I
Once upon a time, there was an eight-year-old boy who was going about the business of living his life. He and his family lived on the outskirts of Eldersburg, Maryland, on the Carroll County side of the Liberty Reservoir.
The holiday season of 1980 was upon him. Like most kids his age, it was a time of excitement and happiness, with a general sense of well-being.
That kid was me. I loved the holiday season back then. It wasn’t just about the prospect of Santa bringing me and my younger sister presents after spending most of the fall going through the Sears Wish Book looking for things we didn’t know we wanted. It was also the ambiance. There was the Christmas tree (which was artificial…and man, I wish I still had it), the lights, and the decorations. We had a collection of homemade ceramics which we could place throughout the house. Mom would make a variety of homemade cookies (including black-bottom cupcakes).
Some years, my parents would cover the front door with red foil so we could cut out a large green construction paper Christmas tree and decorate it with small ornaments drawn and cut out from colored construction paper.
And what Gen-Xer could forget the various Christmas specials? From Charlie Brown Christmas to the different Rankin/Bass stop-motion shows (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer comes to mind) and sometimes in the mix, Frosty the Snowman. Those were a big deal. The ‘permission to stay up later to watch them’ kind of big deal.
But most important was the gathering of the immediate family. Mom would typically make a Christmas Eve dinner. It was a time to celebrate with my maternal grandparents, two uncles, their wives, and a plethora of cousins. I adored my uncles, aunts, cousins, and, of course, my grandparents. Some of the fondest memories I have from childhood revolve around them before we fractured into separate camps and got ugly. Disowning level ugly. I’m only glad my grandmother (whom I called Nana) didn’t live to see it.
Another tale for another time.
Back to happier matters, we, the kids, could also have soda, which in those days was a real treat. Coke with real sugar before they butchered it all to shit. There was also Christmas break from school, which seemed like an eternity. That was a good thing. I hated school.
We were lower middle class then, and disposable income wasn’t a commodity. Consequently, most of the things we found in the Sears Wish Book weren’t realistic. Of course, my sister Meg and I didn’t know this as children. Growing up in a poorer family, one doesn’t realize it until later in life. That’s usually when the feeling of gratitude for the sacrifices our parents made to give us awesome Christmases becomes forefront.
Looking back, we were damned lucky to have the niceties we did, including the Atari 2600. At the time, it was pretty much the only graphic gaming system, and it was the fucking bomb! That wouldn’t change until the ColecoVision came out in 1982. IntelliVision didn’t impress me much. I never wanted one.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The Coleco Conundrum tale comes later.
II
By 1980, all I really wanted were Atari games, records, and model cars. The kind where one snapped off the parts from skeletal plastic molds and glued them together. Fuck, I loved doing those things! I’d sit on a stool in front of an antique buffet table (covered gratuitously with newspaper) and spend hours putting those things together.
I was a detailed oriented kid. A perfectionist. Everything had its place. It began at the age of one or two, so I’m told. Mom had a bookshelf with knickknacks lining the top. If one was out of place, I’d be the one to put it back. She admits to moving things all over the place, knowing I’d see them and put them all back where they belonged.
One could speculate that was the beginning of the anxiety I live with. Not that I’m laying the blame on mom. It’s the way I was born. My brain isn’t wired like the brains of ordinary people.
As an adult, I realized the path down Anxiety Avenue began with my first actual panic attack, which was Christmas of 1980. At eight years old, I didn’t know that’s what happened to me the afternoon I freaked out.
My parents often told me I was a ‘worry wart’ because I worried a lot. It was usually stupid shit I had no control over. It’s still true today, sadly.
III
You might be asking what an eight-year-old boy has to worry about. I couldn’t speak to normal kids my age in the 80s, as I don’t know. I used to worry about getting things right. Not failing, even though it seemed I frequently did and ended up getting in trouble. Punishments weren’t harsh. At least, I didn’t think so. If I fucked up, I usually got a stern talking to and sometimes spent time in my room. I suppose mom thought that was punishment. It wasn’t, really. I enjoyed spending time alone in my room. It meant time to read books and listen to music or play with that cool as fuck 500-in-1 electronic kit from RadioShack I received as a present at some point. If mom truly wanted to dole out punishment, she’d have taken my record player away. I found out later in life that she didn’t because sending me to my room got me out of her hair.
