Hellbent

Once, if my memory serves me well—

When I was young, I actively sought change. One of my favorite reprieves from my turbulent teenage years was a triangle of pines. It was in the neighborhood at Freeway Manor Park, behind a church. The field was dark, and I could sit between the pines and watch the stars. I would go there to think, hoping an alignment, a constellation, or a lunar eclipse would spark a transformation within me. Going to the pines at midnight and waiting was a rush, a natural high. If it were more secluded, I would’ve stripped naked under the moonlight. I want to say nothing happened, but it felt relaxing and cool to meditate on the night sky.

A real test came when I was 19 and had my hardcore car wreck. In the aftermath of worrying for my damaged friends and wondering if I could ever use my shattered right arm again, I went to the pines and looked for a solution. I fought the demons in my mind and tried to figure things out. I had a lot of internal self-hate. In the 1980s it was not cool to be gay, so I held it in. My secret drove me crazy. Still, I had the desire and sought the signs. I wanted to be complete. I always felt a part of my soul was missing, and I was a very lost, dark teenager. The feelings created circles of misbehavior where I’d disappear and ignore my friends to recharge and start the cycle again. I needed to be better since I encountered the drug underworld at an early age. The extremes affected me.

I read books from the esoteric to the bizarre—religious tomes, occult treatises, and quantum theory—and I was uncomfortable in my skin. I dove into the search for something more powerful than me. I wanted to understand and transfigure myself into a better person. I read the Bible and became confused by the hidden texts and different versions. Pieces of these beliefs intertwined and overlapped.

When I was twenty, I stayed at my deceased great-grandparents’ house on the north side with a straight metal friend. We went to Texas School of Bartenders, and I would ride my skateboard around the neighborhood. My arm was better from the wreck, but I had scars and metal on it and in it. I took a bus to see Oliver Stone’s The Doors film, and I dug it. Platoon was a favorite novelization of mine, and though there wasn’t one for this film, there was a book it was based on.

Reading the Jim Morrison biography, No One Gets Out of Here Alive, I discovered the influence on him of Rimbaud’s poetry. First I read Wilderness, Morrison’s poetry; then I sought out a copy of Arthur Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat. The tone was of angry, youthful rebellion. The prose was cutting like my inner angst at the time, and I related in a more immediate way when I discovered he was gay (at least somewhat) like me.

I don’t know if Rimbaud’s poems helped me or haunted me. Enthralled with sexuality and darkness, I came out at 21. Wild, I worked in the gay bar scene for a decade. In 1995, my darkest year, I saw the film about Rimbaud and Verlaine, Total Eclipse, and it struck a nerve. One scene of Rimbaud (Leonardo DiCaprio) naked with a stump for one leg, crawling across a floor, still sticks with me as strongly as the imagery of Trainspotting the following year.

Over time I found more of a balance. I stopped looking for a magical fix and slowly (so slowly) accepted myself. I catch myself staring at nature and getting glimpses of the night sky even now. It sparks memories of the possibility of a fresh start when I used to sit and think under the triangle of pines. I have no regrets. There is no changing the past; only the present and future are malleable.

Find the Rimbaud book; it’s really good. I used to have the New Directions version from 1961, re-released in the 1980s.

Below is a passage. 

Une Saison en Enfer

J'ai appelé les bourreaux pour que je ronge leur crosse de fusil en mourant. J'ai appelé les fléaux pour m'étouffer dans le sang, dans le sable. Le malheur était mon Dieu. Je me suis couchée dans la boue. Je me suis séché dans l'air du crime. J'ai joué des tours astucieux à la folie.

A Season in Hell

I called the executioners that I might gnaw their rifle-butts while dying. I called to the plagues to smother me in blood, in sand. Misfortune was my God. I laid myself down in the mud. I dried myself in the air of crime. I played sly tricks on madness. 

Arthur Rimbaud 1854-1891

Dean Cade