The earliest of his memories, I feel certain, took place in Little Rock, Arkansaw. Though I've rarely spoken about these memories, and could only in recent years write about them, when I've brought up the fact that I wish to one day visit Arkansaw people lift an eyebrow and laugh at what they apparently percieve to be incompetence: "you mean Arkansis," they tell me. As many times as this has happened, I still refer to it as Arkansaw now and again. The fact of the matter is, it did used to be spelled and pronounced Arkansaw, so this pronounciation, even the spelling, is not wholly inaccurate.
It's very strange having such strong emotions associated with a place that it would seem I, Tim, have never been to. When I think of the place, I see greens, browns and blues, and I get an image as if I was looking out the side window of a car during a soft rain, seeing the layered rock of a canyon. I seem to associate the place with a sense of peace, beauty and tranquillity.
The earliest memory is rich and vivid. He was young, maybe five or so, but I can't see any reflection. In the memory, the lights were bright and the colors were intense but it was distorted, as if his eyes weren’t adjusting properly at the time that it actually occurred. It almost seemed as if I was perceiving it through water, which may have been so, as I believe it was raining. His mother held his hand and they hurriedly made their way across the city street, out of the rain and into a building. This, he was told, was were she worked. Inside the room where well-dressed men -- professional types, it seems -- surrounded by what appeared to be model cars in strange, pastel colors. The men expressed excitement at the sight of the boy.
This memory confused the hell out of me when I was a kid. I feel certain it was real, and in my feeble attempts to make sense of it, I asked my mother if she’d ever had this job. She returned my question with a confused, “no.”
I have another memory associated with him and Little Rock. He was still a young guy, perhaps in his twenties, and he was in a small house. It was twilight outside. Above the head of the bed is a window where a soft rain, its rythmic tapping hypnotic to my ears, blurs the browns and greens on the other side of the glass, casting a dim, eerie and relaxing blue glow about the room. He's in bed with a beautiful woman on top of him, straddling him. Her face is not revealed, nor is his own. He cannot see himself but for perhaps his hands at her sides. The top half of her body is clearly visible, the bottom half concealed by bed sheets. Her long, dark brown hair flows across her shoulders and the flexing muscles of her naked back. It appears he's looking at a mirror at the other end of the room, and this is how he was able to saturate the beauty inherent in the scene from that perspective. For him, everything in this moment seemed to be engulfed in this peaceful, beautiful, and liberating feeling -- a highlight of his life. This was more than sex: this was a spiritual experience.
I have another scene, less vivid, that was about as erotic. He is in a hotel room on a bed with a canopy, with translucent white drapes hanging over the sides. Its clear he's in a state of anticipation, as if this is a moment that has come after a long period of waiting. Sex is the objective here, but I feel its only in terms of the relief of the urge. I don't get the same feelings here that I did in the scene from Little Rock. Though I can't say for certain it wasn't a prostitute, it seems to me this was some highly ambivalent affair with a woman he was close to -- he didn't want anything long-term from this, just casual sex. There is something nearby in leopard-print, and it inspires a memory in him of `the jungle’.
The jungle reverie I associate with him is a collection of many vivid, but scattered memories. Among them are images of such things as American flags, tanks and ground troops in helmets with face paint and guns. This jungle reverie led me to believe he had at some point joined the Army and entered a war. I would have to assume this was Vietnam, but I would think that there would be more prominent memories of what must have gone on over there, but aside from the rather psychadelic reverie I only recall one solid incident.
In the scene, I believe he's holding a camera, so perhaps he was a photographer over there. I don't know; all I know for certain is that the nature of this scene will not add any believability to what I'm writing here. None the less: he is standing in the jungle, looking to the tops of the trees near a clearing. Just at the tops of the trees he sees a saucer-shaped object rimmed with multicolored lights. He is flabergasted, lost in the wonder of just what the bloody hell that thing is and what its doing there.
