Christopher Scum vs Alcohol (For I am SCUM)

Christopher Scum vs Alcohol

Christopher Scum vs The Drug Alcohol

    I thoroughly undoubtedly believe I was somehow born alcoholic. Whether it just happens randomly, luck of the draw, or if along with my good looks my Bio Pops left me the alcoholic gene, if indeed there is one. Thank fuck he didn't leave me his balding gene because I’ve seen pictures of the creep at 21 and he had already receded past any hope. Some girls must like the circle hair do cause when I met him I was 13 and he probably 33 and that’s what he had going on, the ring of hair with a little bitty pony tail in the back and OUTLAW Biker tattoos but was a Baptist preacher. Enough of him, he’s of no importance other than all he gave me was the gene that’s caused me more trouble than anything.

     I started sneaking beers from my step Dad #1 at about 5. By six I could drink three cans of beer,I can’t remember what he drank but it was in a small rounded bottle or a can, maybe Colt 45? The cans I loved cause I’d shake them up when I’d bring them to him. I used to also turn his bic lighters up full blast so it get him off guard.

   Moving ahead a couple years to step dad #2, I remember they took me to a Wedding; their best friends were being wed, how sweet. I took the opportunity to go around sucking down half full glasses of Champaign. I was seeing them as half glasses, how could I get drunk off half of little plastic cups. I must have had me 10 or 15 of them, no one even noticed until I caught a huge water snake; just a gardener water snake, not poisonous but very big. I was eight maybe nine and had been on the farm a couple years; I had caught hundreds of snakes. I knew all these city folk probably hadn’t seen a snake that size and in my drunkenness I figured they’d be fascinated. I was very wrong, people ran, screamed, even got in their cars, you would have thought I lead a lion into the crowd. For some reason, I didn’t get a beating that day, I probably deserved it but I somehow escaped.

      Fast forward a few years my parents knew I was fucking around with weed and Drink, so on New Years Eve. I stayed home and my mom got me a pint of Tequila. I drank it, even knowing right away I was no tequila man, Still I got trashed, puked, got on the phone and got 3 different girls to be “my girlfriend” this had to be “Expunged from the record” and I lost very good friends.

         Fast forward another year. At 12-13 I started drinking at least 3 times a week. Even then my friends from Manchester and Aberdeen bitched that I drank to fast and they had to take care of me.

  At 15 I moved to a different school, made a different class of friends and I really started drinking. Seemed the more popular kids drank harder and certainly more often than the hoodlums I was accustom at my other School. It went from 3 times a week to every chance I got. I took to bringing beer home and drinking in this back Building we had. There was my step fathers shed then his wood shop but another run down building which was perfect for drinking in.

    My high school friends got sick of my drinking habits as they would say you suck down all the beer as fast as you can then expect us to baby-sit you.

    I was also thriving in Tae Kwon Do at the time also. I remember once I had a tournament to go to but I stayed out with friends drinking Mad Dog 20/20 waking up in an alley directly across from the court house. I stumbled around town bought a pack of smokes and a Mountain dew then I went to the Dojo, School to wait and meet everyone. Fortunately I didn’t catch a ride with my step dad or Instructor because I’m sure I smelled like a brewery. I was 15 and a Red Belt in Tae Kwon Do. I was undeniably good, better than good even. That day I sort of wish never happened. I kicked fucking ass. I got 1^st place in forms (Kata) first place in free fighting and this was a mixed tournament. This was not the AAU Tae Kwon Do, I fought people of all styles and the last guy was a Kung Fu “master who did all these ridiculous jump spinning Crescent kicks that were no where near scoring, I already had him 2 to zip I just waited until he was in the air in front of me and put a well placed side kick to his ribs. It slid him across the floor into a different ring, fortunately it was light to medium contact and judges were smart enough to know that it was the fact he was airborne that he went flying across the floor, not the force of my skip side Kick. I beat him fairly 3-0 and he came up shook my hand and bowed as did I but then he says I hate losing to white people, especially ones in Tae Kwon Do. I didn’t understand this because he was Black. It’d been different if he was Chinese studying a Chinese art but he was as American as me. I’m from a small town that literally had one family of Blacks and they were my friends so I didn’t know anything about Blacks and this guy knew nothing about me, except he got his ass handed to him.

