Backstories

Albert Edward Brown, my dad, kidnapped me when I was five (or was it four?) My brother too. Took us both.

This isn't something I usually talk about, though I've gotten a bit more comfortable mentioning it to certain people. It's actually a significant part of who I am...or what I refer to as "Dakotah Brown backstory volume 1". That said, I realize that it's starting to really affect me again and I feel like I need to deal with it. Dredge it all back up. Try to get to the bottom of this strange train of negativity and anxiety. Lately, I haven't given that event the weight it most certainly deserves.

I forget the details more and more as I get older, but what I'll try to piece together what I remember--

My family was living in Santa Cruz at the time-on Seaside Avenue, house number 144. A teeny little place with a teeny little yard. Quiant, but we loved it. As a matter of fact, it was on the nicer end of the places we'd lived in during that time, which included a motel, several relatives' houses, and a dorm room at UCSC (we'd make microwavable pancakes in the common room in the mornings and play nintendo in the afternoon.) I remember planting apple seeds in the back yard with my brother. We were all hope.

I was prescient in those days. I can't tell when the switch happened, or why--or even if, but what it comes down to is that one night I had a nightmare that my brother and I were in the back of our old Volkswagon bug, driving away from the house with my father chasing the car and my mom running after it.

A few months later it happened.

From there on out it gets hazy. I don't have the greatest memory anyway--as those of you who know me are aware. You generally have to tell me things a few times in order for it to click. I never considered that it could've been a defense mechanism of some kind. Well, anyhow-

We traveled across the country. We drove and flew from the east coast to the west coast. For eight months, we were on the run. Literally, my father would make us duck our heads down when we went through tollbooths in case the attendant recognized us from the wanted posters our mother had been putting up anywhere she could. We avoided police officers, zipped through airport gates, and a handful of times we hid in the closet at our aunt's house when the maid would come to clean up--just to be sure we wouldn't be spotted. Several mornings were spent watching my father hurriedly throw together something for us to eat before we headed out on the interstate at 4-something in the morning just so we could keep moving.

Some scattered memories from back then:

"Can I call Mom?" I ask, late one night. My brother is in the living room--we were in the middle of playing Mario 3.
"Sure, sure Kokanutty-buddy."
"Okay."
I go back. We beat Giant Land. I come ask again.
"When can I call Mom?"
"Later, man. Later."
Later.
My brother and I beat the game and went to bed. I was never allowed to call.

Getting beaten for dropping a plate. Feeling confused and powerless.

My brother raising a fuss in the bathtub. My father thrust a finger at his chest to emphasize a point, accidentally cutting my brother with his fingernail.

Playing with a switchblade I found in the back of my father's car. Cutting my finger. Getting frantic at the sight of all the blood.

Being in court. Knowing that something serious is going to happen. My dad, solemn, on one side of the room. I'm terrified that I'd never see him again. That our mother would 'take us away'. Our mother, who Da told us was 'The Devil'. Literally. "Your mother is Beelzebub. She is the devil." Even when our mother got custody of us again, he would send letters to that effect. He was righteous for a few years. Tried to sway us with slanderous letters, phone calls, Game Genie.

"Who are we running away from?"
"The police." Says Da.
"What are they gonna to do if they get us?"
"They're gonna' take you away from me."

Standing in the back area of an apartment complex in Baltimore. My brother, seven, gets assaulted by a thirteen-year-old, James Johnson. I cry. I'm four. I'm scared and furious. My father comes out to 'save us'. Chases the kid down and loses him in a church. Drives around the block until he finds him again--gets out of the car and forces an apology.

I don't like talking about this. I don't. I really did seal it off for a reason. The more I think about it, the more furious I become. Did I mention that the last communication I've had from my father was a postcard with a question mark on it? Roughly ten years ago, I received it. My father. More harm than good. More harm than good.

That's what I tell myself.

I've been waiting for twenty years for him to come to his senses. For him to do SOMETHING. ANYTHING. The SLIGHTEST FUCKING GESTURE of...I dunno, repentance? Apology? He doesn't just have the excuse of NOT BEING AROUND. That shit doesn't fly anymore.

He left my family poor and my brother and I broken. We missed a school year, and our mother missed our birthdays. We missed her on our birthdays.

Good deal for him, though. Eight years of fathering, than PEACE. BYE! I'm off to slander your mom for dating a white guy, then go marry a white woman! Also remember that your mom is evil and I'm always right! Enjoy your anxiety! Try to feel inadequate around everyone you meet!

I've spent the better part of my life looking for some kind of model, some figure to follow so I don't doom myself to those habits and patterns. In the end, I've had to take bits and pieces from people I look up to...the rest I make up as I go along. As of now, I definitely do NOT want to have children...but if the parenting bug ever hits me--I'm going to make sure I am an exponentially better father than I had. HAD being the operative.

Yeah....this was angry. To tell you the truth though, it's mostly just sad. The whole experience left me feeling wounded and forgotten, but I'm so used to the wound its like a security blanket now. I clutch it tightly when I'm alone. I have for two decades.

It's not something I'll get over quickly. I haven't, as you can see.

But-

But...maybe I can start the slow process of accepting it. Accepting this is part of who I am. Not shutting my eyes to the fact that my father's gone. Accepting, even, that he won't make the effort to be part of my life again...and while I won't consider it optimal...it is okay. Yes, my world feels broken sometimes...but that's not 'how life is'. That's just residue from a world that broke ages ago. Things aren't the same as they were before. Life is new. It can be. I can be.

I can't spend the rest of my life looking for approval from a ghost. I have a model right here in the mirror.

Rock on.

Love,
Dakotah Edward Brown