My History (6th In A Series)

This is the story of my journey to accomplishing what I like to call "My Greatest Achievement," winning the 1990 Chicagoland Spelling Bee. It shows how driven--and neurotic--I get when I am close to something that I want badly.

This all starts in 4th grade at Skinner Classical School, which at the time only went up to 6th grade. No one except 6th-graders and maybe a talented 5th-grader or two is supposed to hang around long enough to have a shot at winning the school spelling bee. But several 4th-graders, including yours truly and my friend "Jacob" and a couple others, wound up part of the last ten or so. We responded with typical 4th-grade maturity by stretching out across the front row of chairs, which were empty because we had outlasted most of the others, and pretending like we were bored to death when anyone but us was up at the mike trying to spell, and yes, this was in front of a full auditorium, and yes, our 4th-grade teacher ripped us a new one afterwards. Now, I want to say that I finished 3rd, outlasting my classmates, but I freely admit that my ego may be revising history and that I was not the last remaining "undergrad," but either way, I finished way higher than anyone imagined, and together we 4th-graders vowed to come back the next two years and TCB, since we knew we only had two more years left at Skinner. I don't even remember where I finished in 5th grade; I do know that the same uber-smart chick that won in my 4th-grade year won in my 5th-grade year. But she was a year ahead of me, meaning that for my last year at Skinner, she would be out of the way. I crammed and studied hard my 6th-grade year, and it came down to me and a classmate named Stephanie who was famous for having a fully-developed chest by, like, our 3rd-grade year. (I can still see her doing shuttle runs for gym class now. All of the guys would line up on the side as if we were watching a parade.) Anyhow, I misspelled "nicotine," adding an extra "c," and she got it right and nailed the next word to win it all. Displaying my passive-aggressiveness at an early age, I graciously shook her hand and congratulated her, then later accused her of stealing my study guide and replacing it with one that had "niccotine" in it. The way the process works is that the winner of the school contest competes against the 20 or so other schools in the district, and the winner of the district title takes on the 20 or so other district winners for the citywide title. Then the city champ competes in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee, which gets a lot of pub these days, what with the ESPN telecasts and the movie "Spellbound." Well, being Stephanie's runner-up meant that if something should happen to her and she couldn't compete in the district contest, I would take her spot. Wouldn't you know, several weeks before the district contest she BREAKS HER LEG. So, combine my last year at Skinner with what I thought was my destiny to be the top speller there with the district contest that year, 1988, being held at Skinner (think conference title game at your home stadium in your senior year), and I thought Stephanie breaking her leg was a sign that I was meant to compete in the district spelling bee and have a shot at city. Nope, think again. Stephanie showed up the day of the district on crutches and destroyed my hopes and dreams. She finished second. Was I a little bitter? I complained to a complete stranger in the audience that she was taking my spot and I hoped she lost. Of course I felt like a complete dick once she did finally lose, but dammit, I wanted that spot so bad.

So my next two years of grade school were at Ogden Elementary, home of a gifted program called International Baccalaureate, and because I didn't do well in subjects that bored me, which at the time was anything that didn't have to do with sports, pro wrestling, or pussy, my grades were absolutely atrocious. I had no luck with women, I had my folks on my back all the time about my grades, and I was separated from the amigos that I grew up with at Skinner. So I basically had nothing going for me except my reputation as "Dr. Pervert" because of the naughty stories I wrote, and the spelling. It was a new district, new school, but I was the same driven son-of-a-gun as far as wanting that school spelling title. Well, I got more than I thought. The way that the school spelling bee was done at Ogden was in written form by the English teacher, Mrs. Smeriglio. It wasn't a big auditorium with the whole school watching, it was a classroom with about 50 kids in it, mostly 7th and 8th-graders from the gifted program with a few 6th-graders sprinkled in. Smeriglio read off fifty words, and we wrote them on a piece of paper and handed it in. So my first school title was rather anticlimactic. I was standing in line the next day and Smeriglio walked up to me and calmly said, "Congratulations Andre. You're number one." It was a perfect conquering--I got all fiddy words right, but the best anyone else could do was 49. A thin blonde named Sara Nicholson and a thin black girl named Jamila Carrington had overheard me talking shit before about how no one was going to have a chance to beat me in the spelling bee, and they gave me shit back, so I was extra proud because it was a victory for the ugly, fat kid over the rich, beautiful people. I believe Jamila got the 49, making her my alternate. Haha. But I wasn't done. Ogden brought in a specialist to actually pull me out of some classes and study for the district contest, as if my grades didn't suck enough. But it paid off. I walked into the school library at a grade school whose name escapes me, and whooped the little children who dared challenge me for the district championship. I even graciously shook hands with the chubby but hot black girl who finished second to me, kinda as a last little "Who's da man??" to Stephanie, Sara, Jamila, and anyone else I didn't like. The district contest was eventful because the principal, Mrs. Vandevier, gave this broke nigga $10, a lot of money at the time, to take a cab there instead of getting on a school bus. I was moving on up, baby. Finally I was able to get some respect from the people at Ogden; Vandevier treated me to a turkey-and-avocado sandwich at some highfalutin place and said, "Way to go, kid." But because success came so easily compared to my struggles at Skinner, I went to the city spelling bee at Tribune Tower a little starstruck and over my head. Despite that, I finished fourth and won a dictionary and thesarus set that I still have to this day.

