It was the fall of 1978, October to be exact, and I had been home for almost two solid weeks. I did not like my living arrangement at all. Twice I had tried to talk alone with my dad and twice had been rudely interrupted by my goddamn stepbrother for one cockamamie thing or another.
The first encounter was on my third night home. My father had just started getting into reasons for divorcing my mom all those years ago when Michael pounds on my dad's bedroom door that one of the newcomers is gonna try to split if we don't do something. It was M. Bell, a 6-1 Georgia boy that looked like a cross between Jan Micheal Vincent and Mike Nesmith of the Monkees. This was one newcomer that nobody fucked with. Mike leads me down the hall, then shoves me in the room and locks the door from outside and blurts out "Try-to-calm-him-down-while-I-get-Steveoverhere!" Steve being Steve Howe, Junior Staff and only 7 or 8 blocks away from us.
Mark was pacing the room like a caged lion and the other newcomers were huddled together by the closet visibly upset. Turns out Mike had decided to snatch Mark's M.I. book and read some shit that Mark had mistakenly felt was private. It also turned out that the lazy fucker had simply had his newcomers read their M.I.'s to him from their mattress instead of going over them the way Staff wanted us to. Shit, half the time he fell asleep and the newcomers would shut off the damn light. By the time Steve got there I had calmed Mark down by talking about various places in Georgia that I had visited and it turned out we knew several of the same areas and what not and had formed a bond of sorts. From that point on things were never the same between him and Mike.
So anyway, where does Bohemian Rhapsody fit in? Well, since I was on second phase and asshole stepbrother was on fourth, guess who got saddled with 90% of the responsabilities around the infamous "Patterson Horizons?" The constant vigilence, the Tampa Screw-UP and 2a.m. Open Meetings that followed, and fucking unbelievable sleep deprivation all took it's toll. I remember me and Mark were in the kitchen making french toast and I said to him rather non-chalantly, "If you make home, would you take me for a newcomer?" He gave me that cowboy laugh of his and says, "What the hell you talking about?" I peeked out to the dining room, nobody was paying us any mind. "I'm sick of this fuckin shit, I'm just a goddamn watch dog." "I have'nt talked one on one with my dad since I got here, now he's working 3 to 11, I do all the goddamn work, fuck it." "Whatcha gonna do?" "Get myself taken away from home."
I figured that if staff thought an oldcomer had lost his fuckin mind, they would take him from home and put him back in foster care. This way I might be able to get back into my old school and pick up where I had left off. That was my plan at least.
It was a Tuesday Morning the rap was being led by Dave Searcy, Chris Casselor, and I think either Jenny Sykes or Mary Collette, hell maybe all four. Anyway I can't for the life of me remember what the topic was, just that right after I was called on, a stiff, cold breeze blew through the open garage doors and the whole group came alive. It was destiny, it was my chance, go for broke.
"Is this the real life, Is this just fantasy, caught in a landslide no escape from reality." "Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see"........ I really am a poor boy, but since my mom stopped coming to open meetings ya'll think I'm a rich boy at Patterson Horizons, well BULLSHIT!!! I do all the fuckin work while Mike sits on his ass in the living room watching t.v. every night working on the "family relationship." Then I snapped right back into the song, told them I needed no sympathy cuz anyway the wind blows it does'nt really matter to me. I think I may have even started singing at this point. What I do remember was the look on everyones faces.
First they are hit with a cold blast of air from outside, and now this fucking lunatic is narrating one of their favorite "druggy songs" and somehow it is all making sense. He really has something to say and this is the only way he can do it. It was brilliant.
I really do not know what went on in staff offices that week, but thursday, my father sits me down alone at the kitchen table with my school records from Pinellas Park High, has a bunch of course descriptions from Dixie Hollins High, and is going over what classes I was gonna take, and I was'nt even on third phase yet. Friday Open Meeting, KAWHAMMO!!! Third Phase just like that! By Wednesday of the following week, I was walking the halls of Dixie Hollins and got used to a new thing. I would actually witness my mind leave me and then come spirilling back like a yo-yo on a continuing basis that did'nt let up until a third of the way thru 4th phase. I also noticed my dad look at me funny. It was the kind of look a farmer gives his dog when he's lost one chicken too many and he's looking for a stray feather stuck to it's muzzle.
I caved. A trip to the library during lunch, and some research led me to the realization that most of my problems were due to lack of privacy, and lack of sleep. I formed an alliance with several teachers who would either let me sleep through class, or give me hall passes to sleep in the library while pretending to read by simply holding my head in my hands and looking down. After about 3 weeks I reached a state of equilibrium and around the middle of November, Executive Staff pulled their heads out of their ass with a resounding *pop* and Open Meetings went back to their normal routine. This is how I dealt with one of the darker periods of my Straight Experience. I am just glad that no one really held it against me that I actually stood up and recited a damn rock song word for word in Big Group and was not led out the building in a strait jacket.
