Hell of a Life

Hell Of A Life

By Rob Teller

It all starts when I was born. Before I even came out of the womb, I almost died, choking on my umbilical cord. Was this a sign to come, maybe God saying I think we can take him back, the world doesn’t need him. His future is interesting to say the least. All at once they cut the cord, and the doctor spanked my ass and handed me off to my mother. Life had just begun for me. If I knew I was going to be divorced, a nudist, ex Mormon, broke, depressed, and suicidal all before I turned thirty, I would have tried to crawl back up in that sweet womb, my home for the last nine months. Alas it was not to be.

Fast forward ten years, I was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. I would be on Ritalin for the next eight years. It would calm me down, but I would no longer be truly me. Instead of bouncing off the walls, I would quietly sit in my room and read. This was also the time when I was introduced to my new best friend, the super Nintendo. I may have had only ten games or so, but that wonderful device would change my life. Video games would be the constant when I would move to over 13 different states, 4 different high schools, 3 middle schools, 3 colleges, one failed marriage, and one fucked up roller-coaster called life.

Another eight years later, I discovered my first real tragedy in life. A girl from my senior year, was killed by her boyfriend. She was pregnant at the time, and apparently wanted to keep the baby. The boyfriend who I knew somewhat well, got mad and they argued for some time. He must have snapped, because all of a sudden he had a butcher’s knife and was standing over her body, stabbing her wildly. He then fled quickly, and was found the next day Meanwhile she lay on the floor bleeding out, until her younger brother found her after it was already too late. This was two days before I turned eighteen. On my eighteenth birthday, I went to her funeral. Happy birthday Luke, have fun at her funeral. I didn’t know her as well as others did, but I had a huge crush on her, and she was always really nice to me, the new kid.

I was a pastor’s kid at the time, well it’s complicated. Ever since I was born , I was in the church twice a week, every week for my whole life. My parents were pastors of all types, from youth pastors, to assistant pastors, all while my dad was in the Army. I went to the church summer camps, every summer, and Bible studies at the house constantly. I was very religious, and that event shocked me to the core. The boyfriend was actually a youth pastor, and to see someone like that to kill an innocent girl, just made me turn my back on the church for good.

My dad was actually deployed at the time, to Afghanistan, so I was left alone to carry this hurt. My brother was in college, and I was still fairly new in town, I only had been there a year, so I didn’t have many friends at the time. My mom was busy working and I didn’t want to bother her with my problems, so I kept that to myself.

I would have nightmares from that event, for years to come. The first five or six birthdays afterwards, I was haunted by that memory, and I remember the last interaction I had with her. I was being silly and flirting with her. I had asked her to go to a dance with me, and she said she’d think about it. I wished I could have told her thanks for being my friend, and forhelping me fit in at school. I would have told her how pretty I thought she was, but now that was impossible.

One month later, while I was working at a grocery store, another event would change my life, again for the worse. I was a bagger, and would bag groceries and pack them in customer’s cars for tips, and I made decent tips at the time. This one Monday I had a customer, early thirties and super hot. She was Columbian, and short, and had all the right curves. After unpacking the groceries in her Dodge minivan, she started to flirt with me. I was barely eighteen and had not experienced much attention from women, so I was thrilled.

She ended up getting my number, and we then started to text for the next few days or so. We ended up going bowling, and afterwards we ended up in her car. We started making out, and I soon forgot my friend dying and my dad gone and all I could focus on was the passionate kissing me and her shared that night.