I didn't have to go through the daily dress code inspections anymore, but work took up the hours I'd have been in school. I'd show up at 5:00 in the morning, start a pot of coffee, and put on some music at an ear-shattering volume. The fishermen would arrive shortly after my first cup (except for the days that they were all waiting when I arrived. Those became more prevalent as the summer wore on.), then I'd unload and box fish for the next 12 to 16 hours. Added to this was the responsibility of writing sales tickets, making out checks to each captain, and all aspects of shipping - both air and freight.
Jeffrey got a job working alongside me, which was a relief. Sometimes one of us would have to load a refrigerator truck, or I'd have to drive to empire to buy ice (our icemaker was terribly inadequate for the amount of fish we were buying). He'd allowed his hair to grow out, and due to having inherited Dad's hair, had been dubbed Fro by those who knew him. When he became involved with a girl that talked him into attending Sunday services, Dan capped it off by calling him Brother Fro. The moniker has been with him ever since.
Did the long hours stop us from playing music? Au contraire! If we got home at 10:00, we'd play 'til one or two in the morning. I don't know how our neighbor in the other half of the duplex put up with it, but he claimed to be enjoying it when we offered an apology. Can you imagine music in the vein of the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray" rattling the pictures off the walls for hours, and having no complaints? Unlikely, but it happened. Being a commercial fisherman from Florida - and no doubt exhausted when home - I imagined some crazy, redneck Lynyrd Skynyrd fan fashioning nooses to fit each of our necks during his stolen slumber.
The day my son was born got off to a hell of a start. Our ice machine was on the fritz once again. Just moments after returning from my second desperate trip for ice, a pallet of fish was accidently turned over, in effect blocking the icehouse.
A few minutes into our mad dash to clean up before the truckload of ice could melt, the phone rang. Dan called me inside to take my call, which instantly set off some alarms. Normally someone would have taken a message.
"Hello?"
"You need to come home."
"Oh, my God! Is it time? Are you sure? How far apart are the contractions?"
"Yes. It's time. Just come home."
When I got back outside, everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me.
Dan, with that goofy grin that was his alone, asked, "It's time, isn't it?"
"Yes. I'd better go. Sorry I can't stay to help."
"That's ok. We'll handle this. Let me bring you home."
"There's too much going on around here for both of us to leave. I'll walk."
"No. Get in the truck. You're a little white around the gills."
Despite my protests that I'd be fine, he finally got me to accept. During the 3 mile trip back to my house, he turned to me and said, "You know what? You're going to do just fine as soon as you realize you're not half the burden you think you are."
When he dropped me off, he shook my hand and, once again with that grin, wished me luck.
I burst through the door like the Energizer Bunny on speed.
"I'm here. Let's go!"
She calmly said, "No. Go take a shower first."
"Are you nuts?!? This is an emergency!"
"The contractions are still 8 minutes apart. We have lots of time. Go on, now. You smell like fish."
After a shower and some fresh clothes, we headed to the hospital.
What a whirlwind that day was. My mom was telling her stories about being in labor with us, when the largest contraction yet struck. We'd taken no Lamaze classes, but being the bookworm that I am, I tried to coach her on her breathing. With a demonic glare and a voice to match, she looked up and shouted, "SHUT UP!!!"
She'd bitten my head off, but had no time to chew it to pieces. The anesthesiologist arrived (saved my bacon, he did!) to inform us that we'd have to step out while the epidural was administered.
Her aunt had come prepared with a very large joint - to celebrate after the delivery - but had to leave so as not to be late for work. We made the block a few times before wishing her well and returning upstairs. By then the meds were kicking in. We ribbed her for a few minutes about this being the first time we'd ever seen her high.
Of all the information I'd gleaned about childbirth, one thing had never been brought to my attention - the shape of a newborn's head when they enter the world. I knew that part of the skull remains soft to ease the passage from water to air, and should have been prepared. But regardless, my first thought was, Oh, my God! My son's a Conehead! I guess if I had spoken to a mother about it, they'd have forewarned me. Instead, I had a few moments of the shock that any parent would go through if their child was born with a deformity that hadn't been diagnosed during the pregnancy.
When I look at our first family picture, it sometimes saddens me. I wish I could tell you that those red, glassy eyes beneath my scrubs were caused by tears of joy. It's ok, though. I'm beyond it.
