The Circular Years

((Shannon O’Day’s Youthful Years in Sketches) (1900-1909))


There have been three books written on Shannon O’Day and some independent sketches, this is one of those sketches, for the curious reader who wishes to know more about Shannon’s earlier years especial how he came about for the liking of his most precious substance—booze!



Sketch One

The World According to Shannon O’ Day



The world, which grownups call civilization, or the city or county or country, is composed of a hazy, perhaps never-ending flow of thoughts, and to an eight-year old boy, I could say any boy, with a vast accumulation of energy, but in this case, that is, in particular, Shannon O’Day’s case, he fits the bill quite well.
They, Shannon’s nuclear family, consisted of his brother, mother and father, and they lived in the upper apartments, near the Capitol, of the inner city of St. Paul, Minnesota, between 1900 and 1909.
They only had one lamp for light, sloping crossways, giving light circular throughout the one big room they had. Although the kitchen was sectioned off, the bathroom was in the hallway, on each of the three floors. The building was old—even in 1900—an old wooden structure, perhaps built in the late 1870s.
Like all boys of his age, at his time and place in history, he wanted to travel, journey in search of adventure, perhaps to a war, yet his eyes could scarcely decipher what life was all about. He saw his father almost from birth—with his drinking daily, preparing to die daily, that is to say, coughing up blood, and hangovers, and bloodshot eyes, and reeking with booze out of his pores. Once out of madness, he nearly hurled him over the banister, from their third floor apartment. He wasn’t corrupt, just kind of disband, melted down you might say, with the winds of booze, which often swept his mind, engendered, stimulated his second self, his death’s second self, the one waiting for him, with his demons.
But Shannon, of Irish stock, had that intuition (or learned it mighty quick), that near second insight I might say, perhaps that the Druids had or Celts had; he also had that mental book, cyclical book of the devil’s, that he could see into—per near read, so Shannon knew when his father was possessed and when he wasn’t. This would suffice for his survival through those trying years.
These were the circular years for him, because he seemed to be going always in circles, especial with his father, things seldom changed, that is to say, he got drunk, they ate very little, except when their mother brought home groceries because she did some sewing for a neighbor, or cleaned a house, and so forth.

No reasonable mind can doubt this truth, whose instantaneous result would show up in the future—hence, thereafter, time without end—the curse of the world would befall him; and the theory holds true I believe, that when a boy is weaned on milk, he will grow strong boned, when he is weaned on milk and booze, he will perhaps grow strong, but also acquire a taste, a liking for the cursed substance called booze. He will—in time, have a body-chemistry change over, or if his genetic structure is likened to his father from day one, this imperfect substance, maliciously will take a voyage throughout his system, and seat itself at the helm of his being—near his soul, and forevermore, make him want more, make him come back for more, and Shannon’s father, was the organic ladder for Shannon’s demise with alcoholism, as well as his own, and the weakening of the heart of Shannon’s older brother Gus, I do believe.
It is enough to compare a drunk with a drunk, the rude unsteady hands of Shannon’s father would bring—or better put—permitted the formulation of Shannon’s future addiction to alcohol, where there would be no satisfactory resolution for him to stop its usage. This formless substance, with its chaotic nature made his father insensitive at times, and thus, would form a faithful, and catalogued character, and friend to and for Shannon.

No: 455 (8-25-2009)


The Circular Years
((Shannon O’Day’s Youthful Years in Sketches) (1900-1909))


Sketch Two

“Implacable Death”


I went to my bed, flopped down on top of my iron framed bed—I had already closed the curtains around the bed, nobody was home, just me. And there I lay on my back. The never changing world circled around me, as did the room. Everything was hazy, it was near twilight, the sun in the sky appeared to be hung onto a rope like a shadow, or perhaps it was like a cloud, it was by and large, an incredible day, a day without end, many omens, and I felt my pitiless death surround me. In spite of having been a child of eight-years old, my grandfather had died of alcoholism, and my father was on his way to such a death, and now me, at eight-years old, I was in the symmetrical gardens of the dying, or so I felt, my father allowed me enter without cost, perhaps more at coheres me to enter, to drink four-shots of 140-proof vodka—was his way of saying: welcome to the family curse.
“Was I to die now?” I asked myself.
I looked in the window behind me, it was likened to a mirror, I saw my reflection, in the midst of it all, I hated looking at myself, nearly in terror—I had a long looking horse-face.
“How does one put an end to these wandering illusions?” I asked myself, but of course, in simpler terms. Then got thinking, my father lived with these on a daily bases—by gosh, what a life.
I knew the fast moving thoughts and visions I was having were doubtless due to the alcohol, four shots in a row—it per near poisoned my system, saturated my blood stream. A bird flew across the window, unthinkingly I turned my head and waited for it to return, it never did. I had even noticed as I tried to talk to myself, my human voice weakened. I had tried to tell dad “No more…!” but he said, “Grow up you little twerp!”
And so I had two more shots, four all together. Back then, back when I was just a youngster, nothing I said reached the ear of my father; a man who is sitting in his own infinitely senseless, silence—somewhere I would expect, wanting, waiting but not getting another drink of booze, cause he’s long gone.

The Lamp and a Timorous Boy


The lamp lit the room, and after I sobered up I got thinking, no more faces remained or shadows. They had all gone a good distance away, without waiting for my head to produce questions and answers, there I laid in bed thinking….

I was a timorous boy, to say the least. I can say it now, but wouldn’t have back then, now that I have entered—and seem to be in the middle of (looking back), entered I say, into carrying out a life of drinking, that alcohol had degraded me by making me become shy. Furthermore, it made me an over unassuming man—, as a boy, I took leave of myself, went looking around for pa’s booze, sneaked it, quiet like, even took a few dollars out of his pocket when he was passed-out, and bought corn whiskey with it. The truth is that, I felt too often, and perhaps most often, too visible and vulnerable. But vainly, I kept my drinking under some kind of control during those youthful years.
At age ten, I had already told myself happiness had ended for my youth, no accident of fate. Somehow I thought in my head, or foresaw, that humanity had two regions that he could dwell in happily, one being a soldier, the other a bandit. On the other hand, a lifetime job seemed to me, whosoever would undertake it that is—it would impose upon him a future as atrocious as trying to find your way through a labyrinth. So I hoped and prayed there would be a big war, and there was, they called it, The Great War, and I told myself that was my cup of tea. For as I grew older, I drank more, and the more I drank the more the eyes of men looked dead to me. Anyhow, so war was my forte for when I’d grow up.


A Blurred Young Soldier’s Vision


Under the trees of our apartment building’s backyard, I meditated on this loss of youth I felt surrounded me one summer afternoon when I was ten-years old, ready to go and move in with our Uncle Hawk, and perhaps try to figure out the plan mankind had for an extended life for a human being, for a labyrinth that produced an everyday job for every solid citizen, in the country. I imagined it was under the control of some secret society, on top of some far-off mountain, and that they could escape if need be by some underground tunnel beneath the mountain that lead into the sea, and came up and out, somewhere else right out of a river, what a thought, and want a maze, growing out of a ten-year old mind. Yes I was lost in these imaginary illusions, for an undetermined period of time, youthful time. By observing my father, I got the impression men might be enemies of other men, depending on the simple differing of opinions they shared. But all men seemed to share the same understanding, and loyalty to the one country they lived in, perhaps that is why I figured being a soldier inspired me—filled my mediating days back then. I could see an avenue of escape, a strange destiny and course. Now looking back, I know the blood and tears that are required for a war, the madness, the shapeless mass of contradictory words that float across oceans and continents and other large land masses.

No: 456 (8-25-2009)