who and what am I then? I only remember for my WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE, there is the feeling of never being heard. I wanted to be heard. I wanted to say what it was that I thought. So, finally, when I did leave, how appropriate that I end up with someone who also wants to sit on my head? And I was so distraught. I didn’t know where to go then??? It’s as if the whole world… I am running and running, a little child at this time, because I certainly had not grown up yet. I was running. And I am a child in a very adult body. I am a child and I am trying to escape and everywhere I go, the same ugly faces, the same abuses, the same rigid inhuman rules. At the same time, I know it. I know that is what is there. I am seeing it. I am not able to escape. Everywhere in the town there are only two types of people, distanced, injured women instead of close and helpful friends, and men who only want to take advantage of innocence instead of heroes.

One of these men I saw in the park then. After an argument with the would be helper who had immediately turned out to be an advocate for my tormentors only, after this verbal altercation with him, I went to the park. I was confused. I had left the group where I was being tormented, but I had walked into the same story on a different street. Then this man offered and I went to his house. I took my clothes then, I went there and I ensconced myself in a room in the back of his house. It was set up like a bunker, half underground, hidden inside a warehouse type building. I have never seen anything like it before or since. It was kind of like the little cottage in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. So, I was hunkered down in the quasi bunker. It was off the beaten path. No one would find me there. I was secure for the moment. Relatively secure with regards to the threat of being discovered by the group I had just run away from.

(That was a dangling participle by the way, just now. And I also have taken the liberty of punctuating simple phrases that do not contain both a subject and a predicate with a period. Like this. Or this! Further grammatical and other anomalies are to follow soon. I am well aware but I just don’t care actually.)

After establishing residence in the little cottage inside the tin can warehouse, I immediately went on Bozonland.com and ordered two things: an emergency tent and some emergency space blankets (those plastic foil reflective sleeping bags), both screaming orange in color. The man saw these items when I picked them up (he had driven me to the post office). And he said, in a kind of denigrating way, [you know here I can’t find the darn word. In German, it’s herabschauend and the man really is much taller than I am, so he really was looking down on me, as if I were a child, because I suppose that is how he viewed women, that and the fact that they are objects for him, just for having sex, not really for much else… ah finally condescending. Gott, I have a problem now, all the words don’t fit in my brain any more. I end up getting the German ones and the English doesn’t stick any more.], he looked at me in this condescending, knowing way, and said that I would not be needing them (the tent and so on). But I wasn’t all that sure about it. After all, people don’t ever really reveal themselves in the first few minutes. Children do, but not “people”. I had revealed myself plenty. I am not sure about this. I have a theory that if you have been deprived of a connection to family as a young child, it becomes difficult to grow up. You go on and on seeking your family, but you never really mature. Again, I am not trying to blame anyone here. I am just saying. It’s unnatural. So, then, for the first part, for the first few minutes, I was ready. In case, as started to happen later on, there should be the sounds of screaming and breaking glass, etc. Yes, it did happen, but the little mixed breed chihuahua dog was the recipient of both the screams and the tantrums. Still, I knew that it would be directed at me next.

Walking around the little mountain village; you could call it “alpine”, I started to feel free. It was summer, I was outside, I felt pretty secure. I was starting my life over. I used to walk everywhere, just to get out. Not at first, at first I was still hiding. I would ride in this old yellow mini truck of this man with his dog on the way to the park, and I would duck my head when we went on the main road every time. It took months before I could hold my head up. But now, the tantrums had not yet started, I was feeling safe for at least the first part. It’s easy to suppress the knowledge that this person is not who they purport to be and that it will soon get serious again. For a little while at least, you can hide the facts from yourself. But it doesn’t work for very long. Then one day I was walking down a trail. A trail is an unpaved road, and our little mountain village had mostly trails. They were full of potholes and a lot of people owned 4×4’s or at the least some vehicle with a bit of clearance, like a pickup. Walking on one of these trails I saw this young man, quite heavy set. He said “Hi!” I said hi back. Then I just asked him, “I’m looking for a car to buy.” He responded, “you can buy that one right there.” He pointed. I never asked any other person before this man. Indeed, I never spoke to anyone. And I only had spoken to him because he spoke to me first. I ended up buying that car.

