RUBBERCHILD-GENERATION X CH 4

 kevindeclue.com

After the show I started to spend more time in Proctor, more time with my band, and and a lot less time with my family. Budd- Trevor-Dave- and Sean were my close unit. We would all get together and hang out all the time. I started Hitch hiking all over the place-jamming at proctor falls or just looking up at the puffy clouds wondering what the hell this whole illusion even meant. All of my friends loved books, music, and nature. When his parents let him out ( sounds like a fucking animal) Billy Babb would come out with us as well. Billy’s parents were still together but his father was crazy as hell. ( I HEARD) He once stabbed a guy over a hockey match so Babb was in. Billy was probably the wildest out of all of us and he showed us how to get into an amazing amount of trouble. But one thing he was also good at was getting out of trouble. We all created a very strong bond, something I hadn't had since my family broke up and it felt good to be part of something. We really didn't know what we believed in but we knew what we didn't believe in… conformity and ( yes I was young) but we didn't care who { in the matrix} we pissed off. The band kept practicing but soon we started realizing that John, Trevor’s cousin wasn’t as dedicated as the rest. We would try to learn new songs and he would be out riding his motorcycle or working at the gas station. We were still learning covers so it was just a memory game but we needed more songs so we could play more shows. Around this same time my home life started to get really bad. Sandy and I didn’t get a long at all and my dad and I were really starting to come at each other which was becoming tiresome to say the least. I played Hockey, baseball, football, I was in drama and on the paper and my dad was still sticking up for the wicked bitch of the East (Sandy) instead of me, Brian, or Laura. I hate to say the next thing but hey they said write it down…He was whipped! Sandy was 15 years younger and my old man just couldn’t see the light of day. On one late spring night my friends and I decided to sneak out of my house and walk up the street. I wouldn't say up the street but in the same neighborhood. Anyway we were going to see a girl I was interested in Lindsey Kenyon. She was beautiful and I had just gotten over one of my first real girlfriends and I needed to blow off some steam. Trevor met me on the way with two huge 40’z of this stuff called crazy horse. It was a malt liquor and I have no idea how he got it. Of course we drank the shit out of it and walked up to the girl’s house. When we got there I was pretty buzzed and I notice that my old girlfriend was at Lindsay’s house. ( Not following anything Penny taught me ) I decided to start talking to my old girlfriend. This did not go over well with Lindsey. She…(Lindsay) decided to call the cops and say that there were intruders in the house. Now to make sure that I give you the right visual picture I must tell you that of course I was a loud annoying drunk teen. A smart ass just acting like an idiot -and I am now fully aware that rolling up to a girls house only to end up hitting on her friend ( my ex) was a no no but ( escape goat escape goat) …It was the Crazy Horse! Before I knew it the cops were all over us. This was definitely the fastest popo response I had ever seen but then it dawned on me…We were in Rutland Town $$$$ oooooooh. I ran for it through the woods as fast as I could with branches whipping at my face and my bare chest.   ( Who the hell know’s why I was shirtless) even one friendly branch catching on my nipple ring- ripping it clean off as a I barreled down the side of the hill. While I got slower and  the dogs/flashlights got closer I noticed that Trevor wasn’t with me. In fact when I jetted off I remember that he was just standing there looking at the lights. When I finally made it home smelling like malt liquor mud and shit I found out quickly that Trevor was too lazy too walk all the way back to my house. He actually ended up asking the cops for a ride back to my pad. As the friendly copper cruiser pulled up to the house the bastard turned to Trevor and said

(“I love waking up kid’s parents”)! I was screwed- my dad grounded me for a month and cut my hair. The whole summer was pretty much over. Basically I was homebound and there was no way I was going to be able to go to band practice. I secluded myself into my room which was now in the side boiler room next to the laundry room. Sandy had decided that she was going to turn my actual room into a guest room and I sure as fuck was not a guest. After one long summer month I was finally released from lock down and made my way back to Proctor. When I finally got to our practice spot I noticed two older kids in the band room. One was standing there with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He was holding a white Les Paul studio addition guitar with gold pick ups ( I had only seen those in the magazines) and the other crazy hippie looking mofo was standing in front of a keyboard. I kept thinking to myself ( remember this is the early 90’s so other then Faith No More) who played fucking keyboards?? They introduced themselves and said there names were Andy and Rob. Again I looked at Trevor trying to read his disposition not realizing that John either quit or was fired and these were his replacements. I was still new to the game and this wasn't officially my band so I shut my mouth. I grabbed my mic ready to sing one of the covers we had been learning when Sean said that they wanted to show me a few originals. I was dumbfounded, I never thought about writing my own stuff for the band. I had written a few things and had a lot of poetry but never anything this organized so I sat back and listened to the music. The first song was called Moon and it was really incredible! There were great parts and the