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PROLOGUE
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I was born Joshua Steven Hanson. In my family we have a tradition that the first born son inherits the father’s middle name. My Father of course is Steve and my Mother, Loni. It was June 28th 1981, and just like most people I don’t recall much of it. However, I was once asked in my English Literature class what the first memory I ever recall is, and the answer is kind of interesting. It’s interesting because even on that day I remember waking up to the world without any memory of what occurred the days before. I did still know where everybody and everything was. I knew that if I walked out into the garage I would find my mom smoking a cigarette, I also know I had a younger brother named Matt. That morning I awoke on a pull out bed somewhere out in Hallie. When I think back to those years I remember the color orange. It might’ve been the carpet, or the walls. It was the early eighties, the time where the 70’s was still phasing itself out. The Technicolor tremors were slowly transforming into the synthesized Americana induced decade that I would grow to love and adore, yet be ignorant to all the troubles that occurred in this time. As I said I don’t recall much of my life in Hallie. I know we went to a babysitters with huge steps (of course I was only 2 or 3) and just like everything else around that time- they were orange.
We moved around a lot. I made friends and lost them each year. I went to Preschool twice because my parents felt the need to hold me back one more year before Kindergarten. Yet, when I taught myself to read before any of the other kids, I think I proved one year would’ve been enough. We lived on 5th avenue, when I started Kindergarten at Randall. This makes me feel old when I think about it, because now 5th ave is a college housing street and Randall has become a college apartment complex. (Damn time flies) During this time, an angel came into my life, my sister Melissa Noelle Hanson. She was born on Christmas day 1985, and to this day is considered the best Christmas gift I ever received. We stayed on 5th avenue all through Kindergarten and for the only time in my life, I was actually a popular kid. The friends I had back then actually were the popular crowd come graduation day at Memorial. One in particular was my first CRUSH. Her name was Lindsey and I found her quite adorable. I even told my parents in front of me that she was my girlfriend. I waited for her bus (which was always late), and got in trouble numerous times for being late to class. Those who know me will find that quite amusing because I never got over the punctuality issue. It was in Kindergarten when I started to grow into my independence in some ways.
The 80’s were a strange time for our generation and our parents. I grew up in a house where the dawn of VHS and HBO as rising like a sun. Up to this point in my parents’ lives, the only way to see movies was to go to the movie theater and that was it. Once the 80’s hit, the invention of the VCR and BETA (think Blue-Ray and HD DVD) changed the home video world as we know it. Combine that with HBO and Cinemax first airing on cable channels and you can start to see how parenting could become distracted. My father would set our VCR (which had a remote connected to a 5 inch cord, which wasn’t long enough to reach our couch mind you) to tape movies off the movie channels all day and night. When I was 4-5, the first movie I ever saw with my dad on TV was the end of the TERMINATOR- you know the scene where his skin melts off and the shiny endo- skeleton is underneath? Yeah, I was 4 or 5! Needless to say I loved movies. I loved acting in imagination ones. I even had an imaginary friend named David. “JOSH HANSON AND DAVID KRUGER STAR IN………..” I would wake up in the morning before my parents and I wouldn’t play with my toys, I would grab one toy as a prop and turn into an actor on the big screen. I got so used to this that it turned into independence. I would be at Kindergarten and during playtime, I would go off in a corner of my own and jump into my own world. I even got in trouble once for refusing to play with other kids, even my “girlfriend”. As that year went by I went to my first birthday parties, and saw a few classics in theaters- ET and BACK TO THE FUTURE. It was also the first time I was introduced to music.
I remember it well. It looked like a cube but it had a digital clock on the front that glowed neon green. On the top there were buttons and one dial. My dad brought it into my room one night and turned it on. My ears exploded into a surreal sound experience. I was invaded by something that could cut silence like a knife. I knew even then that I would never be able to go another day without this in my life again. I remember listening to Beach Boys (their comeback). Toto, Chicago, Journey, Survivor and others. I loved music and my Dad was a Wedding DJ so it was perfect. He would call me and my brother his “beat men” we would sit in the living room with him as he would play new music and if we liked it, he would keep it.
