Happy 1990s in 2022

 

On a shelf in my office, that I call Rabbit Tobacco Field, is this folder next to notebooks that contain journals, travel notes, memories and the handwritten ideas of my stories. The folder is worn having traveled with me since the early 1990s and through fifteen moves. It has gone from New Hope to the factory in Atlanta to South First in Old Louisville and back to Georgia. It has been in and out of boxes, moving vans, been countless miles and sat on numerous shelves. I have looked at the contents from time to time and thought that maybe one day they might be read by others. 

 

That folder contains the aftermath of the 1980s that I was living through in words. Those events had accumulated as gashes and onto paper I bled; not just bled but gushed in blue and black ink. 

 

Most of these poems have only ever been shared with a person I call English Stan and he is in my next novel. Putting his motivations aside, he thoughtfully edited and critiqued some of my writing while I was a college student. I am thankful to him for his encouragement, mentorship and the hours of conversation. English Stan has long since left this world that he helped keep me in and I remember him as few can. 

 

I want to publish a book of poetry in 2023 in addition to my next novel.  In my downtime over the holidays I began to go through them and see what is worth putting out into the world. I have not decided which book may come first or if they will be published at the same time. The next novel is my priority. 

 

 

My head is firmly placed in the 1990s as 2022 begins. Sonic Youth's 1991 video for Dirty Boots has the 90s look that I remember so well. It is so 90's that it looks like a parody of the fashion. Sonic Youth remains one of my favorite bands from that period. I was a hardcore Nirvana fan, but Sonic Youth was not far behind.

 

 

Subject To The Algorithm

 

Canal Street, New Orleans 2015. Photo by me.

“Breathe deep the gathering gloom,” is how it goes in the poem Late Lament near the end of the Moody Blues song, Nights In White Satin. The gathering gloom for me is the act of writing and that is what I am doing in the nippy fall nights. 

 

My social media presence will decline for some time, especially Facebook, so that I may focus. This latter half of fall and winter will be spent much like last year as I worked on Terminal Wake and that means little time for scrolling through food photos, memes and political rants. Who am I kidding? I hide the political ranters of all persuasions.

 

The app for Facebook, except messenger, is uninstalled from my phone. The only notifications I will see are those that are emailed to me and that depends on which ones the algorithm chooses to forward. We are all at the mercy of the algorithm it seems. If I do not respond to a comment, I am sorry. I will reply to all messages, emails and those old-fashioned phone calls. You could write a letter I suppose but you would have to know my address for that. You could also come hang out on my sofa, have coffee, talk my ears off and I'll promise to keep the background music low and semi-interesting. Please note that candlelight is not included in that offer.

 

I am more inclined to write something here on my blog than I am to wade into Facebook at the moment. There is the possibility you could bump into me in Atlanta or Athens these days. Look for the tall skinny guy in sunglasses that could use a haircut - I might even be wearing flannel and Doc Martens.

To Play Jesus To The Lepers In Your Head

The other day I read a BBC article about the U2 song One and learned how many people shared my love for it. I knew it was a popular song way, way back in the flannel choked 90s but I did not know that so many people had lasting affection for it. When it came out in November 1991, I played it on repeat alone in my bedroom into the early morning hours night after night and month after month. I was eighteen years old and chained to a sunken wreck of deep depression with no hope of surfacing. This was not the typical teenage angst, but a worsening of what I had coped with for several years. It may seem silly to the more jaded set, but I loved that song. It carried me through dark times and provided some air at the bottom of the sea. 

I was a U2 fan in the 80s and through the early 90s album Achtung Baby before my tastes shifted, though my fascination with Berlin where the album was recorded endured. I also learned from that before-mentioned article that I had misheard the lyrics to the line, "we get to carry each other," all these decades. I had heard, "we got to carry each other." That bit of knowledge changed my perception of the song to a minor degree from a commandment that we were all in it together and should help each other through life to something else. Instead it meant that whether we like it or not we are obligated to carry one another like a burden. Some of the good feeling I had etched into my heart for the song flaked off. Hope and optimism were misplaced by hearing what I wanted instead of the reality. Perhaps that is a universal truth about the 1990s and Generation X too?

The question at the beginning of the song, "is it getting better or do you feel the same," was met with my unequivocal answer of no in 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994. My answer would waiver between the fun times for the rest of the decade. I kept listening to the song at a time when my social circle was the smallest it ever was and I withdrew to life atop my gated hill. I sometimes saw my father, but I was alone at most times. If you read Dweller On The Boundary and Terminal Wake and thought that it could not get worse, then you would be wrong. As I said to someone in private conversation, "it didn't get any easier in the 90s no matter how many times I crossed or uncrossed my heart. I was staked to that promise with my feet dangling, but that was the least of it." It came down to whom would be the last person standing atop Aviary Hill. At that time I wore the crown of whom had continuously lived there the longest. Longevity was a thin grade of armor.

Me in 1992
singing along to
One on VHS. 

It was difficult to write much of what is in contained in my first two books and it has been no easier in writing what is in my next novel which is in the second draft stage and due in 2022. Listening to One in the next to last month of 2021 and watching the 1990s video tapes of myself that document what I only could share with a camera has returned me to the darkness I shed later in life. Living it then was bad and writing about it now is almost the same.

Returning to the question at the beginning of the song, "is it getting better or do you feel the same," I can answer that it is better and has been for a long time. I can resurrect my old self in videos, journals and eclipsing brain cells when I want for needed purposes and the environment can do it at other times. I am retreating again at the new house; some of that is because of work and some of it is daring to touch that broken and sharp past again. The mind becomes lost mowing grass or raking the autumn leaves and I come up with fantastic notions that this retreat is because I have not had a haircut in eight months and the shaggy weight is dragging me down. Last month another song that I buried for thirty years unearthed itself on a local Atlanta radio station and I was right back in my old Z Car with a grip too tight on the steering wheel. Music, that constant friend and sometimes enemy, transported me from the morning traffic of Atlanta to the rural roads of the past. Objects may be closer than they appear holds true not just for car mirrors, turning around at anytime I see all of the past behind me like the coming rain. I can not always outrun it, nor do I always try.

