It’s always been hard for me to explain my family. You would think it would be because there was some hideous secret or something. No. Nothing like it. The problem is that I was under 15 when a lot of things happened.

First off, the question of how many siblings I have. For years, I would have told you one. The legal answer is three.

When I was born, my sister Theresa was 14 and she was at the house off and on my entire life. I thought that was it.Theresa and I honestly don’t know if my general ridiculousness is genetic or if I picked a lot up from her.

When I was younger, I was introduced to my brother Alex but it never registered because 1) he didn’t live at the house anymore since he was over 18 and 2) my mom kept no secrets and also said he was my cousin. She had adopted him. It didn’t fully register that he was more than a cousin in my mom’s eyes until a few years ago and I’ve come to refer to him as my brother.

When I was in fifth grade, I found out that I had a half-sister. Since I was a dense little prat back then, that didn’t sink in until I turned 14 and my dad died. over the years after that, I saw her a few times but that fell off after I went to college because I didn’t have any social situations to force interacting and I had no idea what to do with a grown woman with a kid who I just found out was my sister. I have her phone number. I’ve been putting off calling her most of the year but I’ve made up my mind to call her tomorrow. Actually, I would do it now but it’s almost 10 p.m., I just got home from work and I have articles to write. I’m writing this over dinner to put let where the articles are going simmer.

That all said, I truly have six nieces and nephews and I’m a great uncle. I don’t know if Chanelle has another kid (yet another reason to initiate contact) so there could be more.

As for the rest of my family, I know a lot of my mom’s side as far as cousins because my grandmother had a lot of brothers and sisters who died untimely deaths so she raised a lot of their children. A lot of growing up revolved around a large group of people revolving around Grandma. As for my father’s side, I knew little.

I found out today that I actually knew a lot.

My mom has a brother. I don’t see my Uncle George very often although he lives nearby. I knew my dad had a sister and a brother and my Aunt Betty had three children. I didn’t really see my aunt much and only met my uncle once. I never saw an awful lot of my cousins on my dad’s side. Two of them were around my age but they lived on the other side of town. Basically, I saw them as much as I saw any given cousin near my age on my mom’s side on a regular basis.

All of my grandparents are dead. One of my uncles is dead. I have cousins who are a lot older than me. That’s it. I thought I was missing a huge chunk of the narrative or something but that’s it. I set out at one point today to see who I could track down and that was really it. I had been meaning to ask my mom about my dad’s side because I thought I was missing something but I wasn’t. I might try to meet more of my cousins on my dad’s side but that’s it. It feels anti-climatic. I had been putting this off for a while because I expected there to be some grand story with twists and turns and the only new thing I’ve learned is what my paternal uncle’s middle name was.

I did send a friend request to my two paternal cousins who are near my age. One of them lives in Newport News and the other is somewhere in Richmond. One of them responded already. I just feel that we should connect. I mean, I’m almost 30. I have friends I consider family but this is flesh and blood. I promised myself when Theresa’s kids were born that I wouldn’t be the uncle they saw once in a blue moon. I’m beginning to think I want to extend that to other family members. I guess I want the option of contacting them to be there.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned how much I’m like my mom. I guess I want to see the whole picture, how all the ingredients of and awesome individual as myself come together.

Well, enough of that. I articles to write.

And a call to make tomorrow.

Long time, no see. What am I up to, you ask? Just kinda sorta officiating a wedding today. Long story. I’ll explain later tonight/tomorrow.

I’ve been on the fence about attending my 10-year class reunion for quite some time. Back in December or so, I wondered why I hadn’t heard anything about it. It was partially because there was no one to plan it. I was under the impression that the reunion is planned by the class historian and ours died in a tragic car crash so that wasn’t a possibility.

Since then, at least two groups of people began to plan it (I briefly considered doing it myself in January but I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes and also it wasn’t my job). There was a bit of controversy about the planning process and the cost. That nearly derailed the whole thing. The petty fighting on the Facebook page for it nearly turned me off completely but I still had a little urge to go. I planned to make my final decision this week. Like most people, I disliked a lot of the high school experience but there are some people I lost track of that I wouldn’t mind seeing. Also, there’s the whole seeing who is a hobo and who is rich and famous and who thinks they’re too special to grace us with their presence aspect. Oh, and the wanting to be the one who was dubbed quiet one who is now a loud liquor-swilling newspaper editor who has picked up the nickname “Epic” aspect.

