Nowhere, Mississippi

Chapter 3

The more you tell a personal story, the more it becomes just that: a story. For me, recalling memories about experiences I preferred to forget, somehow distanced me from them. Tell your story often enough, and it starts to feel like you’re talking about someone else. Eventually, you recite it without reliving it.

The people and experiences from my six years in Victory Ranch left me with an abundance of two things: mental baggage and stories. When I finally emerged from Eastabuchie, Mississippi, I managed to tolerate the former by sharing the latter. I had some crazy-ass tales to tell, and would have one ready for any occasion. I shared funny stories when I wanted laughs, and sad ones when I needed pity, but the horror stories were always reserved to prove that I suffered and still survived…and this was the full extent of my life"s accomplishments.

After hearing a story or two, people would sometimes say, “You should write a book!” But, that’s just something people say. Right? Either way, I had no interest in that idea. Far too many unresolved issues stood in the way, too much trauma to sort through. So I stuck to hand-picking tales to share over pints, road trips, early morning runs, meals, and anywhere else they would fit. That was good enough. Writing about my time in Mississippi would mean going back and picking at old wounds. It would mean revisiting the issues, not to entertain friends between pints, but to understand them better myself. To understand myself better too.

RightEventually, I started playing with the idea of a book. Sure, write a book, but how?

I went about this the same way I’ve survived every day since 1996...I asked for help.

That"s where Paul Munro came into the picture. A middle-school English teacher and avid YA reader, I met him at a school where we both taught and were soon good friends. For several reasons, I did not want to go at this alone. When finally deciding to push forward with this book, I asked Paul to be my co-author.

The bastard passed, but, after some convincing, Paul joined this project. Thank God! Paul took the real events and people from my time in Mississippi and was instrumental in turning those things into what you just read.

As for the people, the places, and the events in this story, there’s far too much reality and not nearly enough fiction. We were abused by the adults. We abused one another. We deserved better. By now, you have a pretty good idea of what some of my experiences were like, a crash course in boys home life.

Paul and I based Will on my personal boys home experiences, but Will is far cleverer than I ever was. Will’s backstory is mine too: lost mom, absent dad, and strings of bad decisions that eventually landed me in the last place I wanted to be. I learned quickly, but Will learned quicker. I made friends, but Will made them far more easily. Our mindsets are basically the same, but using a fictionalized character allowed me to distance myself from it all. Will is the kid I was and the kid I wish I could have been.

While fictionalized, adding Mary Grace made sense to both the story and my experiences, but I came to realize that Mary Grace represents what I was missing in life. How could Will ever get to a good place mentally by the end of this story? Not possible!

Paul had to fight tooth and nail to get me to see otherwise. Mary Grace was the only way. What she offers, what the hope of love offers, can go a long way. Most of these characters and events come from my memories; Mary Grace came from Paul Munro’s creativity and persistence. I couldn’t imagine this story without her.

Boys home life taught me how to create my own family. There, my friends filled that role and provided all the things a person needs: support, trust, love, companionship, and acceptance. I somehow found those things in the castoffs of Eastabuchie, Mississippi, the middle of Nowhere. They became my family.

Once free, I found mother-types, dad-types, and countless brothers and sisters along the way. I am lucky to be surrounded by these people still. They are my family too. Getting married to my amazing wife and adding our two daughters completed the circle. Family redefined.

The bizarre, troubling, humorous, and shocking events and people of Victory Ranch haunted me. Looking back, I see how telling those stories and writing this book has been deeply cathartic. There is value in the years I believed to be worthless. Who would have thought?

Six years to live it, thirty years and counting to process it, and two years to write about it, but it has all worked out well enough somehow. You can"t find Nowhere, Mississippi on a map, but places and problems like Nowhere tend to find you. What then? If nothing else, I hope this book proves that not only can you survive the worst life throws at you, you can rise far, far above it.