Screaming Away: A Metal Love Story & Memoir

SCREAMING AWAY

A Metal Love Story & Memoir

Charlie Hanks

Screaming Away : A Metal Love Story and Memoir

Copyright © 2018 by Charlie Hanks

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations em- bodied in critical articles or reviews.

For information contact :

www.domrockstar.com

Cover Photo by Justin Koteff of Red Flame

Design by Charlie Hanks

Edited by Cort Clardy

ISBN: 9781731009425

First Edition: November 2018

Dedication

I dedicate this story to my husband, Brian and my son, Hayden. I wouldn’t have written it without your encouragement and love.

Prologue

I’m not famous, not even remotely. So, you may be thinking to yourself, well then why did she write a book?

About seven years ago, my husband had a dream I wrote a book and it was successful. He never remembers his dreams so this was a rare occurrence and he insisted that next morning that I actually write a book. Maybe I could inspire someone with my story.

While it may not be a story of fame and financial success, it is a story of perseverance and tenacity.

I’ve been working on this for seven years. I took out parts as not to upset certain people then put them back in to not leave out major key events in my life that affected me and this story.

If you saw that I had written a book and thought Fuck, I wonder what type of shit she talked about me, then this probably isn’t for you. If you do read it, just know these are my reflections on my life. How I felt, saw and experienced it at the time. There are only a couple of people in the story of my life included within that I have cut out of my life or haven’t repaired my relationship with. I tend to overthink possible outcomes of my actions and the thought that releasing a book that may not shine the best light on the people who were around me, has stressed me the hell out for the last seven years.  In turn, I’ve changed the names of a few people I know would send me nasty online messages or just flat out hate me for this.

This is the first 28 years of my life thrown into 55,000 words or so. I hope some part of it, any part of it inspires someone somewhere. If it gives someone the strength and confidence to hold their head high and make it through a tough circumstance, then I know it was worth it.

My story definitely isn’t over, and I hope it continues to grow into a meaningful existence, but these last three decades were detrimental in shaping the woman I am today … and good or bad, made me a badass!

1

Finding my voice

I SAT ON A COLD WOOD CHAIR BACKSTAGE with the other talent show contestants nervously shaking and trying my best not to pass out. I hid next to the ancient musty curtains of the elementary theater breathing in dust and watching as other kids lip-synced while dancing out routines that were choreographed and did some lame attempts at stand-up comedy.

It was 1990. I was a fifth grader and had only been a student at that school for a few months. I didn't have anyone in the crowd there to watch me. No parents, no friends, no support team. I can't exactly remember why my mom and step dad weren’t there but I remember feeling utterly alone.

When I heard my name, I stood up from the chair and stumbled away from the curtains. A group of boys getting ready to pop and lock to Pump Up the Jams were standing in my way and staring at me. They were straightening their matching suits and slicking back their overly gelled hair. Some girls next to me dressed in matching MC Hammer pants chuckled. I shot the nasty twins a dirty look, wiped off my jean shorts and walked up to the microphone.

I was shaking with nerves. I had been practicing my song for weeks in my bedroom. I was confident I had picked a great song to show off my voice but I had no one to assure me I wasn’t delusional or a horrible singer. I didn't have a fancy outfit or two rows of family cheering like the rest of the kids. I scanned the audience for a familiar face and was only greeted by blank stares from strangers.  A teacher announced my name and the crowd glared at me. My knees shook as I walked up.

I grabbed my inner confidence, gripped a microphone on stage for the first time in my life and belted out a soulful pop song to hundreds of strangers.

When I was done, everyone applauded, a couple people cheered and I was in shock. I had finished the song, I didn't mess up, I didn't forget a word and I didn’t pass out.  There were moments I was sure my eyes were shut so tight they would get stuck. I came out unscathed and walked off the stage back to the musty curtains; prouder of myself than I had ever been. I was only ten years old. No one in that crowd knew me and they still thought I did pretty ok.

Those girls with the matching MC Hammer pants came up right after me. They lip-synced and danced a choreographed routine to some hip-hop song I don’t remember. They won first place and I won second. I got a ribbon and a red certificate of accomplishment that I proudly hung on my bedroom wall. My mom and step dad had no idea. They were preoccupied with all their own stuff.

Even though I didn’t win my first talent show, I never shied away from entering talent shows for the remainder of my life. The nerves that shake my knees, the knots that swirl around in my stomach are all worth it when I get on stage with a microphone in my hand, sing my lungs out and watch the crowd see me for all that I am in that moment.

That talent show took place at the fourth elementary school in which I was the new kid. It was in Vallejo, California about twenty-five miles outside of Oakland. Not the best place, but where we had to be.

We had moved there in a hurry due to an issue that forced us out of off-base military housing in Novato, California, a more family-friendly community where we had lived for three years.

My mom wasn't anything like the maternal wonder-moms of late-night TV Land shows. I don't remember hugs, kisses, or I love yous. I'm sure they were there, just not common enough for me to remember them.  

But memories are a tricky thing. In my thirties now, after years of healing, years of being a mom And lots of self-evaluation; my memories have evolved, faded, or grown weary.  Conversations with my mom about these times and these incidents have transpired with different revelations of our combined realities. What we remember differs but what we felt in those times still resonates.  We’re in a place in our relationship where she’s taken responsibility for most of the things I needed her to and I’ve gotten over the things she needed me to.

What I recall is a lot of stress, crazy schedules as she managed a pizza shop while my step dad worked a lot of hours for the Navy, lots of alcohol, some drugs and lot of her and I not getting along. There were yelling matches, some I hate yous thrown back and forth, and the constant feeling that I was a burden. I was a reminder of a mistake she had made with someone else.

