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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2004 19:00:03 GMT -5
I’m not much for drama. Anyone in my family, anyone I hang out with, work with, go to school with---whatever---talk to them, and they’ll tell you that. In fact I hate it, it irritates the hell out of me. I’m not a blunt guy and I’m pretty courteous when it comes to that, but I really don’t like to do things in the fashion people may do in a movie. It’s best told with example, but I don’t want to get sidetracked here, either. I’m going to tell this in the best way I know how: conversationally, as it comes to me, and whether I think it is of interest and/or importance. As it stands here in the business, I am coming to the end of my term. I have wanted to write some of this stuff down for years now, and I think that it needs to be done, not just to give something back to the people here, but to let some things out of me that need to be let out. A lot of this stuff has been sloshing around inside of me for a while and has only made contact people who I consider my closest friends.
I recently told a good friend of mine online here that the reason why we role-play and the reason why we get involved in our ‘business’ is out of interest. Interest is the basis of what we do here. Give reasons as you will. “I role-play to escape.” Well, yes, you might, but interest brings you to that plateau. The bottom line is that you have to be interested in role-play to role-play. This July I will have been around for eight years. I’ve been from one side of the Internet to the other, seen a lot of people, done a lot of things, and experienced a lot of role-play. I have seen people come and people go, careers begin and careers end. But the one thing I haven’t seen is someone role-playing when he doesn’t want to. We see it all the time right here in Blackfyre: people sitting in the chat room talking while there may be role-play going on, but not participating. So that is my theory…or at least my opinion, in case someone wants to take credit for believing that first. Role-players run on interest, and as people grow older, they tend to lose interest. Perhaps due to the ‘growing out of’ process or time constraints. Yeah, well, whatever the reason, people do lose interest over time. Some people don’t, but others do. I am one of them.
But losing interest does not mean people lose respect for what they once loved. If I did not respect the business I would not be writing this. I would not care what happened after I was gone, I would deny ever being a part of anything, and would move on to better things without so much as a goodbye. I respect this business that we have long since been a part of. I can’t really explain my reasons for writing this…it’s a mixture of a lot of things. I want to deny the reason being trying to create a legacy, but I can’t, because that’s part of it, and I stopped lying a long time ago. A small part, but part of it. The real thing is that I just have a strong urge to write it all down, so that I have something to show for what I’ve done, which really isn’t much. Call it a page in a history text book, or whatever. It’s for you to read, so if you want to, read. It’s my story.
For a long time people have tried to get inside me, glimpse my mind, and see how I work. I’ve been quiet…that’s in my personality. So I am writing all of this down for everyone to see in public. Take it or leave it, but it is here before you. I hope you enjoy. If you don’t, at least remember it.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2004 12:24:23 GMT -5
Both of my parents were full-blooded Italians from all over the red, green, and white peninsula. I remember my dad told me once that they had met at a dinner get-together with some friends and then they started dating from there. I was glad growing up that my mom had had a pretty large family because my dad was somewhat of a loner. A great man, moderately successful, and the best father he could be…but my grandpa Vic died when I was really young, and the rest of the Cardullos and Cappettas were either so far spread out or plagued with those internal Italian scuffles that I never saw much of them. On my mother’s side, though, the Arancios were the exact opposite: closely knitted together, and also very large. I think my grandpa Paul lived longer then his opposite number on my dad’s side, but he still died while I was young. My grandma on that side, Nancy (called her Nana) lived a lot longer, and my other grandma, Mae, lives to this day. So my mother gave me a family, and my father gave me stability (as you’ll eventually discover). I had a few cousins to grow up with, and that was important, and of course, a younger brother. We shared just about everything…not to sound like a queer, but we did…the hard times and the violent times. Because after I was out of the fourth grade, things just went downhill, and much of the rest of my life was guided by myself, and myself alone.
My dad’s always been a good guy, and I suppose I resemble him in a lot of ways. Looks are not even the major part of that. He grew up in the fifties with a very strict mother and a father that, according to her story, was more interested in going out and finding other women. There’s no real way to write about my dad’s personality. It’s very unique, I can give you that much. He’s a traditional Italian, somewhat, very expansive, intelligent, but old school. That’s the best way I can describe him. He has a few qualities that I could do without (for one, he’s talks, acts, and describes things with unnecessary emotion, as if he’s in a movie, and I already explained to you how that type of drama irritates me) but in general he’s just a good guy. Passive, too. My dad’s very honorable and good-natured. I guess one way you could describe him is being that good old guy going in the way of God. So even as a young kid I could tell the complete difference between him and my mother. I can’t remember a damn thing that they had in common, and to this day I still do not understand or see what my father saw in that woman. Some of you may ask yourself or ask me how am I able to say that about my very own mother? Read on, and you’ll discover just how I dug up that strength.
Maria Arancio was the tempermental bitch of the three kids born to my grandpa Paul and grandma Nancy. While my Uncle Guy and John are the more reserved types like their dad and mine, she is more like your average drowned-in-make-up do-anything-to-bang-that-hot-guy-at-the-mall flip-out-for-no-reason teenage bitch. But that’s only part of it. There was another side to her, a darker side. I guess you could call it evil. I’ve seen a few things on my life on this earth…whether it be on the TV, or in a real life event, and I can say that I know the difference between good an evil. There were a few streaks to her that are just ridiculously uncalled for. Stuff that only villains from a James Bond movie exhibit, you know? She was very vicious and aggressive, especially when it came to money. Money was one of her top priorities. Growing up she always showed affection for me and my brother and sister so I could never really say that she hated us, even through I have enough evidence to today say that that was almost true. I think she loved us but only the amount of love a mother is supposed to give to there kids at a bare minimum, if that makes any sense. She needed us around because after the divorce my dad was paying support money. Maria was a big alcoholic, and booze doesn’t grow on trees, you have to buy it. And money doesn’t grow outside on the apple tree either.
I never understood what her agenda was. I still don’t to this day. It was just in her nature, I guess, to be greedy, and to have what she wanted. What did she want? Well, a divorce from my dad in the early goings of my childhood, which was understandable. They didn’t belong together. Dad, forgive me, but there’s another flaw of yours I have to pick out here: you aren’t exactly the Fonze when it comes to bringing women into your life. Nor are they the best choices. My dad had already divorced once before marrying Maria. She was a woman named Linda and they had a son who is my half-brother, Eric. He’s around 30 now, a Calculus teacher and married, living out in Dallas. Anyway, she got her divorce, and the rest of it just went downhill from there, and fast. Liquor was the key to most of her actions. But we’ll get into that a bit later.
Before the tremor that hit my life after the fourth grade, I was a normal kid. I had set my sights on normal things, I was a good guy in school, always sticking by my true buddies. Pretty popular, even though in the second and third grades kids are more concerned about catching the ice cream guy after school then talking shit about other kids and trying to fight them and hanging out with other kids. I hung around with a guy who I considered my best friend back in the old days, and his name was Justin Hall. We never really went out and did anything, because he lived right across the street from me and a few houses down. My parents knew his and they knew mine, and we were all set, as set as a couple of kids can be. We slept over each others houses a lot, wrestled, beat the crap out of each other, played videogames, messed around with his dogs, and went to school together. One of my most vivid childhood memories is about a kid named Russell Moe. Moe was a black kid, and we had a lot of them around Lakehurst (the town in which we grew up). The school was in walking distance, and every morning Justin and I would walk down the street, cross the highway, and go to school, picking up about twenty kids or so along the way, so we kind of looked like a parade when we finally got to the school. Lakehurst is also a naval air base (also the place where the Hindenburg blimp crashed and exploded; I was out at that very spot) and there was an entire downtown section of compact apartment and condo housing for the navy and their families who were re-located there from some other place. It was slightly rundown and a huge maze of white and brick buildings just beyond the forest and the cranberry bogs which we liked to call ‘Navy Housing’. Back in the nineties black people (no offense) joined the navy or army, especially in New Jersey, so Navy Housing was comprised mostly of black kids, and you know how they are. I’ve been in a few fights when I was little, and most of them were punching or being punched by black kids. So this one guy, Russell Moe, used to mess with us, especially my friend Justin. He used to push him around, and one day I turned the corner on a street walking home and Russell had Justin up against a fence. I flipped out. I say, ‘Get off him, Russell’…but it wasn’t a shout. It was a warning. I don’t know what that kid saw in me that day, but he backed right off, and to save his reputation he tried to fake swing at me. I ignored that, but that’s when I first showed signs of what I would later look back and call ‘bottling up my feelings’.
