(part 173) FREEDOM FROM BONDAGE

There is no glory in the telling of these things, nor from my standpoint, any condemnation in the iteration of the facts. They are what they are. What I am doing is relaying, as best I can, the events and the mindset that existed at the time being discussed.

Whether I was right or wrong is a judgement I will leave to the reader. I do not do now, what I did then, but what I did then was what I did as a result of where my addictions and madness led me.

Had I not been who I was, and had I not pursued what I pursued, perhaps none of this would have ever happened. I told you that my thinking at the time was "Fuck me, fuck you, fuck life, and fuck God," because that was exactly what I was thinking when the event with the bottle occurred.

I wanted to drink and couldn't. My mental and moral state was outlandish and deeply flawed, but during those moments, by whatever means, something which ran contrary to my decisions and actions, intervened in my behavior and did not permit me to take one more drink.

That force, that thing, whatever it was, superseded all that I was in that instant. It was not subtle, it was absolute. It was not vague, but overwhelming. All of my will could not put that bottle in my mouth.

I am sure there will be various opinions about what it was. In my mind, it was and is, the most concrete evidence I have of a "power greater than myself" stepping in against my will saying, "That's enough Bobby, that's enough."

There wasn't a decision on my part to stop drinking, or to invite or accept God, or any other power into my life that morning. To the contrary, and this is important, this power exhibited itself of it's own accord, whether or not I invited it or agreed to it, which I hadn't. It was not left up to me in any way.

When I came to, hours later, believe me, I needed a drink, and could have gotten one, but I didn't want one. This for me was a dramatic difference. I could not ever remember not wanting a drink. For those of you who can take it or leave it, this may seem absurd, but for me, this was an absolute difference in my behavior and thinking.

On April 1, 1976, I sat in a heap in the home of my old AA sponsor. I was coming down hard. I shook uncontrollably and cried like a baby as the alcohol's effect wore thin.

Every fiber of my being needed a drink, but I wouldn't take one. As I continued to disintegrate before the eyes of his family, my old sponsor asked if I wanted a drink, knowing what I was going through. "No!" I croaked, "I don't want any."

He'd seen this before and knew my history in AA. He'd seen me come in and then go back out, so with some reluctance he tried to believe me when I said I wasn't going to drink.

He asked what I was willing to do to stay sober, and I said, "Anything!" He asked if I would go to a hospital, and I said, "Yes!" It was clear that a "cold turkey" come down was going to be brutal, so he wanted me to be in the hands of someone who could deal with seizures if they occurred.

I'd come down hard before, but this time was going to be the worst. It gets progressively harder each time the body and mind have to go through this process.

I'd gotten sober in his house before, and it had been bad, so this time he wanted to spare his family having to watch me go through it again.

He called another member of AA who showed up within the hour, and together they put me in a car and drove me to emergency at L.A. General.

The hospital did not want to take me, but these two men refused to leave. They sat there with me for hours, and watched me sink ever deeper into distress. Periodically they'd ask me if I needed a drink, saying, "We can get you one if you need it."

"No!" I squeaked, "I don't want any." Finally someone from the hospital asked if I was willing to go by ambulance to Long Beach General, which had a detox center and alcoholism program. I said I would do anything, anything at all.

The two men who took me to the hospital spent most of their day making sure I got to where I needed to go. They missed work and never complained.

They had plenty of reason to believe that this was another time when Bobby Jameson was going to get sober just to end up drunk again, so it has always amazed me that they did what they did, for free, for another sick alcoholic, me.

(part 172) THE TURNING POINT

I sat alone in the car looking at the empty parking lot at Mayfair market. The early morning gray and a sunless sky added to my sense of feeling lost.

I took another drink of scotch and stared at the bottle in my hand. I didn't know where to go or what I was going to do, so I just sat there for a long time and drank.

After burglarizing a number of hotels in the past few months, I felt like a real sleazebag. The outlook for me on this day was pretty grim.

I longed for the good old days when my future looked bright, and none of what I knew now bothered me. I remembered all the places I'd been, things I'd done, and people I'd met before today.