We always joked that Faith No More's King for a Day album played over headphones that were placed on her belly the day before had induced labor (she always swore that Mr. Patton had the voice of Satan). Maybe it did. In my son's nursery photo, he's obviously fretting a guitar with his left hand.
I tried to take an active part in late night feedings and changings. In retrospect, I guess it compounded an already wearisome situation. At work, my help situation was constantly in flux. Sometimes I'd be alone, and when I'd have to make a trip for more ice, the fisherman would be complaining about my incompetence and the sloppiness of the entire operation. Sometimes, Dan would be so exhausted he'd go home to rest, instructing us to unload his boat and finish cleaning his net first. Easily said when you don't have a dozen fishermen and assorted deckhands screaming for your head. Lots of these guys were from Mississippi and Alabama. We'd listen to their misogyny and ethnic jokes day in and day out. We started getting a bit of a redneck complex. Sometimes we'd be so frazzled at night that we'd go home, turn our amps up to 10, and scream about them for hours.
We began to make bad judgement calls. Trucks were run into the sides of buildings. Sometimes fish would begin to spoil and have to be sold for crab bait instead. Then came the capper.
One morning, before leaving, Dan instructed me to make several trips for ice before knocking off. He wanted me to fill the ice machine, every spare vat we had, and to have a load in the truck. There were some large air freight orders bound for California, and every fisherman would need lots of ice.
When we got everything cleaned up that evening, the truck wouldn't start. I'd never owned a car, so I didn't have any mechanical knowledge to speak of. I had no help either. Everyone else had left. I tried to call Dan repeatedly, but to no avail. Hauling nets is hard work. You sleep like the dead.
Eventually, I gave up in disgust and went home. At 7:30, Dan called me in a rage. It shocked me. I'd never seen him lose his temper before.
"Why the fuck didn't you get ice?!!?"
"The truck wouldn't start. I tried to call you."
"Get your fucking ass down here and get some ice, now! We're ready to go fishing!"
The call left me in a temper. I got dressed and put my boots on, swearing loudly all the while. Then, trying not to pay attention to the look of concern on everyone's faces, I took off on foot.
When I got there 20 minutes later, Dan came out, fiddled with something under the hood a bit, then started the truck.
"Now, hurry up!"
Each truckload I returned with was shoveled directly into the ice boxes of the fishermen. Each was eager to hurry you up and let you know how incompetent you were. With each insult I got a little angrier, but I held my temper until everyone was gone and there was plenty of ice to start the day right.
Then I lost it... but not in a way that most would.
I didn't go berserk and destroy a bunch of equipment. I didn't steal a bunch of checks or anything else that would be equally criminal. I simply wrote a letter of resignation. In it, I expressed my displeasure with the way things were there, and the lack of respect I felt I was enduring. I guess that's always been one of my pet peeves. I don't put up with people yelling and cursing me. Maybe there was a little insecurity there, as well. When attacked, I tend to retreat sometimes. With abuse being flung from all sides, is it any wonder that I felt I could no longer stay?
I went home to let them know I had left. The next day he sent someone over to pick up the keys. I handed them over, then hitchhiked to Venice and began filling out job applications.
One place, Deep Delta Contractors, agreed to hire me immediately. They had converted an old one screen movie theater into a base of operations.
The only problem was that there wasn't always a job to send you to. Most people had cars, and could head to a job site when called. I would hitchhike there every morning, then sit quietly in the waiting room until there was either a callout for a contract worker or lunchtime, whatever came first. In the event of no work that day, I'd hitchhike home.
I experienced a few new things there, like cleaning barges and tanks at Newpark, or going to loading docks to backload supply vessels with drill pipe. I guess I made a good impression. The supervisor of the tank-cleaning crew told me that they were planning on adding me as a member of the crew when one of them left for college in the fall. Said it showed I was dependable showing up every day, regardless of whether there was work for me or not. Sometimes I'd be told to pick up trash and cigarette butts outside, or to go do some grinding for the welders in the shop out back (my first near-disastrous attempt at grinding ripped my shirt to shreds).
It would have been great to join the crew, I guess. I'd have started working more regularly. Instead, I received a job offer.
