My Sister and I

My sister and I were adopted from different parents. I was born in Chicago, at what hospital I don’t know. They signed up, got the call, and came and got me. My sister, Dana, was born two years later in Peoria. My mother tells the story. I have no recollection of this stuff. We looked so much alike that people thought we were biological and even would not believe us when we said we were adopted from different parents. My father, from smoking and working HVAC had gotten lung cancer at an early age.

Chicago Heights

Chicago Heights—I suppose this is where it all started, my hatred, and my reading, my general disagreement with society. While my dad was sick we went to live with my Uncle Mike in Chicago Heights. This was a kind of poor, Irish section on the South Side. It’s entirely black now. There was six of us, my sister and I and four cousins. The oldest was Heather, same age as me. I was in 4th Grade.

One time, we are at this public park, on the playground, just being kids, and this big black kid came up behind me and bear hugged me [across the upper arms] lifts me and this other black kid tries to punch me in the front. I move aside and he misses and I kick him and he falls. I then do this kid-like shoulder throw and the big kid goes tumbling down in front of me and they get up and run. I was like, I didn’t do nothing, didn’t even know these kids were there, and this happens. So I get confronted with this previously unknown reality that these people are going to attack me on impulse.

Then, there is another time and the wooden play set, the jungle gym if you will, is being used as a hangout for these older hoodlums at night. We are there during the day and there is this loose board with nails sticking out of it. This large retarded kid, a white kid, is being tormented by these other [white, indicated with hand shrug] kids and he reaches out in anger, picks up that board, a two-by-four with nails sticking out, and charges for my little cousin, Kevin, four years younger than me. There was his older sister Michelle, who was two years older and the same age as my sister. There was also Muareen, also my sister’s age. That is why we hung out so much together. That is my Uncle Mike’s and Aunt Lorie’s kids. There was no reason, who was just the closest kid. I see this and tackle the retard, a football tackle to the legs from the side, climb up him, take the board away, and the kid runs off. We went home, the six of us, and they said I saved their lives, which put quite an impression on me. I didn’t take away from this some view that the world was a dangerous place, or out to get me, like I did later. But I did now know where I placed in the world, that I could protect people. I read comic books, which is probably why I lifted weights and did martial arts. [1]

Uncle Mike’s Book Den

Uncle Mike’s house was a condo, in a development, not like the kind of free standing house we grew up. It was small. There was this small room with books in it. Other than reading novels assigned in school, I had never read a book, just comics: Spiderman, Superman, the Green Lantern. What really drew me to the books were the Conan posters on the walls by Frank Frazetta, who is still my favorite artist. [2] I ask my Uncle Mike if I could read the books and he said, “Of course.” I could not get enough of the Conan book. [Passes hand over three stacks of old mass market paperbacks,] I didn’t realize at the time that it was not just Robert E. Howard that wrote these, that most of these were other authors taking up the character. [3] This was the first book I read, probably because of the naked chick on the cover. [Points to Conan the liberator by L. Sprague De Camp and Lin Carter.]

I think, maybe, the stuff at the playground, for which I was prepared to react through comic books and me trying to live up to that image in a kid way, combined with reading the Conan books to kind of set a weird course in life. I would get into more trouble then necessary to defend myself. My friends and I swapped these.

The Book Report

A lot of my favorites were established at a young age, established a lot of how I think. For instance, Conan the barbarian was my favorite movie and still is, has never been surpassed. [Laughs hoarsely, at self, then chuckles.]

This was the sophomore year of high school. I don’t remember her name, but it was a black lady. The English teacher, she was in charge of the Black Honor Society and the Black Student Council. She instructed us to write about an American author and she said that the black kids should write about a black author to honor their heritage and the white kids should write about a black author to expand their horizons.

So I wasn’t about to pick a black author. I knew she would never look up to see who Robert E. Howard was. And, I knew I would never be busted for plagiarism, so I just copied the biography in the back of one of his paperbacks word-for-word. I think it was three pages. I got a good, grade, must of got an A or a B, probably an A.

In 8th Grade in my home room it was study hall for the most part, my shop teacher Mister Perry, they had a spelling B coming up and he would have the winners go on to compete. So I used to spell the first word wrong so I could stay and study.. One time, my first word was dumb and I misspelled it dum and he said, “You must be dumb?”

One day I had no homework so I figured I would show that I was obviously throwing the spelling B contest so I could sit down. I won for my home room class, then we had my whole junior high and I was the last 8th grader left, and a 7th grader won the whole thing. I don’t even remember what word I didn’t get right. I remember this one girl and all the kids that thought they were smart, and I beat them.

…

Notes

-1. Dan’s childhood comic book hobby is also addressed in #11, Growing Up On a Prison Farm.

-2. In Autumn 2016, while touring the Frank Frazetta Museum in Strausburgh, Pennsylvania, the famous artist’s daughter in law, informed me that he moved his family from NYC, to extract his son and later her husband, Mike from a city where older children preyed upon him.

-3. The additional authors of these Conan paperbacks on Dan’s dining room table included, Robert Jordan, Karl Edward Wagner, Andrew J. Offiut, Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp.