After a year, Peter snapped. He sent me a message that he would start showing up at theater performances, soccer games etc. He felt that he was paying for child support and that in my sister�s terms �he had been eating crow long enough�. It was the only time in my life I have ever reacted with a cold, calculating fierce and confident rage. Usually I crumble under conflict, but this time I was sure that my father had fucked up bad and that he had no rights. I knew that part of the deal was that he has to leave home and go be with the other women, but in the end he has to pay the stiff penalty. He gets to leave the life he once had, but he doesn�t get to choose the part of his life that he wishes to leave, all or nothing and he decides. And he decided. And then he couldn�t deal.
I got his letter stating that he was renegotiating the deal. I called and told him that he would have to get in a fist fight or worse. I ended it with the following phrase that still rings inside, especially when written down and then read out loud:
�You want to fuck with me Peter? Fine, this means war.�
And war it was. It lasted 5 long and brutal years. Police, court dates, hate, financial extortion, screaming, mental fits and breakdowns, deep depression, pain�deep pain etc. The funny thing that I learned about a private war in that time is that in war there are no winners. No body wins. But I still feel that not fighting was not an option for me. He pushed and I defended. I survived, but I wish he never pushed.
I became obsessed with the concept for the first 3 years thinking about it everyday, and mentioning it in a cryptic way to friends who were not aloud to understand. If they were to understand the response would have had to have been huge and it never would have been with my type of friends�I could only live on baiting them and hoping someone would take. No one really ever did�except maybe my first girlfriend, but I get to that in a bit.
War changed as a concept around grade 11 when my friends were involved in a cult that centered around a Indian Guru named Osho. I had experimented with loose symbols and concepts as a hobby and timewaster in grade 9. These were the precursors of the Gwalgen Hops Fiasco, namely Deadgeordie, Killgeordie, Lovegeordie, Makegeordie. All were based off the cover of a Dead Kennedy�s album I had seen once. Anyways, my friends and I went to an intensive cult weekend session filled with sex, screaming and intense physical duress, complete openness, people getting out some bad stuff with each other. I kind of liked it, even though I think it was too much sharing for some of my friends. There was an exercise where all of my female friends lined up and faced all of my male friends and the girls got to scream and shout at us and talk about everything that was in their head. Some of them said some pretty harsh stuff that I think really hurt a lot of the guys and that�s why they didn�t want to do anything like it anymore. All the girls laid in hard. I felt the pain deep. So deep. Shame. Pity and anger. At the same time rage and this urge to scream my head off at all of them. This girl I was in love with looked at me and said, �Geordie, I�m sorry� cause she didn�t want to be with me. I wanted to yell that she didn�t know why I felt the way I did�that I understood, but she didn�t, that none of them understood, that none of them ever cared to understand. I wanted to cut myself open and run dry to make them feel uncomfortable and shameful. I wanted their eyes to be opened that there was a boy that had always been behind them in the shadows, suffering, cracking, but capable of emerging from his chrysalis if only they cared�which they didn�t and they never could. It came my turn in line to say what I had to say, I was crying so hard. I was so angry. And that�s when it began. The fiasco, war, and all the other names that I called it. Something inside of me screamed at myself, that I was pathetic. Nothing that I would have said would be taken and that wasn�t I just a weak fuck who wanted everyone else to care for him. An attention getting child. I didn�t understand any of them either. I wasn�t bright, just cocky. I was lucky to even have friends with my social skills. Everything I hated about myself just started pouring out inside at myself and I felt this simoultaneous rage at myself and happiness that I was getting it out on myself and shame that I was right and rage at the outside world. But I said nothing. I held my ground. I passed on my golden opportunity to scream and shout everything forever. My rage and screaming went inside. My happiness was underneath that. My otherside was bitter, shaking crying he was so angry, like a person kidnapped with some electrical tape strapped over their mouth. It was scary but I knew that it meant something harsh and bad. Kind of like when you heard or saw the twin towers go down. You knew something bad was coming and had a pretty good idea what it could be, but only in general terms. And the doom that came acted itself out right before your life and it�s still going on.
After that day, I started experimenting with these two sides inside myself. Everyone has them I think. The one who is weak and needs care and the one who is strong and an asshole to some degree. One who loves vs. one who doesn�t. One who fights vs. one who doesn�t. One who who needs vs. one who doesn�t. But it was always Geordie that was in control. I was never really outside the shell except for a few given moments. I was always under the surface and being acted out, but never in control of my body, my mind, my mouth. I was a fraud of personality. I was sick. Weak. Pathetic. I wanted to go insane. Part of me wanted Hollywood to come to the rescue like I had always believed. But me, I knew what it was going to take, and I took myself across country.
The girl I loved had moved away and I fell deeply for another who was gay and it was pretty obvious. It was good relationship though and I enjoyed talking, fucking and hanging out with her. We maintained maximum freedom though so it was OK. I wanted to drive her away though and he wanted her let him know everything was going to be OK. She was the only one he ever put his faith in, but I set him up. I made a deal. I said: �If she�s the one, than you can push her away and when you get back she will still love you, and will at least in some way, always love you. But if you are forgotten, you stand down�.you give up�you let go�you fade away.� And guess what happened.
After she left, I was totally lost. I hated university and everything about my life. I couldn�t believe that it was over. I couldn�t believe that it was all a sham. I was clinging to strings. I was losing it pretty bad. I had thought that war was over, but when she left�for the first time in my life there was a power struggle inside my head. Somewhere in the back. And it got more and more central. I started screaming to myself and talking to myself to much and referring to two types of myself. I started thinking as Gwalgen sometimes. And eventually on my 19th b-day I crossed over. The process that made this happen is still unclear. It felt like a scene from How to get a head in advertising, and later like the process the main character undergoes in Fight Club, what happens to people inside in a commercial environment devoid of meaning.
Around January of 2000 I made a pact with myself that I was going to go to Indonesia and kill the side of me that had made my life miserable. I lot of nasty shit went down and my friends at the time suffered. I burned a lot of bridges over the years. Eventually, I was losing it bad. After my 19th b-day I was who I am today. In control. The kill came about in Malaysia, on the floor of the house I was living in, early in the morning on a Saturday I think. I turned 20 a week later.
In war, nobody wins. I lost a lot of what I cherished about myself.
�
�
Today war is nothing but a process that never ends, between the sides of me that jockey for control of my actions. Usually the right side wins out and I do what is right, but every now and then I am ruled by the fear. The fear the the glass Hollywood mirror is going to get smashed again. It is times like this when I still wake up screaming. It is times like this when the screaming in my head doesn�t stop.