Passive people are passive, but everyone has a limit. I got the passiveness from my dad, but I do have a temper. It is really, really tough to get me pissed to the point of flipping out and going apeshit and just decking someone, but it can be done. I’ve boiled over a couple times in my life…but that process, one of pent up rage, has been with me ever since the divorce. I don’t remember what my feelings were back then about the divorce itself, but all I can say is that I held everything in. My brother was quite the opposite, and my mom prayed on him because of his vulnerability. My sister was too young, so naturally she went to her side. But I was different. I was more like my dad, and I think that saved me from succumbing to her in ways I or anyone can’t possibly comprehend. I think that if I had not acted the way I did during the entire sixth layer of hell that I went through back then, things might have turned out a whole lot worse…for my siblings, and for myself.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2004 16:59:18 GMT -5
My early childhood was before all of that turmoil surrounding the divorce of my father and biological mother. Those were the only few years I had to enjoy being a kid. To enjoy living under that bridge of solid parenthood (well, to me it was solid, I guess I didn’t realize it was crumbling from the start). From the divorce on, it was just a huge soap opera that ended a little tragically but not too grievously. I just wanted to tell you that I did have a somewhat brief childhood. There were a few good memories, and I want to tell you about them before they escape my mind permanently and I am only left with the slugging mud shit that enveloped my life from the fourth grade on.
Sometimes my mother would take the backstage feud between her and my father outside in the public but most of the time they put on a couple of happy grins so me, my brother, and my sister could know that everything was alright. For that much I guess I do thank her. I really don’t know what I would have done if all of that shit that went on spilled out into a public scene as well. Especially at family gatherings, and the like. My Nana used to have a lot small family reunion parties at her house, which was a pretty big place in Lincroft, which is now considered a part of Middletown, where I live now. I’d see my cousins, uncles, aunts, great aunts, great uncles, and my mom would be there, of course. Even after they were divorce my dad would sometimes show up for the parties, and I always remember feeling good when the both of them were there. Divorced or not, they were still my parents. I’d look around and see my cousin Matthew with his parents and my cousin Anthony with his (although my Uncle Guy and Aunt Sandy divorced I think at a later date, I could be wrong on the timing though) and be depressed because only one of my parents was there. So when my father did show up with a cooler of beer he’d stand around and talk to my uncles and act like everything was perfectly normal, and so would everyone else. And I’d feel all right…that feeling has only been with me a few times…that feeling of being all right, having a family, knowing that you were secure, and that you had people who cared about you and were watching you grow up and making sure you were doing it right. It wasn’t always there, but sometimes it was, and that made my day just feeling that.
I was at my Nana’s a lot. That house was our home away from home because Maria took us there almost every day. We’d leave the house in Lakehurst early in the morning and come home at night. I never really considered her reasons for taking us so much…what the hell did I care, I was little…all I wanted to do was run around with my brother and my cousins. My dad tells me now that she needed a drinking partner, as alcoholics often do, and my Nana was somewhat of a drinker too. My Nana really loved us, though. I don’t really know if Maria ever did, but Nana loved us. She would fight with Maria sometimes about us, and I knew it was about us coming here all the time. Not because she didn’t want us but because we shouldn’t be dragged forty-five minutes up the park way every day. She fought a lot, sometimes with my Uncles when they were over. The food was always good…it was Italian household, enough said. Nana was a good cook, of course, but not as good as my other grandma. I remember my Uncle Sabby on Easter with a little bundle of reeds dipped in water shaking them over us in a blessing. I remember the little dumpling things or whatever they were in the soup. The house itself was amazing, man. Like I said, it was our home away from home. Anthony was there a lot because my Uncle guy lived there in the den (he’s a cop) and Anthony came on weekends because of the custody thing when his parents got divorced. Matthew lived in Long Island so they came on holidays. But when the four of us were there together we’d do all kinds of shit. We made a lot of forts in the groves of bushes. My Nana had a pool, too, so that’s where we were for most of the summer. Great times. I’ll never forget that house, even though my Uncles sold it when Nana died. It was my home away from home, and I had a lot of great memories there as a kid.
Lakehurst is a pretty quiet, church-going town situated on a lake. I remember where the lake is quite clearly. My brother and I rode bikes almost everywhere in that town, because it was so close. It was really more of a village if you ask me. Down near Lakehurst Elementary where I spent my first years of grade school is the lake. I remember chilling down there because my Uncle Gary lived there. Uncle Gary wasn’t actually a full uncle he was a cousin removed or some shit, but since he was as old as my dad I called him Uncle out of respect. He teased the shit out of every animal there, from his cat, Socks, to his dog, Oby. He’d tell me and my kid brother stories about the ‘Momonie’, which was supposed to be a monster cat that lived in the basement and came up at night to eat the geese down at the lake. Jesus, how we’d laughed when we finally found out he was joking. Back then we were scared shitless. They had the fireworks down at the lake on the fourth of July and it was always cool to chill down there, especially when my distant relatives from North Carolina, Paris and Bianca, came over. Haven’t seen them since those days. Haven’t seen much of my Uncle Gary at all either since the custody change. He and my dad, who were really close, got into a fight over a job agreement and they don’t speak, so we lost contact.
I played soccer when I was in the fourth grade. I’d never play it again. The only reason I played it was because Maria put me on the team and expected me to play. I was okay at it, I guess. I wasn’t an ace. The church was next door to Justin’s house so of course Maria knew the preacher, and we were always there punctually every Sunday.
Then there was school. There’s way too many little tidbits on that. The grades went really slow because I guess I was really enjoying growing up. Justin was in a lot of my classes, and since we hung around so much we enjoyed school together too. It was great, as kids will say it was, if they can remember any of it. But that was back then. A snatch of Don Henly comes to me when I think of the old days. A song called ‘The End of The Innocence’. It’s a about a kid growing up under the sun and then having his life royally fucked up when his parents separate. I think I told you that there are certain things…sometimes songs, sometimes sounds or smells…that I associate immediately in a sense of deja vou with my past. Maria played a lot of Don Henly in the car…also Bobby Caldwell, and Enya. You probably haven’t heard of any of these groups. Don Henly is now in a band called The Eagles. Nobody around here likes them, but I do. Not because they sound great, I guess, they do, but that’s not the real reason. The real reason is that they remind me of the life I once had. Not that I don’t love my life now…or that I miss my mother, Maria, because I don’t…but I acknowledge all of these things, and I can simply remember. I’ve always been into history, and what is the point of history? Remembering that we have a past.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2004 18:30:03 GMT -5
Remember when the days were long And rolled beneath a deep blue sky Didn't have a care in the world With mommy and daddy standin' by But "happily ever after" fails And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales The lawyers dwell on small details Since daddy had to fly
But I know a place where we can go That's still untouched by men We'll sit and watch the clouds roll by And the tall grass wave in the wind You can lay your head back on the ground And let your hair fall all around me Offer up your best defense But this is the end This is the end of the innocence
O' beautiful, for spacious skies But now those skies are threatening They're beating plowshares into swords For this tired old man that we elected king Armchair warriors often fail And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales The lawyers clean up all details Since daddy had to lie
But I know a place where we can go And wash away this sin We'll sit and watch the clouds roll by And the tall grass wave in the wind Just lay your head back on the ground And let your hair spill all around me Offer up your best defense But this is the end This is the end of the innocence
Who knows how long this will last Now we've come so far, so fast But, somewhere back there in the dust That same small town in each of us I need to remember this So baby give me just one kiss And let me take a long last look Before we say goodbye
Just lay your head back on the ground And let your hair fall all around me Offer up your best defense But this is the end This is the end of the innocence
---Don Henly
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2004 14:26:50 GMT -5
Sometimes I look back on all of these things and my mind is blurred…warped in such a way that recollections of the actual events are clear but of the feelings and emotions I had are somewhat disguised. Other times everything just seems to hit me like a freight train. In the last couple days I have sat back in my chair and not reveled at my handiwork in writing but relived some very personal and private feelings that I have not even thought I would be able to relive. I look back on that little boy from the past and I try to imagine what it was like for him and just how he managed to get through some of the shit that he did. I can’t, because it’s in the past, and it remained in the past, like it should have. That is where it belongs. Of course, if you think that those troubling feelings were all of the emotional (and occasionally physical) roller coaster that I journeyed on that pre-fateful summer, you are wrong. That is merely just the appetizer. I have a much larger story to tell. It isn’t over, not by a long shot.
