We sit in a deli, munching on chips and waiting for our sandwiches. I trace the black and white checks on the little table and glance around.
There’s a young couple to our right, good looking and likely aware of it, if their faces are any indication. It’s the look I wear when I’m made up – chin raised a bit higher, a slightly haughty, bored with it all expression. They stare silently at each other across the table and I’d be willing to wager that the only reason they aren’t speaking is because we’re within hearing distance.
To our left is an elderly couple, their bodies curved toward each other like weathered parentheses. I can only imagine what lies in the protected area between them, but that doesn’t really matter because, like most sentences, everything I really need to know is already out in the open. Further explanation would just ruin the effect of their shared side of the table, or the battered ring on his exposed left hand.
A group of teenagers sits, barely visible, around the corner of the counter. They’ve ordered their food to go, talking and laughing loudly amongst themselves while they wait. The crew making our sandwiches seems to find their exploits more interesting than the other patrons do.
And what about the two of us, this final pair? What, if anything, do these people notice about the way we sit and the way we speak to each other? I try to picture ourselves through a stranger’s eyes and it’s difficult.
She recently dyed her hair a dark, chestnut brown and I wonder if it dilutes our other physical similarities. I don’t think I look good as a brunette and prefer to keep as close to our original blonde as possible. Dark versus fair – she calls herself “the good twin”, but we have different opinions on what constitutes goodness. In fact, we have differing opinions on just about everything. Can they tell?
Our sandwiches arrive and, between bites, we continue our conversation. She lowers her voice, while my louder tone mingles with the laughs round the corner. We’re discussing a trip I’m taking soon and, though she isn’t angry as I expected her to be, she doesn’t understand my wanderlust. Everything she wants is right here in her own country, in her own backyard. She thinks everyone should be content with what they already have. It’s only one of the many ways we frustrate each other.
I complement her on the choice of restaurant and she smiles, offering me a taste of her sandwich. I don’t give compliments and she very rarely shares with me. She claims I always take what I want anyway, and perhaps that’s true. But we both seem to be trying harder today, and I wonder if our thoughtfulness seems as new to those around us as it does to me. Like the palpable awkwardness of a first date, can onlookers tell that we are more at home screaming at each other than having a normal conversation?
We’ve just finished wrapping up what’s left of our meal when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look up and into the smiling face of the old woman, her husband waiting patiently behind her.
“You look just like your mother”, she says, patting me once.
“Thanks”, I reply.
I glance across the table expecting to see my own face, twenty years older, smirking back at me. But I don’t. This is the moment when she always says, without fail, “Actually, I’m the better looking one” or “She’s the evil twin”.
Instead she says nothing. And suddenly I wonder if what she, and everyone else, has been seeing, is my reluctance to be like her.
Showing posts with label mom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mom. Show all posts
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Allergic reaction
I went to Dr. Kelly for help on someone else’s recommendation, when I was not only at the end of my rope again, but gnawing on it.
I was no longer seeing the Diane Lane look-a-like therapist. After months of sessions I found I couldn’t do it anymore. She seemed kind and she listened, but for some reason I didn’t completely trust her.
I put off finding a new therapist, because that’s what I do, and in the mean time things spiraled out of control. I spent almost an entire weekend in bed, in full melt down mode, and did something completely out of character. I talked to my mother.
Here was a woman that knew about curling up in a ball and checking out. All these years of living with this anal retentive, overly-emotional control freak that drove me nuts...and in the midst of my mess, I finally saw her. I felt ashamed of my inability to comfort her when that was probably all she’d ever wanted, ashamed that emotional displays make me uncomfortable and physical affection has a time limit.
She crawled into the bed and lay beside me while I cried. I didn’t want to talk, I didn’t want to be touched, but I didn’t want to be alone either. She’s never understood much about me at all – but this she knew how to deal with, this she could handle. When I had trouble breathing, she coached me right through it, calming me down.
I was too far gone to be embarrassed and when my sister crawled up and lay on the other side, sandwiching me between them, I just accepted it. Most days I feel as though they’re both vultures, waiting for me to show signs of weakness so they can swoop down and pick at my flesh. But that day I lay bleeding and they didn’t once take a bite. And when I finally told them what why and how, or at least as much of what why and how as I could spare, they told me not to worry and then they let me be.
Each day after that I got a little better – I got up, I cried less, I stopped staring into space and actually concentrated on something, anything else. I laughed, I went to dinner and I returned phone calls I’d been avoiding. Sometimes I’d get angry or disgusted with myself, for being what I call “melodramatic”, but generally I just “dealt with it”. And by that I mean I put it all back inside and locked it up.
I knew I needed to do something different, to seek out another therapist or take more than the occasional Xanax to numb the things that crept out of that locked place from time to time, but I didn’t. I took Dr. Kelly’s number and it joined the receipts and lipsticks at the bottom of my purse.
Until one day, not too long after my meltdown, I was sitting at work. I’d picked up my favorite fast food for lunch, brought it back to the office and ate every bite. Nothing was wrong at all on the surface, I felt fine. Except suddenly, I seemed to have something lodged in my throat.
I could still swallow, still breathe, but it was uncomfortable and I couldn’t seem to make the lump go away. I drank an entire bottle of water, even took out a mirror and examined the back of my throat just in case, but there was nothing. I got a fluttery feeling in my chest like my heart had grown wings and they were beating rapidly at my insides. My face grew hot and when I stood up I felt disoriented.
My boss walked by, glanced over and stopped. “What’s the matter? You’re very pale.”
“I don’t know. I feel strange...and like there’s something caught in my throat.” I explained all my symptoms and she told me to hold on, disappearing around the corner.
She brought back a nurse from the next department – one of the sorts that have a degree for paperwork purposes only and haven’t really practiced much medicine. I relayed my symptoms again and she nodded knowingly, perma-tanned fake boobs wobbling with every jerk of her head.
“It sounds like you’re having an allergic reaction. What have you eaten today?”
I looked at her, horrified. “Only Chick-fil-a...and I’m not allergic to anything!”
She nodded again. “Well, that’s what it sounds like. They use peanut oil, you know. Adults develop peanut allergies later in life all the time.”
“Oh no! No, no!” I had to take deep breaths at that point; the fluttering was making me supremely uncomfortable. Did people my age have heart attacks? What the fuck did Orange Boobs McGee know about it anyway? But the others immediately agreed with her and I couldn’t think of an alternate reason.
One of the other employees ran across the street and returned a few minutes later with a box of Benadryl allergy tablets, shoving two in my hand. I swallowed them and waited. For twenty minutes I paced back and forth between my office and my boss’s, sitting down and getting up over and over again, ranting.
“If I’m allergic to Chick-fil-a, you might as well go ahead and kill me now. Either that or I’ll eat it anyway and stab myself with an epi-pen every time!”
She laughed at me, but when I didn’t fall to the floor racked with convulsions she quickly lost interest. I decided I needed a second opinion.
“Mom”, I said with false calm after the receptionist connected us, “there’s something wrong with me.” I told her the problem, explaining how the feeling in my throat hadn’t gone away but got better and worse, better and worse. I told her the nurse’s theory about an allergic reaction and the Benadryl.
“But she’s got fake tanned fake boobs and I couldn’t real...”
“Alyson, do you have a Xanax in your purse?”
“Yes, why?”
“Because you’re not having an allergic reaction, you’re having a panic attack. You have no allergies, nor have you developed any. Take the pill, concentrate on breathing slowly in through your nose and out through your mouth and call me back in twenty minutes.”
“Oh”, I replied, stunned. “Ok...”
When I called her back and reported positive results, she sounded a bit smug. “What kind of nurse would tell you something like that?” But I didn’t really blame the Boobs MD up the hall – I hadn’t recognized the real problem either. I’d never had a panic attack out of nowhere before, not like that. I’d always been very upset to begin with, agitated or crying, before one presented itself. The seemingly random arrival of this one scared me and for it to happen at work, to cause me to lose an hour of my time, well that wasn’t acceptable.
“It’ll be alright”, she added after her rant.
“Thanks mom”, I said. And I really meant it.
I dug through the debris of my purse, pulled out the doctor’s number and took her next available appointment. I still had to wait a week and during that time I experienced several more attacks, including one in the car that was so bad I had to pull over. When I finally walked through her doors, I was doubling up on my precious, actually illegally procured Xanax.
Sitting in the exam room waiting on her, I wondered how much to say. Doctors can be funny about people admitting to taking drugs that don’t belong to them, but how else to explain how I’d been dealing with the problem thus far?
I was shocked when a woman that looked no older than me walked in and, truth be told, slightly miffed. I didn’t want a new doctor, I wanted someone more established. She looked more like a TV MD than the real thing.
But the minute we started speaking, I changed my mind. For an hour we talked – I answered all her professional questions and then, somehow, I was telling her about my dad and about therapist Diane Lane. And without divulging too much, she told me she’d been through some very similar experiences. My new doctor was young and optimistic – she seemed to “get it”, and she was only a family doctor. There was likely no couch in her office, in fact I didn’t even know if she had an actual office.
It wasn’t that I found someone to relate to, there were plenty of people that could say, “Yes, I know exactly how you feel and I’ve been there”. There was just something about her that put me at ease; I trusted her. I even told her about the pills. And I’d never once had that feeling with Diane Lane. With her, I’d laid out the things I thought she needed to know, resenting it and her, even if I wasn’t aware of it at the time. I wanted it to work, so I forced it until I couldn’t anymore, but gave just enough to get by and little else.
At the end of our appointment Dr. Kelly gave me two prescriptions – one for long term use and the other for more Xanax to use for panic attacks until the first had time to build up in my system. She said she thought therapy was something that I should continue with and she would call two of her colleagues for referrals, that I should keep trying until I found the right one, that it had taken her several tries too.
“It’s a shame”, I told her on my way out, “that you aren’t in that field.”
She smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll find the right one. Call me anytime.” And I’m sure she really meant it.
I was no longer seeing the Diane Lane look-a-like therapist. After months of sessions I found I couldn’t do it anymore. She seemed kind and she listened, but for some reason I didn’t completely trust her.
I put off finding a new therapist, because that’s what I do, and in the mean time things spiraled out of control. I spent almost an entire weekend in bed, in full melt down mode, and did something completely out of character. I talked to my mother.
Here was a woman that knew about curling up in a ball and checking out. All these years of living with this anal retentive, overly-emotional control freak that drove me nuts...and in the midst of my mess, I finally saw her. I felt ashamed of my inability to comfort her when that was probably all she’d ever wanted, ashamed that emotional displays make me uncomfortable and physical affection has a time limit.
She crawled into the bed and lay beside me while I cried. I didn’t want to talk, I didn’t want to be touched, but I didn’t want to be alone either. She’s never understood much about me at all – but this she knew how to deal with, this she could handle. When I had trouble breathing, she coached me right through it, calming me down.