I don't specifically recall him fighting. I don't have the feeling he died there at all, especially since the leopard-print in the hotel room reminded him of the jungle. Whatever happened in the jungle, it also seems inextricably tied to a great anger I feel in him in the later memories that was aimed towards the American government. Other recollections also seem to indicate that he was taking part in some anti-war movement.
It's therefore likely that the drug experience I recall happened around this point in time. He's in a red-orange tent with someone, perhaps a group of people, upon a grassy hill. Whatever psychedelic he's on, it significantly alters his perceptions, as he was having one hell of a weird, hallucinatory experience. His surroundings are vivid, colorful, almost alive. The wide sky stretches above him, of the blackest black and sprinkled with the most brilliant, shimmering stars. Dandelions and grass on the hill outside the tent become bright, surreal, almost phosphorescent. He sees tracers, nets and other patterns.
Around this time I also have vague images of rallys and large groups of people, and it all seemed very political. It was around this time that I have strong associations between him and a nickname: Uncle Sam. The nickname seemed to perplex me quite a bit, as he seemed very angry at the government, but I've come to believe the nickname was given to him by those who knew him in an ironic kind of way.
He may have earned the nickname due to his appearence as well. Far after I recieved the initial memories of his life, I had a very strange dream of a type I’ve never had before. In the dream, I was slowly zooming in and out of a drawing done in dark black ink, perhaps India ink, and had incredible detail to it that I have been unable to replicate. I believe it was a self-portrait of him in his later years: he had a long, bushy goatee and wore something resembling a top hat or fedora with long, curly hair flowing out the back. Out the end of his mouth was a lit cigar, and he hid his eyes behind stained, rounded glasses. So if this was a self-portait of his, as I feel it was, it seems that he did indeed look like a darker image of the `Uncle Sam’ character.
Around this period, either just before or just after the experience in the jungle, I get the strong impression that he lived around Florida, specifically around Miami Beach and Palm Beach. In these areas, he lived as sort of a nomad, bum, hobo or hermit. At some point, he was a trash collector at Palm Beach, emptying garbage and cleaning up litter. During his cleaning, he happened a glance at the window, and in it he saw his reflection and hardly recognized himself. He was dirty, his face looked worn and unshaven, his hair was messy and reached out in every direction. It was painful for him to see his reflection. He was absolutely disgusted with himself and his emotional and physical condition, and he felt that he was quickly loosing the little drive to live he had left.
His emotional state here was far different than they had been when he lived in Little Rock; here he seems very angry, very depressed. I get the feeling he lost faith in the world and decided to just turn his back to it. He detached himself from society, isolated himself, and spent his days in solitude. He stuck his head in the sand like some ostrich. Withdrew into his shell like some tortoise.
He smoked cigars and cigarettes. He did a lot of graffiti on the sides of buildings, depicting artwork with occult overtones and metaphysical slants. Specifically, I recall how on one particular wall he painted a dark human figure complete with the chakra points and a multi-banded aura -- seven bands, I believe, corresponding to the colors of the visible light spectrum.
He did not remain at his job as garbage collector, but the other jobs I recall were not much of an improvement. I recall him working a grill at what appeared to be a fast food joint, as well as having worked at a toy factory, where I recall large wooden crates and a forklift.
At the very end of his life, he lived in a van or bus in the parking lot in front of a row of stores, perhaps at a mall, where there was a supermarket and what appeared to be a Children’s Palace, evident by the castle-like appearence of the front of the building. I remember this toystore chain going out of buisness in the 1980s, when I was just a kid. This, I've come to believe, was the last job he would have.
I'm sure this was where he died: either in that mall parking lot, or in the mall itself. I feel equally certain that it happened in the early-to-mid-1970s, which means there wasn't much time off between the tomb and the womb, seeing as how I was born November 1978. There’s a bit of confusion, however, as to the exact circumstances of his death. I have a few memories associated with his end, and none give me a clear answer.
One memory involves him lying down one dark evening in his van, remaining motionless as he stares out through the window and up at the long-neck lights of the parking lot. This origionally led me to believe he had died in that van, perhaps from some illness, perhaps from a heart attack. It could have been cancer, too -- I do recall him smoking cigars as well as cigarettes quite religously.