Fast forward to next spring, my last year of eligibility to win the citywide spelling bee and compete in the National Spelling Bee, and my journal entry from early 1990.

Fri. Feb. 9--[Smeriglio] announced that Feb. 20 will be the school spelling contest, and Sara's issuing the challenge again. But she's not gonna win. She's gotta keep her cover girl image. While I'm studying, she's out buying clothes. While I'm cramming, she's on the phone. While I'm shaking hands as Arsenio's next guest, she's watching the tube wishing it was her. I told her one of my longtime secrets: It's not how much you study for it, it's how bad you want it. And this year, I want it bad.

See, I was thinking that if a little black boy from the West Side of Chicago could win the National Spelling Bee, then all sorts of fame would follow--Arsenio, maybe the Tonight Show, Nightline...so yeah, my head was a little big back then. Sara got 48 right this time for the school spelling bee. Unfortunately for her, I got 49 (I put an "e" instead of an "i" at the beginning of "ingrained," so the correct spelling has forever been ingrained into my brain). Jamila was an also-ran. To better prepare the winner for the rigors of district and city, Smeriglio made the first part oral, in that same cramped classroom, and when it came down to the final three (me, Sara, and some 6th-grade Latina) then we took the 50-word written exam for all the marbles. And I pulled it out again. Vandevier announced my win over the loudspeaker the next day, so the school support was starting to build, and with it my personal pride and confidence. The District 3 contest was two weeks later, and the night before, as a way to calm my nerves, I made a mix tape that I still have, and I also read the spelling bee words out loud onto a tape so that I could play a word, pause the tape, spell the word, start the tape, and spell another word. (I would do that before the city contest as well, which obviously means that I won the district.) At Lincoln Park High School for district, they put us in the Activity Hall, but it was only half-full with the contestants, their parents, and the judges, so where it may have been intimidating for some kids, it was no sweat for the defending district champ because I had been in a full auditorium on stage with nothing but a mike stand masking my fear, and that was just for the school title at Skinner. (In a twist, one of the district contestants, another chubby hot black girl named Dana, went to high school with me. We never hooked up, though; she was South-Side bougie.) Vandevier had suspended me two months earlier for telling a girl she had a nice ass, so it was interesting to see her slurp up to me after my win. But I understood why--I had a legit shot at being Windy City champion, and she knew that if she wanted her school represented respectfully, she was going to have to treat me with some respect.

All stops were pulled out for the Chicagoland Spelling Bee. My aunt's husband bought me an Adidas jumpsuit valued at $80, and I didn't wear it until the day of the spelling bee. I studied every night after school, even on nights when I would get home late because I was practicing for a school production of "Annie Get Your Gun." I would play my tape of all 500 words in the study guide, sometimes I'd miss 5, sometimes I'd miss 7, and every time I'd get more and more determined to conquer these words. Kids would come up to me asking when the spelling bee was and wishing me luck, kids whose parents lived in the same condo complex as Oprah, so they had no reason to ever speak to someone like me. I will never forget how I felt that morning leading up to the contest. I was arrogant, supremely confident, like Ali, "dangerous, pretty, and can't possibly be beat." From my journal:

Thu. Apr. 12--It hasn't sunk in yet. The shock of becoming Windy City spelling champion hasn't whipped me in the back of the head at the time, but it will. Alright, I'll tell you highlights. My dad picked me up about ten minutes before it started and said a prayer, which possibly helped. Then we went...[My runner-up, Renato] Diaz was shooting down words like an attack plane at its prey. But he choked on "apartheid." Now, I know that word wasn't in the list I had to study, but there was a period of one hour where two people were eliminated, so basically we used up all of the list words. Then they went to some words I had never heard of before, including one that both Diaz and I missed. I spelled "meringue" after Diaz missed [apartheid]...I was on the news all day, and I got phone calls. [Jacob] couldn't believe it, and they exploded back at the school.

Some other memories: That prayer that my dad and I had before the event involved acknowledging my mom for reading with me early in my life, and that was the first time I ever thought about how much she did for me before she died. I haven't forgotten since, though. My dad told me later that he saw the confidence I had at that point and that's when he knew that I was going to win. They take these mug shots of every contestant as they enter the hall at Tribune Tower, and mine has this half-smirk on it like I'm the coolest motherfucker in the world, and that's the pic that they used in the booklet that shows all 226 contestants in the National Spelling Bee. Of course, Mr. Cool had a couple of fuck-ups, and one almost cost me the title: First, while actually telling a girl that sat next to me during the contest how calm and cool I was, the gum I was chewing fell out of my mouth and onto the floor. Real smooth, Ex-Lax. Second, I was so intently playing songs by Prince in my head trying to relax during the contest that I completely forgot that my spelling coach had warned me to look out for the word "torus," because it can be pronounced like "taurus," and can therefore trip me up. I got the word, I spelled it like the bull, and when they rang the bell to signal a missed word, I stood there in shock wondering how they could say I spelled "taurus" wrong. The judges actually had to rewind the tape of how they pronounced "torus" in order to determine that they indeed had pronounced it like the bull and therefore could not penalize me for spelling a word that sounded exactly like the word they intended for me to spell. Whew. I wasn't playing Prince in my head anymore after that. I was totally locked in from that moment on. When I nailed the final word, and the judges said that it was correct, I turned and did this little reverse fist-pump thing inspired by one of my favorite pro wrestlers, Curt Hennig, while keeping the same stoic, almost bored look on my face that I've had ever since. And that was the clip that the news stations kept playing, so for a couple of months people were coming up to me saying, "You're that spelling bee guy!" and then doing the reverse fist-pump and telling me how cute they thought that was. I didn't plan it, though; it was a totally spontaneous move. My next action afterwards, to prove how un-smooth I was, was to stick my hands in the jacket pockets of my Adidas jumpsuit and stand there waiting for someone to give me a trophy or something. (There was no trophy. There was an Apple computer that they delivered to my house a couple of months later, but it stopped working before I started high school in September.)