    The Reason I wish this day never happened is when we got back in the car, this time I was riding with my step father, just he and I. I guess I had sweated out the liquor smell. I turned the radio on and I’ll never forget the Rolling stones were playing It’s only rock n roll; this gave me the green light. I had two first place trophies I won with a Goddamn hang over!

   So, I stepped drinking up a notch. I could have really done something with Tae Kwon Do but I didn’t. After placing 3^rd in the Jr. Olympics as a freshmen in High School, I could have went far, probably be fighting MMA to this day. However that’s not what I had in mind.

    After a series of brushes with the law one morning I woke up, stuck my thumb out and hitchhiked to Knoxville TN where my Aunt Flora green lived. Aunt Floe was/is precious. She now resides in a Nursing home, but she loves me like I was her own and when I came into her home she welcomed me open arms. She had helped raise my all my life on and off.

     Being the creep that I am I preyed upon her naivety to drink, before we even got me in a school I was walking to the closest store and buying cases of beer, I had a hide out down in the woods on the way to the beer store. I would get slaughtered drunk and walk back down the interstate, truckers barreling by to where the wind from them would almost knock my drunken ass over!

      Enter high school; I wasn’t there 3 days before I had to prove myself to the bully crowd. I got in a fight in my front yard and beat a kid half silly. His group of friends came up to me the next day declaring peace so I said fine. I made friends with the kid later but he tragically died 4 wheeling flipped a jeep on his head. It hurt me because he had become one of my “drinking buddies”

     Just like my last school I immediately fell in the semi popular crowd but I was also down with rednecks as they called themselves, but I sold pot to afford my drinking. I drank every night, generally starting right after school.

I started hiding 12 packs in a barn so I could drink half before school and get the rest to get me started after school. I never was short of money because I always sold weed. I started hiding liquor in my locker to keep a buzz all day. I was addicted but things just went better with alcohol.

     I fucked up and fell in love with a preppy big haired girl. This slowed drinking down a bit but not much; however I did stop drinking at school and right after. She broke up with me for the 1^st time shortly after I was kicked out of school for fireworks. I went nuts, it was brown liquor every night, I would get blind drunk and drive my 64 Chevy Impala super sport, a Classic car that I never should have owned. It had a 327 engine and was automatic on the floor, gold in color with a white top. The power of that engine kept breaking motor mounts. It is a miracle I didn’t kill someone else with that care but at the same time a tragedy I didn’t take myself out in a single car accident. I destroyed the car.

      Fast forward to 18 I started going to jail, started with a few PD’s but then I pulled some stupid shit. I tried to run in a store and run off with beer with no ride waiting, shoplifting charge. Then I ran into a Homeless fellow at the beer store we were both counting change. I’d seen this guy around the Fort, the neighborhood I lived in so we pooled our money and got 3 quarts of beer. We split one and he got up off my porch and said well, I got to run. I was like that’s cool then just leave me one of those beers. He started to give me one but then said I’m an alcoholic I have to have these and started walking away. Strong armed robbery charge which I did time for.

 Got out DUI wrecked my lil 1974 Celica damn I loved that car.

   I swore off driving after this and just lived in the fort. I accumulated so many PDs when they’d bring me to the City Jail people would yell out my name. I was down with Black and White Boys; I had my hair real long with a Red Streak in it. By the CO’s I think I was seen as a freak, by inmates, especially convicts I was totally accepted. I didn’t come in running my mouth or start shit with anyone but when it came to bullying I was quick to let mother fuckers know. Hell, I was taking man size ass whippings with fist and feet at 9 yrs. old so there was nothing these guys could threaten me with.

