I’ve always known I wanted fame and fortune out of life. But more importantly, I wanted to experience it as a writer. I started my literary career early, and considered myself fairly successful at it. I wrote my first novel at thirteen, (which the dog thankfully ate), won contests in high school and college, and imagined my writing skills equal to no less than Ernest Hemingway. Following in his footsteps, I traveled extensively, had many jobs, and wrote a lot, always just skirting larger publications and mouthwatering fame. But mainly for self-preservation and the little “voices” that wouldn’t leave me until I purged them onto paper, I always wrote. If I wanted a semblance of sanity in an already crazy life, I wrote.

Break to a few years later, when I had completed myself with a mate and children. I wrote my second novel when my son was three and my daughter one. This one was much better, and I was determined to see it through to publication. A week after I finished it, my son threw a tantrum because I wouldn’t let him use “Amy’s First Primer,” and hid all my floppies, including the one with my book on it, the research notes, and all the back-up copies that were supposed to keep something like that from happening. Despite tearing the house to pieces, cajoling, threatening, and pleading, I never found them. In defeat, I returned to the ranks of the uninspired and mundane writers and taught middle-school.

Add on a few more years. All the little people in my head were getting really loud and insulting, and I decided to give it another try. Backed by years of experience, I threw myself into writing articles, short stories, and novels. I wrote for hours a day, slamming a story right back into the mail as soon as it flew home. It was going to happen this time. I could taste it. Slowly, I was published in small literary magazines, and editors were actually giving me feed-back. I even started to pay for my postage with the writing! Whoopee! Eight months later we had a house fire that took everything we owed with it. Screw the voices, I decided! Fame and fortune will never happen! I’m going to find another way to make my money.

I started a costume design company with my mother in the 1990s. We grew to the point of having several workers. I really thought I was on my way, despite the angry little characters that would confront me in my sleep or in unaware moments when they would get really close to my ear, and hiss, “We’re still here, and we don’t like this one bit!.” We had started to pull down good money, like the kind you save for a rainy day, when the new manager I hired cleaned out our bank accounts, didn’t pay the workers, and stole all our contacts, and faded to parts unknown with our fortune, if not our fame. “That’s okay,” my mom consoled me. “We’ll build it up all over again!” But before we could, she developed cancer, and died after a valiant struggle.

Fame and fortune ceased to matter so much as I struggled with losing my best friend, personal cheerleader, our family matriarch, and the ringleader of many a fine prank. I wallowed in self-pity for a few years, going through my own physical hell, until I helped to create an online, interactive writing club. My lofty ideals might have eluded me, but together we birthed a large, extended family of women that were always there for each other. I wrote my behind off for our paranormal soap opera, sometimes juggling six characters into the storyline myself, as well as serving as editor. We messaged each other day and night getting our stories right, until toward the end, our storyline men and women were as real as those we knew in real-life. We were talking of opening up our little website to the public, when two unhappy members hacked into our website and wiped it clean. That morning we feverishly plotted our next moves, and that afternoon, we were left with…a blank space. I didn’t look at a computer for months, much less try to write. Fame and fortune? Right!

The next stage of my life involved more traveling, more jobs, only using my writing skills when I had to, and like everyone else, just trying to make a living amid painful belt tightening. By this time my little people were sully and mean, screaming obscenities into my ear at odd moments and stalking off. I snarled back and ignored them.

Enter my adult son, (the same one that hid my book), who thanks to my limitless encouragement, his huge artistic talent, and an failing belief in his own talent as a painter, is on his own fast track to Fame and Fortune. Despite that I am making a decent enough living as a costume/jewelry designer, Nick has decided I am a failure. “You were once somebody!,” he pompously informs me. “You once made a difference. You were a writer! Now you’re nothing.”

I’ve been trying to ignore him. I am doing something creative and making money at the same time. The trouble is, I have a long line of heroes, heroines, and villains, that agree with him in ever adamant caterwauling voice. I find myself agreeing with them. No matter what I might try to tell myself, I am nothing unless I’m writing. With everything that has come before, I’m almost afraid to try this last time. But for better or worse, I don’t think I have a choice!

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

     Positive Thinking In Raceway Hell

　

　

Raceway Hell looks like a successful, middle-class. apartment complex from the outside. It’s buildings resemble the clubhouse of a much loved Louisville icon. The grass is trimmed with all the precision of a Rolex watch being cleaned. Maintenance workers are out at first light to pick up any garbage left over from the night before. It’s only when you open one of the doors that encloses the eight apartment rentals that you immediately notice the graffiti on the walls, the cockroaches that race to hide from the light, or the strong smell of pot that permeates the worn carpet from long sessions of getting high. Like a rotten piece of fruit, stripped of its pulp by an engorged worm, it’s only when you expose the center that you realize that it’s incapable of providing substance to a healthy human being.

I lived at Raceway for five years, watching managers hired and fired with the frequency of models changing their clothes during New York fashion week. But despite how much I hated the place, or how well I plotted a quick escape, my plans always fell threw and I was forced to live in an over-priced disaster that declined with each year. Despite my own fears and discomfort, I gradually realized that I had a very special reason to be there. The children.

