Everything My Father Never Told Me

By Pedro Ledezma

Ambushed by the space and time continuum then held to trials and tribulations even still, this is the story of an ordinary American family. It is safe to say that this chronicle is best observed as the fragile untangling of dusty memories stored in closets, attics and storage rooms of the human mind. Making their way through the end of a millennia and stepping into the next, all the while battling through ever testing episodes of life they discovered friendships, love, hardships, revelry, danger in the midst boredom and poverty and triumph. Needless to say, with the ink all dry, this is nothing more than what appeared to have been so, as perceived by a single human being and nothing more. Everything else is on the outside of the story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477245453

Pedro Ledezma

A gentleman that enjoys a hot bath once a month, about four daily cigarettes and a nap here and there, Pedro Ledezma is a poet a, rapper and an artist. He is a part-time author, a full time lover and a passionate storyteller. Born August 18, 1981 in Los Angeles, California and now nestled in sub-urban San Antonio, Texas for the last 26 years he aspires to be truthful and earnest and believes the world deserves nothing less.

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© 2013 by Pedro Ledezma. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse   12/17/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-4544-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-4545-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012912997

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Foreword

Ongoing Twisted Now

The Fabled Past

Mama’s Side

Welcome to Tejas

Ricochet Family

The Sun Sets in Babcock North

Freak House Dope Music

Out of the Woodwork and Back

The Current Random Life and Thoughts

The Cursed and Rambling Rant

Foreword

Some of these memories and stories of my life are vague, tarnished and weathered due to time and life and despite the title seeming to fit as if my father bestowed some kind of secret unto me without having said anything, it is more about all the things remembered and yet we rarely talk about. Although my father is very alive now, I am afraid, as procrastonasish as I am that he may not be alive by the time this is published. It is unfortunate because parts and ideas of our lives will be revealed that we have never and probably will not ever talk about. I do, however, hope for the best and anticipate hearing my family’s feelings on what’s been written and the many other memories they recall that have not been included but remain very vivid indeed. Like little haunting ghosts becoming visible then retreating to the unseen again the memories float and my family will probably tell you that they know I will not care about having not included all of their memories since it is not them writing this book. We should all know also, that there are many memories excluded and some other memories that I’d rather forget and truly have been selective on purpose. Its firm that I’ve committed multiple mistakes in life many regretfully and others which I cannot regret but most of which are included, but then many which are not. Aside from that readers will learn a great deal about the toxic, normal and saintly me and some of the going-ons in my life while different episodes went on in my family’s lives and my different interpretations of what I’ve seen and perceived. On the other hand, the potent memories being brought to life through word of mouth and folklore make me put this down on paper and further stir the memories, rather than the publishing of the book in itself. Additionally if I were to interview each of my family members and our friends regarding our memories and attempt to document that, the manuscript would span more than a twelve series book, something I am in no mood to pursue.

We can go through the memoir and relive moments and verbally add input saying "No, that is not how it happened, this is how it happened." I would love that also, but regardless we will enjoy just sitting around and sipping our drinks, playing baraja and being around each other enjoying our company, because our family, is the only real thing that we are guaranteed to really possess now and forever, whether in flesh or in memory. Despite the fact that my parents never really get along with anyone except those within our family, and even not so much with some of them, we are constantly making new history each day. New stories gently rub away old memories within that are eventually forgotten the way people dear to us or not enter our lives at different moments and then suddenly vanish. We live life, we love life and when all the money we have and wish to have, and all the objects we possess and wish to possess, and every building which houses us each day crumbles away, we are left with only us and the memories we store within ourselves. I am quick as my family knows, to throw away things like furniture that seems meaningful to us, or books and magazines which we keep, for no reason other than that they take up space. I am quick to throw away little drawings with water damage and other random stains. That is me. Whatever my memory retains remains with me for whatever reason, stays with me and I do not forget. Besides, the less old furniture we have around the house, the more space we have to allow people inside. That’s just how I feel. Little meaningful things that people did to help my family, unselfish kind gestures that friends and even strangers participate in do not go unnoticed. Then there are the things that for some reason just stick and cannot be forgotten. This is my attempt to forward those different effigies and dimming renditions of perception and the different in betweens that stuck.