I was too far gone to be embarrassed and when my sister crawled up and lay on the other side, sandwiching me between them, I just accepted it. Most days I feel as though they’re both vultures, waiting for me to show signs of weakness so they can swoop down and pick at my flesh. But that day I lay bleeding and they didn’t once take a bite. And when I finally told them what why and how, or at least as much of what why and how as I could spare, they told me not to worry and then they let me be.
Each day after that I got a little better – I got up, I cried less, I stopped staring into space and actually concentrated on something, anything else. I laughed, I went to dinner and I returned phone calls I’d been avoiding. Sometimes I’d get angry or disgusted with myself, for being what I call “melodramatic”, but generally I just “dealt with it”. And by that I mean I put it all back inside and locked it up.
I knew I needed to do something different, to seek out another therapist or take more than the occasional Xanax to numb the things that crept out of that locked place from time to time, but I didn’t. I took Dr. Kelly’s number and it joined the receipts and lipsticks at the bottom of my purse.
Until one day, not too long after my meltdown, I was sitting at work. I’d picked up my favorite fast food for lunch, brought it back to the office and ate every bite. Nothing was wrong at all on the surface, I felt fine. Except suddenly, I seemed to have something lodged in my throat.
I could still swallow, still breathe, but it was uncomfortable and I couldn’t seem to make the lump go away. I drank an entire bottle of water, even took out a mirror and examined the back of my throat just in case, but there was nothing. I got a fluttery feeling in my chest like my heart had grown wings and they were beating rapidly at my insides. My face grew hot and when I stood up I felt disoriented.
My boss walked by, glanced over and stopped. “What’s the matter? You’re very pale.”
“I don’t know. I feel strange...and like there’s something caught in my throat.” I explained all my symptoms and she told me to hold on, disappearing around the corner.
She brought back a nurse from the next department – one of the sorts that have a degree for paperwork purposes only and haven’t really practiced much medicine. I relayed my symptoms again and she nodded knowingly, perma-tanned fake boobs wobbling with every jerk of her head.
“It sounds like you’re having an allergic reaction. What have you eaten today?”
I looked at her, horrified. “Only Chick-fil-a...and I’m not allergic to anything!”
She nodded again. “Well, that’s what it sounds like. They use peanut oil, you know. Adults develop peanut allergies later in life all the time.”
“Oh no! No, no!” I had to take deep breaths at that point; the fluttering was making me supremely uncomfortable. Did people my age have heart attacks? What the fuck did Orange Boobs McGee know about it anyway? But the others immediately agreed with her and I couldn’t think of an alternate reason.
One of the other employees ran across the street and returned a few minutes later with a box of Benadryl allergy tablets, shoving two in my hand. I swallowed them and waited. For twenty minutes I paced back and forth between my office and my boss’s, sitting down and getting up over and over again, ranting.
“If I’m allergic to Chick-fil-a, you might as well go ahead and kill me now. Either that or I’ll eat it anyway and stab myself with an epi-pen every time!”
She laughed at me, but when I didn’t fall to the floor racked with convulsions she quickly lost interest. I decided I needed a second opinion.
“Mom”, I said with false calm after the receptionist connected us, “there’s something wrong with me.” I told her the problem, explaining how the feeling in my throat hadn’t gone away but got better and worse, better and worse. I told her the nurse’s theory about an allergic reaction and the Benadryl.
“But she’s got fake tanned fake boobs and I couldn’t real...”
“Alyson, do you have a Xanax in your purse?”
“Yes, why?”
“Because you’re not having an allergic reaction, you’re having a panic attack. You have no allergies, nor have you developed any. Take the pill, concentrate on breathing slowly in through your nose and out through your mouth and call me back in twenty minutes.”
“Oh”, I replied, stunned. “Ok...”
When I called her back and reported positive results, she sounded a bit smug. “What kind of nurse would tell you something like that?” But I didn’t really blame the Boobs MD up the hall – I hadn’t recognized the real problem either. I’d never had a panic attack out of nowhere before, not like that. I’d always been very upset to begin with, agitated or crying, before one presented itself. The seemingly random arrival of this one scared me and for it to happen at work, to cause me to lose an hour of my time, well that wasn’t acceptable.
“It’ll be alright”, she added after her rant.
“Thanks mom”, I said. And I really meant it.
I dug through the debris of my purse, pulled out the doctor’s number and took her next available appointment. I still had to wait a week and during that time I experienced several more attacks, including one in the car that was so bad I had to pull over. When I finally walked through her doors, I was doubling up on my precious, actually illegally procured Xanax.
Sitting in the exam room waiting on her, I wondered how much to say. Doctors can be funny about people admitting to taking drugs that don’t belong to them, but how else to explain how I’d been dealing with the problem thus far?
I was shocked when a woman that looked no older than me walked in and, truth be told, slightly miffed. I didn’t want a new doctor, I wanted someone more established. She looked more like a TV MD than the real thing.
But the minute we started speaking, I changed my mind. For an hour we talked – I answered all her professional questions and then, somehow, I was telling her about my dad and about therapist Diane Lane. And without divulging too much, she told me she’d been through some very similar experiences. My new doctor was young and optimistic – she seemed to “get it”, and she was only a family doctor. There was likely no couch in her office, in fact I didn’t even know if she had an actual office.
It wasn’t that I found someone to relate to, there were plenty of people that could say, “Yes, I know exactly how you feel and I’ve been there”. There was just something about her that put me at ease; I trusted her. I even told her about the pills. And I’d never once had that feeling with Diane Lane. With her, I’d laid out the things I thought she needed to know, resenting it and her, even if I wasn’t aware of it at the time. I wanted it to work, so I forced it until I couldn’t anymore, but gave just enough to get by and little else.
At the end of our appointment Dr. Kelly gave me two prescriptions – one for long term use and the other for more Xanax to use for panic attacks until the first had time to build up in my system. She said she thought therapy was something that I should continue with and she would call two of her colleagues for referrals, that I should keep trying until I found the right one, that it had taken her several tries too.
“It’s a shame”, I told her on my way out, “that you aren’t in that field.”
She smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll find the right one. Call me anytime.” And I’m sure she really meant it.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Advice
Last Friday, amid my sunshiny errands and trampoline jumping, I was dealing with family drama. It started around 9 that morning when I was sitting in my underwear in the living room, radio blasting, repainting my toenails blood red.
“I said what what in the butt”, sang my phone. Muting the radio, I picked up what I knew would be a long, repetitive call. It was my stepmom.
“Your dad has lost it”, she said immediately.
“I wasn’t aware he ever had it”, I replied. “What’s up?”
“I need advice. Tell me what to do.”
What followed was, as expected, a long winded account of all the things daddy dearest had been up to recently. Some of it I already knew, like the story about him throwing an empty bottle of Crown Royal at her on Valentine’s Day. Who needs candy and flowers when you can give your woman something really passionate...like a concussion?
And some of it was breaking news, like the fact that he was, supposedly, on his way to get a U-Haul to start packing up his things. He was going to take the dog, the horses, and the Harley and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it, so there! Dad has a flare for the dramatic and it was apparent that she knew, as well as I did, that he was talking out of his ass and wouldn’t be packing anything.
She wanted to know if she should get a restraining order or if she should wait things out, see if she could get him to leave on a mini vacation to give them some time apart. See, they’re in the middle of a lawsuit with his insurance company and, according to the lawyer, if she filed a restraining order it could jeopardize that.
I heard about how much he’d been drinking and the nasty names he’d called her. I heard “your mother is a saint to have put up with that man for over 20 years” and all the other catch phrases she’s adopted since her knight in shining armor turned out to be exactly what we all tried to tell her he would. I mmmed and ahhhed, and said the same things I always say – that she should have left him when he swayed down the aisle to marry her holding a bottle in a brown paper bag, that he’s crazy, and that no matter what happens between them, she’ll still be my family.
“I’m on my way to work to tell my boss I’m taking the day off to deal with this shit”, she said. “Will you call and talk to him? See what he has to say? But don’t tell him you talked to me.”
I wasn’t the first time she’d asked me to do something like that. I’d tried to explain to her before that questioning dad is an exercise in futility – the man lies so much that he wouldn’t know the truth if it hit him upside the head with a Crown bottle. But I agreed to do it anyway.
He answered on the second ring. “Hey Al, what’s going on?” I could hear the suspicion in his voice already, and I hadn’t even spoken yet.
“Hey dad. Nothing, just enjoying my day off. What are you up to?”
“You been talking to that bitch, huh? She called you didn’t she?”
Ah, paranoia! Signature scent of the guilty.
“No, why would she be calling me? What have you done?”
“I’m leaving. I’m on my way now to get a U-Haul.”
“Ok...why? What are you going to put in the U-Haul, dad?”
“Because she’s a crazy fucking bitch. All my shit, that’s what!”
I was relatively sure that whatever belongings he had in the house wouldn’t fill a large suitcase, much less a truck. If he actually followed through with that threat, he’d probably rob her blind.
He went on to say that he tried to get her to go to counseling (lie), but she’d refused (lie). He was tired of supporting her (lie, the only thing he supports are his habits) and she was turning everyone against him (lie, everyone was already sick of him ages before she came along). And when I expressed my doubt at those statements, and he sensed that he was getting no sympathy from me, he rushed off the phone.
Yeah, I totally called that one.
I rang my stepmom back and relayed the conversation, then attempted to wash my hands of the matter. “I’ve got to get in the shower. I’ve got to get going...errands and stuff.”
Unfortunately it didn’t work that way. Though I didn’t speak to dad again, my stepmom called me with regular reports all day long. She was getting the restraining order, she wasn’t. She was filing for divorce, she wasn’t. She was going to have him removed from the house (because, surprise surprise, apparently he never did go get that U-Haul), she wasn’t. As usual, her indecision was giving me whiplash.
“I don’t understand you women”, I shouted at one point.
That night I passed on all Intel to mom and told her she could handle it from there. She and my stepmom have become quite the pair, gossiping and texting about all of dad’s indiscretions, united by the one thing that initially had them hating each other’s guts.
And so the weekend rolled on. I spent a lot of time doing nothing and every day I put off the phone call I should have made to my stepmom. I heard about the latest happenings from mom, so I knew she was alright. I just didn’t want to deal with the repetition of it all. I hate it when someone asks me the same question over and over. “What should I do?”
The buzz was that she’d spent Friday and Saturday night in a hotel, choosing to leave him in her house rather than deal with him. No one seemed to know what he was up to.
On Monday I was home alone in my pajamas, writing and drinking my weight in coffee. After spending the majority of the day on the porch with the laptop, I suddenly decided my room needed to be cleaned. And around 6:30 when everyone came home dragging the debris of their day, I was still going.
I was unloading the dishwasher, methodically drying cups and glaring at the pile of papers and purses they’d just stacked on my clean dining room table, when mom said quietly, so Leigha wouldn’t hear, “I need your advice.”
