Interloper

By Peter Skeels

From birth Michael hasn’t belonged anywhere, and from birth no one has really liked him. At 17 he sets out to find himself and to find a place and people where he belongs. He tries drugs, rock and roll, but doesn’t belong. He travels across the United States and still nothing. He travels to Europe and through 20 countries, and while he makes some friends, he still doesn’t belong. Michael doesn’t seem to fit into society nor any religion that he’s tried. He’s a happy and an optimistic guy for some reason, and every day he gets up expecting that this is going to be the day he finds someone or something that he fits into and belongs with. Will he find it? Will he finally find that he fits in with somebody or something? Will he find happiness and contentment?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Sep 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781398421776

Peter Skeels

The author has been a draft dodger, a traveller, a stone mason, a single parent, a teacher, a businessman, a life coach and a storyteller. He has lived and travelled extensively throughout America and Europe. He sought to find his way in life despite not having a handy how-to guide. His two constant guiding principles are his belief in God and to always try to do the next right thing. All the while he has been, more than anything else, a naturally happy survivor.

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About the Author

Peter Skeels has been a draft dodger, a traveller, a stone mason, a single parent, a teacher, a businessman, a life coach and a story teller. He has lived and travelled extensively throughout America and Europe. He sought to find his way in life despite not having a handy how-to guide. His two constant guiding principles are his belief in God and to always try to do the next right thing. All the while he has been, more than anything else, a naturally happy and optimistic survivor.

Dedication

As always, my novels are dedicated to my God, without whom none of this would have been possible. God and I have a relationship whereby God looks after me and I remind people that God is alive and well, and willing to help them too. Just ask God to help you.

Copyright Information ©

Peter Skeels (2021)

The right of Peter Skeels to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398421769 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398421776 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2021)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Synopsis

Michael’s life, from the time he is five, allows him to be independent and extremely secretive, and as he grows up, he keeps his life that way.

In many ways, he is an introvert from very early on in life. Michael is truly unfazed by the things that normal people let control them, so he is free to do things and experience things that others do not and cannot while remaining mostly happy and optimistic.

His life and his needs often prevent normal perception, normal behaviour, and normal social interaction for him, but at other times he manages to get close to normalcy.

Michael follows what he believes he should follow, Michael believes in God, and Michael thrives when he is in new, interesting, and demanding situations.

One of Michael’s core beliefs is that experience is the key to knowledge, so just when he could settle down and enjoy the often-hard-earned successes of his life, he can’t, he won’t, and he doesn’t. His unconscious desire to experience everything he possibly can once again takes over, and once again, he decides to dive back into the river of his life.

Being an Interloper for Michael is not a negative experience.

Being an Interloper for Michael just seems right to him. Occasionally he longs for what he thinks normalcy might be, but that feeling never lasts too long and usually just makes him smile because, as he says, I’m a square peg in a world full of round holes.

Interloper is about Michael’s journey, which begins when he’s kicked out of his mother’s house at six months old. This novel follows Michael’s life until he is thirty-four. He travels across the United States and then to Europe where he lives, and travels through eighteen countries.

Chapter 1

Michael parked his truck, as he had many times before, at the summit above Bucks Lake. Michael parked near where the Pacific Crest Trail crossed the road, and signposts marked the trail. Michael’s dog was awake now and waiting for the door to be opened. Michael got out and began putting his backpack on, his dog jumped out of the truck, and, after locking the truck, they set off. The two of them had done this hike more times than Michael could remember, but today they were going to a new and farther destination. Michael knew this hike well, so he was not surprised that the trail went uphill for the first couple of miles. Sometimes the ascent was quite steep, and, though it was always rocky, the hike was always beautiful. They passed by small streams and waterfalls fed by springs that sprang out of the mountain, and his dog would drink at each one. They passed by beautiful wildflowers, wild grasses, tall pine trees, and every so often Michael would hear a critter moving behind the bushes that often lined the trail.

Michael had taken for granted that all the forests in California had been logged, except for some of the oldest and most remote redwood forests.

But while hiking here, these trees looked very different than those at the lower elevations and different than the trees and forests that are more easily accessible. These trees were weathered by what looked like decades of hard, long, freezing, winter weather, followed by high temperatures, arid summers, and the occasional forest fire. These forests didn’t look like they had ever been managed, except by nature.