Remember my friend, Andy? He'd gotten an offshore job working for a seismic exploration company, and had thrown my name in the hat when they had some openings. When his supervisor called me, I graciously accepted his offer. I also took him at his word when he said to bring 2 weeks worth of work clothes. I guess I took a statement like that as an affirmation that there were no washing machines out there.
Not that dropping some of them off when I realized that I could wash clothes made much of a weight difference in my baggage. During the years that I worked in the Gulf of Mexico, I always insisted on bringing enough music and books to last the entire trip. What a difference mp3 players would make years later.
I had some cool experiences there. Started learning to operate different types of machinery, and I got to handle explosives. I also had some some that probably weren't so hot. Getting high on the fuel barge or on top of the wheelhouse of the jack-up were just a few. At the time, there were a few supervisors that sort of winked at that type of thing. They'd always inform us when a "random" drug screen was about to go down. Sad, I know. But, hey, I was 18 years old. What you gonna do?
I also bought my first home. It was one of those all-metal mobile homes built in the late '60's, located 10 minutes or so south of Belle Chasse. It's condition was too decrepit for it to be moved, but that was no problem. The land was rented, and the landlords had no grievances about a change in tenant. My father-in-law had heard about it, and convinced me to take a small loan with him as co-signer. In the end, it was as if nothing had changed. Shortly after I made the purchase, he asked if they could stay with us for a little while if he sold his trailer in Sunrise. He'd helped get me there - and was her father - but regardless, I wouldn't have said, "No." I've been one of those bend over backwards kind of guys longer than I can remember.
Unfortunately, that job didn't last, either. We were nearing completion of the project, and were informed that we'd be staying an extra week to finish up. I always rode with Andy, so we were both given leave to re-outfit ourselves for the stay and pay a few bills. We went ahead and handled our business, then returned.
(I seem to think I might've taken in a Sonic Youth show at the Holwin' Wolf on my night off. Probably explains why I kept dozing off on the way down to work the next morning. I woke up with a cigarette burn in the side of my styrofoam coffee cup from La Caffe Casa in Port Sulphur. Going to shows on my way back offshore a become a frequent pasttime over the years.)
When the week was up, we were informed that the schedule had been changed to month long tours. The mouth of the twosome (not me!) informed our supervisor that we had been instructed to be prepared for one more week, not a month. We would be going home. He responded by telling us that we could turn in our hardhats and workvests on our way in.
I spent the better part of December filling out job applications, to no avail. Then my stepfather landed a captain's job on an oyster boat. He needed 3 deckhands to work the tables, so I was in.
The work wasn't terribly hard (Come on! I'd hauled gill nets). Sometimes the rest of the crew would rib me for bringing books to read during the trips back and forth from the loading dock.
On one of our nights off, I returned to the Howlin' Wolf, having heard on Tulane College's radio station that Mr. Bungle was playing there that night.
I've never seen anything like it, before or since. All were masked. One member played guitar and keyboards at the same time. An amplifier overheated and began to burn. I once heard a journalist refer to that tour as a train wreck under strobe lights. He had no idea how right he was. Nor how amazing of a spectatcle it was to be in the middle of. Chatting with them afterwards, one of our friends claimed that our music was complete noise and that we should send them a tape. Trey Spruance, their guitar obliterator, in the midst of telling me how unenjoyable an experience it had been recording with Faith No More, claimed interest and urged me to do so. Maybe if I'd known he was in the process of starting his own independent label, I'd have taken him seriously.
We were growing quite noisy. I'd enjoyed it when so many indie label bands had gained attention earlier in the decade, but I'd grown sick of the all the Gin Blossoms and Candleboxes that were being groomed for mass consumption. So Bungle's Disco Volante arrived at a perfect time for me. Sure, the first record had been produced by John Zorn, but this one seemed more in that avant jazz/experimental vein. I responded to it quite enthusiastically. It was an escape from corporate rock.
It began to show on our lo-fi recordings from that period. Alternate tunings were the law. We'd tape electronic noise-making toys to microphones before rolling the tape. Another pasttime was to switch instruments from one song to the next. Nearly all of the recordings were long, free-form improvisations, and mostly instrumental.