guitar player Andy was the best player I had ever heard. After practice we all hung out to talk. Andy and Rob were both going to Castleton State college around the corner. They both smoked pot but listened to some pretty different music. Merillion and Toto for the crazy keyboard guy and Andy was all about Led Zeppelin. To be honest with you I couldn’t care less what these guys were into because whatever it was made them sound great. They could really play and I needed a solid team. I’ve always liked team sports, team activities. My brother is the exact opposite he likes single playing sports. I wonder if that’s because I need people for comfort and dependence and he feels he could do it better all alone, I’ve always noticed that. So I have a new band, and a really good one at that and I’m finally off groundation --I was a free man! And not only that our band was going to record our first demo in a real studio. It was a really exciting time. I was still playing sports but really started wondering what I was getting out of it. I was never going to play in college- I was too small and I already had a bad back- and football only made it worse. Music on the other hand was something I could do for the rest of my life. If I got really good at it I could even make a living at it! As you can imagine even this thought process was going to be very deadly with my father because remember I was a DeClue. Unfortunately or fortunately things were shifting and I really was starting not to give a shit. As you read this remember that there is a natural manifestation of a teens wanting to leave home. It's a natural experience that Mother Nature gives us to leave the nest. So my rebellious attitude was normal. I wasn't shooting heroin or stealing cars I was playing in a band and sneaking over to girl’s houses, typical teenage shit. But things were shifting drastically. I started seeing a strange blue light at the end of the tunnel and it was music. When I went over to my moms and Penny's I really didn't talk all that much about music. I was usually consumed with the farm and the animals. Talking to penny about girls or nature which was always interesting especially the girl part because I was talking to a women who was also a lesbian. It's funny to think about it, but I got a lot of my sexual insight about women from Penny. That’s why I always bring up that I was brought up by a lesbian because she truly taught me true femininity. She expressed how women should be treated with respect, never beaten, never cheated on. She would tell me not to disrespect sex that it was powerful and beautiful. The only other person that had ever talked to me like this was Lisa Dicer and I knew Penny was telling the truth. Penny never lied to me, not once. She was always straight with me. So that part of being raised by someone who respects her own gender that much was a huge learning lesson for me. One of the first ways that this became a lesson was when I realized that many kids my age did not see things the same way that Penny or Lisa did. They were out of control, having sex all over the place, treating each other like trash. I could see it for what it was and it made me really depressed. Again my new family brought me out of the dumps listening to the stories that I was learning from my mentors and all of them really wanting to be part of a different kind of mindset. They all were very much into mother earth as well as crystals and the balance between female and male energy- creative visualization- untouched energy. They were just great and I could never ever thank them enough. Trevor played such a huge role in my life, constantly trying to correct the off tilted balance of my mental state and I miss him very much. Trev’s not dead but developed an extreme case of schizophrenia and has to live in a half way house. For many years I would visit him every time I went back home. I was going to share this later but it was too hard to hold in. It’s like my friend died and there's just this ghost sitting on the couch. All his beautiful ideas just melting into one giant haze. I have many many more stories about him but this was when I really realized that I had people that cared about me not because we were blood related but because we sincerely cared for each other. So I want to thank him again for all his gifts he has given me over the years even the free ride from the cops to my house! The next part of my life may have been one of the best experiences of my life. It was the summer of love for the 90’s generation or what the friendly older generation called the summer of Generation X. The music scene in the United States was at its peak with Alice N Chains-Nirvana-Pearl Jam-Sound Garden and many many other incredible bands warping our brains into a movement the 60”s youth would have been envious of. The national music scene was one thing but the scene in Rutland I believe was even better. We had so many great bands coming through our little town and we had quite a few great bands of our own. Harlequin became a legendary spot to catch a show, you could roll over to center street and catch anyone creating music, writing poetry, planning a camping trip or just chilling out. Rutland Vermont was literally a free artistic community with everyone getting a long and loving the vibe. It was literally that strong and anybody from this period of time would agree with me. Around this same time my band would roll over to the Proctor soccer field to meet up with other friends and see some of the soccer games. On one special occasion and of course I remember (October 12th) I met the future mother of my child. Her name was Kasey and she was playing a soccer game on the field when she caught my eye. I have always tried to explain this next part but Its always pretty difficult. Basically every part of my body and my mind* spirit* soul* whatever the hell you want to