Scar Tissue # 3

            As a preface to my response I just want to say that this book is quite lengthy, and might take me a bit longer to read. To jump right into the book I’m gonna put it out there that Tony is really into getting high, becoming his father, and being cool. His life is about getting the biggest bang for your buck, in any area of pleasure, and he won’t stop until he has found the best way to be happy, for the time being. He briefly talks about his passions in writing and singing, but that’s not what his childhood was about. He grew up thinking that the only way to cope, the only way to feel happy, or to just not feel miserable, is to get so high that you don’t know what’s going on. He had no support system, no coping mechanisms, no one to hold him when he felt scared, rather he had to protect his father and keep HIM safe.

           Yet with all of this chaos in his life Keidis still found time to try and be the person his father would want him to be, a replica of all of his dad's hardcore qualities. He portrays himself as a suave kid who was pretty chill and knew how to get around, but I see through his little gimmick. He was taking Quaaludes at eleven, and had sex when he was twelve. I think he did this to prove to not only his father, but also himself that he could be a man, that he could live and be happy, he could do whatever he wanted to do if he put his mind to it. It became less and less about what Anthony wanted, and more about what seemed cool, what seemed like something his dad would do.  I think the pain he felt from his father not recognizing his efforts, from nobody recognizing his efforts drove him back to drugs and rebelling because he just wanted to be seen. He just wanted to fit in, even it was fitting in with the outcasts.

            Everyone wants to be seen, but when you are put in the limelight, in the eye of the public, you are also scrutinized and judged. I don’t mean to judge Keidis, but its hard not too. Its hard to have impartial judgement about someone who is flinging their life story at you. I"m not the only one though, those kids at his school, his mom, his step-dad, maybe even the guys at Rainbow judged him. They saw him as someone who didn’t belong, even when he thought he fit in.

            Being isolated and an outcast even when you believe yourself to be squared in, your identity to be found, you never really know who you are. Some people might say that Tony was just going with the fads, just like all the other hippies. Just like people might look at hipsters or jocks or whatever name you want to give someone, and say that they are just doing it to fit in. Maybe they think that’s where they belong, and that is who they really are. Perhaps everyone is trying to “please their fathers” and on the way they find their own path, they find who they really wish to become, and how to get there from who they are now.