Surprised, I simply nodded and finished what I was doing. After I’d seated Hannah at the table with her dinner, I went to mom’s room. She was lying on her bed flipping through a Tupperware magazine.
“Please, tell me you aren’t going to buy more of that shit”, I said, flopping down beside her on my stomach and putting my chin in my hands. “We can’t shut the cabinet now.”
“I’m just looking”, she said, using the tone I call her “little girl voice”, a dead giveaway that she’s lying through her teeth.
I rolled my eyes. “Uh huh. So, what’s the issue?”
“Well...your father called me this morning.” She always says “your father”, like other people say “your asshole dog” or “your snot-nosed brat”. When she talks to me about him, its half gossiping with a girlfriend and half accusation...like it’s my fault that she married him. Which I suppose it kind of was, if you go around blaming fetuses.
I sighed and waited on her to continue. Mom loves a bit of drama with her stories; she’s very good at pauses.
“He told me that he was on his way here from Oklahoma, in Tennessee somewhere, and wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to have him locked up for back child support. (Pause)But! Your stepmom called me and guess what?! (Pause. Pause.)That bastard left two days ago! He’s already here somewhere, hiding out!”
I wasn’t surprised. If he had a signature move, other than breaking shit, it was lying in relation to his whereabouts.
“So”, she continued, “he says that he’ll give me some money on Wednesday if I don’t have him picked up. But I’m fed up with the shit. What do you think I should do? Should I have him arrested anyway?”
I sighed again. She didn’t really want my advice, just like my stepmom hadn’t wanted it either. They wanted to vent, they wanted me to say all the asshole things they couldn’t, and then they wanted to go about business as usual.
“Fine”, I said sitting up. “Supposedly he is getting paid while he’s here, so, if I were you, I’d tell him to have me the money he promised by Wednesday. Then, after I got the money, I’d have him arrested anyway.”
She looked at me, clearly conflicted. “I just don’t know. He says he’ll roll into town early tomorrow morning and swing by to see you girls. He’s still pretending he isn’t here.”
I shook my head and got up. “Well, I suppose you ought to figure it out. But I’m willing to bet you that he’ll be at our door before we go to bed tonight.”
“No, he’s too busy partying.”
I raised my eyebrows, because I can’t do just the one, and shrugged. “Whatever.”
At 10 o’clock on the dot I was sitting on the porch, wrapped up in my robe, reading. I heard a rumble and looked up. A truck with a motorcycle trailer on the back was inching its way down our gravel road, ridiculously attempting to be stealthy. It paused by the garden fence, on the last stretch of road visible before it would disappear around the corner of our house, leading to the driveway. The headlights cut through the dark and I knew he was sitting in the cab, watching me sitting in the chair, the overhead lights making our porch stand out like a theatre stage.
He inched forward and disappeared around the curve. I leaned back in my chair, knocked on the glass door, lit a cigarette and went back to my book, knowing even as I did that it was pointless. I was about to be bothered.
Mom poked her head out the door, responding to my loud rap on the glass. “Told you so”, I said without looking up from my book. I didn’t need to explain. She heard the rumble of the truck, immediately backing up my words.
“You get him out of here before he wakes up Ray”, she said, pulling at her nightshirt.
“He’s here to see Leigha, let her deal with it.”
She made a noise of disgust and turned to stomp off, but Leigha blocked the door. “Alyson, dad says for you to come outside. He wants to see you.”
I glared at her. “You go.”
“Come on”, she whined.
Both of them looked at me expectantly and I knew they weren’t going to leave me alone. In fact, if I didn’t go, he’d probably just come around and climb the porch steps. Resistance, as usual, was futile.
I got up and followed Leigha, defiantly carrying my lit cigarette with me through the house and out the other door. It was my last one.
And there he was, standing in the driveway in his Levi’s and a black pocket t-shirt covered by his signature button up denim, open at the neck and with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing his tattooed arms. His feet were planted so far apart that it looked comical. He’s rather short for a man and his stance and demeanor have always reminded me of a rooster. Work boots, ball cap, and a pair of black glasses with a lanyard wrapped around the back of his head completed the never changing ensemble.
“Hey Al”, he said, moving in to hug me. I gave him the sidearm hug, but it was more out of necessity than desire to stay away from him. We were both smoking, but of course he took it as a slight. “Oh, I see how it is”, he said, chuckling. I knew that chuckle and it wasn’t real. He told us that he’d be staying until after Papa’s wedding. On March 19th. A month. Fucking brilliant. I was happy that my poor stepmom was getting a break, but not if it meant a month at my own expense.
However, two days later (last night to be precise), things shifted again.
I was sitting at the patio table with Papa, dad, and my cousin Ashley. I’d come to pick up Hannah and ended up getting dragged into a discussion on my Aunt that ran away from home last week with thousands of dollars and ten cats in a bag. (It’s a long story.) That led into a discussion about vacations.
“I’m taking a vacation just for me, before I start school and get extra tied down for the next few years”, I said.
Dad looked at me in surprise. “You aren’t coming to Oklahoma this summer?”
I stared back at him like he’d lost his marbles. As far as I was concerned, the past week had been the beginning of the end of his marriage to my stepmom. It had never gotten so far as hotel stays and talk of restraining orders before.
“I was under the impression that ya’ll were done?”
He just looked baffled, like he had no idea what on earth I was talking about. Probably because he’d already managed to convince his self that none of it had ever happened. “We’re fine, she sent me a package of things I needed today. I’m going back to Oklahoma this weekend for a quick job.”
“I thought you were staying until the wedding?” I could barely keep the excitement out of my voice. If she was going to be dumb enough to take his ass back again, I wasn’t going to waste my time feeling sorry for her anymore. And I wouldn’t have to worry about him causing any drama here for the next month. Win/Win.
“I’ll be back before the wedding. She’s coming with me”, he said.
Later that night mom cornered me again. “It’s Wednesday and he still hasn’t given me the money. What do you think I should do?”
I’d had plenty of time to think about it by then and I’d decided that there was only one thing I could say to her, and to my stepmom, the next time they asked that question. I had my own vicious cycles to attend to and I was tired of being forced into theirs as well. The tentative relationship I have with him only works because I keep my distance, and I know better than to expect anything more than a load of trouble or a good laugh. I can’t make either one of them stop tiptoeing around him and grow a pair.
I grinned and shrugged. “I have no opinion about that.”
“I said what what in the butt”, sang my phone. Muting the radio, I picked up what I knew would be a long, repetitive call. It was my stepmom.
“Your dad has lost it”, she said immediately.
“I wasn’t aware he ever had it”, I replied. “What’s up?”
“I need advice. Tell me what to do.”
What followed was, as expected, a long winded account of all the things daddy dearest had been up to recently. Some of it I already knew, like the story about him throwing an empty bottle of Crown Royal at her on Valentine’s Day. Who needs candy and flowers when you can give your woman something really passionate...like a concussion?
And some of it was breaking news, like the fact that he was, supposedly, on his way to get a U-Haul to start packing up his things. He was going to take the dog, the horses, and the Harley and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it, so there! Dad has a flare for the dramatic and it was apparent that she knew, as well as I did, that he was talking out of his ass and wouldn’t be packing anything.
She wanted to know if she should get a restraining order or if she should wait things out, see if she could get him to leave on a mini vacation to give them some time apart. See, they’re in the middle of a lawsuit with his insurance company and, according to the lawyer, if she filed a restraining order it could jeopardize that.
I heard about how much he’d been drinking and the nasty names he’d called her. I heard “your mother is a saint to have put up with that man for over 20 years” and all the other catch phrases she’s adopted since her knight in shining armor turned out to be exactly what we all tried to tell her he would. I mmmed and ahhhed, and said the same things I always say – that she should have left him when he swayed down the aisle to marry her holding a bottle in a brown paper bag, that he’s crazy, and that no matter what happens between them, she’ll still be my family.
“I’m on my way to work to tell my boss I’m taking the day off to deal with this shit”, she said. “Will you call and talk to him? See what he has to say? But don’t tell him you talked to me.”
I wasn’t the first time she’d asked me to do something like that. I’d tried to explain to her before that questioning dad is an exercise in futility – the man lies so much that he wouldn’t know the truth if it hit him upside the head with a Crown bottle. But I agreed to do it anyway.
He answered on the second ring. “Hey Al, what’s going on?” I could hear the suspicion in his voice already, and I hadn’t even spoken yet.
“Hey dad. Nothing, just enjoying my day off. What are you up to?”
“You been talking to that bitch, huh? She called you didn’t she?”
Ah, paranoia! Signature scent of the guilty.
“No, why would she be calling me? What have you done?”
“I’m leaving. I’m on my way now to get a U-Haul.”
“Ok...why? What are you going to put in the U-Haul, dad?”
“Because she’s a crazy fucking bitch. All my shit, that’s what!”
I was relatively sure that whatever belongings he had in the house wouldn’t fill a large suitcase, much less a truck. If he actually followed through with that threat, he’d probably rob her blind.
He went on to say that he tried to get her to go to counseling (lie), but she’d refused (lie). He was tired of supporting her (lie, the only thing he supports are his habits) and she was turning everyone against him (lie, everyone was already sick of him ages before she came along). And when I expressed my doubt at those statements, and he sensed that he was getting no sympathy from me, he rushed off the phone.
Yeah, I totally called that one.
I rang my stepmom back and relayed the conversation, then attempted to wash my hands of the matter. “I’ve got to get in the shower. I’ve got to get going...errands and stuff.”
Unfortunately it didn’t work that way. Though I didn’t speak to dad again, my stepmom called me with regular reports all day long. She was getting the restraining order, she wasn’t. She was filing for divorce, she wasn’t. She was going to have him removed from the house (because, surprise surprise, apparently he never did go get that U-Haul), she wasn’t. As usual, her indecision was giving me whiplash.
“I don’t understand you women”, I shouted at one point.
That night I passed on all Intel to mom and told her she could handle it from there. She and my stepmom have become quite the pair, gossiping and texting about all of dad’s indiscretions, united by the one thing that initially had them hating each other’s guts.
And so the weekend rolled on. I spent a lot of time doing nothing and every day I put off the phone call I should have made to my stepmom. I heard about the latest happenings from mom, so I knew she was alright. I just didn’t want to deal with the repetition of it all. I hate it when someone asks me the same question over and over. “What should I do?”
The buzz was that she’d spent Friday and Saturday night in a hotel, choosing to leave him in her house rather than deal with him. No one seemed to know what he was up to.
On Monday I was home alone in my pajamas, writing and drinking my weight in coffee. After spending the majority of the day on the porch with the laptop, I suddenly decided my room needed to be cleaned. And around 6:30 when everyone came home dragging the debris of their day, I was still going.
I was unloading the dishwasher, methodically drying cups and glaring at the pile of papers and purses they’d just stacked on my clean dining room table, when mom said quietly, so Leigha wouldn’t hear, “I need your advice.”