   Age 21 I started experiencing withdrawals, first just the shakes and sleeplessness. Then I would go into what I call inner DTs. I wasn’t seeing or having audio hallucinations yet but my mind went crazy, I’d get paranoid. I lived with 2 roommates both who drank just about like I did but I don’t recall either going into withdrawals as I did. Todd, my best friend and self adopted big brother was about 9 yrs my sr. drank just like me. Actually he was ahead of me, it was him that finally put my mind to rest about going crazy, as I thought I was on the verge of Schizophrenia, multiple personalities, something horrible. Todd is the only one that understood, I was talking about it and he said you crazy fucker you’re alcohol sick. He explained it too me. I had already drank myself out of the best band I had ever imagined being in, I practiced Bass up to 4-6 hrs a day, it was Todd that pointed out that had given away to drinking as well. But that was because the only way I got any relief was while drinking and not just a few beers I had to get my mind to a point of quietude that at this point in my life took somewhere between five and eight beers, problem is after five or eight beers there’s no stopping me. I would usually wake up not remembering anything. I always managed to keep a job, usually a day time kitchen job. Then I got a night time bar back gig, this lasted over a year because I could slip drinks. Then like a fool I drank a bottle of vodka before I came in and made a Goddamn fool of myself. Fell in the kitchen, I was told to go home. I didn’t I went upstairs and was drinking at that bar and they ran me out of there so I went to the bottom main bar and was filling my pockets with beers. The Owner or Co owner, Sandra had enough she screamed at me to get out or she’d call the cops. This was my last job for awhile.

   I borrowed my upstairs neighbors car once, I didn't even think I was that drunk and the plan was to drive to aunt Floe’s and get money for dope. I made it two blocks before I smashed into another car, a little VW Bug, totally tricked out, I smacked my head when I looked up it was rolling across the street and the car I was driving had came to a stop. I knocked at a door and an elderly lady let me in to use her phone and I went out the back door, up the alley to a friends house where I called my girlfriend at the time and she took me home with her where I hid out a couple days.

    Shortly after I got on a bus to Austin Texas, just to try and start over there. Not knowing a soul it was tougher than I thought. Besides the monumental alcohol problem I had also not brought any equipment with me.

    I fucking joined a Christian Band for a couple months. They had equipment I could use and believe it or not these guys were getting paid, paid good. I stayed at a place called the Bunk House, five bucks a night.

The Christian band called as Jesus would knew about my drinking but I didn’t do it in front of them or show up really drunk. Thing was I liked the music we were playing; it was like a poppy Dinosaur Jr. I came in and I believe gave it a heavier sound because I would suggest sections, bridges that were just balls out hard. It was putting several hundred bucks a month in my pocket, we did up to 10 gigs a month sometimes, when we did that I made real money and put it in the bank. I was such a phony standing in their prayer circle every night that I sickened myself and as with everything else in life I sabotaged this by getting too drunk before a show, a few nights after that I pissed the bed at the Bunk House. I had to leave in the middle of the night cause I had soaked a sleeping Mexican below me. Thank Fuck he didn’t wake up, he was obviously as drunk as me. He would have probably cut me because I’d seen him earlier counting his money, with his pot all out on the bed and one of those huge butterfly knives.

       I had talked to another Band called Skin Rider and they had came to see

See As Jesus Would (who I talked into changing the name to Detour), a few times and they liked my Bass playing. By this time I had sent home for my Fender P, a pure white beautiful instrument. I had some money in the bank so I rented the Guitarist and lead singers basement which was a practice room also. It was fixed up bad ass, they lived up stairs where the Kitchen was but gave me a Microwave, I had a cot in the corner that I paid 50 bucks a month for. For and amp I used a cheap Yamaha head I bought and a PA speaker they had. We sounded good. It was fast hardcore, Ramones meet Motorhead, not a lot of room for anything but straight keep the beat with drummer bass playing. This time I got them to throw in some bridges, mid sections and even breaking into total different chord progressions and speeds for endings. These guys actually dug my lyrics and some parts of songs I sang on, but not generally on the parts I wrote, those were for lead Bass.

       After about the 3^rd show of me being too drunk and several “bladder control” incidents it was decided that I should go rather than pay into another month’s rent. I was pretty broke. I was done too. I took out what money I had closing my bank account and sold my Yamaha bass head which I played $150. at a pawn shop and only got it for that price because they had no idea what they had. I sold it to Tony, lead guitarist for 80 bucks.

