2003-01-13 - 11:30 p.m.
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Geriatric School
It's a cold and relentless night down here on the island. Even in my carhart coat, I can feel it in my bones. As I drove through these streets one last time before I leave tomorrow to go rock out Boston, I can feel more than cold affecting my body. I can feel ghosts and souls I once rocked with, people who shook down reality with me. Spent the night hanging out with Christine, an old friend, a dear friend, and we shot shit like a crap shotgun. And all the things that are outside of my memories reach were pushed back into it's grasp by hands who helped carve these moments into my existence. We went to the Lynbrook Diner, THE Lynbrook Diner and I saw some faces that were shielded by the actions of too many parties and not enough sleep. Some faces who still haven't forgotten mine. I still feel the shock of hearing of things I did that I forgot about, sitations that changed people's lives that I did and that haven't meant nothing to me but have been long forgotten. I feel guilty having to be reminded of classroom mishaps, the walking in through windows, the utter chaos brought down on teachers from my own hands. The tremendous amounts of laughter that have bellowed out of my lungs and others because we had nothing better to do than lash out at people trying to help us. I remember crushing dreams and creating memories in one fell swoop: permanently ending one teacher's career only to walk away with so many stories I can't even remember them. I've been through so much that I have to rely on other people to tell me what I've done, as if I'm hearing some stories of ANOTHER Belmo, another Mike, whatever you call me. Another me. Some other twisted and bored person lashing out at that sick feeling of apathetic drowsiness brought on by someone who just runs through the motions. You taught well but I taught you in the end, lady. I feel bad for being the big stone wall halting someone's teaching career but shit, sometimes it's just the way it goes. You have adversaries sometimes that you feel friendly towards and it's just this made up feud that separates you from following that respect.
I have history too deep here. I have roots that run so deep that nothing will kill them. If I became a rockstar or some ungodly celebrity or something ridiculous like that one day, these would be the people who would be on those ridiculous Before They Were Stars shows, where people try to figure out where stars came from and what made them go to where they are. You can't pinpoint actions and moments to a timeline like some butterfly on a tackboard though and expect that butterfly to tell all. You can only look back and understand if you were there when that butterfly wasn't even a butterfly yet. And I was there and I don't even remember these things.
I leave this pool of memories to go to Boston tomorrow, to go to a slightly shallower pool. Not in substance but in time. And despite this pool being smaller than my original roots, it still runs deep as far as memories go. More actions brought on by the utter rejection of boredom. I refuse to sit idle when I know I can do something, refuse to be useless when there's something to do and apparently I found people in Lowell who share the same feeling. All the shit we all got into, all the fucked up things, too many to mention again, too much to even remember, all these things happened as well. I didn't change who I was at Lowell, but I saw that I was acting way more instinctual at Lowell than at home. At home, you fall into cliques or groups based off of whatever, and you make friends through years upon years of situations. Old friends become new enemies, old foes become allies, people who lived at your house become estranged family you see at a bar or in a pizza place. But with Lowell, it was clean slate. You had no idea what people's pasts were. They could be full of shit for all you know. The triumphs and stories told to you could be fabrications in attempts to gain attention and popularity. I never fell into that shit. I never told lies, stretched truths and made shit up because I already had too much to tell with the truth I had. And for some strange reason, we all clicked there like that. The whole third floor of Leitch was like a big house, where rooms were just where you kept your shit and at any minute, history you will take to your coffin can come out of any door. And to go to the school for MUSIC, a language that transcends all forms of barriers! People might not agree with each other in any situation except that fucking Metal rules, or motherfucking Punk is the shit. I've seen people who would bite each other's jugulars out discussing Megadeth. People who, if they saw each other in their high school or if they lived on each other's blocks, might never even speak. And it was music that brought us all there. Bands popped up out of nowhere, it just depended on who's room you were hanging out in at the right time. Someone plays a riff you like and you jam for two seconds BAM! a song about Will Brierly leaving without notice for a week turns into an entire floor singing in the common room. Number one conversation starter: Who the fuck is Will? It could have been anyone, we didn't care, although Will is definitely someone who deserves a memorial song had something seriously happened.
And the friendships whipped around all corners of sense. It was ludicrous. It was as if we all had magnets implanted in our heads and we just went around sticking to the next person and hanging with them until it was some sort of fucked up dysfunctional family, everyone aware of everyone else. Even people who hung out with only one person in the family would eventually hang out with everyone through the course of the semester. There were hardly This One's Friend or That One's Friend. It was Joe or Bob or anyone. We all knew each other.
