Just Wanted to Learn

  Some of my dad’s brothers and sisters had come to watch us play. They had never seen us play before, because we always played at bars. Lee and his wife had shown up.

  The stage was set and we all were nervous. The skies grew darker. We didn’t know how long the weather would let us play.

  We had gotten up on stage and started playing. After the first two songs, we found our grove. When the third song comes to an end, so did the show.

  A thunderstorm had moved into the area. The rain had started coming down. The show was canceled. It was mad dash to get the instruments undercover.

  My dad was upset, but wasn’t the only one. We were all upset and not just for ourselves, but for my dad. We all knew how much he wanted to play on the main stage.

  We all had tried to do our best. It just wasn’t meant to be. Mother Nature does what she wants.

  The bar we had always played at was down the street and that’s where we all had gone. We didn’t play anymore that night. I had two beers and then had gone home.

  That was the last time North Cherokee played together. It felt like we had failed.

  Chapter Thirty

  Things had only gotten worse between Jennifer and me. She moved back in with her mom a few days after the show and my twenty-second birthday. I had no idea that she had planned to move out.

  She had told some lies about me that way her mom would let her move back in. She told her mom that I was growing marijuana in the house and that’s why she wasn’t allowed in the apartment. I had never said that her mom wasn’t allowed over.

  I did some things that I regret because I was upset about the situation. I had sent some dirty pictures to her place of work. That put an end to that relationship.

  That’s month’s rent was coming up, but I didn’t have it. My brother said that I could stay out at his house. I got my deposit back and packed my things. I had kept Jennifer’s guitar.

  My brother lived out in the country. There were only three other houses and an old church on his part of the road. I had never seen anyone at the church.

  The first night at my brother’s house a there was a couple that had stopped by their names was Chad and Kathy. I had first met them when my brother had brought them to the apartment.

  We had smoked and got high. We were sitting back and listening to music, and then a knock had come at the door.

  It was a guy that I had never seen before, but my brother had. The guy had invited us to his church, which was the church down the road.

  I thought it was weird. I had never seen anyone at that church on a Sunday or a Wednesday night.

  On this Wednesday night, when I would usually be playing in a bar, we all decided to go to church. What was becoming of my life?

  The small church looked better on the inside than it did on the outside. There were about ten other people there. Some of them were drug addicts and ex criminals.

  The whole thing felt weird to me. It didn’t feel like a normal church. None of us felt comfortable being there. We did stay for the services.

  After the service was done, Chad and I were checking out the piano and guitar. Chad could also play. They had let us play on them. We all were surprised that Chad knew how to play the piano.

  They had tried talking us into coming and playing every Sunday. They would even give us the keys to the church so we could practice at anytime. We didn’t know any church music. I did agree to go back and play on Sunday.

  There was a lady who wanted to sing Amazing Grace. I had forgotten how to play it. She said that she usually sang it with the chords to House of The Rising Sun but with a Capo. I knew that I could do that.

  Sunday had come and everyone else had changed their minds about going. I didn’t want to go either, but I said that I would be there. I was getting frustrated.

  I bothered them till they agreed to go. They all had talked me into going on Wednesday, so it was only fair. I wasn’t going to go alone.

  We all sat through the service even though we didn’t want to be there. I did get up with my twelve string guitar and helped the lady with her song.

  We never went back to that church after that Sunday. We started seeing cars there for a while, but then nothing.

  I did try to make myself feel at home at Lee’s house. It was hard. I didn’t even like being around his pit bulls. One of them we had to shoot shortly after I had moved in.

  This is when I found out that Lee and I didn’t live the same way. He had different ways of life. I thought that I could blend in and live his way of life for a while, which was drugs, alcohol, and people constantly stopping by.

  I did play guitar a little while staying at Lee’s house. Chad had brought over his guitar a couple of time and we had jammed.

  I had started a new job. I started working for a guy hanging gutters.

  I was going down a bad road. I started drinking and smoking weed more. Then I started doing oxy’s and cocaine.

  Chad had come into some money and started getting hotel rooms just to do cocaine in. He would get the rooms with hot tubs.

  This was the time when I really started questioning my faith. I started reading witchcraft books and things on Satanism.

  I had always been told that my dad had been into Satan worshiping. My mom said he used to party where a lot of it was taking place.

  We were also told that a cross had been put onto my dad’s arm. The cross had burnt my arm. The story was hard to believe, but it was what we were told.

  I did try and hold down my job which was hard. My brother would party well into the night. Sometimes the house would be full of his friends. He could be loud no matter how many people were there.

  Some of his friends I really didn’t like. His old friend Josh was stopping by and staying a lot. I tried to fight him a couple times while I lived there.

  I knew that I was going to have to move out. My brother and I just couldn’t see eye to eye on things.

  There were always guns in the house. Lee and his friends would get drunk and shoot them. Some of them weren’t legal for him to have.

