Bind Nothing

By Rote Writer

This idea of vindicating his life, rife with strife moves him. He’s endured just about every wrong a human can to the point of losing his mind. He will no longer hide. He will set aside his fears and fight and make things right. He must right them all and then write about them all to help others do the same. 

"A Memoir - A

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rote Writer Publishing
• Release date: Oct 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9781123133653

Rote Writer

Author: Tim Zeigdel, born Timmy McGuire February 14, 1963 was adopted at the age of eight when his name changed. Tim now adopts the penname Rote Writer. He started writing decades ago after a light inspired him to write his life story. Tim, since then, has amassed many memoirs written in story form & journals collected in: The Rote Writer Series.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Now across the great divide from what was to what is to be. Tim leaves all his thoughts, all his actions, all that ever was behind him for good. He feels a release like a new lease on life and no one; not his family, not his friends; no one knows what he’s been through to get to this point. It’s a matter of self preservation to maintain this mode while on the road. To be prosperous he must remain anonymous.

To make a clean break will mean breaking free from former flaunts and haunts. By all means he’s exercised all his demons he thinks to this point in his life. And with them behind, his future is certain of one thing; something different, something fresh, something he’s never seen or done before.

Tim leaves his hometown three days ago with twenty dollars in his pocket and a misspelled birth certificate giving him a new name. Whoever issues the official document confuses the letter g with the letter j in his last name. The same thing happens the day he’s adopted but back then his adopting parents make sure to have it corrected. This time Tim has no time nor reason or rhyme to. He’s free to be.

Through his courage he finds freedom. He knows there’s something more than the daily grind or the way it is or the way it’s been. And as he travels through the vast wildernesses of his country he knows he’s born to be wild.

As a child of the sixties it’s in him to take the road less travelled; up the hills and over the mountains, by great lakes and through the never ending prairies, be it on foot or on board a bus.

And like so many bums, hippies of the sixties, he runs out of money. He’s been as careful as he can be by buying a chocolate bar here and a bag of chips there. He buys what he can at bus changes, stopovers along the way giving him enough time to track down a grocery store or supermarket. It’s where he buys a loaf of bread, crackers and anything cheap he can carry that doesn’t perish upon opening. He prepares himself knowing all the restaurants catering to the bus stops are outrageously expensive.

He runs out of supplies as the bus pulls into a town renowned for rodeos and stampedes. He can remember passing through this city as a kid, in the back of a brown station wagon with the family who adopt him at the age of eight. He can remember attending the stampede thrilled by the chuck wagons. A rodeo rich with cowboys and girls riding horses saddled and bareback, along with the barrel racing and the bull riding, steer wrestling and tie down roping. And the announcer so proud of the west, knocking the east where Tim grows up and leaves three days ago.

Outside the bus he can see in the distance rocky mountains rise above the clouds. He boards the bus wondering what awaits within range and far into the future.

Now in the mountains Tim gets off the bus. There’s a half hour layover until the bus is off again to the final destination—the west coast where the largest body of water on earth ebbs and flows.

While the bus moors, the hungry traveler walks about and comes upon a sign in a hotel or maybe a motel window. He’s not sure but he is certain of the words he reads: Help Wanted.

What the heck, it’s worth a shot. He goes in and meets the manager. Five minutes later he’s hired as a chamber maid or hotel cleaner as he learns to say. He’s provided with shelter as well. It seems this industry is used to accommodating transient people and so him being hired on the spot is part of the norm; however, for him it seems like a blessed experience. He now has a job and a place to sleep with little or no effort made.

Five days a week he vacuums and tidies the rooms, changes the sheets, and scrubs and scours the toilet facilities. This is easy and doesn’t really ask much of him. And beyond all this and that, he’s in a part of the country that totally takes his breath away. No matter where he looks in that little tourist town, or what he does, he can’t escape the inexplicable beauty surrounding and abounding in the area. Majestic mountains are found all around with wildlife and wild parties to boot—Tim’s in heaven.

