All the Wild Children (33 page)

Authors: Josh Stallings

BOOK: All the Wild Children

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Dylan Stallings - lives in a bright orange house in Highland Park. It has been years since his last psychotic breakdown. He told me he is the luckiest man in the world. He may be right.

Erika Stallings - Most days she seems happy. Others I can see a deep wistfulness for the life we thought we would have. She doesn’t speak of it. She carries her own water. She works at the Unitarian Church. Her story is still unwritten.

Josh Stallings - Edits trailers, writes crime fiction, most days the voices are quiet in his head.

Lark - Lives in Texas and summers on Martha’s Vineyard. He has traveled far from where we started. At twenty-two he married his first wife, they fought and loved and fought some more. They made two amazing daughters. I was there when his first daughter was born. I have never seen a man more happy. Whatever pain he and Ana dragged each other through was well worth my nieces coming into being. I’m sure they carry the scars of divorce and chaos. I know they both wish it had been a bit more Norman Rockwell, but they play the cards they are dealt with as much grace as they can muster. Lark moved from their home to a small apartment. He missed his daughters. He drank way too much. He lived in Houston, owned bars, felt no joy. At thirty, he lay in my boy’s bunk bed and cried. “Do you think it is possible for someone to completely ruin their life, wreck it beyond repair?”

“Is that what you did?”

“I think so. Yes.” He didn’t get out of bed for a week. He healed slowly. He dated again. Casual. Surface. He drank. He drinks some more.

Then he met Jackie. Nothing will ever be the same for my windmill tilting brother. Jack is beautiful inside and out. She calls forth all that is noble and fine in Lark. They have two kids. Lark is long time sober now. Every Wednesday night he brings the program to Harris County jail. He hopes one day he may help a young blood on the same path we were. He does it because it keeps him sober.

Larkin and his partner Mario now own six nightclubs.

Larkin is far from poor.

Larkin is far from where we started.

Shaun - The lines that track her are not so simple to see. From what I can tell she went in search of an ordered world, something that looks a bit more Brady Bunch. She went to Davis and got a degree in Agronomics, she always was a smarty pants. Shaunton marries a man who looks on the surface like a solid citizen. I guess he is. He is also a dick. Shaun divorces him. Shaun moves to Texas. Shaun falls in love with Mario, the DJ at Lark’s club, and a budding club owner himself. They have three kids. They have a messy chaotic family. Mental illness stalks her home. She fights a fierce battle everyday for her children and herself. Sometimes I think she is the bravest of all. Sometimes I think she doesn’t know that. Shaun never gets her Brady Bunch life. Shaun is too good for that.

Lilly, lives in the hood. She lives in the heart of Oakland. She lives with an Airedale and a German Shepherd. For many years she lived with Mom on an almond ranch. From my distant view it looked like she was trying to rebuild the childhood house on the hill, get back a bit of what we lost in the divorce. She has lived a life with one eye on the present and the other firmly gazing into the past. She has stopped looking back. “I am not the sum of my history. I’m not my diagnosis. When I feel crazy I look at my life, look for what is crazy and try and fix that.” She lives in the past. She lives in the present. Both are true and untrue in equal parts.

My mother will never read this chapter. I know this to be fact. After she read the first hundred and thirty-seven pages she called, “I don’t need to read anymore of this shit. I’m sure it makes a good story this way. But if you want the truth ask me and I’ll tell you… I may have put pot in the brownies at your birthday party, but I didn’t do it to get laid, I didn’t need it to get laid… I’m sorry you feel you had such a terrible mother, but I’m the one you got.”

This conversation was followed by two weeks of crying, berating and finally dull silence. By week three denial washed over the entire event and our relationship slipped back into its own version of normal.

I am sad my mother will never read this book. But my mother is 8
4
and nee
d
not deal with the mistakes of her, or my youth. I do wish she could see through to how proud I am of what she did with what she had.

I read
All The Wild Children
to my Pops over a long weekend in the San Juan Islands. He listened intently. “I’m glad you showed me how it feels to be you.” He could see the art in the book, we could talk artist to artist about form and pace and content choices. He was a bit distracted by the parts that he wasn’t in.

I was raised by two abused and broken narcissists.

I was mostly raised by my siblings.

I am a lucky man.

Acknowledgement

This book started when Cheri Gaulke, Jennifer L. Eich, Christine Papalexis and I got together to write. We shared coffee, water, words and truth. It would have remained a messy stack of essays without my friends and fellow writers Charlie Huston and Tad Williams, they took the time and care to read and then tear apart the early drafts. Eloquently brutal both of them. Thomas Pluck, Holly West, Aldo Calcagno and Fingers Murphy gave a healthy combination of notes and encouragement. Thanks and admiration go to Keith Rawson, Eric Beetner for his creative take on the cover art, and to my esteemed editor Brian Lindenmuth, I am forever grateful to him and the Snubnose crew for embracing this odd and painfully honest book. And then there is Erika C. Stallings, my first, last and most lovingly harsh reader. I wouldn’t be the man or writer I am without her.

Appendix

For legal reasons I had to take out song lyrics from the book. I get it. Those are their words. I’d be pissed if someone jacked my words. So here is a play list. These songs blasted through my headphones whilst I typed. I have listed them in the order they informed the writing of this book.

String It Out - Gina Villalobos

In My Life - The Beatles

For What It’s Worth - Buffalo Springfield

Piece Of My Heart - Janis Joplin

Little Child Runnin' Wild - Curtis Mayfield

Thankful for What You Got – William DeVaughn

Pusher Man - Curtis Mayfield

Father To Son - Queen

Cracked Actor - David Bowie

Walk On The Wild Side - Lou Reed

Search And Destroy - Iggy Pop

Heat Wave - Martha and the Vandellas

Zip a Dee Doo Dah - James Basket

Oh What a Beautiful Morning - Rodgers and Hammerstein

All The Young Dudes - David Bowie / Mott The Hoople

Flashlight - Parliament

Play That Funky Music - Wild Cherry

White Punks On Dope - The Tubes

Eighteen With A Bullet
-
Pete Wingfield

What Do You Want From Life - The Tubes

Crazy - Gina Villalobos

Jolene - Dolly Parton

Straight To Hell - The Clash

Feed The Birds - Julie Andrews

I’m On Fire - Bruce Springsteen

Kooks - David Bowie

Party In The Woods Tonight - Jonathan Richman

Summertime - George & Era Gershwin, lyrics by DuBose Heyward

Doll Parts - Hole

Crazy - Gnarls Barkley

Stay Free - The Clash

Hooligans - Rancid

Polly Wanna Cracker - Public Enemy

Jammin - Bob Marley

About Snubnose Press

Snubnose Press is the ebook imprint of Spinetingler Magazine.

The snubnose revolver dominated visual crime stories in the 20th century. Every cop, every detective, every criminal in every TV show and movie seemed to carry a snubnose. The snubnose is a classic still used today.

The snubnose is easy to conceal and carry.

The snubnose is powerful.

The snubnose is compact.

That’s how we like our fiction.

Snubnose Press Titles:

Speedloader

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The Chaos We Know by Keith Rawson

Monkey Justice by Patti Abbott

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Old Ghosts by Nik Korpon

Gumbo Ya-Ya by Les Edgerton