  The house was always dirty. I wasn’t any help there. There was always a chance that the house could have been raided by the cops.

  I knew that it wasn’t the right environment for me. As soon as I found an option, I moved out.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I went back to the motel for a little while. I had talked to a guy that I had known named Josh. He was staying in a townhouse apartment and had an extra room.

  I had known Josh from high school. We had smoked and drink a little together. My boss lived and ran his business next door to Josh’s grandma’s house. That’s where Josh had always lived.

  I hardly played guitar when I lived there. The guitars had collected some dust.

  Winter had come and work had gotten slow. He helped me get a third shift job at a grocery store.

  It turned out to be a decent job. My friend was supervisor and his drug dealer was second in command.

  We used to take our breaks in the produce section of the back. There weren’t any cameras in there. We would sit in there and get high.

  At first things were alright, and then girls came into the picture. He was having troubles with his girlfriend. He was also cheating on her with another girl who he thought got him pregnant.

  His girlfriend was trying to get with me to make him mad, but that didn’t work. I did do some things with the girl that he thought he had gotten pregnant.

  The baby ended up not being his. Then the girl thought that it would be a good idea to tell him what she and I had done.

  I wasn’t paying my far share of the bills. The place that we were staying at was really more than I could afford. We also smoked a lot of weed while I was there.

  I had quit working at the grocery store. Construction was picking up as the weather got warm. Working outside was great for me and that where I made the most money.
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  We had money issues and issues over girls, so I moved out.

  I moved outside of Greenville, Ohio into a trailer with Chad and Kathy. They had a spare room that was for his son, but his son wasn’t staying with them. They said I could use the room.

  Chad and I got a big surprise the first day I moved in. As we were getting close, we noticed the cops in front of his trailer. Kathy had been smoking a joint when the cops showed up on another issue.

  Things seemed bad when I first moved in. I didn’t think that I would be staying there long. Then I did start playing guitar more.

  Chad was in a band. He offered to let me go to his band practice, but I didn’t. I’m not the type to sit and just listen to a band practice when I’m not there to play.

  Chad was a good guitar player. He knew the newer music. It gave me something to learn besides country and classic rock.

  I was still taking the long drive to hang gutters. Then it seemed like I had to drive Chad and Kathy everywhere. The two of them didn’t have a driver’s license.

  I did get upset about this, because he would drive to two places. He did have an old van.

  He would drive to band practice and to get weed. Then when he wanted to go somewhere else he expected me to drive.

  There were times when we would help each other with songs. He had written one song and I had helped him finish the music to it. Then he took it to his band to play.

  I was alright with him taking the song to his band. It was his song. I did get paranoid that he would take the songs that I had been working to his band also.

  The two songs that people like the most were written in that trailer.

  Chad was still going through some money and had bought a large quantity of cocaine. We started smoking a lot more weed and doing more coke.

  I had gone out to his band practice one night, because that was where the coke was going. Then I met a guy named, Barry.

  Barry was a roofer with a lot of energy. He’s also a drummer. His house was out in the country. I found out it was just down the road from my mom’s house.

  His house sat a good distance from the road. There was a porch on the back side of the house. That’s where the music equipment was set up.

  They didn’t have a bass player. They did have some guy playing lead guitar. I wasn’t too impressed with him.

  He was a heavy set guy. He thought he was a biker type, but my first impression wasn’t biker.

  The guitar player was having a hard time getting motivated and everyone else was getting bored. Chad and I had picked up the guitars. The Barry had joined in on the drums.

  We had played a couple of songs that Chad and I had worked on. We sounded good.

  I sat and watched them practice. I wasn’t too impressed. I thought that they had sounded better with me than with their lead guitar player.

  Chad’s band slowly died out. We jammed around the trailer. Barry would come over some times with his Bongos.

  It had been awhile since I could enjoy just sitting around and playing music. I had nothing against being in a band. At the time I didn’t want the frustration of dealing with a band in any kind of way.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I had met a girl named Carrie at a bar in Greenville. There was karaoke going on at the bar. It was the first time that I had tried doing it. She had liked the songs that I had done.

  I had gotten a chance to talk to her and she had come back to the trailer. She wasn’t my type, but we started dating. After dating for a while, I had moved in with her. I had turned twenty-three.

  Carrie and I were two different people. I didn’t fit in with her family. Her family was nothing like my family.

  She was overweight with short dark red hair. She was twenty-eight years old. She had a good job at first, but lost it then started working at a factory.

  I was still working construction and hanging gutters. The money was good when the weather stayed nice.

  I had taken the day off work one day. I was sitting at the apartment with her. We were watching television and had seen the plane go into the second tower of the World Trade Center.

