My dad has a lot of money and he’s a lot older than my mom. She didn’t have any family and when she met him she thought she hit the jackpot. He was living with his mother, my grandmother, and devoid of social skills. I don’t think he had even been on a date and she was a really attractive young woman.

Things didn’t work out the way my mother wanted. My father refused to ever spend money. He was pathologically cheap. My mother was bitter with resentment, always drunk, passed out around the house naked after calling my father every name she could think of. Periodically he would snap and beat the shit out of her until she was bloody. Every so often she would leave but always came back. Sometimes she would take us with her, like when she took us to Florida for a couple of years. Sometimes she just left and we wouldn’t hear from her for months at a time. Some years there was Christmas, some years there wasn’t. It depended if they were separated or not. They got divorced at least twice.

We were living on Lake Shore Drive, which is a fancy address, and dressed in thrift store clothes with holes in our shoes because my father wouldn’t spend money from his trust fund and my mother didn’t make a lot working as a secretary. She would slap us and call us names. She would wake me in the middle of the night, turning over my drawers and making me fold clothes until dawn, slurring that I was a slob, a lying whore, etc., all while saying I better never sign a pre-nup. It was madness.

The violence escalated as I grew older and my father locked himself in his room and hardly came out when she was home. She would bang on his door and try to provoke fights. When that didn’t work she would start fights with me instead. She lived in the living room, passing out nightly on the couch where I would put a blanket over her.

I started talking back when I was fourteen and it became very violent very fast with both of them. My father once whipped me with a belt until I couldn’t move anymore and just lay on the floor motionless. My mother, the last time I ever lived with them, held a kitchen knife against my throat and threatened to kill me. My father, for the first time in his life, stood up for me. He came out of his room, threw her down, and gave me twenty dollars while wrestling with her and told me to run. It was two in the morning. There was a church nearby and I knew one of the youth ministers lived there. He let me in, let me cry, rubbed my back. It happened so fast. He was on top of me. I didn’t scream. I didn’t do anything. No one would have heard anyway.

The police arrested me as a runaway. I was placed with my ninety-year-old grandmother, who was told I was on drugs, even though I wasn’t, and instructed not to let me out of the house. Then I was sent to an aunt on the east coast. We were driving up the coast to visit her daughter at a boarding school in New York but it wasn’t a boarding school, it was a drug rehab. She left me there. I went nuts because I’d never taken drugs in my life. The director concurred and made my aunt come back and get me. My parents said they had washed their hands of me. My aunt didn’t have any money and after a few months took me to a children’s shelter. After thirty days were up I had to leave the shelter; my aunt helped me go to an adolescent psychiatric hospital because I was still on my father’s insurance. The head doctor found placement for me in JCB. People feel sorry for me for living in a group home, but it was a blessing.

You were the first person I met when I got there. I was fifteen and I came out of my room and the girls stared at me and you were there with Fat Mike. He didn’t look particularly friendly. You kind of smiled so I talked to you and asked where I could buy cigarettes. You offered to walk me to the gas station but I said, No thank you.

Your group home was run by the same agency as mine. You lived in the front room of the girl’s home, practically. You were like our puppy dog. You roamed around and tried to get affection from all the girls. You weren’t aggressive. You were actually pretty quiet. You always had a journal. I’d say, What are you writing? And you’d say you were just writing a poem about me. Then I’d give you a hug. You wanted affection real bad.

At the group home school you sat in the little lunchroom and read the same book every day, Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. You wore tie-dyed t-shirts. You peeled potatoes before school at a hot dog place called Freedy’s and your fingers were cut. I knew you were different because I worked too, I had work study. A lot of the kids wouldn’t go to school or work. They’d sit and watch soaps.

Nobody in Price ever talked about about why we were there. There were twelve girls on two floors with four bedrooms. The girl who had seniority had the single room. At the end I got my own room.

I was one of the only girls that didn’t get into any fights, though a fight could break out at any moment. It took me a long time just to speak up or stand up for myself  Once, in a club, a girl attacked me when I was with a few girls from the home. They beat her so badly that her nose was broken and I had to beg them to stop.

Staff in Price was always coming and going. Every so often there would be a staff member who would be caring and maternal and when they left it hurt. And they always left. The kids too. They ran away or were moved to different placements. After I got hurt a couple of times I never got close to another staff member. I’m still like that. Other than my family relationships I can only get so close. I care about people but I keep them at arm’s distance.

There was a lot of sleeping around in the group homes. At Price there were baskets of condoms in the bathrooms. We were given birth control pills every morning. Boys from another home, yours or Spaulding House, were stealing our panties. We don’t know who it was. Some staff member called and said they had found our underwear.

While at Price I always had two lovers. My long time boyfriend, who was a bit older, and Ty from the Spaulding House. Ty was my backup boyfriend because I always needed to be with someone. Later, the roles switched. Ty became my primary lover and my ex became the backup when Ty wasn’t there. It was about trying to find a moment of feeling loved, wanted, held, cherished. Anything. Whatever I told myself it was at the time. No romance required, just someone that would play a certain role. Two lovers kept me from getting too attached and from ever being alone. One or the other was always in a state of frenzy or jealousy or rage. I always felt wanted in the fucked up dysfunctional triangle that I had created. That was my drug.

I saw you sporadically after the group home. I’d see you here or there. You’d call and have a thing and I’d be your date. You’d take me for a motorcycle ride. You always pop into my life. I read one of your books every few years.

The worst effect my past has as a parent/wife is the lack of confidence I have in my parenting due to my lack of role models. I sometimes realize that I compare myself to fictional mothers and wives like Carol Brady or Mrs. C in happy days. You know what I mean. I have a fantasy of what I am supposed to be like and my expectations are pretty unrealistic. I make my kids cucumber sushi for their lunches for Gods sake. I get beaten down by my guilt when I raise my voice on occasion or make mistakes and have to tell myself that I am trying the best I can. I just don’t know what normal is really supposed to look like. But I think the way mine looks now is a lot better than it did so I guess its okay. I just have to remind myself that. I’m just very grateful for a supportive husband and kids that give me wonderful feedback. It helps. My house is loud and full of kids most of the time. Some of my daughter’s friends playfully refer to me as mom when they come over, so I know they must be pretty comfortable and I know my past is not my present and isn’t going to be my kids future. When I was little, all I ever wanted was a real family. Now I have one.

**

In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with and transcribing, then editing, the interviews, creating a kind of memoir but in other people’s words. You can read earlier oral histories here.

Related Posts:

• An Oral History of Myself: 13. Mato
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 12. Wendi
• An Oral History of Myself: 11. Ashley
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 10. Jenni
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 9. Joe

***

Mato — Actor

I went to a Catholic school. I was a shy kid and got beat up by girls. I would express myself through drawings; that’s how I made friends. So when I transferred to the public school in fifth grade I had this chip on my shoulder.

You were the biggest kid in class. On the first day of school we were writing notes about all this violent shit we were going to do to each other. Mrs. Scott found the notes and kind of talked it over with us. We ended up becoming really good friends. The other kids knew not to mess with us, because we would fight.

We got into pornography very young. I think we were ten. You showed me a porno of a naked amputee. You were obsessed with black women. I was too. Maybe every white guy is. You said you had this fantasy about black nurses and asked if I ever had fantasies like that. And I said, Now that you’ve put it in my head…

I remember coming to your house to meet your mom. She had an English accent. I met  your dad too. He didn’t say much to me. He had that brown leather jacket and always wore sunglasses, even indoors.