There was a time when I worried about my parents getting divorced. I’ve been described as hyper-self-aware. It means I’m cognizant of everything around me and can process it all simultaneously. It’s how I work, often doing many things at once. With this in mind, I’d often hear the arguments, probably when I wasn’t supposed to. My father wasn’t a kind person. He was the epitome of selfishness and, to be frank, only seemed to care about getting laid. His world seemed to revolve around it. The stacks of Penthouse magazines in his workroom and the basement bathroom were a dead giveaway. Yes, I knew this back then, although I didn’t discover how deep his psychosis went until years later.
Again, another tale for another time.
I’d worry about going to school. Pop quizzes stressed me out. Worrying about failure seemed to cause the failure versus not knowing the material.
More than this, I worried about the never-ending bullying that lasted well into high school. In elementary school, it didn’t go beyond name-calling and teasing, but even that was brutal.
I used to have nosebleeds as far back as I can remember. I was told it was because I was born with blood vessels too close to the skin inside my nose. Because they would strike randomly and often at inopportune times, usually in the middle of class, other kids would accuse me of picking my nose, which somehow led to ‘eating boogers.’ I’d hear that undesired and unkind nickname constantly. Kids would call out as I walked down the hall. “Booger-eater! It’s Kevin, the booger-eater! Had any boogers today, Kev? Are they good?”
I fucking hated school. Those tales will get worse as we go, I assure you. School was a source of stress that kept me up at night, wondering what new torment would befall me and what I could possibly do to make the kids like me.
The answer was simple. Not be myself.
Mom would often tell me I walked to the beat of a different drum and that there was nothing wrong with that. There was nothing wrong with me differing from the other kids. I knew I’d have to conform or suffer.
I chose to suffer. Conforming isn’t really my thing.
Those experiences also taught me at a very young age not to give a fuck what other people thought about me.
Seriously. I’d begun using the word fuck by fourth grade. Why? My father. He made no effort to censor himself. Plus, he was a mechanic; apparently, cussing was a prerequisite. One afternoon on the school bus, I clearly recall reciting the latest series of cuss words I’d heard recently to impress a bunch of wide, starry-eyed younger children who lived on the same street. I’m comfortably certain none of them had ever heard of or knew what a ‘communist pig bitch’ was. Still, they seemed intrigued. But I digress.
Sometimes worries were as simple as the weather. Rain meant I couldn’t play outside, which was a big deal. There were bikes to ride, ramps to jump, and rope swings into massive piles of leaves. We knew it was time to come home when the streetlights came on (or porch lights if there were no streetlights). All those memes on social media about the street lights being the signal to go home are accurate. I often enjoy watching the faces of Gen-Zers when they realize we didn’t have cell phones in the 80s. Yeah, kids, we had to think for ourselves and be responsible. Foreign concept, I know. Terrible situation.
Finally, there was my father. I worried about the possibility of facing some form of his wrath. Granted, it didn’t become physical until I was much older, but his berating often left me feeling inadequate. Like I wasn’t good enough. It’s a theme I still suffer from, and it all began with my father. We’ll be getting to that soon enough. It was his final rejection and how we permanently parted that set the stage for years of anger and resentment that, looking back, didn’t help any relationship I was part of.
IV
The Christmas of 1980 was when I accepted there was no Santa Claus. I remember mom trying to tell me before that year, but I didn’t believe her. Santa was always generous with his gifts; at least, I always thought so. However, for the rest of the year, if I came across some toy, gadget, or book I wanted, the answer was typically, “No, sweetheart. We can’t afford it.”
I’d accept this answer, even begrudgingly, with a minor level of disappointment. At that age, budgets and limited financial resources aren’t a concern, nor should they be.
