Yeager Road Diaries: The Psycho-Lewallen Affair Part II

As I mentioned in the previous installment, when I was a teenager I had a crew of buddies that I call the boys. There was Shaun the military brat and loud-mouth, Keith the know-it-all fat kid and Terry Lewallen the moron.Myself the rebel without a clue and Burt, who'd fall in love with any finely made young lady, no matter the cost.

The local comic shop was owned by a fellow named Richard Argo, as a result, we called the place "Richard's" and Richard had wisely placed his cousin in charge of the counter. She was a dark eyed creature made of hair, legs and breasts, or at least, as far as Burt was concerned. The lady's name was Renee and she shared a house (at a later point) with Lewie's girlfriend Psycho. But before all that happened Renee lived in an apartment down the road from Richard's with a fellow 5 years older than herself, named Robert. Robert was 23, red head and grew an impressively manicured bridge that immediately told em he was a sissy. It was obvious that he was a sissy because he dressed better than the rest of us and had a job where he sat at a desk.

At any rate, Burt wondered into Richard's one day and his eyes fell on Renee and he succumbed to her dark charms and curvy parts in the same manner every young man of 16 does when confronted with a beautiful woman in a comic shop. He hid behind the comic boxes and stared at her until I introduced them. Thereafter they spoke every day. The Mood was there all day long and would stand outside and talk to Renee until dark. This probably would have continued until he had won her heart except for one thing: on the third day, that red headed sissy-man Robert showed up.

From then on it was a tale of legend. The love triangle to end all love triangles. The 16 year old unemployed high-school drop-out against the neatly dressed, gainfully employed 23 year old. It was a challenge requiring the wisdom of Solomon. Renee, in her wisdom, dated them both. This went off and on for a long while. Renee would date just Mood and then would date just Robert and then would date them both. Finally, she'd had all she could stand of the pressure and the soul-grinding torture of having two men at her beck and call. She decisively moved out of Robert's apartment and into the clapboard house with Psycho. And then she made her mind up and... dated them both.

Time went on and Lewie in his huge stupidity began dating the sexually repressed Jan and running in fear from her lusty second personality Jennifer. I took Psycho home that fateful night and learned the secret that Lewie so kindly neglected to mention and I punched him in the head.

Fast forward a few months and Renee, in an uncharacteristic move, has made a decision and started dating Robert. Burt has moved on and started dating a girl named Cindy. A woman he found so appealing that he named a dog after her and Lewie? Lewie comes to Mood's house bawling his eyes out that Psycho has dumped him and wants him to come to Casa de Loony-toons and get all of his stuff out of her way.

Since we were a team, I sent Shawn the asshole and Keith the pacifistic know-it-all with Mood in Keith's rattle-trap of Jeep and I climbed into the driver's seat of Lewie's 492 foot long Burgundy Lincoln Continental. We make our way to Whitesburg and down the the (now) paved road to the (now) gravel road and past the newly erected street light and pulled up into the still naked yard in front of the clapboard house that sat with its back to the cornfield like a gunfighter in a crowded bar.

Lewie and I got out and so did Mood. Shawn the asshole stayed in the Jeep because it was safer if he didn't talk to people and Keith stayed with him -- because he was chickenshit. Those of us had mixed feelings. Lewie was heartbroken and harbored hope of reconciliation, Mood wanted one last moment with Renee and I -- I had noticed Roberts car across the road and was looking for some street theatre.

We walked into the clapboard house and there sat Psycho and Renee and Robert and Robert's handgun. There was a sound in my head not unlock the giant hands of a giant clock moving and slamming into place. I looked right and Robert and pushed Lewie in the direction of his belongings. Mood was too busy given Renee dirty looks to do anything else. Robert sat there looking like a particularly smug sissy-boy, a well-armed sissy-boy albeit, but a sissy-boy none-the-less. The blubbering Lewie gathered his things and we headed out the car slowly. Renee yelled unkind things at Mood, he yelled unkind things back. Shawn called everyone bad names and Keith begged him to shut up. Lewie cried like a kid with a skinned knee and I -- I blew Robert a kiss. When he turned to hurry back inside we tore out of there. Bulletproof I might be, but these bullets were a bit less metaphorical than I liked.