call it told me that she was my soulmate. It was the craziest thing I had ever felt. No I wasn’t on drugs and we all know I wasn’t about to drink Crazy Horse again. It was just a lightning bolt de ja vu thing that smacked me on the back of my third eye. That night I begged my friend Tracey to give me Kasey’s number. Tracy explained that Kasey had a boyfriend but I didn’t care. ( Once again Im an idiot, The Karma dad thing didn’t click-nor the Linda/ Smyrski BS or the dad/Preedom) what an idiot! We started talking and it didn’t take long before we were together and tremendously connected on every level. When I first met Kasey she was living in Chittendon. Now anyone that knows this area knows that Chittendon is a pretty nice area. Many families in this community were middle class and it was pretty much a world away from Rutland. Kasey was living with her father and step mother and on first impression Kasey was very uppercrust. She was very well spoken, very intelligent and of course beautiful. What I didn’t know was that Kasey was only temporarily living with her father. For her entire life she had been living with her mother and sister in Brandon VT and things were definitely different then what I had first perceived. One day I was hanging out downstairs at my fathers house when my dad started tripping over himself trying to get down the stairs to breathlessly tell me something. It seems that my father had caught wind that I had been hanging out with Kasey. How my father even knew who Kasey was was beyond me but he caught my attention. He told me that Kasey had baggage. I remember thinking in my head “ “this fuckers really gone nuts” What the hell is baggage?? He continued to explain that Kasey’s mother was a bartender at The Moose lodge and that her family were The Woodards. Again I had no idea what he was talking about but as he kept ranting and raving it all made sence. Kasey and her mother and her sister were all part of the 

“rough crowd” thankfully due to all of my other earlier experiences I quickly called BULLSHIT!! I had already seen this with Jason, with Smyrski, and with Penny and I wasn’t buying it. This ended up creating even stronger feelings for Kasey. I originally thought she was “ The type of human my family would approve of” when really just like the rest of the wonderful “rough people” that were in my life, she was just a beautiful person that had -had a very rough life and was just trying to put it all together. Now on an entirely different note my mind probably was not in the perfect position to handle the rush of “maybe love?? who knows?!? I certainly had never been in love) I had some serious abandonment issues bubbling around my soul in regards to my mother, this was mixed with anger due to my dad and our relationship, I was sad> or depressed> or something> so I latched on to Kasey with everything I had. This was not a healthy introduction to our relationship but thankfully she felt very strongly for me as well and showed me what true love was for the first time. At this same time my band was really starting to take off. We were putting together some great shows and all of our friends who were also our fans would come to our shows. Pretty soon Andy our guitar player decided that we should get a band house. A place where we could all go after shows and keep playing. For some God forsaken reason Andy found a house in a town called Mt Holly. This was way out in the woods with literally nothing around for miles. I thought it was a pretty crazy idea but what the heck everything else was changing so why not our jam spot. So now after the shows in Rutland everyone and I mean everyone would drive up to The Mt Holly House and keep jamming for hours. As the band became more serious our keyboard player Rob did not. He enjoyed the commodore and he was definitely an incredible player but he was just not into it. ( Starving and sleeping on a rug next to a dog) so he went back to Philadelphia. Originally I was concerned that Rob had left. Not only was I going to miss him as a friend but the sound was really coming together. What I didn’t realize was the anger inside me mixed with a new much heavier sound was morphing into a new sound all our own. I was 16 and about to be 17 with full crowds, as well as our single Moon on the radio, and my relationship with Kasey was going really well. When I was on stage I would normally just lose myself and stage dive- mosh whatever, but I started noticing that now I was scanning the crowd for Kasey. This was a nice stirred up soup of jealousy and many many times I would freak out in my mind with horrible pictures flowing past my eyeballs in technicolor. While my professional life and my romantic life were headed in the right direction my relationship with my father at home was not good. Sandy had decided that it was now time for me to stop eating the food in the house. She would go shopping and put notes on every piece of edible food. I would come home and there would literally be nothing for me to eat. When I would go to school ( once again thanks to my friends) my friends would put a tray around the table and put food together for me. The reason for ( me not being able to eat) was that I would always come home late. I was working on a new play with Mrs Bagley and the drama team was getting ready for a competition so I was getting home around 9. Sandy explained that I was loud and I would wake her up by opening and closing the cabinets. On one fateful night after drama practice I noticed that my dad and Sandy were both watching a movie downstairs. Obviously I couldn’t wake them up if they were already up right? Well I proceeded into the kitchen only to find Sandy running up behind me to stop the feeding. I explained that it was after 9 but that her and my father were up? She didn’t give a shit. Now Sandy was already violent and would definitely swing if she could reach so I decided to just give up. I started going down to the boiler room when I noticed that she ( Sandy) had grabbed a huge metal unopened can of spaghetti sauce. I quickly realized that she was about to throw it at my head so I picked up speed. As I ducked the can wizzed passed my head and literally went through the wall. If this can had hit me especially on the side of my head as I ran down the stairs it could have easily done some serious damage. To my awesome surprise once my dad figured out what the hell was going on he too decided to take Sandy’s side because remember

