If You Could Change One Thing

By Rote Writer

Like a jingle giving him a terrible tingle, the single fact about the awful act is there’s no way to detract or retract from it--he’s unable to undo what’s done. He thinks if going back in time gave the traveller the ability to avoid an act then all that follows in regards to the fact will no longer be intact. Timmy thinks abou

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rote Writer Publishing
• Release date: Oct 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781123133646

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

Prelude

The early philosophers perceived two universal properties in the world: change and permanence. Philosophers’ par to Parmenides and Zeno believed the universe is totally fixed and unchanging, while Heraclitus believed beings will never be able to step in the same river twice. Thus, the universe is in constant change.

Democritus’ solution between the vetted views was one of compromise; the universe is both fixed and constantly changing. Change and permanence co-exist.

Change is constant, while each moment that passes remains in permanence. Permanence may be likened to a crime. Once committed it will forever be. No amount of penance, prayer or penitence will ever ease or change the act from fact.

Absolution, appeasement and abasement may appear proper on paper. The same for forgiveness or favour—but like a roundabout; it still will not change without doubt what came about. As to announce; once a deed is done... it’s done and cannot, no matter what, be undone.

Each passing moment, every cause and effect, all action and reaction no matter how big or small—will be forever imprinted on whatever, whenever and whoever, whatsoever the endeavour.

Simply stated, each moment in time, cause or crime come to pass will forever remain in a state of permanence. These moments need no validation. Nor does a moment need to be remembered, recorded, or reviewed; nay willed, watched, or witnessed. Nor need any other form of an account to justify its existence. Each passing moment remains in existence, never to be changed.

Though these moments remain permanent, change may occur from moment to moment.

Moreover while these words are written and or read, the earth is revolving as her environment is dissolving; therefore, creating constant change.

Change is constant from moment to moment due to an infinite amount of factors. However, once a moment passes it remains in a state of permanence.

It’s fixed in stone like a grave stone—done like death.

Chapter 1

Like a jingle giving him a terrible tingle, the single fact about the awful act is there’s no way to detract or retract from it—he’s unable to undo what’s done. He thinks if going back in time gave the traveller the ability to avoid an act then all that follows in regards to the fact will no longer be intact. Timmy thinks about this a lot, and really wishes that if he can change one thing in his life, it’s this. So many bad things happen after the fact and it all stems from that one act.

An act ablest any amends to end the trend that tends his end, for it can’t defend or fend for the fact that the act remains intact. So done, it dictates a demon; deemed, it daunts and haunts him.

The act that taints his life happens in Timmy’s preteen years, as a teenybopper. Then ten or eleven years old and by all accounts a very unhappy boy; or since his bubble bursts, is, the fact that it does happen. Before that he believes he’s special.

Timmy finds out he’s anything but in the view of any new home or habitat. But he brushes it off believing he’s above it all, and anyways what do they know. He’ll show them the king he’s born to be not the bastard they all see.

Then at eight a fate finds him vulnerable; a rejection cuts so deep it makes all earlier ones seem like a dream. He loses all self-esteem. He careens out of control.

He’s now unsure about his every act.

And so as a child he acts out a lot of things. He reacts without tact. It’s a sad way to relate. Bad, he sends his surroundings into a sorry state. He hates for love abates filling him with a forlorn fate.

Like a dark Dr. Seuss, he’s hung like a noose.

To be heeled, reeled, and sorry for so much; right and wrong become an untamed flame filling his frame with shame. But he’s a good kid just so hurt in his head and heart that high is low and up is down and down is the road he’s on. And down he goes to vent his bent, forever feeling far from fine. Withdrawn is his walk and talk. Stuck in a state of sorry, though for what he doesn’t know but soon will worry, when what wrong he does one day comes back to haunt him in a hurry.

Being a neighbourhood kid and all, nearby families find him to be a boy and that’s about it. Bad no, no one besides himself and maybe those at home think of him bad. And until this point there’s no real reason to think he’s doing wrong though he feels he can do no right.

So being a neighbourhood kid and all, he finds work shovelling driveways, mowing lawns and walking dogs. One neighbour who has a Doberman hires Timmy to take her dog for a daily walk. The next time they talk she hires Timmy to babysit, soon he has another babysitting job by word of mouth.

The Word, the Logos of Him, herein his hymn, sin is within Timmy. Now carrying the same chime as the rhyme of the ancient mariner: he’s crossed with an albatross. A stage is set wherein a startling stab at a young boy’s conscience weighs in.