Your dad cheated on your mom and I thought it was weird that you knew that. You would repeat things he said to you, like, Well, a guy’s got to do his thing. You didn’t sound like it bothered you terribly but I think it did. This was right before your mom died.

We ditched school to see a ninja movie. We were the only white kids there. It was downtown and people were smoking weed in the theater. I think it was called American Ninja.

The French teacher lost his voice and was using a microphone and he left the room and we took his microphone we were doing imitations of him for the class. He came back and kicked me out. We were always getting kicked out of class for being disruptive.

Pretty much all of our friends were from broken homes. My home was probably the most stable and we weren’t even allowed to have friends. None of our parents were really involved in our lives. My parents tried but they were both working hard and they had too many boys. I ran away for three days and my parents didn’t even notice. I don’t think any of us were into sports. We were into punk rock.

In eighth grade I was wearing a Mettalica shirt. No one knew who they were. We were the youngest of our group, always hanging out with older kids, like Pat, who were more up on music. We would have roof parties at my house because my mom was working every night. We were drinking, doing acid, smoking pot. It was dangerous actually because the roof was angled. We would shoot off fireworks. We were like wild animals.

You were a mess when your mom passed away. You internalized a lot of it. I remember jumping roofs. We’d jump from roof to roof, tagging stuff late at night. I distinctly remember you were going to kill yourself. That was eighth grade. You came over and you were bleeding and had this fucked-up mohawk. Your dad had handcuffed you to a chair or radiator, I’m not sure, and had tried to shave your head, but you had ducked down or something and made it difficult and your hair was all fucked up.

At the end of eighth grade we moved to Arizona. My mother was very unstable. She’d been hospitalized before for a nervous breakdown. She was incredibly depressed. I got some of that from her. So we moved to Arizona and it actually made a difference for a little while.

There’s that line in There Will Be Blood, “You can run away from your past, but will it let you?” All of a sudden, in Arizona, all the ghosts from our past showed up. First MB. He showed up after we had been there a month. He might have drove. He was the most screwed up person I ever met. His father had left him when he was a baby. His mom was an alcoholic lesbian so he hated lesbians. If we were odd he was the oddest. He would stick his finger down his throat in the middle of a store and throw up just to get a reaction. He arrived with a shitload of acid, maybe forty or sixty hits. He was doing incredible amounts of acid at the time. He had a battery in his ear as an earring. I think it was a 9-volt. He was always talking about revenge.

Toward the end of the summer you and John showed up in a limo. You looked like you were in a band or something. You said the limo was the cheapest way from the airport. My parents weren’t too happy about it. They told you you had to leave. You broke into the house and they kicked you out. I gave you $20. I remember you saying you were going to get to Los Angeles and live on the beach and write poetry. Then you left.

We came to Chicago the next year and stayed with my cousin. By that point you were in group homes. You said, “The shit that goes on in there you wouldn’t believe.”

Next time I saw you was 1994 or 1995. I wasn’t married to my first wife yet. She was just my girlfriend. You were in college, on a scholarship. Then I saw you in 1998 and I was divorced and living with my dad. You knew I wanted to be and actor. You were talking about writing a play about a gay guy and said I’d be perfect for it. My dad wanted to know what the hell you were talking about.

I stayed in Chicago, bought a three-flat with my dad and mother-in-law. We bought another a block away. Now we rent these two properties. We got saved by Obama’s loan modification. That’s helped us move to California where I’m pursuing an acting career.

In acting, you’re kind of at the mercy of what’s thrown your way. You want to do stuff that interests you. I like strange stuff, like weird comedies. My wife works for a mortgage company and I go out on auditions. I was playing a terrorist for a student film. I got a promotion. I went from the guy who was playing a follower to playing the Osama bin Laden type, the guy who’s giving the orders.

***

Rumpus original art by Kevin Thomas.

This is the thirteenth interview, you can read the other oral histories here.

Related Posts:

• An Oral History of Myself: 14. Judy
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 12. Wendi
• An Oral History of Myself: 11. Ashley
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 10. Jenni
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 9. Joe

Wendi – Writer

We first met at a party at Lauren’s house. Pat brought you. I think you were in sixth grade, I was in seventh, he was in eighth. You were looking around the room, like your head was spinning, trying to take it all in, and there really wasn’t much to take in, just bowls of potato chips, nothing on TV. Pat said you were a good guy and if he vouched for someone that was fine. Because when Pat said someone wasn’t a good guy, that guy would walk off with my purse.

I tried to talk to you and you looked at me and said, “Why are we here? There’s so many better places to be right now.”

Pat was like, “Yeah, we could go get high somewhere.” I don’t really remember much of that particular night.

The next time I ran into you was at Pat’s. He was with Nicko and you and Nicko didn’t seem to get along. Nicko was acting like the pompous jerk he was and you were digging through this milk-crate full of books. You pulled something out and I said, “Oh yeah, that’s good.” You were like, “You read this?” We started talking about books and then you left. I said to Pat, “You have a smart friend?” He said, “One or two.” He told me you wrote poetry and I was impressed by that. He said I should hang out with you more. Pat said, “You’ve got a fucked up life and he’s got a fucked up life. You guys are the gold standard of fucked up lives.”

I started heroin really young. Because of my youth I didn’t have the big obvious tracks. I would use my knees and legs. Nicko was the one who caught me. I was in Brian’s room and Nicko came in and went running for Pat. Pat came and stood there and watched. He didn’t say a word. I finished, untied my arm, put everything away. He turned and walked out and the next time I saw him it was like nothing had ever happened. But all of a sudden everybody knew about it, which I think came from Nicko.

I heard stories about things you did. About you slitting your wrists. When your dad shaved your head everyone was talking about it. That was horrible. All the people we hung out with had long hair and getting your head shaved seemed like a way to cut you out of every group. Everyone was so proud of their hair. Fat Mike used to shoplift conditioner on a regular basis. Who shoplifts conditioner? Every guy got to hide behind his hair. You had to wear your troubles on the outside and that bothered me.

I was always hearing that you had killed yourself, then we had to call around to find out if it was true. I was fifteen and Iggy was living with me. He came home crying hysterically. He said, “Steve’s dead. He set himself on fire.” I called Brian and asked about you. “Steve’s in Pat’s room. You want to talk to him?” I told Iggy you were fine. But people were waiting for it.

Once my heroin use became known I was running on the death pool right along with you.

I took a lot of shit because of you. You didn’t have a place to stay and Iggy said I should let you stay at my house because I had the “cool” mom. But my mom was running a crack house and I didn’t want to take a chance, if the police came, of you getting caught.

I don’t think my mom called it a crack house. She said, “There were all kinds of drugs there.” It was a one bedroom on Sheridan and Thorndale.

None of us knew how to handle anything. No one could handle the stuff with me and the kiddie porn. No one could handle the stuff with you. We all ignored what happened to Brian and what was happening to Pat. It was so over all our heads, we just had no idea. Everybody wanted to come over to my house because there were all these drugs lying around. Iggy was there, Albert was there, Joe was there. I wouldn’t let Aaron and Kenwood over because they robbed housees. Tim slept with my mother, which was kind of strange. She would tell me about his curved penis. It used to drive me crazy that my friends would come over and get high with my mom. So I stopped being there. I stayed out as much as I could, spent my time in Albert’s garage, the kelly house, the laundromat.

My drug of choice was heroin and there wasn’t any heroin at my house so there wasn’t really any reason to stay there.

