My father moved in a whore and her son when I was at work. My clothes were folded behind the couch. I saw their suitcases. They were in the kitchen talking. I walked into my room, sat on the bed and looked around at his things. My father walked by and looked at me. I asked him what had happened. He threw me disgust. I walked into the kitchen where they stood. She was a fat brunette, high hair and a glittering dress, her fat feet crammed into pumps. Her face was whiskey and batter and trade. Her son was skinny, long hair in the back and wired on speed. My father walked in.

“Jeff. This is your new family. Billie and Brett.”

She gave me a slimy nod. Her son tilted his head back and stared me down. I looked at my hands, walked into the bathroom and ran the water. My palms were bloodied from a spill on my bike riding home from work, working double shifts to save for a car. My father rushed in and slammed the door. In the mirror he asked me why I was being so rude. I kept washing my hands. He asked me again. Through the mirror I could see that he had been up for days. I could see that he had just met her at the bar, and I could see him moving their suitcases up the staircase into our apartment. To my left on the counter I saw a clear vanity bag containing make-up, hair brushes and a small glass pipe. I looked back to the sink. He caught the side of my head with a solid right. It echoed in my skull and left my ear ringing. The hit knocked me into the wall. I resumed washing my hands. He told me that this is the way life was, that if I didn’t like it, to pack my shit and get out. He closed the door quietly. I collapsed to the floor and held my ear with both hands, coming up with blood on my palm. The pain was incredible. I washed the ear, walked back into the bedroom and sat on the bed. It occurred to me that this would be the way it was. I walked into the bathroom and grabbed up my things. In the living room I saw her chopping lines of cocaine on the coffee table. They watched the blade and nothing else. I sat back on the bed and began putting the things my father had missed into one of my pillowcases.

I heard the whore whisper to her son to come talk to me. He walked in and stood over me while I sat on the bed. He nodded down to me and curled his lip back.

“What the fuck are you doing in here?”

He was sweaty junk. His lower jaw orbited his skull, and his eyes were disgusting. My father and the whore appeared in the doorway, and my father smiled. In his smile I saw terrible things. The whore yelled at her kid.

“Brett! That is no way to treat your new brother!”

He ignored her and twitched.

“I asked you a question, faggot.”

I looked at my father. He told me I had to fight my own battles. Her son nudged my shin with the toe of his sneaker.

“Get out of my room.”

My father laughed. He said that if he were me he’d get out of the room before Brett taught me a lesson. I asked him if he’d lost his mind. He was unresponsive. Her son flipped his fingertips against my sore ear and told me to get out again. I stood up and punched him in the teeth. A few slipped back. He fell into the closet doors, and they fell off their tracks. It was loud. My father came for me. I ducked him and her son was up, hand over bloody mouth. He had tears in his eyes. My father had fallen behind the side of the bed. He was grumbling threats, and trying to stand.

I caught her son with a left this time, in the throat. He fell back into the closet and screamed like a girl. His mother came at me in a blind rage. I kicked her hard in the crotch. She stumbled back and dropped in the hallway. I felt a hand on my shoulder spin me around, a flash of meaty knuckles and my lights were turned out.

I woke up hours later. My head was pounding. It was dark in my room. I was under the covers with my shoes off. It occurred to me in the dark that I had turned seventeen the day before. I sat up and walked into the bathroom. The place was pitch black. I flipped the light on.

The whole area above my eyebrows and down to the center of my nose was dark blue and kidney shaped, like a dark birthmark. My neck was stiff. I touched the bruise. Shock waves of pain rolled around my head. There was the clear vanity bag to my left. In a cup in the medicine cabinet sat a plastic cup with dentures at the bottom. I walked into my room and put my shoes on.

Through the bathroom light I could hear them passed out in the living room, down from days of speed. I watched the room from the doorway. My belongings were no longer packed behind the couch. In the bathroom I lifted the dentures from the cup and crushed them under my heel, returning the crumbs back into the cup. They floated there. I closed the medicine cabinet.