We got the cars to the old bridge and stopped. I nudged Lewie out of the car and the boys rolled out and embraced his crying form in a manly way.

"Dude, did you see Robert's car?" Mood asked.

"Yep, sawing coming in, " I said.

"If I'd have known he had a gun, I might've done that different," Mood said.

"He had a gun?" Squeeked the fat kid.

"Oh, he always has that when I've been over," sobbed Lewie.

The rest of us didn't even make it to the ten count.

Well, like all good stories, this one has a happy ending. Later that year Renee tossed Psycho and Robert out of her house and life and made Mood miserable for another year and a half. Lewie head-punch healed met a girl that was uglier, but much less crazy than Psycho. Shawn met a girl that was a bigger asshole than he was and Keith got kicked out of college. Me? Well, that's another story.

The Psycho-Lewallen Affair Part I

When I was a teenager I had a crew of buddies that I call the boys. There was Burt (who I called Mood), Myself (who Burt called Dude), Shaun the military brat and loud-mouth, Keith the know-it-all fat kid and Terry Lewallen... the moron.

Terry was a special case among our band, he was, at the time, generally considered to be better looking than the rest of us. He could grow a full beard of sandy colored hair by 10th grade and he had broad shoulders that made him look far more formidable than he was. He also had a head scar along his hairline that seemed reminiscent of the product of a lobotomy. Despite all these charms, Lewallen (Lewie, we called him) was perpetually dating girls with "great personalities". We quickly learned this translated into "ugly and crazy". I tell you all of this because, this is how we met Psycho.

Psycho's real name was Jan and she was a plain looking girl with a brittle smile and the fast moving eyes of rabid weasel. Her voice was shrill and she dressed rather like she had fallen into a pile of clothes and they had stuck there. So, needless to say, she was perfect for Lewie. Lewie and Psycho worked at Wal-Mart back when Wal-Mart was an upstart for spending money while they went to college in the nearby college town.

At the time, our hangout was a local comic shop run by a fellow by the name of Richard Argo. I don't remember the store's name, for we all called it "Richard's". Richard's cousin Renee ran the register and we were all smitten by this beautiful dark-haired girl that read funny-books and played role-playing games. Mood was particularly smitten and he was shorter and easier to smite. But that story comes later... So it came to pass one day that I was at Richard's with Lewie and Burt and Lewie asked if I would take Psycho home to the house she shared with Renee so that she did not have to wait on Lewie to get off work four hours after her shift ended. As a stalwart young redneck gentleman, I said it would be my pleasure and the next day I was waiting at Wal-Mart with plenty of time to spare.

Like any good southern boy I was assigned one of the required vehicle types, I had a 1969 Camaro in forest green with rust colored primer down one side. It was fast, it was sexy and it was redneck. I pulled the Camaro in sideways in front of the garden shop with all of the style a teenager in 1984 could muster. Which is to say: not much. I waltzed inside with a jean shirt rolled up past my elbows with my mirrored driving shades on perched on my nose and a hard pack of Marlboro Reds™ ruining the back pocket of my skin tight Levis. I stepped inside the store, collect little miss brittle-smile and headed for the wilds of Whitesburg Ga. The road was dirt, the woods were dark and the streetlights were non-existent.

I pulled up in front of the little clapboard house that Psycho and Renee shared. The house sat in a naked yard with its back against the cornfield like a cornered rat. The house was dark and began to get a bad feeling. Psycho and I entered the house and she tried the light switch and got nothing. She uttered the first sound she had made all night, a curt "Hmmp" sound and headed to the kitchen for a flashlight. My conscience warned with my creep-out alarm as I backed slowly towards the door and she said, "It's dark. Will you stay until Terry gets here?" Damn my southern upbringing! I settled on the couch, in the dark and didn't say a thing. Psycho settled down next to me and turned to look at me and placed her hand in my lap in an unladylike way. "You're nice looking", she said.