After a few months, orders for oysters became rare, so I took a job at a fast food restaurant. All of my previous jobs had been hectic, so I began to gain praise for being very, very fast. I'd simultaneously work the register and the grill, but that was light work. When no customers were around, I'd be instructed to wipe down a few tables and spot sweep. I'd generally clean all the tables, and sweep and mop the entire dining area before the next rush would start.
Then my supervisor from the offshore job called me. He informed me that the operation had moved back to Venice. Would I be interested in returning? I didn't have to think about the larger paychecks for long. I agreed. He told me to give notice at the restaurant and await his call. I did so. The managers came right out and told me that I'd made a very good impression, but there was no way they could compete with the pay rate I was accepting.
When my last day had come and gone with no call, I contacted him to ask when I would be deployed.
He told me that it showed my eagerness to work, but I'd misunderstood him. He'd simply wanted me to know that he'd be in touch as soon as my services were needed. I couldn't believe it. Had I left my job for this?
Despite my lack of steady work, I was still making the trek to Buras a few times a week to play music. Even though we lacked interest in doing something commercial, we were still beginning to mesh as a unit. It was of vast importance that we do our best not to lose that.
But artistic aspirations don't go down so well when there are mouths to feed at home. After a few trips, I was kicked out of my own house.
My dad, seeing a glimmer of hope in this disaster, decided to take matters into his own hands for us. He approached the owners of Balliviero's Lounge with a proposition. We were an up-and-coming band that could really use the experience playing in front of an audience. He told them that we wouldn't demand pay, just to consider it practice. They agreed to let us come in a few nights a week, and we were set. Sort of.
Our equipment, while adequate for practice at home, wouldn't be strong enough to project in even the smallest hole in the wall bar.
(Balliviero's wasn't even close to that. They were the only place DTR that had the size and acoustics to be considered a live music club. Fats Domino had once played there in the late '50's. My grandmother had an autographed picture from the show that she eventually gave to Fro for Christmas.)
By the first night we took the stage there, the situation had downgraded from inadequate to downright shoddy. That wonderful Peavey amp had suffered a terrible accident while I was offshore. Being halfstack-sized, Fro had decided to place it atop a dresser while playing through our distortion pedals. It fell off, shorted out, and by the time I came in, Michael had removed the 18" speaker to use for his own devices. The shell of that once fine cabinet became a catchall for junk as time went on - discarded string packaging, broken drumsticks, dumped ashtrays, you name it. We wound up using two townhall type PA's: a 35w wired to stereo speakers for the vocals, and a 100w with a car stereo speaker box with two 12's for the bass. Good thing we did. Fro's tiny Peavey practice amp would never have been heard otherwise.
All 6 of the patrons there looked on in horror as we tore through abrasively discordant versions of "Why Don't We Do It in the Road" and "Helter Skelter." We actually got them to dance and chant, "Tootsie Roll!" during an especially anemic version of "Chocolate" by the Time. We were plagued by cries of "We can't hear the bass!" and "Play 'Dock of the Bay' again!" At least it gave us an idea of what sort of material our drunken audience wanted to hear.
We began to study a few of those fakebooks that teach you the easiest chord variations of a song, and would arrive armed with garage rock versions of songs by the likes of the Beatles andCreecence Clearwater Revival. We'd do Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" and "Me and Bobby McGee" by Janis Joplin. From time to time my Prince fan persona would come out and we would do songs like "The Cross," "Let's Go Crazy," & "Starfish and Coffee" (yes, with kid-sized keyboard for the piano lead). One song, "Bambi," despite our punked out rendition, became a crowd favorite. The first time I saw 75 people dancing to this song, I was completely floored.
Then Jason Hammond moved in. He'd had some sort of falling out with his parents, and came to crash, bringing along his 5-string Dean and his TKO 60 with him. It lent a meatier groove to our live sound and sometimes gave me the opportunity to take over on lead vocals or harmonica. Despite my previous ability with the higher registers, we stayed a little too drunk for me to be very effective at the microphone. We began to work on arrangements and proper chord progressions. I learned a bit about scales and adding the proper groove to flow with the root notes. We had a few friends drop in with their guitars and amps from time to time, not to mention one very skilled pianist. He was a big guy, and looked somewhat odd hunched over our tiny keyboard. Dustin somehow got hold of his dad's massive PA, complete with board and monitors, and our sound and audience seemed complete. The club, once notoriously empty due to it's reputation as a gay bar (one of the bartenders and a patron were gay. How scandalous!), was shoulder to shoulder with people by the 4th of July. We began to add effects like strobe lights and the old dry ice and water for smoke effect to gain a little more theater. We almost got kicked out once for playing Rage Against The Machine's "Killing in the Name Of'" and nearly destoying the drum set while costumed - a cigarette-burned hospital gown that still had the blood on it for me, and a clown suit on Fro. I won't even mention the rubber duckie taped to the top of his guitar strap. No complaints about "Floyd the Barber" (Nirvana) or "Puttin' It Down" (Beck), though.