When finally, shortly after that the glass did begin to break, and the little dog ran to hide behind the piano, I was ready. The day I went to the city to get brakes on the car was a revelation for me. It was the first time I was making decisions about what to do, without anyone else’s help. It was daunting. It was dangerous. It was risky. It was grace. And when I came back with the brakes totally repaired, it was exhilarating. I’m not sure; maybe they took way too much money. I don’t know if they did good work. I trusted the mechanics I chose, at random so to speak. I spent a lot on that car. I had a lot of work done on it because I wanted it to be secure. I didn’t want to end up somewhere stranded. In the end I sold it for much less than I had invested in it. But there were factors which contributed to this decision. First, someone was pressuring me from outside. Second, I was myself not sure that the vehicle was even worth much. Still, I screwed up my courage and demanded at least 30% or more over the price I felt I could get. I got it immediately, without the man even trying to bargain with me. That should have told me something. Nevertheless, the car was gone. Then I had another car and it turned out that I would not be able to use it the way I had planned. So, suddenly I sold that car and then I was again without wheels. This time I was again living with the first man who had taken me in after my exodus from the cult. And this man had not really reformed his behavior. He was still professing to know what was good for me better than I did for myself. Even though he is young enough to be my son, had I had one.

I always had a problem with someone trying to push me around. Maybe that is why I had been bossy at times. It was a kind of pushback. But at some point I succumbed and decided that maybe this man actually knew better. He would get angry with me when I would not listen to him and he would become threatening. Like, if you don’t like what I say I don’t want to talk to you. To be clear, it meant I could just go on and move out. That was difficult. It’s very strange how these things get so twisted around. In the end I left. It was not an agree to disagree situation. It was push coming to shove. I couldn’t handle that sort of environment, not after living with a group for 10 years and being told every day that I’m worthless and don’t know anything and that I’ll be homeless without them. The leader had decided everything, right down to the type of underwear I would wear. But I did, I decided ok, let him tell me what to do. He was saying, get a new car. And I didn’t want to. That was one of our arguments. I wanted to get a used car. I showed it to him. He had picked out a new car for me and he was getting ready to take me to the dealership to pick it up. And I told him, no, I have decided to get a used car (at a third of the price) and he got really mad and then he was on strike. He was not going to help me. So, I was stuck there without a vehicle. I started to look around for another car. He was again becoming threatening, that, you better not buy another old car (he had pushed me into selling the old one). But I did. I bought another old car. Then at some point I gave in and we went and leased this car. And I am sitting in it now. The old car I had, well, I learned to do the repairs myself. It was crazy. At the end, I wanted to keep the old car and get rid of the new car. But how to get out of the lease? Much too complicated.

I ended up selling the old car, the one I had fixed up. I had repaired just about everything on it. I had not touched the fuel pump yet, though. And I felt the started could eventually go out as well. But aside from those two Items, I had done a lot with that car including wheel bearings and a lot of the front suspension. I sold it for what I had in it, not more. It was again, a lot, but at least this time I got my money back out of it. Now, I had gone down the valley and tried to get the dealerships to offer me a decent amount for the new car. But they wouldn’t offer me enough. I knew they stood to make a good 3-5 grand even if I took a bath by forfeiting my 2k down payment. But they were greedy and said they would only give so much. I decided to pass.

Then I sold my “baby”. And started driving east. So, I had it in mind to go and see my friends. Well, they didn’t know me. I knew “of” them, from social media. Like I said, they are stars. And I even felt, well, maybe we could work together. They had been saying in their videos, that help was needed and I feel I have a lot of experience, maybe I can help. But I also felt pretty shy to just burst through the doors and say, “Y’all don’t know me from Eve, but I’m great and you should just hire me!!” So, yesterday I met them. I walked into the “dealership”. And it was a bit tense for me. But I just pretended that I’m not desperate. Well, actually, I AM less desperate than I have been. I pretended not to care that much. I pretended to have a place to drive to after this. And after leaving the dealership after an hour or so, I DID drive in a direction, a certain direction. I did. I drove to my youngest brother’s house. I found the address. Sis #1 had given it to me.