"Thanks, Jan," I said, wondering what to do with her hand.

"Who's Jan? My name is Jennifer."

As my backbone tried to climb up into my skull I slowly got up and edged away from the plain girl with the smoky, lusty smile illuminated by the flashlight in her lap. I backed out the door while trying to say something clever about three being a crowd and I tore up back road all the way back to Douglasville.

The next day at Richard's, Burt told me that Lewie was looking for me with a mean look on his face. As I was young, and tough and a little bit mean (and not to mention, I had a secret weapon), I went looking for Lewie. When I found him he was seething until him lobotomy scar blanched white against his flushed face. He opened his mouth and I said, "Who's Jennifer?"

Lewie deflated and his big shaggy muzzle frowned. "Oh... you met Jennifer."

I counted to ten and punched him in the head.

Challenging Life

I have been very quiet in both my journals lately. This is because, as is typical of me, when something challenges us in our lives I have a tendency to keep silent about it until I feel it is resolved.

Through no fault of her own, my wife lost her job. The people she worked for got themselves into a financial bind and bounced two paychecks and then failed to pay Shell for another week.

On thursday I took Shell to the DOL to file for unemployment and took time out to be very threatening to her former boss. On friday her bosses brought me the money that was owed and they promised three week's severance.

Last night Shell had a really good interview and we're hoping it will be a good fit and that they will offer her the gig.

It has been a year. But, to put things into perspective, it has been a year where a lot of good has come from bad. It has been a year where my wife and I have learned a lot about each other through adversity and found that we still love each other and want to be with each other. It has been a year where my youngest child was brought into my home before further bad could be done to her. It has been a year where my wife and I have purchased our home. It has been a year where we learned our limitations and our strengths.

And it has been the year where I have begun to rise and advance my spirit, learning freedom and strength and patience. It's coming to me, slowly.

Life does not challenge us, we challenge life.

Utopia

From 365 Taoist meditations

Chant one million times for world peace, they told me.
Pray three times a day to end all wars.
Practice austerities to liberate all living beings.
But the world's miseries have never diminished.

Periodically, some religious group proclaims that if everyone would just do something like chant, some fundamental social problem would be solved. Claims have been made that spiritual devotion could affect wars, famine, disease, the economy, and overpopulation.
Only personal endeavors can be spiritual. What you do with your daily devotions is purely for your own sake. Once you put ideals on a grand scale, they are compromised by the contradictions of life.

There is no utopia. There never will be. There is only the valiant attempt of each person to live spiritually in a world where spirituality is almost impossible.

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things:

Of shoes-and ships-and sealing wax- Of cabbages-and kings- And why the sea is boiling hot- And whether pigs have wings."

It has been a little over a week since we got moved in to the new house and I am pleased, if somewhat overwhelmed.

Part of moving in has been the cleansing nature of a new start. I challenge myself to let go of the old and bring newness to my life, my home and my family.

Heather and Rodney sorted out their problem. I agree with my wife that it would have been better if we'd never heard their was a problem. Sometimes it is better not to know, but it's my nature to want to know what is going on, even if it is bad news.

My time with my wife has grown sweeter and richer since moving in to the new house, yet there remains small pieces of baggage that I have to learn to put aside or to incorporate into my life.

Life is a struggle, it makes life have flavor. Sometimes the flavor is sweet and sometimes it is bitter but it is the life we get and to waste it with worry and stress are a sin.

The move and my breaking point the other day have awakened the part of me that I suppressed for a long while. I suppressed this part of me because it was a part that did some bad things and hurt a lot of people and tended to be selfish. It was also the part of me that would kick down a mountain, that would give you the 'I know you want me' smile, that had not a single moment of doubt and had never known regret.