The trail kept rising and rising for the first couple of miles, and in places, it was very steep and rocky. Then it flattened out for a half-mile or so as they passed through a long, narrow valley. They had been very close to the tree-line most of the time, sometimes hiking just above it and sometimes just below it, but as they hiked in this valley, they were well below the tree-line. The forest where they now were appeared to have never been logged, making the trees look ancient to Michael. In places moss hung like thick, green, spider webs from the tree trunks and branches. Soon they were hiking downhill until they came to a four-way junction in the trail. This is where they would turn right towards Spanish Peak. As they stood at the junction Michael could see Bucks Lake several miles off to his left side, and before him and to his right was a great stretch of granite mountains. One of the granite peaks looked like someone with a giant spoon had taken a huge scoop out of the top. The scoop was now a large, perfectly round, lake. Most of the trees growing in and along the thousands of acres of granite spreading out around him, looked like they were barely hanging on to life, appearing to be half alive or half dead. Michael and his dog set off towards Spanish Peak which was now just another mile and a half.

Spanish Peak was once home to a fire lookout station, but the structure had been demolished and removed, and all that remained now was the concrete foundation, and even that was being broken apart and returned to nature by the harsh winters and rains. Once the rains filled the cracks in the concrete, the extreme cold, which was often well below zero, would freeze the water, and as the water froze it expanded, which would force the concrete to crack. Then it would rain again and freeze again and the concrete would split apart a little more. Every year the cracks would get a little bigger until eventually entire chunks had split away from what had once been the main floor.

As he stood looking out across the vast expanse of mountain peaks and valleys in front of him, a wide, broad smile broke out across his face.

His dog had already laid down next to his left foot. The view was one of those as far as the eye can see views and his eyes could see very far. In the distance, and farthest away, he could see snow-covered peaks even though it was mid-July. He figured he was seeing into the next state to the east from where he stood.

A soft whine from his dog made him remember that it was snack time.

Typically, they would hike to where ever their halfway point was that day, have lunch or a snack at least, some water, rest awhile, and then head back to the truck. Michael took off his small backpack and took out the food, which consisted of sausages and sliced apples. He had a small, collapsible, water bowl on his backpack for his dog that he now filled with water, and he took a long drink from the water bladder in his backpack too. They both ate sausages and sliced apple, and then they laid back and rested. There were no other people this time on Spanish Peak.

Spanish Peak stood at almost seven thousand feet and from where they had parked the truck, they had hiked up just over two thousand feet and hiked about three and a half miles. This was one place where Michael felt comfortable and at ease. Out here in the wilds of Plumas County he belonged. It was as simple as that.

Yes, he knew he was probably not getting old, but that he was already old because his body ached in several different places. His feet ached already, his shoulder ached, and his knees ached too, but he knew it wouldn’t get much worse than this. And so, they laid there, an old man and his ever-faithful companion, who now crawled onto Michael’s belly to escape the rocky ground. Michael smiled and said to his dog, I love you dog, and with that, they both rested, perhaps even dozing off for a minute or two. It was totally quiet up there. The occasional cloud passed overhead, the slightest of breezes could be felt, and the peace was total. This was God’s country. Beautiful, wild, unyielding, ever-changing, and, all the while, at peace.

Chapter 2

Michael began to think and reflect on his life and the journey his life had been. Michael wasn’t so much thinking as he was watching video clips of his life, and so he relaxed, and he watched the documentary playing on the screen in his head.

His father remarried when Michael was five, and Michael and his sister were brought from the last foster home they would ever have to live in, to their father’s new house. Their new step-mother, Jeannette, was an ignorant human being and she was poorly educated. His father was also an ignorant human being, and he too was poorly educated, and together these two tried to raise Michael, who was a completely, emotionally damaged child. Neither Al nor Jeannette had so much of a clue as to the damage that had been done to him. Nor did they have any idea of the effects that damage would have on him. Most importantly though, was that neither of them ever asked Michael about his past.

Michael was standing in the house the day his sister told Jeannette that she had been raped, in one of the foster homes. Jeannette went crazy, flew into a rage, and began screaming at Cheryl, That’s a lie. That never happened. How dare you say such a thing! And with that, Jeannette began hitting his sister in the face and on the head.