  Carrie did help me get a guitar. We used her credit card and I had to pay the payments on it. I had gotten a Fender Tele acoustic. It was the best six string acoustic guitar that I had ever owned. Then it seems that the guitar wasn’t enough.

  The pa/amp was next. I wanted my own equipment. I could have put on a one man show if I had wanted to.

  I had slowed down on my drinking. I was still smoking weed, but not as much. I would do coke only when I was around Chad or my brother.

  During the winter I didn’t work much. It was hard to find part time work. I did try and start a band. I didn’t have anything else to do.

  I tried to start with Chad. I thought we could mix our styles together and sound good.

  We practiced a couple of times. Then he wouldn’t show up to practice. I gave up trying with him.

  My dad had moved and I had visited him a few times. We started talking about trying to do something together. It was supposed to be my dad, Ben, myself, and my dad wanted to bring in Doug.

  I wasn’t for sure if I wanted to have Doug play with us. The idea wasn’t going to work anyways.

  I had met a lot of Carrie’s family. I didn’t get along with most of them. She did have a cousin I could relate to.

  Travis was a young guy and likes to play music. He had planned to go to school for music. He had played to the newer music that I was trying to learn.

  We had talked a little and decided to try the band thing. I wanted my dad to be a part of it. We would have to drive to my dad’s house and he lived forty minutes away.

  I had taken Travis to meet my dad and play one night. He wasn’t used to someone like my dad.

  The motivation and things just weren’t there. Travis really didn’t want to do it.

  I had my dad ready to start a band with me as the front man. Every time we tried it failed before it even got started.

  Carrie and I had a really bad relationship. We were always fighting. We were two different people that wanted to have totally different lives.

  I would like to say that I had tried to do my best. There were no attempts to make and serious changes in my life. I had put her in debt.

  I didn’t like her family or her church. Her family thought that they were better than everyone else. They were different then both sides of my family.

  Her family owned their own church. Only the family had a say in what happened in the church. It was mostly her family members that went to the church.

  They would bring in a pastor. If they didn’t like what he had to say, they would get rid of him. I got to see how the dealt with that.

  They didn’t use a regular Bible. They were books of some guy’s interpretation of the Bible. You couldn’t follow along if you went there using a Kings James Version Bible.

  Carrie’s father was having an affair with a member of the church. They wanted to keep it quite that way he wouldn’t be kicked off the church’s board members.

  Everyone must get their own meaning from the Bible. Preachers are only to guide you through the good book. Just because someone is a preacher doesn’t mean that they are always right.

  I would only go to her church if I was drunk or stone. I was starting to be like my dad and I didn’t even see it.

  I was starting to see that I wasn’t good in relationships.

  Things had ended badly between Carrie and me. No one knew why or how it lasted as long as it did. I was not the good guy in the relationship. The time had come and I wasn’t surprised.

  She had kicked me out of the apartment. I had to call my mom just to help with gas money. I had no place to go. I had gone and stayed at Chad’s for a couple of days.

  Chad had split up with Kathy. I just needed a place till I know it was really over with Carrie.

  Chad and I did nothi
ng but drink and smoke weed. The last night I was there we had to get out of the trailer.

  We put two cases of beer in the back seat of the Camaro and headed to Dayton. We were going to the strip club.

  We stopped at one that I had never been at. It was a small place. We weren’t there very long till Chad had started talking to this woman.

  She was heavy set and wearing black. Her dark hair was shoulder length. She wasn’t one of the dancers.

  Chad had gotten her to agree to take a ride with us. She had to wait on her friend who was on stage dancing.

  The woman had talked to her friend as she walked off the stage. Her friend had put on a tee shirt and we headed to the car.

  They wanted me to take the tee tops off the Camaro, so I did and we got in. I started down the main street with a stripper with only a g-string and tee shirt on in the passenger seat. Chad and the heavy set girl in the back and Chad were making a fool out of himself.

  I had been drinking so I was trying to focus on my driving. Then other drivers started honking at me. I looked over and the striper was standing up in the seat. She had taken off her shirt.

  I was trying to keep an eye on the road and also on the striper. She was hanging out the tee tops with only a g-string and high heels.

  Chad was really drunk and was getting rude with the other girl. They also wanted weed and we didn’t have any.

  We went ahead and dropped them off. The striper had given me a picture of her standing by a car in a bikini. We headed back to the trailer.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Carrie and I didn’t get back together. I went and stayed with my dad because it was closer to my job. I was back to hanging gutters.

  I only stayed with my dad and Lena’s for a week. The only thing that happened that week was her son, Derek, had introduced me to ecstasy. I did it three times.

  I had gone back to living at the motel. At first it felt good to be back on my own.

  I did visit my dad a lot. It was just for him to get me high. I never had anything to say to him. I would smoke and then just play his guitar till I left.

  I did take a friend of mine named Jeff over to my dad’s house. We worked together hanging gutters for years and had become friends.