I’m rambling on a little bit and I apologize. If I wanted to explain my life in detail, I could write a whole book on that. The point of this prologue is to explain the important events that lead to who I am and the women I chose as life continued. But before I continue on I also have to explain the dark side of growing up. I believe that the people we are today are direct influences on the experiences as a child. When you’re a child, you absorb more information than anything else in your life. You make conscious choices that become almost habitual in the remainder of your life. Like the saying goes “habits are hard to break.” As a child I was exposed to things a child shouldn’t be. My father was a weird guy back then. He was a great father, but there were things about him still have never asked him about and probably never will. For instance one morning my brother and I were snooping around the house while our babysitter was talking to her boyfriend on the phone and not watching us and I discovered a couple books in a drawer in his room. One was a giant hard cover book, with a huge pentagram on the front of it. Inside there were rituals and naked women with snakes and dark candles. I remember feeling afraid yet curious when I came across it. The other was a fairy tale comic book with stories like Rumplestillskin and little red riding hood. But when the prince saved the princess in the tower she got naked and gave him a blow job! I’d never seen anything like this before at this age, and in a way it scared me as I got older and actually started being interested in sex. I kept thinking how gross and wrong it looked, and growing up I thought it fake. Of course when I was older and reading playboys at my friend Bobby’s house in middle school, I realized it was real and I couldn’t take it. I thought sex was a beautiful thing, not barbaric and gross. I have become quite experienced in sex as of today but I still hold back on some urges due to the reflections I saw as a child.
Anyways, Kindergarten was over and we moved again before I started 1st grade. This time to Hamilton Street so I could attend Putnam Heights. Talk about a complete change in status within one year. In Kindergarten I was the MAN (or kid) I had a corner set aside just for me, because I was the class clown and trouble maker, and well liked. But this school was complete opposite. Every kid in my class didn’t like me. It might’ve been because I fell asleep a lot in class, or I had ADHD which wasn’t labeled at that time. I only had two friends, An African-American named Jeff, and a bully named Andy who became my friend after pushing me down a slide and feeling bad about it after he did it. I didn’t have any girlfriends or friends. I lived in the basement with posters of the Lost Boys, and Roger Rabbit, and of course my radio. My brother was becoming a trouble maker around the house. He broke out of room and ran over to the neighbors once, and he always would escape the gate locking him in his room. My parents would go to work and would lock the door to the basement and the bathroom upstairs which was adjacent to it. The bathroom had two doors. Every afternoon I would walk up the stairs to the basement door and my brother would jump his gate and walk into the bathroom to that locked door and we would read to each other or just talk for an hour or so until Mom came home. When Dad discovered he couldn’t keep my brother contained he decided to put tacks up on top of the gate to deter him. However, every night while my mom was doing laundry in the basement and her back was turned, he would jump the gate still, sneak downstairs and get in bed with me. I remember one night he and I were jumping on my bed and singing to WILD WILD WEST (not will smith’s version). We were very close, and it was a good thing considering we were our only allies in the upcoming storm.
I remember various fights between my parents. I was sleeping in their room before I moved into the basement and each night I would be awakened by the light flicking on and them yelling at the top of their lungs. So one day when I was downstairs using a meter stick as a sword and playing my own version of Willow, I wasn’t surprised by the fight upstairs ending with a couple slammed doors and complete silence in the house. I kept playing the epic sword match between me and David, which I was far too cunning for his swordsman ship. I jumped and dived and cut his head off. When suddenly the door upstairs opened and my mom said to get in the car. My brother, sister and I were all heading to my grandma’s in Plymouth, but Dad wasn’t coming with us. We left without any wonder what was happening, and we stayed there for a week. During that time I remember having the time of my life but when my dad called to talk to us, my mom wouldn’t let him. When we finally returned back it didn’t seem like long when my dad started packing things up and they were getting a separation. Like most kids I thought it was normal, I mean I didn’t know anybody that didn’t have parents. They made us! They can’t end something like this. I can’t be alone in this world without two parents. They have to TRY DAMMIT! I figured everything would be alright, but it wasn’t. I didn’t realize until later that my Mom already had other sights. I don’t know how long or when, I remember a hot tub party with a guy, at his player-pad and I remember the next time being at my grandmothers when my dad asked about it, my mom was standing behind me telling me not tell him anything. “TELL ME JOSH!” I started crying on the phone to him “I CAN’T MOM WON’T LET ME!!!!” I started to hate her. I couldn’t see my father except on weekends, and even though he only lived 5 blocks down in an apartment complex I was too little to walk all that way. My brother tried once though. He packed up his blanket and his stuffed animals in our red wagon that we used push others around in. And told Mom he was moving to dads and started walking. But he couldn’t do it either. My very first hero I would ever know was within my sights and no matter how much I reached out my hand I couldn’t touch him. I couldn’t get to him and I was so broken. One night he came back to get some the last of his things and they started fighting until he left and slammed the door. Matt and I ran after him in the pouring rain, jumped in his car and slammed the doors. I remember seeing my mom crying trying to get in and get us out and we just kept screaming “I hate you” Of course Dad was a caring man, and he told us we had to get out, and we did. It goes black after that though.