The next week was a lot of fun. I stood in a classroom of kindergarteners and fielded words from them and spelled them correctly, much to their awe and admiration (except for some made-up word out of "Ghostbusters II" that I had never heard of). I did that for a room of 2nd and 3rd-graders as well. The manager of the Tribune sent me two front-row tickets right behind the dugout to a Cubs game. (The treatment that I got from the staff at Wrigley Field, as if I had no right to be there, is part of the reason why I hate the Cubs.) I went to see the superintendent of police, LeRoy Martin, and he took some pictures with me and my dad and gave me a jacket and hat, which my dad promptly took so that he could try to claim he was part of the police so that he could get free stuff and park anywhere he wanted. Yep, that's my dad. The American Legion presented me with a spelling bee poster and $25, and news cameras were there for that too, as was the Chicago Defender for pics. My dad dragged me into my alderman's offices looking for more praise, but he barely had time to shake my hand. Then that weekend, Saturday, April 21, I spoke at Operation PUSH next to Rev. Jesse Jackson. I still have a picture of that, and my aunt has an audio tape of the speech I gave, but it was not very long because the night before I was at my uncle's house watching old wrestling tapes and playing Nintendo and I didn't write a speech as I had intended to. I mentioned my mom, though, and when my grandmother heard it live over the radio, I'm told that she was very emotional. My church threw me a bon-voyage party the Sunday before I left for Washington and raised over $100 for me in fun money. I spoke at a teachers' appreciation function at Dunbar High School, and an Ogden teacher wrote a speech for me that was so good that I got a standing ovation. That summer I went back to Skinner unannounced and got a hero's welcome. They gave me a long computer printout congratulating me that they said they had hanging on the wall after I won. So for a while there, I was hot shit.

A now-funny aside is that on Friday, May 11, about two weeks before the National Spelling Bee, I swung so hard at a pitch in softball (missed everything, too) that I yanked the ball of my hip against the socket and suffered a hairline fracture. Yes, after all the bitching about Stephanie at Skinner taking her spot in the district championship despite the broken leg, I was now in jeopardy of giving up my spot to injury. But I really had no intention of missing it, even though I was hobbling around school on crutches for the next week. I even went to a wrestling match two days later, and bowled a week after that. What I didn't do during all of this hoopla is study. See, I knew that winning the whole shebang was beyond my reach, since they use any word in the entire unabridged dictionary and there's no way I can study for that. And since this was my last year of eligibility, since I knew I was never going back again, I wasn't interested in creating stress for myself and ruining the trip. I didn't do a lick of studying. My coach had some sheets of words from previous national contests, but my attitude was, either I already know the words or I don't. I simply did not want to pump myself up for competing in this thing only to feel deflated when I didn't win. My folks gave me some crap for not studying, but I think they knew why, so they weren't too hard on me.

I wanted to take my uncle and aunt as my two adult chaperones to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC, but the people in charge at Tribune Tower signed up my dad as official chaperone since he did accompany me to the Chicagoland Spelling Bee, and he still intimidated me (and beat me), so I didn't want to tell them to leave him off right in front of his face. That left only one spot, which I gave to my aunt since she was on my ass about schoolwork all the time and therefore deserved it more than my uncle. A "fan" left a new bag, deodorant, and other toiletries at the school, but I was trying to shove too much shit into it before we left for Midway Airport and I broke the zipper. Nice way to start the journey. My aunt and I were almost late for the May 27 flight, but we made it. It was my first time flying since I was 2, and they have pictures of me at the airport crying on my mother's lap as proof because I sure the heck don't remember. The return flight was the last time I had flown before "Torrie" and I lit up Minneapolis last New Year's. My dad took his ticket and exchanged it for a flight the next day because he had something to do the day of the flight, and he also left a day early, so on those two nights I had our room at the Capital Hilton all to myself. The nights that he was there, I slept in my aunt's room on her couch because there was no couch in my room, meaning I would have had to share the bed with my dad. Not happening. I did make sure to enjoy myself, going to an ice cream social even though I didn't (and still don't) know how to socialize, going to Virginia to look at some landmarks and play volleyball and eat barbecue, visiting the National Aquarium and Ft. McHenry, and doing an interview with a Tribune reporter the night before the contest began.

