#MyFirstTime

There’s fooling around, and then there’s trying the real thing

My first time feeling real pleasure came at the Barnes & Noble in a shopping mall near De Soto, Texas. I’d messed with the stuff before, but there’s fooling around, and then there’s trying the real thing.

Before we moved to Texas, I worked part time at a cafe (Cups in the Quarter if you ever make it to Flowood, Mississippi). This was in the mid-to-late 90s, when I’d also just gotten out of the most recent mental institution. The one I stayed in for YEARS. The place my step-mom told me they’d let me out of because they’d given up on me.

The truth is that the money ran out. Otherwise, she’d have left me there. Out of sight, out of mind.

But then I was back home. My family had to find a way to live with me again. The person she said was to blame for everything. My dad moved us to Texas with the same silly hope that this place would make a difference. This place would be perfect.

It wasn’t perfect. The only way to get rid of me was to send me to the bookstore, where I lost myself (as usual) in my imagination.

They dropped me off each time with $20 and the promise to come back a few hours later. At first, I browsed through the books with wonder and awe. I could FEEL the power of that $20 in my pocket.

In the hospital, I’d had the few books they let me take with me. Some of my favorite works by Clive Barker like Sacrament and Galilee, as well as my still-treasured Coldfire Trilogy from CS Friedman.

Could I finally buy any book I want? Take it home and read whenever I wanted? It was a mind-blowing epiphany. And what blew my mind even more to pieces? That the people around me took it all for granted.

But I soon realized something else.

I could FEEL the power of that $20 in my pocket.

Simple Pleasures Are Forever

My parents left me at the bookstore once, twice, who knows how many times before it hit me.

I wasn’t in a hospital anymore. No one was coming to take me back to my room. I could walk around the bookstore and read for pleasure, knowing I could come back to that same book without worrying that this time wasn’t just the first time. Every time I tasted freedom, I worried it was the last time.

It would never be the last time again.

I could come back to this bookstore or another bookstore like it again, and again, and again. My first time here could be every time.

It didn’t matter why the hospital had given up on me. It didn’t matter that I woke up most nights in terror from a recurring nightmare that my dad was once again driving me back up that thin road to the mental institution, that I was going through intake again, there was no good reason because they’d never NEEDED a good reason besides the fact that I existed —

And now I never had to worry about that again.

It was 1998, I was fifteen years old, and my first taste of freedom came at a bookstore. In a few seconds, I would have my first taste of power.

And I was hooked.

My first taste of freedom came at a bookstore.

I calculated how much money I could spend on a snack and still have enough left over for a book. I would take a special one home to celebrate my epiphany.

I would claim a token of a freedom I’d never imagined would be mine.

I ordered a Frappaccino, and from the first sip, I knew I wasn’t going to buy a book that day.

No Turning Back From That First Time

This wasn’t coffee. This was mother****ing jet fuel.

I felt the stuff from the front of my tongue to my fingertips.

That vicious cloud over my mind faded. Just for a moment, but for a kid who’d lived with their senses overwhelmed since the womb, a moment of quiet focus was a welcome surprise.

I could think clearly. I could feel clearly. I could simply be.

I took a book. I read it from cover to cover. I put it back. I got another book and did the same thing.

I’ve always had that way about me. I can read it fast and learn it better than the author. Stories are an immersive experience if you let go of the stuff that doesn’t matter anyway.

Coffee is just the mechanism that helps me get there.

I drank my first Frappaccino with the speed of Road Runner racing to trick Wile E Coyote.

Then I drank another one. I spent the whole $20 on coffee. I didn’t need any of it for books any more. I could come back to this bookstore whenever I wanted. I could savor each book for a moment or forever.

And I could do it all while guzzling legally addictive stimulants.

What was one of your favorite first times?

THE END (DAMN GIRL, THAT’S DARK)

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