...And Deeds (Excerpt 5 of 5 from "Looking through the Naked Window," book 1 of the memoir)

These vignettes are from chapter/episode 23... in book/season 1 of the memoir series.

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In my sordid, sometimes triumphant life there have been many deeds. There have been the dirty deeds and then there are those wonderful acts of kindness. They're nice when on the receiving end, but even more redeeming when on the giving end.

~~~~~

Lance, my first, so-called ex-lover has been on my mind a lot lately. You lovers of the world know what influences those first loves have on us, be damned what they did in the past. Hell, we all have a past. I know I certainly do. Over the years though, during our multiple episodes of being high profile guest stars in each other's lives, we have always come back together and picked up where we left off. Remember when I said I left Lance originally, because I wanted to feel something for my mate. That was a half-truth then, which has snowballed into my very own personal foolishness.

You see, all along I really didn't want to feel. It was always too sexually charged. If it wasn't an explosive and head-banging (literally) experience, I wanted nothing to do with it. That was then, so when Lance and I were going together I became bored with him and his comfort zone, as far as our relations were concerned. Then, we can't forget Jimmie, who took the whole sex thing to another level. He became boring due to his constant repetitions. Allen was always a buddy. So, there you have the first three of my relationships. I remind you, they were all one-sided and as I told my dear friend, Pam, recently, as I toked long and hard on another ruthless cigarette... I, yes, I have never been in a true relationship.

I have lived a lie.

~~~~~

I wrote Lance a letter about a month and a half ago. It’s been about three years since I had seen him and I was wondering how he was doing and I will admit, I missed being with him. Sure enough, he got the letter and we got together for a very nice, intimate evening. I have seen him twice in the week and a half surrounding the holiday. Yes, before and after Thanksgiving, I was having a little more holiday cheer than I had anticipated and it was wonderful. Why? Because, of the differences. Now I like the familiarity. Now I feel like being ...familiar.

~~~~~

It was funny having all the company I had over the holiday weekend.

It felt good, but whenever somebody ate something or sat down or touched something, I'd say. "Oh Pam got that for me" or "Diva did that for me."

Not that I hadn't realized it before, but what would people like me do without kind people in our lives and their acts of kindness and good deeds.

We would be naked.

Pam, Diva and people like Colleen and those at my church, St. Leo's, like Mary Ann or Angela; my friends like Shad and Marshall and even people like Tiger - they live the Beatitudes from the Bible. None of them are particularly 'religious' people, although a couple of them go to church and participate in their community a lot more than some of the others...it doesn't matter. It is the simple fact that they all have one thing in common. They have very little themselves, but have enough of the "Spirit" in them to give what they can, do what they can for those of us who had or have found themselves in a tighter spot in life.

~~~~~

Don't get me wrong; I have been a giver all my life, but primarily for all the wrong reasons - usually, to impress a guy. Because, you see, for as many men as I have considered lover there have been those who are "friends" past and present whom I have wanted quite desperately, but never landed that proverbial lay in the hay. Not that it would have been a big deal, but it was just that I equated love with sex for a long time. I have a lot of love for these guys to this day, but it hadn't reached its fullest potential because we hadn't done the deed, as it were. My dealing with them has been a major part in my turning point and responsible largely for where I am now in my life.

~~~~~

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Little does he know, even though we never 'related' with one another, he is one of the reasons I now keep a low-profile on the night club scene. When you see how people act and hear what they say about him after he walks past their fake grins on their false countenances, it makes one like me think - "I never want to be thought of that way." And I have maintained that respect over the years. As big of a whore as I was in the past, I never carried myself as such. That's the difference between him and me. Call it an educated read, but when you call it like it is seen and when we become honest with ourselves, honey, and you figure out - well, that's not somebody you'd want to be with anyway because sure it may be a cool sexual experience, but at what cost and while it may be a big deal to you we all know it means next to nothing to men like him of the world.

~~~~~

I have also learned that deeds always outweigh any act you put on or any string of words you can put together in a perfectly created phrase.

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Looking through the Naked Window: The Restoration Chronicles (Volume 1) is available in both Paperback and Kindle Editions for purchase at http://www.amazon.com/Looking-through-Naked-Window-Restoration/dp/1484950933/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

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Acts (excerpt 4 of 5) from "Looking through the Naked Window" (book 1 of the memoir)

These passages are from episode 21: "Acts"

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Tiki and Natalie had since witnessed the birth of their beautiful daughter. They were still living their thugged out fantasia, but something was about to put a damper on the whole thing. He no longer worked at the mail sorting company and I had since quit for the eighth time and was simply going to college and working my college work study job and at the burger joint. I got a call from an ex-co-worker, who told me he saw Tiki on a crime show, stating he was wanted - make that Most Wanted.

