My dad had a steep learning curve. He hated to see me like this.
As I’ve learned from watching my brothers and sisters with their children, being helpless as a parent has to be one of the worst things ever. They just want to make things better. To shield them within reason from any pain or hardship. And that’s exactly what my dad wanted… and it broke his heart when he was powerless to help.
But he tried. So hard. I love him so much for that. I am so fucking lucky.
“What’s wrong, son?” my dad asked me very empathetically while I had my head buried between my legs in the car as a massive panic attack coursed through my body. When I didn’t respond, he asked me again, this time with panic in his voice. “What’s wrong?”
“QUIT. FUCKING. ASKING. ME. THAT. You are only making things worse!” I screamed back at him.
Boy, that had to have made him feel like shit. Like I didn’t want his help. Like I was pushing him away. I still remember that exact moment like it was yesterday.
I always feel like a piece of shit.
Riding down Highway 98 in Fairhope in the passenger seat of his white Ford Expedition. The windows were down with the humid Alabama air rushing in, only making it harder to catch my breath as the moisture made the air feel heavier. And Pop’s hand resting on my back to let me know he was there.
We eventually arrived at the E.R. at Thomas Hospital. Pops parked in the parking lot (say that five times fast) and didn’t say anything. He didn’t rush out of the car to carry me inside, or go into the waiting room to tell them his son was freaking out. He just sat there.
I’m really choked up thinking about it right now.
I know how bad he wanted to get me into the hospital to make sure I was OK. I know how hard it was for him to sit there and do nothing. But he did. He just sat there with me in the car.
After a few moments, I looked up at him with bloodshot eyes and tears coming down my face and asked, “Can we go home, please?”
“Sure, son,” he said with a smile.
He put the car in drive and headed toward home. “Is it OK if I stop and go into the gas station real quick?” he asked. “Sure,” I replied, totally exhausted from the adrenaline that had just burnt through my body for no reason in particular.
My amygdala didn’t go into fight or flight because a tiger was chasing me, or some shit. I was literally sitting on the porch drinking a beer when my brain decided to go haywire.
Anxiety is so cool.
Dad pulled into the station right by Gulf City Cleaners, a dry cleaning spot, and got out of the car. A few minutes later, he came out with a bag full of snacks and two big fountain Cokes. There were Reese’s, PayDays, Almond Joys, Zapp’s chips – all sorts of shit. He made sure to cover his bases.
No snack left unturned!
“Let’s watch a movie when we get home. Or we can hit the hay. Either way, we have snacks,” he said with the biggest smile on his face. Onward we went.
That was it. He acted like the incident never happened. And that’s because that’s what I needed. I didn’t need to explore and talk about the past 45 minutes immediately after it happened. I needed someone to listen and treat me like I was “normal.”
When we got home, I gave him a big hug and said,
“Thank you and I’m sorry.” He didn’t let me go but squeezed me tighter. “I am always here for you, son. Just tell me what you need.”
I grabbed the Reese’s and PayDay from the bag, laid down on the couch, and turned on the TV. “You took the PayDay?!” he said. “You little fucker.” We both laughed.
“How about we watch that movie with all the cool music,” Pops suggested. “The one with that little raccoon.”
He was talking about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 (GoG); a film that neither of us had planned on watching when it was released. But we both arrived there with a little help from the Universe.
There is a large sequence of events that eventually led me to see GoG Vol. 1. It involved the premature birth of the first child for one of my best friends, graduate school, my love of fountain Cokes and movie theater popcorn, and an extreme amount of humidity suffocating the air outside.
“Dad! You and Mom HAVE to watch Guardians of the Galaxy,” I told him during one of my afternoon walks with Coltrane. My dad was a lot like me in that he would give anything a chance, especially if one of his kids recommended it. I sensed hesitancy in his voice, though.
“Isn’t that some superhero cartoon?” he asked. “I don’t know if I want to watch that shit. Seems chooky.”
“But it’s got great music! The songs we used to listen to while driving down the road in the Trooper,” I countered before singing the lines, “IF YOU LIKE PINA COLADAS… GETTING CAUGHT IN THE RAIN.”