Then came the morning of the contest. I'm not nervous, I'm feeling good, I'm gonna just go out and perform, whatever happens happens, right? So I go to the bathroom and get ready to shower, and I look in the mirror. I've got 21 million little bumps all over my face. I have never seen anything like that on my face since that day, and I never saw anything like it before. My aunt's theory wasn't nerves but rather a possible allergic reaction to the spare pillow and/or blanket I used when I slept on the couch. But I know it was nerves. I had been so cool, so calm, so collected. But underneath, I was a wreck, and I didn't even know it. The reason I know it was nerves is because when I did get eliminated on my fifth word, "somizdot" (I put an "a" in place of the first "o," and yes, I am proud that I came that close to nailing a word I never heard of), I almost completely broke down, but how could I feel like that about a contest that I didn't study for? Unless...unless...I wanted that national title more than I wanted to admit. Arsenio, Nightline, and all that. I really don't regret not cramming for the contest because it would have drained me, and I still couldn't have won. Then again, one of the hardest words in the contest, so hard they put it in one of the last rounds, was "baccalaureate," and if you read the beginning of this post, you know why I would have gotten that one. So with some studying, who knows? I got the first 3 words right, but they were all from that original 500-word guide that was used for the Chicagoland Spelling Bee. Those first 3 rounds took so long because of the 226-person field that it took all day Wednesday to get through. So I made it to day 2 without exploding, then guessed my 4th word correctly before bowing out in the 5th. The girl who won appeared on "Today" the next morning. I couldn't stand to watch.

I wanted to make something special out of the week, like at least losing my virginity to a stranger that I would never have to see again, so Friday night after the banquet two fellow contestants and I actually went to the shop downstairs from the hotel and purchased a three-pack of rubbers. And because my dad left early, I had my room all to myself, and at one point there were us three guys and three girls from the contest in the room together. But we were nerdy 13 and 14-year-olds after all, so we all chickened out on making a move, then the loud music and dancing around caused the patrons below us to call downstairs and complain, resulting in my aunt coming to the room and clearing it out. We left the next day. There was a surprise party waiting for me when I got home. That's the last time anyone's thrown a party for me. But it was a great experience for me, my little fifteen minutes. I got a plaque and trophy at 8th-grade graduation a week later, and another standing ovation. I got a series of letters from a lady in Skokie who was very supportive and touched by my story. And I got 65th out of 226 in the National Spelling Bee. That's #6 in your program, but #1 in your hearts, for those of you who want proof. I also got a glimpse of what I'm like when I am around something that I really, really want: Calm and collected on the outside, completely ripped apart on the inside. I can't begin to imagine what I'm going to be like before I propose marriage to someone...the morning of my wedding...before the birth of my first child. It's difficult for those who don't know me to understand why I seem to clam up during any social situation involving women. But hopefully this will help explain why the more I care about something and want it, the quieter and more nervous I get. I just don't want to get close and do something stupid to fuck it up. It's easy for others to say, "Hey, loosen up, it's okay." They don't have a history of screwing everything up that they touch. And except for that city spelling title, I have absolutely screwed everything up.

My History (5th In A Series)

These are the memories I have of my dear mother, Brenda (1954-1986). She died of complications from sickle cell anemia, a painful disease that she dealt with her entire life.

My memory is incredibly sharp, or at least other people tell me it has to be, because my mother is still very strong in my mind, even though she died when I was ten years old. Certainly a couple of pictures I've seen over the years keeps the memories of what she looked like sharp, but I've only seen a few pics, and I don't see any pics of her on a regular basis. I have a pic of her helping me open my Christmas presents when I was four, but I don't look at it much. It's safely in my folder next to a note she wrote to my father while she was pregnant with me; my dad sent me the pic and the note about five years ago. It showed how sensitive my mom was. It was actually scary how similar the note was to my own insecurities. I never knew my mom was insecure about herself before reading this note, and it made me wonder how much of my fear of not measuring up like everyone else is in a way hereditary.

"I had a new doctor who...said that my blood hemoglobin was so low that he can't see how I'm still living," she wrote. "He said that most people with blood as low as mine die by the age of 16. Well anyway this cuts the chances of survival for our child. But he said I'll have a better chance at normal delivery because I've (reached) the 4th month of my pregnancy...The reason I'm writing instead of telling you over the telephone or in person is because I can't stop the tears...I'm just drowning in self-pity...I feel that I'm only half a woman and you deserve better. So get yourself a woman you can love and be happy with. Don't think you owe me something just because I'm carrying your child...You know you are the first whole man I ever loved. Yes loved...Oh yes I know I've tried to play a hard person. But the day I found out I was pregnant I loved this child. I told you a number of times that I would like to get rid of him or her but it was a lie right from the beginning. I just didn't want to be hurt anymore."

I was stunned when my dad sent this to me. I knew how difficult it was for my mom to have a child because once I asked her why I didn't have any siblings, and she matter-of-factly said, "Because it would kill me." I was so young, I didn't know she wasn't kidding until much later. But I wasn't aware of all the feelings that surrounded her pregnancy. I didn't know exactly how much danger she and I were in just from her carrying me. I didn't know how close I was to not existing, either due to abortion or from pregnancy complications. And that's why I know today that whatever I am feeling and going through may be rough, and I may feel like doing things that would jeopardize my freedom and my life, but ultimately I can't do that because my mother went through too much to give me life for me to waste it. It's the big overriding motivation for me every day I go to school: I have to try to make something of myself, if not for me then for my mother.