He feels human again. He’s come to a town where everyone is on equal footing; there to work and play. It’s so far away from where he’s been—hanging, in a hospital and homeless. Being here is a welcome change with a bright new beginning. All signs say it’s so.

After a month or so, the man who hires him, his boss who’s at least a few years younger than Tim, retires to go on to something else. Before he moves on, by way of bigger and better things as a bouncer, he imparts in Tim through a conversation something. Tim senses what’s said will serve as a seed, the first drop of water in his sponge like mind.

It happens while the two are outside on break. Tim and his boss are taking in views while expressing their own. As the conversation continues his boss asks him point blank,

Are you a vindictive person Tim?

No… not really… not at all actually.

His boss affirms and confirms he is in such a way it makes Tim feel forewarned, eerily uneasy. It’s as if the demeanour of his boss instils the thought, no, the fear in others with his way of being. He comes across as someone who will go to great lengths to right wrongs and vindicate with hate those wrongs with rights.

Tim’s a little unnerved but at the same time reserved.

Heck, what about forgiveness he theologically thinks. Tim comes from a Catholic Christian constraint and taint. In truth to date he’s really just too cowardly to have any conviction to nurse any vindictiveness or so his past is cast. Yet by all accounts Tim is a spiteful son of a bitch without the balls to back it up. He’s been so all his life.

Not long after, Tim returns to his duties as a hotel cleaner. He begins to develop a desire to aspire to his own ire. This idea of vindicating his life, rife with strife moves him. He’s endured just about every wrong a human can to the point of losing his mind. He will no longer hide. He will set aside his fears and fight and make things right. He must right them all and then write about them all to help others do the same.

He ponders on the difference between revenge and vengeance. He’s familiar with biblical scripture Vengeance is Mine, Sayeth the Lord Leviticus 19:18 and wonders about it. He’s been brought up believing revenge or any thought of it is bad. It’s the devil’s due and rue upon us all. It’s like two sides of the same coin when he thinks upon it—heads being the Lord and tails the Devil. It’s something to think about thinks Tim.

Meanwhile the head hotel cleaner becomes boss as soon as Tim’s momentary mentor leaves. Tim never really gets along with this person and knows their heads will butt soon enough. When that happens he will have to move on, but not before he raises a little hell here and there.

There is one other person, another transient living in the dorm where Tim resides at the time he moves in. One night the two take to talking about strange things. This person tells Tim about some experiences he’s had on the west coast with these people who are involved with the occult; Satanists or something. It all seems so interesting to Tim, and the more he hears the more intrigued he becomes.

He speaks of demons and devils, the hierarchy of the demon world and the four watchtowers wherein the four head honchos of this realm; Lucifer in the east, Satan in the south, Leviathan in the west, and Belial in the north, watch over their many minions that are legion. It’s all so interesting. Tim’s never heard of a hell sounding so swell. He knows the Bible bash, the smack on the back of his head hell, but this is anything but bad, it’s magical.

No matter how this person rants or relays how it’s all too real or how he barely escapes the people he gets involved with. Tim remains silent with intrigue. All the while this fellow who by his own account will forever live in fear says he will never go black or look back again. He says this while knowing there’s no set time or destined distance that can stop the dark forces, the fell well of hell from finding someone they want to find.

It all sounds so bizarre to Tim.

He mentions to Tim that in the room he now rests, a wicked woman, a Wiccan, a witch stayed and slept. She slept and kept the same bed Tim sleeps in. She leaves just a few days before he arrives. And the bedside candle within Tim’s reach, the one he uses as a nightlight by his bed, is the devil’s doing or so it’s delivered by his demented co-worker whom he cohabitates with.

A magically melted candle cast in blood red wax, strangely twisted and lumped in a way that sends shivers through any just by the sheer sight of it. Tim is the first person to light it after the Luciferian Lamia leaves.

This makes him wonder almost like he’s falling under a spell from hell. He thinks about it all night. His mind moors in magical and mystical imagery. He now knows or at least suspects the meaning behind a dream long kept in his mind for many years. Wherein, after traversing a long dark tunnel filled with every fear he can ever face, an about face is found by the fierce force of facing such a fell hell. He finds himself well at the end of the tunnel as he stumbles along a similar path now holding the light like a lantern. How he knows this, he does not know, but his gut tells him it’s so and that’s where he’s headed.