One particular February day stands out as perfect to me. A large group of children made their presence known at my door with a non-stop barrage of well aimed snowballs and excited shrieks, and the fight was on! They continued with snowmen, snowball fights, and a hard won war beween the boys and girls, complete with crooked tunnels and booby traps. I topped their session off with hot cider and donuts. What made the day poignant and special was out of eighteen of them, only three had ever made a snowman, and several didn’t know what they were. It was one of many enchanted days I made sure they experienced.

I had a total of twenty-odd children coming to my door on a regular basis during that time, at all hours of the day and night. One impish little girl would show up every couple of days just to flash me a rakish smile and bound away, satisfied that I was still there, and should she be too bored, I was still available to read stories or do crafts. She and her brother were highly intelligent, and lorded over the other children like nobody’s business, confident in the love of their grandparents and extended family. Others were not so lucky and it showed in everything they did.

Some would show up just because they heard there was free food, candy, games, and even toys if they presented completed schoolwork. They were often rude and as dirty in mouth as their clothing, and though they were skittish of any show of caring or kindness, they gladly grabbed the free sandwich or homemade cupcakes, and quickly crammed them, showing empty hands and demanding more. Others were loved starved and showed it, bugging the crap out of me day and night. I often wondered if it was their way of proving that I cared about them.

I was sometimes startled to hear a soft rapping at the door in the middle of moonless nights. On several cold am mornings I found “Josh” huddled in a ball at my door. He always said he had forgot his key and couldn’t wake his mother up. At first I asked nosy questions as I bundled him in a quilt and gave him hot chocolate. But my fears just made him uncomfortable and didn’t help anything. When I tried to talk to his mother I only made it worse for him. (The child was always being screamed out or threatened with a belt). I learned to keep my sound shut, give him a hug, and anything else he needed at the time. It always amazed me that the thirteen year old that was so vulnerable and respectable with me was also supposed to be the terror of the complex, supposedly setting fires in the buildings, vandalizing cars, or breaking windows. I never saw him do any of it and I would like to think it wasn’t true.

The family from Africa was a complex potpourri of conflicting signals. Two sisters lived together in a two bedroom with all their children and whatever adult might be visiting from the mother country. That the children were loved was never doubted by anyone, especially the four girls and their handicapped older brother. They ranged in age from the two year old baby that stubbornly followed the others everywhere, tight braids sticking up from her tiny head, to the eight year old ring leader, who kept them all exploring the apartment complex all day long. If there was light in the day, then “Alia” was going to make full use of it, and drag in whatever kid happened to be around. Unfortunately, no matter how much I, her mother, or anyone else tried to talk to her, she could not imagine that “bad people” might be hiding, and that it was dangerous for little girls to wander around without supervision. She would look up with her huge eyes, agree to everything I tried to tell her, flash me a toothy grin, and race off to look for her next adventure. After constant complaints from the apartment managers and anyone that lived within five buildings, their exasperated mother finally decided to move back to Africa. I doubt the girl could ever have been “Americanized” enough to be truly safe. Their going left a much quieter neighborhood, and a huge gap in my heart.

When the girls left, it seemed to act as a catalyst for others in the neighborhood. Things in our complex had been growing steadily worse by the month. Not only had “specially trained” managers been moved in to deal with “people like us,” (we actually complained when our toilets wouldn’t flush!), but living conditions were beginning to be not only difficult, but also, dangerous. Drug dealers, pit bulls, and guns had probably always been there, but they now flaunted the fact that we could not rid our little community of them. So I watched as one by one, all but a handful of the children I had watched out for moved safely away. With every escape I worried a little less, but at the same time, when they left, the place felt more and more like a concentration camp to me.

The final straw for me came last November, when a loose pit attacked my part lab on one of our numerous walks. Copper was lucky. He survived the nightmare with a ripped stomach and the intestines showing, not to mention a large vet bill and two months locked in a cage and forced to wear a “donut” around his neck so he wouldn’t rip his stitches. Three months later it would have seemed like a bad dream, had it not been for the owner who continued to bring his pit out indiscriminately, taunting us with threats of what he would do when they caught us alone. Despite the children who still needed me-who still knocked at my door for a hot breakfast before school, or a hug and bandage when they cut their knee, I had to finally get out.

I have pictures of all of them, and like small ghosts of a frozen dimension, they stare out at me from the frames with huge smiles and shadowed eyes. I remember with satisfaction the times I was able to carve out slices of happiness for them, when they could play safely with each other without fear.

I like to think one of my largest accomplishments at Raceway Hell apartments was the day I looked over the heads of a large group of laughing children playing in a sandbox I had fought for them to have, (one of many arguments that I eventually lost), chattering in six different languages, not really understanding each other, but having a ball anyway. Now and then a high-pitched wail of indignation would go up, when one of the higher energy kids would steal away a ball or a bucket. When this happened all eyes would immediately turn to me to rectify the problem, trust in their eyes and voices, none of them doubting that I couldn’t make it right for them. I would look around at the adult faces carefully looking out from doorways or windows, other faces never present when they should have been, and I wanted to say to them, “Watch your children. See how easy it is for them to play together? Why can’t all of you do the same?”

One day I hope my little minions, as my daughter liked to call them, will remember that magical time, and do what their parents won’t. And just maybe they’ll remember me too, because I will never forget them.