Sounds like lots of fun, doesn't it? The majority of it wasn't. Our heads were just too clouded at the time. For one thing, it was a repititious pattern of club one night, practice at home the next. The loop continued for months. We began to go on the notorious type of drinking binges you would hear of in an AA meeting. It literally got to the point of drinking for 4 days, then going into a coma for 12 hours. Add ice, stir, repeat. Not to mention all the chemicals we were indulging in. The experimentation with pschedelics had never really stopped, but it was always infrequent. We'd moved to peyote (first at home, then at the Lollapalooza festival), before discovering mushrooms (and the hypnotic effect of Beck while on them). Let's not forget the oxccasional street acid, either. Those weren't harmful at all. The bad part was the drugs that others began to bring around. Someone always seemed to show up with cocaine or crystal meth (neither of which I cared for much. When I tried coke, I was playing drums, and it seemed that I couldn't maintain the speed I wanted. I just wasn't that fast. Meth, to me, felt like I'd had 4 or 5 pots of coffee.Why buy that shit when I could brew a pot any time I saw fit?)
On one momentous occasion, something was slipped in my drink as we finished the night's final set. We'd pledged to stay pretty sober, as drunkenness had hindered some of our earlier performances, all to no avail for me. My third, and last beer was brought to the stage as we wrapped up. As beers from the bar tend to be, it was open. I wasn't in much of a drinking mood. By the time we got home, I'd only managed to drink half of it. We sat at the table to talk, and suddenly, with no blank spot in my memory, it was morning, and I was standing in the kichen alone. My dad walked into the room and said, "There you are. I've been looking for you everywhere." It was time for work. We'd all gone to work for a lawn care outfit, run by my aunt's boyfriend (an alcoholic of epic proportions. No break from the drinking there). He was incredibly pissed with me that day, due to my sluggishness and disorientation. He swore that we wouldn't work for him on mornings after we'd "played in the band."
I never needled myself, but to be honest, it was probably due to the fact that no IV drugs ever showed up (although I did smoke some pot that had been soaked in opium one fine night. Talk about black and white cartoon city!)
Two things conspired to get me away before that opportunity could arise. The first was a phone call (finally) to report to the job that I'd been promised months earlier. This job began my path to living a relatively clean life because I lost it really quickly, and due to my vices. After being completely trashed for months, the only way to ensure that job was to buy one of those products that make you appear to give a clean urine sample. I passed this (and the safety courses that were now required, which would help me big time a lot sooner than I knew) with flying colors. Had I been a little more cognizant of the times, I'd have realized that these new safety rules would also be quite a bit stricter on drug policy than previously. Instead, naive youth that I was, I smoked a few joints on my way to the dock. I went offshore and picked up right where I'd left off - until the random drug test only 10 days after my arrival. As you can probably guess, I was sent packing.
I didn't return to anything good either. A few disastrous gigs in Venice (and who could blame the audiences for hating us, when we had originals that were like the bass line to Blondie's "Rapture" overlaid with guitar leads straight out of the Lee Renaldo songbook. I seem to remember one song being bigtime Melvins influenced. Jason swore we'd be kicked out immediately if we played that one.), and more bad drugs. Each of us began to experince emotional and physical breakdowns of different sorts. Jason had several anemic attacks that scared the Christ out of us.Try reviving someone that has passed out cold in public. I guarantee you it's no fun. My breakdowns were of both sorts. For one, I was roughly 35 pounds lighter than I'd been during my senior year (my FIL accused me of being on crack when he arrived to chastise me one night), and my hair was falling out in clumps. I appeared to have mange (no bald spot today, though. I guess it was just malnutrition).