Conscientious and timid, Timmy feels no fault though he feels sorry for himself. He’s no idea what it means to be judged by the just. He’s been judged by friends and family but never really feeling they’re right or that he’s wrong.

Timmy goes about his way diverting and distancing himself from accredited crimes. He feels for all he’s been through, no one has a right to punish or pretend that they’re his parents. Mind you, if he breaks something or says something he’ll come clean instantly to clear his conscience.

His conscience comes after being born then torn from his mother. Gripped then ripped from birth by worth, he’s raised without praise. Before being berthed in a permanent home at eight he’s kept in line; by a beating or bruising; by an abuser with a ruler; by slap or strap; by soap in the mouth and by force—fed Scriptures… where scenes are seen in many a dream, all to keep him clean.

His blunt and blatant honesty perhaps pushes the bar around his surroundings, and his willingness to burden himself with hurt feelings, hinders and hinges all that comes his way.

He begins to drink. Even at an early age, alcohol can ruin a life leaving it rife with strife; it can ensnare any care into carelessness. Looking around the cupboards Timmy comes upon the fermented fever that pitches him into the pits of hell. Putting a stool by the fridge, he’s able to stretch above the appliance, reach into the cupboards above, and begin brewing a bungle in the jungle—jungle juice. Two parts this one, one part that, and three quarters of this. Always careful not to take too much of one as to alert the officials and offend his demise into drunkenness.

Down the hatch it will go, blurring all that he feels and knows, stumbling here and bumbling there. Everywhere without a care before blacking out then passing out only to wake up rebuked in puke.

That’s his second round at the newfound way to drown his frown. The first time he’s with his two best friends whom he’ll one day share his first apartment with.

The three preteens are sitting at the bar in the basement belonging to one friend’s family. Crème-de-menthe, the mint green coloured liquor is the liquid that lines the throats of two of the three friends. The one serving and whose house they’re in chooses not to. That doesn’t stop the two who choose to continue until they feel for the first time the effects of alcohol.

Afterwards the friend who fancies himself as the bartender sends the two teetering tots on their way, rather than stay and stand the chance of his parents entering the foray.

Still early in the day, though just a little after noon the two tippled tankards take a tumble and a stumble to the nearby elementary school to sort out their sense of sobriety. One takes to trying out his talent at skateboarding while the other battles notions of emotion—caught in thought, brought on by the brew; a clue, its Timmy in the stew.

Back on track and rued by the rude of a searing rearing, Timmy begins babysitting at the neighbours one day and night, wherein he warrants his emblem for life.

For shame, he sees they’ve some alcohol in the bar downstairs—his third strike.

They’re gone and won’t be back until the wee hours. The wee ones he’s babysitting—are being watched for not. He’s outside filling up the plastic dingy pool for the kids, though it’s he who falls in—to think he’s already started to drink and it’s not even mid-afternoon yet.

About ten or eleven hours later the parents come home to find Timmy passed out on the couch. They wake him up and give him a look of utmost dismay before paying him the amount owed. They send him on his way with a knowing they’ve made a mistake in making the besotted boy their babysitter.

Timmy awakes the next day with an immediate sense of a sentence; an overwhelming weight has just been bought that can never be paid, bayed and forever flayed. He’s bought and paid for many a misdemeanour in his young life but this feeling. This knowledge he’s drawn down, is a judgment from somewhere or someplace or something that will never let the young boy break free from its fangs.

Feeling hungover from the night before and finding ways to deal with the burden he brings on himself, he begins the first day of his deemed doom. Bereaved and beseeched by this guillotine of guilt hanging heavy around his head and heart, the forsaken son soon will send any sense of well being beyond reach.

Bedevilled by a burden, the boy can barely deal with the daily drudge or even hope for a brighter day, for this cloud of conscience stalks him every waking hour. Even while he sleeps a scene or two will enter into his dreams wherein dire forecasts are to be weathered. The lad’s lost soul; the light, it’s all but disappeared thinks the damned. A blight, a fright, a sight for sore eyes; a stain, a pain, an acclaimed disdain—wanes and abates the fated doom.

Timmy manages to swallow the bile of his begotten vile each time it bullies its way into his being. But bad as he feels, he knows he’ll feel worse. For this onslaught of guilt won’t go away and not only that, it seems to manifest in all forms and fashions reinforcing the hold it has on him. It hangs around him morning, noon and night, never leaving him a moment of peace—indicative of a vindictive constrictive restrictive. Persistent on letting the lad know it will be with him forever.

Now that’s a long time and the longer it lingers the more accurate it accrues its attempt and ability to toy with the boy. Bad so bad he feels but what’s he supposed to do about it. In the past, all problems seem to fade and soon be forgotten but this one seems to grow in gravity each and every day. Alas, there can only be one answer, and that’s to try to live with his malignant master until who knows when.