A friend from the West Coast that I had not seen for twelve years came by over the last weekend. It was the usual catching up until she pulled out a copy of Dweller On The Boundary and asked me to sign it. The sight of the book in the hands of other people is unfailingly strange for me, after all that is my life or a good chunk of it between their fingers - metaphorically carrying my life I suppose and for a moment maybe we are my version of One. When I have signed books, I have had a difficult time writing more than a thank you and this occasion was no different. It is an honor to be asked and to know that any person ever cared or was curious enough to try to understand the raindrops and dandelion parachutes trailing me. I am thankful for every reader this Thanksgiving. As for the curious onlooker, I do not understand you.

Achtung Baby turns thirty this month and alone on that gated hill decades ago I did not expect to be around for that or even the following year. I am glad that I am here even if I do sometimes get drenched.

Here are a few specific details that I can share about my next novel set in the 1990s, the first chapter is titled Unknown Soldier and the book has a firm title.

Thank you for reading.

Reader Questions & Comments Fall 2021

My favorite season. November 2021.

I have been collecting questions and comments from readers over the past few months and have chosen to share some here. These questions are about the characters of Robin, Peter, my parents, Oliver, Rowe and other topics.

Questions may be edited for clarity, content and contain spoilers. If you have a question then you may contact me at chrisvise at gmail.com. I enjoy reader questions and reply to them privately and may also share it on my blog. I attempt to reply in a timely manner, but with the upcoming holidays and home renovations I may be a little slower than normal.

Thank you for reading.

 

Is the "deep water" in Terminal Wake meant to represent fear?

It is written as an abstract idea and I wanted readers to come up with their own solution as to what it meant to them. For me, it symbolized many things. It was the future at the first part of the book and by the end it was both the future and the past. You are correct in thinking that it represented fear, but it was also my own heart and mind and my mother's.

What do you think about "Robin" now and will he be in your next book?

I'll answer the second question first: in some manner he will be present though not as significantly as in Dweller or Terminal.
My feelings about him are complex. There is no black and white emotion that dominates my thoughts about him. I cannot hate him, nor do I love him anymore. I have no regrets about what happened between us and at the same time I am not making excuses for his or my own behavior. If I could change what happened I would only change his moving away. I wish him all the best and though at times I considered contacting him for his perspective I felt that it would be too disruptive to his life and I am not strong enough to see those eyes again. I have seen photos of him that are from the last year and he still has a power over me. Readers can hate or dislike him if they wish, but I hope they do not. He meant the world to me as a kid and I did love him as much as I loved my mother.

How is your relationship with your father and mother?

I tried for many years to maintain a relationship with my father until ultimately I could no longer. I had returned from South Florida, made a special visit to his house in another state and our relationship came to an abrupt and shocking end. We have not spoken since 2016 and there is no desire on my part to speak or see him again. I interviewed him for thirteen years for his memories as he was aware that I would write a book and he encouraged me to do that. We fished together, toured old stomping grounds in Tennessee and another state and saw each other often. When our relationship ended it had nothing to do with my writing a book. I know through family channels that he is aware that I did publish at least one book, I did not ask about his reaction.
My relationship with my mother remained close until her untimely death several years ago.

Are you in contact with or friends with any of the characters from your books?

Yes, I am friends or in contact with a small number of the people behind some of the characters. Unfortunately many of the characters have since died or I lost touch with many of the real people over the decades. I do not foresee any reunions with some people anytime in the future, but I wish them well. 

What became of "Oliver" and did you ever see him again?

I will answer that question in a later book.

(I have been asked numerous times a variation of the following question.) Why didn't you tell someone what happened to you as a child?

I had no one to tell. I trusted no one enough to be able to do that. It was embarrassing and I blamed myself then for all that went wrong. I could not tell my mother as I never wanted to cause her a problem and I do not believe she would have been able to cope with it. I never told her before she died. I did tell an aunt after my mother died and she was the first person I ever told. That aunt has read the book, but no longer speaks with me. The truth is uncomfortable for some people.

How's your chess? Still losing?
Hahaha. I played chess into the 1990s and then suddenly stopped. I will explain why in a later novel. I did not begin playing again until a couple of years ago and I still am an average player. I wish I had the time to play more than I do.

Are locations from the books like your house on Aviary Hill, the tree, Elsberry Mountain, New Hope still the same?

My house on Aviary Hill is still standing and the hill remains largely the same, though the barn was razed in the early 2000s. My family no longer owns the property and I have not been back there in near twenty years. I assume you mean the tree at the end of Dweller On The Boundary? I have not personally seen the tree since some time in the 1990s, but judging from satellite imagery it still grows. Elsberry Mountain has not washed away, but has new owners since the time of the books. It is private property and I do not suggest visiting. Development has creeped very close to the mountain, but not up its slopes yet. I wish Paulding County would set it aside as a public park, but I suspect there is little chance of that. New Hope is nothing like it was when I was a kid. The roads have been reconfigured, shopping centers erected, houses built and Atlanta did swallow it. My elementary school building is there but it is no longer a county school.

Some of Visetown, Tennessee a.k.a "Rhodes Hill" circa late 1980s. Photo by me.

Decatur County, Tennessee is largely unchanged except in the area that I called Rhodes Hill which in reality was known as Visetown and Vise Landing.

How much of your stories are true?

My stock answer is that 90% of both books are true as events happened, 8% is based on the truth but altered in some fashion and 2% is fiction.

The boys from Blackout Log, did they cause you further problems?

 
Yes, they did. "Rowe" and I had more interaction than what I have written about in the two books. One of the other boys, "Cyril", also caused me further trouble, but not as much as Rowe. I will not elaborate further about them, but I do know where two of three are today and I still consider them dangerous.

In Dweller On The Boundary when you were separated from "Peter" you gave him a letter. You never said what you wrote to him. Why and what did you write?

