The last time I stepped out of that foster home, I was 16 years old. Two years later, I found a home in the barracks at the Navy’s Recruit Training Command, Great Lakes, Illinois. I put that uniform on, learned the language, and drank to forget.
The human subconscious is mostly formed by the time we are eight years old and makes 85-95 percent of our decisions. After I got sober, I spent my time building a good life, seeking recovery, and failing forward, but I began to suspect that a dark curse was placed over my life because I kept ending up in bad situations.
On April 17, 2014, I began writing what I could remember on the notes in my iPhone during 12-step meetings, putting the pieces together. I felt safe in those meetings, surrounded by people who acted out of love for the most part.
I kept them on my phone for years without showing anyone. In 2017 I participated in Ascension Leadership academy, a variant of the Landmark program. I showed the notes to my buddy. He suggested that if I ever write this book, I start it with Thomas’ death because no one gives a shit that I was born May 24, 1977. His advice made sense to me.
Life was beginning to get good, and I had wanted to wait to write a book until I was fully stable and felt that I had something worthwhile to say. I continued to practice all the tools I learned in PTSD treatment, 12 step and personal growth work. My daughter was in junior high, Kristin was happy, and I had a successful tattooing career. Should I leave my story behind and just enjoy life?
But it nagged at me, all those suicidal men in the PTSD program for combat vets. The stuff they shared. They also had been molested, beaten, neglected, and abused as children. How could I not share with them how I got to the good life?
I had not left the US save a couple of trips to Mexico since Iraq. I was happy to live out the rest of my days at home. The boys in my club from Iceland kept inviting me to come out in the summer. Iceland is one of the most peaceful places in the world. I just want peace. I decided to give it a go and try traveling.
I couldn’t find the original copy of my birth certificate to get a passport. I called New York’s health dept they sent me to a company that took over. The letter I received from Vitalcheck informed me that there was no record of a Forrest Lang. I called and asked for a supervisor. How the fuck do they not have my birth certificate? Two bosses later, the lady asked, “Does the name Pritchard mean anything to you?”
Instantly I remembered all of it. That my brother, who was three years older than me, molested me from as young as I can remember until I was ten years old, that we ate out of dumpsters, the beatings, poverty, religious abuse and cruelty. That my mom abandoned me. My foster mom molested me when I was only 12 years old, and she stole my innocence and my childhood. She adopted so Child and Family Services (CFS) would not check up on me anymore. Then she tried to kill me when I was 16, and I ran away and lived on the streets.
I remembered in such vivid detail that I began screaming, at the lady from VitalCheck, “That’s not my name! That’s not my fucking name!” I pulled over and screamed that my name is Forrest Lang until long after the lady hung up.
The next day I began writing Angel Blue on my Ipad.
I met Gregg Foster, and he looked at the first chapter. I had struggled to make it perfect and he said, “just get it all out, all of it. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar. Just get it out, bro. I will help you.” And then I poured it all out, typing on the screen of my iPad. Gregg strung all the parts together for me, kind through my pain and irritation. Writing Angel Blue was so painful that I emailed every version to a trusted friend. That way, it could not be lost. I also made her promise to publish it if I died in the process of writing.
The voices screamed at me when I was tired, “What the fuck makes you think that anyone cares what you have to say? You ain’t no millionaire, you’re a loser, a fuckup, a pathetic excuse for a man. You fucked up everything in your life, now you have had a couple of good years, and you think anyone gives a shit about what you gotta say? Fucking piece of shit, you are worthless, shut the fuck up, no one gives a shit. No one would believe you anyways. Don’t you remember that counselor in the Navy at the spiritual growth retreat? You opened up then, and she didn’t believe you. What makes you think if anyone even wants to waste their time reading your story, that they would believe you? You gotta lotta nerve, bro.”
By this time, I had a new weapon. Declaration, the spoken word. More powerful than those voices in my head. I used the fuck out of it. Shouting back, out loud, at those voices when necessary. I kept writing.
One night I was tattooing. I kept the door unlocked with the sign flipped to closed. That way, my friends could come in, and strangers would assume the shop was closed. I heard the door open, and after a few seconds, I looked up, expecting a familiar face. This big man was not familiar to me. I was like, oh, shit, one of the crazies off El Cajon Blvd is in my space. I might have to toss this dude out the door. I go, “What the fuck do you want?” He squinted at me, “Hey, sorry to bother you, man, was wondering if you could fix this for me. He pulled up his sleeve, showing me a faded first tanks tattoo, that blue diamond. “Fuck yeah, devil dog, I got you. Have a seat.
I finished my tattoo, and Nick Popaditch aka Gunny Pop sat down in my chair. I feel at home with Marines, so I shared what I was doing, my fears, and my intentions with him.
After his tattoo, he said, “Why don’t you let me take a look and what you wrote?” Out came a magnifying glass. You see, Gunny Pop, Speaker and author of Once a Marine, was hit in the head with a rocket-propelled grenade at Fallujah. Gunny Pop is a silver star recipient, a bulldog of a man, and an outstanding Marine. He has a tough time seeing at night, so he couldn’t tell the shop was closed.