You think you’re all bad because you’re Mexican. A friend once told me as I walked in and sat down in class in middle school. Maybe he was right, but he was wrong if he thought that opportunity for him to accomplish whatever it was that he wanted was deficient because he is white. Surely we were in San Antonio, a city with a majority mix of Latino population, but at the same time I am a minority in Texas and in the U.S. My father raised us proud, and him being from Mexico and loving his country no matter how politically toxic and impoverished it has been, raised us to also learn to love his country and bring that love of his into ours and allow them to mix. As much as I love my country and as much as I have let my pride acquiesce and person assimilate, I’d like to think that this has happened on my own accord rather than under some subconscious submission. I am a second generation American and every day see things that I am in love with in my country but also see and hear what I hate. It kills me to hear others say that certain people who are probably doomed to live a life of poverty should not have children or should only be allowed to have a certain number of kids. Some people try to deny people entry into our country. My mother crossed the river one time or maybe twice. My father was here before the border crossing bigotry ensued or could be enforced entirely. They raised six kids successfully, and helped and continue to help all of their children through college and three of my siblings as well as I have either an Associate’s Degree or Bachelors Degree and some of us are working on a Masters or pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree. Still I feel as if there should be no reason for me to justify what has become the underground railroad of our time, and thereby remain vigilant by the thought that when liberty, equality and justice are summoned by the weak, even without knowing it, they push to allow their children the bright future we all so deservingly inherit by birth alone, no matter what barriers are put up physically, socially or subconsciously.

Guess we all have certain ideas that we firmly stand by and just want to forgive anyone who ever thought or continue to think that an undocumented person should not be allowed a path to citizenship into our country. That is partially what our country was built up on and that is what the pillars of it lean on and yes so much more. It hurts to see that the migration to America, especially in the shadow of what is or was made to be a frightening world economic recession, is further becoming a migration for survival instead of progress. Maybe most disheartening is knowing it has entered my mind that our borders need to be secure now more than ever and that the people who encourage hatred towards migration into America have more of a reason to shell it up, cave it in and wall it down. Our looming hate of much of which is foreign, and this inbred fear of Islam and of Eastern religions, communism and anything alien altogether confines us from wanting to learn about anything other than this red, white and blue and that is perverse. Since although we are American and great, although, not as almighty as we’d like to believe, we are only to progress if we allow a little of everything in as we for the most part always have and concurrently explore cultures and traditions of the world in order to learn more about our human kind. We are, without a doubt, still just as human as the starving children in Africa, the suicide bomber in Pakistan, the textile workers of Honduras and the business men and women of China. Our Christianity, and commercialism, competiveness and nearsightedness have put many of us in a festering state of mind and our children are being raised in an extremely rare and almost drunken artificial state of consciousness. The shadowy ideas of our religion and nationalism have perhaps evolved from this design that we are headed into some cataclysmic and or apocalyptic future. We continue to wonder and choose sides as if we are all in competition to survive some big final catastrophe and we think that God is on our side and our side only. So if it is so and we