Great question and good catch. Thank you for noticing that I never disclosed what I wrote in my letter to Peter. While I thought some might find that to be an oversight, it was intentional. I was and am still not ready to disclose what is in that letter. Maybe in a future book I will.
Side note: I have had fewer questions about the character of Peter than most other characters which has surprised me. He was one of my favorite characters in Dweller and one of my favorite friends growing up because he risked his own reputation to be friends with me. He was a very sweet and genuine person with more to him than most people knew. I was sent a group photo of him by a reader that did not know Peter was in the photo. It was great to see him in a photo that I had not seen before. It brought a smile to my face, especially when it reminded me of something that he liked to wear. I had to go listen to Purple Rain a couple of times.

One reader and former classmate expressed frustration about feeling like they never knew me growing up. They thought I had led a charmed existence.

I understand that, but at the same time you need to remember how cruel children and teenagers can be. Do not forget what it was like to be a kid and how anything that made you different could easily make you an outcast. I trusted a small circle of people and lived a highly compartmentalized childhood since I was seven years old. Not one person knew enough or everything to connect the dots and frankly most of my friends or family did not care enough to look at what went on underneath their noses. If you think I enjoyed hiding or lying then you fail to see why I hated myself so much then, saw no future and wanted to die. What frame of reference you had for me in the past was probably accurate, but it only was what I trusted enough to show you. My general personality did not change between people or groups, but a few knew me at my best. No one except myself knew me at my worst. If you felt cheated then there is nothing I can do about that except apologize, I had to survive the best I could at the time. Life and society in 1991 for better or worse was nothing close to life today. The nice car and clothes and my joking around with you in high school was only the surface. You should have scratched deeper.

Another reader was upset with me that I said that I did not care at the end of Terminal Wake what any of my classmates thought of me by graduation.

By graduation I very much felt that way. I was an abandoned island in the middle of the sea. Some of those classmates I had known since kindergarten and I was hurt, angry and disappointed in many of them by 1991. There was a huge betrayal and I had nothing and no one. I do not necessarily feel the same today, but I did then. I was tired of life, tired of school and tired of myself. It should have been an incredible year and day, but it was anything but that. Some of that was my fault and much of it was not. I hold no ill feelings towards my friends from childhood and I am glad that many of them lead rewarding lives today.

I'm a big Police fan and I loved all the 80s music references. What is your favorite Police song if you have one?
Thank you. I am fond of Wrapped Around Your Finger for obvious reasons (just listen to the lyrics), but King Of Pain is me to my core. I will always be the king of pain with the world turning circles around my brain. There is a great live version you may not be familiar with that was recorded here in Atlanta at the Omni in the fall of 1983, of all years. Maybe Robin was in the audience.

Thank you for reading. My next novel will be out in 2022.

Halloween Free Reading

 

Roses growing along the front of my house. October 2021.

I've been settling into a new house for the last month. There was the large chore of moving, followed by the cleaning and now I am in the painting and arranging phases. I have now been in the house long enough to learn where light switches are in the dark in most of the rooms and halls, but I am still adjusting to the new environment.

Leaving life in the city for the far-out suburbs, which at times feels like country life, is taking longer than I expected. I am enjoying the overwhelming quiet and rediscovering the night sky that reminds me of my childhood; I can see the Big Dipper again for the first time in decades! Yet, it is taking longer to learn the area and habits than I expected. It takes longer to drive places than it did when I could walk to a grocery store, a coffee shop, pizza place or any number of businesses in the city. Nor am I familiar with the creaks and groans of this house like learning a new person in my life. Still, I do not miss the city sirens, horns, pollution and lack of privacy so the trade off is worth it and I love the new house that feels too big and will require me to grow into it.

The moon in the night sky at the new house.

As October closes, the colorful leaves fall like candy rain and ghosts and goblins prowl for Halloween, I am offering both  my novel Dweller On The Boundary and my short story collection Terminal Wake for free. The free versions are available on Amazon Kindle beginning Friday October 28th through Halloween. This is my treat without the tricks.

My next novel set in the 1990s will be published in 2022. Happy reading and as always I appreciate reviews, ratings and email from readers across the world. 

Thank you.

The One Year Anniversary Of Dweller On The Boundary

The view from the top of Elsberry Mountain in the 1980s. I took this photo, but it did not properly develop.

 

 Saturday, August 21st, is the one year anniversary of the publication of Dweller On The Boundary. To mark the occasion, it will be free on Amazon Kindle and so will Terminal Wake: Stories Of A Boy 1979-1991 on Saturday and Sunday. The soft cover and hard cover print editions will be discounted also (discount price begins Saturday).

Last month was the birthday of the person behind the character of Oliver. He would have been forty-nine years old this year. He passed away in his thirties and deserved so much more time and happiness. I remember him each year on his birthday like my own. He was funny, caring and stronger than I would have thought. I wish I had found him in time.

 

One year after Dweller I am relieved, but still not without sorrow.

August 2021

It has been the summer of long walks, thinking, hunting and packing. As I did when I wrote Dweller, I used my walks as inspiration for my writing. The scents and sounds of the woods bring me back to the past and where I need to be to write. My next novel that is set in the 1990s is completed through the first draft. I have to set aside and let it ferment and I plan to pick it back up as the weather closes in around me in December. I expect to publish some time in 2022, likely summer or fall. I never know how long it will take or where the words will lead in the revisions. Dweller went through seven drafts and changed significantly in the revisions. The stories in Terminal also took as many revisions. The next novel is as of yet untitled, but I have several potential names jotted down in my journal. My mind likes to focus on how objects, places and people sound - the next book sounds like this in my head.

 

I have lived in my current residence in Atlanta for the past twelve years, that is the longest in one place since I left Aviary Hill in 1995. I call it Slippery Elm for the elm tree out front. Many special memories have taken place inside these walls. I hope the walls and floors have absorbed some of the laughter, copious amounts of music and happiness that occurred here. There were countless parties for all occasions, many great meals and interesting people that came through its doors. Often times it was never empty and it was joked that it was a hotel - there are rooms named after people after all. Debates were argued about life, art, politics and silly opinions about whether Philip Glass was a better composer than Erik Satie. I argued for Satie and a former performer for Cirque du Soleil argued that Glass was better. Neither of us caved, but my snobbery over Glass has since softened and I came to appreciate Orphee's Suite.

