Risky Demeanor

By Kevin L Trachsel

Based on true events
At thirteen, Tracy has mastered escaping from his bedroom on the family farm south of Chicago in the mid-to-late-night hours. His only transportation is his dirt bike. He blends in at the parties by drinking from a beer keg.

Tracy lives on a farm with his parents, plays football, and has few friends. His world changes, though, when his parents divorce, his mom moves to town, and his dad sells the livestock. Tracy must decide where to live. He discovers how things can go from good to bad and bad to good and learns how right and wrong decisions from family, friends, and others can change the trajectory of one’s life.

Based on true events, Risky Demeanor shares one young man’s coming-of-age story. It identifies how one’s life can be led and influenced directly from the results of someone else’s actions, to alter another’s path.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Feb 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9781665737685

Kevin L Trachsel

Kevin L Trachsel is a long-time writer of poetry, humor, religion, fear, and deep imagery. He currently writes and resides somewhere in Arkansas near a lake, prays, and thanks God every day.

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Copyright © 2023 Kevin L Trachsel.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by

any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents,

organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products

of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Archway Publishing

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

844-669-3957

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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Photographer Credit: Ariel Lightle

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3769-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3767-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3768-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023902425

Archway Publishing rev. date: 2/10/2023

CONTENTS

Introduction

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

BASED ON TRUE EVENTS

INTRODUCTION

This book identifies how one`s life can be led and influenced directly from the results of someone else`s actions in life, to alter another`s path. This book is about a young man growing up discovering true life events from good to bad and bad to good. How right and wrong decisions from family, friends and other sources changed the outcome of this young boy`s life, you will see and understand the difference on how a child might possibly be raised. Thrilling and exciting tales, based on true life events. Please do not try anything in this book at home or anywhere in the world.

1

I FIND MYSELF STAGGERING around, still somewhat sober, inside this house miles from town, in the Midwest, on a summer night in 1974. There are more than a hundred teenagers taking advantage of a three-keg beer party with a few extra guests: Mary Jane and cocaine. At thirteen, I have mastered how to escape from my bedroom, only five miles away, in the mid- to late-night hours. My only transportation is my dirt bike. I blend in at this party by drinking from a beer keg.

I look for the bathroom in this old Victorian house with major drug dealers and teenagers. I make my way to the top of a staircase, where many guys wait in line for the restroom. I am buzzed and feeling like Superman, so I cut in line as they cuss at me along the way. I open the door to see a girl giving free BJs. I see no interest in that and quickly relieve myself, flush, and leave. I then find a second staircase to go back down. It is dark, and I can’t see the bottom. I step into the dark, slip, and fall, end over end, down the stairs. I bust the door at the bottom completely off the hinges. And it lands flat on top of a coffee table.

I am now standing, with amazement, on the door and table. How did I just roll fifteen feet, end over end, and make a perfect landing? I look and see a light mist of dust in the air, like a light fog. I look and see three people on the couch and two on a love seat; the table was between them. This group had been using the table to snort coke. Now the door and table were flat on the floor, with me standing on both. I guess about a couple of grand worth of cocaine powder is in the air. Even drunk, I think, in the back of my mind, they are going to kill me. But they have a look of amazement, and their reaction was like, Wow, man, what just happened?

An older friend of mine is there and sees this all from a distance. He comes over, with a cup of beer in his hand, while I am still standing on the door. He knows everyone there. His reaction is like many other witnesses that are viewing this sight, which makes me thankful. In those seconds before I see him, I feel like a child lost in a crowd.

The party is put on hold for five, maybe ten seconds. Then everyone cheers like this was a great entertainment act. My friend laughs, puts his arm around me, and says, That was awesome, man. Wow! Let’s smoke a joint.

He and many others are laughing their asses off as we leave. I notice the expressions on all the people sitting around the table. Now thinking back, that would be a big surprise.

We go outside and start laughing so hard that our bellies hurt. It is one of the best times in my life, until I wake up in the yard from the sunrise the next day, on a Sunday morning. The first thought in my mind is the old man is not going to be happy. He always said, I don’t care how late you stay out, but at six in the morning, I own you.

Being 100 percent a farm boy, I try to kick-start my dirt bike in desperation so I can get home. I have no idea what time it is.

The bike will not start. I look around and see people are passed out in the yard, and there is no movement as the birds just chirp for the new day.