As I said, the very moment I stepped outside Mrs. Dicenzio’s fourth grade class room in Lakehurst Elementary, I had not realized it then but I had already experienced my very last good day. What kid is not ecstatic when it comes to the last day of school? I was all but shitting nickels. Summer had finally arrived, and I was ready to liveth la vida loca. I was still a little kid, you remember, but that’s when summers are the best. When you’re a little kid. Less problems, and less things to worry about. Anyway…my parents had already been divorced for a while now…and to describe the relationship between them is easiest explained with the comparison to two wrestlers squaring off in a ring, getting ready to lock horns. Getting ready to get it on. Getting ready to let the tension explode and just get down with it. That was how it really was between Maria and my father. When they got their divorce, the judge had already granted her custody of the three of us kids. It was natural…the mother usually received custody of their children during a legal separation. What the Judge didn’t know was that he had already signed us away to a woman who cared nothing for us, or so I believe now. She cared for the money my dad was now required to send her for our support. She gave us food, and we continued to live at our house, and she took us places (mostly to Nana’s), and she made believe she cared, but she didn’t. The acts of atrocity she committed afterward proved that almost completely. As I said, I think she loved us just enough, you know? Enough for our little ignorant, diluted childish minds to believe that she was our loving mother. What a joke we were made out to be.
She got to us in different ways. I already explained how I took the situation. From the divorce on, I was a quiet guy. I held everything in. I had the potential to explode, like a water balloon not being taken off the faucet. You also have to remember that this was my life…I’d hang with Justin and a couple other guys in the neighborhood…not to be modest, but I was a pretty good looking kid and I did talk to some girls, even though I was still innocent. I had a thing for this chick Vanessa down on…Christ, I can’t remember the street name, but it was down across from the church. Me and this guy Kenny used to ride our bikes over there and talk to some of the other kids, and she’d come up and straddle the front of my bike and flirt like hell. She was gorgeous, but with everything going on in my house, my mind was literally fucked one way and then another way. The only time I thought of her was when I actually saw her. This was what the divorce was doing to me…and the whole situation at home…just taking me down, mentally. After a while I just stopped going out…I tried, and Justin tried to help me. Hell, we were little kids. What was he or anyone else going to do, give me advice? Back in the days of being a kid, you get a punch on the shoulder and then we’d go chase down the ice cream guy. Sounds like a laugh, but to me it just reminds me of how sad the situation really was.
So Maria, she got to me in that way. My folks today say she never did, but I think that was how she got to me. She didn’t know it, and she was pissed all the time because I never showed anything, any response to her or what she did. Mariel, my sister, was way too young to even apply her own thoughts. She was brought up in the image of Maria herself. She couldn’t drink alcohol but she exhibited clear signs of being the absolute quarreling bitch that my former mother was. So there was no hope for Mariel until all of this ended. I wasn’t looking for an end, back then, though. I was looking for a way out. My brother, by far, was the worst. He was the middle child, and he was confused as hell. He was hyper, as little boys are when they’re young, and she put him on ridalin to control him. It made him terribly exhausted, and he lost a hell of a lot of weight because he was never hungry. My dad fought it with all his strength, but the doctors had the judge by the balls. There wasn’t anything he could do except ignore Maria’s protestations that he (my dad) should give him his legal dose. They fought tooth and nail on this issue. I think that that may have been the real problem between Maria and Dad---well, not the only problem, but the one that set things off into a full scale war of attrition that had the three of us drowning in the middle. I grabbed a life preserver, but my brother wasn’t as lucky. The best way to describe Jason was that he was literally torn between two dimensions…the side of good and the side of evil. Mariel, of course, as I said, was too young, and Maria took her under her wing. I was old enough to see and understand some of what was going on behind the smiles and the ‘it’s going to be all right’ s. I was with my Dad. But Jason was torn, because she tried to get at him, and she damn near succeeded. Luckily my Dad had already started dating, and had met a really sweet woman named Cindy, who would eventually become my stepmother. So that and she proved wonders on my sister but also the long and agonizing road to bringing Jason back into the light. There were potholes yet again, though.
Maria filed a restraining order. She went down to the harbor at Barnegat and cut all the wires below the steering wheel on old Bodacious---our boat---and dumped sugar in the gas tanks. I’ve often wondered if she was in her right mind when she did that, and I have decided that she wasn’t. Surely she either didn’t know what she was doing or was just insane. Because sugar turns to jelly in the tanks when the engine is running…we could have been out at sea without an engine, possibly even an explosion. She destroyed my father’s favorite recliner with a butcher knife. She did a lot of things. I was a little too old to believe that the cat had done that one, though. My dad went to court with her and fought her there where he could win legally, but there was nothing he could do about us. Eventually, he would be able to, but not just yet. We had to live with Maria, and the epic ending to all the drama was still to come.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2004 14:29:18 GMT -5
Maria dated a little. She used a lot of hotlines. She was an alcoholic and, although I didn’t know it at the time, a whore. The first guy, Dave, was a good guy. She’d bring us over to Dave’s parent’s farm where we would mess around with the sheep and kick around the chickens with his kid Mike. That was actually a lot of fun and we had some good times there. Mr. and Mrs. Finnegan, his parents, are punctual church-goers and I still see them from time to time when I break my balls Sunday morning to make it to a mass. Another flash back to a memory, real quick, heh. Maria was also a painter (I can’t take that much away from her…she was a damned fine artist of a Pablo Picasso style) and she sold her paintings and other things (like my Dad’s jewelry that he was saving for us) at the flea market. We used to wake up around five in the morning, get some bagels, and then set up camp at the flea market. I’d have my own little sale of shit that I didn’t want in my room anymore. It was actually a lot of fun. The only time I was pissed off at the flea market was when my newly bought leather wallet was stolen and then turned up with no cash in it. But other than that it was fun. Dave used to go with us. He had a diabetic problem, and joked about it, saying it was from chewing all the gum he used to chew. He didn’t last very long, though. He felt bad for us, I imagine, but we weren’t his kids, and there was nothing he could do. He saw Maria for who she really was and ducked out. I don’t blame him one damn bit.
Maria cheated on Dave with this tall, Texan guy Jim. He was all right to me, but he used to beat the fuck out of my brother when he was bad and refused the ridalin. I hated him for that, but I never said anything. I was too lost in my own world of well, the world around me. I had a gruesome encounter around this time…it was late at night, and Maria made me and Jason go to bed without dinner because we didn’t finish raking the leaves outside. We’d snuck food though, so that wasn’t what made me get out of bed. Maybe I had to go to the bathroom, I don’t remember. But my biological mother was laying on the couch having sex with Jim. I stared at them for about a minute, almost wide-eyed. I wasn’t surprised at all, I wasn’t anything. But I went quietly back to bed. They weren’t in their room. They were right on the couch. Maria had always told us to leave our doors open at night, in case of an emergency. So I always did. I can’t remember it, but I think I heard them that night. The memory is repulsive, but it’s there. Just goes to show you the shit I lived with.
Bob was the last guy. He was into sailing, but he was Maria’s male equivalent. I think his profession was carpentry. I remember, because around this time she and Bob decided that they would move from Lakehurst to Keansburg. The place was a shit hole, honest to god, and so was the house. We’d have to go there every day during early July to work on the house, which was crumbling apart. Bob put us to work. He was more of a raging drunk then Maria, and he beat the shit out of her every opportunity he got. She almost always returned the favor. One day he threw a TV at her. Obviously, it missed, because he was a tall, thin guy with no muscle at all. That was in Keansburg. One day back in Lakehurst she knocked him down the stairs. Bob kept guns in the house, and late at night my brother and I would sit in our rooms and talk about life, trying to tune out her screaming as he beat the hell out of her. He would cry, because he felt something for her. But I didn’t. I just wanted everything to die, and everything to end. I didn’t want to be there anymore, at all. One night, I believe they were snorting, Bob punched Maria out and he went for a knife. She was shouting at us to call the police. I remember this night very vividly…my brother and I walked quietly into the master bedroom. He dialed 911, and I talked to the operator. I said, “My Mom and Step dad are in a fight.” I don’t remember what else was said, but the next thing you know the police were there.