Fie, fight it he will, wrestling with the weight; writhing in its intensity, it only tightens its grip. Like a snake, the bite is fatal and the wrap around only grows tighter after each release of breath. This is no ordinary snakebite. It’s a time released wraith wreath of ravenous repercussions. To die quickly is mercy but it’s not to be. This snarl he snookers himself with will rather wreak the wretch in millstones of misery than let him go.

Sinking in a quagmire of quicksand, the minor makes every attempt at alleviating the garrotte of guilt but the more he struggles the more he sinks. This stinks, this sucks, this cannot be the burdened boy thinks.

Caught by his conscience, Timmy chooses not to deal, let alone let others know of his drunken debacle. It will be between him and his conscience until the embittered end. It’s impossible to stray from this course saying as how bad he feels. The only thought is he’ll feel worse if he were to tell someone what happened. He fears they’ll concur in condemnation. But his memory of the scene is spotty at best and believing that his own recollections are inaccurate, helps him hold onto a false hope or haven in allowing denial do its dirty deed.

Timmy, needless to say, continues with his life, as any child will. Completely blacking out all the bad. He will convince himself—the day before yesterday never happened.

Chapter 2

A little later, the lad leaves his home for a junior high dance, not at his school but at a neighbourhood one that’s under a different denomination. He doesn’t leave freely, for he’s barred from these things due to what—who knows, only that the parental powers hanging over him prove pious in their providence.

Hence, perchance to the dance, by tearing around the perimeter of his bedroom window, he forces open the screen. So schemed; Timmy makes his escape. The sneak actually has this planned to a T several days drawn to the dance. Saying as he knows he’ll not be allowed to go, he gathers his gonads and generates the gumption to give himself only one option: the great escape. It’s done in broad daylight no less. In fact, it’s done right in front of his father.

Good night mum. I’m going to bed early tonight because I’m not feeling well.

The liar leads.

Closing the bedroom door behind him, Timmy makes his bed with a body double to boot, deviously letting him believe it will pass for himself. Changing back into his picked out clothes for the dance, the peep peers out his window at exactly the time he knows his friends will be walking by. He’s a bit bothered to see his friends walk by with looks of fright for him, for his father is out on the front lawn. Fearing his friends will blow his cover the cunning cad feels relief when they walk by with just a,

Hello, to his preoccupied pop.

His father’s been fertilizing the lawn since early evening. An incidental Timmy’s not planned on. He nevertheless watches the way his dad walks with his back towards him, wherewithal the contraption that dispenses the fertilizer, down to the edge of the lawn.

He peers at his pop inconspicuously through the bedroom curtains. The screen’s severed from its frame, save for one side holding the wire mesh in place.

His bedroom window view is level with the sidewalk. When he looks left he sees the stoop to the front door, looking right he sees a short flight of steps down to the driveway. The front lawn is level with his window and then rolls down level with the driveway and then rolls into a ditch by the road.

Looking out his window he can see a Scot pine right beside the driveway. On the left side of the front lawn, next to the hedge by the neighbours, looms a lovely lilac tree when in bloom.

He watches his father walk towards him. His eyes are level with Timmy’s below the hill, though not so when he works his way up the hill where Timmy’s eyes are level with his feet.

Timmy watches his dad now turn around with his back to him, and walk back down the lawn to its edge by the street, and then return again facing Timmy’s direction.

Pressed for time the peep peers imperceptibly through the window’s curtains. He waits while his father moves back up the lawn to the little hill and over and then to the front walk.

Undeterred by the fettered way he must make his great escape; the young teen is damned determined to go to the dance no matter the circumstance.

Seeing time ticking as his friends fade away in the distance, he watches his father turn around and start back down with the trolley to the curb.

Act fast and act now thinks the juvenile escapee as he pushes himself through the screen. Sliding through, he makes sure to line up the metal mesh plush with its frame after pulling himself through the open window. Screen in place, window closed; he quickly gets up though crouched, and without hesitation runs past the stoop and down the left side of the hill leading in-between the two houses. With his heart racing, the runaway runs down the little hill then stops. With his back hermetically sealed against the side of the house, he works his way back to the corner of the house before his working father has time to turn around.

Staying put, the one committing and commuting the childish crime watches. Peering through the corner spaces in the lay of brick, he sees his dad turn around once again to begin his trek with trolley down towards the street.