     Came back to Knoxville and promptly went to Ohio to my parents where I went crazy there too. I hooked up with my best friend David Stuttz, I was broke but he, well the girl he was banging kept me in a black out for months. From spring until fall, we banged it out and I never had a Goddamn time. Then one night I blacked out and completely trashed her trailer, no reason, she had been as good to me as a friend a friend could be. I do have to say a couple people were pitching in but I was the aggressor. Even plugged her

Bath tub and left the water running. I basically ruined a home she had paid for, it was hers. I put her on the street. No, I heard she lived at her parents while the damages were fixed. I have always felt bad about that one

      I decided to take a job at a printing company with my Step Dad up in Dayton, Ohio. First problem being I had no place to live, my Step-Granddad said at least 15 times that he couldn’t take me in. Each time, I would say it a little louder I’m not looking to be took in. I had made me a camp behind a sign on the off ramp coming into town. I would even make a small fire there. I drank wine every night and a quart of before I went in. after two weeks I got a little room in a boarding house and continued my drink as usual. I lasted about two weeks until the piss problem sabotaged me again. The land lord put me out for pissing the bed, also I was drinking beer that didn’t belong to me, playing loud music. I didn’t argue as I was homesick for my Knoxville crew already.

    There was a party going when I hit town, I had my crew from Ohio who seemed to fit in fine with the Knoxville Punk Rock crew. It got late and a fight broke out, my boy Todd was in the Middle of it so I flew into action knocking one guy cold, then catching another with a front snap kick in the chin. About that time I got sucker punched, hard. By the time I could even turn to attack the person back my Brother Biker Mark had flown across a car hood and hit the guy with a liquor bottle. He didn’t hold the bottle by the neck and club the guy with it, instead he held it by it’s sides and rammed the bottom corner into dudes head. The bottle didn’t break, I was glad cause it was my Evan Williams. The guy hit his knees screaming for help, I stepped forward and kicked him in the face. He rolled over and as I continued to boot him I realized just how bad he was bleeding. It scared me, I was barley 21 last thing I was looking for was a murder charge. I picked him up by his white, rapidly turning red sweater and shoved him towards the house across the street where his friends were. Then I got my bottle back and sat down with my friend Stuttz who said something like you can take the boy out of Adams Co but you can’t take the Adams Co out of the boy. Adams County is of course where we all grew up.

     Everyone else was raising hell about the fight I heard someone yell you can’t fuck with Knoxville hardcore, I looked back and it was some little art fag, I do not mean a homosexual by any means I mean some guy with bleached white Billy Idol hair wearing some sort of checkered overalls and a striped shirt with dark sun glasses on. I caught Todd’s eye and we both bust up laughing. This guy had been so far away from the action he might as well have been watching through a telescope.

   We were all finally getting settled Stuttz, Biker Mark and I were working on the bottle and chasing it with beers from a keg. There were two more untapped so the night was young. All of a sudden gun shots, two of them. Everyone was running in the house I don’t know what possed me but I capped the bottle and ran across the street bearing only my smiley, a lock on a chain for those not in the know, I don’t think they’re very popular these days. I ran right up to the fence the guy was standing behind holding what appeared to be a 38 revolver, it could have been a 45 but was definitely at least a 38, I could tell that from barrel size and the size of holes in the revolver. It was chrome and I have always loved guns.