I also get vivid flashes of other images at his end, though -- images of life on the streets, without any home, even a van. Dark nights full of intense fear that seemed to shake me down to the soul. I see a dark, brick-lined alleyway nearby some murals he had made and a dumpster at the end that he had spent some nights in. I also have less surreal images. He must have been in a car or a bus traveling somewhere, and I again feel that it was in the 1970s. He's looking up at the gray-white sky, seeing all the cars on the freeway, and having this sick, depressing feeling that is a very physical, full-body sensation. What he's thinking is how frightening the wide open sky makes him feel, how scared and angry he is and how hopeless he feels that our planet has become so polluted and overpopulated.
I also have a vision of him being inside the toy store at the end. It seems very eerie, almost as if it had occurred while disembodied. There is a pan of the toy store moving down towards an isle, where the scene sort of `fades out’ and a more unearthly visual `fades in' -- he finds himself in another place surrounded by dark silhouettes and shadows.
And then there's the dream. I can recall three recurring dreams in my childhood, and each seems tied to three out of the four previous lives I recall. All were so vivid and lifelike I would have no doubts at all in regarding them as being memories of actual events if they fit into the context of my present life. Of course, they don't, and that's the problem.
Of them all, this dream is the most frightening, and it is one which I strongly associate with the Hobo and that mall he died at. In the dream, I'm running down this dark, vacant mall, stores gated and locked at my sides. I'm running like the wind, as if I'm literally running for my life. I'm certain that I am being chased by someone, or something, but I haven't the foggiest clue as to who or what it might be. All I know is that I have to loose him, that I've got to get the fuck out of here.
Then it ends abruptly. It's as if I'm running like hell one minute, terrified out of my mind, and the next thing I know I've escaped somehow. I'm in the daylight, and behind me is the outer wall at the back of the mall. It's white, and there's a vent of some kind nearby. Had I come out through there? I'm asking myself this, totally confused, and it occurs to me that its impossible for me to have fit through there. In the very least, I would have had to have removed the grate, and its still firmly attached. I'm confused, unable to come to grips with what I know deep down must have happened: I had run for my life, but death had caught up with me and, having been ignorant to this fact, I kept on running and left myself behind.
It's very strange having such strong emotions associated with a place that it would seem I, Tim, have never been to. When I think of the place, I see greens, browns and blues, and I get an image as if I was looking out the side window of a car during a soft rain, seeing the layered rock of a canyon. I seem to associate the place with a sense of peace, beauty and tranquillity.
The earliest memory is rich and vivid. He was young, maybe five or so, but I can't see any reflection. In the memory, the lights were bright and the colors were intense but it was distorted, as if his eyes weren’t adjusting properly at the time that it actually occurred. It almost seemed as if I was perceiving it through water, which may have been so, as I believe it was raining. His mother held his hand and they hurriedly made their way across the city street, out of the rain and into a building. This, he was told, was were she worked. Inside the room where well-dressed men -- professional types, it seems -- surrounded by what appeared to be model cars in strange, pastel colors. The men expressed excitement at the sight of the boy.
This memory confused the hell out of me when I was a kid. I feel certain it was real, and in my feeble attempts to make sense of it, I asked my mother if she’d ever had this job. She returned my question with a confused, “no.”
I have another memory associated with him and Little Rock. He was still a young guy, perhaps in his twenties, and he was in a small house. It was twilight outside. Above the head of the bed is a window where a soft rain, its rythmic tapping hypnotic to my ears, blurs the browns and greens on the other side of the glass, casting a dim, eerie and relaxing blue glow about the room. He's in bed with a beautiful woman on top of him, straddling him. Her face is not revealed, nor is his own. He cannot see himself but for perhaps his hands at her sides. The top half of her body is clearly visible, the bottom half concealed by bed sheets. Her long, dark brown hair flows across her shoulders and the flexing muscles of her naked back. It appears he's looking at a mirror at the other end of the room, and this is how he was able to saturate the beauty inherent in the scene from that perspective. For him, everything in this moment seemed to be engulfed in this peaceful, beautiful, and liberating feeling -- a highlight of his life. This was more than sex: this was a spiritual experience.