The emotional breakdown was bad, but my saving grace arrived in the nick of time.
I'd had a few suicidal thoughts before. The first was after a break-up with a girl I dated when I was in church. There were a few other occasions in high school, but none that I ever tried to act upon. This time was different. I stumbled upon Michael's shotgun while home alone one day. I got to thinking that nothing had gone right during the short time that I'd been on Earth. All too quickly, I'd ceased having any part in my son's upbringing. I couldn't hold a steady job. My body and my spirit were crushed. I didn't know if God had forsaken me or the reverse, but I decided right then that I was quitting.
Now I had to find the shells. Michael had fallen in with a bit of a bad crowd, and dad didn't want to see him rushing off in a temper some night with gun in tow, so he took it upon himself to hide the ammo. Good for me. I wouldn't be writing this today otherwise. I began to tear the houses to pieces in my desperate need for darkness. Nearly every drawer and closet in the house was ripped assunder, when, suddenly, there was a knock at the door. I nearly ignored it in favor of my search, but decided to take a peek through the curtains anyway.
Shit. Andy.
I relented, and let him in.
"How's it going, man?"
"Not too bad. Come on. Let's take a ride."
Double damn!
"Where we going?"
"Come on. Take a ride."
"OK. Give me a second to get ready."
(Not that it took me that long. I had no money and very few possessions.)
Shortly arter hitting the highway, I turned to him and asked, "Are you gonna tell me where we're going now?"
"Sure. We're going to see your old lady. Maybe y'all can talk. At least you can see your son. You've been up there, what? Two or three times?"
I freaked a little at first.
"Why would you do that? She doesn't want to see me. Remember when she tried to pawn our equipment while we were in New Orleans?"
(I can't blame her either. The shade tree beer breaks on the lawn care job didn't add up to many hours. Nor did the few weeks we worked for Dan again - loadind bull drum straight into refrigerator trucks - or the week and a half I pulled on a tug boat, add up to much money.)
He assured me that things would be fine. He'd mediate if need be, but fiest we had to stop at his house for something.
While there, she called his house looking for me. She told me that a drilling company had called to offer me a job. She gave me a number. I dialed and waited to be connected to their personnel department, all the while wondering how they'd gotten my number. One of the personnel managers informed me that they'd like to offer me a position as a roustabout trainee with an entry-level salary of $7.90 per hour.
I'd never been paid so much money in my life!
(I imagine that here in 2011 we're all laughing at such a figure right about now.)
My spirits somewhat bolstered, we got back on the road in jollier spirits, and headed toward a career that would turn out to be the longest-lasting job I've ever had.
It took going to their office to remember applying there. They'd called nearly 9 months after I'd applied for a position. They explained the duties I'd be expected to perform, then sent me (along with nearly a dozen other applicants, to a drug-screening facility. I'd made no attempt to be clean over the years, so I resorted to the same method as at my last oilfield job. The way it turned out, that was nearly not enough.When the sample was being labeled, I observed the technician writing, "Sample is clear" under the remarks section. We returned to the personnel office and began our orientation, which consisted of watching several safety films and signing tons of paperwork. Each applicant was outfitted with PPE and then assigned for deployment. At the end, I was in the room by myself
"OK. Where am I going?" I asked.
"There seems to have been a problem with your urine sample. It appears to be watered down."
"I saw that on the results form. That's what happens when you drink tons of coffee and water."
"We'll just need you to return and retest, then you'll get your assignment."
"Should I come back here when I'm finished? I don't have a car."
"No, that's ok. Just go home, and I'll call you when we get your results."
Thinking that the Good Ship Lollipop was sunk before it's maiden voyage, I thanked her and walked back to the lab. This time, the color had returned to my sample.
Damn, whatever it is I took has passed it's time of usefulness, I thought.
I went home and prepared for the worst, but she called me at nearly 5:00 to tell me that my testing had come out fine, and to report for work on Monday. I joined a neighbor for a celebratory joint, during which I came to a decision.
I'd been taking the risk of having to "study" for drug tests for over a year. Maybe it was time I stop carrying the additional worry, and besides, what was more important? Feeding my family, or getting high? It may have been the first conscious adult decision I made.