Michael got scared and confused. His father had told them both that this was their mother now. Cheryl had thought she was safe, but she found out she still wasn’t safe. Cheryl ran to her room crying, and Michael knew he would never say anything to Jeannette about what had happened to him in the foster homes.

His new step-mother was pregnant, and soon she would give birth to her one and only child, a boy. Meanwhile, his father and step-mother tried, to the best of their ability, to get Michael to behave. His sister Cheryl was far more compliant than Michael, but Michael was just the kind of kid that always seemed to be in trouble for something.

The prevailing philosophy of the time was that, when disciplining children, pain worked better and much quicker than reason. So, when a child misbehaved, rather than sit there and try to explain right from wrong again, the parent hit the child, the child wouldn’t like being hit, so they would stop misbehaving. But then if the child continued to misbehave the parents would escalate the hitting, and when the child was hit harder, the child would like that even less. So, the child misbehaves, the child gets hit, and the reasonable assumption of the parents is the child will dislike the pain so much they will stop doing the thing that caused them the pain. For some children, the parents may have to escalate the severity of the punishment, say by using belts or sticks, but eventually, the corporal punishment will stop the child from misbehaving.

For Michael though his mind didn’t work like that. In his mind, when he got hit, and then when he got hit harder, and then when he got hit even harder still until finally the hits became beatings, his thinking was only one and always one thing, and that one thing was him thinking that he needed to get better at what he did so he would not get caught. There was never a time when he thought he should stop doing the things he was being hit for. Never did the thought occur to him to stop misbehaving. He simply tried to get better at whatever it was he had got hit for, so he would not get caught the next time, and not get hit the next time.

Michael’s parents knew very little about Michael. They saw him every day for sure but what they knew was only what Michael let them know or the things he got caught doing that were wrong. Michael, at five years old, was also very ignorant and very uneducated. And by choosing to not behave, he created his beatings. He chose to get better at doing wrong things, but the learning curve was more of a learning cliff, and almost every time he made a mistake doing something wrong, he got caught and, every time he got caught, he got beat. Raising Michael became a war of attrition, and Michael had a five-year head start on his parents.

When Michael was six, his father called him over to look at a magazine he was reading. It was the AAA travel magazine, and there were pictures of wooden cabins with wood-shingled roofs located in the woods overlooking a lake. Michael’s father asked him, How would you like it if we stayed there for a week? Michael grinned and said, Yeah!

They arrived at the cabin a couple of weeks later after an all-day drive from San Francisco, north up through the Feather River Canyon. As they opened the car doors, they could smell the pine trees, and as they entered the cabin, they all smiled. The cabin wasn’t very big, but there were enough beds for them all and, standing alone in the centre of one wall, was a beautiful, cast-iron, pot-bellied stove they would use for heat. Next to the stove, were split logs and kindling, and outside on the deck was even more firewood. The kitchen was situated along another wall, so the entire room was open. There were two single beds, already made up, where Michael and his sister would sleep. There was a separate bedroom for the parents and a bathroom through another door. The lake spread out below them, and it was big, beautiful, and blue. At one end they could see the top of the dam rising out of the lake. Everyone helped to carry their luggage and food into the cabin. Michael and his sister were outside playing, and since the hour was getting late, Jeannette made dinner. After they ate dinner, Michael’s father lit a fire in the pot-belly stove.

The sound of crackling logs and the smell of burning pine was something Michael would never forget. After it got dark, they all went to bed, and the stove got so hot, from all the logs his father had put in it, that the pot-belly of the stove glowed red in the darkened room. Michael and his sister kicked their blankets off because it was so hot. Michael loved lying in his bed and seeing the stove glowing red in the dark cabin.

The next morning Michael was sent, with the Aladdin thermos, to get coffee from the little store across the road. Michael got it and was coming out of the store when a black bear appeared with her two cubs. Michael was so startled he dropped the thermos, which shattered the inner, glass liner, and when his parents asked about it, he denied dropping the thermos. His step-mother used a tea strainer she found in a kitchen drawer to filter out the glass, and his dad drank the coffee.

Sometimes when his dad drank coffee first thing in the morning, he would take a sip, look at Michael, smile and say, Ah. Nectar of the gods. And then they both would smile together.