( Sandy paid the bills and we needed her to live) A few weeks later while I was driving my car I shared with my father =This was literally a car that would ding when you went over bumps = It had no defrost = and remember I lived in VT = and! The doors didn’t close. I had a rope that I tied from one door to the next. Anyway on this particular day a tractor trailer had decided to pull across the entire road while I was headed home. I ended up crashing straight into the truck with the side of my car smashed into a telephone pole. This was definitely the cherry on top for my awesome hunch back. I had a very mild hair line fracture but was bed ridden for a while. Trevor would come to my house and drop off fries and burgers. Sandy would then come in and take them away from me and proceed to feed my food to her cat Burt. This is fucking real homies!! My accident did one more thing for me which we see is a major problem today. The doctors gave me pain pills. Not only pain pills but barbiturates. Obviously its only takes basic chemistry to put the dots together and realize that incredibly addictive medication given to a teenager is probably not a really good idea but what a lucrative business it is! Once I started to get better I was able to walk around again and was spending my days and nights with either Kasey the band or both. On one fateful night my dad and Sandy had decided to go to see my uncle in New York. The rule was that when Sandy and my father were out of town no one was allowed to go into the house.This included my sorry ass so I would usually crash at Dave’s or Trevor's. Anyway on this particular night Kasey needed to go to the bathroom and we were very close to my house so decided to stop at the pad

(I really did not think it would be that big of a deal to stop quickly and let her use the restroom). Remember there were no cell phones back then so I told Kasey to quickly call her mother as well so she knew that Kasey would be headed back soon. So Kasey calles her mother but theres no answer. I decided to turn on the T.V and go right to MTV because I was obsessed and I also didn’t want Kasey to feel uncomfortable in the bathroom. (you know the tinkle sound) Soon my phone rang…after 4 rings Kasey picked it up knowing it was her mother ( yes we did have caller id back then) but the answering machine also picked up. While Kasey was talking with her mother you can hear the music in the background and it really did sound like it could have been a party. So the old man comes home and he hears the tape and confronts me. I plead with him that I truly did not have a party but it was too late Sandy had won. She was even smiling behind him. I was told that I once again would be in lock down. So now I’m in the boiler room, I have basically no food, my car is totaled and Sandy took the insurance money and bought a jeep. ( She already had a Saab) and obviously it was time to leave. I remember thinking to myself…here come the streets, I can’t take it here any longer! As I walked past my father and Sandy I only heard one thing. “ Arnt you gonna get any of your stuff?” Coming from the women that had taken over the family like a medieval concubine from hell. I still remember walking through the garage as I headed towards Kasey’s little blue Nova with her bright blue eyes looking at me with a welcoming smile. I didn’t even look back at my father. It was too painful to look at him while all of the battle wounds and memories rushed through my mind. The war we fought together in Woodstock. The old man that had stuck by my side when the entire world shattered in front of our family. Florida with the frozen shoulder-the boner episodes-the break down-it all just melted into a pastel ooze of slush. To say that I wasn’t prepared for the streets was an understatement. I literally had nothing and nowhere to go. My first idea was to start in My Holly with Andy. What I didn’t think about was I had no money for food, I didn’t have a car, and I certainly didn’t have a job. At first I would hitchhike from Mt Holly to Brandon which was quite a distance. This became difficult because I had to make practice and by this time labels were starting to fly in from NYC to see us play. One person in particular was Ted Sabety. He had been involved with the Red Hot Chili Peppers album “ What Hits” and to say we were not freaking out would be a lie. So heading out to Brandon was difficult. When I did get stuck in Rutland I would either sleep in the gazebo, or under the bridge, or I would sleep in the woods. Once it got cold dumpsters became a good option because at least it was warm. It was a weird time because there were a lot of street kids back then. The tough love thing had really backfired and so many of us were just trying to figure out how we became the X generation in the first place. As summer turned to fall which quickly turned to winter the streets started to become very difficult. I would walk around really just trying to stay warm. So here comes some cray crazy Universe weirdness. I started sneaking into the back of a random car at night near The Moose lodge. I noticed that the car would be around during the evening which gave me some ample time to get some sleep. Soon the individual that owned the car found out but would still let me crash in the car when she was at work. I soon found out that this nice women that was letting a perfect stranger sleep in her car was Kaseys mother. Now you could only imagine how embarrassed I was to have Kasey’s mother see me in this type of condition but at the same time she made me feel unashamed making sure that I was comfortable in the back of her big Bonneville. Pretty soon Bonnie was bringing me all the way up to her house in Brandon. She would fire up the heat and drive the big car down rt 107 turning like a pro driver while she hugged the turns blasting rock and roll and chewing original bubble gum. Once we got to Brandon the car would be nice and warm and we would quietly roll into the driveway or across the road at about 2am. Bonnies husband