Out in the living room I stepped over my father on the floor. The other two were sharing the couch. She was sleeping on top of her son. I was heading across the street to the store for aspirin. Outside sat my belongings in a duffel bag next to my bike. I wondered why they hadn’t been stolen. We didn’t exactly live in the hills. I closed the door. My father jumped up and locked the deadbolt.

I wheeled the bag on my bike across the street. The Sun was coming up behind the supermarket. I placed my bike and my bag next to a register and found a bottle of aspirin and a jug of water, a candy bar, some medicated cream and a box of gauze. When I went to pay my wallet was empty. I had three weeks’ pay in there. Both of my pockets were empty. The lady at the counter asked me what happened to my face. I told her I had just been mugged. She pointed out that my tooth was chipped in half. I felt it. My upper lip was swollen and my front tooth was chipped. Since she’d mentioned it, it hurt to breathe in. I left the store empty. My sister lived six miles west, in a worse part of town. It was still hot in Phoenix. October meant nothing. The bag was without straps, and I had to stop every few blocks to balance it on the frame. I walked my things to her house.

She was at work and the kids were in school. She had three kids from three separate marriages, living in a two bedroom duplex in Glendale. I didn’t want to walk into her work looking like I did. I hopped her fence and fell asleep under the trampoline.

I woke up sweating from the heat of the black rubber. I found a corner of the yard and threw up. Under a palm’s short shade I went through my bag and found my Walkman far at the bottom. I played my music until my batteries went dead. I thought of ways to get my four hundred and sixty-two dollars back from my father, though I knew it was spent already. I laid my head on a pillow of shirts and closed my eyes. Since the sudden death of my mother, he was bound for what he did. The pain of his chemical life was easier for him than dealing with his guilt for treating her like dirt, for ignoring her. Now he was called back to his youth, to the barrooms and whores, the powders cut and cooked, the embalmed cigarettes and the grip of rushing into dawn. Only thing was he still had a son. I wanted to hate him but I couldn’t. I thought about my mother reading her bible from her chair under the big lamp. She was with the faith but never once pushed it on us. I thought about the old man now, a husk of waste on the floor, while I taste my vomit and blood. He was once a decent man, now just another drunk a payday closer to the streets and filth, to gutters littered with syringes, laughing with broken glass and shards of bone. My throat grew thick with bile and I leaned to my side and let it go on the grass. The Sun reached through gaps in the palms and gripped my swollen eye. It burned with tears but my eyelid wouldn’t open for anything. I covered my brow with a shirt and remembered back to my old life, to my mother reading the word, and my head burned beneath the sky that was once full with stars, which was now bright with sickness while I try to breathe. All of nature’s passions spent, all of her god’s forgotten grace descended and rotting, the failure of his plan and the bloody tears of war-torn angels. All the mysteries of children lacerated.

Hot wind blew through the windows of the Ranger in the summer of my 20th year as we cruised east on 84 headed back to La Grande from Pendleton. My legs smashed in the back where I sat with the gypsy, her big Chief Broom husband rode shotgun while my asshole husband drove.

Pink Floyd; Atom, Heart, Mother, my stoned glazed eyes watched the prairie roll by. I didn't want to talk, but the gypsy kept asking me questions about selling her jewelry on consignment at the coffee shop where I worked. The mother of the guitarist of my asshole husband's band, she annoyed me. Her skin leathery from years of heroine, alcohol, and cigarettes. Mother to a methhead with amazing skills that would get wasted. I remember just watching her mouth move and thinking how appropriate the music, Funky Dung.

Eventually we got to the university where everyone agreed would be a good place to have the Native and the Gypsy spread out their wares for college kids to waste their money.

I just wanted to get away from these people, the funky pachouli. Making some excuse about getting stuff to picnic on, I parted from them headed to my parents house.

I walked south along 6th Street, the stone starting to wear off, mind wondering. A siren ran red west along C Street, not a common sight in this small town.

I cut up F Street, that's when the sirens cut, and something grabbed my gut. Turning left onto 4th I saw my confirmation.

Blue gloves, gurney....