Back at work he heads out after butting heads once too often with his new boss. Tim calls it quits knowing he would have been let go anyways. He spends that night and the remainder of the week raising hell, letting go while waiting for his final pay cheque.

One night, after Tim spends most of his money in a bar, he starts walking home. Swinging and swaying through the deserted quiet streets of this tourist town renowned for its scenic beauty. It positively glows with snow covered peaks and emerald lakes. And the wildlife roaming around like they’re tourists, especially the elk and deer, endear Tim who’s still stumbling in the wee hours of the morning mumbling about it all.

He feels hungry and is dying for a smoke having just tossed the empty pack into a garbage bin. Walking by the only supermarket store in town, he feels possessed enough to walk to the front door—kick in the glass—and make his way inside to the sandwich setup.

He loads up his jacket with four submarine sandwiches while leaving the one that fell on the floor. He then proceeds to the area where cigarette cartons are kept. Looking specifically for his brand, he finds and takes three cartons, dropping one on the way.

He has only two hands and not enough places on his body to hold the loot. Then he thinks; hmmm, better not leave it or the sandwich. He makes room by shoving stuff in his socks and down his sleeves. He picks up the third carton and backtracks to look for the sandwich until he finds it.

Out he goes back through the smashed door. He stumbles home with his hands full of stolen goods and his clothes equally stuffed with smokes and subs, unhindered and uncaring all the way.

He wakes up the next morning and is kind of a bit surprised and a little bit nervous to think what drink will lead him to do. He begins to recount the events of the night passed. Sitting up on his bed he can see he’s stocked up with smokes and still has a half eaten sandwich and another left unopened. He realises he really did do what he thinks he does waking up. Oh well what’s done is done, and feeling bad won’t make it better.

The next day with his cartons of smokes and last cheque, he readies to board the bus with great anticipation to the desired destination.

He boards the bus with an expired ticket no less, the very ticket he begins his journey with back east. He’s stayed in the town longer than the open ended ticket allows.

Fortunately, the bus driver takes no heed of the ticket’s date. He’s already asleep at the wheel. Many hours later the bus barrels its way west, barely to arrive alive within the west coast’s biggest city.

Chapter 2

The city lights shine bright as do the odd office lights left on—like an unfinished Lite-Brite screen. He remembers placing the black construction paper holding a design within the game’s frame and filling it in with little Lego like knobs likened to Battle Ship pegs. All childhood games are but fleeting thoughts as the bus rolls in. The bright lights and the majesty of the surrounding scenery tantalizes Tim; by the way the ocean holds spray and sway on one side, while the mountains loom large on the other. The city itself and scenery is beyond big and beautiful.

He gets off the bus downtown with really no idea where or what to do. While still in the bus depot, he puts his gym bag in a locker and begins walking around town. Tim thinks rather than an early morning check-in somewhere, where he would have to pay for the night just past and the nights to come, he will wait until the afternoon. With what little money he has left, he will save at least one night from his dwindling funds, after cashing in his last cheque.

Later that day he finds his feet are very sore, having walked the whole inner city core in cheap Velcro fastened running shoes that are a size to small. He’s so tired; terribly so, yet so relieved when he finds an affordable rooming house. Tim pays for two weeks, thinking it will give him enough time to land another job and start anew.

The next couple of days the adventurer ventures here and there with the hope to find a job but not with the necessary determination to land one. Who knows what’s stopping him. He keeps on thinking about what a bum, like a con to a convict, says too him back while marooned in a miserable mission in his old home town. Something about how easy it is to get social assistance. He thinks,

‘Yea that’s what I’ll do if push comes to shove.’

Well his money does run out and his two weeks are up at the rooming house he’s called home.

No job.

No direction.