Some of you can imagine what this was like; others of you are still in a perfect family or at least semi-perfect. My father went through a dark period in his life. He almost committed suicide over the thought of losing his kids. Some fathers pay child support because they fucked everything up and they weren’t worth the child that came into this world. They didn’t deserve them and didn’t care. My dad couldn’t live without us. Soon after that incident, we ended up meeting at Shopko for our weekend visit. The divorce was settled and my Dad decided he wanted to take us away from all of this. He was going to take us to Disney World, and we’d live happily ever after. The ride was long and My dad being the nurse he was decided to put sleeping pills in our slushies from seven 11. He only gave us enough to fall asleep, when my brother took a long drink my dad grabbed the glass and through it out. Based on all the psychology books you read about kidnappings, and Disney world this is the part that doesn’t make sense. My father wasn’t trying to kill us, but my mother told the cops he was. We stopped in a hotel in MN and the next day my dad realized what he was doing. The cops told him he could come back and drop us kids off and they would arrest him out of sight of us. Instead when we pulled up to his mother’s house, they pulled a gun on him in front of his kids. He went to jail and was put into supervised visitations where he would be questioned every time he wanted to give us a hug. As I grew up and saw what my dad went through, my brother and I made a conscience decision that we would find THE ONE and be sure they were THE ONE before ever getting married.
My mom went through tons of babysitters that didn’t do anything. One of them even let me watch Child’s Play. Another took us to a party at some ransacked house. My dad tried to fight for custody but didn’t have a leg to stand on with the jail time. My mom dropped us kids off at a farm for a week and left us alone. At the time I had the time of my life, but as I grew up it when I realized she was going to see a man that would eventually become the destroyer of my world, and a hunting apparition in the rest of my life. I also remember seeing my dad disappear for a while and the feeling that I might never him again. As the year was coming to a close, my dad reappeared and took us out for my birthday on the last day in Eau Claire. My mom had made plans behind all our backs and the truth would eventually reveal itself. I would’ve been a preppy memorial bound student to follow in the footsteps of my father and his siblings. Instead we were being torn away from the right side of Eau Claire, and being transported to a small town called Cadott. My life was being weaved into the illusion of a trailer park where the loss of my childhood would become abundantly clear in a world that shape me into realizing that it’s not where we come from but who we become. It’s not about money, it’s about personality. Best of all, I would discover how to read people and be street smart to my surroundings. Of course it was also my development of hell.