Then it went to the Southside, we all moved within sock walking distance. In a matter of 20 minutes, you could have been in 5 suites, seen 40 people and that's just to see if anything's going on. Christ, we practically owned that place. Barely any form of authority, barely any form of control. Things were thrown out windows, walls were demolished and things were demolished, set on fire and thrown out the window and that was just OUR suite. It became like townships: The Village of 503, 309ston, 407sville. The list goes on. We all went ballistic. The piles of memories only span one year for me, but even that one year was motherfucking ballistic. Those two years have ended up showing me who I am, unleashed some hellish maniac inside that I can't shut up now and refuse to silence. If I'm anything at all, it's because of my dysfunctional family. I was brought up by my roots, but I was taught by my brothers.
And to have to leave was god awful. So fucking painful. I didn't do anythign for a week when I found out. I stayed home. I didn't read a lot, I just kind of sat there and thought. I quit my shitty shitty electrician's helper job, stayed home and went into some kind of submissive withdrawal from reality. I smoked a lot then, to try and calm myself, becasue I was reeling with a sense of helplessness, swimming in this thick darkness that I couldn't find my way out of. I was blind. I think those were my darkest days, where the only form of conversations I had were all on the computer, which I depended on solely. I downloaded movies everyday, watched them. Tried to get my mind off of it. I plotted and planned and schemed and devised. I figured if I had an "address" in Lowell, somewhere I could get mail sent to for long enough, I could get In-State tuition, which would be about the same I pay for Suny rates now. But I couldn't get myself to start it up. I couldn't get going. I was so hurt by it all that I lost that fire in my gut, it just went out. The inferno that raged and raged those years, that drove me to push myself to the outer edges of my personal capabilities was doused with an overall sense of failure. I couldn't stand being a failure to myself, to my family and to my Family. I failed the people who taught me how not to fail. It was fucking awful.
I eventually found Plattsburgh. I had this bitter chip the moment I got there. I refused to enjoy the situation. Fuck, I planned on being there only one semester, a year tops. I wasn't going to allow myself to sit still and enjoy it. I still refused to be bored, but I closed down my doors. I put up walls and I locked everyone out unless they pounded to be let in. The wideopen feeling Lowell gave me disappeared and instead I felt trapped, isolated in some fucked up shithole buried under Canada, forgotten and forsaken. So far from any form of excitement, so far from free expression. The doors stayed closed, no one mingled like old school. Bands were non-existant. If anyone spoke the lanugage of Music, they must have been mute. I fell into just spending the time I had left, relying on the few people I felt a close attachment with to help me make it through. To this day, I still feel like I haven't had that wholehearted glory I felt in Massachusetts back. I still feel trapped up there, I still feel restrained. People there don't understand Dr. Hump and the Funtubes, they don't understand something like the Sugar Shack, they don't understand family. Maybe I just haven't given them enough to allow it, maybe those doors are still closed enough to repress everything essential to understand me. But I don't even understand me. I look back, spent a whole night looking back tonight, spent a whole year looking back, spent my whole life looking back and now I'm forced to turn around and start looking ahead, start planning out. I can't even take what I've known, so how can I stand what I'm going to learn?
It's been a trying month for me. I have so much that I'm going to eventually leave behind, so many people who rememeber things I slowly lose, gold that falls out of my pocket, the things I hold dear being pried from my fingers through time. I feel like I'm just waiting for something to happen, some strange epiphany and my brain just doesn't care anymore. I don't remember that kid who terrorized teachers, I don't remember that kid who pushed himself to absolute limits. I don't remember shit and I want to. Even reading back through this diary, to remind me, which was and is the whole purpose of this, I can only see words and the images they represent are hazy and dull, not vibrant and outstanding. It's like some cruel joke. We're allowed to have the time of our lives and only realize it when it's all done if we can even remember it. This week is over and my roots have been watered, I've paid tribute to those who lifted me up. This week, it's family reunion time and then it's back to Plattsburgh. I don't know what's going to happen. I used to love that feeling, but now I wish I could just have everything back. I wish I could, even for one day, have every thread of my existence pull together and just for one day tell everyone I loved them, that I truly loved every single person I've ever met, even the assholes. I wish I could just for once show my thanks to every motherfucker I changed in any direction whatsoever, just once to tell them remember? Remember that? Remember? Thank you. You've made this long journey that much fucking better. Thank you.
Thank you.
BMC
What did you just say? - What's he gonna say next?
