I can only ever be myself...

I can only ever be myself, which is in itself kind of depressing. That is not to say that I want to be anyone else, but from time to time I am really irritated with myself for making a lot of the choices that have led me to the life I am leading now. I suppose everyone has regrets and I know that the interconnected nature of humanity and life itself in general bares more responsibility for my being what I am than I do, but, while I am fascinated by the randomness of existence, contemplating how all of the billions upon billions of creatures who eventually led to my being born is really not what we're here for. At least not today. No, I think what has me a bit bothered (well maybe not bothered, but certainly curious) today is just the last couple of generations of my own family.



It is probably worth wile to explain a little about my family and just how little I know about them. I have one brother who, as far as I know, is just about as different from me as two people who share the same parents can be. I mean there has to be some reason for that beyond just our few years of separation time wise. I think being the baby of the family had some advantages, less pressure to be any reflection of my parents anyway. But things being what they are that is really just speculation on my part.



Ok, lets get in to that a little. So, I had a somewhat difficult childhood. I don't really know how to classify my psychological problems in a proper way. For as long as I can remember I have always been fucked up in the head, that is if you compare me to a "normal" person. I don't know how my parents figured that out so early, but I guess it must have been pretty obvious to the people around me because they had me medicated and in therapy by the time I was about six years old. I have to give them credit for trying but as I said I can only speculate as to how they knew I was fucked up and why they took the path that they did in dealing with my differences.



I don't know if I am lucky to have had the parents I had and I don't know just how far from normal my behavior was at such a young age, but I must have been hard to deal with at the very least and they must have been pretty cool people to have gone to such great lengths to try to get me help. At least that is how I choose to think of it.



It is worth mentioning to anyone reading this that there is a good reason for all of this guess work as to why I am the way I am and why I know so little about my parents and their thoughts on the subject. I was somewhat young when they died and while that experience did fuck me up even more than I already was it isn't the base reason for my being how I am.... it's just another factor in my development.