I have another scene, less vivid, that was about as erotic. He is in a hotel room on a bed with a canopy, with translucent white drapes hanging over the sides. Its clear he's in a state of anticipation, as if this is a moment that has come after a long period of waiting. Sex is the objective here, but I feel its only in terms of the relief of the urge. I don't get the same feelings here that I did in the scene from Little Rock. Though I can't say for certain it wasn't a prostitute, it seems to me this was some highly ambivalent affair with a woman he was close to -- he didn't want anything long-term from this, just casual sex. There is something nearby in leopard-print, and it inspires a memory in him of `the jungle’.
The jungle reverie I associate with him is a collection of many vivid, but scattered memories. Among them are images of such things as American flags, tanks and ground troops in helmets with face paint and guns. This jungle reverie led me to believe he had at some point joined the Army and entered a war. I would have to assume this was Vietnam, but I would think that there would be more prominent memories of what must have gone on over there, but aside from the rather psychadelic reverie I only recall one solid incident.
In the scene, I believe he's holding a camera, so perhaps he was a photographer over there. I don't know; all I know for certain is that the nature of this scene will not add any believability to what I'm writing here. None the less: he is standing in the jungle, looking to the tops of the trees near a clearing. Just at the tops of the trees he sees a saucer-shaped object rimmed with multicolored lights. He is flabergasted, lost in the wonder of just what the bloody hell that thing is and what its doing there.
I don't specifically recall him fighting. I don't have the feeling he died there at all, especially since the leopard-print in the hotel room reminded him of the jungle. Whatever happened in the jungle, it also seems inextricably tied to a great anger I feel in him in the later memories that was aimed towards the American government. Other recollections also seem to indicate that he was taking part in some anti-war movement.
It's therefore likely that the drug experience I recall happened around this point in time. He's in a red-orange tent with someone, perhaps a group of people, upon a grassy hill. Whatever psychedelic he's on, it significantly alters his perceptions, as he was having one hell of a weird, hallucinatory experience. His surroundings are vivid, colorful, almost alive. The wide sky stretches above him, of the blackest black and sprinkled with the most brilliant, shimmering stars. Dandelions and grass on the hill outside the tent become bright, surreal, almost phosphorescent. He sees tracers, nets and other patterns.
Around this time I also have vague images of rallys and large groups of people, and it all seemed very political. It was around this time that I have strong associations between him and a nickname: Uncle Sam. The nickname seemed to perplex me quite a bit, as he seemed very angry at the government, but I've come to believe the nickname was given to him by those who knew him in an ironic kind of way.
He may have earned the nickname due to his appearence as well. Far after I recieved the initial memories of his life, I had a very strange dream of a type I’ve never had before. In the dream, I was slowly zooming in and out of a drawing done in dark black ink, perhaps India ink, and had incredible detail to it that I have been unable to replicate. I believe it was a self-portrait of him in his later years: he had a long, bushy goatee and wore something resembling a top hat or fedora with long, curly hair flowing out the back. Out the end of his mouth was a lit cigar, and he hid his eyes behind stained, rounded glasses. So if this was a self-portait of his, as I feel it was, it seems that he did indeed look like a darker image of the `Uncle Sam’ character.
Around this period, either just before or just after the experience in the jungle, I get the strong impression that he lived around Florida, specifically around Miami Beach and Palm Beach. In these areas, he lived as sort of a nomad, bum, hobo or hermit. At some point, he was a trash collector at Palm Beach, emptying garbage and cleaning up litter. During his cleaning, he happened a glance at the window, and in it he saw his reflection and hardly recognized himself. He was dirty, his face looked worn and unshaven, his hair was messy and reached out in every direction. It was painful for him to see his reflection. He was absolutely disgusted with himself and his emotional and physical condition, and he felt that he was quickly loosing the little drive to live he had left.