You were noticed. People would talk about you. People were interested. You were the walking freak show who was going to kill himself or this really smart guy who was throwing everything away. If you weren’t around people were upset and worried. They would look for you. It was one hell of a support system. You had people who cared about you but nobody knew how to show it. Also, people thought you were going to hurt them. Not in a violent way, but that you would say something. They were afraid you were going to insult them. You were great at that.

One night we were in the laundromat. I was the most desired female in the laundromat because my hands were small enough to reach inside the machines and pull things out. Brian was asleep on a bunch of washers. Iggy and Fat Mike were doing God knows what. Lynn asked me if you liked women. I said, “You’re asking me if he’s gay, or too self-absorbed to like women?” I said I thought you liked women.

“Do you think he’d like me?”
“Has he said anything?”
“He scares me.” She said Brian would hate her dating you.

A week later we were all hanging out at Boone and you showed up and Lynn just gawked at you. I think she thought you could protect her. But you were living on top of Quick Stop, so I’m not exactly sure what you could have protected her from.

All the girls were looking for someone to take care of them and the guys were looking for the same thing. All Pat wanted was someone who wasn’t going to throw shit at his head every ten minutes. All Brian wanted was someone to mother him and have sex with him. A whole group of people that wanted people to take care of them, I don’t know how any of us got through it. All anybody thought of was getting high. We tried to cover for each other but we never tried to help each other. Instead of saying something nice to someone we would just hand them a bottle or a joint.

When I was 17 I was dating a guy and he was 24 or 25. He was an amazing drunk and pill head and his idol was GG Allin. We were at a Ramones show at the Aragon and someone walked past wearing a Charles Manson jacket. I loved the jacket because I have a serial killer obsession and I walked over and said so. It was GG. He took off the jacket and let me wear it.

GG would just come in and out of my life. He’d send me articles on Joey Ramone, or things he thought I would like. I still have all these trinkets sitting in a box that GG sent me. When GG died in his video tape will he left me the Manson jacket. His brother tried to give it to me. I was like, “Bury him in it.”

I stopped doing heroin 11 years ago because I woke up and looked in the mirror and hated the way I looked. I had just split my first marriage. It took about a month and a half to kick the heroin. Worst time of my entire life. Then I started doing what I was comfortable with, which was writing and all that crap. And somehow it all worked out. I’m concentrating on writing. I had something in Cosmo but it was under a fake name.

My mom and I talk almost every day. We talk about the crack house. She thinks it’s all so funny, part of a great rich past. My dad is dead and I’m happy about it.

My husband and I have been together about seven years. I met him through work. Everybody was like, “Oh my God, he’s such a bad guy!” He was a drunk and I was psychotic and I got on Zoloft and he cut down on the alcohol and we haven’t had a fight in a long time. We haven’t had sex in a long time either.

I don’t freak out anymore. There used to be a whole bunch of violence. I whipped a phone through the third floor window, then I put my arm through it. Finally they just replaced it with plexiglass.

I have a very large pentagram tattooed on my back and I have a couple of God fearing friends who say the Lukemia is because of the whole devil thing. I became a Satanist because God didn’t help me. Satanism is run on the basic tenet that you are your own god.

I haven’t talked about a lot of this stuff in twenty years. My husband doesn’t know three quarters of this stuff. I remember people saying, “I don’t want to remember.” When you spend your life like most of us did the last thing you want is for someone to remind you what it’s like. Part of me feels the same weird responsibility I felt back then which is, ‘don’t tell.’ Everybody was hiding something. Hiding from the cops or robbing houses. Not one of us was doing anything particularly legal. We all had to keep secrets. Nobody cares anymore.

I had to deal with your book, A Life Without Consequences. Normally I would read it in a night, but it took me five days. You never came off to me as mean. You were always polite. You were smart and you used big words. But sometimes you would get these sad clouds. Lynn used to call it the Charlie Brown. All of a sudden you were sad about something. I would see Lynn and she would say, “Steve was so sad today.” I saw it a few times. It never seemed permanent. You wanted to do stuff. You wanted to learn stuff. You seemed like you were in a rush, a rush to get past everything and get to where you are now.

**

photo of Bryn Mawr and Ashland from Chicago Milexmile

Read the rest of the interviews here.

Related Posts:

• An Oral History of Myself: 14. Judy
• An Oral History of Myself: 13. Mato
• An Oral History of Myself: 11. Ashley
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 10. Jenni
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 9. Joe

I put myself in the group home. I was in the therapist office with my mom and I said, “I give up. I’m not going to try anymore,” meaning getting along with my mom, and he suggested the group home. To me it was a terrific idea.

Ashley – Artist

(In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with. Because I left home at thirteen and spent four years in group homes, my social network was significantly wider than most people of that age. What’s most interesting about these interviews turns out not so much to be the things we remember differently as the things we remember the same. Read the rest of the interviews here. – SE)

Whatever relationship I had with my family wasn’t positive for me and wasn’t going to change. So my mom drove me to the group home. I had a sleepover so I could see how it was. My primary worker was Melissa and there was a meeting with all the girls and staff and there was a girl threatening the hell out of her. You know how the group home is. There were rough edges. I was seventeen.

When I first moved in everybody was telling their story and why they were there and it made me think maybe my situation wasn’t so bad. But the moment I moved in was like this huge thing off my chest, like a new beginning. I remember Mike Block saying that I didn’t belong in the group home. He said I talked different. But I felt very comfortable there. It doesn’t mean the group home was great, it was just better than where I was.

I met you at a holiday party in the Rosenberg independent living group home. I was eighteen by then and you were sixteen. You were with Pat, outside smoking. You had crazy hair.

The time after that I was at your house with S. No one liked S. You guys came in and made some comment like, “Why are you here with him?” You meant he wasn’t as cool as you. But he played the piano and I played the piano. He said he wrote a song for me but it turned out to be a Billy Joel song. Something about burning the candles at both ends. Somebody told me later he committed suicide.

You were already sober when we met. You used to do readings at the open mic night at the No Exit Cafe every wednesday, which I thought was really cool. Your poetry had to do with drug addicts, drugs, and a little sex. You were sensitive, but you didn’t want to show you were sensitive.

I played piano at the No Exit once. I played something I wrote for Deanna, but she was outside with John somewhere. You were there. I was wearing a hat and you said, “I like you better without the hat.”

I didn’t realize Deanna was the love of your childhood at the time.

I lived on the first floor at Rosenberg. I was private and there were two other girls that were private. We were all Jewish, probably the only Jewish girls there. There were two pianos in the basement and I used to play down there all the time. The group home was like a sorority house, constantly going up and down stairs and talking talking talking. Except with a lot more violence. Though I don’t think Rosenberg was that bad. I loved it. That maybe says something about where I was.

One of the girls, Colleen, was a lesbian. Colleen and I went to an Indigo Girls concert and she saw a staff member there and they made out. She felt like she should tell what happened and that person got fired.

A lot of the girls needed a mother figure, maybe I needed a mother figure too, but their weren’t any. The staff wasn’t that much older than I was, mostly in their early years in college. Some of the girls were really challenging authority and needed a role model. You don’t necessarily get that in the group home. The group home isn’t a solution, it’s just better than being on the streets or in other places. I was in the home two years but I would have stayed longer. They told me I had to go because I was 19. My welcome was expired.