Being that guy is a balancing act and sometimes I want to retreat to the me I became when it came time to make amends for my past misdeeds. But that's not the real me. The real me is a little bit crazy, a guy who smiles and laughs easily, a guy that isn't afraid of you, your friends or any army you might have with you, he's a passionate lover and a passionate fighter. He's 50% hero and 50% bastard. He's the me that we tried to kill in therapy. He's the me that my wife deserves, my kids need and my enemies fear.

And as you can tell, he's an egomaniac.

Peace, understanding and growth to you all.

The lesson of the river

The river flows from beginning to end but never moves. The river is not the water, because the water moves on and is gone. The river is not the land that borders it, but without the land it cannot be defined. The river is not the fish and the plants and the little crawling things, but without them the river has no life. We cannot define the river, but we know what the river is and what the rivr is not.

So it is with life. We are not our thoughts, for they change. We are not our words, they come and go. We are not our flesh, that changes and withers and dies. We cannot define our lives, but we know what life is and what it is not.

Life flows, travels and journeys. It eddys and pools and speeds along at times, but it arrives in the correct time and in the correct place with no help at all and no barrier can impede it for long.

Life is like the river and the river is like life.

Emptiness

Clay is molded to form a vessel, But it is on its emptiness that the usefulness of the utensil depends.

Doors and windows are cut to make a room, but it is on its emptiness that the utility of the room depends.

I have reached my stress limit, all further stress can fuck right off.

You know, when I was a kid my biological father stalked us and threatened my grandparents and basically made our lives a living hell. There were days I would lay on the floor of my bedroom with my grandmother listening to my record player turned down low because my father was outside the house with a gun.

When I was 9 years old my grandfather, who was everything to me, had a heart attack and lay dying in front of me on the couch. I was too afraid to go to his funeral because then I would have to admit he was gone. For what seemed like weeks afterward my grandmother would pass out and wail when she woke up and realized my grandfather was dead. I hate the smell of smelling-salts because of this.

From age 11-14, I was sexually molested by a close family member until I finally realized I could say no. I still wake up some times thinking about it.

When I was 17 my grandmother had a stroke because of a needless accident when she was in the hospital for a heart attack. She died a few days later. I bawled like a baby.

My first wife cheated on me within a month of being married. Near as I can tell she repeated this every year just for fun.

Two years after my divorce my ex-wife took my kids from me. I didn't see them for 4 years. My youngest daughter was told that her step-father was her real father.

After that I descended into a cycle of self-hatred. I cheated on every woman I had a relationship with. I lied to everyone I knew.

Shell and I got married and for a moment it all spun down and stopped. For a moment it was wonderful.

My daughter Heather moved back in with her mother to get away from my rules, my ex-wife put her in jail.

My best friend betrayed me 5 times in 3 months.

DFACS took my youngest child and placed her in my house.

Last night Rodney (the father of my grandson) called to say that my daughter left him to 'find herself'.

---

I almost cried last night, but I didn't. There are days that I feel like I am in a fight and can't take a breath. Not anymore. I look back and I survived worse, much worse. There is nothing you can do to me that I haven't beaten.

If you want to hurt me, get in line.
If you want to betray me, get in line.
If you want to disappoint me, get in line.

I am 10-foot tall and bulletproof. I have survived it all. This too shall pass.

Inner Peace

Be at peace. Anyone can be at peace in quiet times, when the world is silent and all thing are going your way. There is no strength in this. Be at peace when the world burns and the sky falls. This is strength. This is understanding. This is the Tao.

---

Do you ever create worry? Do you allow people to hurt you because you care what they do or say? Do you ever give evil people power over you by worrying about what they do or what they might do? Then you are a worrier. Welcome to worrier's anonymous. Today we are going to kill worry and find inner peace. You will need a couple of things for today's experiment.

