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09.07.04 - 12:20 p.m. I went home for the weekend. That's not a completly truthful assesment of my weekend. My home is somewhere in the past, at least 15 years ago. The town where my home used to be is still there, and the people who shared my home are still living in that town, but home has become quite elusive. Sometimes I wonder if it would feel more like home if when I visited I would be visiting in the house I grew up in as a kid. My brain wants to equate home with house, and I should know better, since hometown doesn't equate with 'town I grew up in'...that hometown also exists about 15 years ago. When my mother and stepfather divorced, finally, mom shortly thereafter married Bob and Tom, stepdad #1 and embodiment of evil, moved into his dead mother's house. No surprises there...Mom is codependant and Tom was a total momma's boy, chompin' at the bit to return to his peaceful womb. The house I grew up in, my 525 ave. D, just sits there on the hill, empty. I'm sure poltergeists of my childhood are roaming about the house, slamming doors and breaking glass. I spent my entire childhood in that house. Well, actually we lived in a trailer court for awhile when I was very young. Yes, my white trash roots are real and deep. I don't remember much about the trailer court, just it felt like living at a campground. The house sits on a hill, actually the second of three large hills that lead up to the bluff of Fort Madison or Avenue C. You can stand up there, on the curb of "High C" and see almost all of Fort Madison nestled in the Mississippi River valley. The three most noticeable features are, the Mississippi river, Santa Fe bridge (largest swingspan bridge that caters to both train and automobile) and St. Mary's church with its steeple piercing the sky. Twenty-four steps led up to our wrap around front porch. Twelve wooden steps and twelve concrete steps. Our front porch painted brown and the house a fleshy peach; the porch covered in delapitated wooden shingles. The shingles, like loose teath, pulled out easily in your hands. As kids, we loved to play under the porch. A mysterious place full of wolf spiders and pill bugs. We sat in the fine dirt, dirt like brown chalk dust, and pretended to have seances. I threw a handful of dirt into the light shining through the cracks in the wooden steps and we read the swirls of dust reflecting in the light beams. In the whirls were the answers to questions like, "Will Jason ever be an astronaut," or "Will Mendy marry Hunter and have six children?" No one ever walked on the east side of the porch, to the right of the front door. Not since my leg went through it. Tom never fixed it. It was the danger zone. A large white wooden porch swing hung on the west side of the porch. My sisters and I loved to grab our blankets and sit and watch storms build, blow, and rain themselves out. We loved to taunt the thunder, running down into the yard screaming into the sky, "Grind Thor!" The lightening cut across the slate sky and we ran, screaming, back to the safety of the porch. I got my ass beat up all twenty-four of those steps, once. My best friends, Ryan and Brent, lived across and down the street from me. One evening we were sitting on their front porch comparing He-Man action figures, my younger sister, Mendy, came over to tell me Tom wanted me home. I didn't think it was quite so late, hell the street lights weren't even on yet, so I decided to stay a bit longer. Not a good idea. We saw him from their porch explode out of my front door and stomp his way down the stairs. I could have sworn he had an aura of fire and smoke. I felt the world slow as I sat, transfixed, watching him stomping down the sidewalk towards me. He was yelling, but all I could make out was, "Motherfucker....God Damn....you sonofabitch...." The next thing I knew he grabbed me up off of Ryan and Brent's porch and slung me over his shoulders with my ass in the air. I could see Dee Dee, Ryan and Brent's mom, watching from their front door. She looked shocked, but then she averted her eyes, turned her back and closed the door. The beating started immediately. It seemed as if I got a swat for every step he took. My ass burned every time his meaty hand struck, and my back ached from miscalculated hits. Once again he was yelling, but all I could make out was, "Motherfucker...God Damn...you sonofabitch." Getting beat up those stairs was the first time I had ever counted them. It was the only thing I could think of doing to get my mind off of what was happening...one step...two step..wooden steps...porch. I yelled at him, "You don't know what you're doin'. You're just really mad...You don't know what you're doing." "I'm beating your ass, boy." I realized...he did know what he was doing. My theory of 'blind rage' and accountability fell a part that evening. I realized he chose to beat me. This altered my home life. It was then I became aware of eggshells and how light you must step not to break any of them.
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