Anytime I was thinking that I might die you were usually around. After I moved out of the home I was with you and Deanna and we went to the beach. Deanna didn’t swim so she stayed on the shore. It was around 11 at night and we went a little further than we should have and got caught in an undertow. I didn’t realize what was happening at the moment and you said, “Ronit, start swimming back,” and I couldn’t. I started freaking out and you were very calm. You picked me up from my waist somehow and threw me. Then we must have been holding hands or something, you were pulling me back. Deana was waving and smiling. She thought we were having fun and I was saying, “No, no. Help!” There were buildings and their were lights up and I saw some people looking out. I was waving and screaming and you said, “Why are you asking those people for help? They don’t see you.”

I moved to Rogers Park and I continued with Columbia College. I had a scholarship but I forgot to hand in some paperwork. I was a kid and I didn’t hand in something that was supposed to be handed in so I took a hiatus and started working in an antique mart. I met a guy there and he put a ring on my finger made out of a twenty dollar bill. He was 50 or 60 years old and said if I would go out with him once a week he would pay for my apartment. I did go out with him one time. We went out for dinner and he got so drunk he couldn’t walk. I told him I was not going to go home with him, I was going to take a cab, and he gave me $100 and that was the last time I talked to him.

After the antique mart I started working at Creative World, where I met my husband Jonah. We were together four years before we got married. We got married on the beach and you gave us a bag of weed for a wedding present, but somebody stole it. We’ve been together seventeen years. I feel lucky to be in a strong relationship. My favorite place in the world is next to Jonah.

Related Posts:

• An Oral History of Myself: 14. Judy
• An Oral History of Myself: 13. Mato
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 12. Wendi
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 10. Jenni
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 9. Joe

Jenni – Patient Account Representative

I treat people the way I’m treated, with the same respect. I’m not worried about your feelings.

(In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with. Because I left home at thirteen and spent four years in group homes, my social network was significantly wider than most people of that age. What’s most interesting about these interviews turns out not so much to be the things we remember differently as the things we remember the same. Read the rest of the interviews here. – SE)

To me you guys were a dime a dozen. My brothers had so many friends. You were pretty much faceless, annoying people that were coming in and out of my home. You were my oldest brother Pat’s friend. But you were Brian’s friend too. All you guys just melded together. You were just a neighborhood kid.

I would hear stories about you sleeping on roofs, sleeping in people’s closets. I had a concept of you being homeless but I was so young. It was at the same time Dave’s parents died and he’s living with his grandma and getting hit by the cops. You get desensitized. I grew up thinking there’s a system but it’s not going to help you.

My earliest memory of you, I’d have to say I’m like ten. We’re driving down Pratt Street in the middle of winter and I hear my dad say, “Goddamn it,” in his usual frustrated tone. I’m like, “What?” I couldn’t see out the window because I’m pretty short. And he’s like, “It’s goddamn Stephen Elliott. He’s staggering shirtless in the middle of the street.” He stopped the car and you staggered across and he mumbled, “I should have put him out of his misery.” When we got home he told Pat you were out in the middle of the street and he should go do something. My dad thought you were going to be dead, that you were never going to make it.

We started interacting later. I was twelve and you were sixteen. You played basketball at Chipewa Park, which was just across the street from my house. You guys would play and I would go over and watch because I had no life. But I didn’t really care because I can’t stand sports.

When you were done playing you would come sit with me on the bench. You would talk to me about your girlfriends. It seemed like you were always dating somebody new. You never really used names. You would say, “So there’s this chick” or “So there’s this older woman.” You gave me hypothetical situations that weren’t really hypothetical. They were just stories you’d tell me, which always felt odd. I mean, why are you asking your buddy’s little sister? What kind of response did you want from me? I kind of thought you were a jerk when it came to women. But I liked you as a person. Not many of my brother’s friends talked to me so the ones that did were pretty damn special.

We’d talk about poetry. I started reading you my poetry because you wrote and would read me some of your stuff. You had to really pressure me to read. Not many little girls want to read their poetry to their brother’s friends who are older and have the air of mystery. I didn’t want to read my sixth grade poetry to you. And then I’d start reading and you would critique it. You would try to convince me to read at the open mic. I went once to see you. I had to sit through a lot of bad poetry to hear you read. Everybody that read got a round of applause. I decided those people were too into themselves.

You were ahead of your time in one way. You started going to school when most people were disillusioned by education. That was different for our neighborhood. I’m from a long line of dropouts. Pat dropped out the year he was going to graduate, which was asinine. Brian dropped out at seventeen. I succeeded all their dreams by dropping out at fifteen. But Brian was a hard worker. He got jobs. Pat never got a job. He was a lazy fuck.

There was this one time you asked about my boyfriends and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll date you when you’re sixteen.” Like you were going to do me some kind of favor. Like maybe I was never going to get a date. Later, when I was sixteen. I thought it was funny to say, “Well, I’m sixteen now.” And you were like, “Oh my God! Did I say that? I meant 18! I meant 18!” So I had the idea you would keep going with that.

I was sixteen when my dad died. All you guys that used to hang out in front of the house could finally get in. It progressed to this state where people I didn’t even know were drinking and doing drugs in my house. It was like if you knew somebody that knew somebody that knew us, you were OK to do as much drugs and drinking as you wanted. And if you knew that person you were OK too. There were so many people coming in and out, I couldn’t tell if someone was visiting for the day or if they had been there for a week.

I used to have other friends but after my dad died I couldn’t relate to them. You were all so fucked up that I felt normal. That’s when I met Dan. I really needed a father figure because I had to take care of myself and I didn’t know how. Someone who told me what to do, how to do it, what things were good. That was the type of person Dan was. I totally took to it. He was twenty-one and I was sixteen. I wondered why people didn’t say anything. But they didn’t say anything about Brian being raped either.

I remember being in your apartment in the other room with Dan. You and Sonja were having sex in the bedroom and I’m a virgin, lying with this older guy, listening to you and Sonja going at it. I thought Sonja was a very beautiful woman, but for different reasons than you. I think you see beauty in anger. I can’t understand that quality of you. You were always inconsistent in your affections and romantic relationships offered even more opportunity for betrayal. If things weren’t crazy for you then it was uncomfortable. Security was uncomfortable for you. Nobody ever felt that you would settle down.

Sometimes my mom would come over and be pissed that there were all these drug addicts flopping at the house. Of course she was a cocaine addict herself. She’d come over once a month and bitch. Or we’d call her once a month and tell her the electricity was out. Once a month my crazy drugged mom would complain about all the druggies in the house then go away. She died of cirrhosis of the liver, which will happen when you are an alcoholic drug abuser for many years.

There were drugs involved in my father’s death too but it’s kind of complex. He had a congenital heart defect that was complicated by the use of drugs. He was a drug addict but if you looked at him and you looked at my mother, well, there are functioning drug addicts and there are non-functioning drug addicts. My father made sure the bills were paid, that his kids were going to school. Then, after his arm got paralyzed from his second stroke, things went downhill. He got depressed and much more into cocaine. Before that he was really just into pot. My dad had the best pot in town because he worked for the government. My brothers always used to steal his pot.

The house got really run down after my dad died. Nobody had any money, nobody worked, they just came over. We would get a check from the government for maybe $200 a month and we would feed all these people. We would get the cheapest stuff and somehow feed everybody. I always thought it was screwed that the $200 I got for my father’s death, that my brothers got, was feeding a bunch of drug addicts flopping at my house.