The trailer park was actually a fun part of my life. I learned to ride bike by using my mom’s pink schwinn and forcing myself down a steep enough hill until I was forced to peddle and turn the corner. The hill became my training wheels and once I learned how to ride like the wind, I never stopped. As a kid it was the perfect playground, kids everywhere something to do everyday. But there were consequences and dark corners. A man that introduced me to Nintendo and most importantly Super Mario Brothers had a hidden agenda of his own. I don’t remember his name, I just remember he would let us come over anytime and he let us watch movies we weren’t allowed to (not porn or horror, but R rated like STAND BY ME). As time went on, we later discovered he was a child molester. We picked on his wife about it one day when she was walking past and she called the cops on us for harassment. The cop knew my first name in Cadott. I got in trouble to breaking windows with rocks, accidentally breaking a passing cars windshield with a baseball I was throwing across some dirt hills to my brother standing on the other side of the road. We were warned that one more incident would be our last, every time it happened. School wasn’t any better than 1st grade. Nobody liked me aside for a couple of the trailer park kids. I was tripped, picked on, and I was a trouble maker. I became a thief. I would steal things out of backpacks, like candy and small toys. Every time I got into trouble I would get a green slip. Four green slips meant detention. By the end of 2nd grade, the last day of school I was in detention. I also had to get glasses that year. One more reason to get picked on I suppose. I was only supposed to wear them occasionally when watching TV or stuff. Since I watched TV or played Nintendo all the time, they became a necessity. The summer of third grade, I met a girl. Her name was Andrea. Just like Lindsey, we called each other boyfriend and girlfriend, but that was it. We would hang out everyday, swing on my swing set and sing to each other. I was really easy to get along with back then; I talked to everybody and made friends easily, as long as it wasn’t in school. I don’t recall much of third grade. That was probably because that’s when the dark shadow first entered my life. His name was John Smith, and I’m not changing names in this case, it’s so common it doesn’t matter that I write it down. He was the reason my Mom left my Dad, the reason we were dropped off a farm house for no reason for a week, and the reason we moved to Cadott. My mom would leave us with a babysitter, while she was off visiting him for awhile. We hated the babysitter and eventually made her quit (HIGH FIVE) my mother decided it was time to introduce us to him and his oldest daughter could babysit us from then on. She was only three-four years older than me, but she treated me like I was a toddler. She even played dress up with me and my brother one day, against our will. As time went on we started to like John. I still missed my father, but I was sick of seeing my mom alone, and dealing with the babysitters. My dad had visits still, and he was able to take me to his DJ booking one Saturday. I fell asleep on the floor of the stage all curled up in a ball with my jean jacket laying over me. But, we went out for breakfast at a small time diner afterward. Eventually my mom announced we were moving again. This time we were being dragged to John’s mother’s house with him and his three kids. We packed up and I said goodbye to Andrea as we took off for Chippewa Falls, and the next four years that destroyed the rest of my life.
“I know you have a father and I would never replace him. That’s not my job. I do however want to be your friend.” The first words John said to me the day we moved in. They sounded sincere, and I believed him. I started 4th grade at Stillson Elementary. I made friends quickly but when my reputation for being a deadbeat got around, they quickly spit in my face. I was made to wear hand me downs to school; my hair was parted like something out of grease and sometimes never got a haircut for months. I came to school in the summer time wearing shorts that were too short and a shirt that almost showed my belly. I was beat up, laughed at, and I didn’t have a single friend in that school or that town. It even got worse when my brother realized that he had to rebel more than I ever have. He gained popularity and in order to keep it, he and his younger friends would pick on me as well. I had nobody, I had nothing. At home we were barely ever inside. After breakfast every morning we were forced to go outside. Before the marriage we went out as a family playing baseball and tag. After my Mom was owned by him, we were forced against our will to find things to do. My imagination and loneliness finally took control over me. I created my own world. I would play movies every day. I even had my stepbrother John Jr. (I’m not kidding) playing as a character in this warped world with me. My brother had developed a temper through the divorce. He kept it all inside and almost killed me with a crowbar one day over a stupid fight during a baseball game. John would be on my ass every time he could. I was told to shut up, everything I did was wrong. He caught me lying, he stopped every idea I had at having fun. I became a loner and I became shy to everyone. I blocked out most of this life. I remember bits and pieces only. I was in cub scouts; I was molested by my stepbrother in the middle of the night when he stuck my hand down his pants. I tried to scream out to the world. I would tell my Dad everything that was happening, but by law the courts had to report it to my mom and John. Of course I became an enemy to that household. Eventually during this time, my Dad was taken off supervised visits. He was with a new woman as well named Penny. We’d hang out at their house, and go out to eat and movies. It was my escape from the nightmare I was living in. These memories start jumbling up around this time, so let’s move forward to the final part of this chapter- Chippewa Falls Middle School.
