Introduction pt. 4

As I was saying at the end of part three, I had gotten clean and met a girl named Melinda. We fell so fast for one another. She was a small time model and I was the James Dean rebel. Things were great and in no time we were married. I swaer as soon as I said "I do" the problems satarted. We fought over everything and to make matters worse I found out about a long lost brother (Kevin) who was a few years younger and carried more baggage than anyone I had ever met. For better or worse he was my brother and I took a mission to save him from a life that I knew all too well. I moved him into our house and he spent the next 4 years making me regret that decision. To add to my already heavy shoulders I discoverd that my wife had an eating disorder that came to light when her manager tried to rape her. A job I pushed her to take based on my own experiences with the company. Melinda went into a post traumatic stress spell and I spent a year trying to save her. Add in Melinda's sisters little girl who had been dropped into my lap and I was dealing with way more than I could handle. The stress finally caught me and I had a nervous breakdown. I lost my job and was forced to move yet again.

Melinda and I stayed together for a couple more years until the 4th anniversary of my uncles murder. She asked for a divorce. Melinda felt that I had isolated myself from the world and honestly I had. So she left. She took the kid; left the dogs and the bills. Two days later she found herself a new man. I spent the next year partying like I was 18 again (but without the drugs). I felt so empty. I kept trying to fill the emptiness with booze and one night stands. Of course this only made me feel more empty. I was 27 years old and all I wanted was to settle down, make some babies, and have a family. Little did I know, I was about to get just that.

I met Lindsay on December 10th, 2008. It was already a day that is important to me as it is the day my grandmother passed away years earlier. Lindsay worked at Burger King with a good friend of mine. I had seen her there several times and had asked about her only to find out she was married. One night I was sitting at Burger King and my friend told me Lindsay was asking about me.

Long story short: we have been together since that night. I've fathered 2 children with her and lost another. We have seen our fair share of ups and downs but no matter what we've worked it out. Today I stand a married, drug free man with two beautiful children and a dog. Through it all the one thing I can say is "for better or worse I did it my way." And I wouldn't change a thing even if i could.

 So now you know all about me. In the coming days, weeks, or years I will go more into detail about the stories that have helped me become the man I am today. But for now I wanted to give a rough idea of who I was. I want to be upfront and tell you that I will not speak in detail about any of the following things:
1. Michael and the YMCA
2. The drug house and the things that went on there
3 How Lindsay and I got together

past that, feel fee to ask me about anything you would like.

Introduction pt. 3

At the end of part 2 I had met a girl while working at McDonalds and shortly after, we moved in together. Her name was Crystal and she couldn't have been more wrong for me. We fought from our very first date till the last time we ever spoke. Even today I can say this is one person that I have no interest in ever making amends with. Crystal and I were together for the better part of 4 years and no matter how hard I tried to end the relationship, I just couldn't get away. I did every low life thing I could to this girl - cheated on her so many times I lost track. But no matter what I did, as long as my pay check supported her sitting on her rear end she was content to stay with me. I found my freedom in year four when on a drunken club night I ended up making out with her best friend, Tammy. Now Tammy was my kind of girl! I had had a thing for her since the moment I met her and I took the first opportunity I could to have a relationship with her. I'm not afraid to admit that Tammy was my first real love. After the revelation our relationship came out I moved to my uncles house (well really it's my house - I own it). Tammy and I had a red hot relationship for most of the summer til one day she decided life was taking her in a different direction. I was crushed. Never had I hurt so bad in my life. I honestly felt dead inside and legitimately tried to kill myself with 2 bottles of pain killers. Thankfully by the grace of God a close friend showed up at my house and shoved a pen down my throat until I puked up most of the pills. I was so out of it that I slept for 3 days straight. 

 

Come fall some friends talked me into working at the local haunted house. It was just what I needed to get out of the funk I was in. Chosen Crossroads was the standard for haunted houses - never was there a better one and never will there be a better one. On a slow night we were selling 2,000 tickets. I loved it. My second week there the guy playing "Michael Myers" walked out and I took the role. This caused a lot of the veterans at the house to dislike me, and a lot of the girls to worship me. I felt like a rock star. I had the fame, the drugs, the booze, and the girls - life was grand.

 

Then November 1st came along. In the last week of October my uncle and I had gotten into a fight over his drinking. See, I don't care what you do with your life, but don't pull me into it. And that's exactly what he was doing. So I packed some bags and went to stay a few days with the owner of the haunted house. The day before Halloween the owner asked me if I wanted to call my uncle and try to make amends with him. My exact words were "No, what's a few more days? I have plenty of time to make things right with him." It's true what they say. Act as if today is your last day to see a loved one. On November 1st my uncle was brutally murdered. An old friend of mine from my childhood showed up at my house and got to drinking with my uncle. Somewhere into their drinking things turned ugly. It ended with my uncle catching a knife across his throat. The kid then proceeded to burn my house down but that wasn't before butchering my cat. I never had the chance to tell my uncle I loved him and that I was sorry. The crime scene investigators caught the boy a few days later but not before I made the news as suspect number 1 in one of the biggest murder cases in Ashevilles last decade. Things just got worse and worse from there. I moved to Forrest City with my friend Derick and stayed in a constant drug fueled stooper. At the start of the new year I finally hit rock bottom when I woke up naked in a strange house in a puddle of my own vomit. Apparently I had decided to see how much cocaine the human heart could handle and found my way into a bathroom, had wild unprotected sex, and passed out. This was just the wake up call I needed. I knew I had to clean up my life so I did the hardest thing I could and admitted that I needed help.

 

I found that help and I am proud to say I've been drug free for the last 7.5 years of my life. Around this time I ran into a girl that had been a tour guide at the haunted house. Her name was Melinda, and she would become my first wife. But, we will touch on that in part 4 of "Brandon Vs. B: A Jekyll and Hyde Tell."