When mom suggested she and my father were, in fact, Santa, I balked. I stated plainly that wasn’t true because there was no way they would spend that kind of money on us. I’m sure that’s not something any parent of limited means wants to hear. Sorry, mom. I didn’t mean it as an insult.
I may not have been ready to deal with the truth of the Santa Façade.
In 1980, that changed.
The entire affair began while I was playing with one of those bouncy rubber balls one gets from a gumball machine. You know the ones I mean, right? They were usually painted red with a clear container showing a colorful variety of available bouncy balls. One would ask mom or dad for a quarter to obtain the desirable toy. With sparkly-eyed excitement, said bouncy ball would get played with long enough to bounce someplace where no one could retrieve it (or it got lost), and that would be the end of it until the circle of life brings one back around to another bouncy ball dispensary.
There was a hallway at the rear of our house between the bedrooms and the living and dining rooms. I felt it was the optimal place to wing that bouncy ball into the wall so it would bounce madly between them until falling predictably into the carpet. During one wild flinging of the ball, it reflected on an angle and into my parent’s bedroom.
I looked inside from the hallway and quickly scanned the room for the elusive bouncy ball. Not seeing it, I scampered inside and looked under the bed. There were far too many boxes underneath to make the search expeditious. I pushed and pulled them around, hoping to find my coveted toy. I pulled a smaller box out and looked inside.
What I found ended the search for the small rubber ball…forever.
I came face to face with three or four Atari games. One of them was Adventure, which I badly wanted. My Uncle Paul had that game at his house. During one visit, that’s all I played. When an eight-year-old kid hooked on Atari skips playing Space Invaders for a different game, it’s kind of a big deal.
I wondered, why do we have these Atari games under the bed and why are we not playing them?
So, I asked mom.
Naturally, the question of why I was even in her room in the first place took priority, more to the point, why was I snooping around? I don’t think she bought the explanation of the wayward bouncy ball, but it didn’t matter. Adventure was under the bed and not in front of the Atari.
I can’t say I recall the particulars of the conversation, except that the revelation that Santa wasn’t real came into play again. There may have been some verbiage about not spoiling it for Meg, who was only six.
This time, I believed her.
V
Let’s take a step back for a minute.
I’d been questioning the logic of the Santa Façade for a while. At some point, the logistics of it made little sense. Let’s put aside an overweight married couple living at the North Pole all year, which was purported to be far colder than Maryland winters. Let’s also dismiss how the elves seemed to be unpaid employees (perhaps slaves, as suggested by some holiday specials). I couldn’t wrap my head around how one overweight man rode a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer with only a bag full of presents for every boy and girl in the world! The bag wasn’t nearly big enough to encompass that many toys.
More than this, the speeds he’d be required to travel to visit each house, even compensating for time zones, just didn’t work. Santa would literally have to visit nearly 24,000 homes in under a fucking second! How?! And what was the age limit? Did Santa also deliver goods to parents? Were they subject to the same scrutiny they forced us kids to endure?
After all, if you’re not good, Santa won’t bring you any presents. The Santa Façade was the typical reward system. Be good, and Santa will reward you. Be bad, and Santa will punish you. Meg and I didn’t get the coal in the stocking clause; Santa would simply pass us over.
Santa has helpers, too. They flew around all year, examining all the boys and girls for inappropriate behavior. Mom would even point them out. There’d be streaks in the sky overhead. Those were Santa’s elves, keeping vigil.
But they weren’t. They were jets and upper atmosphere contrails.
Oh, that one really ground my gears.
Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Magic is science we don’t understand yet.” The excuse that Santa accomplished everything he did with ‘magic’ wasn’t passing muster anymore, either.
Everything I’d come to believe since becoming self-aware was a fucking lie! I was a little miffed about that, still not really feeling my folks would spend that kind of money on us.
If my parents would tell those sorts of lies for literally my entire life, even well-intentioned, what else would they lie about?
VI
Another mythical being in my life also worked on the reward system. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. He decides if one is good enough to go to heaven or bad enough to go to hell.
