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9:10 p.m. - November 11, 2002
These entries I delete
I don't need a counselor or therapist to tell me what I already know but I enjoy the ear and the ability to simply talk. There is much to talk about and in doing so I feel I'm learning about myself, the recurring theme of being a stranger adrift coming into focus.

As an adolescent I was a chronic runaway with the longest stretch of what I then considered to be freedom lasting several months, when I lived with Rose and her husband in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was intended to be a clean break, a new beginning, and in many ways it was, and the most electric of memories aren't the ones Rose engendered but studying Russian and Latin at the kitchen table and preparing early for medical school, of catching the cross-town bus to attend the privileged white high school up from the valley, of breathing freely and being sure-footed. The issue, the question, is why I wanted to leave home so strongly, and from what was I running?

The cops came to the townhouse at 3:24 a.m. and banged on the door until Mel, the muscled Navajo, woke up and led them to my room. I was awake at the first knock and was ready; looking back, I'm struck by the inconsistency: I wanted freedom, and relished what I had gained for myself, yet when the thought of exiting through the window materialized, I made the conscious decision not to and thus ended my freedom. I had given up. This pattern repeats itself.

The time spent at the youth detention facility lasted nearly three weeks while my parents fought over Retrieval Yes and Retrieval No, my father pleased at my absence, my mother afraid of what the neighbors and community thought of her mothering skills. I know these details via my sister and she has no cause to lie, though I suspect she's abridged out of concern for my feelings. There, I was the only white guy caught between the Hispanic Bloc and the Indian Nation and learned quickly to draw inward and outward beyond the walls, my outsider status driven home. School-wise, the administrators were at a loss after obtaining my records from the school; their itinerant teacher couldn't handle calculus, chemistry, Russian, Latin, other courses. I finished a weeks' lessons in one day and became the teacher's assistant, translating into passable Spanish when I could, learning Navajo cuss words. I remember one guy, very slight and smaller than me, who would sit next to me in the common room and ask me questions about life in California and why the hell had I run away to Albuquerque. I didn't have an explanation other than I wanted to breathe.

Things only became worse after the head jailer (okay, it's dramatic; but not sure what to call him) was contacted by the police in my parents' hometown. He told the other guys that I was a rich kid who ran off to live with a married woman and who--get this--had run away after shipping his stereo and CDs to his destination, and flew instead of running away like a man. I did not like the way this man looked and was afraid of him just as I'm afraid of the dark sometimes and dark water always, the timbre of his voice as he'd say Rich Jew Boy, the look in his eyes.

I wouldn't eat but I drank my pint carton of milk every morning and on a Wednesday, a week into my detention, I was force fed by the head jailer and throughout I shouted about lawyers and rights and the Constitution but he prevailed and the other guys shook their heads, having seen attempts at hospitalization and escape before.

This is difficult to write about.

A week and a few days and I was charged with office duties behind the thick glass (glass? I dunno) because I could use a Mac and could spell and the distance between myself and the other juveniles grew exponentially. Two days after that, on a Friday morning, the head jailer hurt me and I hope you understand what I mean by that.

It was about power and hierarchism.

When my mother came to retrieve me I was not defiant or relieved; I was cold. I was 16 years old. I was broken. And I went home, applied to The Big School Back East under supervision and returned to my seat at school and everything was like it was before, other than I couldn't breathe.

I was accepted at the big school and received a scholarship and I declined, not because I rebelled but because I was afraid of failure. Instead I went to a small university where I could not fail and could be obscure and anonymous and I began drinking a lot, gaining a lot of weight, sinking like a stone into the mud. I couldn't run so I stopped, gave up and realized one day I was cut off from everybody and myself as well and like that I could breathe.

Applied to graduate schools because my professors asked, When do you need those letters and I felt obligated to live up to their expectations, some sort of star English and Political Science student who didn't know what he wanted and who took directions as well as salmon through fish runs. It was easier to nod yes and be compliant and by then, everything was wrong and I hid things deeper until it was pouring out of my ears.

That was in 1997. It is nearing the end of 2002 and I am in the same place.

I'm here because I gave up, because I didn't fight further and leave through the window. When I judge and condemn myself it is in the naive hope and certainty that all this could have been avoided. I know this not to be true, that running itself was symptomatic of the molestation and the relationship with my father, but no amount of talk will bring me closer to forgiving myself.

And today, I'm still running yet giving up simultaneously, especially with friendships and the book. I simply don't know where to turn, what to look at, what to register, so that I can find a bit of firmament and start climbing again. It's a cycle and I look in the mirror and think How obscene, how ugly, yet I'm comforted because bad things don't happen to ugly people; and as I grimace at the naivete of that I know it to be true. But I am tired of being ugly and part of me realizes I no longer need to hide away, that I am not the child who didn't know how to fight, but the allure of safety and anonymity is stronger.

In a simple way, I am afraid that once the books are published my safety will be gone, as if I harbor the fear he will find me, as if he is looking, but the emotional refuses to listen to the rational and I mount the treadmill inside the cage again.

It's not about giving up. It's about saying Enough. I can't say that yet.

 

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