Betrayed and Still Breathing

          I began my post at the Water Department in May of 2012. Mr. Browl and I worked in a booth about the size of a large shed. There were cameras to survey and patrols to do in the rundown neighborhood of Prospect Street.
         I was a little over six foot, a laid back Swede and was also in my spare time a Pastor. I had six years experience at various posts as a security guard. This would be my first day at this post. Mr. Browl was an old timer who had worked the post for four years. His skin was coffee colored, he had short white curly hair, and a white mustache that seemed to glow in the dark. The ivory soap aroma that emanated from him set him apart from everyone else. He had a catalog look and feel for what a security guard should be and look like. He was of the mindset you do it right or not at all.
          Most of our conversations took the form me filling up silence with what Mr.Browl considered small talk. He'd rebuke me with by saying
"At least think about what you say, if it is not important don't say anything at all".
         In our times together I would talk about the weather, sports, work, religion and I liked to sing and whistle. He was not in the least impressed by my knowledge and hated my singing and whistling. Over time I was learning to limit my talk with him to work related issues. He talked to me freely about ways to improve my work and make the post a safer place. Some of the more significant times we had together were when he told stories.

          A week or two later, while listening to Christian music, the silence between us was broken by his story telling:

"I was brought up in Connecticut near a tobacco plantation. I was the only black boy at the school I attended. The white girls were crazy about me. I made out with my first girl at the age of fourteen and was sexually active by the time I was fifteen".

"Dad always told me that it took a boy to please himself. It took a man to please a woman."

          About thanksgiving we had our first major conflict-he confronted me about not waking him up while he was sitting in the chair next to me. “You did not have my back”. He decided if I did not have his back, he would not turn in my timesheet as he had done in times past. After a cold war of saying little or nothing he shared more of this story.

"The dad that impregnated my mom was a black man, he ran off and reconnected with me only when he was on his death bed. You think I went to that assholes funeral. As a black man he was good for nothing.”

” A white man by the name of Mr. Browl was my real father. He was there for me and my brothers after the person who called himself dad left.” “Mr. Browl was always at work in a tobacco field; except for the times he was at home to keep us in line. One day I stayed out past curfew and dad said: "You don't live here anymore get out of this house. If you don't go by my rules you need to go somewhere else". (Mr. Browl, (my coworker) lived in a boarding house throughout high school. There came a day when he got a speeding ticket. He had no money and called his dad for help. He came to the courthouse paid the bill and walked home. Mr. Browl tried to get his dad to go in his car, so he could take him home. His dad shook his head no: "You might need me, I don't need you".
This left a deep impression on Mr. Browl. He longed to be just as independent). Mr. Browl's dad died some years later. Mr. Browl was in the Army at the time. It was the only funeral that Mr. Browl attended in his sixty seven years. As far as he was concerned the man he called dad was the only person that mattered--It was the last time he can remember shedding tears.

         Over time I was learning that Mr. Browl was different in many ways from me. He called himself the white sheep in the family while I was just as sure I was the black sheep. All the women at work adored him. He was always sharing food of some kind. They all could have cared less about me. I was one of the only white men that worked in the facility. The only thing we had in common was our Christian faith. He was forever reading the bible and Christian books. I was busy journaling and writing sermons. We both worked the midnight shift logging trucks and cars in and out of the gate. In between times we used a “Watchman” to touch various metal buttons strewn throughout the facility. While Mr. Browl was on patrol, I was writing feelings in the back of my notebook at the suggestion of my therapist. When I got back from my patrol I found my notebook on the floor and thought nothing of it.( It must have fallen off the counter, I thought.) I picked it up and resumed writing another story in my notebook.

         Mr. Browl got deathly sick around Christmas. His blood pressure skyrocketed out of control and he almost went into a diabetic coma. He was quieter than ever around me after this. At the same time he was going through sickness, I was having a major row with my wife. I was irritable and silent. I could not be sure who was being given the silent treatment me or him. Two weeks later, I looked at him-he looked down his face pale and ashen.
"Are you okay Mr. Browl?”
"NO" "I found your notebook on the floor and next to my name were the words "mother fucker". "I want to let you know the feeling is mutual." Nothing I said mattered at that point. At my last round of the day, I said; sorry and headed home, hoping the weekend would somehow calm the storm.

         On Monday, the second week in January, I was called to the office by Major Smith.
"I got some bad news for you; you have been removed from the post". "The security agency was the first one to get a copy of the paper that had been in your notebook." At first Major Smith did not think it was that big a deal and even consulted with a female staffer who was of the same opinion. Unfortunately the agency and myself Mr.Brower had connections in higher places. He gave copies of the damning evidence to the client and soon after I would be gone.

         After this I was faced with whether I wanted to write any more and risk someone else using my writing against me.. My writing had betrayed me. I felt violated. Yet here I am on a cold day in February the words flow. I am breathing words on paper, searching for words to set free

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