 

There were the bad times too at Slippery Elm, but I hope they escaped out the window like a bad odor. I almost died upstairs  one night many years ago. I had not listened to my body and its warning signs until it was almost too late. Nine days in the hospital and I staggered back to Slippery Elm stunned. I learned that the surprises of life will find you no matter your address.

As I write this, Slippery Elm is packed. Skyscrapers of boxes impatiently stare at me waiting to be carted away. I am leaving the city, I knew I would some day, and am moving out to the far suburbs. I decried the suburbs for years and looked down on the cul-de-sacs ringed by sod and cutesy mailboxes. Who lived in these houses and why? Atlanta has changed, I have changed and a house out there in the dark quiet will soon be home. I named it already, am planning the garden and choosing paint colors. It will be there that I finish my next book and begin again establishing roots. The country boy that is buried deep inside my DNA stands at the city wall and waves goodbye to all that glittered. I did my time and regret little.

From Aviary Hill as a child, through many houses in between since leaving, to Whisper Hall next. To borrow from Bowie, "time may change me, but I can't trace time."

 

Thank you for reading.

He Said He Did Not Expect To Live Long, He Was Twelve

Such an awful and shameful story to read about Riley Hadley, a twelve-year-old boy, killing himself over bullying. He suspected he may be gay, told his mother, was bullied by his classmates and then was home schooled for a time. His doctor recommended he attend classes in person again and the boy went home and hung himself at age twelve.

He must have felt immense pressure, vulnerability and fear about returning to where his tormentors would have easy access to him. Someone should have listened to this boy and looked out for him. Not all difficulties in life can be prevented, but this boy's death seems like it could have been based on what I have read.

From another article:

Police reportedly interviewed dozens of fellow students who shared similar stories of bullying over Hadley’s sexuality, as well as his tendency to self-harm. He reportedly told a friend of a previous attempt at death by suicide years earlier, and another friend said Hadley did not expect to live long. Bullies reportedly encouraged Hadley to harm himself and take his own life, with one student reportedly telling the young boy to “do us all a favor and slit your wrists.”

Yet the doctor said he should return to school? I ask how much of these details was the doctor made aware? How widespread was this information known to people that could have helped him?

I was that boy too growing up and I hate that stories like this still happen. I learned to fight when I had to defend myself, lived in secret when I could and thought for years of doing what that young boy did. I should not had to have lived that way, but those were my options other than suicide. He should not had to have lived that way either, especially after telling people what went on.

When people I knew as a child say to me as an adult that they wish they could be kids again and how easy we had it, I disagree. They do not understand or they say something like 'we all have problems' - I had someone say that to me earlier this month as if it was some sort of competition. That attitude is nothing more than a perfunctory waving of the hand at the situation and saying too bad. I think to myself that no, the problems they had as children were not anything remotely close. What helped me through childhood was the ability to see and understand that some other kids did have it worse. We do all have problems, but not all problems are equal, carry the same burdens and consequences and the weight of those problems are heavier for others than they may be for you.

My patience amounts to a thimble for the 'we all have problems' crowd.

If you or someone in your life needs assistance, please do not hesitate to seek it. There is no shame in seeking help.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Free On Amazon Kindle This Weekend May 22-23

 

Paperback copies of Dweller On The Boundary and Terminal Wake..

This weekend (May 22 & 23), my new release Terminal Wake : Stories of a Boy 1979-1991 and my 2020 novel, Dweller On The Boundary, will be free for Amazon Kindle readers.

In addition to the free Kindle edition this weekend I am happy to announce that hardback editions are now available for Terminal Wake: Stories Of A Boy 1979-1991 and Dweller On The Boundary.

Please be kind and take a moment to offer a review and or a rating on Amazon in return.

Thank you for reading.

Behind The Books: The Nightmares

Me with the dog I wrote about in a dream in Terminal Wake. That is my blue hooded coat that I have mentioned in Dweller On The Boundary and Terminal Wake. Those were my bad luck shoes that I have written about too. This photo was taken on the fireplace in my childhood home on Aviary Hill.

 

The other night I had a terrible nightmare. I woke up yelling and pushing away this being that was attacking me outside my front door. I was a child at my current residence in Atlanta. I stepped outside, there was a loud bang like a heavy car door and something ran toward me. I crouched down next to the brick entryway to my residence to hide. The being found me, towered over me and jabbed its finger into my forehead. That was when I awoke.

It was the first severe nightmare for me in quite a long time. Nightmares are something I have sporadically as most people do, but normally I wake up without a sound or any physical reaction. This nightmare was that bad and seemingly real. I am a vivid dreamer, I always have been, and when a dream morphs into a nightmare it feels all too real.

I wrote about some of my nightmares as a child in Dweller On The Boundary and Terminal Wake. The nightmares in both books were like most subjects in them, very real. I remember certain nightmares going back to when I was six years old and I wrote about them in the chapter A Brown Christmas in Terminal Wake. The nightmares about the dog and my mother were as I remembered them. I was never able to forget those nightmares just like the rest of them.

I no longer have those childhood nightmares and I never did come to understand some of them.

There is no way to be certain what caused my recent nightmare. It may have been the result of eating too late before bed, stress or any number of causes. I am no expert in nightmares, if such a thing exists. Last week someone that I knew as a child for six years sent me a disturbing message that set off a flashback to a traumatic event from 1984. It was an unexpected message and it upset me for a few days.

Twenty-something years ago I picked up a dream interpretation book at Barnes and Noble. I cannot remember the name of it and I lost the book and many others in a flooded basement I used for storage a few years later. What I remember from it was the standard flimsy interpretations that were likely meaningless. I do not know if dream analysis has any validity, but I tend to doubt it. The causes behind our dreams and nightmares are far more interesting to me than what the actual dreams might mean. What is the mind doing? Sorting through the unnecessary experiences that make up most of our daily existence and determining what to write to our long term memory perhaps? When we remember a dream or nightmare then the mind would be writing to long term memory the sorting function of what to save and discard. It would be a meta memory then?

