"Too Close to Heaven" preface excerpt

A word about rage. I had deep, abiding rage that lived in the abyssal places of my mind and body. It was of the blackest of blacks and seemed infinitely deep and wide. When I tried to personify it, it became a huge, snarling gorilla, driven mad by his cage. The source is all that I experienced as a child. I had to learn very early on to bury this rage as any hint of it would be savagely punished. That was one of the reasons I was so silent. I had no energy for anything else but stuffing the rage. I became very good at it, developed a great strength in this area. Later I would learn to use this rage as my life force as I had not the will to live that is the life force of others. I learned to use this power to be both incredibly strong and incredibly gentle. I had witnessed, experienced the effects of rage unleashed and there is nothing I knew that would incite me to unleash my rage. I learned to use it in sport and in work and it served me well for many years. I excelled in all I did due to the tremendous control I had learned in order to survive. People would say that everything came easy for me and I could see why they would think so. But it is precisely that everything was difficult for me that I excelled. Everything required a tremendous amount of focus and discipline to control and focus the rage. And it worked, it worked well. Until the memories returned, then the beast was loose. It was free, ravaging my body and my mind. I had no energy left but to express the monster. I could no longer work. To write what it brought to my heart, to draw what it brought to my mind was all I had energy for. It rose up in my chest and into my throat, literally choking me. Body memories assailed me constantly. I had no strength, my engine had run wild and would spend itself in ranting and attacking me. I searched for my will to live, I could not find it. I took to carrying a seven inch blade under my thigh as I drove at all hours of the day and night across the back roads of six counties, searching for a reason to live. A steady flow of tequila and kahlua took the edge off. There was still no possibility that I would hurt anyone, I had seen far to much hurt to ever hurt anyone. Even myself, though I wanted too and always held it out as a possibility, I knew I could not. That is one of my God's strictest rules. I had developed a deep and powerful faith, beginning with the endless Bible reading of my mothers that were the only words that truly came through to me, and later, faith in God was the antithesis of those who assailed me and was my only comfort. And He was there, he spoke with me walked with me, He and his angels. I would harm no one except to defend another. And I was forbidden to harm myself. So I drove, and drank. I have never truly been drunk in my life though I have tried mightily. Something in all that I have experienced has denied me that pleasure.
So I asked Him, "What is it that people live for?" Lots of things. "Dammit, thats no answer." Silence. "OK, what do you want me to live for since you're determined to make me live?" Faith, hope and love. "Great, like I haven't heard that one before." Silence. "OK, faith I've got, thats why I'm still here but its not enough anymore." "OK, maybe I've got love ,too. There are people who think they love me and people I try to love. Its not satisfying at all and thats not enough either. Don't give me that hope shit, I've never had it, never will. Its totally nonsensical, there is nothing in this world you can depend on, hope is impossible in this world. And yes I have hope for the next world, hell I have an assurance of the next world but it doesn't do me a damn bit of good if I'm stuck here." Silence. "That line about hope never disappoints, bullshit." How do you know? "Okay, maybe I had hope once but so long ago I have no idea what it is or how to summon it up and I know it wouldn't work anyway" You hope it wouldn't work? "You know very well thats not what I said." Silence. Silence. Try it. "No." Silence. "I don't know how" Don't think. Silence. Silence. "I think I'm gonna throw up." Good, thats your defense mechanism kicking in, you'll get past that... eventually. "Gee, Thanks, now I've really got something to live for." Silence. Silence. There's those two little boys, you know (My two step-grandkids, one newborn, one eighteen months). ...Yeah, they're great, but I really have a hard time being around them." Silence. "Its the abuse, isn't it?" Not precisely. "Then it's this hope thing?" Yes. "I can't handle it and they have it." Not exactly, your hope has indeed been destroyed, long ago and since it only brought you pain, you resist it. These boys have awakened your desire for hope. "They're not mine, you know." Does that matter? ...No, not in the slightest, perhaps I feel more strongly because they're not" Yes. "So, maybe I can handle hope for them, I still have absolutely none for myself" Thats fine, for now. "Oh, don't give me that." They're going to need you. Silence. Silence. Silence. Well? "Yeah, yeah, I know, boy do I know." Silence. Silence. What was it you were looking for? "OK, I guess I already have it, I just can't feel it." Thats OK, you've got it. "I still don't buy into this hope shit, though" OK.
Hope is still difficult for me. It requires faith in future things of this earth. I know too well how wrong things can go. So I simply guard the present as best I can and keep my head down. The rage has been largely dissipated now that I have told much of my story. It still rises up and chokes me at times but the gorilla is merely sullen and grouchy now. The infinite abyss is now a large, sometimes placid lake, racked by storms, but landlocked, limited.