April Fool's Day, and the joke was on me, except it was no joke. This was as real as it got. This is where I'd gotten after 31 years of life. Drinking alone in a car, at six in the morning, feeling like shit for stealing someone's luggage out of their hotel room.

After some time, I started the car and drove out on the street. I told myself to be cool so I wouldn't get busted for drunk driving on top of everything else that was going on.

Twenty minutes later, I pulled up to the curb in front of my old AA sponsor's house and sat there staring at it. It was still early so I was pretty sure no one was up.

I tried to drive away a couple of times, but didn't. Finally I got out of the car and walked up the driveway to the back of the house. I didn't want to wake anyone, so I didn't knock on the door; I just needed a place to think.

Bottle in hand, I checked the back door and found it open. With a sigh of relief I let myself in and headed for the family room and a large soft chair. I'd been in the house many times, so it wasn't a problem maneuvering my way around.

I don't know why I'd decided to come here because in my mind I had no plans to stop drinking. If anything, I wanted to drink myself into total oblivion and even death, but found that accomplishing that was extremely difficult to do.

I settled back in the big chair with a sense of relief and stared off into space. I looked at my life and asked myself what I really thought. What did I think? Where did I stand? My answer was this. I stood in the middle of nowhere.

At that moment, I didn't believe in anything, including myself. I was a disaster in every way in my mind. I thought specifically, and I do mean specifically, "Fuck me, fuck you, fuck life, fuck the planet earth, and fuck God." That was my exact position. I asked myself if I would ever stop getting loaded? "Fuck no," I thought, and tried to take another drink.

I lifted the bottle, but couldn't make my arm put it to my lips. I tried repeatedly, but couldn't do it. It was as if someone had a hold of my arm and wouldn't let me put the bottle in my mouth.

I just couldn't do it, and believe me I tried over and over again. This is the last thing I remember until later that morning, when I came to, and the whole family was staring at me saying something like, "Hey, he's waking up. Bobby's waking up."

My old sponsor's son had gotten up and gone to the bathroom and found me on the floor. He'd thought I was dead and woke up his parents. Together they had picked me up and carried me to another room and put me on a couch or bed, I don't remember.

Now they were all staring at me as I came to, and looking both concerned and relieved at the same time. I began apologizing to them for coming in and being drunk and uninvited, but they said it was OK, and they were just glad I wasn't dead.

I told them how I tried to take a drink and couldn't, but it just came out like blither. My head was turning and I felt like death warmed over. My sense of remorse was overwhelming, and I was ashamed of coming into their house like this.

I'd scared the crap out of them and realized that all I'd been thinking of was myself. That was it. All I ever did was think about myself, that was exactly the problem. Never them, always me. Never her or him, but me, me, me. My feelings, my life, my this, my that. I was tired of the bullshit of being me.

I needed a drink, but didn't want one. I needed to get up and leave, but stayed. I wanted to blame someone, but couldn't. I'd run the gamut. I'd burned down every bridge, used up every favor, and was finally staring in the face of my problem, me.

I couldn't lie to myself any more. I couldn't blame anyone else any more. It was me drinking and using. It was exactly that and nothing more.

It was the getting loaded that had brought me to where I was on April 1, 1976. To the turning point. I remembered that from AA. It said "We stood at the turning point."

(part 171) NO PLANS AT ALL

As I write these words in search of my own meaning, and the context of this story as well, I struggle with the garbage I have had to revisit in the past couple of years.

It has not been all that pleasant, at times, doing this. Coupled with health problems and bouts of frustration, I continue the process of deciding, one way or another, what is relevant and what is not.

There is nothing I can do about my past, other than to not repeat it in my daily life, but use it as an example of how not to live.

When I tell you that I hit a women in the face because her rug was more important to her than the fact that I was bleeding from a knife wound, I am not saying I was right; I am telling you what happened as factually as I can.

None of these things by themselves had the power to alter my course in 1975, but collectively, the direction I was headed in was taking a toll on my gut.

