the issue of feeling left out affects me a lot. the feeling has manifested often over the years, and still does. it has made me want to destroy everything around me. the first instance that i remember feeling left out was when i was 6. everything seems to have happened when i was 6. my mom and her boyfriend found these two degenerates to do cocaine with. they had a son who was 11. a mere 5 years older than me. one night, all 6 of us were in the living room about to watch something on tv. whatever it was, everyone told me to get out because it wasn't suitable for me. i left the house. ran away. not seriously of course, but i walked for about an hour and then came back because i was hungry. the only response i got was from the boy's father, who said, "hah. i knew she'd be back." another instance of alienation happened a few days later, while the boy and his parents were staying at a hotel. somehow, i was there without my mom and her boyfriend for a little while. the boy decided to take me downstairs to the lobby to meet up with some of his friends. it was a girl a few years older than me, a boy around her age, and an infant. immediately they decided that they wanted to walk around, and immediately after their decision, the girl exclaimed, "you can't come with us! you're too young!" as she held an infant in her arms.

i'm sure that the reason for 50% of my alienation is, and has been, because i'm "too young".

a circus event

i remember it clearly. every year i would take the long bus ride down from portland to anaheim and stay with my grandmother, Iris, for the summer. Iris was young and alcoholic, only 45, she had lost her last baby, danielle, to a car accident. The baby had been hit in the street, the hospital sent her home with a clean bill of health, and she succumbed to internal hemorrhaging in my grandmother's arms. i was the next baby and Iris treated me as her own.

That summer was typical. I spent most of it watching jeopardy and wheel of fortune with her. that magical hour after she got home from work and before the alcohol would take hold. I was good at jeopardy for an 11 year old. Iris was more partial towards the wheel of fortune. I didn't understand the attraction behind the wheel game show. all those cliche phrases in glowing letters. all those mediocre people jockeying for a chance at a max of 10k. it was nothing like jeopardy. he who knows fucking everything, wins. no chance, no gimmicks, no half naked woman for sex appeal. just pure pissing contest. i loved it.

one night Iris informed me she had tickets to the circus and was going to take me on saturday. i didn't really have an opinion on the circus and it upset her. she kept asking me "aren't you excited? don't you want to go?", to which i would shrug my shoulders and try to placate her with a half smile.

we went to the circus. i sat down near the front. the old lady had bought good seats. clowns were running around fancifully, a giant steal round cage was pulled out and motor cycle riders rode fast within the contraption until they became two constant blurs, an elephant walked by and slowly let shit drop out of its ass, followed by a young man with a giant shovel who scooped up the shit and tossed it into a large burlap bag all in one brisk motion, people were flying on wires above my head. standard circus antics.

it was quite boring to me. the lights went silent and a hush came over the giant auditorium. a booming voice asked for the utmost attention, informing us of the cannonball man as a massive cannon was illuminated at the far end of the circus stage. he was going to be shot out at high speed, fly through the air and land at the netting located at the opposite end.

i didn't know what to expect. i had never watched a man shoot out of a cannon before. it seemed like it had potential. he waved to the crowd and descended down the long black hollow of the cannon. the booming voice counted down.

3
2
1

BOOM

a white shape soaring through the air, the netting rapidly approaches, a flip to land safely and the arm raised dismount. at least that's what i think is supposed to happen. the guy missed the netting completely landing on his back and bounce-skipping to a stop. crumpled paper on the massive circus ground. the lights clicked on suddenly, cries and gasps, panic, the booming voice pleading for a doctor in the house.

i looked up at Iris and asked "why don't you help you're a nurse". my right thigh exploded in pain. she was squeezing it with her hand. i quickly shut up. my thigh was throbbing. i took notice of the faces in the audience, all looking frightened, so much duress for a stranger, some guy no one really gave a shit about, just some dick working a bizarre job for a paycheck. the situation felt fake.

i looked at my toes and thought "this is as good as it gets." I realized this truth as they carried the limp body out on a stretcher, the truth that this was the apogee of my childhood, as "good as it gets", life will only get worse, i will become more detached, probably commit suicide alone in a small room.

the guy was gone. the lights turned off again and the circus started again like nothing had happened. the circus finished. we hunted for our car in the parking lot for 20 minutes and drove home.

i left wondering what they did with all that elephant shit.

one of my favorite places to go as a child was mcdonald's. i loved the food, as well as the "play-place" that was at nearly every single one. there were several mcdonald's in new mexico, where i grew up, and several instances in which i went there. once, my mom took me to mcdonald's in her boyfriend's mazda suv with leather seats. i ate an oreo mcflurry. another time, i went to a huge mcdonald's off the freeway in albuquerque and left my shoes and happy meal unattended in the play-place around 12 am. a janitor threw away my happy meal but kept my shoes. most times, i would pretend to be asleep in the car in the mcdonald's parking lot while my mom and her boyfriend shot up cocaine in the front seats. sometimes i would "wake up" and go play. sometimes i wouldn't.

the dream a dream i dreamt

Small and alone I would sleep in unfamiliar rooms. My mother often moved from one mexican neighborhood to another in the city of Anaheim. The people had skin like copper pennies and strange ways of making words. They were fearless of the sun.

