American Outlaw - Jesse James [142]
My mom never remarried. She had only one boyfriend after my dad left.
I pivoted, trying to keep my balance in the narrow pathways of the circular maze.
He was a typical 1970s East L.A. Cholo . . . drank a lot . . . worked as a truck driver . . . I remember seeing him drunk and yelling at my mom, threatening to kick the shit out of her.
I turned again, putting one foot directly in front of the other, treading as slowly and as deliberately as possible.
Once, I told him to leave my mom alone and he directed his alcohol-fueled rage toward me . . . “What’s that?” he yelled. “You got something to say to me? Huh, you fuckin’ crybaby?” I think I was about eight years old . . .
It was hard stuff, all of it. And I had always been unwilling to dwell for too long on it. I guess it hurt too bad. I’d bury myself in my work, or in getting fucked up, or wrenching on big, imposing machines. But all that had done was put me where I was now. The only way out was through the hard memories.
Joanna, my stepmom, came to pick me up from football practice in sixth grade, and I was late getting out of the locker room . . . “Where were you?” she snapped. I didn’t say anything.
“I SAID, where were you?”
I didn’t respond.
“Did you hear me??” She backhanded me, and her fake nail caught on my mouth and cut my lip and then I was bleeding onto my shirt . . .
The memory hit me full force. I swayed for a second, then continued forward, breathing with each footfall, just looking at the ground, letting my body lead me.
So I punched her in the side of the head. She shut right up. It was the worst feeling I’d ever had.
Slowly, I felt something expanding inside of me. Just having the courage to investigate the way I’d grown up gave me this sense of maturing, of advancing past this limit I’d always set on myself. Instead of constantly pretending that I’d grown up normally, just like everyone else, now I was allowing for the possibility that I’d been hurt. And pretty bad.
“I came here thinking that if I followed the directions, and did what you guys told me to do, I’d maybe be given a second chance with Sandy,” I told Dr. Thomas. “But lately I’ve been thinking, maybe that’s not the point.”
Dr. Thomas smiled at me. “So tell me, what’s the point, Jesse?”
“Well, it feels like . . . I’ve stumbled into this amazing opportunity to work on myself. I think I better make sure I focus on that.”
“That’s good,” she said. “I think that’s an excellent idea.”
Gradually, I fell back into a regular sleeping schedule. Each night, I fell asleep around ten. Then I would rise the next morning at five, take a quick shower, throw on a pair of jeans, and step quietly out the front doors.
A seven-mile horse trail led off the property. I wasn’t supposed to go on it, because it was off the grounds, but nonetheless, I did each day. The path wound itself through the mountains, and as I followed it, the nature around me filled me with a sense of freedom and wonder. It was just so incredibly quiet out there. There wasn’t a single soul around to bother me. Back in L.A., I’d taken early-morning walks on the beach a few times, but there’d always been company: I’d usually see between fifteen and twenty folks, running over the same stretch of ground as I was. Here? My only company were deer and javelinas and jackrabbits. Just me and cold desert morning air.
And yet it was still surprisingly tough, some days. One morning in group therapy, I had been