Oh, and did I mention the fear of going to hell scared the living fuck out of me? I worried about that shit nonstop! I’d lie awake at night, worried about doing the wrong thing and burning for all eternity, forever. I was already struggling to come to terms with the fact that the universe goes on forever…or that it’s so large it can’t be measured.
I wasn’t worried about dying then. I was worried about what came after. My parents dutifully informed me that if I was a good person and followed a few rules set down by The Almighty, and if I prayed and asked for forgiveness for my sins, I’d be okay. Otherwise, I’d go to hell and suffer forever.
Honestly, I think we’re all in hell right now. But…whatever.
I have to understand concepts to accept them. When the Santa Façade began to crumble, I worried mom may have been right; she and my father were ‘Santa’ all along.
For as many years as my folks encouraged their religion, Baptist, I generally accepted it without question. Why wouldn’t I? To a kid, the evidence was in the book left behind by the Almighty’s apostles. Who was I, a kid God allegedly loved, to question any of it? To do so was a sin! An outstanding sin meant I’d go to hell, so I’d better pray and ask for forgiveness. Or…go to church every Sunday and ask for forgiveness there.
All of this was a moral imperative, and I’d better comply.
Honestly, I wasn’t one of God’s biggest fans. I’d heard somewhere that He wouldn’t give me any more than I could handle. Between the increasing bullying at school and my father’s lousy attitude toward me, anger and resentment built up. It’s something I kept to myself. It was a life-encompassing worry I couldn’t shake. I’d then blame God. He was doing it to me. Somehow, I wasn’t good enough to have an easier life like the other kids. I wasn’t good enough to have a nice father who loved me unconditionally. My attitude soured. I’d stand in my room, ball up my fists and stare at the sky, shouting, “I hate you! If you really loved me, you wouldn’t make my life so fucking hard!”
Now I know how Job felt, and he got it far worse than I. I was a kid and had no control over what was happening. Eventually, I gave up. If God loved me unconditionally, then why make my lie so miserable? What the fuck did I ever do to deserve all of that?
I stopped caring. If hell were to be my destination, then so be it. I sometimes felt I was already living there as the logical errors plagued me.
A friend I had at the time suggested it wasn’t God. It was Satan.
Well, fuck them both. Some omnipotent being I can’t even see or hear demands unconditional love, demands I worship only him because he’s super jealous, and if I piss him off, he’ll punish me. But he loves me.
That, folks, is a toxic relationship that we encourage people to flee because it sucks the life out of their souls and does all kinds of psychological damage.
Indeed!
I wanted Him to leave me the fuck alone and go piss on someone else.
VII
I hated going to church. At first, it was in the evening at a church near Catonsville, which was nowhere near where we lived. I didn’t find the sermons interesting. I felt God might punish me for not being more interested. That was a worry. Sometimes I felt as if I didn’t act perfectly in church, Sunday school, or vacation Bible schools, that I’d incur the wrath of someone worse than my father. I didn’t need all that shit on my plate.
I’d been baptized Catholic at my great-grandfather’s behest. I don’t remember that and therefore couldn’t express an opinion on the matter. In my mind, it doesn’t make me Catholic. Richard Dawkins, a famous atheist, once said there are no Christian or Jewish children. They are children of Christian or Jewish parents.
This is so true.
I was the kid of Baptist parents. Or at least a Baptist mother. I don’t remember my father, Charlie, being all that into it. I suspect it had more to do with their marital woes, and he was there to save face. After all, he’d broken one of the ten commandments and must repent. The one regarding adultery. On a side note, I can’t think of a time I asked Charlie about his religious views. I didn’t really care. But knowing him as I did then, he was far from religious. He died in 2020, three days before Christmas. I could say that he now knows the answer to what happens after we die, but that would imply consciousness after death, which is scientifically impossible as there is no functioning brain.
In my metaphysical pondering, I’ve wondered about the concept of the soul. Does it exist? What is it? Does it retain consciousness or memory?
Follow me on this for a sec. In 1842, Julius Robert Mayer discovered the Law of Conservation of Energy (now the First Law of Thermodynamics), which states. “Energy is neither created nor destroyed.” Let’s assume the soul is real. Is it energy? Where does it come from? Where does it go?