1 Pen or Pencil
1 Piece of Paper
1 Troublesome worry
1 Person you trust completely
A dash of creative visualization
A pinch of faith

Write the name of troublesome worry on the paper. Now, fold the paper until it will fit easily in the palm of your left hand. Close your eyes and picture the person you trust completely. Crumple the paper and picture the troublesome worry being given over to your friend. Let go.

Sometimes it is easier to just go home and lie down in the bed of your childhood, in the comfort of your mother's house or your grandparents. These are the places we go in our mind to rest.

Peace.

Rising and Advancing in Spirit

From 365 Tao Meditations
Demons who enter your circle
Must be pushed out.


No matter what world you walk in -- office, school, temple, prison, or the streets -- there is an underworld populated with demons. These are people who are avaricious, aggressive, sadistic, and cynical. They not only take advantage of others without compunction, they delight in it. They find pleasure in seeing others suffer.
The why of it cannot be answered. There is only the fact, with no metaphysical meaning or other ramifications. It is not karma, it is not fate. If these people decide to attack you, it is circumstance. You must fight or be mowed down.

Compassion and humility may be among the most treasured of human virtues, but they are not useful in conflict. A beautiful gold statue of your most adored god is a treasure, but you would not use it as a weapon. Virtue is to be value in the proper context; only a sword will do in battle.

Whether an attack is physical -- assault, rape, murder -- or whether it is mental -- business intrigues, emotional abuse -- you must be prepared. It is best to prepare for conflict by learning as much self-defense as possible. You will not become a bully or a monster, but instead, you will learn that you an respond to any situation. If you are never attacked, that will be wonderful. Training will still help you work out your fears, inhibitions, and anxieties. In the case of conflict, no one, not even a veteran, is ever sure that they will come out alive from a confrontation. But they resolve to go in there and give themselves a fighting chance. This in itself is a triumph over evil.

Over the weekend I spent time with my best friend in this world. He lives about an hour from me and in our lives we have gone long periods without seeing each other or even talking. That's a shame. But as my friend reminded me, there is a bond between us that is so great that should a decade go by without speaking, the two of us can come together and pick up where we left off. Burt's spirit and my spirit have walked together for a long time and will do so long after we leave this world.

I tell you this, and remind myself of this, because I have for many years surrounded myself with false friends. There have been 'friends' in my life that are merely neglectful and there are those that have actively chosen to betray me. Recently I had to look into the face of a friend who betrayed me and then remove them from my life.

The betrayal was so painful that it still deeply impacts me. In many ways it is the reason I started exploring my feelings here and looking for calming techniques and means of finding lasting peace. At this point, there is still not a day that goes by that I don't think about the betrayal or the betrayer. There are many reasons I did not beat him within an inch of his life. The fact that it would do further damage to my spirit is only one of them.

I struggle to exorcise this demon from my life every day. It doesn't help that he is still peripherally in my life. We share friends and his wife is my wife's friend. In the end, our mutual 'friends' were told by me that what passed between myself and the betrayer was 'personal' and left it at that. I am led to understand that he did not portray the even the same way.

I am easy to paint as the villain. I can be dark and rigid and unloveable. No matter how spotless I may truly be, I will always be the bad guy. I can live with that.

The lessons learned are that spiritual cleansing is as important and the physical cleansing. To do what is right you must be willing to sacrifice, true friends are forever and, finally, to allow evil people to haunt you after you have removed them from your life gives them a power of which they are unworthy.

Peace

The lesson of the farmer

from 365 Tao

City on a hill,
Untouched land beyond.
A fallow field is
The secret of fertility.


In the city, we see millions of lives represented in the windows, doors, and many floors of each building. We see excitement and the glories of civilization. But no matter how much those who follow Tao may enjoy the city, they understand the need for retreat into nature.
In the countryside, they find the nurturing quality of freedom. They can see new possibilities and can wander without societal impositions. In the past, pioneers saw the open prairies and were filled with dreams of dominating nature with the glories of man. Now we know different : We must preserve the wilds for our very survival.