Tim makes his way to the nearest Social Services office hoping he will get a cheque like he’s heard he can for doing nothing. It’s as foreign to him as begging. He finds out the hard way to never judge anyone including a bum like he’s done many years ago when asked,

Do you have any spare change?

Get a job.

Tim responds with such disgust.

Now he’s the one destitute, soon to be begging for spare change.

When he enters Social Services and shows them his only piece of I.D., they look at it and hand it back to the about to be beggar and say,

What the hell is that?

They’ve never seen a birth certificate from his part of the country. To them it looks fake. They ask for some real I.D. but Tim has none, all he has is his long awaited for birth certificate. Something he waits for a few months to come while stuck in a homeless shelter all summer. A sufferable stay sussed in sweltering heat.

What leads him there is a life filled with misfortune. A miserable existence fostered in families and friendships. Then to top it all off he’s beaten badly by a former friend which leaves him losing all his belongings including his wallet. He loses much more; his self worth, his self esteem. He’s left feeling fearful for a time. Enough time to hang himself; and with no I.D., he has no name. He will be just another John Doe found dead left hanging from a noose.

But that doesn’t happen. In a rooming house not much different than the one he’s in now, he’s left hanging but not for long. The ceiling composed of chalkboard crumples, it crunches and comes crashing down covering him in dust and debris—rotten wooden beams spiked with rusty nails. A failed attempt at suicide leaves him bruised and battered by an earlier beating and now in addition, a rosy red ring wraps around his rope burned neck.

He knows it’s only a few months ago but nobody else does so he does his best to be a new person. He is. But it makes no difference to anyone at Social Services in the way they refuse him assistance. He stands there stupefied before they finally say,

Look if you want help you will have to provide proper I.D. not something you pull out of a box of cereal… but picture I.D. Like a drivers license that also shows residency… a medical card… anything but this Cracker Jack card claiming your birthright.

Tim is stunned; he never thinks this will happen. Shoot, he’s refused back east for having no I.D. but now he has some or at least one piece and still no can do. He can’t believe it but knows or at least acknowledges the fact he’s arrived here from there on an assumption.

Without money and knowing no one in the big city, he asks them,

Where can I go… are there any nearby homeless shelters?

They give him a map of all the shelters and some food stamps before sending him on his way.

Tim walks through the night. He feels the full effect of being homeless once again—he is, but doesn’t want to be or spend any more time in a state and situation he’s all too familiar with.

He does find a shelter. While there, after getting himself cleaned up and his cot made up, he browses through the eleven or so library books shelved there.

He finds a Gideon’s Bible, a crimson covered King James Version with whatever Christ says written in red. He knows he will read it so he keeps it.

He opens the first page and the second and so on. It’s the preamble or parts of it catching his attention; like a mike inside his psyche, a direct line to the divine. He hangs on to parts in the preamble for a long time to come. He will use it, for; It is the traveler’s map, the pilgrim’s staff, the pilot’s compass. It will be his beacon of hope. The light he finds from it will lead him from temptation and deliver him from evil.

The Bible–it contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy. Its precepts are binding. Its histories are true. Its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise. Believe it to be safe. Practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, comfort to cheer you. It is the traveler’s map, the pilgrim’s staff, the pilot’s compass. It is the soldier’s sword, the Christian’s charter. Here is paradise restored, heaven opened and the gates of hell disclosed. Christ is its grand subject. Our good its design; the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory and rule the heart and guide the feet. So, read it slowly and read it frequently and read it prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, a river of pleasure. It is given you in life. It will be opened in judgment. It will be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility. It will reward the greatest labour and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents.

You have the Bible. It is a great privilege. It is a great advantage. It is a grave responsibility.

Wow what words. Powerful. Tim’s brain begins to be ingrained by the gravity of it all.

He thinks about heaven and back on his own hell, a place he knows all too well. What a hellish history he has filled with demons of depression and guilt. It’s enough to drive him insane and into a hospital. After six scheduled sessions of ECT, Electroconvulsive Therapy or Shock Treatments they stop after the fifth. The anaesthesia fails to have any effect save for leaving him awake and aware of the electricity searing through his hearing. After the shock sessions they release him but fail to notice he’s far from fine. In time he nurtures a noose and hangs from it only to fail at that too. He’s left homeless, ready for any help to come his way.

