The Black Hole (part 4)

Well, as you can imagine things were not always calm around our place.

Mohawk boy got his knife ring stuck into his finger and we couldn't get it off, after punching a middle aged cowboy who thought these young punks would make for some good sport. Don't even remember how we got it off. Big brother had his bi weekly paranoid sessions. Tri hawk decided to shave off his eyebrows. Fingers actually broke the only house rule, no one allowed on my bed. Not only did he break it, but he had some help breaking it! We were visited by the police a number of occasions, usually when I wasn't home. The reason was because the cops were unjustly persecuting my fair young friends. Or so they told me.

One evening there was quite an uproar down stairs and I went out with the boys to see what was up. Some young gentleman was quite upset and was trying to get in a fight with mohawk boy, which would have been a mistake. I was trying to be the peace maker. One little obnoxious punk named Richard was trying to egg it on, and I told him with the authority only a two hundred pound former wrestler could muster to, "shut the hell up", he did.

Well this angry young man kept getting more and more insulting and aggresive. Mohawk boy took off his leather jacket which was his sign that he had had enough and was gonna beat this loud mouth to a pulp. I again stepped in the middle and was trying to broker peace. Then the loudmouth started in on me. I was getting angry, and, well to tell you the truth I was quite interested in impressing everyone with my fighting abilities.

It must have shown on my face because he started jumping around, "you want some, I got some for you, I got some for you, I'll shoot your ass, I'll shoot your ass" Well I don't know if he had a gun or not, but I smiled and told him he had better leave now and that I was sure the cops are on their way. He left, but the memory of that altercation didn't. For days I relived it, only in my mind I shot a double leg, picked him up over my head, smashed him into the sidewalk and beat him till his big mouth didn't work so well. But I was young and full of testosterone back then. I wondered if the guys didn't respect me for not kicking his ass.

Another time Richard and his brother came to the house to deal out some justice. I am still not sure exactly what or why, but I think it had to do with mohawk boy spending a bit too much time with Richards brothers girlfriend and the mother of his three sons. Well there was a scuffle. A window was broken and someone was thrown through a wall. There was talk of reprisals, and I was now living in a war zone. I started to get up even earlier to pray for two hours before I went to work, and prayed all day long that my family would be safe.

We received an eviction notice soon after. The black hole was going to be closing down. I was relieved a bit, scared a bit more. My brother totalled his truck falling asleep on the freeway to work. I was chastised by my dad for not taking care of things. I felt like a twenty year old, who was fathering a group of six rebellious teenagers. I was glad it was coming to an end, but I was also profoundly sad. My following Jesus, seemed to have not made anything better. Maybe even worse. I was a failure. The black hole really wasn't ending, it just became my own emotional state. One brother went to Sacramento, the other lived on the streets for a while, the boys all went back to sleeping wherever they could.

the rev