An Unfinished Autobiography

The following is the complete unfinished text of a self-serving autobiofiction that I began in 2001. Like so many things in my life, the advent of my devastating divorce, and the need to care for my children while so emotionally distraught found this artistic endeavour lost and abandoned. While sifting through old computer files I came across it. Ultimately, the idea for its 'plotline' became the premise of this entire blog. As I perused it, I noticed that some of the text was amusing and some of it caused the recall of lost but fond memories. Some of the text is fragment and some is just point form - ideas that were intended to be expanded in the ongoing completion of the book. For the sake of posterity of a piece of text that was unfinished and is destined to remain unfinished I have left it exactly as it was left in 2001 without any revisions, modifications, or completions.

A Novel: Written In The First Person Singular. by David Christopher.

Chapter One: Why bother?

I would suppose the best place to begin a tale of this sort would have to be at the beginning of my post secondary education. In fact, this is really not a tale at all, per se, but merely a series of episodes and fantasies, some funny, some terrifying and some just unbelievable, to which I have tried to lend as much cohesion as possible. There is no beginning or end or climax, as such, and if you’re looking for such things, the Danielle Steele section is just down the aisle.
I could waste countless verbs recounting the events of my childhood, but that would, of course, be irrelevant. I will, therefore, try to summarize those years leading to my university years with as much brevity as I am capable of. I am not capable of much brevity.
I was always the shortest kid in my class and suffered the normal assaults of unchecked bullies common to social behaviour of children of the 1970's and 1980's. Add to that a vocabulary far advanced to most and an ego to use it, you can imagine that I was not always treated with love and kindness by other students. In retrospect, I guess I had it coming. I was quite selfish, self-righteous, hyperactive and verbally annoying. High School was a turbulent time for a high-strung teenager like myself. I would become very well educated in human social tendencies and would begin down a long path of hatred for that species. Nevertheless, I did have my share of positive social experiences and academic successes and grew up fairly normally considering . . . well, considering all that is in the story I am about to tell you. Actually, it’s quite surprising to many, including myself, that I am not some sort of deranged, disgruntled, postal-worker-type clock-tower sniper that has one eye twitching and a penchant for drinking blood.
In high school, I spent most of my energies trying to have sex. Fortunately, one of the ways to impress girls was to get good grades. Therefore, I accidentally got relatively good grades and, again, fortunately for myself, with little or no effort. Most of the people with whom I have discussed the subject all agree that they learned nothing academically in high school. I must be the exception to the rule because I learned a lot. To be honest, I don’t understand how you couldn’t, even by accident. If you have even the remotest ability to listen, you would have picked up something by osmosis. High school wasn’t that hard.
Intro to Shakespeare
High School was also the place where I was introduced to the wonderful world of marijuana. That habit would carry far and wide for many years to come before I finally decided to clear the purple haze. After my sister died, I inherited a breast-pin (among other things) that read “drugs saved my life”. Of course, it was meant as some medical credo, but I wore it as a proud badge of my engagement in the culture of hallucinogens. When asked by a friend how they had saved my life, I responded by saying that they gave me something to look forward to. He expressed how profound he thought my response was. He wasn’t too bright. He was probably stoned.
I have long held the contention that if pot-smoking did not have such an adverse effect, both social and monetary, and if it didn’t destroy health, mental functions and emotional stability, I would smoke it forever. Truly, it is fun and makes everything more interesting and it did offer me some enlightenment on the amazing integrity of my own father and the idiocy of the common man at large.
My Dad was not very well attuned to the habits and realities of young teenage men. In fact, if you had met him, you would be hard-pressed to believe that he had ever been one and bewildered at what he had done for fun when he was. I was, and am, and to this day.

My father wore a suit and tie to work everyday as a function of social necessity, but at days’ end, he was obviously more comfortable in generic tan pants, a colorless and featureless collared shirt and what my memory sees as non-descript hush-puppies on his feet (although I’m sure he never actually wore them). Complete with a pair of ’average-person’ glasses and a voice like Kermit the Frog, he was a man of mostly intellectual appeal. But he would become one of my heroes and I love him as much.
He proved himself to be refreshingly open-minded when on one occasion, he offered to join in smoking a ‘reefer’ with me before condemning such behaviour. Much to his surprise, I’m sure, he quite liked the experience. He proved his lack of exposure to the culture when I laughed at how his eyes had become “penny-slits” to which he responded, “Oh sure! I suppose it makes me feet smell too.” You might think he was kidding, but he was dead serious and truly believed that it was a physiological impossibility for such a thing to happen merely from inhaling a little smoke.
I remember a time when I was about seventeen years old. - bottle toker incident
I was living alone with my brother in what had been the family home before the effects of a widespread dysfunction took hold. My brother, Peter, was a handsome gazelle. Somewhere between my Dad’s averageness and my mother’s sharp orangeness, they managed to produce a beautiful boy. He was tall, angular and handsome with broad shoulders, sandy-blonde hair and blue eyes. Had it not been for his own social awkwardness and voluntary introversion, he would have been a lady-killer. He spent most of his time angry at my personality which he described as “representing everything he hates about people”. As such, he tended to completely avoid me at all times.

My sister Barb was equally beautiful, but a little too pragmatic for her own good.