Well today help comes in a book, a holy book, the Bible.

That first night in the shelter Tim reads as much as he can. He happens upon one part in particular, Psalm 23,

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Well this is all Tim needs.

He reads and rereads the preamble and psalm. He will live by the words I shall not want. He wonders why the psalm sounds so familiar as he begins to count sheep as he falls asleep. Then it dawns on him. Pink Floyd’s album Animals and the song Sheep is where he hears it in part years before.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want

He makes me down to die,

Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by.

With bright knives He releaseth my soul.

He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places.

He converteth me to lamb cutlets,

For lo, He hath great power, and great hunger.

When cometh the day we lowly ones,

Through quiet reflection, and great dedication

Master the art of Karate,

Lo, we shall rise up,

And then we’ll make the bugger’s eyes water.

Tim thinks upon it more. The psalm says the Lord will fend and mend. On the other end the song says all will bend on knee, hoping for a haven while left with nothing more than a graven image. Or so he interprets it. There’s definitely an edge to the song at the end of the verse. Almost like a curse in the way it suggests storming heaven or the biblical mind set of it. Sort of like raising hell to the heights of heaven rather than dwelling in the depths of it.

He weighs the imagery like it’s a mystery. Tim’s more often than not mesmerized as he memorizes the message moored in the song and psalm; like a rhyme, a chime that in time will help him stay in line, one way or another.

He holds on to the holy book all night as he falls asleep counting sheep with it in his arms.

Tim’s never really been religious to that point in his life. Even in some of his darkest moments he’s not found God beyond being brainwashed to believe in one.

In his life he’s never felt any mercy or been shown any as far as he can see. If there is a God then He or She or whatever we see as the Be All has no mercy for him. But Tim doesn’t think that makes God bad, just hard like nature. And like any learning, it’s the teacher that comes off as an adversary—strict, firm, with no room for error and it’s in that terror and torment Tim, throughout his life, has learned. Or he’s at least earned his stripes as someone who’s seen so much and been through so much.

His history is filled with misery and it affects him, leaving him constantly at odds with the divine. His life, rife with strife, attests and contests everything to do with any institution be it regimented with religion or tradition.

As long as he can remember he’s felt faithless, hopeless and without charity. He needs an epiphany.

That evening he feels something, something is about to happen, a divine deed he dreams and dares. He hopes, then takes a leap of faith and finds charity and is forever a changed man, a man of great hope, faith and charity.

Chapter 3

The next morning Tim awakes, packs his stuff and his beloved Bible. He boards a bus but first begs for change along the way. He’s still short as he drops all the change he’s collected into the contraption collecting the coins. On board the bus he braces as it barrels to the outskirts of town. He plans on going back to the little town he’s come from with the thought if it was good to him once, it just might be good to him again.

Off the bus at a highway juncture, he stands for a bit before he sits on a corner in the pouring rain hoping for a ride for most of the day. He even has a sign spelling out quite clearly where he wants to go. So, what’s the problem? Well for one he’s soaking wet, wetter than a soaked sponge. And two, being unsure what to do only magnifies the miserable conditions he finds himself in while hitchhiking. Who would want someone soaking their seats.

Freezing and feeling like this is hopeless, he makes his way to a nearby fast food chain renowned for its golden arches, bumming along the way to collect enough change to buy himself a coffee. Someone standing beside him at the counter, a stranger, hands him what he’s still short.

As it turns out, he doesn’t have to buy it for the same stranger passing him the change he’s short; the same someone who sees him hitchhiking in the pouring rain, buys the coffee for him and sits down with the wet waif.

They begin talking. Tim tells him he’s going back to the place he just came from in hopes of landing another job. This stranger tells him of another town maybe even more beautiful and not so far away. This town is teaming with transients and he will surely find a job there. He’s never heard of this town before even though it’s world renowned as a premiere ski resort.