We need time to lie fallow. If you cannot leave the city, just find a little quiet time each day to withdraw into yourself. If you are able to walk in fields or in the hills, so much the better. But none of us can maintain the fertility of our beings without renewal.

Update

*migrated from tao_te_shen*

When I first created this journal it was to truly journalize what I saw and thought and to chronicle the advancement of my spirit through the learning process of finding peace and learning to be the kind of person we all should be.

As a result my other journal has been relegated to humor, movie stuff and 'updates'.

So, here's a real update. It's been a rough year, verytime I get my hands around one challenege, another appears. Sometimes it feels like a boxing match where I don't get to sit down between rounds. I just want to sit down, ya know?

This has led to irritibility and stress, which leads to me picking fights and fits of anger. My wife is a saint for putting up with me.

Today is better, much better in fact.

What do you think about when you are not focusing on your stresses and worries? Those things are the fields upon which you learn to discipline your mind and spirit.

We have to distinguish between discipline with a purpose and blind discipline. Discipline with a purpose is a means to an end and is healthy. Blind discipline does not have a purpose and becomes fanaticism. We must be disciplined, but not lose sight of our purpose.

The Purpose of our discipline is to learn to live in the now, to learn patience and to advance the spirit.

Peace.

Time, like the river, flows.

The river has three parts: the source, the body and the mouth. Time has three parts: the past, the present and the future. As time flows, we are carried along from the past to the future in the never ending present.

We cannot live in the past, just as we cannot exist only at the source of the river. If the source does not flow, it grows stagnant and therefore the waters must move towards the sea.

We cannot live in the future, just as the waters of the river cannot suddenly appear at the mouth of the river. As the river reaches the sea and becomes the mouth, it is the totality of its experience from the source. The speed and content of the river are built over time. We cannot know the future, dwelling at some future point that is a fantasy, but we can plan for it, being ever mindful of the lessons the past has taught us.

We must live in the present, just as the waters of the river flow. We must be mindful of past and learn from it, knowing that we come from the source, like the river. We must plan, wise, for the future, knowing that we must decide what we shall be as we approach the sea.

What sort of river shall we be?

Learning how to wake up

For as long as I can remember, I have woken up in a hurry and my head is then flooded with thoughts that are so hard to sort out it became a source of stress. Recently, as a result of another stress, when I wake up in the morning I have immediately begun to think about all of my worries. As soon as consciousness would reach me, my heart would start to race and I would begin to worry.

Now, it would stand to reason that any sane person would just clear their head and get on with their day. Easier said than done. When you feel like you are a slave to your own thoughts, that's a scary place to be.

I need to tell you about a miracle. Somewhere in my head, on Saturday, while talking to my wife, I discovered how to learn. All of my life I have known everything I have wanted to know. You couldn't teach me anything. If we disagreed about something, in my mind then YOU must be wrong. It has taken me 41 years to realize that not only did I not know everything, I know nothing.

This morning my beautiful wife rolled over as I woke up and lay across me as I realized that what I need to do in the mornings (and for the rest of the day) is to live in the NOW. Worry and fear are produced by looking at the future. Sadness is from looking at the past. Living in the moment is to be at peace.

I got up and went to the shower and immediately began to fret and worry and let my mind wander to stressful things. Then the now intruded (thank god for my subconscious). I thought about going to the bathroom, then turning on the shower, then showering. Do you know why you forget things when you leave for work? It is because your mind is elsewhere. All the way to work and once I got to work I was living in the moment. This is what it means (as the Tao says) to be simple and to be child-like.

When you are a child you have to think about walking, about pouring a drink, about putting your clothes on. Children do not worry not because they are young, but because they are so caught up in the now. You and I see a butterfly and we recognize the shape and the form and the color and may even recognize their beauty, but we go on. The child is captivated with the details and loses themselves in that moment.

How amazing, how blessed is a man to finally, after 41 years of life, to LEARN for the first time.

It literally pushes me to the edge of tears; it is so liberating and so frightening at the same moment. This is what freedom feels like.