Introduction pt. 2

When we left off last I had just been shown the door at the group home in Oteen, North Carolina. At this point I was out of options on places to go. As luck would have it - at the last moment DSS signed off on a crazy idea for me to share an apartment with a friend from work. So I moved in with Elaina. Elaina had just graduated from a private high school called Carolina Day School so I had high hopes that things were going to start picking up for me. Boy was I wrong! What I didn't know was that Elaina was a bit on the wild side. After about three months of this I was exhausted. The endless drugs and partying was really starting to catch up to me. Add in the fact that I was working 50 hours a week and still trying to attend high school - something had to change. So yet again I found myself homeless. After some time, I convinced a guy I worked with to let me move in with him and his family. Finally I had gotten what I always wanted: a big brother, a little sister, and a mother. Unfortunately, Brandon was dead and gone. And in his place was a screwed up guy I like to call "B." I was so caught up in the drugs, booze, and girls that trying to live any kind of normal life was impossible.

Within six months of living with my new family I had just managed to avoid getting caught selling narcotics at school and had caught my first assault charge for a fight in the cafeteria that ended with me hitting a D.A.R.E officer. It's amazing that through all of this, I kept myself on the honor roll but school and my ultimate failure in College is a story for another day. After the whole assault-on-an-officer deal, I was sent to a juvenile detention center for a three month stay where my alter ego "B" really started shedding his light. Upon my release back into the free world, DSS pretty much told me that since I was so close to the age of 18, they were washing their hands with me and I was free to do as I pleased in life.This is where I packed my bags, moved to Leicester, North Carolina, and continued working at the local McDonald's.

If I can say one positive thing about myself, it's that I've always been successful in my career. I've worked hard at any job I've had and McDonald's was no exception. I was the first person under the age of eighteen to be put into McDonald's management in all of Western North Carolina. My work life was great, while my personal life was spiraling out of control faster than ever. I had made the wise decision to move into one of the biggest known drug houses in the county. (Nothing like waking up for work and seeing the FBI outside your house.) There are a lot of stories I could tell about experiences in this house but for the safety of myself and my family, I will not discuss it. Around this time I caught my second assault charge for beating a guy half to death on Patton Avenue. God must have been in my corner this time around, seeing as how I all but walked on the charges. At this point I decided it was time to get my shit together: finish school, go to college, and make something out of myself. Naturally I failed miserably and ended right back at the McDonald's in Leicester. While working there I met a girl, moved in with her, and spent the next four years in the most abusive relationship known to man. But, I'll save the details of that for part three of "Brandon Vs. B: A Jackal and Hyde Tale."

Introduction pt. 1

So since everybody I know is getting their blog on, I figured "what the hell," why not join in on all the fun?

We shall start this grand adventure into self expression with a long winded multiple part introduction about myself. My name is Brandon Townsend; I was born to a heroin addict mother and an alcoholic father in the year of 1981. My first day home with momma dearest was spent in a run-down hotel where I was attacked and damn near ate alive by a wharf-rat (thank God for ball bats). By day three, mom had come to the conclusion that it was hard to raise a baby and sell your ass on the side on Lexington Ave. so I was shipped to my great grandmothers house. I would live there until I was 11 years old. Right before my 12th birthday the Department of Social Services decided that my elderly grandmother was no longer fit to raise me so I was moved to a home that they found more "suitable." This home ended up being a dairy farm in Leicester, North Carolina that felt the best way to bring up young men was by subjecting them to manual labor. Nothing like waking up at 4 o'clock in the morning to drive in the cattle, milk the cattle, water them, and then head to school! After the school day it was rinse and repeat the morning activities and head to bed around 7:00 pm. Throw in a good day of tobacco farming here and there and that about covered my life at the ol' farm. I guess around six months of the green acre life was all I could take because I was on the phone with my friends at DSS daily, trying to get the fuck out dodge.

Finally God had answered my prayers (or so I thought) and I was sent to a brand new group home in Fletcher, NC. What I didn't know at the time was not every kid that becomes a ward of the state does so because of their parents. In fact, some kids are in DSS custody because they are, for lack of better words, wacko. I had my first experience with such a fellow at the Fletcher group home who's name was Michael. And for the first year of my stay he would make life a living hell. You see, Michael had problems. He had problems keeping his hands to himself. He loved to bully those who were smaller than him (me included). The attacks were relentless, finally coming to a head in a YMCA bathroom; where Michael decided to make me his girlfriend. I really don't like going into details about the situation, but I imagine you can draw your own conclusion as to what happened. (To this day I will not step foot into a public shower house). This act of aggression was the final straw for me; I planned my revenge for days. Finally one rainy night I caught Michael coming up the stairs and kindly pushed him back down them. I was hoping to break his neck, although unfortunately all he got was a broken arm. After that night I never had much problems with him, or anybody else for that matter. I spent two more years at the Fletcher home, til I was kindly asked to leave for breaking a kids collar bone in a game of tag - total accident but it is what it is I guess.

Next up for me was a home for troubled youth in Oteen. Basically this was a temporary home - they sent kids here that nobody else wanted. Not much to tell about this one - spent three months there, got in trouble for taking a shower with a girl named Nikki and her friend, and was kindly showed the door. At this point no homes where taking me.

I had built quite the reputation after the Michael incident for being a troubled youth, and no matter what I did I couldn't shake that image. Fact is: I really didn't want to. I was hurting inside. I was constantly harboring feelings of uselessness and rejection, and if I had to hurt, then I wanted the world to hurt with me.

Well I think I'll pause and start again in part 2 of Brandon Vs B: A Jackal and Hyde Tell.