Rank: 36088

Views: 417

Profile

  Contact

  Forward

  Print

Blog

Actor in Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States

I know I exist because I’m here. I know I’m here because I’m writing this. I’m not in contact with my family for a reason I do not know. The reason I give is that I don’t want to burden them with my useless life. The only formal education I have is public school up to the eleventh grade and a G.E.D. which I acquired at the University of New Mexico. I find sanctuary in music, television, sex and drugs (both legal and not). I don’t see things out through th... Moree end. In other words I always give up. I have very bad credit and have never had a driver’s license. I’m not considered at first glance obese but not in any way physically fit. Some find me attractive till they get to know me (or at least what I let them know). And some would never give me the time of day. Recently I have been staying indoors for weeks on end. That is except when I go out to check the mail, take the dog out to shit, help Kasy bring something in from the truck or accompany her to Wal-Mart or some bullshit place. I have learned to be content with my life which is the worst thing I have ever done.
I was born in December of 1982 to Verne and Lucia. My father had already had three children, daughters, in a previous marriage. The oldest half-sister Cheyenne, the mid Cierica and the youngest Chata. My father’s marriage with their mother ended for reasons unknown to me. Their mother was always nice to me and from what I had heard would baby-sit me while my mother and father would go out (this of course only had happened after my mother was married to Verne). My mother was 16 when she became pregnant with me and my father was at least in his early 30’s. They divorced before I was old enough to have any recollection of them ever being a couple. When they split I stayed to my mother’s side but kept a relationship with my father, especially when I needed something my mother couldn’t afford, I got in trouble or my mom wanted me out of the house for the weekend or some shit like that. Verne had always been financially more stable than my mother. While I lived with Lucia at my grandmother’s in one of the poorest parts of town, my father had his own house in one of the better parts of town. To me this always seemed somewhat influenced by genetics because on the whole my father’s side of the family were all home owners, employed and financially o.k.. Compared to the food stamp receiving, renting, alcohol and drug abusing family I loved to be around while with my mom. My mother moved from one apartment to the next frequently through my childhood and adolescence. I would visit with my father periodically.
I don’t remember the date exactly but at a guess I was about 9 or 10 years old and in the 5th grade when I first got sick. My mom had since had another son Nathan and a daughter Isabel. Not one of us had the same father, so in essence between my older and younger siblings I was the only child between my mother and father. I had no doubt that my three older sisters loved me, but there was no doubt in my mind that the connection between me and my younger siblings was far greater than that of the three C’s. My first memory of the illness was an unbearable pain on my side. My mom took me to a local heath clinic where she and I were told that it was most likely appendicitis, but after more thorough examination that was not the case. I was getting more ill by the day. My father had since remarried to a young 21 year old named Erma. Now my father was always known as a very respectable man, an established man who had served his country during the Vietnam War. From what I know after he had come back from service he landed a job with the local telephone company where he was employed as a lineman. He would climb up on those telephone poles and do god knows what. To me he had always done that same job from the day I was born to the day he couldn’t work anymore. Erma had already had a son from a previous relationship who honestly to me was a little dumb ass fagot motherfucker that I hated. He was younger than me by I’d say 6 or 7 years. And coincidently Erma was pregnant by what she said was my father’s child. But my older sisters and I (as well as many other people) knew better. Alas before I knew it I was at the only hospital in my little city sitting at the edge of a bed waiting to get my blood drawn. I was nervous, I had never had my blood drawn before but my mom assured me it would be alright. And it was! To me it wasn’t that bad. I was proud of myself. Then at that same moment my little world was crushed by hearing some statements along the line of I would have to be staying overnight and an I.V. would have to be put in. Now I had no idea what an I.V. was so I probably didn’t even think about it. I was very scared and pissed off that I would have to stay. I know I pleaded with my mother, asking her not to let them keep me or if I could just come back some other day. I was never a great negotiator. I still recall that first time I shook hands with the pain of an I.V.. I screamed, cried and cursed. It hurt like a motherfucker. Then they stopped what they were doing to me and I looked down at my hand. I saw blood but no tube or needle. Apparently they couldn’t get the vain. On to the next hand. Same pain, same result. I was pissed. I was crying. I was hurt. Why was I even in this situation? I went from stealing beers at the grown up parties, sniffing glue and markers at school with friends to this? They finally said they got it in somewhere on my arm where I always knew heroine addicts shot up. I was somewhat relieved until I looked at my arm a time later and saw a bubble. Yep they missed the vein again. At some point a college education paid off for them when they were successful. For some reason I knew I was going to go on a trip I hadn’t booked.