Later that day Michael decided to go for a hike up along a dried creek bed. It was hot, and the trees were very tall. Michael walked and walked, and then he saw a large, granite boulder resting against a fallen tree in the creek bed. He decided, for a reason known only to him, that he wanted to push the rock away from the tree. He was pushing as hard as he could, and finally, he got the large boulder to budge several inches and, as he manoeuvred his body to get better leverage, one of his feet slipped. Michael pulled almost everything out of the way except for the tip of the middle finger on his right hand, which got pinned between the rock and the tree. Michael began crying because his finger hurt. Trying as hard he could, he couldn’t move the rock at all with just one arm, so he began crying harder out of frustration too. Finally, he stopped trying to move the rock, and, in desperation, he yanked his finger out, nearly tearing off the end of his finger. The end of his finger was held on by the smallest amount of skin just above his fingernail, and blood was gushing from the wound which hurt so bad that Michael began screaming. He began running back towards the cabin.

His father would later say he could hear Michael coming for ten minutes. When he got to his father there was so much blood it now covered his hand and forearm and, after examining Michael’s finger, his father decided to take him to the emergency hospital in Quincy some twenty-five miles away. Michael’s sister Cheryl went with Michael and his father.

Michael’s father drove very fast down the dirt and gravel road as he was very worried about all the blood, and at some point, the car went over a hump in the road. The car went slightly air born and landed very hard. A sharp rock jutting up from the dirt road cut through the oil pan like a can opener opens a can. Still, they made it to the hospital in record time.

The doctor had Michael’s father and the nurse push down on Michael’s shoulders to keep him still, and then the doctor stuck a needle directly into the raw and now extremely sore end of his finger, injecting the end of his finger with pain killer. Even with two people pressing down on his shoulders, Michael was still able to rise off the chair a little such was the terrible pain he felt. Once the pain killer took effect the doctor was able to stitch the end of his finger back on, Michael’s father was able to get the tear in the oil pan brazed back together, and finally, they all drove back up the mountain to the cabin. Three times a day, Michael would need to soak his finger in Epson salts using water as hot as he could stand it. But to Michael, it felt like his step-mother tortured him with water that was way too hot. He tried to tell her that the water was too hot for him but, she wouldn’t listen. One afternoon after soaking his finger he went outside and removed the bandages so he could see the finger for himself, as his step-mother always made him look away while the finger was being soaked, and when she found him with the bandages off, she hit him repeatedly on the head for disobeying her.

One morning Michael walked down to the docks from the cabin and talked to the old fishermen sitting there fishing. He looked down into the clear water, and he could see trout swimming along the bottom! It was very exciting for Michael. His father, though not a fisherman nor indeed an outdoorsman, bought Michael a fishing pole from the little store there at Bucks Lake Lodge, and Michael joined the others on the dock. Michael sat there hour after hour, day after day, and never caught a fish even though those around him were catching fish. The only time he left the dock was to walk the mile back up to the cabin for lunch and to have his finger soaked in the extremely hot water. He used the same bait as the others, some of the men who were catching fish tied his line and hooks just like theirs were tied, and still he had no luck catching fish. His father and step-mother exclaimed that this was the first time they’d ever seen him show any signs of patience. The trip ended with Michael never even getting a bite despite spending hours and days trying. Michael always remembered the old fishermen repeatedly saying to him, That’s why they call it fishing and not catching.

Michael’s life with his step-mother was terrible. She was mean to him, mean to his sister, and at the same time, her behaviour was the exact opposite for Dennis, his step-brother.

Dennis was born five months after Michael and Cheryl got there, and he was her first and only child. He was raised as an only child despite Michael and Cheryl being there. Jeannette spent hours in the playpen with Dennis playing and laughing while, at the same time, yelling at Michael and Cheryl if they came near and bothered her for any reason.

One day, Jeannette was, once again, wanting to spend time with Dennis and only Dennis, and Michael was already there playing cars with Dennis, which was annoying Jeannette. She told Michael to go away, but Michael looked at her and hesitated. Finally, and because she had become seemingly always exasperated with Michael, Jeannette said, No one likes you, Michael. And no one wants you around. Even your mother didn’t love you or want you around, and that’s why she got rid of you. She got rid of you because she didn’t love you. She didn’t like you. I didn’t want you either, but your father said he wouldn’t marry me unless I agreed to take you and Cheryl. That’s how I got stuck with you.