"It's the old lady next door", I tried to tell myself, but I knew. I ran up to the paramedics, pulling my ID out of the back pocket of my cut offs. One of them looked at me worried I'd be difficult, but years of emergency training shut down any emotion as I explained I lived there, this was my family.

One last thread of denial ran through my mind, that maybe ...

But the cries from the house confirmed it. My dad and sister poured from the house, emotion poured from the house.

It was over.

I wandered into the house, making my way to the back of the house, past the rushing blue gloves and orders, through the back living room to the bedroom where my mother lay clutching the gun, still, pale, free.

Dad and sister hastily packed and left to stay at a hotel.

In a blur I wondered back to the group at the college. My husband decided to lose it on me and leave for Portland. The Native and the gypsy followed me back to the now empty house, manifested sage, shoved it into my hand. We smudged each window sill, door frame, and corner.

Everything became increasingly blurry and dark. I sat down on the couch, still in shock and covered my face for who knows how long.

Everyone was gone.

Days and nights she’d spent for him. Time was the one commodity that could never be taken back. Money was not irreplaceable, no matter what they said. Money was precious as water, but so long as one was willing to work to boil the salt out of it there was a whole ocean eternally waiting to be drawn from.

She had given him her life. Bound herself to him as wife to husband, and thought it right and good. She had borne him six sons, left herself alone in the kitchens and never complained as she slaved before the hearth to feed their hungry mouths. She was the milked cow, set in her ways and content to chew her cud and wait for herself to dry up and be put down.

When she found the letters, something inside her old bovine body stirred. That odd greyness faded, the tiredness washed away. She felt for the first time in decades a familiar sharpness in her chest. The hotness of rage. The idea that he’d been using his trips to town to lie with a whore, to spit his weak trickle of old seed into the loins of a slut, shook her. Her fingers pressed into the pages and a snarl peeled her lips from her teeth.

Was she not deserving of loyalty? Had her lifetime of service not been enough? Had her years of submitting to his wishes over and over not gained her some place in his heart?

He’d gotten her pregnant. He would have an illegitimate son. The whore would reap the benefit of HER womb, and her children, hard earned through her own pain, would work to feed the mouth of the unholy spawn.

As she kneaded the dough for the bread that night, she molded their faces. Her fingers worked rough caricatures to life. She smashed them. Pounded them. Broke them down.

She thought of them bringing the food she had made to their mouths. She thought of him especially, chewing away. Thought of him later that night deciding he needed sating. Thought of him using his calloused hands to peel at her dress and stick in her what he’d stuck between the legs of a diseased, fallen woman.

She beat the bread till her knuckles bled. She hollered her rage at unheeding walls.

She added yeast.

She added flour.

She added broken glass.

They would eat well that night.

A beautiful June weekend in our favorite place: surfing and sun overload, two of the kids' first time on a board, together, hearts intertwined, smiles, belly laughs. Our private world. Seven.

Breakfast and presents and singing in bed. Happy Fathers Day to the man we adore.

Then, the text on your phone. One I was not expecting. I cannot breathe. A crushing, life-altering kick in the face. You threw it all away. Changing everything for all of us in that moment.

Thoughts constantly flooded my mind. I knew what was happening. The tears, pain, hopelessness, despair, and fears all whizzed around in my soul. I tricked myself into believing that I was a burden to others, a lost cause without any sense of direction. It snowballed from there.

My anxiety worsened; my depression consumed me. I couldn't live with myself anymore. I was disappointed and angry. I had nowhere to turn, no one to talk to. The people I did talk to couldn't offer reconciliation or consolation, only hollow jokes and useless advice.

On October 7, 2013 while in my 4A class in the gym, I wrote the first letter. It was titled to everyone, anyone who ever had known me or seen me. I had planned more after that, to a specific person or group of people. I figured that I couldn't go on, that life wasn't worth living, and I just wanted to end the pain that crushed my spirit.

Thankfully, I received help and have recovered.

He could never say anything positive, embarrassing me and pushing my buttons oh so well.

His constant jabs, snide comments and antagonizing barbs I ignored and stoically took.

Then one day he really went too far, making me angrier than hell.

So, that's when I finally unfriended him from Facebook.