During summer months the tired bells of slow ice cream vans would wake the wayward children from their play. Running with the sun children to the dirty white van felt odd. Each child would excitedly scream the name of an ice cream and wave a wadded dollar bill or two at the mexican man within the vehicle. Initially it was a frenzy. Each child wanting their iced treat before the others. Each child believing they were more valuable than the others. Each child willing to defend their perceived self-importance; an innocent vicousness.

A sea of small brown hands attached to brown arms waving frantic in the never ending sun.

The first 2 or 3 visits from the ice cream van I tried to vie with the mexican children. Jockeying for position. Squirming, yelling, attention whoring like the rest but even to me it seemed queer. The stark white skin pixelated with orange-red freckles glowing in the octopus nest of brown arms. This is when the epiphany of alienation began. I stopped battling for ice cream after. Instead of the clamor of the fight I would wait quietly behind and observe the actions of the group, the moustached ice cream man, the emptiness of the streets, and the way the god awful sun always bit my skin.

The Pink Panther ice cream foot with the bubble gum toe being my favorite of the ice creams.

At times I would be left with my grandmother. She was young and small. A burning cigarette always clutched in her hand or lips. I remember the people in her apartment complex had lighter skin but were not similar. There was not another with fire red hair or freckle armor. No other ran to the shadows of buildings to escape the sun. Not even my own family had the same physical traits of skin or hair.

So it was 5 or 6 the dream a dream i dreamt began.

Often sleep would not come easy even at that age. The darkness felt ominous. My grandmother drunk on brandy watching the night time television shows behind the glowing outline of a closed door. The ceiling my only friend.

I would whisper secrets to my friend in the emptiness of the dark. Eventually I would succumb and sleep.

The dream was always the same. Nothing ever changed.

It would start out with me being alone and confused in an African desert. Searching for my grandmother, my mother or any sign of an adult. An intense sickening fear would grow inside my being, the dusty ground began to move then pound and the urge to flee took over and off I went. Running in the African desert out of fear and survival.

Behind animals would appear: giraffes, gazelles, rhinos. All animals I perceived within my young mind to be non-aggressive.

I could not outrun the stampede.

My little legs would give out precisely as I felt a sense of hopelessness. Soon my body underneath crushing hoof and foot. The blazing sun blacked in and out by each animal crushing my being. I would try to scream, to ask for help but the words never came to my throat.

I would always wake when the panic felt overwhelming and consumming, sweating skin, afraid and alone with the ceiling again.

The dream came and went several times over the next 2 years.

The fear and the friend have never left.

my childhood is being repeated in front of my little sister, yet my mother still wishes she could have more kids.

even the retard gets sympathy

in first grade there was a large elm tree with thick hard roots clutching the soil ground in the lunch yard at school. this is where i would sit alone and eat my lunch. i had acclimated to being alone already at this age. my mother and i moved frequently, this the 3rd school i had attended that year.

i remember a particular day i was sitting on one of the exposed roots and eating a peanut butter jelly sandwich when a slobbering retarded boy aggressively advanced at me with his arms out stretched. The attack was unexpected and the boy had me wrapped in his arms before my brain was able to process the event. The retard pressed his wet mouth against my face and smacked his lips together repeatedly. The physical contact was something I was not accustomed to causing me to panic and shove the boy away from me.

I heard a THUMP then a pathetic moan. The boy had landed on one of the exposed roots and broken his arm. I saw a group of boys pointing and laughing at the scene. The principal rushed over with a couple of teachers. Their faces were filled with hate. I could see it in their eyes.

The principal would not let me talk and told me he was 'disgusted with me'. The retarded boy said I pushed him for no reason. My punishment was to bend over and let the principal beat me with a thick wooden paddle.

I never got to tell any one my side of the story. About a week later I saw the retarded boy and apologized for breaking his arm. I told him I felt really bad about it. He forgave me and told me that the group of boys we saw that day told him to hug and kiss me as a joke.

this became a reoccurring theme in my life.

when i was five, i saw an illustration in the newspaper that accurately depicted my family. it showed a drunken father, a mother holding a gun to her head, and an abandoned baby crying. i still don't know how to erase that image from my mind.