I evidently grew increasingly ill and found out that it was my spleen that was enlarged which had been causing me so much pain. At the most a week had past before I found myself being rushed by ambulance two hundred miles north to another hospital. I don’t remember arriving. I’ve been since told that I got so bad I was put in I.C.U.. I heard stories that I was on life support had tubes down my throat and so on. Memories I have of sliding glass doors in my room lead me to believe that this is when I was in I.C.U. Through whatever state my mind was in at this point or whatever drugs I was given I started having hallucinations. First I saw the virgin Mary standing over my bed which I have come to believe I only saw because of religious influence in my mother’s family because I myself do not believe the real existence of such things. Secondly some obscure fighting with a black substance broken down into tiny creatures that I believed were the actual poisons in my body causing me to be ill. Both these things were as real to me as death and equally as terrifying. Lastly I saw this; I looked out of my glass doors and saw my father who I had assumed had came to visit me, and I also saw a male nurse walk over to my father before he reached my room and bashed his head in with some kind on medical instrument, my father fell to the floor. Now at this point I’m screaming and crying calling out for a nurse. Meanwhile my father’s body is being dragged across the floor to a destination unknown. A female nurse finally enters my room and I tell her what had just happened. She looks at me puzzled, which is evidence enough for me that they are all in on it! Somewhere through my insane screaming and ranting they hand me a phone and state my father is on the other end. They were not about to fool me! Fuck that! You think you can put some man on the phone?! I saw what you did! You killed him! This situation and memories of are so fresh in my mind I could relive them whenever I want to. When I came out of this hallucination I do not know, but all I did find out was that my father was alive and I was not only at war with my health but also with my mind.
It was a month or so till I found myself in somewhat of a regular hospital room. I still had the I.V. and a heart monitor. My mom was sitting on a chair next to my bed. She was telling me of how the old Monte Carlo she had lost a tire on the road on her way up to see me and that she had to change it herself on the side of the highway, which wasn’t completely believable due to the fact that my mother wasn’t known to be completely capable of doing such a task by herself, but evidently was true. She didn’t stay with me the whole time because my younger siblings needed tending to of course, but she managed to see me far more than my father who was “busy “most of the time. She looked up at me and said that she had some things to tell me but not to work myself up or to get upset in my fragile state. In what order she told me these things I don’t remember, but what they were was this; I had cancer and she was pregnant again. My heart monitor shot out with a screeching sound. She stood up and told me relax and to breathe. A nurse ran in to check me out I calmed down and cried inside. I didn’t know how to comprehend the fact of having cancer so I analyzed the pregnancy. My mom shared a lot with me and before I had gotten ill I was told after Isabel was born my mom had her tubes tied, so I asked her how could this be? She just said how one out of so many women can become pregnant again and she was that one. I was mad at her but only because it kept my mind off the other thing she told me. I asked my mom the only thing I knew about cancer at the time, “Am I going to lose my hair “. She said she didn’t know but it was a possibility. I cried.
I went through countless days in that hospital room by myself. Given humiliating sponge baths walks to the john because the muscles in my legs had atrophied. Day in and day out I was getting blood drawn, so much in fact that I would finally sleep through it. About twice a week I would be wheel chaired out to the pediatrics’ ward playroom. Which I hated because I was and still am very anti-social. I would sit in my wheelchair off in the corner looking at those bald kids with their catheters sticking out wondering, how they could smile? I wasn’t going to, I didn’t even want to be here. I wasn’t them. I experienced countless x-rays, cat scans and ultrasounds. I was given so many different types of medicines but hadn’t lost any hair. I told my mom that it was going to be so cool if I didn’t lose my hair. She didn’t say anything. What she did tell me was that while in the I.C.U. and unconscious no one thought I was going to make it. That my spleen had needed to be removed before it would rupture and the chances of me surviving such a surgery were slim. But also at that moment before being taken into surgery a doctor by the name of Marilyn insisted on treating me with chemotherapy. That was done and without experiencing the removal of my spleen I showed signs of improvement. I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I lost my hair but also found out that hair loss wasn’t the only side effect of chemotherapy. I lost muscle mass in my legs so I walked funny and had blistering sores in my throat that prevented me from eating. I slowly turned into one of those kids in the playroom and had no choice but to welcome death and smile with them.
After weeks on end of being told that I was getting better, well at least better enough to get out of the hospital, I was growing impatient to do exactly that. I would speak to my mother over the phone and tell her they said I can go home and I would ask her to come get me. Well after a few days of pleading for this my mom was able to drive up and get me out of this hell. I didn’t know I was actually just trading one horrid experience for another, but this time I brought my mom with me. It was early evening when she picked me up. We drove twenty miles to her brother’s trailer. He was not home but she had made arrangements for us to stay there a few days. That first night was frightening. I got a nose bleed. Now the word or even idea of a nose bleed may not seem like anything to bad, but with my blood count at the time it was. I was awaken not only by the shivering of laying on the floor of this beat up trailer during dead winter but I was completely covered in blood. Once my nose stared to bleed it didn’t stop. My mother in a panic, called the hospital, I was screaming and she was welcomed to my hell with open arms. A nurse was finally sent over. She stuffed marble sized cotton swabs drenched in some kind of chemical up my nostrils. They had hurt so bad I still hold my face even to think about it. Well, they worked and I knew just by the look in her eyes that I should have never left that hospital. I wanted to be next to her more than she wanted to be burdened by me. And I won. I forced her to take care of me and that was the first time I found out her love wasn’t unconditional.