     Nice piece are you gonna kill me with it? I ask for some reason, probably alcohol I have never been afraid when a gun was drawn, hell even when they’ve been pointed directly at me, I guess I’m not in touch with the reality of the situations. The guy was a few years older than me, probably a Sr. or even a Grad Student. He was crying and he held the gun up but never pointed it at me. He said I don’t want to. My friend in unconscious getting stitched up though. I said I didn’t hit him, he hit me when I was fighting your other boy. He nodded his head as if to say he knew. I even helped him get back home when I realized he was hurt, we were just partying, we open our party to you and your boys and what do they do but start shit. He shook his head and started crying harder. Then he tried to hand me the gun. I don’t want it but don’t ya think you should put it up before the cops come and go be with your friends at the hospital? I think your friend, what’s his name? Greg he sniffled. I think Greg would rather you be there than picking up a gun charge, you shot twice in the city limits, that’s two felony counts of discharging a firearm in a residential area. That could be five yrs. at the very least they’re gonna hit you up for 10 grand in fines, you’ll probably pay five grand just to make bond. I had no idea what I was talking about but it sounded good. The Kid croaked I’m sorry at me than hustled back in the house. Fortunately no cops came so our party drank until the next afternoon, fewer and fewer people until it was Jim Ellis and Ulrichs who’s party it was, my 3 boys from Ohio, Biker Mark, and Todd was down in the yard. As they were tapping the final keg I vaguely remember going to Kroger and stealing a bunch of steak, at least one for every one. Mark and I went in twice. I don’t know if we looked so ragged and war torn they just let it slide or we actually went unnoticed. I remember the firing of the grill and trying to eat, my meat slid off my plate onto the porch so I had to wash it off, put it back on the grill a few seconds and this time I ate it with my hands.

      When I woke up my Ohio crew was gone and I had somehow made it to Todd’s porch on the couch. His house was known as Bone Manor.

Christopher Scum vs The Gas can ( My early infatuation with Drugs)

                              Christopher Scum VS the Gas can

                                   A bitter love/hate relationship

        As long as I can remember from the I‘ve been intrigued by drugs.

  I mean as young as 4-5 yrs old  I would see the Anti-Drug commercials that came on with Sat. morning cartoons. Scattered throughout Popeye, Bugs Bunny, Mighty mouse and Super Friends were these commercials designed to scare kids the fuck away from drugs of any sort. However it didn’t scare me it infatuated me. I remember the actual commercials;  One in particular showed people smoking weed, I realized just a few yrs. while still an adolescent how ridiculous this was as the tokers were just mad, wild eyed beast, just sucking joints down as quick as possible fighting over it (Pot) and just crazy shit as bad or worse than Reefer Madness. Then there was one guy sitting on a porch, a black guy and it showed him with an oversized needle and all of a sudden he goes into seizures, shaking foaming at the mouth, and kicking his feet around. I remember wondering if he was high and that’s was what was supposed to happen or if the drugs got him. I was fascinated, also I felt really bad for the man because he was all by himself on a dingy porch, it look cold. Somehow instead of scaring me, I wanted to try that and I still don’t know why a five year old would think like that.

I guess my first drunks were when my mom and 1^st Step father Jack Anderson would have friends over , playing cards in the dining room which could entered by living room or kitchen. I would steal a couple beers and take them to my room where I’d choke them down and get what I figure was pretty drunk. I only got caught doing that once and that was because I took a beer outside and was drinking it in front of the two girls that lived across the street. The younger one Shelly didn't believe it was beer so I offered her a drink she wouldn't take it saying she could get water out of her sink any time and laughed at me. I really hated being laughed at, I hated being called a liar or any names. I was on Ritalin for hyperactivity and constantly being ridden by the kids so as soon as the

water joke came out I splashed beer on her face and T-shirt. Then I laughed cause she got to find out it was beer but I got my ass busted

good with the belt for that one.

         Fast forward a year or so and you have a new step father, a new town, a totally different life.

       My mom met this hippie guy, he played guitar, he even bought me a B.B. pistol.She had a couple other men friends before him and they were nice but this guy was cool, he knew Karate and played that guitar. I thought he was cool for about two days then he started hurting us. Where step dad jack whipped our ass, step father Richard was known for ass stomping. My little sister and I got whipped like we never even knew could happen and before we knew it we lived on a farm with only one neighbor with in a miles radius. We had no phone, no real friends and we’re put to work on this shitty little farm.

