PULL THIS THING OVER

I WANNA PULL THIS THING OVER
By
Joe M. Harrelson

Seems I've been driving most my life
Going from one place to another
but right now
I wanna pull this thing over

I've been on the road since I was seventeen
Chasing too many women and not enough dreams
but right now
I wanna pull this thing over

I want to pull her in and lock her down
I want to stop for awhile and look around
tonight
I wanna pull this thing over

Somewhere down this road I bumped into you
I finally hit my brakes and now I'm through
so right now
I'm gonna pull this thing over

I'm gonna pull her in and lock her down
I'm gonna stop for awhile and look around
tonight
I'm gonna pull this thing over


If I told all the stories of my lovelife in this blog, none of you would believe it and understandably so. It's a sorted array of women from every walk of life, that I managed to connect with somewhere through my travels. Why I went through so many is hard to say, but Lordy mercy I'm lucky to be alive.

I'm lucky to have made it through the one from Jasper Alabama. She was 36 and I was 21, she was not only my girlfriend, she was also the vice president of the radio station I was working for at that time in Knoxville Tennessee. I had no clue what my young body was in for with this one, but for some reason I couldn't say no. It ended up being the most life changing, traumatic two years of my life.

Cat was certifiable and suffered from multiple personalities. Of course I did not know this until about 6 months into our crazy relationship. Driving down the highway, she would start speaking in tongue, which I thought was just part of her religious upbringing, Bam, lalalalalalala, I had no idea what to think. I just tried to keep the car on the road. I tried not too freak out too much. I had noticed alot of wild behavior, but I thought that was just her life and I was along for the ride. I knew she took alot of pills and I was so young, I never asked too many questions. I mean come on, here's this hot older woman, calling me her boyfriend, she was in radio and my boss, what could go wrong?

Where do I begin?

She took me home to meet her Mom and Dad back in Alabama. There, I learned more about this woman than I ever could have imagined.

About 50 miles before her parents place, she tells me she's been keeping something from me and now she had to tell me. She had a son, he was 14 years old and he was different, and I would meet him soon, because he lives with her parents.

Mike was different, physically. He had glaucoma in both eyes, a birthmark that covered 90% of his face that went all the way through to his brain, and one arm and leg were much shorter than the other. Mike was the sweetest kid you'd ever want to meet. Needless to say, I was in shock, I had never been around anyone quite like this before. Mike was in high school, a very intelligent young man. He cherished his Mother, he was so happy to see us when we drove up to the house. For six months I never heard Cat mention his name one time and then wham! Here it comes........

Mike was the child of Cat and her brother and because of the family's religious beliefs, she had the baby. The story was, that Cat's brother raped her on the kitchen floor when they were teenagers and that's how she became pregnant. Her brother by the way, I also learned on this trip, was in prison. Close to the end of this relationship, Cat was recieving letters from her brother, him telling her in graphic detail the sex acts he wanted to indulge in with her. I was on a slow train to nutsville by this time and working my way toward the brake.

Then there were here parents, Opal and Bill. The father once formed a gospel band with his family and they were pretty successful. Cat was the main attraction when she was a teen, she had the greatest natural singing voice, soulful and pure and actually had a number 1 gospel record. However, these days Bill would spend hours in his shed recording flatulence and creating songs of his "work"! Yes, exactly what I said. I kid you not, I could never make this stuff up.

The story continues.....

We were living in Nashville and I was working for a radio station part time and a hair salon full time. Cat was trying to break into the country music scene and wasn't working at all, but she had pretty good connections with Warner Brothers, but her uncontrollable behavior let that dream slip away. Missing auditions, not returning calls, she really burned alot of bridges and I felt so sorry for her. I knew she had been acting a little more out of control than usual and then things really started to happen.

She would eat only toast and wheat germ, she did this for weeks at a time. She'd go out and stay gone for days. Some nights when she finally showed up, she wasn't alone, she'd bring home men and women, sometimes both. Her "appetite" was extreme at times. Remember, I'm 21 years old and thinking that we're together, soul mates is what she called us, but this can't be right, but I hang on a little longer.

I found her under the bed one morning, she heard the song "Flesh or Fantasy" by Billy Idol sometime during the night, somehow that triggered her to believe the devil came into the bedroom and raped her, and she was so frightened, she crawled under the bed. She had been there all night. This was starting to happen 2 or 3 times a week, bad dreams, walking the floor, speaking in tongues. Lithium, Nardil and a few things not prescribed, do not mix well with Jack Daniels and brandy and she was not about to give up her booze. This was the beginning of the end as they say.

The relationship ended about the same time her brother was released from prison. He had been out 2 months and was at home one afternoon free basing cocaine. The torch he was using exploded, he caught himself on fire. He jumped through a window and ran and fell into a ditch and put himself out. Witnesses said they saw him get into his truck and drive to a Shell station near the interstate about a mile away. When he exited the truck, skin was falling off of his arms and face. He burned over 90% of his body. The last time I saw Cat was at the hospital the day her brother died.

10 years after Cat & I said goodbye, I was working in Birmingham, managing a traffic service for radio and television. I received a call at the studio one day and it was Cat. She heard me on the radio on her way home from work, she said she knew it was me and had to call. She wanted to let me know she was now okay.

She managed to get her medication right finally, she quit drinking and she went back to school and is now a RN in Birmingham. She told me she was happy and that she had a baby girl and Mike comes to visit often.

That was the last time I talked to Cat. I'm happy she made it through the storm.

As for me, that was just one relationship. I don't think I will share too many other stories about the women I've met through the years. I shared this one because I wanted you to see how extremely out of control another life can be, and how that life can overcome the worst part of living.

This experience taught me a powerful lesson. It taught me that sometimes you just have to stop and pull this thing over.