My earliest memories of my mother include how much she cared about her public appearance. Despite being tall, in the neighborhood of six feet by my memory, slender, and beautiful, she would hold up our trips out of the house by twenty or thirty minutes applying makeup and lipstick and fixing her hair. Our trips weren't very frequent because of her health. We lived with her mother, her brother, and her sister in a three-bedroom place on the second floor of a duplex her mother's brother owned. My dad visited but not often. My mom didn't drive, so trips would basically occur when we tagged along when her brother or sister went shopping, and also just me and her shopping on Madison St. on the west side of Chicago, taking the bus on a given day and never staying out until dark. It was in this environment that I learned that drinking and drugs were not a part of our lives, and they have never been a part of mine. Her mother smoked three packs a day, but no one else in the house did. And if my mother did any of those things, I certainly would have wanted to. One thing she did that I wanted to imitate but never did was the practice of taking handfuls of powdered starch and eating them. I never understood why she did that, but I knew not to tell anyone when I saw her do it, because no one wanted her to do it. And she wouldn't let me try to do it; she hid the box high on a shelf in the pantry so that I couldn't imitate her.

My mother was a lot of fun. I recall her huge blowout afro as the first hairdo of hers I ever saw, but once she abandoned that in the '80s, she didn't change styles much. Straight and smooth, no hair coloring ever, plain but beautiful. But her personality wasn't plain. She was very colorful. She read to me. She encouraged any little crazy thing that I said or thought. She would wake me up if a game of Uno or gin rummy or keeno was breaking out because she knew how much I loved to play. She was a romantic; her love of Teddy Pendergrass songs was so strong that I remember not wanting to hear a Teddy song called "Joy" when it came out shortly after her death because it reminded me of her. She was a hell of a woman with many facets. To be honest, she's a hell of an act for anyone to live up to as far as whom I choose to date. Sensitive, tall, slim, naturally beautiful, whipsmart, sober, warm-hearted, with enough love to fill the planet Earth? And would literally die for her loved ones? As far as I'm concerned, no one can possibly measure up.

She and I tried to be a family with my dad for about a half-year while I was in pre-school. We lived on a street called Lakeside near the lake in Chicago. It wasn't a typical rich North Shore neighborhood though. We were in a tiny one-bedroom apartment that wasn't very comfortable, especially for me, since I had to sleep in the living room on a foldout couch. But she woke me up around 5:30A and took me on a nearly two-hour bus ride every morning to the pre-school that I was attending on the west side about a block from her mother's house. The program that I was in was a good program, and she liked the faculty, so nothing was going to stop her from continuing my education there, not even moving so far away. In fact, it was my mom that insisted on getting me into a top-notch classical primary school after a teacher at the pre-school told her that I was "gifted." My dad's temper may have been a big factor in us leaving. I saw him once put his hands around her neck; I had to climb the bed and beat him in the head with the back of a hairbrush in order to show my displeasure, although that happened when he was visiting her mother's house, not when we were living with him. Who knows what other methods of controlling her he tried. I know he beat me like a dog. It wasn't unusual for me to accidentally fall asleep watching The Three Stooges or Benny Hill and be awakened by hard belt lashes because I failed to get up and turn the TV off before I fell asleep, as if I knew exactly when I was going to fall asleep. (I now sleep with either the TV or radio on every night without fail no matter where I am, probably as a sign of rebellion against him after all these years.) I have absolutely no idea if my mother knew this, but once when she was out of the apartment (meaning she was either shopping, at her mother's house, or in the hospital), the bastard brought a blonde hooker there in cutoff blue jean shorts and swore me to secrecy by intimidating me. Then they went in the same bedroom that he and his wife--my mother, the woman he married in front of me and everyone else in 1980--shared, and they didn't come out for a long time. I'm sure whatever else he was fooling around with, she had an idea, and that may be the real reason we moved out and back to her mother's house.

My mom didn't have much of a social life. She had one close friend since childhood, a woman named Barbara who is so kind-hearted that to this day she still calls me on my birthday even though no one in my family does. Around 1985 my mom fell in love again. She met a new man, a guy we called Mac, and I think they were planning on getting married. In fact, my mom and dad were not legally divorced before she died, but I believe she was pushing the proceedings in order to marry Mac. Mac made her happy when he showed up. I'll give him that. He actually seemed to make my mom happy. And he was good to me, letting me hang out with him in his Maywood apartment some weekends and watch sports with him. It was Mac that gave me my first racetrack experience. I think I placed a $2 show bet with him and won back $3 and change, which thrilled me immensely. It was Mac that also gave me my first taste of beer. I was begging to have a sip of his beer, and he and my mom kept telling me that I wouldn't like it, but I insisted, so he let me have a sip, and oh my God was that the nastiest shit I ever tasted. It was out of a 24-oz. Schlitz can. I still have the can because Mac started a penny collection for me in that can. It's been full of pennies for years now. I may cash it in someday, but only if I have to.

