The Roy’s:Episode Nineteen
May 14th, 2008
Episode Nineteen
…Canada.
Someplace in Minnesota to be exact.
It will take a couple of paragraphs to get you there, but I promise to do my best to do just that.
My need to run at that time, is still a mystery. Maybe it was the winter, who really knows. I was a much different person back then and just didn’t have to intestinal fortitude to man up. Leaving/burying my problems seemed like the logical solution. My Cavalier and myself, full of gas compliments of mothers stolen gas card, headed first to the Minneapolis where a few days would be spent couch hopping until I ran into a friend of mine named Joe.
Joe was my first gay friend.
I had met him through a friend of some girl who knew someone that knew a person who knew something. It is pretty irrelevant to the story. Joe, who flamed hotter than the sun, had eventually turned into a pretty good friend of mine.
No, not in that way.
Joe, who I hadn’t seen in months of course, had recently hooked up with a new boyfriend who had a little cabin/trailer way up north. Now for you Wisconsin citizens who are familiar with bitter cold, it’s no biggie really. For you others who have the luxury of living somewhere pleasantly warm and tranquil, listen to me when I tell you it was cold as ice, are you willing to sacrifice your …
Sorry.
I drove up there with Joe and ended up staying a month, which consisted primarily of long marijuana smoking sessions accompanied by hours of staring at Joe’s enormous salt water fish tank. That fish tank was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. Joe’s boyfriend, whose name I can’t even remember, was gone on a regular basis. Joe, also worked periodically, so I ended up being alone most of the time, staring at this stupid aquatic museum for weeks on end. It was alive twenty four hours a day which somehow supplemented the dying that was going on inside. It was a world away from mine, that’s all that mattered.
That was the coldest winter I have ever spent, Wisconsin boy and all. In the end I don’t know if it was the serenity of the woods, the hours with the fish tank, or simply being completely welcomed and comforted by the oddest of couples. Regardless of reason, somewhere in the course of that month I decided it best that I go back to Wisconsin and face the music. One day, when everyone was gone, I just left.
I never thanked them
I never saw Joe again either.
My Cavalier and I headed back to Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Plenty aware that I was in going to be in big trouble for stealing my mother’s gas card, I also happened to be driving a car that was funded by a loan co-signed by aforementioned mother and not paid for in months. Dilly-dallying, it took me a couple days to get there, not arriving until I had spent every last dollar, staying in hotels, deathly afraid of what was most certainly an inevitability.
I arrived at my mother’s house in the dead of the night. I inaudibly parked the car in their driveway, gathered a small duffel bag of belongings, and started what was about a twelve block walk to the Stevens Point police department. At that time, Stevens Point’s fine badged gentleman resided in a building that instead of a door, had a little drive up window.
Belongings in hand I went up to the window and blurted, “I stole my mother’s credit card, and I have a warrant for my arrest.”
(L O N G L O N G P A U S E)
“I’m sorry sir, but we don’t have a warrant for your arrest. Come back tomorrow.”
“ ”
I really didn’t stick around to argue. I only knew one person in Stevens Point, so I went to his apartment. To go back a little bit, when I had done my previous stint in drug treatment I acquired what any person forced to twelve step will tell you is called a sponsor. I went to ‘the sponsors’ apartment, slept the night, and early in the morning found myself banging on the door of the treatment facility.
Hello, it’s me again.
For the majority of you, or those who have never had the prestigious privilege of living in a drug treatment facility, let me take this opportunity to get you up to speed.
The first thing you need to know about a drug treatment facility is that they are the best …
(Stay Tuned for Episode Twenty)
bozz_2006 said:
…form of self-affirmation.
On an unrelated note, I took my last final this morning, and finished my last paper about an hour ago. I’m done, biotch!
May 15th, 2008 at 1:10 pm #
Zombieslayer said:
Wow. I had no idea.
Wishing you best, but if I were you, I’d at least send a thank you post card to Joe. I’ve been Joe before, and it would be nice to get a thank you.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:57 am #
Insert Name said:
That was fourteen years ago, I don’t know his last name, I wouldn’t know where to start. This episode, is my virtual postcard to Joe. As are many of the others.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:17 pm #