Tim flips over his soggy cardboard sign and writes the name of this new town on the other side with a pen. He colours in or more like scribbles in the outlined blocked letters to make it more visible.

That’s that.

He has a new destination.

Decided and provided with some possible contacts upon arrival, Tim gets up and shakes this stranger’s hand. As they part, Tim feels for the first time a helping hand in the form of a simple encounter. He now understands the meaning behind the old saying; you can always count on the kindness of some strangers.

Tim heads back to the same miserable spot he starts hitchhiking from that morning. He thinks it’s the wrong way or at least the long way to the right starting place towards his new destination. Now early evening, tired, wet and weary he boards a bus, short changing again the bus driver with the change he saves after his new found friend buys him his coffee. He arrives back at the same shelter he spends the night before, just in time for supper. He spends one more night; only to rise bright and early the following morning to begin anew.

That night he reads more of his Bible and feels the words and the scenes of some of the settings almost like he’s lived them in a past life. Some scenes and stories told in the Old Testament are really dark and ominous and this God of the Jews is quite nasty. The Old Testament is much different than the New Testament; one is filled with vengeance and the other filled with forgiveness.

The story of Job really hits a note in Tim as he can relate. Like Job, whose biblical story is somewhat sadistic; wherein he loses all that he loves by the Hand of God. Tim also loses all that he loves. He knows what it feels like to lose everything near and dear to him. What it feels like to be constantly tried and tested.

Tim’s had a hard life. The first eight years are a testament to how rough he’s had it and it doesn’t get much better. He’s been led and bred to believe he deserves the shit end of the stick so he makes it a hell of a lot worse as if he’s been cursed. His life, not a chemical imbalance or any other psychiatric term or condition, led him to lose his mind. But it’s when he finds out he might be one of the chosen people; his mind, already open to manias or wild imaginations to deal with the daily doldrums, creates a messiah complex.

Tim finds out a couple of years earlier when he first begins his search for his biological parents; his birth father is a Jew. So is Job as all the prominent and pertinent people in the Bible are, including Jehovah in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament. So why does it seem in his upbringing people are so anti-Semitic. It doesn’t make any sense. He has an Irish Catholic with some Scottish biological mother; whose very religion raises the Jews and Jehovah and rises the Jew, Jesus, above all. If the Bible is the Word of God then the Jews are the chosen people and it would be like spitting in God’s face, an act of war to in any way shape or form hurt or harm a Jew.

Meanwhile through Tim’s childhood, he’s raised as a Catholic. He never knows the other half of his heritage. However he’s formed and informed by innuendo and inference throughout his earlier life as a foster child and later through adoption he’s not one of them—a Christian. Somehow they know. Christian case workers are probably privy to his birth records upon adoption and earlier on in with their involvement in placing Tim in each foster family. The Christian families who foster him know he’s part Jew too, just as the nun’s in the Catholic hospital he’s born in do.

He always senses some kind of sentence or slight from everyone who’s ever been responsible for his wellbeing. While he’s a ward of the state controlled by the Catholic Church, along with being born in a Catholic hospital hopping with nuns; he senses the negative nudges even from the nuns, snootiness. Imagine the stain and disdain a baby boy born into a very bigoted and prejudicial Catholic community, whose half Jew. And so they stew seeing him like seeing a glass half empty rather than half filled with Catholicism. So too will the caseworkers assigned to him from Social Services slight and spite him.

Though he doesn’t know he’s half Jew until he’s well into his twenties—when after a search he receives a simple two page printout saying it’s so. It lets him know he’s a foster child for the first eight years of his life. It shows the different ages he’s within each of the five or six foster homes. Also included are his many admissions into hospitals and omissions of orphanages and halfway stays.

There’s a brief blurb about how sick as a child he is, though it seems he’s only found sick after leaving each foster home. Also an attempt to explain the difficulty why he’s not adopted is there in print.

Being born a bastard to begin with is a sin. Being an Irish Jew with some Scottish too, in a Catholic constraint, doesn’t help. Especially while still early on