Ok, descriptive tangent time... So here is the longer version of that situation. Thanksgiving of 1989. I had already been a pretty well defined mess for years at this point and mom and dad had, to their credit, tried just about anything they could think of to "help" me to be more normal. At least I assume that was the goal. I had started the 10th grade at a military school that fall (dads idea was that the formal structure would be good for me). At first it was, I met some cool friends and I liked learning the regimented and thorough day to day operations of military life. I liked my classes, I liked my teachers and I even liked the uniforms. However, it only took one experience to change all of that. I was in C company, the barracks (sort of like a dorm) where we lived was inspected regularly, at least twice a day, and while I fell in line pretty easily my bunk mate didn't. It was a regular experience for the rest of our company to get in trouble for his inability to keep up with the "very important" daily activities we all were expected to do. Really important shit like shining his shoes, polishing his brass, keeping his bunk made up correctly and making sure his footlocker was in order. Well in the honorable tradition of such a prestigious institution when a cadet fucks up repeatedly not only does he get in trouble but so does his whole company and the upper clansmen reeeeallly don't like that. So what do you do when a cadet can't get his shit together.... you hold is roommate responsible of course. So, I was told in no uncertain terms to make sure he got in line, or it would be my ass. Well, I did try to help him, but lets just say he wasn't cut out for that level of structure. I did try to help him, I showed him how to shine his shoes, I polished his brass I even got him to sleep on top of his sheets so it wouldn't be as hard to make up his bunk in the morning. But it just didn't work. After several failed inspections (which were pretty fucked up... you've seen t.v. shows about prison guards tossing a cell, well it was kind of like that, the inspector would come in throw all of his stuff on the floor, rip the sheets off his bed and berate him for being a fuck up) he was, needless to say, reaching his breaking point. The last straw for me was when the other members of C company who were tired of all the pushups and other silly military punishments (like cleaning garbage cans and marching in circles for hours during what was supposed to be free time) decided to take things into their own hands. By that I mean they decided to give him some motivation. We called it a "ninja party" and it isn't something you do for a ten year olds birthday. If you saw the movie "Full Metal Jacket" when the guys held Private Pyle down and beat the shit out of him or in "A Few Good Men" it referenced a Marine tradition called a "code red", well it's kind of like that. Anyway, word got out in the barracks that it was going to happen and my roommate was fucking terrified to say the least. He took to sleeping under his bunk on the concrete floor in an effort to avoid a beating, but when the other cadets came into our room that night he didn't have a chance. Now don't get me wrong I understand being pissed off at him I just really don't like violence especially when it is my friend who is being violated. So the next day when he starts talking about running away from school I decided to go with him, so did two other boys who had a similar experience a couple of days before. So we came up with a plan, waited till after the "night owl" guard came by on his rounds and we bolted. The problem with our plan (aside from the fact that we were all just kids) was that our school was in north Georgia and the closest place we could run to was my parents house in Roswell which was about 40 miles south and none of us really knew how to get there. We did get out of school and we made it almost to Buford were we decided to stop and sleep for a while. Now you can probably imagine when the people who saw us sleeping in the grass on the side of the road (4 young boys in army fatigues) it wasn't hard for them to figure out where we had come from. The Sheriff picked us up and called the school and we were back inside an hour. We were all expelled from school but being that my Grandpa had passed away earlier that week my parents were in Chicago for his funeral and couldn't pick me up right away so I got to spend the next several days living in the guard house getting the shit beat out of me by the older cadets who manned that post... fun. Anyway my parents came and got me and took me home. My dad was more than pissed, he was disappointed, he had just lost his father and now I had ruined the whole structure is good for me thing on top of it all. So it was back to public school for me. At least for a minute.
Then came Thanksgiving. Aside from my school problem there was the much more complicated issue of my parents marriage and the fact that is was at an end. Mom took me aside and instructed me that Grandma was not to be told about their fighting, I guess to spare her feelings and keep her from worrying. As far as I can remember I think we all knew what was happening and in hindsight I wish so much that they had seen the light sooner, maybe they could have been happier, maybe all of our lives would have been different maybe one of them would have seen my 16th birthday. But I guess none of that matters now. Anyway back to the holiday. My brother came home from college and my Uncle and Grandma came down to visit for the holiday. It was by all accounts a normal Thanksgiving. The next day, Friday obviously, my parents decided to take Uncle Joe and Grandma to the mountains for some sight seeing and shopping in Helen and Dalonega. That night Frank went to see some friends from high school and I think they went to a football game. I on the other hand stayed at the house and a few of my friends came over to hang out. It was a weird night to begin with, my friend Kevin introduced us (myself and my friends Matt and David) to huffing. It was my first time getting high and in the beginning is was fun, the tail end not so much. I had started to come down and had a bad headache when the phone rang. It was some lady asking if Frank Santoro was home and could she speak to him. Naturally I assumed she meant my dad so I told her he was in the mountains shopping. She explained that she was looking for Frank junior which was odd because anyone who knew our family knew that Frank was not Frank junior (different middle names) so I corrected her and explained that he wasn't home either to which she asked if I was Christopher... ok who is this lady and how does she know who we are? She asked if there was anyone there who could drive me to Gainesville because my uncle had been injured in an accident and it was important that I come to North Georgia Regional Hospital as soon as possible. Needless to say I was perplexed, why was my uncle driving the car and why did I need to go to the hospital, surely there were more appropriate people to deal with this sort of thing. But she insisted that I come. So I asked my friends who by this point were also pretty much sobering up if any of them could help me get up there. Kevin called his dad who offered to drive us so I left a note to my brother on the microwave (1989 version of texting) explaining that Uncle Joe had been hurt in an accident and to go to N.G.R.H. right away and we headed to Kevin's house where his dad was waiting for us (I am guessing Kevin's dad had put the pieces together long before we arrived at the hospital) Matt, Kevin and David came along for the ride being that none of us had realized what had happened yet and we spent the whole drive to the hospital speculating about what had happened and why neither mom or dad had bothered to call. I was upset thinking that my dad had been driving poorly and caused the accident and I was angry at him. Ironic. We arrived at the hospital and they immediately brought me in to the room where my uncle was, I asked if he was ok to which he said "just a little banged up" he had been in the back seat and got thrown around a bit, I asked about grandma and he said she was thrown from the car and got cut up and was in surgery, so I asked where mom and dad were and he replied "they're upstairs". Now I like to think that I am not that thick and being that we were on the first floor of a rather large hospital I just assumed he meant they were in some other part of the hospital being treated for their injuries. He gave me instructions to call my cousin Danny and gave me his phone number and said not to worry everything would be ok. I left and went back to the E.R. lobby where Kevin's dad was waiting for me with some other people, a priest a social worker of some sort and a couple of doctors (or maybe administrators or something). They led me into a small room at the back of the lobby and sat me down, Kevin's dad was the last to walk in and he looked at me and said "Chris, there is no easy way to tell you this, so I'm just going to say it, there was a terrible accident tonight and both of your parents were killed". I don't know just how long I sat there but it was a strange feeling, like my vision got all focused I don't know if they kept talking or whatever but the next thing I remember I grabbed the phone book on the little table next to me and looked up the phone number to my brother's friends the Stadlers, I didn't know if he was even still there or not but I knew if he was they would be able to look after him and make sure he was ok. It's funny but that was all I could think of, I was worried that he would need someone and that he would be alone. We were never very close, at least considering that we are brothers, we didn't have a loving caring "brotherly" relationship but seriously all I could think of was where is Frank and what should I do to make sure he is ok.