One time John and Deanna got in the worst knock down drag out fight. It takes a lot for me to say that. John and Deanna went upstairs and locked the door so nobody could come in. They started screaming and yelling and hitting each other. It was slug for slug, hit for hit, and some of the worst things I’ve ever heard someone say to another person. And downstairs were like six or seven really dysfunctional people cowering in fear. These are really seasoned people who had all kinds of terrible things happen in front of them and usually weren’t phased by stuff. It seemed like they were remembering their own mom and dad and they didn’t know what to do. They were twenty, twenty-one years old and I remember thinking, this is fucking crazy, why isn’t anyone going in there and breaking up this fight? I had never seen these people act fearful. I think it brought back a lot of memories for each of them. Eventually the door opened and Deanna stormed out of the house. I don’t think I ever found out entirely what happened.

It went two or three years, until I was eighteen. It only ended when the house had to be sold because nobody was paying the mortgage. That was a good thing. People had to go their separate ways.

People came to that house to be taken care of and not judged. Where else can you do that?

You would be gone for periods of time, you would just kind of disappear, but you usually made the big events. When Pat married Lorianne everybody in the neighborhood was there except you. Everybody was like, “Where’s Steve?” Roger said something happened, but wouldn’t say what. It was ridiculous because there were only so many options: Steve’s dead or Steve’s sick. It’s not like you had better things to do. Everybody knew you were doing heroin. And then we found out what happened: Steve’s in the hospital. He can’t walk. People were talking about it. We were really concerned but it’s one of those things. Everybody knew not to talk about your personal life, because they knew you wouldn’t forgive them. You were a very unforgiving person and you expected absolute loyalty from your friends or you would just write them off. So it was fucked up but like everything else we were not that impressed. You almost died. It was upsetting that people would do all these terrible things knowing somebody could die at any time and no one was there for them. But nobody could talk about it. I couldn’t talk to you and say, “Look Steve. You really shouldn’t be doing heroin. It’s bad for you.” That’s not a conversation one had with you or anybody else in the neighborhood. It wasn’t appreciated and it was not received kindly. If you did bring it up you were a hypocrite, or judgmental, or the person would reply, “You don’t know me.”

If I told anybody else my experiences they would think I was fucked up. But I was less fucked up than you guys. I got to see all your mistakes. I never wanted to be like you. I became so rigid. I wouldn’t smoke, drink, or do anything. I couldn’t see anybody balancing life, having a drink socially and being a normal person.

I remember when you were going to leave for college. You came over and made this big thing. You got all these people together and said, “I’m going far away and when I come back who knows.” I didn’t really get it but you made it out like a really big deal and I wasn’t going to see you for a while.

I remember the time you tried to wash a toaster by dumping it in a sink full of water. You were intelligent but you were dumb as a stump.

Don’t’ be scared. Look at all of us who survived. That’s the thing you have to appreciate about your past. Some of these people, they get married, they have their lives, and then something small happens. They lose their jobs and they freak out. They kill people. But you can experience setbacks and be OK. We’ve learned how to survive. It can be a curse or it can be a gift that gives you the foundation to be an extraordinary person sometimes.

It’s true.

**

image cropped from an illustration by Laurenn McCubbin and is not an accurate representation of jenni

Related Posts:

• An Oral History of Myself: 14. Judy
• An Oral History of Myself: 13. Mato
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 12. Wendi
• An Oral History of Myself: 11. Ashley
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 9. Joe

Joe – Business Owner

I believe I was one of your first friends at Boone. I think it was right when you get there in third grade. I remember you had this pissing match with my older brother about who knew more long division. That’s my first memory of you, the new kid in third grade with the funny accent.

Then I remember meeting your mother and father. Your mom was walking at the time. She wasn’t always in a wheel chair. After that you mostly came to my house or were by the school. But the next time I saw your mom she had deteriorated. I think I just blocked it all out. As a fourth grader I couldn’t process that.

I started getting into trouble early because my mother and stepfather were drug dealers. They decided not to hide it from me and my brother because we would eventually find out and being a liar is worse than being a druggy. I started dealing in seventh grade. I was stealing it from my stepfather. My father was not in the picture then. He was having a hard time finding work.

We generally went back to my place. You, and me, and Aaron, and whoever wanted to come because my parents were never home. I wasn’t really selling it so much as I was smoking everybody up. I mean, in seventh grade who had money? That one black kid, Brian Brammar, came back and stole my stepfather’s marijuana.

Kevin came into the picture around seventh grade. Kevin had a difficult childhood that he never shared with me. We had that gang. I forget what we were called. We used to breakdance. Kevin was a true friend but I burned my bridges with Kevin. I wish I could take that back.

In grammar school you were popular because you were interesting and you were different. I think most people don’t see themselves for who or what they are. You didn’t see yourself as popular. You had a lot of older friends from the high school and they would be waiting for you when school got out.

Eighth grade came around and you were basically on the run and the cops were looking for you. This was around the time we started breaking into parking meters. We were over by Freedy’s and the cops were looking for you and I ran with you. By chance I had a pocketful of nickels. They were looking for you and they were looking for kids breaking into meters. You said, “Stall them so I can get out of here.” They found all these nickels in my pocket and I was like, “Look, these are from home. The meters don’t take nickels.” They asked about you and I was like, “Yeah, I know him. You just missed him.”

You would pretty much do anything at that time. You were doing much stronger drugs, like tic (Ketamine) and wicked stick (PCP). In a sense you had nothing to lose. I remember the stories of you being locked in the basement, chained to a pipe or something. In hindsight it makes you feel like no matter how many friends you have or who you know ultimately you’re alone and you die alone. Even though I knew you and I loved you I couldn’t do anything for you.

Aaron, Sergio, and me robbed my landlord because they had a basement apartment and they didn’t lock it. We went down there and grabbed all this stuff. Aaron decides to take the TV, goes upstairs to my house, puts the TV on the table, and goes to take a shit. I guess the adrenaline was too much for him and he couldn’t finish the job. My stepfather comes home and sees this TV. We stored all the stolen good at Sergio’s. Then the landlord tells my parents their place was robbed. My stepfather turns us in. The cops say give the stuff back and nothing’s going to happen. So I tell them where the stuff is and we go to Sergio’s. They didn’t press charges. Sergio’s still mad at me because as a fourteen year old I had the cops come to his house to get the stolen stuff.

Aaron got more serious into robbing houses. I didn’t go down that path. I wasn’t much of a thief; I didn’t like stealing.

In high school you weren’t at Mather; you were across the street at the DCFS school. You were in the foster system by then and I ended up meeting all your friends. I used to wish that I could be more like you. I brought some beers to one of the foster houses. We’re drinking, smoking cigarettes, all that good stuff, and one of the counselors came in. “Who’s beer is this?” they said. “Somebody better claim it right now.” I didn’t say anything. You stood up, grabbed the beers, and walked out. I was like, why couldn’t I have done that? I realized I had to stop being such a pussy.

You had severe acne problems and you seemed like you were uncomfortable in your own skin. Of course, growing up the way you did and then having those changes in your life and going into foster care you must have felt like, Why me? Everybody else is living a normal life.

We were partying with Tom and Mary and someone got us a ride to pick up your mother’s guitar. You were so happy. I said, “Why are you so happy about this piece of shit guitar?” You gave me a look like, “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

I lived an innocent childhood except for the drugs and robbing houses.

In high school I worked at Venture and dated my manager, Sandy Engle. I called her San Diego because she was so big. She was twenty-six and I was sixteen. She was my first. But I don’t want to go there. We’re talking about you.

I had my own mental issues. I turned sixteen in a psych ward. I was on anti-depressants at a young age and I thought they were bullshit. I took a whole bottle and almost died. I had to get my stomach pumped. I had something of a mini-stroke where I lost feeling on one side of my body.