And so act quickly and act now the motto for this early evening, Timmy runs back down the little hill in-between the two properties to the backyard. He then jumps over the hedge into his next door neighbour’s backyard; and then climbs over their fence into the adjoining neighbour’s backyard. And so on until he feels safe enough to come back to the street and catch up with his friends who know the plan, omitting of course the father factor.

Finally, with his friends he beams his bravado at such a daring escape. His friends concur having known it almost first hand. On the way to the dance everyone jokes.

One of Timmy’s friends, Napoleon, who is his second friend to be his best friend, gives him a gold chain with a crucifix. Timmy wears it thinking it’ll work wonders when womanizing.

The last time a crucifix comes to Timmy he’s an altar boy. So is Napoleon, recent Crème-de-menthe bartender and best friend at school and a nearby catholic church. It’s a wooden cross with a white rope running through it. The older boys have red ropes through theirs.

And so the group of friends prance to the dance.

Fat chance to land a dance with a glance, for the first hour all the boys line up in a row and or gather in clusters. The young girls do the same, though all desiring a dance.

One fellow Timmy sees is already dancing and, before that night, he’s never seen anyone dance so well, well for a man at least. Though he’s yet to see the movie Saturday Night Fever with John Travolta starring in it, that night he witnesses someone whom he supposes moves with all the moves deemed featured in the flick. Yet all Timmy can think is this dancing fool is a freak. He’s certain he looks like one, but yet he’s having the time of his life dancing with an attractive girl; while Timmy and the rest of his friends continue to cluster whilst contriving the courage to carry on in like fashion.

Timmy mentions to Napoleon in a disparaging way to say,

What a freak that guy is.

Yet Napoleon, rather than concurring makes the comment that,

He’s just having fun and boy does he know how to dance.

Well thinks Timmy, that guy maybe able to dance but we’ll see who winds up wrapped in the arms of a woman come the next slow song.

With Ram Jam’s song Black Betty beating a thunderous beat through him and everyone at the dance, his cluster now with muster sprouts and flouts some courage. Soon they’re scouting out the young lassies.

Timmy waits until he hears the next song to be blasted before making his move. He knows that intro. It’s his favourite song Fox on the Run by Sweet. He’s confident to commence on his own. He’s learned from his brother all the do’s and don’ts in how to land a lady.

Coached and captioned as a Casanova, the anything but, learns that if he asks a couple of girls to dance throughout the evening; he’ll be in a better position to find the one he likes for the final dance, the slow dance, the dance to end all dances, the Grand Finale.

He finds her for the final dance and it’s divine, as the Styx song Crystal Ball serenades the souls amidst a spinning seventies ballroom ball—a billion beams, an endless dream. He must be in a dream, no way this is real. His pick of the night is light on her feet. Her hair, her smell, her clothes, all combine into some divine moment that can never be topped. Oh to be stuck in that moment, he would have died just to...

Their bodies touch, it’s almost too much as he holds her closely; the fairest flower, the girl of the hour, a wise choice. The melody runs through him like a rhapsody, displaying and playing pictures of perfection. Oh what a feeling. He’s on top of the world.

Now near the end of the night, phone numbers are exchanged as they plan to meet again.

Less than a week later, on the back of a Moped where a steel tray type of rail rests below and behind the seat, sits the one still seeing stars. From the dance another friend of his meets a friend of the girl Timmy’s smitten with. So together they go to meet them. The motorized pedal bike or Moped moves along about thirty-five to forty miles per hour when it hits a car that suddenly stops in front of them. Both Timmy and his friend are unaware of the stopped car until the impact.

Boom!!!

The Moped doesn’t even buckle or break and neither of the two are thrown, though the thud thunder blunder is felt asunder, as the impact of the hit has been bought and paid for by guess whose groin. That’s right, Timmy’s balls are turning blue and bits and pieces of his member are cut, bleeding and bent out of shape.

Meanwhile, Timmy maintains a modicum of manner while wondering what in the world just happened.

Being behind and below the seat, the boy bashes and bruises his beloved by the sudden impact into the back of the seat.

Yeeeeooooowwww!!!

He gets off the Moped hopping around like a lunatic. The pain is so intense his eyes begin to water and besides turning blue; his balls grow gargantuan in size. His friend somewhat sorry starts laughing at the same time all the while asking,

Are you okay; are you okay?

After hopping around where he’s found, Timmy puts the pain behind in his mind and finds the gumption to bite down hard on this bullet and brave the blue gonads. Back on the Moped they go to see their dates.

The encounter with the girls in daylight outside in the park proves to be a bit much for Timmy. He’s in so much pain and discomfort that he can barely break from grimacing let alone woo this girl.