The Sergeant took one look at the situation, and well, the next thing you know, Maria was in court. My dad wasn’t taking this laying down. He was pushing the Judge for custody of us. God fucking bless him. He had just gotten re-married and had a small house in Jackson, with barely any money. He didn’t care about expense. He wanted his children out of there and out of there then. Dad, if you ever read this, thank you. And I’d like this auto-biography to show on record that I love you.
The next thing you know, Deyfuss (however the fuck you spell that) was all over me and my little brother. During the last days of school they hounded the hell out of me and asked me all sorts of questions. I would tell them some things…about other things I said nothing. This was the period surrounding the custody change of us into my Dad’s hands. We had a trusted babysitter by the name of Connie Miller who was my buddy Kenny’s Aunt. On one of the last days of school I was staying after for some kind of computer project with Mrs. Curry in the school. I forget what the hell it was, but I was staying after for it. Anyway, my Dad told me to go from the school to Connie’s and he’d pick me up after work. I had already told my friend and neighbor Robbie Lane about this, and he met me at the class when it was over around 3:30. He offered to walk me home, and that was alright. I needed someone to talk to, anyway. What I didn’t know was that Maria had already paid him off to come get me at school and bring me home. She had gotten my sister and damn near gotten my brother…she was going to go all out to bring me to her side. I wasn’t going to have it, though, and even now, I am honestly surprised at the toughness I showed that day. I think that has been with me since then. I told Rob about all the shit going on on the way home to my house. I don’t know what made him change his mind, but it was probably what I told him about Maria and Bob. I had just finished saying something nasty about my own mother, and then I looked up, and fucking froze. She was standing right there, hands on her hips, a demonic grin on that face. That image of her has stayed with me, and I can still picture her now. I still remember the way I instantly froze as if I’d been shot full of cement. Rob elbowed me and told me to run for it, that he’d distract her. So I did…I turned around and sprinted down the road around the Self’s house to Connie’s. I can still hear her shouting after me. “Christian! CHRISTIAN! GET BACK HERE! NO! GET BACK! COME BACK!” Screaming…screaming…
That was the last time I ever saw her alive.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2004 0:20:38 GMT -5
So I ran all the way to Connie’s. I didn’t stop and I didn’t look back. When I got in the door I found that my brother and my sister were already there. I guess she had already gotten them out of class, maybe figuring something like this would happen. Connie used to be friends with Maria…but who can predict you better than a friend? I think that’s what happened. Maria came to the door and started pounding on it, demanding to be let in. We ignored her…in fact, I went out in the backyard and threw around a ball with Connie’s kid, Matthew. This part of my memory is a little hazy…I think that she just grew tired of banging on the door, and she left. She didn’t call the police, because we weren’t hers anymore. She just went home, I guess. She went back to our house on Manapaqua Avenue, where I grew up so many years ago.
That my last day with the old town. If you’re reading this you are probably saying to yourself that I just can’t say goodbye. Back then, it was easy. I was a little kid. I didn’t care about the town. I wanted it all to end, to be over. And I wanted to be with my dad. Weekends weren’t enough, and now that things were back in his hands I wanted to get out of the hellhole I was in with Maria and Bob. Wanted that for me and my brother and sister. After that, we took our things from the house in Lakehurst while Maria and Bob were off doing who the fuck knows at that rat trap in Keansburg. I was upset leaving my new dog, Holly, behind, I remember. Bob may have been a drunk just like my late mother, but even villains have soft hearts for dogs. I heard she was doing okay a couple years ago. Anyway, we took what we needed and moved out. I never looked back at the old house. As Maria spent more time drunk and wasting away out in Keansburg, the place slowly grew unkempt. The grass was as high as a man, and the house was trashed. The pine needles from the Christmas tree were still all over the floor---she had never found the time to vacuum them up. I collected my Grandpa Paul’s expensive oil paints and things from the basement and tucked them away in my suitcases…my brother is a natural artist, and it’s a good thing I saved all that shit. By now all of that is probably worth more then ten grand. I’ll get to Jackson a bit later, because we aren’t exactly finished with the drama. Maria came around every so often and tried to frighten my step mom. When my dad got a restraining order she tried phone calls and bribes…my brother was still screwed up, but my dad and new mom were slowly turning him. It would still take years for the three of us to fully recover and develop into the minds we are today. Eventually, Maria just gave up.
I was in Washington D.C. for a weekend with my Dad and Cindy when I learned that Maria had died. It was a result of the continual consumption of alcohol. Jason and Mariel were bad and they had to stay home with my Grandma Mae, so it was just us three. I still remember that afternoon. We were in the hotel room and were laying around on the twin beds. My Uncle Guy called my Dad and told him the news. I could only feel elation, and both of them were shocked when I verbally expressed it. My brother would not feel the same way when my father later broke the news to him. Mariel was young, and she would eventually be groomed into a copy of Cindy (who I now call Mom) rather then Maria, which is all for the better. Bob…well, we heard following her death that he moved in with his ex-girlfriend. He took Holly with him, too, and apparently sold the shit hole house in Keansburg. That was it for him. As for me…well…it was over, and I had dreamed of this for a long time. She was gone, and I knew I had a life ahead of me. Even though I was still full of everything that had happened. I thought I was going to feel good…but I was a blank.
The wake was very solemn, more so than usual. It was as if a great cloud had lifted…not only for us. She had caused problems for years with everyone. We were not the only ones in her path of death and destruction. But no one was elated, as they rightfully should have been. Instead…everyone was just blank. As if in shock, but not a grief-stricken shock. A shock that things had changed so dramatically…especially for us. I remember walking slowly up the aisle. Her face was powdery…they’d dressed her in her best, and she looked like a new bride. I felt nothing for her…and I felt nothing for me. I knelt on the altar to pray, but nothing came to me at all. My eyesight focused in on the flowers above the coffin and they stayed there until my dad tapped me on the shoulder. The next few minutes seemed to have gone in slow motion…walking down the aisle and seeing all those mournful faces (though none of them really crying)…my uncle Guy saying that they were going to close the doors soon and get her ready for the funeral and that he’d keep it open a few more hours so we kids could pay our last respects…I barely slept that night. It was not depression or anything like it. Just an utter blank of shock. The funeral itself was the same way…I barely registered the birds chirping shrilly in the background. I threw a white rose on her coffin, which was closed by then, and that was it. So ended a chapter in my life.
I re-visited Lakehurst only two more times after that. Mostly to see Justin, Connie, Mrs. Hons (an old babysitter), and some of my other buddies who I would never go to school with again. I remember saying goodbye to my first girlfriend, Kelly Barrows. She didn’t say anything, she just turned. I guess that was all for the better…I don’t know what I would have done if she had just broke down and wept. Justin and I kept a hold of each other on the phone and even went to each other’s houses, despite the fact that Lakehurst and Jackson were a year’s distance away. Eventually we got lazy and stopped traveling, staying on the phone. As time went by, calls became rarer. Then I would call him on Christmas or maybe Thanksgiving. And then we stopped talking. I still remember his phone number…by heart. Haven’t worked up the nerve to call him…if he even still lives there. Jackson was a fresh start for me. The old pains were slowly going away. But I remained quiet, even as my brother turned into a better kid and my sister started following my new mother around and picking up on her habits. I remained quiet. I retained my past.
I'm glad I was able to get through this part without breaking down and letting it get deleted before I could post it. But now that it is out, I will have to be excused. I promise...my story has only yet begun. I have much more to tell.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2004 18:42:12 GMT -5
Jackson was a whole new ball game. It was just a new life…but of course, me (as well as my brother and sister) still carried over a lot from the previous one. All of you already know what I was feeling by then. I wasn’t in shock anymore by the time of the move. I guess I was still out of sorts…I never really exploded and let out everything that had built up inside of me. It gradually came out through a trickle of talk and understanding and communication until it just poured out of me here before you. Imagine that…took six years. My brother and sister took longer to mend and heal but it was all the same basic phenomenon: recovery. Even my dad and newly crowned mom were undergoing that phase. Everyone was ready to try to start anew, and with a whole new family.