It’s a concept I dove deep into for the Displaced series, Book II, specifically. Shameless self-promotion again. Sorry, not sorry.
VIII
At one point, Mom took Meg and me to a Billy Graham crusade at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. I remember bits and pieces of the sermon but also not being duly impressed with it. The best, apparently, was to come afterward.
At the sermon’s conclusion, anyone who wanted to be saved was welcome to come down to the field, where an associate would administer the saving. This is what mom did for my sister and me. I had to parrot back some lines. You know, accepting Jesus Christ as my Savior and Him into my life, things of this nature. We each received a booklet of kid-friendly material to study and fill out.
I think I did most of mine, but I don’t recall what happened to it except that it disappeared into a dresser drawer, and that was the end of it. At some later age, I threw it away.
I even took communion at the Baptist church we frequented. I saw it as a free cracker and a thimble of juice. That was to my mother’s chagrin. She didn’t want us to do it or thought we weren’t ready. It never happened again.
We left Eldersburg in 1981 to move to Woodbine, Maryland. Ah, yes. The Woodbine House. That’ll be the subject of many tales to come. It was my obsession right until its demise this year, 2022.
Once settled in Woodbine, church, now in the morning, became a bone of contention with my parents. Sleeping in on Sundays to get up in time to lie there and listen to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 was a priority.
By then, I was done with the concept of religion.
IX
I didn’t share my religion conundrum with mom straight away. As with most topics that give me anxiety, I bury them and let them fester.
By the time Christmas week rolled around, I was nine. My birthday is in early November. I wasn’t dealing with the conflict of religion well. Because the Santa Façade had been a deliberate ruse, I felt the religious system they used to keep me in line, that is, God, heaven, and hell were more of the same.
Such thoughts led to the idea that heaven wasn’t absolute, either. It’s just another stick-and-carrot maneuver to encourage proper behavior. If there’s no heaven, then there’s no hell, either. But more importantly, there’s nothing after death. When we die? Boom! That’s it. The light goes out, and that’s forever.
It was a chilly afternoon when that thought finally fell into place. I was sitting underneath my parent’s window, two stories up. I buried my head in my knees and shivered.
This is all there is, I told myself. Once I die, I don’t exist anymore. No more listening to music, no more watching TV. No more catching lightning bugs. No more sunsets over the reservoir.
I don’t want to not exist!
I was so scared then. I could feel my heart racing and my pulse pounding. I lost control of my breathing. I didn’t come out and cry, but I did tear up.
And then the thought of my mother dying hit me. I didn’t know how to take care of myself; if it was just my father, I’d be the most miserable kid alive!
That sent my symptoms into overdrive. I could feel my face getting red at that point. I didn’t know what was happening to me or how to stop it.
That was my first full-blown panic attack. I was alone. I didn’t want to go running to mom or Charlie. I wanted to find someplace to hide and stay there until I got better.
Today, I deal with them the same way. I’ll go into hiding until I can calm down, and I never want anyone’s help. It only makes the symptoms worse. Coming down from anxiety is something I must do alone.
When it was over, I stood up, went back into the house, and withdrew into my room. The episode exhausted me. I vaguely remember putting on a Beach Boys record and lying down.
Mom knew I spent a lot of time worrying. It wasn’t until 1987 that the bulk of it came out in therapy I was receiving because I’d been cutting and drawing artwork that suggested suicidal ideations.
The time would soon come when I’d demand proof of God. The usual excuse of “Look around you. God made all this” wouldn’t fly anymore. I needed to hear a voice or have Him show up to assure me my parents weren’t full of shit.
I never got those signs, obviously.
That didn’t stop mom from attempting to steer me away from agnosticism. I wasn’t an atheist. Not yet, anyway. I didn’t have evidence one way or the other and needed some. And so I waited for some to appear.
X
Eighteen years would pass before the sign I needed presented itself. It was the day my then-wife Marie chose to murder our unborn child, Madeline.
