September 28, 2011

a post I've been meaning to write

Originally published September 22, 2003

I've been thinking about this one for a while. People commenting about my archives stirred me to write it.

In July of 2001, I had a pretty heavy double-whammy laid on me. The woman I loved told me that she didn't love ME anymore on Saturday and the following Monday I discovered that I had prostate cancer. The BC cleaned out the bank accounts, cancelled all the credit cards and put me on the street with $60 to my name. Then, she moved an unemployed dope-smoker into MY 3,200-square-foot home on 5 and 1/2 acres of land that I had worked my ass off on. I saw a gross unfairness in those circumstances.

I kinda flipped out and did some stupid things, for which I paid dearly. In between jail, the looney bin and that railroad trip to a "rehab clinic," my life was pretty well run by the Gestapo for the next 45 days. In the meantime, the BC was having a grand old time with her new lover and dragging my son along for the ride. Some of the mail I received at the time from my friends who saw her DELIBERATELY rubbing my nose in her adultery shattered my heart.

Don't ever believe that you "know" somebody. You don't. You know what they mean for you to see, not what they really are. And believe me on this: a knife in the back from someone you trust really hurts. Especially when it costs you a child.

When I was under lockup, I started keeping a journal. Writing was the only way that I could keep my head screwed on straight. I didn't know a damned thing about blogs at the time, so I filled two composition books with stuff a lot like what I write today. That was, without a doubt, the most horrible time of my life.

I had one episode in the "rehab clinic" that I am damned certain the BC choreographed. I was not allowed to use a phone there, but I received an "emergency" call from my home phone number. I was allowed to call, only to hear the phone ringing off the walls of an empty house. She did that just to make certain that I knew that she was off somewhere fucking around. Yes, she did that a lot to me, and it hurt like hell every time.

When I was a free man again, I asked her about that "emergency" phone call. She said that she didn't make it, but maybe a couple of my friends she and the dope-smoker saw when they went to that concert in Jacksonville called. It was no big deal. "Where was Quinton?", I asked. "Quinton spent the weekend with his Granny," she replied, with a half-smile. ("While I fucked my slutty brains out with someone you once considered to be a friend, asshole," was dancing all over that half-smile.)

Take another little piece of my heart, now baby.

I went back to work for 28 days, then went into the hospital for the prostate surgery. I thought I was pretty tough and could rebound quickly. I was wrong. She came to see me after I was moved from the recovery room and she brought me two presents. One was a pathetic little potted flower she purchased in the gift shop downstairs, and the other was the final divorce papers for me to sign.

Yes, she did that, the bloodless cunt. I was still hooked up to IVs, whacked on morphene and I had a catheter running up Roscoe and she laid the paperwork on me RIGHT THEN. She wanted her divorce and she wanted it RIGHT NOW. I signed the papers.

I spent another 28 days feeling as if I had been kicked in the gut by a very large and very angry mule. I lost a lot of weight that I never have gained back. I didn't sleep very much. I didn't eat much at all. I ran out of pain medication and had my mama drive me to the emergency room to get some more. I couldn't sleep at ALL without it.

I actually bought the Crackerbox over the phone while I was laid up during that time. I was still wearing a catheter when I saw the house and said that I would buy it, and I could barely get my ass out of bed when I closed on the house, but Willie and Ed and a couple of other friends moved what remaining shit I still owned into the place for me. The 6.7 acres of land we owned sold to provide me the down payment on the house, then the mini-farm sold a week later. I made a lot of money on that deal, but I would rather have the mini-farm back. I put a lot of my life into that place.

I went back to work not certain that I really wanted to. Emotionally, I remained a wreck and that's not a good thing for a person in my position. About once a day, I would climb to the top of the baghouses and cry where no one could see me. I knew that I couldn't keep doing crazy shit like that and I thought seriously about resigning before I really embarrassed myself by breaking down in a meeting with upper management or something equally humiliating.

But I was fucking off on the internet during lunch one day when I discovered glenn reynolds. I thought that he ran the most intriguing site I had ever encountered. Talk about One-Stop shopping! I could go there and find all kinds of interesting things to read. I started following his blogroll and found Ken Layne one day. Ken said "Everybody ought to have a blog. You want to know how easy it is? Go HERE!" and he gave a link to Blogger.com.

