Basic Progress - Prologue

Upon my release from active duty, I took a job at a country club in the Houston area. With renewed hope I was confident that I was surely on my way to riches and fame as a chef. As each new job presented more and more frustrations, I became more and more dependent on alcohol.

An interesting thing happened on my way to stardom in the culinary arts; I had gotten married. I mention this in passing because it was nott a marriage made in heaven. I had a terrible drinking problem. I had been working around the clock and she was a waitress at the country club. I demanded more time off. They gave it to me. I went to a bar. She went home with me and stayed.

It wasn't long before she informed me that she was pregnant. Within days, she showed me the wedding rings she had recently purchased from a pawn shop. I accepted her proposal on the basis that getting married was going to give me responsibility and somebody who would take responsibility for my drinking. Besides, I was to be a father. It was an enterprise that would discipline me and I would grow up!? I knew that I was out of control. This was to straighten my bearings!

Of course, I wasn't taking notes, but it is evident that looking at my own behavior had significantly lower priority than fault finding. The few moments of acceptance were swept away with the absolute knowledge that I was either better than, different than, or simply a social outcast. I was on an emotional roller coaster. My gut was wanting to belong and my head was telling me how much better I was. This conflict created a loneliness that best describes hell. I'm not talking about solitude, which is being alone, I'm talking about the absence of God --A God-shaped hole in my heart. I have heard it described as a hole in my belly with the wind whistling through and through.

Marriage certainly didn't fix that. After the excitement settled, booze became my only consolation. I soon found out that she had lied to me about being 'with child.' It was a time of intensified misery.

We split up. Later, we recommitted ourselves and decided that we needed a new beginning. Coincidentally, I was looking at a second DWI in Houston which certainly meant revocation of probation and jail. The authorities had been keeping track of me. Society was frowning.

We agreed that the best thing to do was to leave Texas and never come back! I drove my car and parked it in the bank parking lot. That was the way to handle financial negligence. We then loaded her car and headed off to Portland, Oregon. Of course, I would be a successful chef in the great Northwest!

For anyone who is interested in a change of venue, here is the life principle: The secret to avoiding trouble is to avoid responsibility. The secret to avoiding responsibility is to avoid people. Avoiding people makes your life insignificant, which is trouble. Never mind.

My parents had moved back to Texas. On the way to fame and fortune, I dropped in to thank them for having raised me and to tell them so long. It was a rather uncomfortable proposition. I honestly considered that I might not ever see them again. They were loving parents who certainly did not approve of my life style. They were proud of my accomplishments, but they did not know the entire story. My brother shook his head in disgust. I was indignant. What did he know anyway?

We took off, our marriage refreshed, going to Portland, Oregon! I was to show them how to cook in the great Northwest!. We went camping and meandered around the southwest having fun. As fate would have it, I ran out of gas in Las Vegas.

We lived in a tent at a campsite for five bucks a night. Drinks were cheap-most of the time, free! Somehow we saved enough cash to move into a motel for seventy-five dollars a week. I drank every day. I went to work for a restaurant in Las Vegas. The owner claimed his establishment to be the most prominent Italian Restaurant on the west coast. I figured that was a stretch considering we were in the desert! I cooked for the likes of Gladys Knight and the Pips, Bill Cosby, Sammy Davis, Jr., Steve Martin, and others in the entertainment industry.

One night, I picked her up at her telemarketing job and a argument ensued. On the way to the room, I decided that I wanted to go down to the bar. I knew she wouldn't approve, I had developed an affinity to gambling. As expected, she didn't want me to go. I acted incredulous and indignant. I had driven, but had I put the keys? "Where are the *&%$* keys?" I had rights to my own life, I was an adult, and anyway, I never hurt anyone but myself.

She was scared. She didn't want me to become violent. She didn't particularly want to be alone in Las Vegas either. I believe that she had loved me. I didn't know how or why, nor did she.

"They are in the car."

I searched the car. Through my drunken haze, I realized that she had lied to me. I grabbed the door knob to enter with a monstrous thunder. It was locked. I pulled and I pushed. I hollered. I huffed and I puffed... I took a step back and kicked. The door snapped off its hinges and imploded.

Out of nowhere, other residents, the pistol-wielding landlord, and the cops showed up. She refused to press charges, but the landlord demanded that I leave the premises. The police watched as I packed two bags. I left all of my kitchen tools. I was sure that I would get them later. I never saw them again. That was the last night I was to drive a car in over two years.

The next time I saw my first ex-wife she called me an "alcoholic" and signed the divorce papers.

"Dumb broad," I thought, "Good riddance!"

A shell of a man and arrogant to boot: I knew I deserved better, I just knew it. Leaving Texas was surely the break I had needed. This time it really was different. Hadn't I proved that? Now, I was separated, but you know, that may be the break I need as well. I'll show them. She was the problem --it's all her fault.

The night we separated was an interesting array of self-centered emotions. I walked across the street to another motel and paid for a week of rent. I went to the bar. I was at a turning point and I knew it. I tried calling a friend on the other side of town, with whom I had partied while we were at the camp sight. He wasn't interested in a conversation. I bought a bottle and went back up to the room. From the Navy , I had phone numbers. I had family in Texas. I had friends in Indiana. I called and I called. It didn't matter to me that it was three o'clock in the morning. If there faint ringing was interrupted by a sleepy, "Hello," invariably, they acknowledged me and either hung up or asked me to call back in the morning.

Nobody in the world cared.

I went back down to the bar. I watched T.V.. A 1-800 number flashed and I decided to use the pay phone to call.