So, by this time, anyone who has made it this far really wants to know, “where did you finally sleep last night?” And it was like this. I drove to my brother’s house. I had driven all country roads up through the bottom of the state. I didn’t want to go on the interstates. They bore me. The little towns, the country, that’s all cool. You drive and then you slow down. You see houses, animals in fields, barns, churches with huge cemeteries. I think the biggest cemeteries are the ones in my original home state. I’ve never seen such mammoth cemeteries anywhere else on earth. Not anywhere. So, I drove and sometime late at night a text message came through from a friend back east. And I couldn’t answer the text message. I was driving down a rolling county road in the middle of nowhere and I finally pulled over at a church. It’s so odd how many churches there are in my home state. And it was a huge church. Out in the middle of the countryside and hard to imagine how so many people live out there to fill up a church that size. And that was not the only one. There were others that were double and triple that size. I had seen them on the way. I had passes dozens of churches. Each tiny little podunk town seems to have about ten churches. So, I pulled over and then I was hungry and then I finished eating. I was less than an hour from my brother’s house. Well, if the address was correct. I could not know if it was. I just didn’t know. He never ever answered me on social media before. Not once. So, it was late by that time. I considered whether or not to park right there in the countryside under that bright light in the parking lot of the church, but I decided that was an invitation to a conversation with the county deputy. I moved on. I kept driving. Finally, I pulled into the mid-sized midwestern town in the southern part of this northern state. And I noticed as I was driving that I was on the “wrong” side or the “poor” side of the town, near the railroad tracks, as I quite expected.

I found the house then, or the address that was purported to be my little brother’s house. But I still didn’t know. The house was dark. There was no vehicle parked out front. The size of the lot is what we call “postage-stamp”. I assume that the separate garage is accessible only from the alleyway. If you opened the side door, you probably would be able to reach out and knock on your neighbor’s window without stepping out of the kitchen, the houses seemed that close to me. I felt pretty shy then. What if I would be sitting there and he would drive up in a pickup truck? I felt reasonably certain that he owns a pickup. I don’t know why, I just felt like, let me not sit right here out in the front. What if he called the police that there is someone sitting in their car in front of my house? So, I moved on down the block. There was a dead end. I turned around somewhat awkwardly, having to drive on someone’s grass to do it. There was no culdesac, no such thing. Then I pulled on the grass again, outside someone’s house across from a lot of cars parked in the yard of the house opposite. I tried to hunker down a bit and watch some videos on my phone. Shortly, there was a knock on the passenger window. I looked up. It was an older man, a shorter darker man. I felt no fear or trepidation, neither any embarrassment. I was in a dirt poor neighborhood. there were several boarded up houses on every other block. They were all these tiny little one story bungalows, built right around between the two world wars, the kind with tiling on the outside that looks like painted slate but is some kind of composition board. I suppose I could be afraid, but at this point I was past it. I fumbled to roll down the electric windows. The man asked me what was going on, I suppose. I don’t remember the conversation, but then a younger man came along. He got interested in our conversation and asked me about my brother. I said I was waiting for him. And he started to say things like, “Was he in the military?” Yes. “Does he keep to himself?” Yes. “He’s about this old?” Yes. “Has some health problems?” I told him about my brother’s old injury. Yes. “Well, that’s the only guy I know of by that name.” Then he told me my brother’s house and what it looked like, where it was and the sort of thing that was sitting in front of it etc. and it was the same house. So, I got my confirmation. My brother still lived in that house. Then then asked me to please move and just go and park in front of my brother’s house. They said they needed the room to turn their cars around. And indeed, they had lots of cars and little room for turning around.

Then I went and parked in front of my brother’s house the whole night. I woke up at 5:30 am and left. I have no idea what I will say to him, after 39 years just walk up and knock on the door? I couldn’t somehow. Anyway, it didn’t even look like anyone was there. In the morning I needed a restroom. I went looking for one. I searched for a gas station. I found one a couple of blocks away. When I went there I was not sure what to do. The neighborhood is SO poor. I finally pulled up to the front of the store after some time. I had been sitting down the block for maybe half an hour thinking about what kind of life does my brother have to live in such a place. I got out of my car and went into the store. There was a terrible stench inside. It smelled like a barnyard. Only now does it occur to me that it was probably a backed up sewer under the store. Most modern gas stations have nice concrete around them. This place was a dump. I was afraid to drive in the lot. I’ve gotten a lot of punctured tires before driving on lots such as that one. No chance of using the bathroom. It was locked and a sign hanging, out of order. The young dark foreign born man behind the cash register (which was in something that looked like a kitchen cage) asked nervously what I wanted. I left.