I went back in to see my uncle and he asked if they had explained what had happened. I said yes but what had happened to mom and dad, how did the accident happen, he said they were headed back to our house after a nice day in the mountains when they were coming around a curve and there was a truck or something coming right at them going the wrong way (that is it was driving in their lane) dad swerved to try and avoid the oncoming vehicle and ended up going off the side of the road, the car turned on its side slid down an embankment and hit a tree which crushed the roof of the car down to the front seats killing mom and dad instantly, the car flipped back onto its tires ejecting Grandma through the rear side window and throwing Joe around in the back seat. The car came to a stop at the bottom of the hill and he managed to crawl out. He realized right away that my parents were dead and he found Grandma face down in a stream, somehow he dragged Grandma all the way back up to the road and he flagged down a passing car who called the police and an ambulance to get them to the the hospital.
He asked if I had spoken to Frankie (all our aunts and uncles and cousins called my brother Frankie... I think he hated it) and I told him about leaving the note on the microwave and that I had called Mr. and Mrs Stadler. I am pretty sure that at this point I was in shock because I don't really remember what happened next, I don't remember how long I was at the hospital I think it was a while but I am not sure. The next thing I remember is being back at my house and my friends remarking on how strange this all was.... anyway, Frank showed up shortly with Mrs. Stadler and Avi and he gave me an uncomfortable hug and said he was going to stay at Avi's house. I don't know how but I ended up going to bed in my room like any night.
The next morning I woke up to something being sprayed in my face. I wasn't sure at first what is was but I soon realized David and Kevin had been going through my parents room and found the can of mace my mom kept in her bedside table. Nice. I guess having been 15 at the time I can't really be mad about it, none of us were exactly known for our good decision making. But seriously what the fuck?? I managed to shake it off in a few minutes and chased them downstairs yelling at them for being dicks. We talked again about how weird all of this was and they asked me what I was going to do, where would I live etc.. I didn't have an answer. It's not like that is the kind of thing people actually think about, at least not kids.
The next several days are a blur of me going through my moms address book calling everyone, like literally everyone. I had the delightful task of telling my entire family and all of my parents friends and work colleagues what had happened over the Thanksgiving holiday, lots of fun. I became like a broken record reciting the story so many times that I could say it in my sleep. It has the effect of desensitizing you to an extent, I felt like a zombie just going through the motions of life pretending all of this horrible shit was normal and maybe the strangest thing about it is that all the people around me didn't notice or at least they didn't say anything to me about it.
We had a memorial service here in Georgia and then flew up to Chicago for the funeral and wake and burial. At this point the grown ups had taken over everything and pretty much ignored anything I had to say about things. I was pissed about that for years, mom had made a point about talking to me less than a year before all this had happened and she was very clear that she never wanted to be buried, she wanted to be cremated and to have her ashes scattered somewhere beautiful. But who the fuck am I? Only her son and probably the only person on earth she would ever talk about that kind of thing with.
End tangent.



The following year fucking sucked, and another two or three after that were not too wonderful either. But I think I will save that for another day.

-Chris




















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