The Weight of Misplaced Anger
By d v brooks

Let him know, that he which converted the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
(James 4:20)


The weight of misplaced anger has lasted far more years then I care to admit too.My father died on a hot summer day in August 1973. And, for the next thirty years afterward, I had fallen into a state of bitterness, loneliness, and self-loathing, both internally/externally that has weighted upon my mind, my heart, and my soul like a ton of bricks. I would like to try to describe to you how it felt to carry a ton of bricks around for over thirty years, but I cannot, for most of the time I was walking around as if I were in a daze. Oh, I was always an ideal, and respectable son to my newly widow mother; although I had exhibited an appearance of weakness and loss of my mental facilities (it was all an act), which was often associated with my being the eldest. I became an old soul at the age of 13.
My father had died from phenomena and alcoholism at the age of 29. I never made it to his funeral, although I stood outside of the funeral home as the hearse drove right pass me on its way to the cemetery; and I’ve been fighting back tears and biting my bottom lip ever since. I found myself growing up fast at the age of 13. I’d sort out odd jobs, while still attending school. I’d left no room for hanging out with the neighborhood boys, for I wanted to “prove” that I was the “man of the house”, now that my father was gone. Although I never -- in my 13 years of living -- thought of myself as the “man of the house”, others in the household, gave me that title and position, and then just ignored me!  Everyone left me to figure things out for myself.  It was sort of like on the job training!

So I was going to prove it to everyone that I was up for the challenge – anyway!

Whenever anyone would ask me how was school, I would response fine. Whenever anyone would ask me if I had a girlfriend, I would just look at him or her, as if they all had two heads. My father was 16 years old when he had me, and I knew I did not want that for myself. I did not know how to articulate those feelings to those asking me about my dating at the age of 13. And, although, Marvin Gaye was begging all of the young and older men/women in my neighborhood to, “Let’s Get It On”, through the airways of WBLS's, I knew that I did want to get it on with anyone.So I waited. And, in between waiting, I continued to walk around, as the “man of the house”, telling everyone that everything was fine, and actually, I was crying inside.

I learned about my first erection . . . alone. I learned about my first climax . . . alone. I learned about the peach fuss growing in my private areas . . . alone, and I’d learned about falling in/out of my first love . . . alone. And, no one asked about how I felt about such things. All the time those very ton of bricks, weighted me down all through high school, for my old soul did not date even then. I did not go out with my classmates until the last year of school, and that is when I started drinking. The drinking age limited in 1978 was 18, and my choice of “spirits” was Old English beer, and Black Berry Brandy.

While all of my friends were losing their virginity and a smoking weed, I was ending high school a virgin, and entering my third year as a part time federal employee/co-op student; and entering my first year of college. I was going to prove to everyone that I was the “man of the house”. The drinking increased, although I thought I was in control of it. I never drank during work, or at school.  But when happy hour began at 5:00 PM, I was sitting in any local bar in Greenwich Village getting my drink on. The weight begun to feel lighter; and the isolation became bearable, too. My tongue became sharper, and I had learned that I had a knack for telling folks exactly what I thought (but looking back now, I do not think that was all liquor, but my persona).

One night, while out with friends drinking, I lost my virginity; and from what I remember about that experience was that I woke up the next morning in love, yet that same love wasn't reciprocated. So I returned home . . . alone.  I returned home and was unable to share that experience with any one, not my sisters, or even my mother. But they knew something was different, for I had started hanging out more, and drinking more, for the weight of the loneliness, guilt, and shame had become compounded with gin and tonic, rum and coke, and OLD ENGLISH.

And, the absence of my father’s, and recalling watching his hearse pulling off, and not one person giving me a hug, and saying to me, “everything’s was going to be all right” (forever surfaced, and drove me to drink some more). So I continued to numb the pain. I continued to medicate my hatred of my father for dying, and leaving me alone. I learned to shave on my own. I learned to wear a necktie on my own, for I felt embarrassed to stand toe to toe with another man, while breathing his breath into my nostril while he showed me how to tie a necktie. Just the thought of getting that close to another man drove me to drink even more. I did not want that closeness (or so I thought); and therefore, I continued to drink.

Then the 80s came. Crack and G.R.I.D. (now called AIDS) became another weight that attached itself to my all ready ten thousand pounds of bitterness, loneliness, and self-loathing. I had to side step the anger that I have been carrying now for well over thirteen years. I had to learn how to navigate my way through a voracious sexual appetite. While most of my colleagues, both male and female were dying. I’d learned about true unconditional love, when nurses, hospital administrators were forbidding accessed to my loved ones deathbeds. I wanted to reach out to them and tell them all that I loved them; and that I couldn’t take another person dying before I could tell them that I loved them; and in away I found it liberating, and I also began to find my own voice.

A voice closed for so long.I began speaking up and out for that little boy, who at the age of 13 no one had spoken up for. I began to say what I wanted, and would not stand for in the midst of lies, and on/in the face of death; and slowly those heavy bricks began to melt away.  I became the voice for many friends, and family members who lost their ability to speak for themselves. I stopped drinking, and started writing letters. I stop seeking approval of family and friends; and I’m sorry to admit, a few strangers in my state of drunkenness.

I started to ask God to forgive me for any resentment against my father for leaving me alone. I also asked God to forgive my father, too. My father was a man-child, having babies in the 1960s. He had to deal with racism, segregation and two wars. He had witness the death of Emmett Till. The death of Meager Evers. The death of Malcolm X. The death of Dr. King, and he was still called a boy, a Negro and even worst.  I, too, would have drunk myself to death.  I would have ignored my first man-child, too, because, like me, he did not have a relationship with is own father, my grandfather.

So in my mid-thirties, while walking the city streets one night, I’d noticed a young man and his son holding hands, and that’s when I looked up toward the heavens above, and asked my father for his forgiveness.  I then asked, posthumously, for him to help me help myself in removing over thirty-years of a heavy burden, that I have placed upon my shoulders, which hah prevented me from knowing him in the spirit of true unconditional love.//DVB

Copyrighted April 21, 2008

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d v brooks, EMPA, SSgt., B.A., and O.A.S. is an autobiographical essayist and solo performing artist living in Harlem, NYC, and the producer/host of BlAcKpOeMoLoGy: In Conversation on the Arts and Social Issues, MNN Cable Show. d v brooks an advocate for the Awareness/Prevention of Child Abuse, Prostate, Skin & Breast Cancer, and HIV/AIDS; and a local community elected official in East Harlem. He is also a mentor/tutor for several not-for-profit organizations in Manhattan, NYC.