My head is pounding; my body feels like my heart is pumping syrup in my veins. This feels like a funeral with no one in the casket.

I find my tools wrapped up under my seat, in a roll, placed in pockets of fabric. For some reason, I think, Damn, these are cheap Japanese tools, as I take the spark plug out, clean it, put it back, fire up the bike, and head home.

I ride fast on the country road, among the green crops and grass. It looks to be a beautiful day as the breeze brushes my hair. Now I can see our farm. The homestead is five acres and surrounded by acres of flat land, a most beautiful tile barn, machine sheds, and a beautiful big Victorian house. I see my father standing near a machine shed with two John Deere tractors and row cultivators attached to them. Both tractors are idling as I pull into the lane. He says, Go in the house. Get your work clothes and boots on.

I walk into the house and see my mother at the breakfast table. She gives me that long look—the one that puts the fear of God in you. Then she says with a soft voice, When you get your work clothes on, I will fix you a quick breakfast before you go to the fields today.

I go upstairs, feeling like I’m climbing Mount Everest.

I find my work clothes and boots and head back down to the kitchen. Waiting there is a bowl of oatmeal, toast, and a glass of milk.

I try and eat a little, grab the toast, and eat it on the way out. My mother says, Be careful out there in the fields today. I will bring you lunch and pick you up for supper tonight.

I say, Thank you, Mom. And out the door I go.

Outside, my father says, Take that tractor to the north place, and start plowing corn in the south eighty acres.

The north place is about five miles away. I can handle this when I am sober, having operated a tractor of this size since the age of ten. But I am still hurting from last night and in severe pain from that tumble down those stairs. I don’t dare show weakness though; a deal is a deal.

My father has a kind of grin on his face that I can’t let down, so I get on the tractor. It has a 100-hp engine with an old-style cab, no AC, and is seventeen feet wide with a six-row cultivator rear-mount attachment. It is a good size for the day. I put it in gear and head out. I notice a cooler full of ice and cold drinks on board. I am dying; I feel dead. It’s like everything I did last night has jumped on me all of a sudden.

I turn out of the lane and head to the north place, shifting the tractor up into road gear. The engine is loud, and the rear end whines in the rhythm of a novice drum player beating the sticks on my head. As I feel the heat coming back off the diesel engine, I think that this has to be the worst I have ever felt in my life. I feel a pain in my gut, like I could die today.

I finally make it to that eighty acres of corn. Corn is tall, and you can cultivate at a fast clip when it’s tall. But it is windy today, which makes it harder to drive because the corn leaves lean over the rows, and it’s difficult to see your marker.

I start out and plow the corn right away. It looks bad. I make it to the other end of the half-mile field and sleep for one hour over the steering wheel. Then I wake up and continue plowing corn until noon. Sure enough, my mother is waiting with lunch at the other end.

Being young, my body has almost fully recovered from last night. Yet I still feel like death warmed over. I stop at the end of the rows of corn, walk out of the field, and jump in the passenger seat of her car. She has meat/potato casserole and all the fixings dished up, hot and ready. I’m starving.

She doesn’t say much as I devour the meal, but she does tell me, You kept us up all night last night, and we are going to keep you up all day today.

I’m thinking, Man, I did get one hour of sleep, but I have learned my lesson. I tell her, Thank you for the meal. I’ve learned my lesson.

She’s really a sweetheart, as if she understands me somehow. I plow corn until dark and go to bed. I sleep the best ever that night.

The summer goes by fast. And when school starts, I’m a freshman and playing football. My dad had said I could play one sport. I don’t mean to brag, but I’m a damn good football player. Things are going well; my all-around grades are the best ever, and I’m hanging with good kids.

Then it is the late fall. All the fieldwork and harvesting is done, and I’m watching TV one night in the living room. Hee Haw is on one of three channels we get. I love that show. Then my mother calls me into the kitchen. I meet her and my father at the kitchen table and sit down across them.

My parents are a good-looking couple for their age. I’m thinking about how they never argue, when my mother says, We have told your brother and sister that we are getting a divorce. I am moving to town tomorrow.

My brother and sister are in college. I start laughing out loud. There is no way you two are getting a divorce.

I go back to the living room and think this is a joke. I wonder why they are messing with me, joking around like that.

Then they say, Get back in here.