   I was 8yrs old. I think. When we still lived in civilization I got a little Honda 50, Richard bought it for me that I used to go over to the vacant lot and ride the trails. By complete accident I had found out, while trying to siphon gas from the lawn mower to the motor bike that gas got you high. So after we got down to the hell farm every chance I got I spent with a gas can. This went on for years, mostly in the summer as I had reason good to  be out then. Some times I rode my little mini bike back into the woods just far enough to get out of eye sight. I had a track cut out of the tall weeds so I could ride back to the very back of it where the trees met above from either side of my trail so it was dark cool and really private. There I would settle in and huff gas out of the tank for hours. I even had a little radio I carried with me, it would pickup a couple stations there. One day I had been huffing all afternoon when the song down on the corner by CCR came the radio on and suddenly I wasn’t alone. I looked around the little clearing, that hadn’t been there before and there were people all around. There were men with long hair playing guitars and women wearing Tie Die T-Shirts on dancing along, everyone singing bout being down on the corner and down on the streets. It was a great feeling, one guy looked right at me and nodded. I started clapping my hands and trying to sing too. It only lasted throughout that song and then I was back on hell farm and the people were gone. But I wanted to go back there, I truly believed my mind had went somewhere else very real and I wanted to get back there and stay. So I kept huffing, I saw many other things that day but never went back to the clearing where the hippies were dancing.

     Another memorable time with my friend the gas can, I was in the creek where I usually caught snakes. I would pick up a rock an there was a good chance that a big old water snake would be coiled up under it. I would catch them either by pinning there neck with a fork stick or really fast with my fore finger and thumb. I would only kill poisonous

ones, like water moccasins.

   This day I had gas on my mind not snake hunting. I sat on the big flat rock over looking the little water fall into what used to be our swimming hole, over to the side enough so I could sit in the shade.

     I sat there in the shade getting higher and higher as the fumes filled my lungs and were absorbed into my body. The birds started chirping to me as I blacked out and I knew exactly what they were saying. A deep voice tractor was grumbling out it’s part too. It was all making perfect sense as I filled my lungs over and over, the song going kill it dirty, kill it, dirty, kill it dirty then a lone bird would shriek his line I’ll pull the plug on it, kill that dirty, I’ll pull the plug on it. I heard something behind me like the rocks moving I turned to looked. As I watched this pile of rocks come toward me they were taking the shape of a man. Then as he got closer I relaxed, in my confused, gassed up state I knew this old man it was Mr. Rock Bank. Hey, Mr. Bank, I said grinning. What are you doing he ask in a familiar gruff huffing voice that gas again. Yep I answered. I didn't know if old Rock Bank huffed gas or not but I thought I should offer. I was just about to do so when his rock foot caught me right under the eye in the cheek right on my cheek bone. I was shocked and terrified. My brain exploded with light before I could respond another rock kick straight to the side of the head, then to the back and the ribs. Punch after punch to face and head he was screaming something. As I started coming out of the hallucination I realized it was Richard and I was in trouble. He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me to my feet screaming the whole time. You stupid little fucker, what did I tell you about this, what the hell did I tell you, he then sent me sprawling backward into the creek bank where I smashed my back into a rock. Oh, That was my back, I screamed blinded by pain. Those were the first words I spoke and he screamed I know it was you’re goddamn back. Now get up and get home.

    I can’t I yelled.

The hell you can’t he yelled back pulling me up by my hair get home don’t come out of your Goddamn room until I get up there to deal with you. He slung me forward across the moss covered rocks where I slipped and fell again smashing my elbow into the mossy creek bed.

 I said go he screamed from behind me I got up and limped as fast as I could. I had to climb the creek bank on a muddy trail under the little footbridge that went from our Hell Farm to the road. Island Creek rd. it was called.

  I painfully made my way the couple hundred yards up hill to our house, climbed the stairs and went in my room. I was hurting like hell and dizzy from the gas and being beat down. I had one last problem. My bed was built up about 5 ft. off the ground so I had to climb up into it and doing so hurt, bad. Once I made it I just lay there hurting, physically and emotionally but mostly the deep dark hate I had grown to know so well filled my soul. I got so angry at him for beating me like that I never stopped to think that maybe sniffing gas wasn't the best way to spend my time.