Some believe that dreams can be predictive. I am not of that camp as I do not believe humans are capable of seeing the future and many are not able to see beyond the end of their own noses. My theory of dreams is that they are malformed collages depicting our present and our past - an experience here that is cut and pasted next to an experience there and that they mean little. The interpretation of that collage is no different than visiting a museum and interpreting the artwork of someone like the artist Ray Johnson (if you have never seen the documentary about him, How To Draw A Bunny, I recommend it). The catalysts behind our dreams and nightmares are more interesting. The spark and what or who lit the match alight that created the forest fire are what interests me.

The dog in the photo above is the one in the dream in Terminal Wake. She was an old dog when we received her from a relative and she lived out her final years on Aviary Hill in peace. She died in her sleep of old age a couple of years after my dream.

On Walking

Elsberry Mountain Road in the mid 1980s. Photo by me.

 

Walking for enjoyment is as intrinsic to me as the color of my eyes. I have enjoyed walking since I was a young boy in Paulding County and that continues today. As a child I walked all over the wooded landscape of New Hope, over the ridges, followed the narrow and twisty creeks and up to Elsberry Mountain to see from where I came and where I would eventually go as a young adult. In some of the stories I have written in Dweller On The Boundary and in Terminal Wake walking is as much a part of the story as the characters.

There is a freedom that comes from walking, the sense that you can go anywhere that your feet will take you like a bird's wings through the sky. Maybe I came to value walking so much because of the time I wore a cast for my club foot and had limited mobility. It is also a good way to air out the mind and let the thoughts ventilate.

Walking gives humans a closer connection to the land and the environment, whether on a trail through the woods or a city sidewalk. A person is less a part of the world inhabiting the tin can cage of a moving vehicle. On your feet you feel the surface through contact with the soft dirt or the hard concrete. You feel the wind in your hair and the sun warming the exposed skin instead of the seated smoothness of a car. Sound comes uncontrolled and random instead of the chosen soundtrack on the car stereo. Walking is the untamed and the sometimes unpredictable way to get from one place to another. You learn to appreciate the distance between places on your feet.

 

Me in the woods of Georgia. January 2021.

There is a symbolism in my walking in that it represents moving forward from where I was when I began. In writing about the past I must sit down, think and circle back to New Hope or whatever part of the past I choose to contemplate. Walking brings me back the present and keeps me moving along in life so that I do not linger  long in the quicksand of the past.

Preparing For The 90s & The Joys Of Social Media

 

Key West, April 2021

After a pleasant time in Fort Lauderdale and Key West, I returned home to Atlanta. For those that remember what a VCR is, I am using a borrowed one to go through my archive or personal videos recorded in the 1990s. I have not seen their contents in over a decade as my last VCR died that long ago and new ones are no longer manufactured. I should have learned earlier to not rely on technology to preserve memories as it becomes obsolete too quickly.

Me in 1995 taken
from one of the VHS tapes.

This archive of tapes will be vital to what I am writing for my first novel set during the 1990s. I have my handwritten journals from the period, but watching and listening to tapes from that time is much more immersive. There are hours of VHS tape to digitize. This project is like doing research on myself.

Otherwise, I am tending to my flowers and taking regular walks. I had the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and am waiting on the second. I am glad to see the rollout of the vaccines across the country. Life is slowly returning to what it was prior to the pandemic. All of the predictions that the world never would be the same were hogwash like most predictions from talking heads in the media. I am grateful that they remain consistently wrong.

Fort Lauderdale 2021

One final word regarding my social media accounts, especially Facebook. I treat my social media like my front door. Who I allow through that front door is for me to decide. After two incidents in the last year on my Facebook with people that I went to school with in Paulding County and their acting inappropriately with me, I will state unequivocally that I do not tolerate disrespectful behavior from anyone. That policy includes people that I may have known in the past. These incidents are a good reminder of some of what I left behind and they diminish my already limited supply of sentimentality. If you come through my front door and act like an asshole, you will be treated as such and removed. The only Facebook I have is my personal one and I restrict who I allow there on a case by case basis, which is my right. I may have written two very revealing books about my life between the years of 1979 to 1991, but that does not mean that just anybody can access my current life and treat me as they wish. If you have read my first two books and learned anything about me, I hope it is that I have little reason to miss much of what I left behind. I am also cautious in how I interact with people from that same past.

Over the last several years we have cultivated an online society that behaves as though there is no real life consequence to how we treat others in this digital sphere. In this realm people lose their humanity and treat others as nonhuman entities. We forget that real people are behind these digital manifestations of humans and that is deeply wrong. I understand that some people are assholes in real life and act the same online, assholes are unavoidable, but I believe and I retain some hope that most people are not assholes in person. I know that good, decent and genuine people do exist. I have spoken with them and I have met them.

Consider this, the next time you want to act like an asshole online take a few seconds and think about whether you would say this to another person's face. Also, consider what the consequences of that action might be too.

I do enjoy interacting with readers and I welcome questions through my email address listed under the Contact section of this website. However, I do not respond to abusive or rude people. I treat people with respect, manners and kindness offline and online - I see no difference between the two realms.

After Terminal

 

Fort Lauderdale

We all have our places that we love and feel are our second home. Fort Lauderdale became that place for me twelve years ago. Now that Terminal Wake is published I can get away, swim, do nothing and not think for a little bit. I have not been down from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale in six months, immediately after I published Dweller On The Boundary. 

The last six months have been nothing but nonstop writing, thinking and editing this book. I locked myself away except for my walks in nature and a day trip to Alabama. I took extreme measures to write this book and have utter silence and isolation. Part of it was written in the closet of my office so I could achieve complete silence and without windows for distraction. Silence and sound are significant facets of this book and I wanted to capture that isolation as best I could living in the city. Much of this book was written between the hours of midnight to six in the morning. I am not a nocturnal person, I like mornings, but I needed silence to write this. I am glad it is finished and I am proud of it. This book means a lot to me and I hope that readers will enjoy it and perhaps think some about what is written.

 

Some may not think of South Florida as relaxing as it can be rather hectic and it is a large metropolis between Fort Lauderdale and Miami, but it fits me. Fort Lauderdale more so than Miami, which I only visit once or twice while I am in South Florida. Fort Lauderdale is the more laid back side of South Florida with still enough energy, glitz and glamour to not feel sleepy. I walk before breakfast, swim, loaf, and walk again at night in safety. In my younger years I did plenty of partying in Wilton Manors, but that is long behind me.