 Bob was a contractor and went to work around 5am. Every morning Bonnie would run out in her blue robe in the middle of winter and sneak me into the house. Of course it didn’t take long for me to find my way up to Kaseys room and before long I would hide in her closet. I still remember to this day when Bob found out that not only a boy, but Kaseys boyfriend had been hiding in the closet. After some healthy screaming and a little bit of debate Bob reluctantly let me live in the closet attached to Kaseys room. Yes I lived in the closet like Harry Potter and Ive got to tell you it was very nice! Kasey put together a bed and I had warmth, and friends, and maybe even family. Shit had been pretty rough but once again some amazing people stepped in to help to me along the way. So most of the time I would thankfully have the closet to stay warm in and to be honest I probably would have gone and or lived anywhere to be with Kasey. As the band started getting bigger I started noticing Trevor had been acting differently. We had both on more then one occasion taken acid by this point and at first I thought that maybe he was on acid or mushrooms. I thought maybe mushrooms because believe it or not we use to pick those bad boys right out of the cow paddies in Mt Holly. These little fellas would turn a mellow Vermont evening into a an insane summer jam fest with somebody or many people eventually just running through the fields howling at the moon... but again this was different. Not only was Trevor's exploration of drugs getting stronger but something was not right and I began to pull away. By now Trevor was going to Burlington every weekend and I would much rather stay in Brandon or practice rather then hit Burlington and explore the “very quickly becoming” hard core drug mecca. Ecstasy was huge-and Raves as well as basically "drug parties" were starting to materialize in Vermont due to Boston becoming such a massive drug/party scene. Soon I heard that Trevor was also going to Boston and I knew something was up. What I didn’t know was that Trevor was developing Schizophrenia and the hallucinogenic drugs were not helping. So ( and we all know fate time is perfect) as the band is recording some major tracks for a possible development deal Trevor is quickly sliding down a slippery slope. Now just to remind you again we were a very serious band and Trevor was the one that led the way. He was always the one that made sure we practiced everyday. He was the one that put all the shit together and now the most beloved thing to him in the world-his music was taking a back seat to partying which led to the beginning stages of a serious problem. Andy our guitar player quickly wanted nothing to do with anything that was going on. He didn’t like the fact that Trevor was skipping practice and he certainly didn’t like the new style of drugs that started to find there way back stage or on the road. Andy gave Trevor an ultimatum - make a run up to Burlington- or come to practice. Trevor decided to go to Burlington and in one quick swoop Earthride was over. Andy moved back to Philadelphia, and we were done. No deal-no demo-and no band. Just me, homeless living in my girlfriends closet while my dad and Sandy lived on the hill in the sun. I remember during this particular time in my life that I would pass the old house on * Durham* hoping to catch a glimpse of somebody through the picture windows ( I was now literally just a guy on the street). Without music my life started to quickly take a turn for the worse. I wasn’t spending anytime with Trevor because I didn’t even know where he was. Kasey and I were doing well but she had many friends and an active life of her own, while most of my friends had moved on with life. We still talked once in a while but my complete Earthride consumption left very little social time and I was pretty much the odd man out. To make things even more exciting I was starting not to be hungry anymore, I was started to actually starve. 3 to 4 days without pretty much anything. At one point I just said fuck it and knocked on the old house door. I just needed a little rest, maybe a bite to eat, really just anything. So I rang the doorbell and very quickly the door swung open with a gathering happening inside. It must have been near the holidays and I could smell the food and the warmth inside. Like the old cartoons I thought my body was just going to float into the house as I moved through the air towards the direction of the wafting delightful smells. As you may have guessed this is not what happened. What did happen was that the humans inside told me I was not aloud at the house and to please leave and shut the door. So as the smell and warmth quickly vanished from my fingertips I sat in front of the house with literally nothing and know one. Well at least thats what I thought! Very faintly I could hear the friendly rumble of Kasey’s Nova. Some how she found me. Actually for the next 20 years whenever I was in the shit she would just find me. So once again her door flew open and she was just smiling at me with those big blues and for the third time already she had broughtGE me back to life.