But there is now another reunion that weekend.

My best friend and fraternity brother has joined the Army. He mentioned it a few times in college and I figured it was going to happen because of his reasons. I see it making him a better history teacher, if he decides to finish his masters, or it adding a richness to his perspective if he chooses to go into seminary.

He asked me earlier this week to host a welcome home party for him. I literally told him that he didn’t need to ask. Whatever the weekend, I would have made it so. I’ve dubbed the Return of Bill the “Budweiser Commercial Welcome Home Without the Barn. And the Budweiser. But Maybe the Hay.”

I realized a few seconds ago that Bill is flying into the Virginia the same weekend as my reunion.

Needless to say, Bill wins out.

I’ve made the right decision.

It’s been a decade. Although we barely had cell phones  (I was among the very few who had one in 2000; I was also ballsy enough to keep it on my person during school hours), we had AOL Instant Messenger (remember that?) and email to stay in contact with the people we wanted to keep in our lives. MySpace and Facebook further closed the gap. Sure, that doesn’t top meeting in person but I’ll catch most of them at like Marker 20 or the Taphouse in downtown Hampton one night.

Many of the friends we made in high school were because we had classes with them since elementary school. The people I still talk to since my days in Hampton are very few and they have a special place in my life. As for the people I’ve met in college, I’ve literally driven hundreds of miles to see them for a few hours  for a party; to attend their weddings; to visit for days.  Bill is one of those people I met in college. I’ll run out of fingers and toes before I run out of people for whom I’ll do that from my college experience and its aftermath. From my fellow Warriors and Hamptonians? Six. Technically seven but Reggie also lives in Richmond.

I’m willing to stop the world for the people with whom I chose to become friends between 2001 and 2005 and those I met by extension afterward but I honestly can’t picture doing the same for the people whose acquaintanceship with me effectively terminated one June day in 2001. When you’re in high school, everyone says at graduation that those years are the best years of your life. College and beyond have shown me otherwise.

While those in Hampton look back at our superficial 4-18 years together and then leave, I’ll be looking forward to the years ahead with people  who consider time and distance to only be numbers.

To the Kecoughtan High School Class of 2001: 1) I’m sorry. He’s my best friend and my brother. 2) Be less divisive for 2021. 3) I’ll see you there.

To Bill: TDF.

I’ve never told anyone this so it makes perfect sense to tell the entire tiny sliver of the world that realizes/cares that I have a blog.

In fact, I sat here for five minutes, completely paralyzed because I can’t write that sentence right now, the one this all pivots around. I got a text and a phone call a second ago that took my mind off it for a second but I’m just going to circle the drain until it manifests itself.

Someone very dear to me is in a rough spot right now and I wish there was something I could do. Especially since I was in a similar situation. All I could do was stand there and continue cooking dinner as if I was just told it might rain tomorrow.

So many of these things are easier to deal with while I’m at work because I can keep it at arm’s length. As a neutral observer, I still have empathy but I can somewhat turn it off. When I’m standing in the kitchen in my pajamas, my guard is down.

I know this person feels helpless and numb and angry and sad and everything in between. I wish I knew what to do or say beyond saying to hope that the laws of this land or the laws of the universe will see to it that this deed will not go unpunished.

I almost don’t want to talk about me right now because I don’t want to seem like I’m seeking attention from what took place. But I just want to get this off my chest. I have to. I wanted to sink down to the kitchen floor and curl up in a ball when I was told what happened.

I just got interrupted by another phone call. Makes me wonder if I should just kill this entry for now. This isn’t the time. No. I think this was just making this go better somehow.

I was molested as a child. I said it. There it is. Fuck.

I was in elementary school. I want to say we were in no more than third grade. he was held back a year and was year older than me. I only recall it happening once. I didn’t really hang out with him after that, obviously. I don’t know why I didn’t tell anyone. I tried to ignore it but it lingered in the back of my mind.

It was amazing to go through puberty with “Hey, some dude touched your junk” floating around in your head. Really.

It was just that I wasn’t expecting it from a friend. There was all of the “stranger danger” things we learned  and I would have punched, kicked, bit and screamed bloody murder if some guy with a ’70s porno ‘stache and a white Ford Econoline with no windows came near me but I didn’t know how to react to a friend playing grab gnads.