"Seven-hundred Club!"

"I need somebody to talk to."

"Sir, we will pray with you. There are no counselor's available at this time of night. Do you want to pray?'

"What?"

"You have called the Seven-hundred Club's prayer line. Let's pray,... Dear God, We ask that-" Click.

The last thing I wanted to do was waste time talking to nothing. All I had wanted was for somebody, anybody to say, 'It's going to be O.K.!' Not only was I lonely, I was alone.

Surely, that brown pigeon never felt like this.

Eventually, my first ex-wife called me a 'drunk' (how dare she), and filed for divorce. She, like all the others, just didn't know how much potential I had. Shortly thereafter, I was informed that my job was coming to an end. After being in business twenty-six years the restaurant that had hired me was sold! I was offered a job by the new owner. I turned down the new ownership's job proposal. I was really burnt out on cooking. That same restaurant, under different ownership, now caters the Jerry Lewis telethon. I was really doing a good job managing my career!

Throughout my career, I had always taken pride in being better than others who had been to a cooking academy. I delighted in hiring and training them. I saw it as an opportunity to demonstrate my expertise and power. To get them started, I would have them cut up cases of whole chickens, cut up buckets of onions, or roll out hundreds of rolls. This always frustrated them because they always thought of being a "chef" as glamorous. It was an art: ice carvings, fruit platters, wedding cakes. I smiled at their naiveté. I could always tell whether they would work out by the way they handled the tools and by how clean they were at the end of the shift. If they cut or burned themselves or were sloppy, I knew they had a long way to go. I enjoyed testing them.

Liquor, wine, and beer were always available. I had been spoiled. At the Italian restaurant, there had been a water cooler filled with Burgundy in the walk in cooler. That job was history.

Through the culinary union, I acquired a position at the Tropicana in Las Vegas. They didn't approve of me drinking on the job. I found myself jittery. My hands developed cuts and blisters on them. One day, in the course of my duties I was to prepare broccoli for a large party. I placed the cut broccoli in a large pot to blanch and I went to lunch! We had enough Broccoli soup for two months!

I was ashamed. Emotionally, I was devastated. I had become the inept cook. The signs of inexperience were self evident. I did not see any options. I quit.

The decision to leave that job left me apathetic to the culinary arts. I spent the next several months wandering aimlessly on the streets of Las Vegas. I had lost respect for society, property, people, and now, myself. Nothing mattered. Apathy was the order of the day. I knew that the God of my childhood and heritage didn't approve of my conduct. At the time, it was easier for me to continue going down the easier, softer path of indecision and non-commitment rather than to change and to become something that I thought God would find suitable. I obviously had real problems with religion and those of faith. I looked on them as dupes. I had wholesale condemnation for the lot of them -- they were wrong. Using irrational logic and warped emotional reasoning, this was merely another confirmation of the atheistic values I had been nurturing. Many instances like this one was used to discard the God idea entirely. Originally, it was difficult to acknowledge that I had doubts. By this time, it was easy.

I yearned for something substantial that I could lean on. I was lonely. I was scared. I was hopeless. I drank around the clock as much and as often as possible. A conversation I recall with the bartender at my home bar informed me that I was the only person she knew that got drunk four times a day! I would drink and pass out, get up, drink, and pass out, get up and steal some money or donate blood or gamble or do whatever I was doing for money and repeat the cycle. That was the way I lived. My addiction and selfishness had consumed me. Spiritually, I was nonexistent, a shell of a person. Physically, I was nothing,... nothing but bones. I was a bank vault of untapped potential. I admired my potential, --it was the only thing I had left.

I had looked up out of the gutter, and defiantly proclaimed that I was in charge! An atheist, a washed up cook, and still proud. Tomorrow, it would be different!

Having been cornered by life at point blank range, --I killed God. The conscious suicide of conscience.

My wardrobe consisted of an old pair of jeans with several different sizes of patches. The Navy had taught how to sew. I had one shirt that I would wash out religiously twice a week. I had no underwear, no socks, no toothbrush, no hairbrush, no hassles, no emotional investment, no pain, no joy. Included in my worldly possessions were an empty backpack I had stolen from a former roommate who had stolen and hocked my wedding ring for drugs and booze and a quilt my Grandmother had stitched for me in 1971. The backpack with bedroll gave me credibility! I was a down-and-out homeless bum, but, I had dignity!

I spent much time with my head down. From all the walking, I had worn out the only pair of shoes I had left. One day I entered into a Korean fish market to look at the different ingredients. I am still fascinated by food and the various cultural recipes. At the back of the store they had a bin with thongs. They had instructions on them explaining that the raised bumps were designed to stimulate health and well being. Needed to feel better, I stuck them in the back of my pants, walked out and went next door to a video game store. In a corner, I slid my old beat up shoes off and slipped my new shoplifted shoes on. Those therapeutic-psychological-wonder thongs may stimulate the mental and emotional hot spots on the bottom of your feet, but if you go on a hike with them, it feels like you are walking on nails. They were the only pair I had. I painfully wore the bumps off!

One afternoon, I was shuffling through the mall to pick cigarette stubs out of the sand ashtrays. In front of the pet store, a young girl caught my attention. She was crying. She had momentarily lost contact with her parents. With all the compassion a broken drunk could muster, I went down to one knee.

"Little girl? Do you know where your parents are?"

Out of nowhere, the mother swept the innocent child away from this disgusting social outcast. Slapping the youngster on her butt, she loudly proclaimed,

"I've told you a hundred times to stay away from people like that!"

A good bad example.