I began to see clearly that the person I'd become, and more importantly the person I was becoming, was not acceptable to me in a strict philosophical sense.

I had been rejected so many times, in so many ways, by so many in the past, that I was now guilty of rejecting myself. In short, I was trying to discard or throw away Bobby Jameson and create an entirely different person.

Again, the problem was the person I'd created, and was continuing to create. What I was building in my attempt to replace the old Bobby Jameson, was a far worse version than the one I was trying to get rid of.

Looking into the future, I could see my direction was leading to a tragedy I was unwilling to accept, such as killing someone while loaded, and ending up in prison as a result.

I began asking myself if what I was doing was working for me and my answer was "No!" That gave rise to the next question, which was, "Why the fuck do you keep doing this then?"

I pondered this question in detail, for some time, and decided I didn't know. I did not know why I continued to do that which clearly was not working to make my life better.

This may seem obvious to many, but in my world, this unanswerable question became the key to my actions and decisions in the first few months of 1976.

As stated, I'd begun committing criminal acts in 1975 that included, amongst other things, burglaries. With a guy I'd met earlier through DP, we'd go to hotels in the area with a stolen ring of master keys and rob people's rooms.

On the 1st of April 1976, at about 4 in the morning, I found myself in the lobby of a hotel in Beverly Hills dragging a large piece of stolen luggage across the floor. I was so drunk I could barely stand up, so being cool and not drawing attention to myself was impossible.

As I struggled with the bag, a hotel employee approached me from across the lobby, and I assumed I was about to be busted. Resigning myself to this, I let go of the piece of luggage and waited for the worst.

But what I heard instead was, "Can I help you with that, Sir?" I quickly recovered my composure and answered, "You can get me a cab." He turned toward the main door and and went out and waved for a taxi and returned to where I was standing.

"Let me get that for you sir," he said, and reached down and picked up the bag. I walked out the exit to the cab, waited while he opened the door for me, and I got in.

He asked if I wanted the bag in the trunk, and I said, "No! Put it in here with me." About 30 minutes later I was in the apartment of my partner in crime while he went through the luggage on the floor.

I sat in a chair watching as he examined the items. I studied his reactions and the expression on his face as he handled each stolen piece. While I waited there in silence, a strange feeling came over me and I just wanted to leave.

As the feeling grew stronger, I told him to give me twenty bucks, and he could keep whatever was in the suitcase. "Why?" he asked, "there's a lot of good stuff here, Jameson." "I don't care," I said, "just give me the twenty, and you can have it. I gotta get outta here."

Reluctantly, he gave me the money and I left. It was after 5 in the morning and I headed toward a Mayfair market at Santa Monica Blvd. and Sweetzer in West Hollywood to wait for the liquor department to open at 6 o'clock.

I bought a quart of cheap scotch, went back to the car in the parking lot, and began drinking it in gulps, trying to ward off that feeling that had come over me in the apartment.

It was the second quart of booze in less than twenty-four hours, and I waited for the deadening rush. I had no plans to stop drinking. I had no plans at all.

(part 170) RHYME AND RUMBLE

ANCIENT HISTORY
WRITTEN BADLY
BY MY HAND
OF ENDLESS SADLY
MELTING TEARS
ON MARBLE FACES
WHERE AM I
IN ALL THESE SPACES

WORDS THAT TITTER
TAT ON PAGES
IN BETWEEN MY
RANTS AND RAGES
PHOTOGRAPHS
OF YESTERDAY
THE LIFE I LIVED
AND THREW AWAY

SYLLABLES
LIKE NUMBERS COUNTED
SENTENCES
ARE FRAMED AND MOUNTED
MEANING THINGS THAT
BARELY MUMBLE
INTO SOUNDS
OF RHYME AND RUMBLE

Bobby Jameson June 2009

(part 169) THE BLACKOUT

There may be some who read my last post thinking I didn't have any integrity left to lose. In other words, my past history and behavior had already sunk to such a low that it ruled out any integrity or honor being left to me.

