Windsor Court By Joe S. Thomas

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I woke up today with thoughts of Windsor Court in my mind…  I believe that’s my subconscious begging for a bit of punishment or perhaps some nostalgia for things long past and even dead…  Windsor Court, it sounds so elegant…  And the neighborhood itself was at one time…  Two and three story, beautiful homes built on the ridge that surrounds Chattanooga, Tennessee in the early 1900’s…  However, the things that went on behind the closed doors of my home at the time were anything but elegant…  These were the drunken times of Don and Nancy…  My father and stepmother…  Disgusting times for me that left more scars than I could or ever would own up to…  I attempt to forget those times, just throw them out without a glance…  I can’t…  Something drags them back…  Drags me back, today perhaps physically, but always mentally to look into the windows of the past to see where X marks the spot as they say…  I check the windows of the house of course, but also the windows of my soul, my being…  Windsor Court certainly marks a very large spot in the depressive, abnormal, addictive, hateful, abusive, disgusting side of me that seems to take over quite a bit…  More than I care to admit…  Sometimes I think I can go back to that house and if I concentrate hard enough I can exercise the demons, or at least put them back into the house where they belong so they’ll get off my back and leave me alone…  If only for a while…  It never works…  In fact, I believe a few more pack themselves into my psyche to walk around with me as I roam this old earth trying to make sense of it and myself…  The older I get, the more it seems there is no sense to it…  It’s just one man’s story and many have had it so much worse…  Poking around in those wounds gives me pause to look back, to think how I may not have measured up to their idea of a son…  Nevermind the fact that they didn’t even measure up as human beings, muchless parents to me…  My skateboard, punk rock and solitude against the world…  That’s the way it was…  All hidden behind that white picket fence and the walls on Windsor Court…  It often seems to me the older I get, the nicer the house, the better the reputation of the family who lives in said house, the more hidden monstrosities are more likely hidden away…  The walls are bleeding…  Begging to tell the stories of abuse and psychosis scattered throughout each beautiful room…  I think back to the bottles of Ronrico Rum poured down the kitchen sink out of fear…  Fear that if either one of them took one more sip something bad and irreversible was most definitely going to happen…  It didn’t matter…  Pops would just hop in the MG and head back down to the liquor store and come back with double the bottles that disappeared…  Ah, growing up…  Or shall I say growing away…  When you grow up around alcoholism you swear to yourself and all who will listen that you would never allow yourself to become anything like these pathetic fools who can’t even control themselves…  People who disgust you on so many levels that you wonder how it’s even possible…  What you don’t yet understand is that the same blood that runs through his veins is pumping through yours…  And on that fateful day you and your friends come across your own bottle of alcohol and a bit of idle time your story is already written too…  And for many years you have to fight to get yourself back from the clutches of the liquid that’s wasted so much love, time, money and honor it’s stolen from you and your entire family line…  Be careful taking that first sip…  Know your history and keep it in your heart and mind…  You may have your own Windsor Court to visit as I go and visit mine today…  Try not to dig too deeply into those wounds and try to allow a bit of forgiveness for yourself and maybe even for them…  If you can…  If not, I completely understand…  Maybe someday…  Maybe someday…