Surprised, I simply nodded and finished what I was doing. After I’d seated Hannah at the table with her dinner, I went to mom’s room. She was lying on her bed flipping through a Tupperware magazine.
“Please, tell me you aren’t going to buy more of that shit”, I said, flopping down beside her on my stomach and putting my chin in my hands. “We can’t shut the cabinet now.”
“I’m just looking”, she said, using the tone I call her “little girl voice”, a dead giveaway that she’s lying through her teeth.
I rolled my eyes. “Uh huh. So, what’s the issue?”
“Well...your father called me this morning.” She always says “your father”, like other people say “your asshole dog” or “your snot-nosed brat”. When she talks to me about him, its half gossiping with a girlfriend and half accusation...like it’s my fault that she married him. Which I suppose it kind of was, if you go around blaming fetuses.
I sighed and waited on her to continue. Mom loves a bit of drama with her stories; she’s very good at pauses.
“He told me that he was on his way here from Oklahoma, in Tennessee somewhere, and wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to have him locked up for back child support. (Pause)But! Your stepmom called me and guess what?! (Pause. Pause.)That bastard left two days ago! He’s already here somewhere, hiding out!”
I wasn’t surprised. If he had a signature move, other than breaking shit, it was lying in relation to his whereabouts.
“So”, she continued, “he says that he’ll give me some money on Wednesday if I don’t have him picked up. But I’m fed up with the shit. What do you think I should do? Should I have him arrested anyway?”
I sighed again. She didn’t really want my advice, just like my stepmom hadn’t wanted it either. They wanted to vent, they wanted me to say all the asshole things they couldn’t, and then they wanted to go about business as usual.
“Fine”, I said sitting up. “Supposedly he is getting paid while he’s here, so, if I were you, I’d tell him to have me the money he promised by Wednesday. Then, after I got the money, I’d have him arrested anyway.”
She looked at me, clearly conflicted. “I just don’t know. He says he’ll roll into town early tomorrow morning and swing by to see you girls. He’s still pretending he isn’t here.”
I shook my head and got up. “Well, I suppose you ought to figure it out. But I’m willing to bet you that he’ll be at our door before we go to bed tonight.”
“No, he’s too busy partying.”
I raised my eyebrows, because I can’t do just the one, and shrugged. “Whatever.”
At 10 o’clock on the dot I was sitting on the porch, wrapped up in my robe, reading. I heard a rumble and looked up. A truck with a motorcycle trailer on the back was inching its way down our gravel road, ridiculously attempting to be stealthy. It paused by the garden fence, on the last stretch of road visible before it would disappear around the corner of our house, leading to the driveway. The headlights cut through the dark and I knew he was sitting in the cab, watching me sitting in the chair, the overhead lights making our porch stand out like a theatre stage.
He inched forward and disappeared around the curve. I leaned back in my chair, knocked on the glass door, lit a cigarette and went back to my book, knowing even as I did that it was pointless. I was about to be bothered.
Mom poked her head out the door, responding to my loud rap on the glass. “Told you so”, I said without looking up from my book. I didn’t need to explain. She heard the rumble of the truck, immediately backing up my words.
“You get him out of here before he wakes up Ray”, she said, pulling at her nightshirt.
“He’s here to see Leigha, let her deal with it.”
She made a noise of disgust and turned to stomp off, but Leigha blocked the door. “Alyson, dad says for you to come outside. He wants to see you.”
I glared at her. “You go.”
“Come on”, she whined.
Both of them looked at me expectantly and I knew they weren’t going to leave me alone. In fact, if I didn’t go, he’d probably just come around and climb the porch steps. Resistance, as usual, was futile.
I got up and followed Leigha, defiantly carrying my lit cigarette with me through the house and out the other door. It was my last one.
And there he was, standing in the driveway in his Levi’s and a black pocket t-shirt covered by his signature button up denim, open at the neck and with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing his tattooed arms. His feet were planted so far apart that it looked comical. He’s rather short for a man and his stance and demeanor have always reminded me of a rooster. Work boots, ball cap, and a pair of black glasses with a lanyard wrapped around the back of his head completed the never changing ensemble.
“Hey Al”, he said, moving in to hug me. I gave him the sidearm hug, but it was more out of necessity than desire to stay away from him. We were both smoking, but of course he took it as a slight. “Oh, I see how it is”, he said, chuckling. I knew that chuckle and it wasn’t real. He told us that he’d be staying until after Papa’s wedding. On March 19th. A month. Fucking brilliant. I was happy that my poor stepmom was getting a break, but not if it meant a month at my own expense.
However, two days later (last night to be precise), things shifted again.
I was sitting at the patio table with Papa, dad, and my cousin Ashley. I’d come to pick up Hannah and ended up getting dragged into a discussion on my Aunt that ran away from home last week with thousands of dollars and ten cats in a bag. (It’s a long story.) That led into a discussion about vacations.
“I’m taking a vacation just for me, before I start school and get extra tied down for the next few years”, I said.
Dad looked at me in surprise. “You aren’t coming to Oklahoma this summer?”
I stared back at him like he’d lost his marbles. As far as I was concerned, the past week had been the beginning of the end of his marriage to my stepmom. It had never gotten so far as hotel stays and talk of restraining orders before.
“I was under the impression that ya’ll were done?”
He just looked baffled, like he had no idea what on earth I was talking about. Probably because he’d already managed to convince his self that none of it had ever happened. “We’re fine, she sent me a package of things I needed today. I’m going back to Oklahoma this weekend for a quick job.”
“I thought you were staying until the wedding?” I could barely keep the excitement out of my voice. If she was going to be dumb enough to take his ass back again, I wasn’t going to waste my time feeling sorry for her anymore. And I wouldn’t have to worry about him causing any drama here for the next month. Win/Win.
“I’ll be back before the wedding. She’s coming with me”, he said.
Later that night mom cornered me again. “It’s Wednesday and he still hasn’t given me the money. What do you think I should do?”
I’d had plenty of time to think about it by then and I’d decided that there was only one thing I could say to her, and to my stepmom, the next time they asked that question. I had my own vicious cycles to attend to and I was tired of being forced into theirs as well. The tentative relationship I have with him only works because I keep my distance, and I know better than to expect anything more than a load of trouble or a good laugh. I can’t make either one of them stop tiptoeing around him and grow a pair.
I grinned and shrugged. “I have no opinion about that.”
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Ray
It was a beautiful summer afternoon and I was sitting in my usual spot – draped across two chairs on the screened-in porch with a book in my lap. Mom was frantically running around getting ready for a date my godmother, and next door neighbor, set her up on. Every few minutes she would stand in front of me, demanding my attention and opinion on the latest outfit change. After the fifth or so interruption I was ready to let her have it, but I thought better of it and held my tongue – she’s very sensitive and I knew that, after her last failed relationship, she was more fragile than usual.
While I cannot sympathize with her decision to stay with an abusive husband for 25 years, I can appreciate how hard it must have been to rejoin the dating world after a soul sucking divorce. And just to add insult to injury, the first man she dated was a complete and utter lunatic. If she ever liked anything about him, beyond the attention, I would rather not know about it.
My father was a difficult man to live with and an even harder man to love. I know what it’s like to love him, to hate him, to crave his attention, to wish him dead – and I’m only his daughter. When I ask myself how she could care for the man, the only answer I can come up with is that I should take my feelings and amplify them times 10 – but that’s really not an answer at all and I know I’ll never completely understand.
So instead of yelling at her to “stop bothering me, I’m reading”, I helped choose her outfit, jewelry, and makeup. I complimented her on her shoes and straightened her hair. I’d done those things for her often enough (sometimes I feel more like her stylist than her daughter), but that afternoon I was nicer about it. I didn’t sigh every time she asked me a question and I didn’t yank her hair and demand she hold still. Instead I asked about their plans and assured her she’d have a good time.
When her date arrived she brought him to the porch for introductions. While mom went inside to finish up, he sat down at the table. My cousin, sister and I grilled him like a cheese sandwich. After the last guy caused such an unwelcome stir I was determined to weed out any psychotic tendencies right away. I was in complete obnoxious mode, but he just sat there smiling, laughing, and taking it all in.
He was a big bear of a guy with a casual smile and demeanor. He talked fishing with my cousin, laughed at my jokes, however inappropriate, and when mom returned he seemed content to stay and chat. They ended up leaving an hour later and I remember saying to the others, “I think I like that guy.” His name was Ray.
Over the next few weeks they went out constantly – we rarely saw her at all. He played in a pool tournament every Tuesday night and she started accompanying him. On the weekends they went to dinner, movies, and parties with his friends. It was a big deal, a huge change from the way her life had been – stuck waiting at home wondering where her husband was, never allowed to do much of anything, not being able to keep friends because of the way he behaved. She was having fun and we were happy for her.
My godmother had known Ray for a long time. He was a quiet guy, never volunteering much about himself, so we gathered our information from her. He’d been in a long relationship with a woman, I think about four years, and they lived together. She cheated and he left her. When he started dating mom he’d been single for a year or so. After leaving his previous girlfriend, his father started having health problems so he moved in with him to help out.
By the time he and mom were a thing, he was ready to move out of his dad’s house again. My godmom was newly divorced and renting the house next door. She needed a roommate and thinking it would be pretty cool to have mom’s boyfriend living so close but not living-in, she asked Ray. He said yes.
Over the next several months it was chaos. Ray couldn’t stand having to share the TV with my godmom’s preteen daughter, and vice versa, so we sometimes found him passed out in front of our TV with the remote clutched in his hand. Football, fishing, hunting, racing, and repo shows – that was Ray’s standard fare.
He wouldn’t sleep over, unless it was on the living room floor, so mom spent a lot of nights next door with him. That suited us just fine as she had the most comfortable bed in the house and we would take turns taking it over while she was gone. He ate with us, he went to Sunday dinner at Grandma’s with us, and he started attending my sister’s cheerleading functions.
After one too many mornings of tripping over his bulk on the way to the bathroom, I finally shouted at him, “No one cares if you sleep in her bed, Ray! For the love of god!” He officially moved in shortly after that.
It was anticlimactic, as most things with Ray are. One day he was sleeping on the floor, the next we were clearing out drawer and closet space, and instead of sports programs being on only in the late evenings, they were on constantly. There wasn’t really a period of adjustment – he just fit right in with our odd, all female, group.
The fights between my mother and I are legendary, especially in relation to the raising of my daughter. One of our biggest issues is that she undermines my authority - undoing any disciplinary action I’ve taken, whispering remarks in the kid’s ear and mocking me to make her laugh, allowing her to do things I wouldn’t normally. When Ray came along, I finally had an ally. He was usually quiet, but whenever he saw mom pulling her shenanigans, he called her down. And though she would never listen to what I had to say, she certainly listened to him. It was brilliant, and though we still have a way to go, I can honestly say things have gotten better because of his support and occasional interference.