I started driving out of the neighborhood. I noticed how bad the streets all were. Yes, this is the type of town I grew up in. But it was a long time ago. A world away, and that time there were no foreigners running all the shops. And that is not a racist comment. It was just that it was a different time. I wondered what my brother does every day. I thought, he has disability from his injury. He doesn’t work. He just collects his check. He eats the equivalent of tv dinners and drinks beer. I doubt if he smokes. But he probably does pot. Yes, in fact, sitting in front of his house I could not sleep. I did say that, I couldn’t sleep and that is unusual for me. When I feel like sleeping and even when I don’t, I can lay down and I’m gone. No waiting.

No, last night I could not sleep. I was no longer excited or feeling embarrassed. I was itching. I felt like I had a huge contact high. I was not smelling anything, but my skin all over my body was itching like when I had been smoking pot. It has been years and years. I never smoke pot. I smoked it maybe ten times in my life. But I still remember how my body used to react. That is how I felt sitting in front of my brother’s house last night. Somehow I was able to ignore it and go to sleep.

well, finally then I found another gas station. I went inside. This time the asphalt in front was clean enough, no potholes. Same chicken caged store clerk as before, an older version, perhaps the uncle of the other store clerk. When I asked for the restroom he did not understand me directly, such was his English. Then the light went on and he said, “Yes, Yes, use it.” He pointed to the other side of the store. It was clean enough. Just barely clean enough. And thankfully no sewer stench in that store. I noticed the items they kept in that store, charcoal, old refilled 5 gallon propane canisters, very scratched up, things like that interspersed with those plastic shrink-wrapped 24 bottle packs of drinking water. The lotto area was a machine, an automat, as they say. You press the button and you can get your lottery ticket. You put in a credit or debit card. There’s also a slot for cash up to $100 denomination. The top buttons were $50, $30, $20, $10, right down to $2. I felt shocked to see that, that someone would come in and spend $50 and of course, not win. $50. It just made me feel bad.

After all this I left the store. I grabbed one of those little magazines on my way out that advertises used cars. They are always free, printed partly in color on newsprint. I drove next to the library and I’m still sitting here. I haven’t moved, but one time. I first parked down the other side of the lot next to a flashing bright advertising sign. Then I came down to the this end, but not before getting my laptop set up with the library wifi, which is working great, by the way. I signed up for a library card but of course I can’t get one until I can prove I’m a resident. They also have a non-resident card for which you pay, but you also have to prove you have a local address before you can get it. So you have to be a resident to get the non-resident card, right? The library actually called me as soon as they opened. I had put in my application online and here they were calling me back right away. How spiffy is that? Well, that’s the efficient German heritage Midwest for you. All the towns around down at the southern border had names like Brandenburg and such. The signs of the law offices all had German sounding names. So, the librarian calls me and then we had an awkward interview. I told her I just got here last night and I came straight to the library, that’s how much I love books. Well, that was a lie. I like books. But I have not set foot in a library in years, you know? But she laughed. I grilled her on why a non-resident card applicant has to prove to be a resident, but in the end it was half hearted. I knew that this is just silly.

So, I am writing this report. And it’s not finished even yet. How many words this must be. It’s dreadfully long already. I feel like Forest Gump sitting at the bus stop waiting for his bus, talking to everyone and not realizing that Jenny is only a few streets away. I sat her for such a long time. I started to mindlessly watch tiktok and then I stopped again. I plugged the laptop into the battery, the jakery, bluetti whatever it is and then I arranged the seat a bit different, so that I could sit comfortably and write. I found out I could lay the seat back and use it as a bench if I turned sideways and crossed my legs. That worked for a while. The milk has coagulated in the meantime. Thankfully I only got half a gallon. I might just shake it up and drink it anyway. It tasted fine. I was writing this and writing and seeing the way that I walk backwards and back and back in my tale. Starting from here where I find myself and then having to do this maneuver which is called in German weit ausholen. And every part of the story I had to start again and take another and then another and another step back. It turned into a dance.

Finally, at a point sitting here I decided to text my brother. Sis had given two phone numbers. I tried both. I texted “Mr. G. I want to see you before I die”. Nothing. Hours later nothing. And suddenly it didn’t matter. I had done what I could. I came here. I don’t know why I should feel as I once did while a teenager with a crush on a boy, driving far out into the countryside, hoping to spot him driving in his car somewhere. Yes, hoping to spot him, but then too shy to do anything if I did. Now, why should I feel like that towards my own brother? I felt a release suddenly, as if I didn’t need to even worry about it. One more try, then maybe I will move on. I don’t know what type of a person that is, who lives for years and years without talking to anyone. I don’t know what kind of stress it is that leads to such a life. But then again, maybe I do know.