Nonetheless, my father was a great source of knowledge for me. He was a man of great patience, integrity and wisdom. I say wisdom overlooking his knowledge of pot but I never really considered that knowledge to be characteristic, nor a very good scale of measure, of the very wise. Some of the wisest things he ever told me include his opinion that golf is a great way to ruin a good walk and that the only thing wrong with a beautiful country like the United States of America are the americans. He once related to me one of the simplest and most profound truths I have ever known: “You can wake up tomorrow and change your life forever.” That would become a theme in my existence on more than one occasion. Believe me, as complicated as your life may seem, it is true.
On the other end of the enlightenment spectrum, I never ceased to be amazed by the number of right-wing police-officer-minded idiots that would quite philosophically expound on the evils of engaging in such an under worldly drug-using activity as smoking marijuana and then quite freely pour themselves another 40-proof glass of brandy, . . . on a workday, . . . at lunch, . . . before firing me.
And that brings us to my entrance into university - believed I would conquer the world - beginning of the end of my arrogance - a few well-placed failures would open my eyes. I was a bright enough kid, but lazy at times. I’m sure that if I had had any more desire than to drink the bong-water and get A’s without trying I would have been the next Albert Einstein or Thomas Edison. Barring that, I was pretty much like every other average kid on the planet. - learned about myself - be true to self

The most difficult thing I ever had to learn and accept about myself was that I was NOT a super-hero. In fact, I’m not a super-anything. I’m average; very average. Maybe I’m super-average. My anagnorisis came when my very dear friend Todd pointed out to me that I was only five feet, six inches tall, I had never won a fistfight, and that I had a chest like the inside of a spoon. He had a poignant eloquence about his dialogue that I always envied. I did, however, have what appeared to be a talent for words. It was my one shot at being a hero.
I have been told by many that I should write a novel. I agreed that it was a great idea, but never had the faintest glimmer of an idea what to write about. The result was a huge population of scattered premises and half-written paragraphs that petered out as soon as my momentary inspiration was lost. Those were the episodes where an unknown, tiny, little man like myself got to be the romantic male lead; the white knight in shining armor; the pathetic, dark and tragic fallen hero; the time-traveler; the elf-king and the dragon-tamer. They were the episodes where an average guy had his wonderful and average fantasies.

Lost in my own imagination. Story of guy that has lived an adventurous life vicariously through his own imagination. Theme: few of us are action-heroes but most average people live exciting and sometimes heroic lives.
My own Great Expectations and subsequent revelation at what was real and what I really wanted. My failed attempt to be Jay Gatsby and my actual existence as Boo Radley.

Eleven siblings / only child.

Patience for self-righteous people / nasty people
scathing review of Kim and Debbie - Debbies / Joneses.
High school: Mr. Bonisteel - bad advice
Dad - 'should' not 'what is'
Mom - bible-thumping delusional. Heart in the right place but her head up her ass. To this day she is trying to determine what disease or mental dysfunction that I MUST suffer from so that she might find a cure. She has no idea how offensive is her onslaught of suggestions at what I should do in order to ‘get better’. All of this is offered behind a firm belief in modern Christianity to undermine her credibility even further.


peeler-club DJ: In my self-righteousness, I, of course, convinced myself that I was only there as a function of bad luck and out of the necessity to make money. In retrospect, it is obvious that I quite enjoyed the experience, for a while, and have long since come to accept the reality that I was there because I wanted to be and, much like most young men, quite enjoyed the image of naked women writhing in suggestive and copulous ways.
I’m sure that truth is much to the chagrin of the militant radical feminists of the world. On the other hand, here’s a truly RADICAL feminist point of view: being confident and proud of your sexuality is not only acceptable but evolutionary. When did it become a sin for men to admit they like seeing beautiful women naked. That would be like a woman saying she hopes she never gets to enjoy sex. I am a huge proponent for the equality and equal treatment of women but fail to see the connection to sexuality. As long as a woman is not forced into anything sexual that she is not comfortable with, it should be mutually exclusive of her equality.

I offer a newsflash to all the puritans in the world: Regardless of your religious or ethical background, it is normal for young men (and women) to enjoy sex and that it has been an integral part of the proliferation of our species since the dawn of time. Whether or not said proliferation has been positive is a subjective question, but I assure you that any intelligent man views the human species (both male and female) as the plague to the planet that it has been.


Americans - Dennis Honeycutt - did little to change opinion - figured, after all, people are people

My immediate reaction was to question his parentage and spit in his face. However, being a man of my particular stature facing a man of his particular intellect (and probable violence), I chose a different retort.

James the bartender is the prettiest tough-guy I have ever met. His last name is far too ridiculous to mention here.

Pip’s fireplace / the military warren / Badger’s home - spots of time:
Star Trek Motion Picture - glow of the room - carpet floors walls - discovering my own company
Brown couch / woodstave - little colour TV - overlooking snowy backyard - King Kong 3-D - no cable / better memories - envious at the time but in retrospect my memories are warmer and their houses seem rather clinical to me now
Winter Briargreen skating rink
Halloween - electric fall air - movie Kill a Mockingbird.
Summer Beaches - Jacob Have I loved -

Every day is a battle against life itself. We must attack each day with the intention and desire to win that battle. Once you’ve won, you’ll know you’ve lived.