1. Home to Contradictions, 2. Six Degrees from Home, 3. Welcome Back to My Therapy,
4. Lying, Cheating, Stealing and Intent, 5. Power of You, 6. One Split Second,
7. Marvelous Mistakes, 8. I made a choice to make a change, 9. Connections to the Farm,
10. Back to the Farm, 11. It's a small world after all, 12 Fair Weather Friends,
13. Ghost of Roommates Past, 14. You can never go to far, 15. Glamorous Life,
16. Double Standards, 17. Lazy? No Exhausted, 18. Crossroads of Life and Death, 19. One Last Time, 20. When Worlds Collide I, 21. When Worlds Collide II, 22. When Worlds Collide III 23. The Unwanted New World, 24. Means the Old World Must Go, 25. So Where was God in all this? 26. Where did you get that from?, 27. The Reason for My Season, 28. Was Always a Little Rascal, 29. Pictures and Quotes of the Little Rascal and final chapter 30. Closing in Contradictions. ~Use these links to read in order (some chapters have songs, new added content, pictures or all:) Volume 2 >>>>>
We all have had them in our life time. Those friends who are there in the good times but are gone when you really need them. Some go so far as to literally drain the energy from you as if they are a hoover vacuum cleaner walking around with the plug in hand looking for an outlet. My first one of these types of friends was at school but there was one that kept in touch after we left. We'll call her Misty and she was a petite girl who was about a size 2 and next to her I looked like giant. I met up with her from time to time when she'd call but this one time she called to say she was moving to the beach. She needed me to come over and help her pack up and say good bye. The next morning I got to her apartment and she was already gone. I was mad and tired of the kiss off so I went back home. Fast forward two years later while I was working at McDonald's with my mom, the highlight of my life and we were slammed as usual. After a while people blur together and I didn't really pay attention until she called my name. Once I focused on her and the man she was with, I was horrified to be seen working there. She held up the line to tell me she was getting married and wanted me to be the maid of honor. I told her sure whatever, call me later! Next!
Well she did and so I drove to the beach often that summer which is when I got the three tickets in Horry County of course still driving the Mazda RX-7 at the time. Blondie from the bank went with me once and it was not pretty because they didn't get along. Blondie got sun poisoning from laying out too long and then wanted us to stay at home with her instead of going out. Didn't happen because it was Misty night as far as I was concerned and Blondie was mad at me. Well Misty finally got married in her horse drawn buggy and carriage and things settled down with her. I called from time to time and still saw her off and on over the years. She had a couple of kids and things went great for a while but turned bad. Mean while back here one night Scott and I were playing league and on the opposing team that we were playing was Misty's mom, who I had not seen since high school. Good to catch up but I found out that my friend had been lying to me about sooo many things over the years. Some were important but most of it wasn't. I could've handled it but I wasn't important enough for her to tell the truth so the next several times she called I let it go to voice mail. I was done so maybe I was the fair weather friend?
When Blondie and I hung out first we both were working for the bank as I said and that continued for a little over a year I think after I left. It was fun to go out dancing and she did introduce me to The Rack which was a pool room I later went to work for and later the Old Folks Bar although then it too was a happening place at the time. We went to gay bars and danced our little butts off to songs like Gonna Make You Sweat, Strike It Up and Good Vibrations. This is where she taught me the Electric Slide, the only line dance I can remember and still do. Two beautiful slow songs were Wicked Game and Sadeness. She tried in vain to introduce me to fashion and style not understanding that I didn't have the money or patience for it. She would want me to come over to her house and wait for her to get through with whatever she had going on and after a while it became a problem because I got tired of waiting. She also had a friend that was a guy but still friends with my childhood best friend Trixie's, ex husband who we saw together one night at The Rack. I didn't like him not one bit and when we were younger I had a big confrontation with him in front of Trixie. She had not found her voice back then and he was a rude SOB and I told him so. But all those years later I am not sure he even recognized me.
After that ordeal with the ultimatum between me spending time with her or with Smokie I didn't see her for several years. I ran into her some where some how in 1997 and she started talking about buying a house and she needed a roommate. I had been living with Sherri for about 2 years now and it was getting crowded in my room. Blondie knew I smoked and I asked her if it would be a problem and she said no. I was also taking classes at the community college and things were moving along at the firm so I thought why not? Let's give it a chance and see what happens. Well I moved in and moved out 2 months later. One night we went out and stopped by The Rack as was customary with her and Scott was there. We told him where we were going and he wanted to ride with us but she only had a two seater. We left and went to another neighborhood bar and later Scott and his friends showed up there too... good thing because I was going to need them. For some reason she got hemmed up with a dude pretty hot and heavy and I asked Scott to give me a ride home.
Later another friend of hers and I were talking and she was telling me about her boyfriend troubles. I said something about that night and the guy Blondie was with so she asked me to describe the guy to her. I did and that's went things got bad, because apparently it was this girl's boyfriend that Blondie hooked up with (who knew?) and now it was all my fault. She was also picky about the thermostat and wouldn't turn in below 85 degrees, she complained when I left one dish in the sink while studying for exams and constantly complained about the smoke... even when I smoked outside. Things that make you go hummm. Last straw! While I was packing and Scott was putting boxes in our cars she tried to introduce him to one of her friends just to piss me off. She didn't believe me when I told her we were friends so all I could do was laugh at her as she made a fool of herself... again. I was done. She had been dating a guy that was linked to Bonnie's circle of friends but broke it off because she wanted more out of life than he could give her? I heard years later she lost her job and the house, got married after moving to the lake and I saw her once at the Old Folks Bar a few years ago trying to get over her divorce. That was that.