What a whirlwind those days were. I went into the oilfield chasing shackles (assisting the crane operator), then progressed to roughnecking on the drill floor. I had my eye on higher things, though. I eventually made it into the derrick. I'd always enjoyed climbing, and my childhood tendencies toward accidents had fallen by the wayside. In it's place were balance and precision. Another plus was that when not climbing two hundred feet in the air, I was no longer on the drill floor much. Instead I was maintaining pumps and tanks. My energy and metabolism have always been high, so I excelled alone. I was finally getting paid for my solitude. I had to learn many mathematical equations and procedures to maintain well control. At the end, I was being trained by the head mechanic - he had a bee in his bonnet about suggesting me if another mechanic's job became open. Ah, the end. A central part of this tale, but we're going to have to leave that for a bit later, I'm afraid.
I didn't exactly hold on to my resolve to stay clean. Relatively clean became the refrain before much time had passed. In the beginning, it started with more pot. I would wait until we had a drug screen, then find someone to smoke with when I got home. Then, during a PEC safety class, some blowhard chimed in to the instructor that we should only be tested when returning home from a hitch. What we did while off was our business. She responded by debunking the excuse that everyone uses when they fail one: "I was riding with someone that was smoking." She explained that the drug testing companies were required by law to test for a certain level of intoxicants. Anything under was a pass, so do your dirty work the first or second day that you're home, and you should be ok. I took this bit of wisdom and ran with it. If I bumped into someone that was carrying at the beginning of the week, I was all for it.
One guy that I rode back and forth to work with had an addiction that my brother once explained: he was addicted to addiction. One week, he'd have a bag of weed, sometimes a little coke. If he had no narcotics, he'd insist we buy coffee and vivarin for the trip. Anything to get you going, I guess.
Then came a few more acid trips. One at a triple feature the cinema was showing of the original Star Wars trilogy. The things I could tell you about that day. During another, we actually went to a show by the Time and the Flavor Kings.
Then came news. At my son's second birthday birthday party, I found out that we were expecting again.
We began telling everyone that we wanted to be surprised this time. The specialist that was doing the ultrasound put the results in an envelope just in case we changed our minds later. When she finally talked me into opening the envelope, I was overjoyed. I'd always wanted a daughter. We discussed names almost until the end, but refused to tell anyone her name until after the delivery. The pregnancy was very hard and draining. We both had terrible stomachs, but her condition intensified tenfold while expecting. It was determined in the end that a faulty gall bladder was the culprit. She wound up in the hospital several times for dehydration. At the end, it was preumonia. The fever was causing the baby's heart rate to race, and we were a nervous wreck. When she entered the world, my daughter had so much mucus down her throat that the doctor spent a long time cleaning her airway. We didn't breathe for nearly five minutes. When she finally cried, it was an anti-climax. She cried for all of two seconds. We figured maybe she wasn't such a fussy baby (oh, how that perception changed!)
In the nursery, my mom turned to me and said, "She's beautiful." I don't know what I responded with, but we spent the next 10 minutes crying in each other's arms. What a difference nearly three years will make in a person.
While her mother got over her pneumonia, I spent every feeding in the nursery. It gave us time to bond.
Then the opportunity came for us to purchase a brand new mobile home. The only place we could find a lot to put one was back in Port Sulphur. I was a bit peeved at having to move back rather than forward, but went ahead with it anyway. Shortly after the move, we finally got married. Not only had I promised for years that I would, but suddenly the timing seemed right. My wife's medicaid was about to run out, and my children were already covered by my insurance. We figured she could be covered as well. Better safe than sorry.
Things began to get slightly wonky at this point.
My wife had always lived a clean life. At the age of 22, she decided that she'd like to begin drinking. It became a weekly thing. They'd barhop the entire weekend away, taking me as designated driver when I was home. I kind of hated it. For one thing, I was in the types of spots that played dance music, and for another, I was the only one sober. Sort of makes you feel like the parent.