 

Fort Lauderdale has been called and marketed as "The Venice of America" because of the extensive canal system. I do enjoy the canals in the city for riding the water taxi, waterside dining and simply watching the water. The landscape is different from the the Panhandle and the Gulf Coast of Florida, which I enjoy too in places like Navarre, St. George Island, Mexico Beach and the St. Joseph Peninsula. I feel like I am some place far away and special in Fort Lauderdale and it is a ten hour drive from Atlanta, so it is not exactly nearby. 

 

Crossing Alligator Alley in the Everglades on I-75 marks the spot where I know each time that I am almost there and that Atlanta is in the past.

Mostly I appreciate not having to think and living in the moment.

Thank you to readers of Terminal Wake and Dweller On The Boundary. I will be writing a 90s novel and some of it is already written. I finally get to write about my favorite decade, radio, more about Paulding County, Decatur County and living in an old factory.

New Book Release - Terminal Wake Stories Of A Boy 1979-1991

 My new book, Terminal Wake: Stories Of A Boy 1979-1991, is now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback.  

 

This is the new book published today as the followup to the novel, Dweller On The Boundary. This book is almost identical in length at 320 pages and twenty-three stories spanning the years from 1979-1991. Today marks the day I finally did what I wrote about in the chapter called Skylines in this book. It took thirty years to do what I wrote. I promised to send the 80s out with a bang and I most assuredly did. These are all new stories and if you thought Dweller was everything, it wasn't. 

 

The paperbacks and Kindle versions are available today through Amazon. Hardbacks of this book and Dweller are still in the design phase. Distribution to other retails outlets expands through April.

 

As always thank you for reading and cross my heart,

 

Chris

The Questions Of Readers & My Own

 

 

Readers have at times approached me with questions about Dweller On The Boundary, which I am happy to oblige if I can. Interacting with curious readers has spawned my own questions to which I do not have the answers, but I still ponder.  

 

How do readers that have interacted with me, perceive me when compared to the character version of me in the book? What are their expectations and how do I align with the child version of me that they read a novel about? I never have asked a reader these questions, though it is something that leaves me curious. 

 

 

I have spent hours in conversation about that book with various people and have been asked many a question. I like the questions, even the more odd or intrusive ones, if the person asking is sincere and genuine in their interest. There are some questions that I will not answer, but readers have mostly asked questions that I am happy to answer.

 

I opened myself up to questions as I invited readers to engage with a version of me that was between the ages of seven to seventeen. When answering questions now as a man in his late forties I wonder which version of me they expect? Most readers, aside from family or close friends, will have formed opinions about me strictly from the novel without knowing much about my adult life or what transpired since the end of Dweller On The Boundary. 

 

Writing about myself set on the table expectations about whom I must be as a person. I consider myself the same person at my core that I was as a child, fundamentally unchanged and with the same basic character traits. Of course I am not suspended in time, I have matured and grown over thirty years. Life changed me as the world has changed too in the decades since - though the world may perhaps have more drastically changed than I have. I still play chess, enjoy nature, photography remains a hobby and I live for music and reading. 

 

Interacting with readers has been informative for me as I have enjoyed learning that some of them see pieces of themselves reflected in the story. That reassures me that I have written something relatable to a wider audience than I had expected. You do not have to be like me, a gay boy that grew up in the 1980s in the rural southern United States to understand or relate to this book and that is satisfying for me to learn. Underpinning this story there are the shared experiences of youth and finding yourself and for others there are more shared experiences such as the time period, the location or coming from a dysfunctional family.

 

One reader expressed that they were uneasy at saying they enjoyed the book due to its content. My response is that it is okay to enjoy the book, it is a form of entertainment after all. I am not going to take offense at someone saying that they enjoyed the book. I hope people do enjoy the book and maybe learn something from it too.

 

I welcome questions via email and as always, thank you for reading. My email is listed at the bottom of this page.

 

Happy new year. 

Exile In Atlanta

 

That's me, holding up a copy of the book at a Barnes & Noble. It was a proud moment for me to see the book on the shelves.

The next book is coming right along this month. It is a short story collection of more stories from the community where I grew up, New Hope, Georgia in the 1980s and early 1990s. My goal is to have it written, edited and ready for publication by late January 2021. Right now, I am holed up at home writing away and only go out for walks. The pandemic rages on and there are few safe activities at the moment anyway. I have not settled on a title for this book, the writing has not given me one yet. Next, I can get on with the followup novel to Dweller On The Boundary set in the 1990s in Atlanta and Louisville, Kentucky. I am eager to write about the 90s, which was my favorite decade to this point in my life.

I recently learned that some members of my mother's family have read Dweller On The Boundary. Their reactions I am told were rather tight lipped and surprise was expressed that I shared certain details about my childhood. None of my mother's side of my family has reached out to me about the book, which is very much in contrast to my father's side of the family. Most of them have read the book and spent hours and hours discussing it with me. It has also lead to a groundswell of family nostalgia and reminiscing. Though I grew up surrounded by my father's side, I was just as well acquainted and enjoyed just as much time with my mother's side. I have many fond memories with those relatives, though in my adult life none of them speak to me. 

I am unsure why some of them do not speak with me, while others I have chosen not to speak with because of the views they have expressed about homosexuality and their own hypocrisy. Those particular people are in no place to judge me and they should understand that I know more about them and their secrets than they would expect. My mother shared with me plenty of information and her personal feelings prior to her death and my memory is excellent. 

The others that I was once close with growing up and into my early thirties that have closed themselves off from me have done so for unknown reasons. I have the impression that they believe I have done something wrong or some gossip was shared that was inaccurate. Instead of asking me directly, they would whisper like dandelion parachutes in the wind. They cannot claim that they do not know how to reach me. I have had the same phone number for fifteen years, the same primary email address for sixteen years and if they do not know those pieces of information they can surely acquire them from other family members. I am also on Facebook after a year and a half absence and there is this easily found website with my name. I am certainly not hiding. If they cared enough to read the book, I thought that they would be curious to discuss it with me, given much of it was secret to all, but me for decades and is filled with revelations. I expect that I will not hear from any of them which is a shame and a missed opportunity at reunion. Let those dandelion parachutes fly on and thank you for reading, I suppose.