I don’t know why it was so crazy for us. When you think about it, where we grew up wasn’t that rough. I lived about four of five blocks from school. We would all walk to school without parental guidance. Nowadays in that neighborhood you don’t let your kids walk to school without parental control. I don’t know why being in a decent neighborhood like we were things got so crazy, so out of control. We didn’t have proper guidance. I think you had a legitimate issue in your life with your mother. You had issues coping with your mother and so did your father. The only thing is your father was a grown adult and he should know better and put his child first. But he had to deal with his wife’s death the same as you had to deal with your mother’s death. I had good parents. Except for my mom and stepfather smoking weed in front of us. I think they were good people.

I got kicked out of Mather for drugs. I went to Truman Middle College where they had a program for kids that got kicked out of high school. I ended up getting my diploma. I wanted to join the army but failed the physical. They wouldn’t take me.

My father became a cop when he was forty and I moved in with him. We were smoking in front of the school when a police car pulls up to us. Everybody’s throwing away all the weed but it’s just my dad asking if I’m coming home for dinner.

When I was sixteen I was hanging out with Doots and all those scumbags. They turned me on to crack. I remember I was tripping on acid watching (Pink Floyd’s) The Wall when they came over. My father worked nights and they liked to come over where they could do their crack without having to get a hotel room. I took a big jumbo hit of crack, which I probably didn’t need because I was tripping on acid. Man, that just rocked my world. From that point every paycheck went toward crack.

I’ve gone to rehab four times. First when I was fifteen. And then a year later when I tried to kill myself. Then when I was twenty-two and again when I was twenty-six. Crack is definitely the hardest drug that I ever encountered. It always leaves you wanting more, never gives you satisfaction. I don’t know how I finally kicked it. I think I was just so busy with work. I finally found something to fill the void.

Our worlds took different paths. We were never enemies. I remember I saw you at Erick’s North, that club on McCormick. We just run up to each other and hug. It wasn’t a quick hug. We hug for a minute. We look like flaming homos. It really meant a lot to me that it was mutual. We were so happy to see each other because we had our youth together. Everybody thought we were queers.

Related Posts:

• An Oral History of Myself: 14. Judy
• An Oral History of Myself: 13. Mato
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 12. Wendi
• An Oral History of Myself: 11. Ashley
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 10. Jenni

Eugene Miller – History Teacher, Retired

I guess I knew about you when you first applied to take my A.P. class in 1989/90, and they talked to me about whether or not you should be in the class room. They asked if I would take another kid with a rough background, that kind of thing. I said sure, whatever; he might be tough but I’ve had tough kids before.

You came to class with your piercings and tattoos and you had a mustache and beard. Not the type of child I’m used to having in an A.P. class. Especially at Mather. The A.P. kids at Mather are parentally self-motivated. They know that it’s important to their parents and that’s why they do it. You dressed in jeans and t-shirts then. Same way you dress now. One time you told me you were having an affair outside of school. I think she was a married woman and you were going to her house. I don’t know if it was true. But I thought, Why is he telling me this? Do I really want to know? But you didn’t cut my class to do it. I don’t think you ever missed a day. You had a lot of making up to do. I remember you also took the European A.P. test, even though we didn’t offer the class.

A.P. is much more difficult, more rigorous than other classes. At Mather you have 25 in an A.P. class, but maybe five should really be there. The rest are honors, or not even that. I knew there would never be more than five actually passing the test for college credit. But I always felt like it didn’t matter because if you take my class you’re going to raise yourself. You’ll be more prepared, you’ll have writing skills you didn’t have before, and you’ll be more ready for college. That’s the way I always ran it.

The average Mather kid was basically a good kid, but academically low. Our standardized test scores were always below average. I always thought that was unfair because for so many of our kids English was their second language. I tell my students, for some of you history is not going to do anything for you, but it’s a class you have to pass to get on to that next stop. Most of you, when you graduate, you are just going to get a job. Most people in the world just get a job. Most jobs just ask you to be there, do what you have to do, and that’s it. They’re not asking you to make something new. They’re not asking you to be Superman. They’re just asking you to do a job. That’s what I’m asking you to do. Just do this job. I promise no matter what level you are, if you work with me, if you do the work, you’ll see the difference. I know you will.

In college I didn’t know what I wanted to be. My parents wanted me to be an accountant. I took bookkeeping and stuff and I thought, this isn’t me. So I took stock and thought, what do I like? I like people. The subject I like best is history. So I’ll go into education and be a history teacher. And that’s what I did. I liked history more and liked it even more after I graduated. The more you find out the more you need to find out. I went to college in the city to be with my high school sweetheart. Junior year we got engaged. And we got married and all that. And got divorced and all that. That’s another story.

I remember saying to you once, You know, Steve, you’re going to be graduating soon. You could go either way. You could do something really good or you’re going to be on the front page of the news or something else. I also told you once I thought you were very good looking, that you probably had lots of girlfriends. You were just amazed by that. It seemed you had never thought of yourself that way.

It never bothered me that you lived in a group home. That’s just another way of living. And my cousin worked at that group home’s school. You were a good kid in a group home. So what? You weren’t a bully or a fighter. But you were tough in the sense of getting through all this shit. I knew you had a drug problem but you were dealing with it and doing exceptionally well. You channelled all of that into your schooling. You knew you had to get out and you were doing what you needed to do to get there. You had failed your first two years of high school but you wanted to graduate on time. I don’t know what made you change but you decided, I’m going to do this. I sort of admired you for it.

I would think that your old friends would have seen some of the same things I did. Even more so because they saw you at your lowest. And I would think maybe some of them were even a little mad at you. Were upset at you for doing this because they couldn’t do it. And also because it would pull you away from them. And that would be a normal kind of thing, for them to be resentful toward you.

You’re always working on it. Not just you, everybody. Like I always say. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I look at myself in the mirror, the inside feels so much different than than the outside looks.

I had my drug years too. It makes me happy to see you going along, taking responsibility for yourself. Not being a ward of the state anymore. Try not to downward slide again. Because things get harder to turn around the older you get.

Related Posts:

• An Oral History of Myself: 14. Judy
• An Oral History of Myself: 13. Mato
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 12. Wendi
• An Oral History of Myself: 11. Ashley
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 10. Jenni

Mike, AKA “Fat Mike” – Partner In Remodeling Company

The Star Wars dolls are from like 1978. When I was seven years old I guess my mom probably bought them for me, or granny. Probably my mom. The Beatles figures up there and the Chong are worth mega-bucks. You ever see the movie The Forty Year Old Virgin? That’s what all my friends compare me to.

I run a remodeling company. I basically do everything but sign the checks. I own half a paving company and I’m part-time in classic car restoration.

I met you in 1986. I was fifteen so you were fourteen. Iggy told me about you. I went over to his parents house across form the laundromat. It was winter. You were laying on the floor in the hallway, literally laying on the floor with your legs kicked up on the wall. You looked comfortable. I believe we went from there to Aaron‘s house to smoke pot.

I remember we were getting high at the canal . A few things happened that night. Toro burned Albert’s jean jacket and we all lined up to kick him in the ass. That was also the night the paddy wagons came to the canal and we heard them but they couldn’t get in all the way. Brian Joyce and Shlep got into it that night. And that was the final digging of Pete Brown’s grave, which was a pit we filled with beer cans.

At the time I met you, you were not getting along with your pop too well. You were kind of just living here and there. Sometimes you made up with your dad and you’d go back home. We had a lot of parties there. Your dad was never around and there were all these cheap steaks in the freezer. We’d be drinking, smoking, tripping on acid, and you’d be broiling all these steaks.