I can understand this, if some in fact feel this way, but in defense of what I wrote I would have to say that the act of stealing, for me, signaled a new low.

In 1975, I had already been written off by most, as a lost cause, but in my mind there was still something worthwhile buried inside me.

But as I began to see myself engage in breaking and entering, and later acts of burglary, I knew that something had changed, and that these episodes were the beginning of an ongoing downward spiral into more seriously flawed actions yet to come.

The cumulative effect of my steady demise, was further illustrated when I showed up at a bar on Crescent Heights Blvd., just below Sunset Blvd., which was, for the most part, frequented by those who wished to be associated with professional criminals.

I'd gone there alone, and was drinking and went into a blackout. I was informed later, that I'd climbed onto the bar and started kicking glasses, while ranting and raving about something.

Someone dragged me off the bar and out into the back parking lot and began beating my head against the pavement while holding me by my hair.

Since I was in a blackout and didn't even know I was there, the repeated blows to the back of my head only served to snap me back into conscious awareness of what was going on. As the last couple of thumps penetrated into my brain, the guy doing this decided he was through with me, I suppose.

I was lying on my back, spread eagle, in the parking lot when he climbed off my chest and began walking back toward the bar. I immediately jumped to my feet and yelled at him, "Hey! Where ya going asshole?"

Completely caught off guard by this sudden turn of events, he spun around and saw the demented grin on my face. "We ain't done here yet, shit head." I said, as I started walking toward him; he clearly looked alarmed.

He reached in his pocket for a large Buck Knife and quickly opened it exposing the blade. There he was, knife in hand, and there was I watching the fear in his eyes and his face.

"What the fuck are you gonna do with that knife asshole?" I demanded. "It's over man," he said back to me, "let it go, it's over." "Over?" I said, "It ain't over, now it's my turn."

I started toward him, and he pushed the knife toward my chest. I turned slightly, to avoid the blade, and felt it cut into my upper left bicep, opening a two inch gash in my flesh.

I stopped momentarily, looking at the river of blood streaming from my arm, and then back at him. He was clearly shaken by what had happened, and the amount of blood I was losing.

If anything, the sight of my own bleeding arm caused me to become even more enraged, and something just snapped inside my head.

His eyes had that "I don't want to be here look" in them as I studied his face and now trembling hand holding the knife. In a nanosecond I thought about my life and how fucked everything was.

"Fuck me!" I said to myself, "who gives a shit," and with that I went after him yelling "I'm gonna kill you man. Now I'm gonna shove that fucking knife up your ass."

I lunged at him, and he gave in to his own fear yelling, "You're fucking crazy man, you are full on fucking nuts." I watched as he turned away and ran off into the night.

I stood there alone in the parking lot yelling after him, "Come back you chicken shit, come back so I can stick that fucking knife up you're ass, you prick."

A complete sense of exhilaration arose in me as a result of my own madness, similar to what I'd experienced on the tower when I'd reached the top; a sense of victory.

I stood there for what seemed like a long time, raging at the darkness and the empty space around me. Finally I gave it up, and turned my attention back to my arm; it continued to bleed profusely.

I didn't feel I'd have any luck getting help from anyone in the bar, so I opted to get myself to the house of the woman who'd bought the stolen jewelry from me. She was familiar with the bar and it's patrons. In a few minutes, I was pounding on her door, and shortly it opened.

I pushed my way inside. "Oh my God, Bobby," she exclaimed, "What happened to you, what is all this blood from?" "Some asshole stabbed me with a knife at that fucking gangster bar on Crescent Heights," I said, "I need to clean up."

As I stood there bleeding inside the door, she looked down at the floor and saw blood all over her rug. "Oh my carpet," she yelled, "you're bleeding all over my new carpet!" She tried to push me back outside, and I exploded.

"Fuck your goddamn carpet," I yelled, and slugged her in the face. Pushing my way past her, I headed for the bathroom without a word, and washed my arm and wrapped it in a towel. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, shaking my head.