My mother was in and out of the hospital all her life. It became routine for her to disappear for several weeks at a time. My grandmother would take care of me when this happened, as well as my uncle and aunt. Once, when I was about eight or nine, my mother tried to discipline me with a belt, but she extended so much energy that right in the middle she passed out. I thought I had killed her. My uncle told me as much when they were taking her to the hospital. He'd probably deny it today, but he did say, "You keep acting the way you act, you're going to kill your mother." She survived that, but she was getting weaker and weaker. She left the house less frequently, and she didn't seem to be as much fun to me. But she, Mac and I were going to spend a weekend as a "family" at a downstate resort, complete with swimming pool, which I had never been in before, so I was really looking forward to it. This was going to happen in late September 1986.

In late August 1986 my mother went into the hospital again. She assured me that we were still going to make our weekend trip, and because she went to the hospital so often, I didn't think anything of her going this time. She slowly descended the steps like she always did, and said goodbye to me after she made it downstairs. I yelled "Bye" and went back to playing pretend baseball in the living room. That was the last time I ever saw my mother. The events of her death are very rapid to me. She had been in the hospital several weeks, as usual, and I was starting to get a little antsy, probably because our trip was upcoming. Then all of a sudden my family, including my grandmother, who didn't speak much, and my play aunt who lived downstairs started gathering around me daily gently asking if I wanted to visit my mother in the hospital. I kept saying no, partly because I didn't like hospitals, and partly because I didn't see the need--after all, she'll he back home shortly like she usually is. This went on for close to a week. Then on September 4, they gathered in my bedroom. All except my uncle were crying. Through the tears, they tried their best to explain to me that my mom was being kept alive by machine, and that with my blessing, they were going to pull the plug. But I actually misunderstood them to mean that they had already pulled the plug and that my mom was already dead. But I was trying to be a big boy and not let anything affect me, so I agreed to whatever they were telling me, and then we all had a long group hug. It wasn't until they came back into my room the next day and told me that my mom was now dead that I realized that she was still alive the day before. They kept asking me if I wanted to come to the hospital to see her one last time, but I thought she was already gone, and I didn't want to see her dead, so I kept saying no. I think I would have gone to see her if I knew that she was still alive. So officially, September 5, 1986, the day before I was to start fifth grade, my mom died, 41 days before her 32nd birthday.

My "be a big boy and be strong" act started almost immediately. I didn't cry when they told me they were pulling the plug, nor when they told me she was finally at rest. I matter-of-factly told everyone when I went to school that my mom just died. These were kids that I had been classmates with since first grade at that same classical school that my mom enrolled me in, so they weren't cold, uncaring strangers. Just the opposite, they expressed remorse and sorrow, along with my teachers. One boy, Parrish, the tough, bully-like kid but someone I never had a beef with, said, "Boy, I don't know what I would do if my mother died." I didn't know how to react to that. I felt like maybe something was wrong because I wasn't feeling as sad as I should. I felt more stunned than anything. I really wasn't expecting her to die. I thought she would live forever. Another exchange that I will never forget highlighted how much I was blocking out anything that would make me feel sad. Timothy, one of my best friends, came to me and said, "I heard about your mother. I'm sorry." To which I responded: "Don't be sorry. You didn't kill her." The standard for nervous laughter was set by Timothy and everyone around us at that moment. But I was determined not to let anything penetrate me. My penchant for keeping my feelings bottled up started with my mother's death. For some reason I would not allow anything to show that I was sad in any way. Not even my mother's funeral. I may have shown sadness or maybe even cried at my mother's funeral, and I wasn't going to let that happen, so I simply didn't go. I would rather remember her the last time I saw her, in pain but upright and still fighting and still alive. No one was going to take that from me. I got the feeling that my family was very disappointed in my decision not to go to the funeral, but they would have had to pick me up and take me there if they wanted me to go. I was not acknowledging the greatest woman in my life in the state she was now in.

All kinds of acting out and attention-grabbing antics by me followed. My grades dropped sharply. I wanted to use my mom's death as an excuse, but I couldn't come up with a good reason why her death would affect my grades. Everyone else knew that had something to do with it, but they didn't know how to deal with it, so eventually they just gave up and started calling me lazy and distracted by my other interests such as sports, music, and pro wrestling and took those things away. My dad threatened to take me away with him for the summer if my final grades for 5th grade contained any Fs, and knowing my history with his brand of discipline, of course that's the last thing I wanted. So why did I fail many subjects anyway? I don't know. My solution to the problem didn't help matters--I tried to white-out the bad grades before taking them home, but my folks found my 5th-grade teacher's grandfather's phone number in the phone book because her last name was rare, and she happened to be at her grandfather's house at that moment and confirmed that she had not whited out my grades. I felt ashamed, mad, afraid. But I wouldn't let go of that lie until it was proven wrong. At that moment I had my mom, my TV, my radio, my wrestling magazines, and now my summer taken away from me in the past year. That lie was all I had left.