If those relatives do read this, I have one message and that is that I do not see myself as a victim or a survivor - I am a human. That message can apply to anyone that reads Dweller On The Boundary.

Behind Dweller On The Boundary: Notes On The Scales Of My Memory

George Michael, Careless Whisper.

 M

any of the memories of my childhood are attached to music. I associate going to kindergarten with I Love The Nightlife and We're All Alone. I can remember going to the zoo in Atlanta's Grant Park for the first time and hearing What A Fool Believes. Most of the real persons behind the characters in Dweller On The Boundary have music associated with them from the period. 

 

Growing up in a house where the stereo was on more than the television, meant that I was surrounded by music from the 1970s, through the 1980s and it never left me. I heard disco, yacht rock, middle of the road rock, soft rock, R&B and the more pop leaning music that I preferred as a child. My brother, that is different from me by every measure, was into the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Twisted Sister and AC/DC. My father liked Kool & The Gang, The Commodores, Earth Wind & Fire and Steely Dan. My mother was into Elvis, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner and John Cougar Mellencamp. 

 

The first records I ever had were Shaun Cassidy records because of my crush on him and the first record I ever bought with my own allowance was Bill Squire's The Stroke. I must have been talked into buying that record by my brother, I hope so. The second record I purchased with my own money was Paul McCartney's Take It Away. The first concert I went to was Duran Duran's Big Thing tour at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta in 1989. By the time the 1990s rolled around, my tastes dramatically shifted and I was heavily into grunge. There was no bigger Nirvana fan than me. You could not get me to listen to any sort of pop music then without my sneering like it was beneath me. I had pierced my ear, dyed my hair and wrapped myself in flannel. Few people from the past knew me then and I was finding my way.

Country music was scant in my childhood house and you might think growing up in a rural area that would have been different. I suspect the reason was that we received Atlanta radio and television stations and one of those television stations was a local video music channel, WVEU Channel 69. We had MTV in my house very early on, but TV 69 was way cooler and had all of the big names drop by their studios. 

 

The only country music I remember in my house was the 45 record of Hank William's A Country Boy Can Survive, the 45 of Johnny Lee's Lookin' For Love and an eight track of Alabama's Mountain Music album. Alabama was the only country band that I liked in the early 1980s. Robin's favorite band was The Police, but he also liked Alabama and listened to them regularly. He knew every word to Take Me Down and liked to sing that to me. If you listen to the lyrics of that song, you will understand why. My favorite Alabama song was Dixieland Delight, watching the video of that song is like opening a time capsule with the clothes and scenery from Fort Payne, Alabama which resembles the Paulding County, Georgia that I grew up in. You can go to Paulding County today and it looks like any other suburban county in the United States with four-lane highways, shopping centers and subdivisions, but it was nothing like that when I was a kid – it was country with Confederate flags, hot rods and beat up trucks. I loved growing up in a rural area, but culturally I was a misfit. 

 

In the constant haze of music in my childhood, I wrapped my memories of events and people around it. Whenever I need to think about the past I can either read my journals dating back to 1985 or I listen to music from that period. Below is a list of the main characters from Dweller On The Boundary and the music I associate with the persons behind them.

---

My father - I associate Take The Long Way Home by Supertramp with him. The reason is a story that is not in the book and I still am not ready to share. This song was on the radio that night as we came down Old Cartersville Road in New Hope. It was so dark outside and inside the car. I saw something I was not supposed to see or remember.

 

My mother - I spent more time with my mother than anyone else in my childhood and there was always music. In the 1970s we listened to Elvis most every day and when he died our house went into mourning. My mother had a substantial collection of Elvis records and we listened to them daily in the late seventies. We listened to Separate Ways often and I have to wonder what she was thinking when she played it. My parents liked to send messages to each other through music. My father came home one day with a record and tossed it on the coffee table and told my mother to listen to it, it was Him by Rupert Holmes. As my father began going out alone, my mother would put 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover by Paul Simon on the stereo as he was getting dressed. I suppose my parents thought I was too young to understand or they did not care. Despite the musical weapons, I most associate the Born In The U.S.A. album by Bruce Springsteen with my mother and John Cougar Mellencamp's Uh-huh. She had those albums on cassette and they were the soundtrack to the loneliest times of the 1980s. Born To Run, is her song.

Robin - As an adult, my feelings about the person behind Robin are mixed and achingly complex, but in the context of the book he was the best part of my childhood next to my mother. I loved him and would never wish him any harm. I associate every song by The Police with him, especially Wrapped Around Your Finger and King Of Pain. Of course, I associate Culture Club with him. There is the Alabama song Take Me Down that I mentioned above too, I do not enjoy hearing that song now. 1983, at least the first half, was the best part of my childhood. Irene Cara's What A Feeling came out that spring and it was my favorite song. I would run around with that song in my ten year old head. I was so excited about that song and I wanted Robin to love it too. He hated it. He was changing that year in ways I did not like, but I still loved him. That song was the first thing I liked that he did not and I never could shake that feeling from that day.

Noah - My brother and I were so very different and remain that way today. The song I associate with him is a song he would probably not like. On one of our family trips down to Florida I heard Sailing by Christopher Cross. We left in the early morning hours well before sunrise and I woke up in the back of the Cadillac. The car was dark, the leather seats were cold and my father was driving by the glow of the dashboard lights. My mother was in front of me asleep, I always sat behind my mother and never behind my father. My brother is next to me, slumped over and sleeping. He was a heavy sleeper that could sleep anywhere under any circumstance. My family, at that moment, was the most peaceful it ever was or would be as Sailing played at a low volume on the speakers behind my head. It felt like a dream, but it was not.

Oliver - Oliver and I watched MTV together, but most of the time we were outside playing. Music was not a part of our relationship. It was not until after he was gone, that following summer that I came to associate Smalltown Boy by the Bronski Beat with him. When I heard that song, I knew it was us and I was to never forget.