Jackson was an all right town, I guess. I really didn’t care for it much. But I was living there, and I grew accustomed to it, so that’s just how the dice rolled. I went to middle school 5th and 6th grade at Christa McAuliffe, which was a school named after, I believe, an astronaut that died in space. I’m not going to go off on a rant about all of my memories school-wise. I had some, but they weren’t really memorable ones. Jackson itself and everything about it was like an intermission in my life. The connecting bridge between my old life and the shit I left behind and my new life here in Middletown. Not just the town between two other towns but the feeling between two feelings, if that makes any sense at all. We lived on Georgian Blvd and had a modest little suburban house that was two stories. We also had a pool out back; a little added plus that came with the purchase. I don’t know if my dad really wanted it, but he damn well took care of it. Tina and Dillon, a couple of kids from the house next door, came over a lot, and so did the Benkos whose daughter, I thought, had a great body, and Joey Aqueeno from across the street. We had some good times in the neighborhood…I just really didn’t want to know too many people. I rarely went out to socialize…I just wanted to be by myself. I would deliberately sleep in late and miss the first half of school. I had the tools to be what I was in Lakehurst, but I didn’t want that anymore. The entire situation that we had left behind had left me feeling completely blank and unfeeling. If I had died right around then I probably wouldn’t have given a shit.
We brought the old boat over from Barnegat to keep at the house and we also bought a new dog, Angel, who remains with us today. Foxxy came to us from my Uncle Bob’s---his story is a story in itself, if you ever want to hear it, just ask me---and he and the spaniel made a pretty cool couple. Anyway, because I was so out of sorts, and I just really didn’t want to have anything to do with the world around me, I guess you could see how I might have greatly appreciated something like or the business itself. It was not so much as an escape…it started as an interest in computers…they were new to me. Also…I had been writing for a while…I don’t know exactly what triggered that, but I did start writing, and I wrote a lot. Started a lot. Finished almost nothing. That’s pretty much how kids operate. The only thing I ever actually finished was a lengthy fictional piece called ‘The Turquoise Crystal’ which was really just a rip off of Jurassic Park. I also finished about seven or ten short stories that became part of a series called ‘Fighting Force’, which include varied elements of different action movies and centered around characters built up off of real life people I met online, mostly from Ibutsu. But anyway, writing at that time was huge for me. I visualized myself as the next Micheal Critchon or the next Stephen King or the next Tom Clancy or the next Margaret Weis. I wanted to get rich and famous off of my works. It also gave me the opportunity to be alone and that is all I wanted in those days. To simply be alone. I wanted to keep writing, and I guess it was a blessing that my dad bought our first computer and set it up in the living room upstairs. I didn’t know shit about computers, but I wanted to type rather than write. So I started typing up my stories, in addition to playing Chessmaster 5000, our very first computer game. My dad used to get pissed off because he wanted me to get outside and not stick around on a hot summer day and write on the computer. I was on the machine damn near twenty four seven at that point. After a while my parents moved it into the basement, where my room was, which was all the better for me. I came upstairs to eat, go to school, and occasionally go to the beach or my Aunt Lorraine’s. My mom (Cindy) has an enormous family. The Stavolas own an industrial empire in New Jersey. If you come to this state, you will probably hear the name once or twice, especially if you head towards the middle part of Jersey. They are mostly up north while Jackson is pretty far southwest. So it was a hike to get to the family outside. I didn’t give a shit, either. I stopped caring about a lot of things, and family was one of them. I took on a rather self-absorbed attitude, and began craving respect. The idea of accomplishing something simply for people to admire and praise me was not only intriguing, but also incredibly attractive. I wanted respect, I wanted power, and I wanted to be on top. None of this had ever been a part of my zest for life in my years growing up. I don’t know what exactly changed things…I have a general idea, but as to what exactly made me this newfound person, I really can’t say. What I can say is that I was robbed of my innocence, and I changed.
That newfound desire drove me out of my absolute quietness and put me in a position where I had to socialize a little even though I despised almost every other human being other than my immediate family. I started talking to other kids at school and made a few friends, one of them a guy I talked to even through the next move to Middletown. He was a hardcore gamer named Mike Franco and we used to chill almost every day and every night after school when I wasn’t writing, just playing videogames. This was where I first discovered my passion for competition. It started with a few fighting videogames. Tekken 3, Battle Arena: Toushindin, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat to name a few. I wanted to beat him at everything. It took a long time, because I wasn’t a quick smart guy, but after a while I could hang with him, and sometimes kick his ass. I started watching the World Wrestling Federation and became enthralled with the storylines and matches and competition (two years later, when I found out it was fake I was still into it as much as I had ever been). I also discovered another passion: collecting things. My brother and I used to collect bugs in plastic containers and create habitats for them back at my Nana’s, and then later on I swapped matchbox cars when my cousin Anthony and I lined up our collections like used car salesmen making deals. It was around that time I was introduced to the growing phenomenon known as Pokemon.
As much as I want to skip this next part, I can’t, because it is critical to my entrance into the business as we know it. It started in school, when some kid named Kellan offered me two cards for three dollars. It was my lunch money, but what the fuck. All the kids had them, so now I could say I did too. I bought them, and let myself get ripped off. But that’s where it started. Pokemon. Now I wasn’t like the rest of the little kids who liked to have the cards to battle and have Pokemon fights. I bought them to collect them. I liked Pokemon because of the hundreds of different cards…rare and common…and holographic…and it was such a huge thing back when I was ten or eleven that I had to get into it. I wanted respect and I wanted to be recognized…and the best way I knew how to do that was to start doing what other people were doing. So I got into Pokemon. My brother was more of a fanatic, and every day we’d beg our dad for eleven bucks to go to 7-11 and buy a pack of eleven cards. They skinned you alive because kids wanted the cards (in some places you heard about homicides over these cards) and the bastards knew it. That was like a dollar a card, no matter what cards were in there. You had no idea, and you’d have to hope for a holographic card. Trading was very common and everyone was extremely enthusiastic over all of that. Since I had gotten into it, I was also. Joey and I used to lay down on his driveway and open our collection books and trade cards. These cards weren’t like baseball cards…they were expensive and very much sought after. There were bloody, brutal fights in our neighborhood over them. I remember opening a packet once to find a holographic Blastoise in there, and that became my favorite card, and my favorite Pokemon. Sound gay, huh? Well, it is now, of course, but back then it wasn’t.
Anyway, I lost almost all interest in writing and immediately devoted my full attention to Pokemon. I bought a Gameboy simply because I wanted to find out the story behind these cards and just where everything was coming from. I played Pokemon for the Gameboy and began researching information on it online. I wanted to be the best at Pokemon, as I had wanted to be the best at almost everything that came under my nose. Not just be the best, but be famous, be a legend, be respected. I wanted what a lot of people dream but cannot achieve. But back then, I was about 20 % muscle and 80 % determination. I wanted it to happen, and by fucking Christ I was going to get what I wanted. So I went after this in an extremely hardcore manner. I wanted a checklist of all the Pokemon cards ever made so I could keep an eye out for ones that I did not own. I had to check online for that kind of stuff.