“Doc, this is good. This is really good!” Gunny Pop signed me up for Focus Marines Foundation, a personal development course for Marines and Corpsmen that is goal-based. I attended and got the refresher I needed along with the motivation and encouragement to keep going. To set the bar high and move through the fear of failure. I broke two keyboards pouring out all those words.
A year in, I felt done enough to start querying literary agents. The few that responded did so with words like “not interested.” Rejection after rejection. I realized that I needed a good editor. Thomas Fitzsimmons, a successful author, began mentoring me and sent me to his editor, John Paine, who did wonders for Angel Blue.
One agent was kind enough to explain the rejections to me. I had no social media following other than my tattoo page and Facebook friends. No one really knew me, and my writing style is nothing special.
I mean, damn, I thought Oprah Winfrey was gonna show up in a golden chariot with a team of literary and press agents and thank me for all my hard work. “We’ll take it from here, son.”
I went through the manuscript one more time, taking everything I learned thus far and applying it to my writing. I worked hard on social media. Reluctantly, I started an Instagram page for Angel Blue. Believe you me, I learned more about human nature and how to handle rejection and cruelty from that page. I also found that the majority of human beings are good.
I felt silly because I thought that social media was for kids to post selfies and funny pictures, but I ended up making some beautiful friendships because of it. Like Lil, who was hit by a car when she was five and was supposed to die, but she proved them wrong and is my hero. Lisa, whose brother suffered from the after-effects of childhood sexual assault. He took his own life one April day. Lisa has an organization named for him, Sean’s Dream. And many more people shared with me their heart-wrenching stories of childhood trauma. We are not alone.
One day, rushing out the door, computer, calendar, and iPad under my arm and a bag of laundry over my shoulder, I tripped on the doggy gate and fell forward at a high rate of speed. I crashed through the glass porch window, breaking my arm and tearing my labrum and rotator cuff. Shit, I didn’t have time for a broken arm or opiates. I must stay aware to finish my assignment. I healed with water, Motrin, Tylenol, and plenty of clean socks. Literary agents rejected me one by one. I needed to move forward and begin the long process of doing it myself, but I was mentally, physically, and spiritually exhausted. I decided it was time to go back to the ayahuasca ceremony, ten years after the last time. I needed rest. Ayahuaska is an ancient healing medicine, sometimes called “the vine of souls” that is used to offer a glimpse into the spirit world.
I drove up. The sun was setting as I made my way to the sacred space. The first night the lights and shapes were too bright. I wanted to rest, but the mother ayahuaska had some things to teach me. A man sang over my broken arm the second night, put your shield down, and let them love you. Broken arm broken shield. The whole collective of humanity, all of the souls, rose before me that night, fierce, towering above me. “Who are you to speak to us?” I responded, “I am me. You can squish me if you want. But I am telling my story.” The collective dispersed like falling glowing Legos. And then I rested—deep rest, relaxation, like the sleep after an 18-mile hump with full gear.
An Iranian man who lost his son to suicide gave me a fatherly hug as I sat up. “I am proud of you, my son.”
Covid hit, and I decided that even if there was a nuclear war, if I survived, I would finish this fucking book. My therapist intoned that she did not believe me right in the middle of the pandemic. I had a mild breakdown. I called someone from every period of my life, making sure I was not a crazy person making all of this up. My company first sergeant was pissed at the therapist. Okay, it did happen and it really was that bad.
Thus far, I have been encouraged and lifted up by grassroots support. Because it is not my story. Angel Blue is our story, and I am merely a character in it. The big-time people so far have not given a shit. But most of us are not big-time; most of us are grassroots. And so far, people connect with Angel Blue.
After a year and a half of rejections by literary agents, I decided to self-publish.
I hired a cooboration lawyer for errors and omissions. They help us tell a story responsibly; you know how sue-happy people can be. I thought they would get my records from CFS for me, once again, dream on.
I was working doing tattoos, being a dad and a partner, and meeting all my other obligations, and now this. I contacted CFS, and they told me they had no record of me. I focused and gave it my all. The juvenile division said my records were destroyed. The police department, records destroyed. No one had records…
A supervisor at CFS said there were no records but encouraged me to keep moving up the chain. I called the city council, and they connected me with an angel. She drove to a storage warehouse and found a dusty box of records with my name on it, marked “destroy by 1999.” The policy is to throw the foster children away and then, seven years later, throw away any record of them. She went through the big box of papers, redacted the legally protected information, and organized my history. We shed some tears when she sent them to me. I exist. It really was that bad, and now I have proof. I told her, “Thank you so much. I have been shaken and don’t even have an original birth certificate.” Her voice cracked, “Well, you have it now, son.”
Social media is now blowing up. It is happening. A reporter for the UK paper, Inews, did an article about my TikTok account. I found Jeffery Machado, the perfect voice actor, to read the audiobook. J.Michael has been mentoring me and marketing and doing all that stuff I don’t know how to do. And here we are, less than two months away from publishing. I am tired, ready for this 4-year patrol, the longest patrol, to be over.
I’m ready to come home.