Well, you know me; I simply got in my car and drove over to his house. I had stayed away for about a year because I was steady with someone else and besides I thought whatever fling he and I had was over and done with and left him to his Natalie and their baby and their common-law wedded, parental bliss. Ah, but how things suddenly change. Natalie had gotten a little selfish with the daughter and was spending more time at her parent’s home.

Tiki and Gramps argued more and more. Tiki was almost psychotic when he discussed Natalie and his grandfather to me, when I came over unannounced. That is unlike me. I usually always call first, but I knew Tiki needed someone to listen to him and he was very happy to see me. Yes, very happy, very drunk, twice as high and extremely horny. Little did I know, I was not only in for a long night (that was actually a good thing, as I needed a long night at that point), but it would be the last time I would see him for many, many years.

~~~~~

I cheated - and I cheated - and I cheated.

Yes, I admit it. Hell, I've gone this far. Why not own up to all of it? Why hold back now? Shame forbade me from telling this before. Not only because of where - that was bad enough, the symbolism, but because of my ability to conceal it from my lovers, family and friends. Nobody ever knew, nor would they if I weren't telling them right here and right now.

If you haven't figured out my memoirs by now, it is an attempt to wipe my own slate clean. I know I am not the most perfect person in the world. Who is? I don't think, my dear friend, you realize how addicted I was to sex. Even now, I have to watch myself. I doubt you could, nor would you really want to, put a finger on how much of a slut and whore and sinner I have been. Guilt... Guilt has pretty much been the ruler of my life for a very long time. It comes from not only being raised Catholic, but from the acts - the many acts - I have committed in my life.
I only scratched the surface with my mother about it. I couldn't get too much past her, though. I think she prayed for my soul enough for ten lifetimes, God bless her, but I have still lived with my guilt and my snowball, my avalanche of lies and concealment of my whorish lifestyle. I made gay people look bad, because not all of them are as much of a ho as I have been. However, I have come so far from that now that it only makes sense to apologize for my shortcomings and ask for forgiveness.

Repent.

The men - they didn't care. That was part of the problem. I am not pointing the finger, but boy did they partake in the situation at hand and had no problem with it whatsoever. Oh, the sins that line ones soul runs deep and grows ever wide. It surprises even me the memories I have of the many tricks of the trade that took place in the auditorium at that holy place. I took advantage of that situation, pure and simple, and nobody ever knew...

Or did they...?

*

Were the hall's lined with eyes
Yes, the eye of God
But His eyes looked upon me with mercy,
And I looked away in shame and cried...

~~~~~

He was a man on the run. He had issues. Plus, he didn't want to start something with me he couldn't finish. He said I made him feel uncomfortable. Not discomfortable, but uncomfortable in a way it was bad for him. He didn't want to "start up" something with me. He was very angry with himself and started berating me at that point. I was like what in Sam's hell was wrong with him?

It wasn't me and even though I did I shouldn't have taken it personally, but he abruptly ended our visit and pretty much threw me out of his house. He told me I should stay away from there for a while that he did something, but he couldn't help it and that he would surely be arrested soon. I couldn't imagine what he could have done and how things could have fallen so quickly into the shit hole he found himself in. Whatever it was, it was serious and, even he said, I wanted nothing to do with him.

He was right.

A little time passed and before I knew it he was calling me collect ...from jail.

I said, "What the hell have you done?"

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Looking through the Naked Window: The Restoration Chronicles (Volume 1) is available in both Paperback and Kindle Editions for purchase at http://www.amazon.com/Looking-through-Naked-Window-Restoration/dp/1484950933/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

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Deeper and Deeper (Excerpt 3 of 5) from "Looking through the Naked Window" (Book 1 of the memoir)

Looking back on my first installment of my memoir, I would have written it a lot differently now. That is because I have grown since then in life, as a person and as a writer. I already have the outline for the fifth book (the final one of the series - at least, my telling of my life story in the current format). What I will tell you is that it will go back to my school days and clarify a lot of things I myself was mistaken about. I am sure I will be just as intrigued in my approach as a writer, as my faithful readership will be curious to find out what all of what I just said means.

Here I present to you excerpts from episode 17, entitled "Deeper and Deeper."

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My mother never really realized I had one steady lover, let alone was well into my second relationship, until I started getting letters from Lance in prison. He seemed much friendlier, almost angelic from that far away place and we corresponded every other week or so the whole eight years he was in prison. As time went by, and as my mother became more accepting of my sexuality, she would even send him Christmas cards.

Before my mother arrived to that acceptance, she and I had it out a few times. Not because I was gay, although that was mentioned, but because I dated Black men - pretty much exclusively. I had no idea that would have been an issue, but then again I thought back to her bitter display during prom season just a few years prior.