But my grades never got better, and my actions continued to worsen, including molesting classmates, writing dirty stories (with my limited knowledge of sex not slowing me down a bit) and flipping off teachers...bascially anything that went against my image of a good guy nerd. Several counselors and psychiatrists came in and out, but when they asked how I felt about my mom, I indicated that I didn't have a problem with my mom, and that was that. It was kinda true though. I didn't think about her because I was so busy running around getting into all kinds of situations that I didn't have time, which I think was the point. When my dad made me stop before walking into the 1990 Chicagoland Spelling Bee and pray that my mom was there with us and would help me to win, it was the longest I had stopped to think about her in a long time. But I felt invincible from that point on, and I won. However, I was still more comfortable avoiding all thoughts about her until my first girlfriend "Giselle" came along and pointed out that maybe I didn't trust her because I was so afraid of her suddenly leaving me, just like my mother did. I told her she was crazy. But from that moment on, I've thought about my mother almost every day and how her loss has impacted me and my actions. And I think Giselle was exactly right.

I now live every day knowing that part of the reason my relationships with women are so dysfunctional is because I'm looking for someone to replace my mother. When I give my love to a woman that I'm with, which I do often even if I don't fully trust her, I do it looking to be loved back because I don't care who it is, I just want someone to love me unconditionally like my mother did. Yes, I date fat women mostly because they give up the pussy easily, but it's also because any thin, tall, attractive woman has to be at a certain level as far as her personality for me to even consider her. She has to be a saintly woman with a heart of gold, a total sweetheart, a smart cookie, confident in herself, really and truly believes in me, and I have to feel like someday she could love me with every fiber of her being, just like I would love her. But I project those expectations upon the fat women that I'm dating because I'm looking for that from whomever I'm with, and so far I haven't met one that measures up yet. The reason that I have such hatred for "Karen" is because I had such love for her because she exhibited those characteristics to me. When I gave her my love, she gave it back. When I invited her to meet my family Christmas Day 2003, she accepted and we welcomed her in and we all, not just me, gave her our love and she returned it, or so I thought. We stopped just short of giving her that group hug that they gave me when my mom died. I explained all of this to her, and she said that she understood. And when Karen refused to explain herself to me after I found out about her skanky side, it was like she spit in the face of me, my family, and my mother, and I can take being insulted--I'm insulted every fucking day by somebody--but I can't take insulting my family or especially my mother. It has created a very confusing next step for me as far as relationships go. I wanted to jump into something immediately after Karen so that I could be loved by someone, anyone, and "Sarah" was the next one. But at the same time, I felt like a part of me will never trust someone again the way I trusted Karen, and sure enough, I didn't trust Sarah. Sure, I told her about my mother, and she met my family, but there was a bit of a wedge between us, and I made sure of it. Then I thought that "Jane" was that woman with the ability to love me like that, then she canceled meeting me after I already booked the trip. That was like what Karen did to me--took my love, found out how deep it was, then abandoned me. Now I'm dealing with "Torrie," who plays that cool role of hearing about all I've been through and what I'm looking for and doesn't indicate where she stands as far as being the type of woman I want. She's fine just the way things are. And why not? I fly to Minnesota, fuck her, and leave. But now after I gave her my love the last time I saw her and got no response, I'm starting to get the wandering eye again because inside I feel that it's either find it somewhere else or settle for what I'm getting now, which is not what I'm looking for. But at least I've now put out the story of me and my mother, so that those still reading can get a better sense of why I am the way I am. On my left biceps is a rose and below it "R.I.P. BRENDA ROSS 1954-1986" in permanent ink. On my wall is a portrait of her in pencil that's very similar to how she really looked. Every woman in my life has to live up to her. I don't know if I ever will find the one that does, but if I do, I've been storing up love inside since September 5, 1986, and she will receive all of it. And if she really is deserving, then I have no doubt that she'll be able to handle it and give it back to me.

A (Long) Saturday Stroll

PREFACE: To those "anonymous" readers sick and tired of hearing about my obsession with "Karen," I will talk more about her later in this post. If you're not interested, don't read. There's millions more interesting blogs online. You don't have to trash mine if it's really that bad.

I participated in a walk-a-thon for sickle cell anemia on Saturday, June 11. Sickle cell anemia is what killed my mother, and I have sickle cell trait, meaning if I created a child with someone else with the trait, that child would be at risk for the disease. It's a very painful disease; my mother was in a tremendous amount of pain all her life. I wonder how she ever went through childbirth, especially my big ass. But anyhow, I never participated in the fundraiser because I didn't want to be so close to something associated with the death of my mom. But last year, when Karen did what she did to me, I decided to go just to hang out with my family, since it became obvious family was the only group of people I could trust, and also to introduce them to "Sarah," who was at the time my girlfriend. I didn't participate, but this year I signed up for the walk, and I can't see a good reason why I wouldn't do at least that much every year from this point on. (There are jog and bike portions as well, but I'm not in shape to jog, and I can't ride a bike.) Now, I didn't come close to walking to the end of the path--this thing started at 35th on the lake and extended down the lakeshore to 69th, and in the heat of the noon sun, I managed to get to 47th and back--but at least I did something. I've realized over the last few years, even before I met that whore Karen, that a lot of my fears about dating and marriage and relationships stem from the simple fact that I'm scared to death to give my love to a woman only to watch her abandon me, which is how I felt when my mom died in 1986, when I was ten years old. And now, walking in this fundraiser, in a way I acknowledged her death, which is something I've always been loathe to do, and I felt like maybe I was on my way to properly grieving her loss and moving on, which is something I feel like I've never done. I "talked" with my mom throughout the walk, and she encouraged me to keep going, even though on the walk back I had to stop several times just because the benches looked SO enticing. But I kept going, and despite how tired I felt throughout the walk, one of the first thoughts I had once I made it back was that I expect to go farther next year now that I've had a little taste of what I have to do. I'll discuss everything to do with my mother in my next post. Maybe it will help explain why mentally I am in the place that I am.

