As I stated earlier, I'm just your basic nobody from nowhere. I was actually born a poor black child ... oh wait, no I wasn't. That was some other jerk. I was born in the mean streets of Lincoln Park - a suburb of Detroit. Never actually lived in Lincoln Park, but I was born in the Lincoln Park hospital. At least I think... I actually don't remember but, according to my mother, I was... I grew up, however, in Allen Park - Northern Allen Park to be exact. I mention this because the part of Allen Park where I lived was actually in the Northern Allen Park / Melvindale school district, so I attended jr. high and high school in Melvindale. All of these places are, of course, suburbs of the highly energetic city known throughout the world as Detroit. (Try to catch the sarcasm here ... Detroit is a burned out hole of a town...)
There's really not much to say about my adolescence. I was one of those "couldn't do anything wrong" honor students. At least that was the impression that was given off – and I used this impression to basically get away with anything. I hung out a lot with Eric in my pre-teen and teen years and poor Eric took a lot of shit that was rightfully due me. It was all for stupid little things - lighting fires, shoplifting, staying out past curfew; you know, the stupid little things that stupid little kids do. Heck, there was at least one point where my parents decided that Eric was a bad influence for me and banned me from hanging out with him. They were completely unaware that I was actually the bad influence. Oh well, that's all water under the bridge now and I appreciate Eric taking the fall for me. He's a good guy. I still make it a point to visit with him whenever I make a stop back in the old neighborhood.
I was an honor student throughout high school. To be honest with you, I really can't tell you why. I never studied ... I guess I was just good at figuring out the curriculum that was taught in public schools in the mid to late eighties - that and the fact that I really didn't have much of a social life until I was basically a junior. That's when I finally got myself my first real girlfriend, Conny, and started to realize that there was more to life than just the endless treadmill of trying to do your best and becoming the wealthy old man. I was starting to realize that life might actually be worth 'living'.
Unfortunately fate can often be a twisted little beast and I got into a rather major car accident while driving to band practice a week before my senior year was set to begin. Yeah, you read that right - band practice. I was actually the drum major for our pathetic waste of a high school band. You see, back in the eighties, being in the Melvindale High School Band was really nothing to be proud of. However, I was in it. I was first chair clarinet pretty much throughout high school. I was given second chair as a freshman - although the band teacher told me that was only because the girl, Holly that was given first chair was a senior and he didn't want to upset her. I think this might have been a line because I always thought that Holly deserved the first chair. I mean, as far as I was concerned, she was better than me... Oh well, you didn't come here to read about the politics of a less than mediocre band, so that's all I'll say about that.The accident. From what I have been told, I was making a left onto a typical five lane highway - Allen Road, to be exact. There was apparently a bus making a right onto the side street that I was exiting from. Whether I was waved on by the bus driver remains an unknown, but I went. As I passed the front of the bus I was met, rather chaotically, by a car that was speeding around the bus as it waited to turn. I was hit broadside – directly in the driver side door. My car then basically spun around and came to a stop hitting a telephone pole on the opposite side of the street. I was wearing my seatbelt, so I didn't get thrown from the car. This was good. What was bad about it was that I apparently ended up in the passenger seat still wearing my seatbelt.
You never really understand exactly how much momentum a car has when it's driving down the road until you try to stop it. I actually saw the car that I was driving months later in the junk yard. The entire driver's side was pretty much gone. It looked like it was put in a car smasher sideways and pulled out half way through. Somehow I lived through this. Of course the account I just told you is only my repeating of what had been told me. I don't remember the accident at all. In fact I don't remember the day before the accident or about one full month after the accident. You see, while my body was making that very sudden move from the driver's seat to the passenger's seat, my brain was coming along for the ride. The thing about the brain is that it's surrounded by fluid and when the seatbelt did its job and stopped my body from flying out of the car, my brain kept traveling through the fluid and smashed directly into my own skull.
The result of this is that I slipped into a coma at the hospital that night and stayed in the coma for three days. While I was in this coma, I underwent surgery and had my spleen removed - yet another gift from the seatbelt. The rather abrupt stop actually tore my spleen open. As I mentioned before, I remember none of this. The first vague memory that I have was actually a half month after the accident when I woke up in the hospital bed and had no idea where I was or what had happened. Luckily for me I was basically clinically insane, so I didn't really give it too much thought. I just relieved my bladder and went back to sleep. There was a catheter - which I was unaware of - so things didn't get out of control...
I was basically regressed back to an infant. But it was weird - I was an infant with access to many of my long term memories. My short term memory was shot and I would not even be able to remember who was in my room if my attention was pulled in a different direction for even the shortest period of time. It was then that I needed to re-learn the simplest of activities - walking, talking - you know, the basics.
I believe I spent a month in the hospital, perhaps it was longer, I don't actually remember; I was then released into a rehab center. This was bad. I didn't want to be there and I wasn't what you would call a model patient. I think I was only there for a couple days before my parents demanded they release me; but in that short period of time I punched out a nurse, tried to escape through the fire exit and considered jumping out of a third (or possibly fourth) floor window to get away from that place. I most definitely was one that flew over the cuckoo's nest. My parents though, bless their hearts, quickly came to the realization that this was not the place for me and pulled me out even when all the doctors were telling them that they shouldn't. Just because some dude decided to spend years upon years 'earning' a PhD doesn't always mean he knows what's best.
Once I returned home, my actual healing began and I was soon able to return to school after basically missing the entire first quarter of my senior year. Amazingly enough I was actually able to do the work pretty easily and, even after missing a full quarter of my senior year, graduated third in my class on schedule the following spring.The funny thing about all this is that that experience, as traumatic as it all was, wasn't the worst part of my senior year. To this day I still believe that the much larger tragedy was that I lost the first true love of my life, Conny.
And it seems strange to me. She stayed with me throughout the entire hospital stay and rehab experience and actually waited until I was back at school again before she dumped me. Now that sounds a lot more mean than it actually was. I mean I actually don't really blame her. Even after returning to school there were still side effects from the closed head injury. For one thing, I was rather weak and I had this real bad habit of breaking into uncontrollable laughter for no apparent reason at times. Who the hell would want to be associated with that?
Strangely enough, we - Conny and I - got back together for a short period of time right around graduation. That was cool as I was able to take her to the senior prom and everything. Unfortunately fate came back into the picture and shortly after graduation we split up again and this time it would be forever. She's moved on with her life and went and got married. She's now the proud mother of a couple of kids. The funny thing about this is that Conny was actually German. I think she moved to the states at age 7 or something and was always telling me how she wanted to move back to Germany. She did this for a few years, I think, after graduation but ended up hooking up with an American soldier and is actually now living in California; and here I am, living in Germany. Life is weird...Now I just need to make it clear that I really don't have any ill feelings toward Conny and I honestly wish her nothing but the best. I have actually rather recently started communicating with her again via IM and I think that has helped me to finally put a close to that period in my life. Life's far too short to waste it wondering what could have been. You are where you are and you've got to somehow make the best of it.
Well, folks, what started off as being a simple little introduction to your author has turned into more of my little biography. I apologize for that but this has been probably more interesting for me than it has for you. I will, therefore, continue it on another day. Unfortunately, it's getting a bit late over here and I do need to get to work tomorrow so I need to be heading off to dreamland for a bit. Thanks for reading and I'll be sure that I type at ya again...
bis später,
Coriolis
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