 

Peter - The first time I went to his house and my mother was driving me over, we listened to 96 Rock in her truck. As we neared his house, Foreigner's I Want To Know What Love Is came on the radio. I was so nervous and hopeful that day. I also associate Prince's Purple Rain album with him. I received the album for Christmas that year and we both liked it and talked about it often. 

 

David The Bishop - I was a Bryan Adams fan and even though we never much discussed music I associated his music with this person. The real person behind this character resembled Bryan Adams, but with better skin. I was listening to Bryan Adams often in junior high and Run To You reminds me of this character.

 

Rowe - Being hunted like a deer and having worse done to you is not something you forget. Welcome To The Jungle is Rowe.

Beth – I Don't Have The Heart by James Ingram. I had this album on cassette and listened to this song on repeat in my bedroom as I decided what I wanted to do about our relationship. It was more difficult to break up with her than I portray in the book.

 

Asta - Waiting For A Star To Fall by Boy Meets Girl. I was in love with this song the year that the secret of Asta was revealed. I kept waiting for that secret to drop. 

Tavin - He was a strong influence in my life when music was so important to me and he exposed me to music that I never would have considered before. We listened to a lot of INXS, Love & Rockets, Peter Murphy, The Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen, Depeche Mode and The Psychedelic Furs. The song I most associate with him is Human by The Human League.

Elliot -This character is based on two people, that I thought were my best friends. My relationships with them were much more complicated and painful than what I shared in Dweller On The Boundary. For the sake of storytelling and brevity I could not explore those two relationships as I would have liked. WHAM's Careless Whisper was a song that I often listened with one of them. As cheesy as it might seem with that saxophone intro, we were both huge George Michael fans. The other person behind Elliot I associate with the Johnny Hates Jazz song Shattered Dreams. 

Chris Rhodes (me) - It was a challenge to think of myself as the inspiration for a character in a novel. I had to ask how much I wanted to share, how honest I wanted to be and worry what people might think of me after they read it. I also had to ask myself if I wanted to relive all that pain and I cried a lot. If I think of the boy that I was growing up and separate the adult version of myself from him, I think that If I Can Dream by Elvis is that character. That boy dreamed beyond the suffering and flew away. I play that song loud for him and remember that I did not share it all.

Human Memory

During my election week hibernation from social media I read a couple of books, one about the Lennon and Ono recording sessions for Double Fantasy and a Sid Vicious biography. The book about Double Fantasy was too fluffy and uncritical for my liking. Lennon had some dark sides to him, but you would have thought he was a charismatic snake charmer from reading that book. The book about Vicious was more about the history of punk than a sharply focused history of the man.

Seventies and early 80s punk has long been an interest of mine. I have always been kind of proud that the first U.S. performance of the Sex Pistols was in Atlanta at The Great Southeast Music Hall & Emporium in 1978. (link to a video from that show)

The music hall is long gone and was by the time I moved to Atlanta in 1995, but the shopping center in Lindbergh, where it was located, was still there in the 1990s. It was the only place I can remember that had a two-story Kmart and I purchased cheap Christmas decorations there one year. All that is history too and is buried under apartments and stores now.

Lindbergh is an ugly neighborhood consisting of modern prison looking mid-rise apartments, a MARTA station, big box stores, shopping centers and fast food joints straddling two huge roads, Piedmont and Sidney Marcus. It has the personality of a cheap radio boombox playing Steve Winwood music in a weedy asphalt parking lot. The neighborhood looks temporary and artificial, but of course the rents are high because people want to live in the city even if it means paying too much for a cardboard box. The neighborhood had great potential with the train station and its location sandwiched between Midtown and Buckhead, but it is designed for cars and not humans making it unpleasant and dead. For most, the neighborhood is a place people must drive through to get some better place.

The city that I knew that was more empty, rundown, carefree and cheap has been erased. The period of growth the city has experienced since the 1996 Summer Olympics has come at a price. Society is vastly transformed too, some for the better and some for the worse. We are not as fun loving and free-spirited as we once were and the younger generations that have followed Generation X are different. We had it better then when we could detach from technology, walk out the door and leave the telephone to be taken care of by the answering machine. We had it better then when we could not take photos of everything because we did not carry cameras in our pockets everywhere we went and film was not cheap. We committed things to human memory not a digital one. If we forgot a detail, well it must not have been that important anyway and who would have ever thought of taking a photo of their food for people to comment on later? I am certain I had some incredible meals under seductive lighting in my lifetime, but I never said to myself that I needed a photo of what I was about to chew up and digest.

Back to the election and the turmoil that has followed over concessions, the media, polls and fraud allegations. It is important to remember that political pundits will espouse whatever to continue their sham of a career to satisfy you, politicians will lie to continue sucking on the taxpayer's teat and this is as old as time itself. This too shall pass. The real people of the world, not the power brokers or the television talking heads, are the pawns and all of this gnashing of teeth on social media is for naught.

The River Of Truth

 

Little River Canyon, Alabama. March 2011.

The truth is not a cure all as some may think. When preparing to publish Dweller On The Boundary I was told by someone that the truth would set me free. It is a nice sentiment, but not one I can wildly follow like jumping feet first from a cliff overlooking a raging river. 

 

It would be reckless to embrace the truth with arms wide open, not only for myself, but for those people that the story is inspired by. The truth applied in full force would ruin lives that do not deserve to be ruined. I have no desire to harm people from the past and that was a consideration from the beginning that I have doggedly followed. The truth is dangerous like that raging river below my dangling feet and the old Paulding County that I grew up in which is small and populated with jagged rocks. 

 

I will not crash onto those rocks because someone thought it was a good idea to be truthful, they have no risk sitting back offering advice from the comfort of their sofa, but I do. I decided from the outset that I would write as much truth as I possibly could without endangering me or anybody else. What I write and publish going forward will abide by the same considerations.

 

In recent months some thought they were a greater influence on me than they were, that I had not considered what I was doing or that I agreed with them. My mind is not as malleable to them as they thought nor was I asking for guidance. The position I wrote this book from was not a position of weakness or I never would have written it. However, I am strengthening the fortifications around myself to keep those that misunderstand me from securing future distraction or influence.