"It's bad enough you're gay, but you would have to date Black men," she said in a sinister tone.

"Well, would you rather it is a Black woman?" I recovered quickly.

"This whole fascination you have with Black people is scary."

"It is not fascination, more like gravitation," I remarked proudly.

"Why? What have Black people ever done so impressively for you?" She really wondered and I couldn't believe the racist standing in front of me was my own mother.

"You are a racist," I accused.

"I am not! And how dare you accuse me of that? I just believe you should stick with your own."
Unbelievable.

"I do stick with my own," I seized the opportunity. "Men!"

"That's not what I mean and you know it." She was furious.

~~~~~

My mother was, indeed, not the racist she seemed to be to me at that time. I even apologized to her, after I got a better understanding of what she meant. My poor mother used to have the hardest time getting across what she really meant. She was always concerned, for a long time, about what other people would think and one can't forget my grandma raised her.

Googles was another one I used to go toe to toe with, while maintaining a good deal of respect, on the race issue. She had horror stories. It's unfortunate because Googles was a good woman at heart and was a prime example that racism isn't something we are born with, but something attained or taught. She had a lot of Black friends at the factory she worked at. They affectionately called her Rita, because she looked like Rita Hayworth and the guys loved to play in her hair.

I was dumbfounded, imagining some burly Black stud fiddling in my grandmother's hair. She accepted it as a compliment and knew it wouldn't go any further, as she explained to me the factory was the one place she saw Black people getting treated fairly, from where she was standing. Her being a determined woman, she noticed her salary was the same as her Black male counterparts and based on that unfortunate truth, she viewed them as her equal - then. Over the years, however, she witnessed a lot of separation and attitudes among those Black folks around her. She would even stick up for them.

She told me she'd have them over on holidays and go to their churches for a visit, only to be talked about by them the following Monday at work. She felt that she fed them and partied with them, only to be stabbed in the back and betrayed by them. She was still deeply hurt at how she fell out with her "brothers from the grease pit," as she referred to them. Then the Civil Rights Movement took off and she was hurt in the 1967 riots, by people she was only trying to find cover for. Then, at that point, she told me after that anything negative that happened to her had been done by a Black person.

"You just can't trust them," she said.

Then I went on to tell both her and my mother that, yes they had an argument that I was teased and taunted by Blacks in my youth, but then Blacks were always coming to my rescue, as well. That was my environment - there are good and bad in all races, religions, sexual orientations, etc. Since my mother taught me to be a positive thinker, I always sided with the good people in my life, the majority of whom just happen to be African-American. My mother saw my point, while Googles remained unmovable.

~~~~~

I have always been more giving...more concerned...more into the relationship...

None of my lovers, the four I have learned so much from, ever acknowledged our relationships as, simply that, relationships. None ever told me they loved me. None ever treated me as more than an object, save one. It was always about me doing for them, me pleasing them physically, me writing poems for them, them, them, them...never about me, yet I am accused of being an egomaniac, in regards to my theatrical accomplishments, writings, and such.

Let's not mistake pride with egomania...

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Looking through the Naked Window: The Restoration Chronicles (Volume 1) is available in both Paperback and Kindle Editions for purchase at http://www.amazon.com/Looking-through-Naked-Window-Restoration/dp/1484950933/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Check us out on YouTube – Please Subscribe (It’s Free!)http://www.youtube.com/cassone2007
Check out Antonio Cassone’s Author Page on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003OC3MME
Thank YOU!

Through the Darkness, a poem by Antonio Cassone

Through the Darkness

Fade to black
Eyes wide open
Looking, searching, seeking
Feeling, ...touching

Push and pull ...me
Struggle, only to give in
Innocence means nothing
When you chose my destiny

Giving in, only to fight back
One last ditch effort,
To find the strength I lack

Feeling nothingness

Wondering when it will end
Hoping it will...
My anger grows
Due to your selfish need

Plead, I refuse to anymore
Because now you're gone
Just a distant memory
Never to be reunited

There was a day...
I received a letter...
It spoke of your death
I suddenly, eerily felt better

Years, fears and more years
Laughing through the tears
Faking it when thinking it was love
Sought out some sort of savior from above

Poked, prodded, fondled
Wondering if I actually am who I am
Never an apology
Not even a recognition

Nothing will replace the innocence you took from me
But now..., now with time and your passing on
I have never felt more relief
Finally able to let what you did go

Through the darkness I looked up and saw the light
And in the distance I thought I heard you calling
I didn't look back, I just kept walking
I never will you see, loosed from your chains...

I am finally free

© 2009 Antonio Cassone - All Rights Reserved

from the upcoming book Ramblings from the Ragged Edge, by Antonio Cassone