I turned, walked out of the bathroom, and past her to the door, saying nothing. I looked one last time at the blood on the floor and at her. She stood there in silence holding her face. I left, and have never seen her again.

(part 168) THE DAY AFTER.. THE NIGHT BEFORE...

When I came to, after passing out from exhaustion and drunkenness, the thoughts about what had happened, and the feelings of remorse slammed into me like a train wreck of regret.

I could not believe that what I'd done the night before was real, but it was. It was absolutely real, and sent cold chills through my body, as I looked down at the deep cut in my wrist, put there by the jagged glass from the jewelry store window.

I had a hangover that enveloped my entire being with a sense of fear and foreboding. I rushed frantically around the living room of Carol's house, desperately searching for a bottle to quell the screaming demons in my head.

Finding it, I began chugalugging straight scotch to ward off my growing sense of remorse. I gagged repeatedly, as the warm alcohol burned it's way into my empty stomach. I went back for more and more, until I felt the first wave of booze hitting my battered brain.

I fell back into the deep sofa where I had slept, and sat there like a zombie staring at the bottle in my hand. With each passing moment the alcohol did it's job of freeing me from the dark reality of my own actions from the night before.

I began reclaiming the lie that had caused me to violate my own moral code, and to reinforce my dread with false courage from the bottle. I looked around the living room, and watched the afternoon sunlight stream through the windows from the west.

The day was coming to an end as I was coming to. I had crossed a line by stealing the jewelry and knew it. I'd gone directly and irreversibly against myself the night before, and had forever lost something of real personal value in doing so.

Never again would I be the same. I would now know that I was one of those who had given away integrity, trading it for a few pieces of silver.

I took another drink from the bottle, and stared off into space, while filling my head with one lie after another in an attempt to exorcize my sense of guilt and disappointment. With each passing moment I rejected reason for another self-serving justification for what I'd done.

Over the next couple of hours I reconstructed a world of lies into a framework of self deceit, where I could be king of nothing and call it something. Somewhere deep inside me the light of who I was had been all but extinguished.

This may have been a first for me, but in no way would it be the last, in a succession of bewildering and criminal acts carried out by me in 1975. I unfortunately maintained this hard edged form of perversity all the way through that year and beyond.

It was as if I'd ceased being me altogether, and had taken on another person and inserted him into my body. I immersed myself into a world of criminal consciousness, and spent as much time as I could with those I'd met through DP.

What separated me from this particular group, and literally caused them to tolerate me and my insanity, was the simple fact that I could play music and write songs.

At times I'd sit in their homes and make up songs about them, some of whom were total strangers. I would sing the songs, and they would wonder and ask, how someone like me could come up with such personal things about people I just met, and have the songs be not only accurate, but something they liked hearing.

Because of this, and this alone, I was accepted into their midst as if I possessed some sort of magic, that in their opinion, validated me in a special way.

That faint, but ever present spark of who I was, never left, it had just faded from prominence and become more of a clever sideshow I used to ingratiate myself into this basically closed society of people.

Every one of them thought I was one of the craziest persons they'd ever met, but overlooked it because of their fascination with my ability to simply switch to this other personality and perform for them. They'd give me drugs and fix me a drink and say, "Go ahead and play Bobby, play for us."

* * *

Back in the 50's and the early 60's it had always been the music that allowed me to dream my way out of any circumstance I was faced with. It was the magical ability to see past where I was to where I wanted to go.

With a guitar, a pen, and a sheet of paper, I could literally lift myself out of one world and into another. This was the trick, one that I found that I could perform over and over.

My desire and need to write songs, play, and then record them, had given me a concrete path to walk, on my way to a new and different world than that of Tucson and Mesa, Arizona, and later from Glendale to Hollywood, California.

I would simply dream my dream into being, and place myself in exactly the world I had decided on.

* * *

But somewhere along the line something had changed. Now my ability with music had made me into a performing monkey in search for nothing more meaningful than a handful of peanuts from the occasional crowd who gathered on a street to nowhere.