He would sit on the couch wearing his standard evening fare – tube socks pulled up as far as they could go, grey sweat shorts, and a Clemson t-shirt – while we screamed at each other across the bar. Without pausing in his patting of my cat Nugget, who’d switched loyalties and became Ray’s most adoring follower, he would shout, “That’s enough!” Then, “Alright, this is the way I see it...” and using his hand palm out like a flight attendant, he’d point at each of us in turn and say who was right, who was wrong, and to what degree. Often mom and I would find ourselves so amused by his simple breakdown of our longest, most trying battles that we’d simply give up and laugh.
He and I bonded long before he and my sister did. We were the ones snickering in a corner at family dinners and making jokes about the men at the recycling center. We’d stand, shoulder to shoulder, in the kitchen and peer into a pot of mom’s latest concoction, look at each other with half smiles and raised eyebrows, saying “huh uh, I’m not eating that” without uttering a word. He’d watch my TV shows, complaining for the first few minutes then forget that he wasn’t supposed to like them and start firing questions – “Who is that? What’s she doing?” In turn, he got me addicted to football in a way I’ve never been – to the point of actually knowing the name of a play or what a flag was thrown for before it was announced. He became my friend.
I can’t pinpoint when he became more like a dad. Maybe it was seeing him wear the parent’s t-shirts to support the cheerleading squad and my sister every single weekend during competition season, showing up to every football game and sports banquet. Maybe it was hearing him shout “Hey Hanny” every time Hannah and I walked in the door in the evenings and watching him help her with her homework. Maybe it was hearing him sing his made up song every morning to wake us up when our alarm clocks wouldn’t (“Everybody! Everybody! Everybody in the house get up!”). Or maybe it was when, after being gone for a week to Oklahoma, my sister and I returned well after midnight and crawled into the bed with him, each of us settling into the crook of an arm. And it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
But of course, like any other family member, there are days when I want to throttle him. Days when he’s eaten the last of the cookies or drunk all the Pepsi, days when we fight over control of the remote because we want to watch our reality shows and he wants to watch the fishing channel, days when he can’t pick up on my bad mood and teases me past the point of sanity, days when he is so stubborn and opinionated and such a...southern man...that I can’t stand to be in the same room with him.
Yet all those things I listed make me smile, because honestly, when I look at the big picture, having a dad that irritates me and hogs the remote is a great deal easier than having one that’s an alcoholic and a borderline sociopath. I will always love my father, but the majority of the reason I do so is, sadly, because I have to...because it’s what my blood dictates. Loving Ray hasn’t just been easier, it’s been healing.
For the past year, of the two Ray and Mom have been dating, everyone kept asking me when they were getting married. I’d asked both of them that question myself, together and separate. Together their answer was, “We’re not”, or a joking, “When the other one asks me”. Separate, their answers were more definitive. Mom definitely wanted him to ask and he seemed scared to death of the idea. While mom had been married for over 20 years, Ray had never been. (He’s actually 34 to her 44, which I’m sure made a difference.) The only answer I could ever give people was, “I have no idea. Maybe they won’t.”
Then, just two weekends ago, they went on a trip to the mountains in Tennessee. They came home that Sunday afternoon laden down with gifts from the outlet stores and restaurant reviews (which, as far as our family is concerned, is the most crucial aspect of any vacation story). Hannah and I sat on the couches pawing through our bags of goodies and waiting on my sister to return from cheerleading practice so we could paw through hers too.
When she got home Ray told us that he’d bought us both Christmas presents and if we wanted, we could have them early. He was visibly excited, while mom was visibly exasperated. Apparently she’d tried to rein him in, make him wait until the holidays, but he simply couldn’t help himself. It was endearing.
“Is it electronic”, I asked.
“No. Why”, he said.
“Because if I open it, it has to be something I’ll want to use a lot between now and Christmas. Otherwise, I’d rather wait.”
He laughed. “No, it’s not electronic.”
“Can I wear it?”
“Alyson”, mom shouted in reproach.
Ignoring her, I soldiered on. “Is it black or brown?”
“Why only black or brown? It could be purple”, mom replied.
“Nope. I have a feeling it’s one of the two.”
“Do you want it or not”, Ray asked, avoiding all of my probing questions.
“Yes!”
He brought them out one at a time, grinning from ear to ear. And they were, of course, Coach bags. Beautiful brown Coach bags (though mine is bigger and more beautiful than my sisters. Ha!).
But while we were oohing and aahing over every zipper and compartment, mom left the room unnoticed. It wasn’t until they were both standing in front of us and Ray said, “And look what I got your mother”, that we looked up.
Expecting to be outraged by a handbag larger than my own, my jaw dropped. She held out her left hand and wiggled her sparkling finger. For a minute there was silence – then utter chaos. My sister and I vaulted off the couch and rushed not mom, but Ray, hugging him and shrieking our delight. I was completely out of the blue and it was clear that though they didn’t expect tears, they weren’t expecting such a powerful response either.
The past two weeks have been full of excitement – telling everyone about the engagement and talking about wedding plans. Mom never had an actual wedding so even though it won’t be a lavish affair, it definitely won’t be another trip to the courthouse.
It didn’t occur to me until just the other day, though, that after it’s a done deal things might change. Will they move? Will Ray act differently? Will mom? I haven’t asked them about their long term plans yet and, even if I did, I doubt they’d be able to give me an answer.
I’m hoping he still plays a large part in my day to day life and if they move, they don’t move far. Because I’ve gotten used to shouting “Hey diddy” when I walk in the door, arguing over who is going to eat the last taco, and getting bear hugs at the most random, yet always appropriate times. I’ve gotten used to trips without drama, fights without bruises, and dinners with more laughter. I’ve gotten used to having the kind of family, and the kind of dad, I always wanted.
While I cannot sympathize with her decision to stay with an abusive husband for 25 years, I can appreciate how hard it must have been to rejoin the dating world after a soul sucking divorce. And just to add insult to injury, the first man she dated was a complete and utter lunatic. If she ever liked anything about him, beyond the attention, I would rather not know about it.
My father was a difficult man to live with and an even harder man to love. I know what it’s like to love him, to hate him, to crave his attention, to wish him dead – and I’m only his daughter. When I ask myself how she could care for the man, the only answer I can come up with is that I should take my feelings and amplify them times 10 – but that’s really not an answer at all and I know I’ll never completely understand.
So instead of yelling at her to “stop bothering me, I’m reading”, I helped choose her outfit, jewelry, and makeup. I complimented her on her shoes and straightened her hair. I’d done those things for her often enough (sometimes I feel more like her stylist than her daughter), but that afternoon I was nicer about it. I didn’t sigh every time she asked me a question and I didn’t yank her hair and demand she hold still. Instead I asked about their plans and assured her she’d have a good time.
When her date arrived she brought him to the porch for introductions. While mom went inside to finish up, he sat down at the table. My cousin, sister and I grilled him like a cheese sandwich. After the last guy caused such an unwelcome stir I was determined to weed out any psychotic tendencies right away. I was in complete obnoxious mode, but he just sat there smiling, laughing, and taking it all in.
He was a big bear of a guy with a casual smile and demeanor. He talked fishing with my cousin, laughed at my jokes, however inappropriate, and when mom returned he seemed content to stay and chat. They ended up leaving an hour later and I remember saying to the others, “I think I like that guy.” His name was Ray.
Over the next few weeks they went out constantly – we rarely saw her at all. He played in a pool tournament every Tuesday night and she started accompanying him. On the weekends they went to dinner, movies, and parties with his friends. It was a big deal, a huge change from the way her life had been – stuck waiting at home wondering where her husband was, never allowed to do much of anything, not being able to keep friends because of the way he behaved. She was having fun and we were happy for her.
My godmother had known Ray for a long time. He was a quiet guy, never volunteering much about himself, so we gathered our information from her. He’d been in a long relationship with a woman, I think about four years, and they lived together. She cheated and he left her. When he started dating mom he’d been single for a year or so. After leaving his previous girlfriend, his father started having health problems so he moved in with him to help out.
By the time he and mom were a thing, he was ready to move out of his dad’s house again. My godmom was newly divorced and renting the house next door. She needed a roommate and thinking it would be pretty cool to have mom’s boyfriend living so close but not living-in, she asked Ray. He said yes.
Over the next several months it was chaos. Ray couldn’t stand having to share the TV with my godmom’s preteen daughter, and vice versa, so we sometimes found him passed out in front of our TV with the remote clutched in his hand. Football, fishing, hunting, racing, and repo shows – that was Ray’s standard fare.
He wouldn’t sleep over, unless it was on the living room floor, so mom spent a lot of nights next door with him. That suited us just fine as she had the most comfortable bed in the house and we would take turns taking it over while she was gone. He ate with us, he went to Sunday dinner at Grandma’s with us, and he started attending my sister’s cheerleading functions.
After one too many mornings of tripping over his bulk on the way to the bathroom, I finally shouted at him, “No one cares if you sleep in her bed, Ray! For the love of god!” He officially moved in shortly after that.
It was anticlimactic, as most things with Ray are. One day he was sleeping on the floor, the next we were clearing out drawer and closet space, and instead of sports programs being on only in the late evenings, they were on constantly. There wasn’t really a period of adjustment – he just fit right in with our odd, all female, group.
The fights between my mother and I are legendary, especially in relation to the raising of my daughter. One of our biggest issues is that she undermines my authority - undoing any disciplinary action I’ve taken, whispering remarks in the kid’s ear and mocking me to make her laugh, allowing her to do things I wouldn’t normally. When Ray came along, I finally had an ally. He was usually quiet, but whenever he saw mom pulling her shenanigans, he called her down. And though she would never listen to what I had to say, she certainly listened to him. It was brilliant, and though we still have a way to go, I can honestly say things have gotten better because of his support and occasional interference.
He would sit on the couch wearing his standard evening fare – tube socks pulled up as far as they could go, grey sweat shorts, and a Clemson t-shirt – while we screamed at each other across the bar. Without pausing in his patting of my cat Nugget, who’d switched loyalties and became Ray’s most adoring follower, he would shout, “That’s enough!” Then, “Alright, this is the way I see it...” and using his hand palm out like a flight attendant, he’d point at each of us in turn and say who was right, who was wrong, and to what degree. Often mom and I would find ourselves so amused by his simple breakdown of our longest, most trying battles that we’d simply give up and laugh.
He and I bonded long before he and my sister did. We were the ones snickering in a corner at family dinners and making jokes about the men at the recycling center. We’d stand, shoulder to shoulder, in the kitchen and peer into a pot of mom’s latest concoction, look at each other with half smiles and raised eyebrows, saying “huh uh, I’m not eating that” without uttering a word. He’d watch my TV shows, complaining for the first few minutes then forget that he wasn’t supposed to like them and start firing questions – “Who is that? What’s she doing?” In turn, he got me addicted to football in a way I’ve never been – to the point of actually knowing the name of a play or what a flag was thrown for before it was announced. He became my friend.