My real father and she had been divorced since I was two. My step dad was nineteen years young when he shacked up with my twenty-three-year-old mom and a three-year-old me. He was in the Navy and she was fresh out of a failed young marriage. The story of their meeting includes a smoky bar on a military base somewhere and my mom telling the young bachelor that her name was Bertha while she and her sister hunted down some guy who had screwed one of them over.

Some of my first memories are the three of us living in a small little house in Fairfield, California. I remember riding my big wheel down the street to the corner hamburger stand where they would hook me up with chips at three years old.

I have pieces of memories from their wedding but recently they shared a nice little story about how I gave my step dad's best man my panties at four years old and told him to hold onto them.  With a tale like that, it’s a wonder how I didn’t turn out a completely different person.

One of the worst memories I have is being molested by my mom’s younger brother. My uncle was twelve and I was a toddler. My step dad and mom found out somehow and threatened his life. My grandparents played ignorant, which they continued to do for the entirety of their lives.

After Fairfield, we moved to Jacksonville, Florida on my fifth birthday. My step dad got stationed at a new base there. We stayed for three years. I started kindergarten and by first grade my mom was pregnant. When I was seven she had my brother, Chris. A year later we moved back to Fairfield and lived with her parents while trying to get a house for a few weeks. My uncle, now fifteen or sixteen, also lived there. One day when no one else was around he asked me if I wanted to do what we used to do and at eight years old I understood what that meant. I screamed NO! and hid from him until my mom came home.  Nothing ever happened, no one ever spoke of it and he got to just live on unscathed by the damage he did to me as a helpless child.

We moved from their house and ended up living in off-base housing in Novato, a little town in Marin County. The houses were small cement duplexes that were painted blue. Non-military kids at school called it the Smurf village.

Every few streets held a cul-de-sac. Our cul-de-sac had a playground on one side and sat right next to a small creek on the other. A tall chain length fencing covered in blackberry bushes blocked off the creek.

The other kids in our neighborhood were military kids from all branches. They came and went quite often. I’d make friends and then within months, they were gone.

A few of them stuck around long enough for me to make memories with. One was a Filipino boy named Philip. We would climb through the blackberry bushes to get to the creek and catch minnows or crawfish.

We played kickball in the cul-de-sac; my driveway was first base. Home plate was a rain gutter grate. When it would rain we would open the grate and catch buckets of worms to feed the fish in the creek or the big Jack Dempsey fish in my mom’s aquarium.

We had a tree fort in the woods outlining the housing community. My only girlfriend, Davona and I would sit there early in the mornings and watch the deer nibble on the grass.

Those days were the highlight of my childhood. It seemed a carefree time where I really felt like a kid.

My mom worked late hours and got sucked into the stress pretty intensely. She turned to meth.

One night she got home from work and woke me up to play Super Mario Brothers 3 on our Super Nintendo. We were up until almost midnight on a school night playing the game. She had bought a strategy guide, so we could get through the levels easier. It's still one of the weirdest, coolest bonding moments I remember from my childhood with her. As I got older, I realized she was high all night, not just spending time with her daughter. 

Those days were cloudy with heavy mood swings that barreled me down with hateful words followed by mornings of sober guilt filled over-shopping to try and buy my love. I was a kid who had lots of toys but didn’t understand what the hell was going on with my parents most of the time.

My step dad, on the other hand, had an anger issue that accompanied his drinking and an upbringing where beating the shit out of your kids was ok. My brother was too young, so I became the scapegoat for his stress and anger.

One day in third grade I had played with my step dad’s computer and accidentally changed the color scheme of the screen. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to switch it back. All I had been doing was playing Pac Man. It was 1989 and I was nine years old; what the hell else could I be doing on a PCI wasn’t a sophisticated hacker leaking his top-secret computer files. I was barely able to use the DOS system back then.

When he got home and saw that his screen was some weird shade of pastels he asked me what happened with a storm brewing in his eyes. Scared, I said my friend did it. He knew I was lying and proceeded to beat the crap out of me. My mom was at work.

He eventually threw me down face first onto the floor. Of course, in military housing, the floor was practically cement with a thin layer of twenty-year-old carpet on top. I remember feeling warmth surround my face as I blacked out. Hours later, I woke to my mom cleaning my face with towels.  Blood was all over my face and my sheets. I heard my mom ask, What the hell did you do to her this time?

The next day was a school day. I was running late and while patiently waiting for the crossing guard who was a substitute to walk me and some other kids across the street, she surprised me with a question: What happened to your face?

My face… I thought. Wait, my face!!! It was swollen and purple from bruises and I hadn’t even thought about what other people might say or do once I was seen. I was late for school and school was important, so I quickly answered, My dad did it! and ran across the street.

Later that day, a teacher pulled me out of class. I was sat down in a room with a large brown table and across from me sat a lady that I remember looking like Carmen San Diego. Carmen San Diego proceeded to question me about what had happened and about my dad. I told the story to the best of my nine-year-old ability and they gave me a sucker. They left me alone with the large brown table for a while. Then, Carmen San Diego took me to a black car and drove me to a big house. She left me with a nice man who seemed like a camp counselor. The house was a center for kids awaiting family court or waiting to be put into foster care.

There were two girls there with me who were sisters. It felt like a summer camp. We went hiking, made crafts and cookies and talked about our problems in a group room. There were three different adults who came in and organized the activities and group therapy. The other two girls and I had to share a room. I didn’t have any of my things since they had taken me there straight from school, but the house was stocked with random clothes and toys.  

I don’t know exactly how long I was there. It felt like weeks but could have just been a couple days. It ended when I got a phone call from my mom. She was upset and asked me why I told Carmen San Diego what had happened. They asked me. When they saw my face, I answered. "Why did you lie