And that was how I found Ibutsu.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2004 9:29:07 GMT -5
Pokemon became second nature to me once I found Ibustu. From that moment on I became in deep with this thing known as the Internet. While a lot of kids my age just looked at it as a way to send messages and talk to each other instead of racking up a phone bill, I found something else. I found a little comfort and a small path through the bushes of hardship. That path, I knew, could take me to more competition, to more success, to more achievement. I could be something there, and I damn well wanted it very badly. I guess you could say I wanted compensation for all the shit I had been through previously, perhaps unconsciously. I can’t give you the exact layout of reasoning because it escapes me today. All I know is that I dove in head first without even looking, and now that I think about it, I believe that was the best way to go. As I was looking on Yahoo! searches for Pokemon card checklists and other things of that nature, I came across a listing that led to a website called www.ibutsu.com. It was one of the early Pokemon industrial, expansive, and also expensive Pokemon everything websites, though this particular one was mainly for the cards themselves. They had everything from a Deck Reviewer to a forum. I never got close to the forum…I didn’t really like the idea of posting things at that point in time. I did want to see what a lot of people said on the Pokemon cards, so I checked out the Deck Reviewer. I think that was where I first became in tune to Ibutsu. I met a bunch of guys on the Reviewer. At that time Ibutsu was in its early stages, growing rapidly but still far below its competitors. There were a lot of guys on that Reviewer that made a substantial contribution to Ibutsu’s jump to popularity in the late 90’s. Some of them include people who I have lost contact with but met and was great friends with: Peter, Deckard, Matt Nowocynski, and Branden Bean, who were all writers for the Reviewer and also posted a lot on Ibutsu’s infamous bicker board; Isaac Acks, the guy who ran Ibutsu’s store; Paolo, a popular guy who rose up in the chat and really did a lot of site work; and Branden, the owner of the website. The Reviewer and Bicker Board gave Ibutsu growth, but once Ibutsu opened the Chat Café, I believe that that was the point where things really took off. I am proud to say that I am one of the people who really carried things to a whole new level after that. After a little stint with the Deck Reviewer, I came into the chat under the alias of Blastoise. From there, things just started to snowball. I immediately started gaining the respect of everyone. Back in those days, the business was wired traditionally tooth and nail. There were wars galore, storyline fights, a lot of chatting, a lot of drama, and a lot of relationships. Cate was one of the first people I met in Ibustu, and she went under the name of Soccer_22. We hit it off right off the bat…I was a cool guy in there, and I wanted to make sure I stayed that way. I portrayed myself as a suave, cool as ice, shade wearing, leather jacket sporting, motorcycle riding Fonze. Then I began cursing like crazy, and I used to make six sentence long post entrees of all curses. It just came with my personality. I was a tough guy, and I loved it. I was turning that way offline as well, but here in Ibutsu, I had all the respect and love a guy could get. Cate and I started dating, and she was my second conscious girlfriend online or offline. After a while I grew tired of her…also, I wanted to keep my options open. After all, I had it all, and being a taken guy sort of limited that. So we broke it off and put it back on repeatedly. I came into contact with a guy named Ben Weller, one of the few people from Ibutsu I still am in contact with and also one of my best friends. He went under the name Spinner at first. Later it was Spinner Robertz. He also had a second alias: Sam Dragonblade. Ben and I hit it off right away and we began talking on a regular basis. He was friends with Cate too, and we had our own little group just beginning to grow. We met Kyle, who was Psyker Illusion, and also Kelsie (Kasumi), and Cameron (Jolteon), Andrew (Crono), and Kim (Limpbizkit Girl). I became a master of the chat room and one of those guys who commanded the respect of everyone there. People leaned on me. Branden ran the website. The Chat Café had been designed for people to talk about Pokemon, but what I found was that people were more interested in each other and making friends. It was like one of those summer camps your folks might have sent you too for a couple weeks. So that’s what we did…we talked, got together, partied, and fought. I noticed people hitting each other occasionally, or basically typing an action into their keyboard through the use of action marks. I forget which ones I used first, it might have been the stars or the double colons, but anyway, that was my first introduction to role-playing and action making in a chat room. Back in the days of Ibutsu, not many people role-played full tilt, but a lot of people incorporated it into their styles of chatting and goofing around. We had a lot of great memories at Ibutsu. To sit here and tick them all off one by one would greatly exceed the 10000-word limit I have for one post. One thing my buddies and I did often was create a small army to keep out invaders and keep the chat room safe from attack by other chats. Though some people hated one another, everyone respected the business that had begun. Only losers and ignorant fools chose to disrespect it. Mainly because they were in turn disrespected and shunned. Anyway, the Ibutsu multicity chat room was just one of over a hundred Pokemon chat rooms, and nearly all of them were at war with each other. Everyone was fighting, though Ben and I usually managed to keep it out of Ibutsu. Sometimes we would send out scout parties to other chat rooms like Articuno’s or Charmander 31’s…often I would lead these parties, and we would instantly skirmish with the other clans. We would fight like raging lunatics. I think this was the early days of textual combat at its best…for example…-Punch.- -Kicks him in the stomach.- Only with really bad grammar and very often a shit load of typos. Ibutsu was never really involved in a full-fledged war, but had to defend itself to keep from being invaded. We were the defenders, and we held on very strongly. And this was all just external. The drama that occurred within the chat room nearly twenty-four seven was almost unreal, but very much a part of why so many people were in the chat. Ben and I got into one fight during the days of Ibutsu, and it was over Cate. But we solved that really quickly, though the drama never really ended between the three of us. Ben was also an adventure-hungry storywriter, like I was. We couldn’t go off and be wild soldiers and live the experiences we thought up in our mind, but we could write them down. I had stopped writing, but Ben started a series called ‘Dragon Rage’. It was started before I knew him, and what I loved about it was the fact that all of us chat characters were in it. I was brought in into the tenth episode. Ben continued to write Dragon Rage up until the 19th or 20th episode, as well as a hell of a lot of other stories. He’ll be a great writer someday, and I wish him success. But anyway, I was with another girl by the name of Ali, who went under the name of ‘Kitty’. So she became part of our group. Most of the drama occurred between the folks in our little shindig. But there were lots of other great events that still live deep in my memory.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2004 11:51:05 GMT -5
Ibutsu was finally invaded one day by a group led by the chat’s most hated villainous figure: Ash’s Hitman. He had formed his own cult known as ‘The Underground’, and were raiding the chat room constantly whenever our defenses were weak, or whenever there weren’t the bravest and best fighters in the chat. Ash changed his name to Underground Hitman and, directed by a new guy who I had never met named Diglet, made war upon Ibutsu with his crew of Underground followers. Alpha and Omega were his top dogs, along with a traitor to Ibustu named Orange, who then became known as Underground Orange. Things were very traditional back then, and losing a character was very common. If you were killed, you accepted it, and died away, and came into the chat under a new alias. So, as you can probably imagine, growing up in that era of the business was very dramatic, and very eventful. During the weeks to come of what became known as ‘The Underground War’, almost everyone in Ibutsu fought against these intruders. There was a lot of deceit and a lot of hatred. And most important of all, it wasn’t planned. These were not programmed storylines that we were enacting…no, that element of the business would not come until much later. Back then, people fought and chatted as themselves, under various names. There were no characters. There were only us as the people behind the keyboard. I’ll have to be honest here…some of these moments in my history are even better than planned storylines. It was just the way it happened, but I will tell you that it really flowed, if that makes any sense.
There were four kingpins of the entire invasion operation, and they were Diglet, Hitman, a guy who went anonymously under ‘Guest’, and Orange. I had formed an army of chatters by then. We wanted to drive these people from Ibutsu. They were killing characters left and right, and it was time that we formed a huge assault instead of letting our fighters get ganged up on and destroyed solitarily. So we did…we waited, and it seemed that our opponents had had the right idea also. Diglet led his huge army into the chat, and I led mine. Everyone gasped. Most people hid, but a lot of people left so that we could finish this. The fate of Ibustu rested within the outcome of this battle, and we all knew it. Sometimes I wonder what Branden would have said if he found out what went on in his Chat Café where he figured people were quietly talking about what Pokemon cards were better than others. Anyway, I led the charge, and we just ripped into them. We were killing Underground followers left and right. Since there was no fixed setting in the chat room, we used conventional, modern warfare. Guns, knives, helicopters, grenades…you know it. I’ll never forget how people respected the chat room tradition, though. No one ever denied being killed, or came back to life, or any of that crap. If you were killed you sucked it up and changed your name. You were still the same person. I think it is different today because everyone puts so much into his or her characters. But then again…the business has changed too. Back to what I was talking about, though. I told you that the war was fought conventionally, and it was. I remember losing one of my best friends and long time allies, Sniper_07, when his helicopter exploded. Psyker nearly died of his wounds, but somehow we still pushed forward. Kasumi and her friend Ryoko took out Orange, and I immediately went after Diglet. It was a little showdown, but in the end, Diglet tried to attack me, and I shot him dead. Hitman then attacked me from behind, and he knocked my weapon away. We fought for a few minutes, and I managed to kick him down a flight of stairs, where he grabbed another gun and shot me in the shoulder. He didn’t come back after me. He left, and did not return. So, to the end one of Ibutsu’s most hated villains. Meanwhile, the rest of my crew finished off the other Underground warriors, and I remember seeing Guest and Alpha and the rest of them retreating, and leaving. They never came back, and we never went to them.