I can’t pinpoint when he became more like a dad. Maybe it was seeing him wear the parent’s t-shirts to support the cheerleading squad and my sister every single weekend during competition season, showing up to every football game and sports banquet. Maybe it was hearing him shout “Hey Hanny” every time Hannah and I walked in the door in the evenings and watching him help her with her homework. Maybe it was hearing him sing his made up song every morning to wake us up when our alarm clocks wouldn’t (“Everybody! Everybody! Everybody in the house get up!”). Or maybe it was when, after being gone for a week to Oklahoma, my sister and I returned well after midnight and crawled into the bed with him, each of us settling into the crook of an arm. And it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
But of course, like any other family member, there are days when I want to throttle him. Days when he’s eaten the last of the cookies or drunk all the Pepsi, days when we fight over control of the remote because we want to watch our reality shows and he wants to watch the fishing channel, days when he can’t pick up on my bad mood and teases me past the point of sanity, days when he is so stubborn and opinionated and such a...southern man...that I can’t stand to be in the same room with him.
Yet all those things I listed make me smile, because honestly, when I look at the big picture, having a dad that irritates me and hogs the remote is a great deal easier than having one that’s an alcoholic and a borderline sociopath. I will always love my father, but the majority of the reason I do so is, sadly, because I have to...because it’s what my blood dictates. Loving Ray hasn’t just been easier, it’s been healing.
For the past year, of the two Ray and Mom have been dating, everyone kept asking me when they were getting married. I’d asked both of them that question myself, together and separate. Together their answer was, “We’re not”, or a joking, “When the other one asks me”. Separate, their answers were more definitive. Mom definitely wanted him to ask and he seemed scared to death of the idea. While mom had been married for over 20 years, Ray had never been. (He’s actually 34 to her 44, which I’m sure made a difference.) The only answer I could ever give people was, “I have no idea. Maybe they won’t.”
Then, just two weekends ago, they went on a trip to the mountains in Tennessee. They came home that Sunday afternoon laden down with gifts from the outlet stores and restaurant reviews (which, as far as our family is concerned, is the most crucial aspect of any vacation story). Hannah and I sat on the couches pawing through our bags of goodies and waiting on my sister to return from cheerleading practice so we could paw through hers too.
When she got home Ray told us that he’d bought us both Christmas presents and if we wanted, we could have them early. He was visibly excited, while mom was visibly exasperated. Apparently she’d tried to rein him in, make him wait until the holidays, but he simply couldn’t help himself. It was endearing.
“Is it electronic”, I asked.
“No. Why”, he said.
“Because if I open it, it has to be something I’ll want to use a lot between now and Christmas. Otherwise, I’d rather wait.”
He laughed. “No, it’s not electronic.”
“Can I wear it?”
“Alyson”, mom shouted in reproach.
Ignoring her, I soldiered on. “Is it black or brown?”
“Why only black or brown? It could be purple”, mom replied.
“Nope. I have a feeling it’s one of the two.”
“Do you want it or not”, Ray asked, avoiding all of my probing questions.
“Yes!”
He brought them out one at a time, grinning from ear to ear. And they were, of course, Coach bags. Beautiful brown Coach bags (though mine is bigger and more beautiful than my sisters. Ha!).
But while we were oohing and aahing over every zipper and compartment, mom left the room unnoticed. It wasn’t until they were both standing in front of us and Ray said, “And look what I got your mother”, that we looked up.
Expecting to be outraged by a handbag larger than my own, my jaw dropped. She held out her left hand and wiggled her sparkling finger. For a minute there was silence – then utter chaos. My sister and I vaulted off the couch and rushed not mom, but Ray, hugging him and shrieking our delight. I was completely out of the blue and it was clear that though they didn’t expect tears, they weren’t expecting such a powerful response either.
The past two weeks have been full of excitement – telling everyone about the engagement and talking about wedding plans. Mom never had an actual wedding so even though it won’t be a lavish affair, it definitely won’t be another trip to the courthouse.
It didn’t occur to me until just the other day, though, that after it’s a done deal things might change. Will they move? Will Ray act differently? Will mom? I haven’t asked them about their long term plans yet and, even if I did, I doubt they’d be able to give me an answer.
I’m hoping he still plays a large part in my day to day life and if they move, they don’t move far. Because I’ve gotten used to shouting “Hey diddy” when I walk in the door, arguing over who is going to eat the last taco, and getting bear hugs at the most random, yet always appropriate times. I’ve gotten used to trips without drama, fights without bruises, and dinners with more laughter. I’ve gotten used to having the kind of family, and the kind of dad, I always wanted.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Skin deep
Were we the same age, we’d be almost identical.
Our noses are the same – pointy with a funny dip on the tip. Eyes shaped the same, though hers are a shade darker than my greenish brown. Our top lips are thin, chins rounded, and hair a curly mess.
People have always drawn attention to our physical similarities. I’ve been not just her sister, but her twin on countless occasions.
Shock often follows the revelation that I’m her daughter...
Then we look at each other, her smile meeting my smirk – our unspoken code that says more than we ever could aloud.
My friend Mr. London Street started this lovely blog tradition: 100 word posts. He often invites others to give it a try - so I thought I would. You should check out his previous efforts, the latest of which is about Zombies. He's always taking suggestions for new topics...so pop on over, recommend a subject or two, and tell him what you think of his idea.
It is a lot harder than I thought to write only 100 words about a subject. I'm typically an overwriter, so this was particularly challenging. But I liked it, so I might just do it again.
Our noses are the same – pointy with a funny dip on the tip. Eyes shaped the same, though hers are a shade darker than my greenish brown. Our top lips are thin, chins rounded, and hair a curly mess.
People have always drawn attention to our physical similarities. I’ve been not just her sister, but her twin on countless occasions.
Shock often follows the revelation that I’m her daughter...
Then we look at each other, her smile meeting my smirk – our unspoken code that says more than we ever could aloud.
**********
My friend Mr. London Street started this lovely blog tradition: 100 word posts. He often invites others to give it a try - so I thought I would. You should check out his previous efforts, the latest of which is about Zombies. He's always taking suggestions for new topics...so pop on over, recommend a subject or two, and tell him what you think of his idea.
It is a lot harder than I thought to write only 100 words about a subject. I'm typically an overwriter, so this was particularly challenging. But I liked it, so I might just do it again.
**********
Just a quick, somewhat unrelated note: I'd like to thank all of the "lurkers" that have come out of hiding recently. I've been terribly lax about responding to comments lately, but I want you all to know that there's nothing better than receiving a comment from someone you didn't know was reading. And of course, new readers - thanks to you too. :)
If you're wondering what's coming up here, I'll give you a sneak peak: There's a rather risque blog post in the works (that I mentioned briefly on Twitter) and perhaps a new take on the art of blogger interviewing.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Beyonce should write a song about this shit.
A few years ago my mom was dating the most gawd awful man.
He was socially awkward, but not in that endearing way some people are, when everyone around knows that they simply can’t help themselves. Those people are accepted into the fold and embraced for their awkwardness. “Oh, that’s just John! He’s a few cards short of a full deck, but very nice once you get to know him.” No, not like that at all. He was socially awkward in a Fatal Attraction meets Law and Order sort of way. “...and these are their stories! DUN DUN!”
They were introduced by my godmother and her (now) ex husband, going out on a few double dates with them and such. I wasn’t terribly concerned with their relationship; in fact I pretty much ignored it...until he started spending more time at our house.
In the beginning the only opinion I had about him was that he was ugly as homemade sin – short, oddly shaped, with coarse black hair in a V that stuck out over his forehead, and a pair of beautiful blue eyes ruined by the fact that they were covered with a thick black almost unibrow and so close together, you often had to look twice to make sure they weren’t crossed. And then there was the rather large tattoo of SpongeBob Square Pants on the side of one calf. I kid you not.
But eating dinner with him at the same table and sitting on the couch opposite his Hunchback of Notre Dame frame, I became uneasy. He never said much of anything and when he did, it was strange and had a tinge of faux cheerfulness. And the way he looked at and touched mom made my stomach turn.
I’ll admit I tested him – ignoring him, being rude - if looks could kill he’d be six feet under. I had suspicions. And when, after barely a few weeks of seeing each other, he was showering her with expensive gifts and sending flowers to work every day, I knew I was on the right track to psycho town.
I was sitting alone on the porch one evening reading when mom came out to ask my opinion on an outfit. I looked her up and down, nodded my approval, and went back to my book. Still she stood there until I looked again, a thoughtful expression on her face. “So”, she leaned across the back of the chair in front of me, “what do you think about SpongeBob?” (It’s what we called him behind his back. Still do, in fact.)
I looked at her with exasperation. She already knew what I thought of him as I’d said so loudly and more than once. I believe the most often used phrase was “fucking creepy”. But mom is one of those people that will continue to periodically ask the same question, always hoping for a different, more satisfying answer. I sighed, wondering just what I needed to say this time to prevent her from ever asking again.
“I don’t like him”, I said seriously. “Every time I look at him I think to myself ‘it puts the lotion on it’s skin, or else it gets the hose again!’”
She immediately burst out laughing. I’m admittedly an amusing impressionist, but I meant every word. And I couldn’t help chuckling a bit at her reaction, but I followed it with a sobering “just you wait” in case she doubted my sincerity.
I needn’t have bothered. Mom happens to think 95% of people are insincere, hence the repetitive question asking I suppose. My answer became a running joke, repeated often at the family gatherings that he didn’t manage to weasel his way into, and yet she still continued to date him.
The more time he spent around her friends and family, the more insistent the clamor became – “There’s something wrong with that guy. (Dun Dun!)” And though he was not an intelligent man, as evidenced from our previous stilted and juvenile conversations, he was street wise. He recognized the signs of unease and he made changes to his routine. Rather than sending her flowers every day, he took it down to once a week. Rather than just giving her an expensive present, he also gave them to my sister and me. Rather than just sitting on the couch and staring off into the distance at Sunday dinner, (I’m assuming it was the distance... Like I said, his eyes were almost crossed) he painted the outside of my grandmother’s house.
I wasn’t very happy about the situation, but I was also being bought. Which is nice, terrible as that may sound? (Especially when you’re a single parent whose baby’s daddy is a man whore that fathers more children than a Polygamist cult leader and your kid is last on the child support totem pole.) And as an added bonus, there was talk of them moving in together and mom giving me the lake house outright. Creepy fucker with a SpongeBob tattoo or not – a free house is nothing to sniff at.
But after they’d been dating for several months, mom had to have major surgery. I took the day off and planned to stay at the hospital with her overnight, but that morning he joined grandma and I in the waiting room and he never left. I couldn’t get rid of him to save my life and being close to him for that long was making my skin crawl. The minute they informed us she was out of surgery and in a room where we could go in, he was off like a shot. I was livid.