I remember you showing up at the Megadeth concert with both your wrists covered in towels. You had sliced them open. Your head was wrapped in a t-shirt or something because your dad had shaved your head. You were psyched because your friend’s band was opening for Megadeth. We all stayed in the balcony and because you knew the band members you wanted to be down in the mosh pit. I remember looking down and seeing you then you came up. Everybody was like, “What happened.” You said your dad kicked your ass and he shaved your head because your hair was important to you. Your dad’s idea of the best way to make you feel bad about yourself was to shave your head. After that point I don’t think you and your dad were ever the same. We smoked pot that night and took blue microdots. We lined the blue microdots up on the balcony where we were sitting.

We had a party at the Villa on Lincoln. You could get a room there for twenty dollars. Iggy was out of town. He was dating Linda. Linda was the one who got the room. She kicked everybody out, including you. It was just us and she starts taking her clothes off. Then there’s a knocking at the door and it’s you with two police officers. They ask her if you’re staying in the hotel with her and she says yes and they tell her you’re not allowed out because it’s after curfew. You waited maybe fifteen minutes, saw we were in the middle of something, then you took off. That was the last I saw of you that night.

I used to come out to Chicago everyday to hang out with you guys. I went to a party with you guys one night. My friend Jeff was with me. Iggy’s parents wouldn’t let us stay over and it was cold. We went to a hallway, it was perfect- it was carpeted, there was an area under the stairs. We just needed to crash for a few hours. In the morning I feel this pain in my foot. It’s a cop hitting me with a billy club. They take us to the 24th. Jeff’s parents pick him up. Nobody picks me up. My grandmother and mother decide neither one can handle me. My grandma just found out she had cancer. So they stick me in the group home. You were living on the streets during all this. But you always had somewhere to go. Sometimes Iggy’s. Sometimes Aaron’s basement. Basically you were homeless. I snuck you in the group home sometimes. One time they busted you because they could smell your feet. After that I got shipped to another group home. A year later you end up moving in there, to the same home. It was kind of weird that we were friends living together under somebody else’s roof.

You introduced me to grain alcohol. We poured a pint of it in a two liter of Hawaiian Punch and you told me the only way we were going to get a buzz was to drink it really fast. I guzzled half the bottle. You guzzled half the bottle. It took like a minute. Ten minutes later the room was spinning. When the buzz started wearing down we wanted to go out. Adrian, who ran that home, said something to you and I said something to defend you and she slapped me in the face. I think I was going to hit her back and you said something or stopped me.

We were sitting with Mike Tan on the stairs at Boone School overlooking the parking lot and basketball court when the acid kicked in real strong. Either you or Mike said, “Look at the blacktop. Doesn’t it look like chocolate pudding?” And it did. That day the sky was perfect blue. The clouds were pillowy white. It was like watching the world through a Kodak commercial. Your hair was real frizzy. You had an afro. And your nose was bright red because you had some sinus infection or something. And you happened to be wearing tie-dyed Converse All-Stars. They were the color of the rainbow. And Mike said, “Hey, you look like a clown.” I started laughing and you got pissed and walked away. Mike and I followed you.

One night we were hanging at the Spaulding Home. I was on crutches. I think I had been kicked out of Campbell House. We were drinking vodka and I fell flat on my face.

Another day you said, “Mikey, I’m going to take you down to the South Side.” You took me to the Maxworks, two abandoned buildings inhabited by hippies. I bought a tie-dy made by them and a handmade wood bowl. That was great. Then you said OK, we’re going to the deep South Side. We went all the way down to 83rd and you introduced me to the Original Leon’s Barbecue. We were the only two white people in the restaurant, which bothered me more than you. You seemed to fit right in wherever you went. We had the rib tip combo. And you said, “We’re going to drink South Side booze.” So you grabbed a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 and a bottle of grape wine called The Night Train Express. Then we took the train back north. We sat in the last car and guzzled the two bottles. That was the end of the story, from what I can remember.

We were hanging with Tom and Mary across the street from the home. They were older than us, adults. I don’t know if you were doing PCP with them but they were doing that. They had a friend, Tracy, who liked me. I was turned off by her. She seemed to like trouble. You wound up doing her.

That fancy Jewish Camp agreed to let all the group home kids go to camp with them in Wisconsin. We wound up partying with the counselors. We went to a water park and you said, “Who’s coming with me to get beer?” We were all like, “Nah.” You said, “Fuck you. If I get this beer I’m drinking it all by myself.” You went out with a pair of shoes in one hand and a duffle bag in the other. You’d stopped wearing shoes for a while. You were toughening your feet up for some reason. You came back with a case and a half of Point Beer in blue cans. We divided it between the little kids and made them carry it back into the camp.

You left the group home first. You left the school and started going to the normal high school across the street. You were sober then. We were still hanging out, meeting at lunchtime. You ran away. Moved in with Jason, lived in his basement. I lost touch with you because you were hanging out with a new crowd.

I was doing bongs in the bedroom. Randy, who ran the home by then, tried to punish me and my roommate by saying no TV, no going out except for work. I was nineteen. My roommate and I had money in the bank. It took us a week to find an apartment. And that was the end of the group home for me. About a month later Randy came over to our place with a joint. He wanted to get high. We told him to fuck off. When I was twenty-two I moved back in with my grandmother for a little bit. I met this nice Filipino girl. We were opposites. She went to church every week. I listen to heavy metal. I said, “I know your a good girl but we should live together.” It wasn’t even a one-bedroom. It was a studio. I said, “If we can live in this tiny hole in the wall and not kill each other, then we’re meant to be together.” So we got engaged. Now I’m married. I have a kid.

Related Posts:

• An Oral History of Myself: 14. Judy
• An Oral History of Myself: 13. Mato
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 12. Wendi
• An Oral History of Myself: 11. Ashley
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 10. Jenni

**

Pat – Bartender

If you think about it, the stories we have about each other are some of the most awful things. Why is that what we remember?

The first time we hung out is when we broke into that comic book store together. The window had already been kicked in and all you had to do was give a little push. I remember you going straight for the valuables. But I was a collector so I was going through and putting stuff back and only taking what I wanted. You had the mind of a thief.

I used to show up at your school. I had already finished grammar school and was just starting high school. You were in seventh grade. I didn’t think anything of that, you being younger than me. I would meet you in the morning and I would have weed and you would say, “I really got to go to school today.” It was straight out of a drug commercial- I’m the older kid ruining your life, you’re begging to go to school.

Nobody went to school. All we did was do drugs or find people with drugs who would do them with us, or steal money from parking meters and buy drugs. We were bored urban teenagers. It’s no wonder we were all socially maladjusted.

We went into the grocery on Devon to buy a gallon of vodka in one of those plastic bottles. They asked you for I.D. and you got all huffy insisting you were 35. I think you were 14, at the most. But you had that beard. We drank the whole bottle. How do four teenagers drink a gallon of vodka and not die?

It was around that time I was walking down Devon with my big radio blasting heavy metal and the Assyrian kids hit me with a golf club.

I could never figure out why we all were so hell-bent on squandering our potential. Despite the circumstances most of us came from, we were a bunch of really bright and talented kids. It just seemed like we were more interested in deliberately pissing away our collective futures. The desire to be some kind of streetwise city kid was too strong for some…y’know, Aaron and Kevin and the rest of the house burgling clique, but I know at least for me I feel like it did me some good. Hardened me in a way that has served me well in life.