Things changed in Ibutsu over the next couple of years. For one, I was becoming one of the top figures in chat. So were a lot of my buddies…most of the guys in our little group. The weaponry changed to fit a more classic scene: we started using swords and blades instead of guns. Ibutsu took on more of a Romanesque feel, though we still never role-played and planned storylines or any of that. I met a lot of other people who I have lost contact with today but will always remember: Ppikachu2, Gengar (G)…then there was Charichu and Struggly, Pogo of Go and Tryphaena…so many people who I knew for over three years, and then lost contact with. We had a regular army up in the chat room and held it strong for a year after the Underground War just in case they ever returned or we were ever invaded by another Pokemon chat. As far as that went, however, the business was beginning to change, around 1998, 1999. People were being recruited out of the Pokemon chats to role-playing sites (those who desired to do more than just chat). The Pokemon craze itself was beginning to die down, though I still enjoyed trading and occasionally selling my cards. There were less and less people talking about it, and fewer and fewer cards on the shelves. I bet if you went to that old 7-11 out on Cooks Bridge Road in Jackson they wouldn’t have a damn packet in stock, even though it was probably their hottest selling item four or five years back. I never really lost interest in Pokemon entirely until I was actually role-playing, a little later on in my story.
A couple years flew by in Ibutsu. The chat room remained the same…same old characters, loved and hated. Lots and lots of drama at every turn. I loved Ibutsu. Not only was it the first real place I ever went to but also it was the start of my career. If I had not found that site listed on Yahoo! That day I was checking for Pokemon card lists, I probably would have never found the site, and not be sitting here typing this at all. I would not have known any of you. And I probably would have knocked myself off way back then, after all of that hell I went through. Because in some ways I think that the business saved me. Saved me from what was going on, or what already went down…saved me from others…saved me from myself. I thank the business for that, and I still pay homage.
As Pokemon died away, so did a lot of the sites associated with it. This was not the reason for Ibutsu’s destruction, however. Ibutsu did not even have a decline, like the Roman Empire. It never had a period of fall, and it never fell out of the limelight. One day it was there, over thirty people in the chat arguing, laughing, telling jokes, telling stories, and unconsciously role-playing. The next day it was not. We all woke up one morning and found that Branden had closed the site because they had run bankrupt. We were stunned…we had not known anything was going on. In fact, when we all came to the site to log into the chat room, that was all we did. We never stopped to look at the forums or the Deck Reviewer or the Bicker Board…our place was the chat. Ibutsu was two fronts…the chat room and the message boards. It wasn’t about both sides doing everything together. We were the people of the chat, and at that point in time no one in the chat even associated on the forums. So we had not seen the warning and the points that the administrators were making on the forums about a possible closing because of insufficient funds. When we saw it, we were equally stunned. No one had expected anything like this. The chat room was closed down and the forums torn apart. I’m glad that Branden had the heart to make a memory website, though, today. My name is even on there, of the people who stood out in the chat. Go to Yahoo! and type ‘Ibutsu’ into the search box. You will see the listing for it almost first. But anyway, what Branden hadn’t told us was that Ibutsu really hadn’t exactly run bankrupt…in fact, it had been bought, by a new enterprise called Pokesource. It was a huge thing for everything involving Pokemon, and it didn’t have a chat. Why should it? It was about Pokemon…Ibutsu was about people and Pokemon.
So that was the end of Ibutsu. I had no idea where to go. I still thank God for Ben. I think he had an idea of what was coming…he had connections with the administrators, and they might have let him onto something. So he got all of our email addresses and we started a mailing list for the top Ibutsu chatters. There was nothing we could do about people that we couldn’t keep into contact anymore. The only other survivors were Ben, Kyle, Kelsie, Cameron, Ali, Cate, and Kim. We started up the mailing list and continued like that for maybe about five or six months. It was that long before I even thought of chat rooms again. Right about then, I moved to Middletown, and things took off once more.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2004 8:49:48 GMT -5
The only thing that changed for me right around then was that we picked up everything and moved to my present location, which happened maybe about six years ago. I would say around the middle of 1999. I was still the same…maybe a little better than I was in Jackson. I talked very little, which is a slight jump from not talking at all. Everything else, socially, was the same though. I deliberately made myself scarce. I didn’t want friends. I didn’t want to be known outside my computer. I still held a lot of things within me and for that point in time I wanted them to stay in me. For seventh and eight grade I went to Catholic school, and that was a complete change. For one, the kids are very different than in public school. I also had to try a bit harder to keep from failing (I still didn’t really care about my grades but usually made good enough marks to keep my parents at bay). I didn’t get involved in any sports except for summer recreation. I wanted to be in my own little world, and that little world turned out to be the business for a certain number of years.
I continued to write but I never really got a huge project off the ground. I also realized what a huge commitment it is to be a full time writer, and I could only imagine what it would be like to do it for a living. Every now and then an idea would pop into my head. I always wanted to write about Ibutsu, because of all the good times I had there, and of all the people I had become friends with. Ben was deep into his Dragon Rage series, and I looked forward to its monthly issue in my email. He was also up to his armpits in countless other works of fiction, including a new Tom Clancy style submarine series he called ‘Kingsbay’. He sent some of his stuff to a place called Fan Fiction online, but they got bad reviews. I don’t know why, because I liked it. I sent a few of my Fighting Force stories there and they were slightly criticized, though overall well liked by the public. I thought that that was pretty cool, but I really didn’t care for writing anymore. I loved reading a whole lot more by then. And even more then that, after my experiences at Ibutsu, I wanted to find more chat rooms like these, maybe pick up the survivors of the destruction, and find another place to enjoy myself and be the man.
Eventually our Ibutsu mailing list fell to the top people who survived the destruction: me, Ben, Kelsie, Kyle, Cameron, Ali, Andrew, and Cate. For months we sent emails back and forth and read each other stories. We talked on the phone, we made chat rooms via AOL and sat and talked. These guys were my best friends for a long time. Remember, at the time, this is where I wanted to be. So they were my only choice, I suppose you could say. Anyway…there was a lot of drama between our group, as there had always been in Ibutsu. First it would be Kelsie and Ben fighting over something, and then Cate and Kelsie. Kelsie was always the one involved with an internal squabble. She was a little prissy princess daddy’s little girl sort. I loved her just the same, but that was just her personality. She had been after Kyle for the longest time, and in his stories Ben always had Marle or Kasumi (her aliases) date Psyker Illusion. Cameron and Ali were always together, I remember. Andrew was the quiet guy…always the type to listen and not speak at all. He never involved himself in any of the drama, but he was very close to Kels, if I remember correctly. Ben and Cate had dated early on, but when he was younger, Ben was a wired nutcase. I liked him for his eccentric, crazy personality, but it wasn’t exactly the smoothest way to catch a lady’s eyes. Cate was all over me from square one. There was a time in my life when I was deeply in love with her, and I wanted to make sure she wasn’t about to fall away from me. But after a while I grew apart from her, though she continued to obsess with me. Eventually that even tapered off, but I don’t even know if she ever muscled off her affections for me. She is a great person, and is more like a sister than anything else, but I can’t forget what we had together. And then what she had afterward. We were two of a kind, and that’s something that doesn’t come into your life constantly. Anyway, we all continued to email each other for a few months, adding Kim to our list and eventually a guy named Ryan, who I’ll talk about in a little bit, through the next pit stop, and then things started to get tight. Kyle and Kelsie dropped off, because they were tired of everyone’s continual bickering. Andrew dropped away with her. We stopped the mailing list, and that was the end of it. We tried to restart it a few more times, but it never really worked. It was a shame a lot of us went out pissed off, but we had predicted it would happen that way one way or another. And indeed, the only people I still have contact with and talk to on a semi-regular basis are Ben, Cate, Ali, Kim, and Ryan. We are all that remains of the once great Ibutsu.
By chance I had stumbled upon another Pokemon chat called Dragonair’s. During Ibutsu we as its defenders seldom ventured out of the chat except to scout other chats. That was how we lost people during the multicity wars and we stopped it almost a month after the scouting idea was put into place. But now Ibutsu was gone, and I thought that I hadn’t made myself as well known as I thought I had. After all, Ibutsu was just one place. What I was beginning to realize was the size of the Internet and all the places inhabited it. This was the early stage of my career. The business itself had probably been a part of net society for years past, but it was not so radically changed in our territories than it was in the past four or five years. I wanted respect and friendship again. I wanted to be the man, and I wanted to see what Dragonair’s would offer. So I went in under the name Blastoise, which I modified to 'Blaster', and then 'BlasterX', and then just 'BlastX'. When I showed up in the chat it was filled with people I didn’t know. It was a shit hole…there was nothing going on at all, and was just another war-infested multicity Pokemon chat, although what I noticed was that a minority was made up of Ibutsu survivors who found the chat in the same manner I did and were looking for a place to settle. There were a lot of nomads back in those days, and you couldn’t really depend on one particular person for any one thing because of the high chance that that person wouldn’t show up again, or if he did when. Anyway, I talked with a few people here and there…overall, Dragonair’s was a lifeless talk chat. Pokemon was forgotten, in my mind included. In fact by then I had literally thrown my cards in my fireplace. I wanted to end that chapter in my life.