He sat beside her the entire afternoon and into the evening, leaning over the space between the couch and the bed, and rubbing her right hand raw while her left repeatedly jabbed the little red Morphine button. To make matters worse, when she had visitors he refused to move – just sat there with his ass crack hanging out of his stupid shorts, chafing her hand like a lunatic.
I left. I couldn’t help it. Grandma took one for the team and said she’d stay the night because if I had to sit in the same room with him for one second longer, they’d have had to do emergency surgery and remove my foot from his ass.
A few weeks went by, with mom laid up in the bed at home. He continued to drop by and call, but miraculously she seemed to be coming around. She started avoiding him and making excuses. I thought his behavior at the hospital had finally pushed her through the veil.
Then she showed me the ring.
Apparently he’d proposed to her some weeks before and she’d kept it to herself. She told me that she wouldn’t give him an answer, so he just gave her the ring and said to wear it and think about it, or something of the sort. I was horrified.
Lucky for me (and probably her skin), when she started to distance herself a little, he shot himself in the foot. Stepping up the psycho routine, he sent nutty text messages and had his mother call my grandmother and cuss her out for no apparent reason. Adios, SpongeBob. You don’t fuck with my grandma.
And though he was everything but a gracious ex, he did refuse to take the ring back.
Now mom has a relatively normal boyfriend who we love and the ring is snug in her jewelry box. We even laugh about SpongeBob sometimes, even though he’s done and said disgusting things since their breakup, some of it pertaining to me (which I wrote about here).
Sadly, the ring is quite gorgeous. So much so that occasionally, when I rifle through mom’s jewelry box for something and see it sitting there, I can’t help but slip it on and wonder.
How many women have accepted a shiny, expensive rock from a broke down prince? How many are desperate enough for that fairytale that they’ll brush aside their real wants and needs? How can anyone ever be that lonely?
And you know what fucking sucks?
I think I might be on my way to figuring it out.
He was socially awkward, but not in that endearing way some people are, when everyone around knows that they simply can’t help themselves. Those people are accepted into the fold and embraced for their awkwardness. “Oh, that’s just John! He’s a few cards short of a full deck, but very nice once you get to know him.” No, not like that at all. He was socially awkward in a Fatal Attraction meets Law and Order sort of way. “...and these are their stories! DUN DUN!”
They were introduced by my godmother and her (now) ex husband, going out on a few double dates with them and such. I wasn’t terribly concerned with their relationship; in fact I pretty much ignored it...until he started spending more time at our house.
In the beginning the only opinion I had about him was that he was ugly as homemade sin – short, oddly shaped, with coarse black hair in a V that stuck out over his forehead, and a pair of beautiful blue eyes ruined by the fact that they were covered with a thick black almost unibrow and so close together, you often had to look twice to make sure they weren’t crossed. And then there was the rather large tattoo of SpongeBob Square Pants on the side of one calf. I kid you not.
But eating dinner with him at the same table and sitting on the couch opposite his Hunchback of Notre Dame frame, I became uneasy. He never said much of anything and when he did, it was strange and had a tinge of faux cheerfulness. And the way he looked at and touched mom made my stomach turn.
I’ll admit I tested him – ignoring him, being rude - if looks could kill he’d be six feet under. I had suspicions. And when, after barely a few weeks of seeing each other, he was showering her with expensive gifts and sending flowers to work every day, I knew I was on the right track to psycho town.
I was sitting alone on the porch one evening reading when mom came out to ask my opinion on an outfit. I looked her up and down, nodded my approval, and went back to my book. Still she stood there until I looked again, a thoughtful expression on her face. “So”, she leaned across the back of the chair in front of me, “what do you think about SpongeBob?” (It’s what we called him behind his back. Still do, in fact.)
I looked at her with exasperation. She already knew what I thought of him as I’d said so loudly and more than once. I believe the most often used phrase was “fucking creepy”. But mom is one of those people that will continue to periodically ask the same question, always hoping for a different, more satisfying answer. I sighed, wondering just what I needed to say this time to prevent her from ever asking again.
“I don’t like him”, I said seriously. “Every time I look at him I think to myself ‘it puts the lotion on it’s skin, or else it gets the hose again!’”
She immediately burst out laughing. I’m admittedly an amusing impressionist, but I meant every word. And I couldn’t help chuckling a bit at her reaction, but I followed it with a sobering “just you wait” in case she doubted my sincerity.
I needn’t have bothered. Mom happens to think 95% of people are insincere, hence the repetitive question asking I suppose. My answer became a running joke, repeated often at the family gatherings that he didn’t manage to weasel his way into, and yet she still continued to date him.
The more time he spent around her friends and family, the more insistent the clamor became – “There’s something wrong with that guy. (Dun Dun!)” And though he was not an intelligent man, as evidenced from our previous stilted and juvenile conversations, he was street wise. He recognized the signs of unease and he made changes to his routine. Rather than sending her flowers every day, he took it down to once a week. Rather than just giving her an expensive present, he also gave them to my sister and me. Rather than just sitting on the couch and staring off into the distance at Sunday dinner, (I’m assuming it was the distance... Like I said, his eyes were almost crossed) he painted the outside of my grandmother’s house.
I wasn’t very happy about the situation, but I was also being bought. Which is nice, terrible as that may sound? (Especially when you’re a single parent whose baby’s daddy is a man whore that fathers more children than a Polygamist cult leader and your kid is last on the child support totem pole.) And as an added bonus, there was talk of them moving in together and mom giving me the lake house outright. Creepy fucker with a SpongeBob tattoo or not – a free house is nothing to sniff at.
But after they’d been dating for several months, mom had to have major surgery. I took the day off and planned to stay at the hospital with her overnight, but that morning he joined grandma and I in the waiting room and he never left. I couldn’t get rid of him to save my life and being close to him for that long was making my skin crawl. The minute they informed us she was out of surgery and in a room where we could go in, he was off like a shot. I was livid.
He sat beside her the entire afternoon and into the evening, leaning over the space between the couch and the bed, and rubbing her right hand raw while her left repeatedly jabbed the little red Morphine button. To make matters worse, when she had visitors he refused to move – just sat there with his ass crack hanging out of his stupid shorts, chafing her hand like a lunatic.
I left. I couldn’t help it. Grandma took one for the team and said she’d stay the night because if I had to sit in the same room with him for one second longer, they’d have had to do emergency surgery and remove my foot from his ass.
A few weeks went by, with mom laid up in the bed at home. He continued to drop by and call, but miraculously she seemed to be coming around. She started avoiding him and making excuses. I thought his behavior at the hospital had finally pushed her through the veil.
Then she showed me the ring.
Apparently he’d proposed to her some weeks before and she’d kept it to herself. She told me that she wouldn’t give him an answer, so he just gave her the ring and said to wear it and think about it, or something of the sort. I was horrified.
Lucky for me (and probably her skin), when she started to distance herself a little, he shot himself in the foot. Stepping up the psycho routine, he sent nutty text messages and had his mother call my grandmother and cuss her out for no apparent reason. Adios, SpongeBob. You don’t fuck with my grandma.
And though he was everything but a gracious ex, he did refuse to take the ring back.
Now mom has a relatively normal boyfriend who we love and the ring is snug in her jewelry box. We even laugh about SpongeBob sometimes, even though he’s done and said disgusting things since their breakup, some of it pertaining to me (which I wrote about here).
Sadly, the ring is quite gorgeous. So much so that occasionally, when I rifle through mom’s jewelry box for something and see it sitting there, I can’t help but slip it on and wonder.
How many women have accepted a shiny, expensive rock from a broke down prince? How many are desperate enough for that fairytale that they’ll brush aside their real wants and needs? How can anyone ever be that lonely?
And you know what fucking sucks?
I think I might be on my way to figuring it out.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Crime and Punishment
Growing up, my mom was the comforter and my dad was the punisher. She didn’t have the strength or the stomach to enforce anything other than the simplest of rules. Her most powerful weapons were bribery: “I’ll buy you a candy bar.” And threatening: “You just wait till your father gets home!” Unfortunately for mom I knew that unless it was something really bad, she wouldn’t dare tell him. He was the king of “Too Far” and his parenting technique left a lot to be desired.
Before I knew anything about drugs, my mom would blame his behavior on his parents and the way they raised him: strict and with a hand that was much heavier than anything I could imagine. And now, in part, I believe that. Because I’m a parent, because I know myself (as much as one can at my age), and I know my temper and what it’s capable of. I know that that part of me, the impatient, short fused part, comes from him. But the difference between us is that I’m not fueling my temper with drugs that will send it spiraling out of control and even though I acknowledge the part I let him play in my past, I will not use him as an excuse for any parenting mistakes I make. I am entirely capable of keeping my hands to myself and my tongue in check. I might have to work a bit harder at it than others, but that’s my cross to bear, not the kid’s.
One of the things he learned from his parents, according to mom, was his attitude toward food. Meals were not missed and plates were always, always cleaned. If I didn’t like something on my plate, tough shit. “You’ll eat every bit of it and you’ll like it or...” Apparently times were hard when he was growing up and because he’d had to eat massive piles of pinto beans, my taste buds were doomed to suffer. Since he was the man and cleaning the kitchen was beneath him, he would eat, retire to the couch and mom would often cover for me, hiding my plate or taking my portion.
Once, when she put cole slaw on my plate, I picked the wrong time to whine about it. He was near, had no doubt been drinking, and decided he was going to make me like slaw. I ate every bite of what I’d been given, but I made him so mad with my crying and complaining that he decided I should have more. And so I sat at the table, force feeding myself massive amounts of slaw, until I threw up and he sent me to bed.
His attitude wasn’t always unjust. When he was sober, he was sometimes fair. I was a willful, arrogant child and I got in trouble often. In fact, as much as I sometimes feared him, I often purposefully taunted him. I wanted his attention: good, bad, or ugly.
It started in kindergarten. I refused to nap, harassing the other students while they tried to lie peacefully on their mats. I spent the majority of the school year on my mat in the brightly lit hall outside the classroom kicking the walls. It seems like such a small rebellion as an adult, but to five year old me it was a charge into battle.
It wasn’t easy for my teachers through grade school, not only because of my attitude, but because of my large family. Until fifth grade, when the order came that we were to be separated, three of my cousins were always in the same class with me. Ben, the most mischievous of the group, was my partner in crime. Our behavior would probably be considered pretty tame by most standards, but to a harried teacher and principal it was the consistency of our actions that made them so bad. All of us together were no doubt quite daunting. With my attitude and their encouragement, it’s a wonder I was ever able to sit down.
The worst thing I think we (Ben and I) ever did was beat the shit out of a boy in the school yard for pushing our cousin Christine down so hard that she broke her front teeth. His name was Ben too and he was an ugly, slow kid that grew up to be an even uglier, creepy guy.
