I found this in my drafts, from God-Knows-When, but it looks like it got too heavy so I abandoned it.

Here it is finished in a cold and detached rush. Enjoy a choppy timeline of love, unlove, death, and rebirth.

I had a lovely impromptu date night with the wife tonight. I had the day off work so I slept in, wrote a couple of articles for the site, then took a shower and asked her what she’d like to do. To this, of course, she had no answer. She intimated at being hungry, though I wasn’t, so I suggested we have a cocktail while we decide what to do. We went to a bar, then a pizza joint, then another bar that offered karaoke. If you’re reading this, you know I love karaoke. We sang a song each to start the night, then it got a bit dense, lengthening the rotation. Not the Meredith and Eric Show we’d become accustomed to. Fatigue set in and we closed our tab, but before we could make it to the door, our names were called for a second round. Mer responded with Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” and I felt like I needed to scream a little and answered with Papa Roach’s “Broken Home“.

As we were leaving she asked me how old I was when my parents divorced. I realized that perhaps, at some point in our fourteen years together, I’d mentioned it, but there was still so much she didn’t know about me. It’s not that I’m not forthcoming; this blog should be a prime example of that. But, as it takes place in medias res, you’re privy to all of my current exploits but the past can often go unvisited. In this vein, I have decided to construct a crude (and I mean, crude; my memory sucks) timeline. Bear with me.

• August, 1958: My father is born to Mary [Maiden Name Unknown], a MENSA-level intellect, and [First Name Unknown] McClanahan, an unknown anomaly of (assumedly) Human DNA.
• October, 1959: My mother is born to Bonnie Sue Johnson and Bill Ray Johnson.
• Sometime, 1960: Mary and [First Name Unknown] McClanahan separate.
  Mary and Charles Loftis Wed. They go on to have three girls: Connie, then a few years later, a set of twins: Rachel and Robin.
• Sometime, in the 60s: Bill and Bonnie divorce; beforehand, they birth Judy Sue Johnson and Robin Ray Johnson, chronologically.
• Early/mid-70s, that era: Bill weds Virginia Hawkins.
• February 22. 1976: Bill and Virginia give birth to their son, Jeffery Ray Johnson.
• 1976: My father is engaged to a young woman; after an unavoidable automobile accident, she is hospitalized and he retreats into himself.
• Mid-1976: My mother is dating [Name Unknown], and they like one another’s genitalia.
• Late 1976/Early 1977: Rupert McClanahan meets Janet Johnson. Sparks!!!!!
• February 1977: Rupert and Janet marry; Yay! Neither complete high school.
• July 21, 1977: Rupert and Janet welcome a son, Damen Cory McClanahan. The math doesn’t add up, does it? This is not Rupert’s son. Undaunted, he agrees to raise him as his own.
• August 19, 1978: Rupert and Janet welcome a son, Eric Macy McClanahan, who is so wrought with emotional incongruence that he weeps at the sight of his own name, but that’s neither here nor there. What is significant is that Eric is unplanned; an idea was formed that they’d wait several years before having a child so that the older existing one can help raise the new one. Burgeoning chemical contraceptives and their youthful inefficiencies result in a differing eventuality.
• The 80s: the Family moves about, for better or worse. There are times spent in apartments with family friends; time spent in one-room shacks that my father literally built around us as we foraged for a home. At one point, we stayed in a one-room shack where we boiled water in a five-quart convection chafing pan then shared baths while we also housed a deaf cousin. I discover what government cheese tastes like and drink powdered milk. We share love and gifts and cherish our extended family. It was quite surreal. Dad joins the Army Reserve for career training and salary. I break my arm quickly after he finishes his three-year stint. I was ambidextrous, then. (I am not now.)
• 
• Winter; 1992: Cory proves too difficult for Janet and Rupert to raise and is placed in the care of Bonnie and her husband, Lewis. He works a small job as a porter, cleaning repurposed household appliances, while staying with his grandparents.
• Spring/Summer, 1993: Cory is brought home but it is quickly apparent that both boys are incorrigible. They are exiled to a pop-up camper in the backyard of their estate. They are allowed to enter the house at night for a shower and dinner, only. They work the land for a meager pay that they remand as “rent.” They’re responsible for getting themselves up and to school. If they miss the bus they can pay their father to take them to school if he’s available.
• Late 1993: Rupert and Janet announce they are divorcing. They assure their shitty kids (who are so rotten they had to be moved into a tarp in the front yard) that it’s not their fault. The kids don’t believe them. Rupert is “immediately” seeing a new woman, Cindy. Mom moves into an apartment near the high-school. The boys are moved back into the house to stay with Dad, who regrets the time he hadn’t spent with them.
• Early 1994: Dad and Cindy marry. His children are not invited to attend the ceremony, and are only told about it after the fact.
• Summer 1994: Cory is given use of the family truck so that he may work at Whataburger, given the condition that he keep his grades up when school resumes.
• Late Summer 1994: Mom moves into a house in Conroe. Her last memory of Cory is a random day in September when he comes by to mow her lawn. They pass like ships in harbor, and she doesn’t even get to say “Thank you.”
• September 29, 1994: After receiving progress reports for the first semester of his senior year with grades in the 30s and 40s, Cory sends a few messages to classmates, then goes to Taco Bell to enjoy a meal. He goes home and writes a letter to his mother, father, and brother. He places the note in a bible near a psalm about Deliverance. He searches our father’s room and loads his shotgun with a slug. He goes into the backyard and puts the shotgun in his mouth and blows the back of his skull out rather than disappoint our father. I find his body in the backyard.
• The rest of 1994 to about mid-2000: I graduate high school, and immediately go to work doing shit jobs for shit pay. I apply to a college and am accepted but forget the $15 application fee. I never reapply. I make poor decisions, eat shit, let my teeth rot out of my face, drink too much, sleep with everything. My mother remarries, and at the ceremony, I give her away. I stare into the bottom of a bottle and cry more often than not. I am directionless and apathetic.
• August 2002: I receive an invitation from my friend to move to San Diego, crash on her couch, and start a new life. I take it, and tell only a few people that I will, most of whom don’t believe me.
• January 2003: Much to the surprise of many people, some of whom were my roommates at the time, I leave early one morning to drive to San Diego. I arrive two days later. I stay for fourteen years, meet my eventual wife, and do ALL THE THINGS.

From there you know the rest. One of these days I’ll write a book; in the meantime, you get this.