The Catch Up: Part Two

This is for the missing prompts from Week Six.

"There's place and means for every man alive."
~ William Shakespeare

26.

I'm not really sure that I remember much about where I was born. In fact, I only have flashes of people, the inside of a house, a room, maybe some hints of feelings...But memories? Real, static, indisputable memories? Not one. I know the name of the town. I could drive you there if I were so inclined to do so, and possibly had a map. But I couldn't have told you a single fucking thing about how life there operates up until the time that I was about...oh, I don't know...18 years old. And now? Now that I've been back there; seen what it's like? I wouldn't want to. 

But I will, if nothing more than for the sake of posterity. 

I'm a hillbilly. I've never made any attempt to hide that fact. I've also never understood this backwards-ass fascination with, and assumption that, this is somehow a wonderful thing. Now, I've never pointed a shotgun at some jackass and told him to "git off'n my propr'ty," or taken a large swill of moonshine from a clay jug with nothing but three large X's on the side, but I was born just off the Blue Ridge Parkway in the mountains Western North Carolina and that qualifies me..."good 'n proper."

This surprises a lot of people, as I "have no accent," and people say things like "I never would have guessed." I'm not sure if everyone that I meet is fucking ignorant, or if it's just me, but I took offense to that kind of jive for a lot of my life. That was, of course, until I went back there. See, I was of the opinion that mountains are majestic and beautiful, and that people who choose to reside in those areas probably know something that the rest of us don't. I learned that every stereotype has a starting point, I guess. 

My first impression of the town of my former residence was that I had somehow mistakenly taken the exit ramp that said "Hell" instead of my intended destination. 

At this point, I feel that it is prudent to stop and shed some light on something. The reason I can't really recall any time in this place is that I don't think that I spent very long in it. Aside from these "flashes" and vague recollections, all I can recall of my childhood took place in a city setting. From what I can gather, my dad was one of those people who just saw himself somewhere else and made damned sure that he got there. Or out of there....however you want to put it. And as we can see from where I left off, he had plenty of reason. 

Now where was I? Oh, yeah:

 "Hell."

This place had absolutely nothing that I was used to dealing with, save for a K-Mart that had a ludicrously cracked parking-lot-area-thing that was becoming overgrown with all sorts of drying grass and weeds. I should also ask you to keep in mind that K-Mart was in steady decline at this point. I guess they've somewhat made a resurgence in the time between then and now, but at the time, the place looked like something out the goddamned Omega Man. Seriously...I half expected Charlton Heston's crazy ass to come hurtling out of the store at any moment carrying a bag of vampire killing supplies. Other than that, this was one of those one-stoplight kinda' places. 

This was only made worse for me by the fact that everyone young in the town seemed to be making this place some sort of amazing social locale. Cars in varying shades of ill upkeep were parked all over, windows rolled down, doors open. It was the place to be as far as this town went, and as far as my mind could fathom at the time, that was pretty goddamned sad. Even to this day, some part of me will never understand why, with all of the goddamned woods around that place, one of those people weren't enterprising enough to build some sort of fort, clubhouse, shed, anything, out in the wilderness and have the beer chugging-redneck-Friday out there. I'm fairly sure it would have cut at least one person's arrest records in half. 

But that was where I was. The whole town pretty much looked like that goddamned parking lot did. You could see it in the people's eyes whenever they bothered to look at you. Something in them was saying "This is it. Life will never be any more than this. I'm resigned to it." Which is actually both sad and a little pathetic, if you think about it. On the one hand, I can understand poverty, crushing defeat and lack of morale...but on the other? My fucking dad was one of these people. Sure, he may be complete bastard that I'm almost 100% is at the very top of someone's kill list, but he had to be. He worked hard. studied hard and mercilessly demolished any poor jackass that stood between himself and getting out of that goddamned waste-of-space town. 

These days, I'm not exactly sure what became of that town. I've recently been in contact with my father, which will put me back in touch with that town, as I have to put in a request for a new birth certificate.  

From time to time, I've wondered how, if at all, things like the internet, cell phones, this whole suburban fascination with urban strife and things of that nature have affected that town. I wonder if it has grown any, changed any. But never enough to want to go back. I can safely say that I am proud to have come from there, but will never be proud of going back. For me, it's the pride of a successful prison escapee. An ordeal that I survived. 

27. 

I don't think I've ever felt entirely "secure" in my adult life. I'm not saying this because I have some deep-seated psychological trauma that gives me a complex, but more because I'm a transient. Always have been. 

Since my mother died, way-on-back, and I was told by my ever-understanding father that it was "his way or the highway," my life has basically been just that: The highway. 

I've lived in more towns than I have fingers and toes, and more than that, I've lived in just about every corner of each of those towns. I've conned my way into the best neighborhoods that money can buy and worked hard, busting my ass, to only be able to afford the cheapest of rents offered. 

That being said, there's nowhere that I've discovered that offers me the security that most people take for granted. 

I've come to understand a basic truth about who I am and the things that I've seen transpire, and it basically boils down to situations being beyond the control of the people who are living in them. 

Economies crash, tossing once-stable and loving families into the poor house. People sell drugs as an enterprise and live, comfortably, in the lap of "star" luxury. 

There is static everywhere, and you must be quick on your toes, if not fleet of feet to survive.