Both my mother and I learned how to take care of myself. Through flushing out my catheter, changing dressings and holding each other’s hand while I underwent numerous spinal taps, blood transfusions and popping bone marrow samples. We went through a lot of things together but I went through even more by myself. I still had to try to be a kid and be around other kids who weren’t as blessed with sickly wonders as I was. From time to time I showed my frail body and bald head to others outside my immediate family hoping they wouldn’t say anything to remind me of what I couldn’t stop thinking of, my appearance. They acted as if my illness wasn’t noticeable and I acted as if I believed them. It was a circus of morons. My father didn’t know how to take care of me. I was his only son and his only weakness. He always meant well, but he didn’t know how to love what I had become. I hate, pity, love and respect him for that because good or bad, it takes a certain kind of man not cry with his child.
I had managed to finish fifth grade through help of home schooling by my fifth grade teacher. She would pick me up at home take me to her house where she would educate and feed me. She even went to the jr high school and picked up my assignments and helped out with the first semester of sixth grade. By seventh grade and numerous treatments I went into remission. Which to me was scary because my social security checks were supporting my unemployed mom and our family. I slowly stopped caring about the outcomes of my actions both at home school because I beat cancer, I should be dead, so fuck what anyone said to me! My father, my mother, or any other family could never say a damn word to me because they would never know what I went through. I would make it a point to go outside at night just to look up and say fuck god.
I was expelled from jr high for gang violence. I was around twelve or thirteen years old when I first started to walk the streets with friends. I would come home late or sometimes not at all. Sure I would get yelled at, mostly by my father because my mom was never the disciplinarian. But I didn’t care. I wanted to experience everything I thought I would never get a glimpse of, and I did! The first two items on my list were sex and drugs and to this day they are still on my list. My first sexual experience came one day while skipping school with some friends drinking wine and inhaling numerous aerosol chemicals. There were two girls amongst four guys including myself. One of the girls was short, dark and cute. The other was a tall round redhead. Well before any analyzing went about the redhead picked me and took me. I honestly wanted the other girl, but this behemoth had other plans. We made out for awhile and before I knew it she had me to herself in a spare bedroom. I was scared to death and my heart was racing. She was on top of me and we still had our clothes on. All I could hear was Bone Thugs-n-Harmony’s “no surrender” shooting out from two twelve inch speakers in my friends bedroom, which was only one room down and all I was looking at was the door. Praying that no one walked in and it just so happened that this door that separated me from juvenile humility didn’t have a lock. She stared to try to take off my jeans, fumbling around with her magic marker sized fingers at my belt. she failed and looked up at me and said; “ take off your pants “. It was more an order than a request by the tone of her voice. I was still scared but something inside of me I had never felt before was telling me that I was going to have to fuck this bitch. She pulled down my pants around my ankles then rolled off of me onto her back and proceeded to undo her own pants. There was no way out of this. I stood up in front of this horrific beached mammal still having my eyes somewhat glued to the bedroom door. My body was pulled down on top of hers and she stared to kiss me. I felt her hand slowly moving down to my crotch. She grabbed hold of my dick and pulled it out of my boxer’s dick hole. I groped her full yet seemingly undeveloped tits. I looked up at her nightmare of a face and she asked me a question. I didn’t know then that this question was the focal point of sex and my generation and that I would hear it a hundred times over. It’s even funnier to think that women I come to think of as beautiful never asked me it. “ do you have a condom “. I shook my head and said no. she reached over for her bag and handed me one. I couldn’t say what brand it was because I didn’t look at it. I opened the package of magical armor, pulled out the rubber and placed it at the tip of my dick but it wouldn’t roll down. Having experimented with condom’s in my mother’s bathroom I immediately knew what the problem was and the solution to it. I flipped it over and all was solved. She grabbed my dick again and put it against her pussy. Whether I penetrated her or not I don’t recall, just trying to comprehend all this was chaotic enough. Just then two of my friends kick open the door, look at me and start laughing. I get off of her, pull up my pants and chase them out leaving her behind. I told them to shut the fuck up as I proceeded down the hallway then realizing that I still had the condom on. I went to the bathroom and stuffed it down in the waste basket.
For a couple days after that I heard she was telling people at school I had a big dick. I myself never spoke to her again after that magical day, which wasn’t so bad because I had never spoken to her before. I lost my virginity and my dignity, but I was one step closer to becoming what I was going to be.

james marquez- 11/11/2007
Less