Oh, I went through turmoil as I reflected on it as I got older. Blamed myself. Wondered what it all meant or would mean. Wondered if I could have gotten him help or stopped someone else from being abused if I opened my mouth. Years had already gone by the time I fully comprehended what happened. I had no idea where he was. I’m fully expecting to be torn a new one by the Internet because I was silent on this for so long. I didn’t know what to do. I probably made some bad choices in my early- to mid-20s because of this situation. (Man, I’m actually out of my mid-20s … but that’s neither here nor there.) I sometimes wondered if that one event changed the course of my life and I hoped that the incident or incidents didn’t manifest itself into something far worse in him or anyone else he may have affected.

He became a troublemaker not long after that, though. he had a troubled childhood. It was an open secret that his mom pulled a gun on him at some point when we were still elementary school kids. It was part of the reason he lived with his grandmother and our paths crossed. She was in no real capacity to raise a kid. If I were an adult then, I probably would have been able to spot that he was going to become a statistic. My mom did. If not for being shipped off to my sister’s most of every summer, I probably would have hung out with him in some capacity at some point due to lack of alternatives and anything’s possible. At the least, I could have would up in juvenile detention with him.

I just had a random memory of letting him borrow my bike. He proceeded to knock a bird’s nest out of a tree and killed the baby birds with my bike. I don’t remember what year that was. That was the moment where, for all intents and purposes, the friendship was over. That was a second thing I let him do with no real protest. Why didn’t I assert myself fully when faced with him?

It was really close to middle school  if not sixth grade when I saw him the last time. He was out of juvy and he was out for a run. My mom drove past him. I don’t remember what I felt when I saw him. I know I didn’t hate him or anything. Like I said earlier, the memory of it is there and doesn’t leave but the moments where I focused on it were few and far between. I just knew I wasn’t going to stop and chat.

It still bothered me though. There have been several times when I’ve been on the verge of telling someone that this happened and, although I’ve moved on, I haven’t moved on. It’s been the one thing not even being completely at the bottom of a bottle has been able to work out of me.

Then came November. I found out that the “President,” as he picked up as a nickname in Florida apparently, is in jail for life with no parole. I’ve already forgotten the charges. I know he didn’t kill anyone but it had to have included damn near it. I felt nothing at the time. I felt closure. I didn’t feel justice.

I said I wasn’t going to do it again but I just pulled up his mugshot. He got a new one earlier this month. It’s of a higher quality than the one that was with the inmate locator or whatever I saw last time. I see more of his features from when we were kids in that version. I just stared at his 1000-yard prison stare photo for a few moments. The earlier innocent and not-so times of childhood came back. Memories I didn’t know were still in my brain. I snapped out of it. It’s over. If he violated anyone else that way, I hope they feel vindicated and can move on. Before closing the window, I stared back at those eyes. That son of a bitch.

I forgive you but fuck you.

I’m taking heed to his relative’s words when my mom asked about him, my molester, my so-called friend that night where I was glad that I had some drinks when I was sucker punched with his name.

“Don’t worry about him no more. He’s in for life in Florida.”

That kid I learned about today from someone dear to me, the one I learned about earlier this week, the kids who are being abused now by peers, family and strangers have to live with what happened to them. I hope they can make peace with it and recover. For me, I think finally getting this out is the first step to real recovery.

I don’t know what Willson Grill is yet. The origin of the first part was my own lunch of Chinese food sliding in my passenger floorboard. I literally wrote down the kernel of an idea as I hurtled down Interstate 295 at 78 mph. These are coming up as they come to me. There is no plot at the moment. No conflicts other than Foster somewhat hating McCool. In short, this is just a writing exercise, the literary form of stretching.

Who knows? Perhaps, one day, Donald McCool will have a life somewhere. I had no idea where G. Scott Smith was going when I started out with Brown River Blues in this very blog.

Speaking of that, I’ve researched three more agencies. It’s been a while since I sent a query letter. My goal is to at least have an agent on deck by the end of the year. It would be amazing if I land a publisher by December as well. I’ve been thinking about before they’re hatched items such as where I would take my first book tour and the one stupid purchase I’ll allow myself with a portion of my advance. It’s a tossup between an awesome stereo system for my car, Nicole Cobb, or making an equipment investment for a certain business. It’ll probably be for that business. I don’t want a single thing in return other than the perverse satisfaction of people wondering what my motive is.

But I digress.

I’m in a writing mood again and I want some action to happen on what I’ve already written.the ball is in my court so the only thing holding me up is me. Someone punch me in the face if I haven’t sent queries off by this time next week.