I went back to my old personality, and talked and met a few new people. One of them was Scorch Lethae, and he was up to his ears in a feud with a guy named Young Blood. I remember that really well. I also met another long timer, Jade, who went under the name Lanfear, and also Blood Jewel. Ryan, the person who went under the name Scorch, was a pretty fucked up guy back in those days. He was a great character, though. Perfect for the chat. He gave Dragonair’s a sense of purpose, I guess you could say. Anyway, we hit it right off, and I found out that he had been through Ibutsu for a while, though I hadn’t remembered seeing him. I think he was under a different name, and now that I think that, that is entirely possible. Everyone had hundreds of aliases in Ibutsu. This was also my first introduction to role-play, where people actually role-play a character as that character in a chat room and interact with other characters. I was used to the whole idea of out of character role-play of a sort, which I today define as OOCRP. Pretty innovative, huh? Heh. Well, anyways, Ryan showed me a few things, and I began to see just what this role-play shit was all about. I liked it, but Dragonair’s was no real place for it. The former Ibutsu survivors here just wanted to lick their wounds and curl up and never become anything. If you were not an Ibutsu survivor at Dragonair’s you were probably just another raging lunatic. We had a lot of those there. Me, well, I wanted to become something. I didn’t just want to lay back in the buckwheat. I wanted to do something more. The role-play idea spurred my hunger for competition and fame and popularity (online), and being the best. It touched off that inner desire, and made me realize that I wanted more than what I had in front of me.
Ryan and I began to talk on a regular basis. At this point I had already brought him onto our mailing list, where he met Kim. They hit it right off and started dating, which I thought was a great thing. Ben even brought the Scorch Lethae character into the Dragon Rage series. We joked and kidded about idiots in Dragonair’s, and then he talked to me about Young Blood. I forget most of our conversation now, but I remember he said that Young Blood had left Dragonair’s, and he had reason to suspect he was still in multicity somewhere. He wanted to follow his nemesis, and he wanted me to tag along. I said alright, anything to get out of this room of white walls. That was when he showed me a link to the forums of the Castle of Dragons.
It was at the Castle of Dragons that the business as we knew it in our territories took on a whole new meaning.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2005 10:50:57 GMT -5
You know, after my last post I spent over three months looking over what I’ve written, trying to determine the best approach to the next chapter. It’s one big, broad thing that I wasn’t sure where to begin and where to end. But I’m sitting here tonight at my computer after a dinner meeting with my bosses and co-managers and looking again…and I realized that the only way to do this is dive in head first like I’ve always done and see how much memory I can type into words. If I feel like I’ve left something out down the line I’ll have to come back and modify it, but for now I’m just going to jump right on in. The last time I checked www.geocities.com/castleofdragons was precisely four weeks ago. I was online with Eric (you’ll learn about him later on) refining some detail on some project we were working on and we were growing a bit nostalgic. It still hits me whenever I see that castle sitting on what Alex always called the ‘limpid lake’ with the ‘limpid fish’ in it…I know it sounds funny, and it is, but what I’m getting at is supposed to make you a little bit emotional, especially if you grew up in the business with me, heh. Anyway, it still hits me…the memories at the COD are literally unmatched by anything else I have done or anywhere else I have been in my entire career. This was the make or break point in my career and I will never forget that. It was where I really grew up in the business. I met so many people, a lot of whom I am still in contact with to this day, did so many things, learned so much…and I didn’t just learn a lot about the business of role-playing, competitive textual combat, and fantasy. I learned a shitload of everyday life skills that schools really can’t teach you. The only way you learn them is through a productive and balanced childhood. And, of course, if you’ve read this far, you’ll understand that I didn’t exactly have that. Before I really begin, I want to say that my career began in Ibutsu…but it wasn’t until the Castle of Dragons where it really took off and brought me to where I stand today. Ryan and I had become great friends by then. At times, especially here in Zephyr, you’ll hear us talk about the old days, and he’s also mentioned on record that the two of us have the longest running history between anyone here. I don’t know if that’s true but I can certainly say it is as compared to anyone else I know. Throughout the years Ryan has been one of the only people that hasn’t really changed. He was always a bit dark but a good-natured human being in general, full of laughter and obscenity. The kid always knew how to make me laugh, and we had some great times together. I can’t even begin to go into this without giving this guy a salute. If it was not for Ryan, I wouldn’t be here at all. I wasn’t looking online for any of this…I wasn’t doing any internet searches nor asking around. Ryan showed me the link because he wanted me to come with him and that was how I found the COD. So if you’re reading, Ryan, thank you. The very first time I accessed the Castle of Dragons was through their forums---a link even today I still cannot memorize word for word. Then again, I don’t think anyone can. I stuck close to Ryan but I couldn’t help myself. I started searching through the forums and seeing what they were about for the first time. Not just the COD forums, I mean, but forums in general. Back at Ibutsu I was not in tune to the forums. In fact, had I been, history probably would have changed early on as I would have been aware of the closing and probably rallied a lot more people together in order to rebuild what we once had. But fate came in a different form, and this is where I landed. There were many characters and events that I will soon get into, as this era of my career will probably occupy two or three long posts. But as I wrap up my ‘introduction’ piece, I have to say that I am really going to enjoy it. Reliving old memories is quite a thrill for me, despite the fact that it is difficult to start as I have to incorporate a lot of old drama and fact into a small autobiography. Although the Castle of Dragons is inactive today, I still pay homage to the site where I have to say my career really took off. I met so many people and did so many things there that it will indeed be difficult to really touch down on every little thing in the several posts to come. I will try my best, however, because I not only want to re-tell my story in that fashion to all of you, but I want to re-tell it to myself. As I said before, re-living old memories is very appealing to me. It brings back a sense of understanding and knowledge of the business and how far I've come in it. I understand that saying all of these things and speaking of the Castle of Dragons toots my own horn, so to speak...but then again, this is the autobiography of my career in the business. With that said, I'm going to start out by talking about the how I began on the COD forums and moved up into the chat. I'm going to outline the highlights that I truly look forward to re-living, and we will go from there. I plan on putting alot of depth into this part of my story as it is a broad era yet a very crucial era in my past. So let us begin.
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Tryphaena Agent Trin
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Post by Tryphaena Agent Trin on May 1, 2011 21:55:24 GMT -5
I happened to have this rather strange sense of nostalgia awhile back, so I googled "Ibutsu", and from there found some strange remake of the old chatroom. I sat in it for a moment, pined, and then logged out. I started thinking about it again tonight, but this time I typed in "Ibutsu Tryphaena", just to see if anyone had ever posted anything on the topic. I was absolutely shocked! I saw that you posted your name as "Blastoise", and then "BlasterX", and I remember those alias's quite well! Didn't you end up as BlasterN for awhile, too?
I'm a bit sad to see that you haven't logged in for nearly five years, so I wont keep my fingers crossed, but if you ever log into this account again, and happen to read this -- you should contact me! I am on facebook and several other social networking sites under "Christi Doud". Look me up! Keep in touch!
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Post by Wesley on Jul 29, 2011 14:49:12 GMT -5
That's nothing, I still remember Blast-X Kato, boy what a 'noob' you were then, lol... Look at you now, a typical Valor, talking like an old man, lol. It's a shame you're not around to fight any more, my brother. You would've been a great mentor. But alas, who would've thought I'd still be around when all of you are gone? Didn't plan that far ahead, did we? Don't worry mate, none of you will be forgotten, not if I can help it... I will not forsake you as you have forsaken me, nor will I obliterate you with fiction such as you all deserve.
However... you will reap.
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Post by username0920 on Oct 12, 2011 21:54:18 GMT -5
So I know this is really random...but I just googled my full name, and this forum came up under the results. I know I used to role play and stuff back when I was younger, but now I really can't have some of the personal information coming up under my search results... I just saw people had posted recently under this thread, so I was wondering if someone could put me in touch with a moderator for the board who could help me delete some of the posts I made back 5-6 years ago? I can't even remember what e-mail address I would have used to register for this website Any help appreciated!!!!!!! K
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