Michael heard the words, and they cut right into his heart. For Michael, all he was trying to do was play with his brother. Michael was a trusting young boy, innocent of everything right then. One moment it was as if he was running happily and free, on a warm, sunny day, without a care in the world. Birds were singing, and he was free to run without worry. It was as if he was running and looking up into the brilliant blue sky happy and carefree. Then his step-mother’s ugly, mean, and heartless words sucked the oxygen out of the air he was breathing. Her words, which he was unprepared to hear, passed through his flesh without bothering him, but when they hit his heart, they cut into him as if he had suddenly run into a coil of razor wire. Her razor-sharp words cut into his heart deeper and hurt him more than anything ever had before. The more he struggled to escape her damning words, the deeper her words cut into him, ensnared him, and cut his young, tender heart into ugly pieces.

He never asked Jeannette how she knew his mother didn’t love him, didn’t like him or didn’t want him; the young boy, simply believed her words, because why would she lie to him? So now he knew why his mother had got rid of him; she didn’t love him, she didn’t even like him, and she didn’t want him around.

He walked away, holding in his tears, and he went out into the backyard.

One side of the house was a narrow and safe place, and Michael often went out there to hide from Jeannette because there were no windows or doors on that side of his house. Michael, no longer able to hold his tears back, started crying, and once he started, he couldn’t stop. He began talking out loud, and while crying he was saying, No one loves me. I have no one who loves me. I have no one. I have no aunts, and I have no uncles. I have no one who loves me at all. And with that, he cried louder and longer. He was sobbing from the terrible pain he felt. Michael stood in the small space in his backyard all alone, and he cried, and he cried, and he cried. Then he heard a soft voice ask, Michael, is that you? It was the woman who lived next door, and her name was Mildred.

Mildred was there, just over the fence, and she was smiling down at the red-eyed, wet-faced boy with snot running out of his nose.

Mildred said to Michael, Michael, I love you. I think you’re a wonderful boy. Michael was still sobbing from the pain of Jeannette’s mean words, which were simply too brutal for him to bear. The beatings he had got never hurt this bad. This time, the words Jeannette had spoken with such complete and total meanness, those words hurt him more than the recent pain from tearing his fingertip nearly off. There was nothing that he could remember that hurt worse than this. Michael was having trouble breathing, and he was emotionally devastated.

Mildred, seeing the terrible state he was in, walked around and came in through the gate. She bent down and hugged Michael and tried to soothe him, and finally, she took him into her house. She wiped his face with a damp, warm, face cloth, and gave him chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk, and she was simply kind to him. That’s all she was. She told him she loved him and that if he ever needed to come over, he could, and she told him that he was always welcome at her house. The simple, uncomplicated love and friendship that Mildred offered Michael that day, at that moment, was a lifeline to Michael.

His breathing became a little easier, and his heart started beating with a little spark of happiness again. He felt he could almost smile again, though he couldn’t even when he tried for Mildred, and Mildred continued hugging him.

Jeannette never even came to check on Michael. She never apologized. Jeannette though learned that those words hurt Michael more than any of the beatings she so nonchalantly gave him. Telling Michael that even his mother didn’t love him, like him, or want him became her daily mantra. Those words would always make Michael recoil as if an electric shock had struck him in his heart. Jeannette didn’t care though because she enjoyed being mean to him. Jeannette thought that winning at being the meanest person in Michael’s life equalled success.

Several weeks later, Mildred and her husband Ken came over with an official letter. Mildred explained to Michael that, with his father and mother’s permission, she had become his legal godmother and she handed him the notarized letter that made it official. Mildred was smiling happily, Ken was smiling, and Michael was completely confused. He was afraid to show Mildred he was happy because Jeannette, who was standing right there and was watching him, might get mad and be mean again, so he just said thank you, and he hugged her. What he wanted to do was scream and shout with the joy and happiness he felt at that moment. He wanted to run over and jump into her arms to thank her. Michael had already learned that Jeannette was capable of being physically mean to him, and now he had learned that her words could hurt him even worse. Jeannette was more than mean to him though she was vicious. Michael knew that he needed to be extremely careful around her. His father never knew how mean Jeannette was to her step-children because she saved the worst for when he wasn’t home. But Michael had his lifeline now. Mildred’s bright smile, her never-ending warmth, her obvious love for him, was something he would come to cherish. And though he didn’t see her much or often, she was always right next door, and she would