“Does the movie have some old jukebox or boombox on the cover?” he asked. He was referring to the Awesome Mix Volume 1 mixtape that Peter Quill, AKA Star-Lord, keeps loaded in his Sony Walkman at ALL TIMES during the film.
“Yeah. How did you know that?” I responded.
It turns out that my oldest sister, LaLa, and her family had given Pops the soundtrack from GoG Vol. 1, and the cover art was in fact a view of the Awesome Mix Volume 1 mixtape inside of the Walkman!
I think she either gave it to him for his birthday or just because – since LaLa is one of the kindest humans on the planet.
“That music is fucking GREAT! LaLa gave me that CD, and I have been cruising in the car with the windows down. Your mother and I will watch it.”
“The little raccoon. Rocket. He is my favorite character. He’s like me!” I blurted into the conversation.
“A raccoon?” my pops asked. “He must be a cool raccoon, dude! Gotta go! Love you!” And he hung up.
So, let me tell you why I love Rocket and why my dad came to love Rocket.
There is a scene in the movie where Rocket, a cyber-genetically engineered raccoon, takes his shirt off. You can see he has experienced some type of physical trauma. His body has scars, metal nodes, apparent implants, and patches of fur missing.
The charming and witty Star-Lord, the eventual leader of the Guardians played by Chris Pratt, sees these marks, and his facial expression is one that I can best describe as shocked.
Of course, this had to have come from Rocket’s appearance and not from the fact that he had found himself in the midst of a talking raccoon, right?
Fast forward to later in the movie when Rocket is drunk and arguing with Drax, another Guardian embodied by the incredibly talented Dave Bautista. Drax calls Rocket vermin in the exchange, and Rocket responds by saying:
Keep calling me vermin, tough guy! You just wanna laugh at me like everyone else! He thinks I’m some stupid thing! Well, I didn’t ask to get made! I didn’t ask to be torn apart and put back together, over and over and turned into some…some little monster!
That scene hit me like a ton of bricks.
In 2005, I was diagnosed with a mental health disorder. I was 18 years old. It was tough to wrap my head around the diagnosis. I experienced a period where I tried to rationalize why this happened and what I did to cause it.
Maybe some of you reading this can relate.
I tried to hide my disorder, but it always managed to poke its head out. Whether I went into a full-blown panic attack that resulted in me asking the closest human if they could drive me to the emergency room, or a rush of intrusive thoughts that left me paralyzed and needing a ride home, I always had to explain why.
That sucked.
People often reacted with that look that Star-Lord gave Rocket when he saw his cobbled body. A look of confusion and shock.
“So, does that mean you are like, crazy?” a person once responded with a terrified look painted on their face.
I got a lot of different reactions and expressions. None felt great. They sent my brain into hyperdrive and questions just filled my mind.
“Am I broken? Am I crazy?” I mean fuck, you can really make yourself believe you are “some little monster” if you let your brain ride the roller coaster long enough. If you think of the way people often respond.
I talk about this diagnosis and its impact in the Shaynee Lee story.
You are probably wondering how Rocket intersects with my pops and why he gave a shit about the character. That’s a fair question.
My family has been there for me every step of the way since my diagnosis. I am very grateful that the Universe gave me these people. They are a large reason I am here to write about this. Them and Coltrane.
In those early days, I would have complete breakdowns. Paralyzed in fear in empty parking lots, texting my family to come find me. Waking Pops/Mom up at 2 a.m. to take me to the E.R. Losing my shit and moving further into anxiety when people asked, “What’s wrong.”
Like I said, my family members had a steep learning curve.
But overtime, through communicating what worked and what didn’t work, my family became so good at navigating those episodes that they should all have awards.
When I’d ask my dad what was wrong with me, he’d say, “Not a fucking thing! You are Greenberry Taylor da turd (no spelling error). There is no one else like you.” My mom said the exact same thing, minus the profanity.
So, when I told pops that Rocket was like me – he got it.
“Ain’t no thing like me, except me! That raccoon is too cool!,” my pops texted me.
Yup. Ain’t no thing like Greenberry Taylor da turd except me.
Editors Note: I was told by the robot that delivers my mail on the moon that James Gunn reads this blog religiously. So, a quick shoutout to Mr. Gunn for creating characters and a trilogy that is one of my favorites of all time. I know my dad would have loved Volume 3.
