It Was Twenty Years Ago Today By Billy Shears

Part the First

It was on a cool October morning when I stepped into the modern light. The rapid changing both in my life and those around me were taking dynamic overhauls. Nothing that had been was going to be again. I encountered a solitude that has never left me. Perhaps when you find yourself in that time of your life, that moment when youth eclipses everything else that will happen, when that lightning strike occurs and there is no turning back is when it happens. You find yourself, alone in a dark woods, the way that Dante begins the Inferno. I have mocked that time and have denied it more times than is possible to recall. But, it has been twenty years since I walked out of a record store with a Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP and into a facility that would not grant me my freedom for another year, and many years later before I understood all that actually transpired along the way. It was only recently that I even remembered that purchase. That, I never saw the album again is a good reason why I did not remember. Something got opened back then & something got shut; my inspiration over some years has been to determine exactly what I gained and what I lost. What were the consequences of that?

Back in those days, I gave myself a moniker. I called myself Captain Jack. I based it off of a song by Billy Joel that a friend of mine turned me on to. I don’t know if you are familiar with the song, but it is, should I call it; melancholy? I was only fourteen or fifteen when I bought it. If you are interested, it was on Billy’s first album called Piano Man. It is the last song on the second side if I remember correctly. He sings about a guy who is in between. It has references to all the classics, sex, drugs and rock and roll. I think it was the gutsiest song the guy ever did. I still cannot listen to it without changing my mood. Here is an example “they just found your father in the swimming pool/so I guess you won’t be going back to school anymore.” I imagine Mr. Dylan had some influence on the song for Billy, but it altered my perception of what was up in front of me. The time and place for all of this was in the early eighties in the Tampa, Florida area. I was not unique in any particular way. I had a way about me that was a result of a number of things. I think I was likable and I had a friend or two that were as dependable as they could be at that age. But still, I felt a huge disconnect. I was drifting too far from the shore, listless at sea or as another song I used to like would say, I’m dying of thirst in the middle of the ocean. I was a man without a country; at any rate.

I do not think it is important to spend time talking about what happened that was wrong. The whole nature vs. nurture part of things I am too old to have it have any advantage here. I mean, or let me tell you I have spent many drunken night, many angry argument, many tear under the bridge and many friends and failures later. I’m not saying that it does not matter. Anyone who knows me knows what matters and does not. What I am saying is I am going to float that aspect because it is important, but we ain’t got the time. Besides that, who knows what would be the correct answer. When it comes down to it, everyone who comes into contact with you is to blame for what you are or what you are not. I find that responsibility to be devastating in so many ways that I have a difficult time making up my mind because of the long term affects I might have on a given situation. What I do think is important is to come to terms with some of the changes that bother me. Back to what is in the lost and found. Much of my mind changed after that year. So much had been revamped without me having an opinion about it. Why did all of a sudden did I think certain things were bad? This had an effect on my life and those who surrounded me. The lure of straying from the program was almost extinct. Getting thrown back in there was fear enough to stay away from any temptation. I tried not to seem like it did much, but when I remember things that happened right after I got out, I have to take a step back and see that the rest of my life went into a slight tailspin that is still in recovery.

I do as well; feel like I owe some of those people an apology. Even though we were kids and had kids’ minds, the shock and the pain that endured was I think greater than we still to this day comprehend. I don’t want to get too personal about it, it would not be appropriate. I have felt a storm brewing about me ever since I got out. As if I am waiting for God’s finger to come down and touch me again and send me to walk through the fires of Hell because well, I had it coming. I am stepping into dangerous ground. I want to convey this. I have not written or spoken too much about this. As I sit here, I am in an airport; I missed a flight and am going out to the west coast for a couple of weeks. I have nothing but time on my hands for the next few hours, nothing at all. I have attempted to rewrite some of the story over the years, but those that had been there wanted me to leave it as it was. But I have led at least two lives. One before and one after that I think about from time to time. What would have happened if I had not gone in? But recently, I think about what if I had not had so much immediate damage from it. What if I had gotten the knowledge that I needed from it and maintained the basis of my personality after? Still, it is not what I want to talk about, but it is something to think about.

The kid that I knew was in a constant search for a feeling of home. He for the most part wanted to be nice to people, but at the same time was fully capable of doing horrific things to people. He used people, abused people and at the same time would be as timid as they come. He was laid back and prone to exuberance. Mostly he wanted to belong to something. Which is what he did, he created a family in a story. He called it The Personals. He picked names for the people that he hung around with most and tried to make something of it. It had a galvanizing affect in some ways. It gave everyone a reason to hang out more. Maybe it did more than that. Maybe those who were involved were trying to belong to something as well. We were misfits, but we did have each other. I tended to over look this over the years because, well I wrote the damn book and I didn’t think it made any difference. When I went in, everything split up like an atom bomb. I came back and most of the group split or quit. I couldn’t talk to them anyway. I had to disavow the group anyway, that was part of the treatment. When they tell you your friends have forgotten you, that your girlfriend or boyfriend has taken up with someone new, that your friends are running around like Palmetto bugs when you turn on a light and you see that happen? It doesn’t take much to flush whatever hope you had down the toilet. Really, it was a joke. Everything was so fucked up; nobody knew what they could do, would do, who was watching and who you could trust. One way or another, the day you get back, you hear every rumor or innuendo from everybody. When you can not talk to the people you need to; you believe what you are told. The world had changed; friends are fickle and other people well they think that they are helping. I trusted no one. That still is the most difficult thing for me. The most glaring fact; no guidance from inside or out, you are making decisions that will effect the rest of your life and no one is paying attention.

I have mentioned this to friends. I tell them that what ever ails them was probably decided when they were sixteen years old or abouts. It’s hard to look back that far, but I have thought just now for the first time about those first few weeks. I did not know what to expect and what certain things might mean. The more I sit back here and muse, the more I see mistakes in my thinking for the last twenty years.