My favorite tipping point is that of the fears of time travel. As Ray Bradbury wrote in "A sound of Thunder", he tells of a man given the opportunity to time travel. The man is given only one instruction, "do not stray from the path". Well the guy does stray from the path and he ends up killing a butterfly, no biggie. When he gets back, everything is different and it's not for the better. All because he killed a bug in prehistoric times, he changed life as he knew it.

What if what might have been...is actually...what makes you now?

One phrase, one phrase like any other to start it. One phrase could also be what finishes that quilt...or pulls another thread.

Maybe the whole situation can be the beginning of an epiphanic style of socializing. Time passing, people moving on, making a living; then almost unnoticeably making small changes. Meeting people who have made those same small changes,and finding commonality. Realization of the ability for advancement and making greater changes. Then looking back on the times of past to remember...

...it started with one phrase.

Just fifty words...my how cruel!

I explained to the waiter, with my patience almost gone, that I needed to speak to his supervisor regarding the manner of service.

He was French, and turning gave me one of those looks that hinted arrogance. Enraged, I stood up, croutons flying everywhere.....

“Hey folks, thanks for coming out tonight. This turnout is incredible. Yes, ma’am I love you too. I love me some Seattle anytime... Well, not all of Seattle but certainly you, your rack, and maybe you too, Sir…

No, I love you all. I love people, believe it or not. I know as a comedian that’s not usually the case. ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ could be the title to all our autobiographies, but I’m fifty now. So…I’ve paid my dues. And I’m gonna start loving people, enjoying things. Doing all that middle-aged stuff like retiring, reflecting, getting the squirts…

You know, I’ve been in this business for thirty-five years, can you believe it? Thirty-five years. To some of you miniskirts, that’s how long ago Jesus lived. To the rest of you calculator apps, it means I started at fifteen. Yes, I see you, fucker. Turn that shit off. I’m talking here! I know you need to know the math but like I said, I’ve been in this business for THIRTY-FIVE YEARS so I know just to TELL you the numbers!

So drink your beer, enjoy the show, and be stupid.

Geez.

Stupid people are the best. Really are. I love them. I love only them. I should’ve made that clear when I said I love people. Nope. Just the stupid ones. That’s why I said I love you all.

No, I'd never associate you guys with stupid. Dirty, maybe. And weird Just a bunch of intelligent weirdoes dressed as dirty hobos. Who are drunk. But I appreciate it. I appreciate the inebriation. It makes my job easier. I don’t get insulted anymore because I know I’m never gonna get any funnier than I am now. When I was fifteen, and twenty years old, I used to get really upset when people would get drunk at my shows. They wouldn’t heckle me or anything. I don’t think I ever got heckled because I was so bad, they probably thought I was the intermission, some wannabe emo-snot attempting slam poetry. I’d do bits about my dick and how I used to call it Harry Potter because it wasn’t until something big and hairy called it a wizard that life became infinity better. Yes, I know, bad. Really bad. I would never infer that Hagrid could possibly represent J.K. Rowling’s vagina.

Strangely enough, I was a virgin at that time.

That time when I was making terrible jokes because I was trying it out. Testing to see if the funniness I thought of mysef was really just that—that we were hilarious. That we could be comedians. Every comedian remembers that first laugh, the “bug” as they call it. And rightfully so. Calling it a “bug”, I mean, because it’s a fucking parasite. It burrows in you and takes over and no matter how many drugs you do and how many pussies you lie about pounding, you can’t get rid of it. And you come to a point when you have to see, you have to try and get your stuff out there, even if it fails the first thousand times, because the parasite has taken over so much of you, you’re no longer scared. And that’s when you become who you’re supposed to be, do what you’re supposed to do. For some it’s being an actor, or a writer. For others, it’s something useful like a scientist or Victoria Secret’s model. For me, clearly it was this. And it took thirty-five years and I’m in balls-deep. No longer just the tip. And I still hate people, but that’s okay because I get to hand out gems like, ‘Hagrid represents J.K. Rowling’s vagina.’ so fuck it. Try getting that out of your head."