I went home one evening and started this blog. That was December 28, 2001. That was my son's birthday. That was the day I brought home the cake and the presents only to discover that the BC had hauled ass to the mountains for the weekend with her lover and Quinton. He was seven years old that day and I'll never forget throwing that cake in the trash can and leaving a very obscene, spittle-stained message on her answering machine.

I don't call her a bloodless cunt for nothing.

When I started this blog,I didn't know diddly-squat. I didn't know how to do a link. Steve Hamby came to visit when he realized that he was dying and brought his mercenary 15 year-old son, Scott, who designed his school's web-page. I paid Scott $100 to install comments, teach me how to do a link and put a hit counter on my page. He showed me how to do my first blogroll, too. It was money well spent.

I sometimes like to go read my archives myself. I started out writing essays. I tried to copy Instapundit for a while and became a linker. I went into serious fisking after that. Now, I don't know what it is that I do, but I'm not throwing constant howls of pain out there anymore and I'm not trying to rip people's throats out or "be like" anyone else the way I once was.

I've found a way to blog that suits me. Do you know what my rules are?

HAVE NO RULES! Just make it fun to read and even MORE FUN to write.

September 21, 2011

I get interesting comments

Originally published September 23, 2003

I like this one:

Is there anything less dignified, more pathetic or unsexy than a grown man throughing (sic)himself a pity party? God, man, call Oprah and see if you can get together for a good cry. It's one thing to feel as you do, quite another to publish this banal tripe. I'm beginning to see the BC's point of view. You must of been a pain to live with. No wonder she left. Instead of looking at everyone else to blame, maybe it's time to look at yourself. You're a very angry man and you've got no one to blame but yourself.

Posted by Dorothy at September 23, 2003 02:17 PM

Dorothy, I can think of quite a few things that are more pathetic and unsexy than what I do on this blog. YOU come to mind, right off the bat.

And if you don't like my "banal" writing, do me a favor. Go to the grocery store, buy youself a cucumber and some KY jelly, then go home and fuck yourself. Bejus knows you can't find a man to do it; otherwise you wouldn't be displaying all of your suppressed frustration here.

Don't like what I do? Then, don't come back here, hear? Just stick with cucumbers.

September 14, 2011

that's a friend

Originally published September 23, 2003

I remember the last time I played guitar with Steve Hamby. I began to carry on and change the words to something that we had performed many times together and he just started laughing. "Smith, you can be a real asshole sometimes," he said. "But I've never in my life met a more perfect asshole than you are." I gave him a High Five for that one.

So here is a notification to all you people who call me an "asshole" and believe that you're leaving an insult. You're not. My best friend called me an asshole right before he died. Hell, he was an asshole, too, in his own way. Maybe that's why we got along so well. I really believe that people with elevated asshole quotients make the best friends.

Especially if they play guitar. That's a realm where you can REALLY explore assholery.

And sometimes, through it all, you discover that you love that asshole you played guitar with more than you love yourself. Steve has been gone since February. Tonight, I wish he was here to do "Cherokee Fiddle" one more time. I wish that he was sitting on my couch and telling me those deadpan jokes he did so well that always cracked me up. I wish that I could harmonize on "Fox on the Run" with him again again.

But, as my 92 year-old grandmother will tell you today, "Wish in one hand and shit in the other, then see which one fills up first."

I can still wish. I just don't expect them to come true anymore.

September 07, 2011

the game

Originally published September 23, 2003

I watched a titanic little-league football game tonight that ended in a 0-to-0 final score. Thank Bejus that they don't believe in overtime at my son's age. They would be playing until sometime next week.

Quinton wears number 30, which was MY number all through junior high and high school. He picked that number all by himself, and I am very proud that he did, but I have to admit that my son is no football player. He thinks he's still on the soccer field. He likes to dance around and run, but he DOES NOT like to hit anybody. I don't care what tall tales he spewed before. I watched him in action tonight, and my boy does not want to ACTUALLY HAVE CONTACT WITH ANYONE on the football field.

That's not a virtue for a football player. You simply have to go kamikaze sometimes, and I saw kids Quinton's age doing exactly that today. But Quinton never did.

I believe that it is his mama's doing. She never wanted him to play football anyway, and she probably warns him every day not to get hurt when he goes to practice. You can't have a pussy telling a boy how to play football. What can a pussy tell him about the game?

Well, she can't teach him to play football, but she can convince him to stick with SOCCER the rest of his life.

My aching ass.

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