That brings me back to Bonnie who was also petite and quite charming. She could talk anybody into doing just about anything. I was fascinated by that because I can't make a duck get into water, even if it's just came from the dessert. When we met back at The Rack all those years ago I had a feeling of deja vu but couldn't figure out why. I am sure we hadn't met before but it seemed like we really knew each other from the first. When her and Clyde were together it was an interesting combo to say the least because he was short too, had heaps of bad ass attitude and was a gun nut. I can honestly say that it was a bit much for Willie to live with all of us at the same time and I'll give him credit for it. They left owing us money and cleaning up after their dog's hair was a choir. When Bonnie and Clyde went on their way as we did back in 93 it was hard to keep in touch because we both moved a lot and that was before we had mobile phones. But Scott knew her mom from the shop he worked at because she brought pound cake there regularly. One day I was there and Bonnie's mom stopped by because her car was acting up and we got to talking about her work. She had a PI license but mainly served papers and because I was interested in that I gave her my number. She gave it to Bonnie and then she called me at work one day. Just to talk and so I met her later at her apartment and met the new Clyde too. He was a winner! It didn't take long for me to figure out she was unhappy and looking to make a change. This was at the mid point of living with Blondie and I shared what was happening with me. When she found out I needed a place to live Clyde #2 was sent packing (not before stiffing Scott out of a lot of money over car work) and she asked me to move into her apartment with her. I had a job, could help pay the rent until I found a place of my own and it looked like a win win. Yep you guessed it... I moved in and moved out in 2 months.
During that 2 months I had met a few of her new friends, a married man and his sister... we'll call them Luke and Daisy. They all were working at a packaging plant that the 3rd brother had owned but I didn't meet that one or the last sister for 10 years yet. A lot of things were happening at once like they all three quit working for that brother and wanted to open their own packaging plant and Bonnie was sleeping with the married brother. I knew to open any business you need money, a business plan and people willing to work hard for long periods of time. They didn't have any of those so there was no point in me getting involved. If you are not going to do something right WHY bother? I started looking for a house soon after because I knew something was up. I could just feel it. At first I thought Bonnie was going to move in with me so that's why I ultimately bought a three level townhouse. Mom, Trey and I went to Florida to visit family for about a week and when I got back things were even more tense.
When I tried to talk to Bonnie she was busy, not interested or just not around much at all. I had already found a place and put in an offer. It was accepted and I started packing. Again. I didn't tell anyone else except for Scott, I was buying a house so when I took my mom on the final walk through she was floored. Only when I started to pack the everyday use items did Bonnie realize that I was on my way out. If she didn't have time to talk to me then, there was no point in trying to now. I do remember telling her I thought she sucked as a parent and to this day I still regret that because who am I to judge. I felt like I sucked as a parent too so I had no room to talk but I was mad. Whatever she had going on was fixing to blow up in her face and I wanted to be long gone. She got mad that I was leaving her in a bind and told me to get the rest of my stuff out that night... right after she called me a good for nothing lazy bitch. It was still 3 days before closing so I took a lot of my stuff and hid it in the storage bays with the files at work and the rest of it to Scotts' house. 2 nights I slept in the conference room at work because I didn't want to bother anyone else and I could shower at the gym downstairs. That was the longest 3 days next to Trey being born. I closed on August the 29th, Treys birthday was the 30th and Princess Diana died on that Sunday the 31st although I didn't hear about that until later. That Friday night after the closing that almost didn't happen because of a glitch, I walked in to my first home and promptly dropped to the floor where I fell asleep, right at the front door.
For the last two years since I had been living with Sherri I had gone back to school at her urging and was taking math classes for a review and then balancing those with art which I loved dearly. I had gotten a pell grant from the state and was only taking about 2 classes at a time after work and found that I actually liked it much better because the atmosphere was so much more open than high school. I have to admit though I will never be a math whiz and had to take algebra 3 times to pass the class with a C and I even had a tutor. Once I bought the house though I no longer qualified for the grant and could not talk my mom into letting me reclaim Trey on my taxes instead of hers, where I would just give her the refund. I didn't have the cash and could not find another way, so my time at school came to an abrupt end and that was that. I also felt around that time that my mom was doing everything in her power to keep me from succeeding at anything in life and struggled with the why of it for so very long.
And one last small piece of trivia: I had married art teachers one after the other for 2 semesters. They happened to buy a house just outside the trailer park that used to belong to another family I grew up near. It was on the same road as mom and dads, probably about 6 or 7 up, but it wasn't a trailer. The weird part about this is later I would see the male teacher working at the local movie theater and he informed me that his wife had run off with one of the students at the college. It seemed as if their marriage was okay until they moved and it's just once more example as why I think the area may be cursed or infected with... something.
13. Ghost of Roommates Past >>>>>
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