So I go back to the kitchen and come to realize that they are for real. They confront me with the details of this development and that I need to make a choice: live here on the farm with my father or go in town to a two-bedroom apartment with my mother.

My mind takes off at 100 mph. I go upstairs to my bedroom and lie on my bed all night in deep thought.

I do my daily chores at sunrise, feeding the livestock. When I walk up to the house from the barnyard, I see people loading my mother’s stuff into trucks. It feels so surreal. I am still trying to wrap my mind around this.

Near 2:00 p.m., all my mother’s things are out of the house, and her car is gone. I don’t even know where she has moved in town. No one is around on this family farm but me. I don’t really have any friends, and now I feel very lonely, and only bad thoughts creep into my mind. I was teased in my younger years and had to fight three bullies every day after school in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades just to get on the bus. No teacher intervened, and no one helped or backed me up, including the bus driver, who was related to one of the bullies. They teased me because since age seven, I had daily chores of hand-feeding sows every morning and night in a big farrowing house and in the swine lots on our farm. You could try to bathe and scrub the smell and dirt off vigorously, wash your hair five times a day, and still the smell would creep out.

I love this farm, I thought. I also thought, Is this farm jinxed?

I have never felt this alone in all my life. My chores are done, so I decide to fire up my dirt bike and go for a ride in the country.

I hang a left out of the lane and crank a wheelie for a half mile down this country road. I have had a dirt bike since I was seven, and I-55 is just being built one mile from the house, so I have a playground that’s about to be fenced off. This time I am headed in the opposite direction toward this old concrete bridge near the mouth of creek isolated from the world. I would hang out there sometimes.

I pull up to see a couple of cars parked around there. A few older kids are smoking pot and drinking beer. I think that they are from my town. Having no friends, I also think that they would know I am not very popular, but to my surprise, they welcome me.

One says, You are that kid that plays football, right?

Yeah, I play.

His name is Jimmy, and I know he is a badass from our town. You want a beer? Jimmy asks.

I take it and start drinking and smoking pot.

You ride a lot on I-55, don’t you? Jimmy asks.

Yes.

Most everyone wore helmets, so it was hard to tell who was who.

Jimmy likes me for some reason. We all have a great time that day.

When we separate at dark, I am buzzed, heading back late for chores, and I don’t care what my dad will say or think. When I pull into the lane, no one is around. I pull up to the machine shed to put my bike away, and I can hear four hundred head of fat hogs, 190 pounds apiece, in the barn and feed lot. They are whining and loudly calling out for help; something is wrong. I am coherent and pissed off now. Where the hell is my dad?

I go to the house first. It is eerily vacant. I am like, Fuck, what the hell is going on?

I can still hear the hogs whining and screaming out there. As I look around, I think that the day before, this was a peaceful family home for more than twenty years. I freeze for a bit and feel this awful surge of misconception.

Back to reality—I run to the feed lot, where this hell is intensifying. The hogs are out of water. We had automatic waterers, and they are dry. The hogs all over the farm are now freaking out. I will never forget that sound, screams that can shred your eardrums. A fire siren would sound better. I know if I don’t find the solution soon, this day could end very badly.

I run to the source, the main well where the water pump is located. I find the problem, and it’s an easy fix. My father taught me from a young age how to fix things, so I have the ability to troubleshoot this problem. Soon the water is back on, and slowly, everything gets back to normal.

About 10:00 p.m., the chores are done. I am walking to the house, and my dad pulls in the lane in his pickup truck and jumps out. Lo and behold, my mother is with him. Both are very concerned about where I have been. They are very cool parents, and I’m lucky for that. They are not really happy, and give it to me for disappearing, but I take my first rebel stand. I cuss at them from one end to the other and stomp away to my room, slamming that oak door so hard, it sounds like a shotgun going off.

I lie there wishing I was dead. I hate life, wanted to kill myself. I go and find my .22 rifle and a box of shells, then go back to my room. It’s just a plain room with old wallpaper, ten-foot ceilings, an old desk, a single bed with a box spring and a mattress, and a lead-painted sealed window. My room is depressing. I am thinking, If I kill myself, my worries are over. I have no friends, no nothing.

I put the loaded gun barrel in my mouth.

I have

Reviews for Risky Demeanor

[Kevin Trachsel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is the best that’s all that needs to said..