After a little while they leave and lo the lads know that between the dance and now, the magic is gone.

And for the bothered boy, bruised and battered beneath his belt; whatever is now felt will forever be his to feel. He can’t believe this fate.

His fate, how fucked—foreskin foresworn in scorn, born by a worn torn shorn.

Chapter 3

Feeling foul, festering by now is a foregone conclusion.

Timmy the malcontent manifests malicious means and mannerisms yet remains a sponge to all that befalls.

He never manages to harden his shell for he’s found no kind mind to help him find refuge, only a deluge of ill intent bent on the one God sent,

Surely if the Saviour can suffer so can you.

On the surface and at heart he’s soft as a sponge that soaks up all sorts of spoils. They begin to boil, registering relentless recoils.

His toil for familiar is always met with change so it becomes his constant.

Sleeping in his own soil, as a baby he’s slapped and strapped even corked for some foster homes tire of washing the cloth. They don’t want to be bothered by a bastard boy, for the fees for fostering don’t cover care and concern.

His first big boil in a manner of speaking begins around the time his first best friend found in childhood, Trudeau, fails their friendship, by letting him know he’s not cool enough to hang around him anymore. This hurts. For they share so many fun times and laughs.

Trudeau doesn’t live that far away. He’s the first friend Timmy makes after leaving his last foster home. The friends left behind are too far away for him to visit; though that’s not encouraged, for his heart like his friends are ripped away when he leaves his last foster home.

His old elementary school isn’t really far away by adult standards, maybe a few miles. But for Timmy who begs and pleads with his new family to let him go back—finds out it’s too far for him to find, even after they bring his red bike back from his last foster home.

All the teachers and students at his old elementary school give him a coffee table size hardcover of a Reader’s Digest Condensed Book. A children’s collector's edition with various stories, one on Leonardo Da Vinci along with an inside story pictured on the cover of a tiger titled Man-Eater.

All the students who share grade one with him and the first half of grade two hold a party for Timmy, when they find out he’s been adopted. At the party he’s presented with the book. The principal makes sure to sign it and say something nice about, and to Timmy.

Timmy’s last foster father and family find ways not to be nice to him. The results carry into his adopted home.

In his adopted home, Timmy feels the hurt for the first time. It infuriates him. He hurts so bad that all the bad begins to boil. Like oil, it floats on water above any love.

Then one day when he sees that Man-Eater, that tiger staring at him from the cover of that Reader’s Digest. He stabs one of the eyes with the same pen he just finished using to fill out and play the little word games within the text. The power and force in the way the pen punctures the hardcover into the text would surely blind that Man-Eater, that tiger. It leaves a hole as deep as a dimple, deeper than his own dimples now dashed out when without a smile.

That ire, that fire, that fury deep within reverberates with hate. Yet he has to abate. He has to suffer, for the Saviour suffers for him or so he’s told with a scold.

Within the first week of being adopted he finds his first friend, Trudeau, whom he’s happy to play with and forget his hurt. The two friends share the same uncontrollable laugh; well, maybe Timmy is the one with the uncontrollable laughter. It’s just that it’s so contagious others can’t help themselves but laugh along, and as long. To the point their guts will be sore and their faces wet with tears.

Timmy’s second oldest sister in his new family, Brigitte, is the only one who can appreciate his laughter. His newfound father will scowl with a foul look every time Timmy breaks into an uncontrollable laughter. It’s never planned and it usually comes over him for some of the silliest things.

Like when Brigitte makes a cake for Timmy’s birthday. Trudeau’s over at the time. She sure fools them. Underneath the pink icing is a thick spread of mayonnaise something Timmy hates. The look and taste of it, is like the runny white in the yoke of an egg. It reminds him of something he would rather not taste, a bad taste of distaste in the past.

After enduring that experience Timmy realises he can always count on Brigitte to have fun with, even favour and fight for him. And she does from the get go. She’s the one who truly favours him. Both are fun spirits.

On one April Fool’s morning Brigitte makes him a peanut butter and jam sandwich, and again fools him with mayonnaise instead of butter. They have a good laugh. Together the two relate on many matters only they can understand, sort of on the same wavelength. Often Timmy will be sporting his plaid terry cloth housecoat, walking around the basement believing he’s a mogul, a movie star, a megalomaniac much to their shared humour.

And so like his relationship with Brigitte, Timmy’s friendship with Trudeau is cast in crack-ups over what or where gives no matter—whenever together the two will break out into uncontrollable laughter.

Meanwhile when his first friend formalizes the fence that’s to be a wall between them, Timmy is