are living in what they say are the last days; what should encourage us to prohibit life and whatever truths are still concealed to become known? We learn every day that our country is as politically stagnated and toxic as any of the worst governments out there, we just make it look so damn good. Meanwhile our government has become more powerful, while it communicates the ideas that it should be less powerful and more transparent. Whereby long speeches hailing liberty, justice, freedom and peace billow out of the surround sound speakers of our home theaters and mesmerize us, illegitimate wars bubble on across the ocean and oil companies and Wall Street pull in record setting profits. The blazing trail of the media and real publishing has turned to plastic poppy icons, reality TV stars, violence, womanizing, alcohol, drugs and death to sell us the products we so importantly don’t need, rather than provide us with the information that we do need. Still with the blaring beacon of some kind of hypocrisy clearly before us, there is no other place we’d rather be. There is a full blown hope within each American whether naturalized or born in or with a few generations of history, that our democracy, our republic is working the way our forefathers intended and the way we believe we want it to. God help us. We also keep in the back of our minds, that whatever president be up there, and with the hopelessness of knowing that we cannot really, really do much about who is the leader of the free world, we hope that there is some goodness in them and for the world and for humanity. I find a sense of urgency and a little comfort knowing that there is no sure way of knowing what we are heading into tomorrow, or where we have come from but know I want to live. So I also want to forgive anyone who in thought or by action denies life and liberty to any human being whatsoever. That aside here is a small part of American history as I remember it.

Ongoing Twisted Now

It shouldn’t hurt to be alive. This story begins in the city of angels. Fallen and distraught, a cursed mortal is sent crashing through the galaxies and space funnels into a pleasant and warm womb and out, spanked and sent on his way crying. Many a night or morning, the contemplation of existence balances like the rubber treads of a sports car on the turnpikes of Appalachia or Beverly Hills almost catastrophic, with Goodyear tires at high speed barely clinging on to the asphalt road making its way across terrain inside my mind. I sit in the parking lot of an IHOP, and apparently school hasn’t started yet today because pulling up at about 8:55 three carloads and a truckload of teens pulled up as well. I’ll have to wait for my waffle while witnessing one of the carloads of teens return to the vehicle next to mine, sit in it for a second and then drive off uttering the word Sausalito in a voice merging from pubic to post pubic. Apparently they are heading to the restaurant next door. The purple petals of Texas mountain laurel welcome buzzing bees before me busy, and perform nature’s balancing act justly with their sweet scent making sure life’s cycles stay in gear, never pausing once. America you have spoiled me as I wait in the parking lot line-like buffet for endless pancakes and coffee in my car listening to the king of pop and his brothers way before the awkward icon that became Jack-O and died a drug addict and whatever else. Yes constantly looking at my phone turning it off ringers and vibrations when writing but checking it randomly in hope for????? A message. We need so much attention. The ecstasy and depression reverberating through our feeble bodies back and forth, a wave of troughs and antonyms of that moving us through time; the stinger and the honey of bees go hand in hand. At home my 9mm Smith and Wesson pistol lies heavy above my head on a bookshelf over my bed in one way protecting our household from intruders and whatever freak situation life may place before us where we dwell. More than anything it protects me from life in general, with comfort in knowing that at any given chosen time I can place the barrel in my mouth and spit the contents of my cranium into my pillow and fall sleep forever free from all. Yes the mysteries of life have taken toll on me not so much because of my lackluster performance at triumph, sincerity and commitment but just the broad idea that there are some things that will never be revealed to us, many things that I won’t see of the past and the future. That and the repetitive mundane act of having to work every day to feed my hunger, clothe my nakedness and shelter my brittle body leads me to know that I am lazy or easily bored or both. I have not chosen to die, I have chosen to live and do my best to better my life so that I may be allowed the pleasant things of life in the marinating pomegranate sunshine and pastel skies. Sometimes imagination can become so plasticized with visions and perception looking out the windows of the web and television, I want to really go there and really live it. I feel as if all those people and all those places of the world do not really exist unless I see them for myself. Yes the sunsets are fragile and the sunrises so delicate and the uncertainty of ongoing existence with the earth so clumsy on its mysterious axis, I find comfort that in general; the universe will be ok without me if the worst is chosen. There must be a 45 minute wait for breakfast at the international house as people are floating around the parking lot moving between their cars and the entrance like a pancake purgatory. I’ll go inside. Goddamn teenagers are like bats at a moth party waiting for their chance to flap in and grab something. "Brenda