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Middle school was just like elementary school except there were more kids and they were meaner. I was so reserved and introverted that I didn’t talk to anybody. I had one friend named Chris, and that was it. I remember vividly one day when a girl from my class pushed me down and in mid fall I ended jamming my finger into a leg of the table. I was crying lying on the ground in pain. And hovering above me was my entire 6th grade class in that division of homeroom, laughing and kicking me. I would go home and try to stay sane. But I still kept getting trouble. One night my mom actually pushed me into the bathroom by hitting me and I fell into the bathtub. I filed a complaint with my counselor at school and social services came to the house. John was able to convince them it was all in my head and I was actually threatened that if make any more false accusations I would be taken out of the house. I wanted to go, but I couldn’t leave my brother and sister alone with this evil man. Meanwhile my dad had found a small apartment in Altoona and we would spend the night once a month for a weekend. I wanted to do everything with him. He made a lot of promises during that time. He’d say we would go see a movie and it wouldn’t happen because he’d be too tired or wouldn’t have the money. As this went on it created impatience in me. I started asking him over and over are if we’re going or not and he would get mad about it. After so many times, it became a part of personality. I never wanted to wait for anything ever again, and if plans would change, I would still pursue them on my own. It hasn’t left me to this day, and has caused many problems with my future relationships. In this dark period of my life, where I’d built so much anger and resentment and hate into myself, there was a ray of hope introduced to me.
In English class one day, my teacher had an assignment of us. He brought out a book with pictures called The Mysteries of Harris Burdick the book had a back story where the editor of the book had an encounter with an author and illustrator named Harris Burdick, who provided images and captions as samples, each from a different picture book he had written. He left with a promise to deliver the complete manuscripts if the editor chose to buy the books. Burdick was never seen again, and the samples are all that remain of his supposed books. The idea was that each of us was supposed to use the picture to write a story based on it. We were also to include the caption somewhere in the story. This class became my hammer to break the mirror I was frozen inside of. I started writing, and writing and writing. The more I wrote, the more life came into focus for me. All of my hatred and loneliness could be channeled into these stories. I started writing poetry, songs, and eventually a novella based on a dream I had. I wasn’t focusing on the teachers in class or the constant whispers of the kids talking about me. My concentration was on my notebook and pencil. As my grades started to slip, my Mom realized I might have ADHD. I was put on medication for it, but always thought that it was just a way to shut me up. I became a zombie, according to my dad. I would still write and I also loved to read as well. I read every chance I got. I was reading 100 paged novels since I was in 2nd grade. I graduated to fear street and Goosebumps, I loved Goosebumps. I had every book in the collection. My preference was horror and I wrote about it all the time.
During the second half of 6th grade, a classmate of mine named Rusty introduced me to two of his friends at lunch one day. Their names were Nate and Bobby. While Rusty was kind of like me, soft spoken and smart. Nate was a joker of the group. Intelligent, wise, and a little perverted too. Bobby was a geek; he loved Sea Quest and computers. Nate came from a decent home, middle-class Chippewa Falls if there is such a thing. But he never really wanted that life. He was his own person, an outcast like me but in a different way. Bobby came from a broken home, his mother had tried killing him when he was child and his stepmother made him into her slave. His father’s health wasn’t the best, and Bobby was living his own world just like us. To this day I can’t really describe Rusty except to say he was a farm boy with 4 siblings all starting with R’s. We joined Battle of Books together, and I went to Nate’s house for his birthday. It was the first time I was able to get out of my house after school and go hang out with somebody in 3-5 years. All four of us were our own group, and as the next couple of years went by we became impenetrable to everybody picking on us, we were untouchable. 6th grade ended and that summer my voice was changing and I was becoming an adult. I had thoughts of women. I dreamed about different girls, but I never thought about a relationship or anything. I had my friends, and my escape from this house and this family. That summer ended with a huge party at Bobby’s house where all four of us finally were at the same place at the same time. We watched THE STAND, played baseball, went mudding outside, and had an amazing time. When it came to our group it was a NO WOMEN ALLOWED clause. Bobby was too involved with his playboys, Nate was waiting for Cindy Crawford, and Rusty never seemed interested. Of all three of us, I would be the first to break that rule; it was going to happen sooner than we all thought