I think my uncle, my mom's brother, was extremely pleased to see me participate, since he organizes part of the fundraiser and never saw me be a part of it in the years past. On the drive back afterwards, he said something that almost made me choke up. He told me that I remind him of my mom in that we were both very sensitive to how others perceived us, me because of my weight and her because of her delicate condition. We both were self-conscious about relationships. I found that hard to believe because my mom was such a beautiful and intelligent woman. My uncle told me that she settled for my dad, an overweight, sloppy man by anyone's standards, because she was afraid that she would be alone, just as I have settled for evey woman I've ever dated because I am afraid of being alone. But, he said, he hoped I would be patient and do what my mom didn't have a chance to do--find a person with as big a heart as me, because, just like my mom, I have a very big heart and I deserve someone who matches it. I think that's one of the things that's keeping me from jumping off a bridge right now. Somewhere deep down in my heart, I still hold out hope that someone will come into my life that realizes that I am a good man, while being a good woman in her own right, a good woman that's not living an alternative life and not lying to me or herself. My mom went through hell to give me life. I'm hoping to do what she wanted, which is to be in a partnership with someone who values me and herself. It ain't looking good right now, but I guess I'm still holding out some hope.

My father and I, speaking of my sloppy dad, had banana splits on Father's Day this past Sunday. Because he beat me as a kid, and because he can be rather embarrassing sometimes, I've always hated every second I've spent with him. But we had a long chat about my situation with Karen, and he gave me some advice beyond the "Women are crazy" spiel he usually gives. I told him that I'm having a very hard time with the fact that I don't have the balls to go up to Wisconsin with a bottle of bleach and a funnel because it means that it's okay for Karen to do what she did to me because she got away with it without any retribution from me. I feel that it means that anyone can fuck me up the ass and it's all good because I'm going to let them. He pointed out that it doesn't mean anyone can do that to me, just one person, and no matter how unfair it is, it's better to let her get away with it because the alternative is showering with a bunch of horny men in the federal prison before they stick a needle in my vein. My dad has a way with words. I told him that I had already considered all the ramifications of going up there and killing Karen, and that I'm close to accepting them if it means that at least she didn't get away with screwing me. He said that I can't do that, because then she'd really be screwing me. I was trying to install my printer back on my computer all day Sunday, and because I had two papers due Monday morning, I had to get it done, but the installation disk simply wouldn't cooperate. Yet I stepped out of the apartment to spend a couple of hours with my dad, and if I hadn't, then he wouldn't have called his brother in Florida, his brother the computer whiz, and his brother the computer whiz wouldn't have told me, the computer boob, that I can go to the website of my printer's maker and download the drivers onto my computer, therefore installing the printer without having to beg and plead with the installation disk, and I wouldn't have done those two papers by pulling an all-nighter and finishing my work around 5:30A Monday. So, and I never thought I'd be saying this, thanks dad. My father, actually good for something. Go figure.

And now for the latest Karen news: I e-mailed her new phony Tawanda account Monday morning "congratulating" her on the good news about her new house and car that she wrote on that account. She replied to me that evening. She continued to insist that I misunderstand everything, that her appearing on a bisexual BBW website half-naked next to her best friend wasn't what it looked like, she was just helping her friend promote the website, but she's not into that at all. Oh, okay. She told me that she still thinks about me, but that we were "doomed from the beginning," whatever the fuck that means, and that my angry letter to her the morning after I found out about her destroyed any future between us, but that "I wish you well." I know exactly what she's doing. She's trying to make me pause and think that she really is a misunderstood woman who just wants to help promote her friend's wild lifestyle but isn't really involved with it. Every second that I pause and wonder if she's really not the bitch that deceived me and ruined my life is another second that she has bought herself to keep deceiving and living the life she wants to live, breaking hearts and destroying anyone stupid enough to love her along the way. That's why I feel like a decision has to come from me very soon, a decision on which direction I am going to choose--to let her go and let her get away with what she did, attempting to move past her and ignoring the fact that she's going to keep on truckin' as if what I felt and what my family felt when we found out about her doesn't mean shit, or to go up there and defend myself and my family against this human waste and let her and every other woman know that you can go around fucking with other guys and getting off scott-free, but I cannot allow you to do that to me and get away with it. I have to choose which way to go now. I can't keep going the way I'm going, saying I'm going to get past her but knowing that all I think about when I am awake is wondering what guys or girls she's persuading to think that she's a sweet, innocent girl and if she feels any remorse for crushing another person's heart, and all I think about when I'm trying to sleep is how good it would feel to hear her last breath before I break her neck or choke her out. It's time for me to decide, for good, for once and for all, finally, will I be a man or a mouse?