We were at that girl’s house the first time we took LSD together. I busted out the landlord’s window at her request because the landlord was giving her family problems.

A lot of us didn’t have relationships with our father. I stole my father’s weed everyday for ten years. Your dad shaved your head. I remember that. I couldn’t understand that anybody could be that adversarial. I was shocked that a father could be so brutal. It seemed like a brutal act, to violate you in that way. It affected me.

You moved around a lot that year you were homeless. I remember being like, “What the fuck?” You looked like shit. You said you were sleeping on top of the Quick Stop.

We had nothing going for us. Girls didn’t like us. We weren’t like these safe sanitized versions of ourselves I see walking around now. There were one or two girls, but they were troubled. They were the ones who could look at us and see a measure of stability. Girls aren’t into mindless vandalism, smoking pot all the time, stealing electrical meters off buildings. I remember Herb and I stole so many of those things. We kicked the meters off every building in the neighborhood. We would dump all of them at the burned down Wheels Warehouse. The place was full of those things.

We were really into vandalism. We were huge vandals. We were probably responsible for the downfall of our neighborhood.

I was living with my mom above the fruit market when you and Niko got in a fist fight in the apartment. I think it was Nik had an issue. You’re a guy with a certain level of charisma and people looked up to you and Nik didn’t like people not looking up to him. There was ego and tempers and then the ridiculousness.

I chose to live with my mom. I knew she was going to be more lenient. She let me smoke weed in the house. I would buy her weed for her. That’s always a weird scenario, having to buy drugs for your parent. You want to be the cool son, with the cool mom. Don’t be the cool mom, be the mom.

One of her friends turned me on to cocaine for the first time.

Then there was the jewelry heist. I probably shouldn’t go into details on that.

I started seeing you a lot again after you moved into the group home. Mike was there and we were jamming together. It was cool because Tom lived across the street. Tom was into bad drugs. They were doing crystal meth before I even knew what it was. (Tom passed away from a heroin overdose December, 2002 – se)

Maybe that’s what got us clean. We quit drugs together. You were sixteen and I was eighteen. You, me and Dan. It was the longest I’ve been clean. I lasted three years. It was not surprisingly the most productive period of my life.

During that time you and I were volunteering at the homeless shelter. You were a senior in high school then. There was that female priest and she would leave you and me there alone all night to run the place. Two kids and a hundred homeless people. We would stay up drinking coffee and we’d have to turn people away when the shelter was full. We were good kids at that point. We could have stayed good.

Then I started smoking pot again. I’ve smoked pot every day until now.

I dropped out of college, got divorced from my cop wife, and joined a punk rock band.

I’m a good bartender. I can trade on my personality and it translates into hard cash. Right now I’m doing catering bartending so I’m somewhere different all the time. It’s a lot of fun and if I don’t like the people I’m working with I never see them again.

Related Posts:

• An Oral History of Myself: 14. Judy
• An Oral History of Myself: 13. Mato
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 12. Wendi
• An Oral History of Myself: 11. Ashley
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 10. Jenni

Kevin – Auto Mechanic

Don’t get married.

I see my mother once or twice a month. She’s doing OK.

My earliest memory of you is in eighth grade. I was the new kid. You were the outcast. You weren’t homeless when we started hanging out. I don’t think so. You gave me my first hit of acid. We used to stand on the fence outside your house and watch your dad and his girlfriend. I didn’t know your mother had just died.

We would eat instant coffee. Your room was covered in art and poems. Mostly poems. They were all over your walls.

My mom went on vacation and she sent me to my babysitter back in Indiana. My babysitter was a Christian group home. I had been there before. But this was just for a couple of weeks so I didn’t think of myself as a resident. I was fifteen years old but I was in eighth grade. I had failed a year. I was smoking a cigarette and they told me to put it out and I told them I wasn’t going to do that then I got in a fistfight with the counselor. I took all my stuff, slept in a cornfield, then got a Greyhound back to Chicago. You had run away by then and you were sleeping in a broom closet so I moved in with you. The broom closet became home.

That was the second time I ran away with you. The first time was when my mother hit me in the face with a phone.

We used to rob parking meters.

I remember you coming to my house with your wrists slit. You drank a whole bottle of Puerto Rican Rum and slit your wrist. This is all still eighth grade. You were getting hell from your dad. He handcuffed you and shaved your head. But even still I couldn’t understrand why someone would want to slit their wrists. To this day that just doesn’t compute in my head. Especially when you leave. I mean you left. It’s not like you stayed home. So I don’t know. Maybe you felt like nobody cared.

Don’t you want to forget this stuff?

I remember when you and John left for California. You had a duffle bag full of stuff. You called me from California. I was like, “How is it?” You were like, “It sucks. I have no clothes, no shoes, no money. I’ve got a can of tuna fish with no opener.” Where’d your clothes go? I can’t believe you guys made it to California. I mean, who would think some punk kids could hitchhike to California? That was too crazy for me. I wasn’t about to hitchhike to California. I knew where my food was.

Twice I went with Aaron on those little burglary things. I went with him one time, it was a basement apartment. The window was open and I got stuck. Another was a place right near the grammar school. Robbing the houses was a bigger rush than doing the drugs. A natural high. I remember Aaron busting the lock. I remember we did what every stupid criminal did, we ate. We went through the house, the drawers, looking for cash. Then, when we were done, we went in the kitchen and made sandwiches.

Even when my mom kicked me out I would climb back in through the porch. I had to climb over the ledge and get myself in my own windows. This was on the third floor. She put security bars on the windows to keep me out.

I went with John and your uncle to visit you in the mental hospital. There was some guy there, walking down the hallway picking cigarette butts out of the ashtray and eating them. After seeing that and then visiting John when he got put in Edison Park I remember thinking I don’t want to end up in these places. I started doing my own thing. It was time to work, make money. So you can get all this crap (gestures around. We’re in the basement of his house. His daughter is playing an educational game on the computer. Behind her is a fish tank with no fish. Kevin is holding a can of beer. The floors are white tile.)

I think in Freshman year I got suspended for tapping my gym teacher on the shoulder. She had me suspended for assault. So I go to school anyway, I don’t have anywhere else to go. Then I get arrested for trespassing. Of course I have pot on me so now I’m busted for possession. My mother wouldn’t pick me up. She called my dad, who I hadn’t seen since I was three years old. I’m waiting in the police station and I see this guy hobbling in on a cane and I’m thinking, Please don’t let that be him. Of course it is. That’s when I moved out by Diversey and California. It was like living with a stranger. I didn’t know him or what he was about. He had back problems. I moved in with him and his wife. They had to rent a bigger apartment. He would buy my cigarettes for me. I guess I liked him but we had a falling out too, somewhere about when I turned eighteen. Probably over staying out or something. Spending nights with Penny. Just being free. God I wish I could go through that again.

**

I’m with Roger and when we’re done talking we ask Kevin if he wants to go out to eat. He lives almost an hour away from the Chicago neighborhood we grew up in. He mentions restaurants nearby, all chains. He can’t go because his wife has snuck away and taken the van leaving Kevin with the two children, one thirteen, one three. He and his wife don’t talk anymore, haven’t talked in a while. They pass notes back and forth through the children.

“I’m simmering with rage now,” Kevin says, opening the garage door, standing inside in the giant square of light. The suburb is quiet.

Related Posts:

• An Oral History of Myself: 14. Judy
• An Oral History of Myself: 13. Mato
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 12. Wendi
• An Oral History of Myself: 11. Ashley
• AN ORAL HISTORY OF MYSELF: 10. Jenni