His emotional state here was far different than they had been when he lived in Little Rock; here he seems very angry, very depressed. I get the feeling he lost faith in the world and decided to just turn his back to it. He detached himself from society, isolated himself, and spent his days in solitude. He stuck his head in the sand like some ostrich. Withdrew into his shell like some tortoise.
He smoked cigars and cigarettes. He did a lot of graffiti on the sides of buildings, depicting artwork with occult overtones and metaphysical slants. Specifically, I recall how on one particular wall he painted a dark human figure complete with the chakra points and a multi-banded aura -- seven bands, I believe, corresponding to the colors of the visible light spectrum.
He did not remain at his job as garbage collector, but the other jobs I recall were not much of an improvement. I recall him working a grill at what appeared to be a fast food joint, as well as having worked at a toy factory, where I recall large wooden crates and a forklift.
At the very end of his life, he lived in a van or bus in the parking lot in front of a row of stores, perhaps at a mall, where there was a supermarket and what appeared to be a Children’s Palace, evident by the castle-like appearence of the front of the building. I remember this toystore chain going out of buisness in the 1980s, when I was just a kid. This, I've come to believe, was the last job he would have.
I'm sure this was where he died: either in that mall parking lot, or in the mall itself. I feel equally certain that it happened in the early-to-mid-1970s, which means there wasn't much time off between the tomb and the womb, seeing as how I was born November 1978. There’s a bit of confusion, however, as to the exact circumstances of his death. I have a few memories associated with his end, and none give me a clear answer.
One memory involves him lying down one dark evening in his van, remaining motionless as he stares out through the window and up at the long-neck lights of the parking lot. This origionally led me to believe he had died in that van, perhaps from some illness, perhaps from a heart attack. It could have been cancer, too -- I do recall him smoking cigars as well as cigarettes quite religously.
I also get vivid flashes of other images at his end, though -- images of life on the streets, without any home, even a van. Dark nights full of intense fear that seemed to shake me down to the soul. I see a dark, brick-lined alleyway nearby some murals he had made and a dumpster at the end that he had spent some nights in. I also have less surreal images. He must have been in a car or a bus traveling somewhere, and I again feel that it was in the 1970s. He's looking up at the gray-white sky, seeing all the cars on the freeway, and having this sick, depressing feeling that is a very physical, full-body sensation. What he's thinking is how frightening the wide open sky makes him feel, how scared and angry he is and how hopeless he feels that our planet has become so polluted and overpopulated.
I also have a vision of him being inside the toy store at the end. It seems very eerie, almost as if it had occurred while disembodied. There is a pan of the toy store moving down towards an isle, where the scene sort of `fades out’ and a more unearthly visual `fades in' -- he finds himself in another place surrounded by dark silhouettes and shadows.
And then there's the dream. I can recall three recurring dreams in my childhood, and each seems tied to three out of the four previous lives I recall. All were so vivid and lifelike I would have no doubts at all in regarding them as being memories of actual events if they fit into the context of my present life. Of course, they don't, and that's the problem.
Of them all, this dream is the most frightening, and it is one which I strongly associate with the Hobo and that mall he died at. In the dream, I'm running down this dark, vacant mall, stores gated and locked at my sides. I'm running like the wind, as if I'm literally running for my life. I'm certain that I am being chased by someone, or something, but I haven't the foggiest clue as to who or what it might be. All I know is that I have to loose him, that I've got to get the fuck out of here.
Then it ends abruptly. It's as if I'm running like hell one minute, terrified out of my mind, and the next thing I know I've escaped somehow. I'm in the daylight, and behind me is the outer wall at the back of the mall. It's white, and there's a vent of some kind nearby. Had I come out through there? I'm asking myself this, totally confused, and it occurs to me that its impossible for me to have fit through there. In the very least, I would have had to have removed the grate, and its still firmly attached. I'm confused, unable to come to grips with what I know deep down must have happened: I had run for my life, but death had caught up with me and, having been ignorant to this fact, I kept on running and left myself behind.
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