Then came Ecstacy. Everyone would come up to me in the bar, wondering why I wasn't having a good time. Despite my protests, I'd have a dozen drinks lined up at the table in record time. Some nights, it would have been better to let someone that was rolling drive. Then they had a tab left one night, and handed it to me to go on top of the alcohol. When I came back to myself, I realized that everyone had left. I drove to every bar in the parish looking for them (not to mention stopping at home to make another drink). I met one bartender a week or two later, she claims I ran facefirst into the door on my way in. She'd decided not to serve me, but I didn't ask. Just marched straight to the back of the bar, turned around, and marched right back out. Eventually we found each other. When we got home, it was decided that one of her brother's friends was going to hook up with my cousin, so they took a ride to get her. As soon as they were out the door, her brother rolled a blunt, lit it, and held it out to me from what looked like half a mile away. In a voice that sounded like a 78 rpm record slowed down to 33 1/3, he asked, "You want some of this?"
I have no idea whether I took it or not. The next thing I knew, I woke up to the sound of someone vomiting. My wife had come into the bathroom and found me passed out on the carpet beside the toilet. When she tried to wake me, she noticed the puddle of puke I was lying facefirst in. That sent her over the top. I did good, though. I got up, cleaned the mess, then took a shower before falling unconscious again.
At this point I gave up. Although I'd been out of church for years, I'd been reading my Bible quite a bit while offshore. Jason hasd started going to church with his parents, so he invited me along. It was a little nervewracking to be in the same church that had left me with such a sour taste in my mouth, but I got over it. Almost no one that had been there before was in attendance, so it almost felt like a new place. Almost. But trying to life the clean life when no one else around you is interested in doing so is no easy task. I finally decided that if you can't beat 'em, you might as well join 'em. I did X a few times, but lots more went on when I was at work. Sometimes they'd even leave me home with the kids. More convenient. I later heard so many things about what she was up to at the time, but everyone that told me had strong reasons for being angry by the point that these revelations were made.
Working offshore like I was (not to mention always having a side job during my days off), it became a little hard to maintain a band. Playing in small clubs every other night turned into the occasional jam at someone's house. Either my brother would come to my house, or we'd go to my neighbor's at the front of the street. He had a pretty decent PA, and played keyboards. His son happened to be one of the greatest drummers I've ever had the pleasure of playing with. I remember some long raggae jams there. Sometimes I'd go to Dustin's house. He'd become quite the gamer, and challenged me to many hours of Knockout Kings. One night Cody came with me, because he claimed he could take us both out. He was right. We soon left him to challenge the computerized opponent, and jumped on guitar and bass to work out the song that he was currently learning, "Where is My Mind?" by the Pixies. We played it roughly 22 times in a row. I wound up getting the second best complement I've ever received about my playing (the best was my neighbor in Belle Chasse telling us that it sounded like a spaceship was landing in our shed). Dustin wasn't impressed with the tempo I was keeping or the way I was going about my changes. Upon further inspection, he realized that I was dead on. I'd never played it before, but it had been burned into my soul for 10 years. He told me that I should be in a Pixies cover band. I could pull off their sound perfectly. Nice change. He'd always told me before that I needed to buy a metronome.
The last times I saw any psychedelics, it happened to be 2 mushroom trips that were very close together. The first wasnt much to fuss about. The second, however, was horrifying. I quite literally watched myself decompose. I also got the added treat of feeling every single moment of the process. I swore that night that I'd never do anything again. Drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, etc. Gone. I didn't exactly keep all those promises, but I've been mostly off of illegal drugs since then. I didn't know it yet, but my bout with prescription meds would begin all too soon. I discussed it with Scott, Jason, and another friend at a concert a few weeks later. One of them hypothesized that there is an optimal time for doing those sorts of things. Maybe ours had passed. Then again, maybe the bad trip came from the events that were taking place in our lives.
That spring, my wife's grandfather passed away. Shortly after that, her uncle died of a heart attack while on a cruise, of all places. Later, we lost two of my uncles to cancer (We laid one of them to rest on my birthday. As you can imagine, it really left me in a celebrating mood). When another of her relatives met their demise on her birthday, she threw up her hands in disgust and said, "I never would have believed that we could lose this many loved ones in such a short time."
I agreed wholeheartedly. I'd lost both grandparents, both great grandparents, and an aunt in the '80's and early '90's. I'd never seen anything like this. God wouldn't pile more sorrow than this on top of us? Would he?
I was more wrong than I ever would have known. God had lain sorrow at our door like a bouquet. Now he was going to pull the rug from under our feet. The life we'd grown cozy with was about to be destroyed forever.