I was paddled in the principal’s office and sent home with a note describing my unladylike behavior. And I waited, terrified, for my dad to come home. He read the note, looked at me and said, “Did you win?” Eventually I nodded and he surprised me by leaving it at that, no punishment at all. Just a lesson that made me a bit paranoid: Whether I started a fight or not, if I lost I’d get my ass beat. If I won, I’d get a pat on the back. Because no daughter of his was going to be labeled a pussy. I would get not one ass whipping, but two. That hardly seemed fair to me and I said as much. And he replied with a sage bit of wisdom that, even after hearing him say it millions of times and hating him for it, I’ve actually used myself: “If yer gonna be dumb, ya better be tough.”
And I was dumb. I can’t count the number of times I was suspended from the bus or written up for talking back. I usually got the belt in those instances. But all of that changed when I became a teenager: the rules, the punishments, the attitude...everything. He had the strangest opinions and my friends were baffled by my restrictions.
I wasn’t allowed to wear pants that “dragged the ground” or nail polish in “funky” colors (namely blue, green, and black). I was rarely allowed to spend the night with anyone that wasn’t a relative and my comings and goings were monitored not only by family, but by dad’s numerous spies. When I was grounded he didn’t just take away my things. He moved me into the guest room where I wasn’t allowed to read anything that wasn’t school related and there was nothing but a dresser and a bed. The list goes on and on.
When I turned 15 and started driving I was chomping at the bit, craving freedom. He started including me in his outings. I wasn’t allowed to stay at a friend’s house, but I could go mud digging and drink a case of wine coolers and smoke a joint with dad and his friends. (I drank the wine coolers. They drank beer. If he ever read this, he’d be angrier at the implied girliness than anything else.) My mom was livid. The tables turned and when he brought me home drunk and laughing, she finally got the balls to attempt a real punishment. He, of course, put a stop to that. No one overruled the king.
Now he’s given up his throne and moved 1200 miles away to harass someone else. I’ve become an adult, moved back home and have my own child to parent. Now I talk to him about the injustices I suffer from his ex because, funnily enough, with his distance, my meek and mild mom has at last found punishments to dole out that suit her. And he finds it hilarious. You would think that being my age would save me from having to worry about that sort of thing, but no. Her methods aren’t physical, but rather psychological beatings by way of guilt, blackmail, and her most formidable: plain old calculated aggravation.
She is Queen of the “One of these days I’m going to die and you’re going to be sorry” club. Sometimes she succeeds in making me feel guilty, but lately it’s gotten old. If guilt were a horse, she’d have beaten that motherfucker to death, shredded the meat off its bones and broken her arm in the process.
Her antics to send me over the edge are, I admit, often amusing. But she’s like a possessed child with a big rubber mallet in her hands, playing Whack-A-Mole and dancing with glee when she hits her mark, swinging with more frenzy if she doesn’t. It gets tiresome.
The other night, before we had a fight about virtually nothing and I left in a huff for four days, she came home in a terrible mood. I was sitting in the living room, minding my own business, when she put her bare ass in front of my face. A large, plum colored bruise that closely resembled a shoe print was on her left cheek.
“Touch it”, she said. Her brows were knit together and I could tell that laughing and/or demanding she remove her ass from the vicinity of my face wouldn’t be a good idea.
“Go on, touch it,” my sister parroted.
I looked from one to the other, then back at the bruise. Sighing, I stuck out one finger and touched her ass. There was no help for it – if I hadn’t caved she would have harassed me all night. I prodded the center.
“It’s soft on one side and there’s a huge knot on the other”, my sister offered.
She was right. The knot was the size of an apple. And really, I’d never seen that shade of purple on a bruise before.
“Good gawd”, I said.
“Yeah! Yeah”, mom yelled at me over her shoulder, glaring in accusation.
I suppose it was partially my fault. She was picking up the slip-n-slide mess I’d left in the yard and fell down the stairs trying to haul it all up to the porch. So she’s been limping around for days – bitching, moaning, and sending pictures of her ass to my Aunt. It’s been quite horrendous. And it’s not like I wasn’t going to pick up the damn slide, I told her I would. I just didn’t do it fast enough for her liking.
She even harasses me “inadvertently”.
Every couple months she has what we call an “episode”. She gets violently ill with vomiting and diarrhea and can’t move much for 24 – 48 hours. She’s had every test known to man and still no one really knows what causes it. Though they’ve slacked off a bit this past year.
I’m a very squeamish person. Just hearing, smelling, or being in the general vicinity of vomiting and/or diarrhea makes me green. She knows this, yet every time she has one of her episodes she comes to get me. Usually while I’m sleeping.
I’ve always been a heavy sleeper: sometimes four alarms and a punch in the stomach wouldn’t even do it. But somehow, when she’s on her way to wake me during one of her spells, I’m up instantly. It’s her walk.
My door will be closed, the house dark and silent, and suddenly I’ll wake...and I’ll hear the unmistakable sound of impending doom: StompStompStompStompStompStompStompStompStompStomp. Then my door will fly open and she’ll stage whisper, voice laced with theatrical agony, “Al! Al, come quick! I’m dying!” And then she’s off back the way she came: StompStompStompStompStompStompStompStompStomp, sometimes calling over her shoulder, “Al! Hurry!”
The stomping is caused by the strangest walk I’ve ever seen. Her legs are spread, about shoulder width apart, and she somehow manages, in that position, to waddle very fast with her arms pumping like pistons. I’m usually too cranky at the time it’s happening to laugh, but I often imitate it and laugh later.
Anyway, once I’ve been summoned, if I don’t trudge after her immediately, she’ll start calling from the toilet. “Al! Al!” And she won’t stop. So I have to get up, go to her room, crawl in her bed, and go to sleep there while she sits in her attached bathroom making noises no one should ever have to hear. She claims that she just wants me in the room “in case something happens” or “in case she dies”. I know this to be only partially true.
I’ve tried to reason with her. I’ve tried to explain that it doesn’t matter whether I’m in my bed or her bed, “something” is already happening and I most definitely don’t need to be a participant. Not only that, but once I lie down in her bed (which is 10 times more comfortable than mine), I’m out for the count again. I won’t be waking up without heavy artillery. If she died I wouldn’t find her for hours. My sister would be the logical choice: she doesn’t get squeamish, she’s got the “nurturing gene”, she’s a light sleeper, and she wouldn’t laugh at her stomping waddle. Instead of saying, “Be quiet, you’re not dying! Shut that damn door, it stinks in here!” my sister would say, “Are you ok” 50 times and hold her hair back. The only logical explanation is that she is less afraid of dying than she is in need of torturing me.
Maybe I should have given a better example, one that didn’t make me out to be a complete asshole. (Still, it’s nothing short of the truth.) Let’s see: She also rifles through my personal belongings, listens to my conversations, undermines my parenting – thus causing the kid to be a confused and unmanageable shit head, deliberately embarrasses me with stories of past wrongdoings in front of friends and strangers, and calls for me in the shrill voice she usually reserves for the animals, “ALICE!” And sometimes, “ASSHOLE!”
My name is not Alice.
I have a few theories as to the reasons for her behavior. Firstly, I am a lot like my father and she hates that. I don’t mean I snort coke off of poker machines or anything like that. He has a few good qualities. Like we both make friends easily and we aren’t wall flowers at parties. Mom has always been uncomfortable around people she doesn’t know. He and I both take chances and...Actually, maybe we aren’t so much alike. My vivacity is not chemically induced. Usually.
Second, she’s used to the drama that surrounded her relationship with my dad. And I, being the family screw up, moved back home and gave her the perfect solution to make her feel normal again. She seems to actually enjoy baiting me and causing conflict.
And lastly, I really am a lazy asshole.
The true answer is likely a combination of all three.
Regardless, I know for certain I’ve learned (and am still learning) incredible lessons from both of them, intentional or not.
And ironically, those quick and simple punishments that I was so afraid of in my youth are far more welcome than adult consequences and endless heckling. And sometimes people just need a good spanking.
Before I knew anything about drugs, my mom would blame his behavior on his parents and the way they raised him: strict and with a hand that was much heavier than anything I could imagine. And now, in part, I believe that. Because I’m a parent, because I know myself (as much as one can at my age), and I know my temper and what it’s capable of. I know that that part of me, the impatient, short fused part, comes from him. But the difference between us is that I’m not fueling my temper with drugs that will send it spiraling out of control and even though I acknowledge the part I let him play in my past, I will not use him as an excuse for any parenting mistakes I make. I am entirely capable of keeping my hands to myself and my tongue in check. I might have to work a bit harder at it than others, but that’s my cross to bear, not the kid’s.
One of the things he learned from his parents, according to mom, was his attitude toward food. Meals were not missed and plates were always, always cleaned. If I didn’t like something on my plate, tough shit. “You’ll eat every bit of it and you’ll like it or...” Apparently times were hard when he was growing up and because he’d had to eat massive piles of pinto beans, my taste buds were doomed to suffer. Since he was the man and cleaning the kitchen was beneath him, he would eat, retire to the couch and mom would often cover for me, hiding my plate or taking my portion.
Once, when she put cole slaw on my plate, I picked the wrong time to whine about it. He was near, had no doubt been drinking, and decided he was going to make me like slaw. I ate every bite of what I’d been given, but I made him so mad with my crying and complaining that he decided I should have more. And so I sat at the table, force feeding myself massive amounts of slaw, until I threw up and he sent me to bed.
His attitude wasn’t always unjust. When he was sober, he was sometimes fair. I was a willful, arrogant child and I got in trouble often. In fact, as much as I sometimes feared him, I often purposefully taunted him. I wanted his attention: good, bad, or ugly.
It started in kindergarten. I refused to nap, harassing the other students while they tried to lie peacefully on their mats. I spent the majority of the school year on my mat in the brightly lit hall outside the classroom kicking the walls. It seems like such a small rebellion as an adult, but to five year old me it was a charge into battle.
It wasn’t easy for my teachers through grade school, not only because of my attitude, but because of my large family. Until fifth grade, when the order came that we were to be separated, three of my cousins were always in the same class with me. Ben, the most mischievous of the group, was my partner in crime. Our behavior would probably be considered pretty tame by most standards, but to a harried teacher and principal it was the consistency of our actions that made them so bad. All of us together were no doubt quite daunting. With my attitude and their encouragement, it’s a wonder I was ever able to sit down.
The worst thing I think we (Ben and I) ever did was beat the shit out of a boy in the school yard for pushing our cousin Christine down so hard that she broke her front teeth. His name was Ben too and he was an ugly, slow kid that grew up to be an even uglier, creepy guy.
I was paddled in the principal’s office and sent home with a note describing my unladylike behavior. And I waited, terrified, for my dad to come home. He read the note, looked at me and said, “Did you win?” Eventually I nodded and he surprised me by leaving it at that, no punishment at all. Just a lesson that made me a bit paranoid: Whether I started a fight or not, if I lost I’d get my ass beat. If I won, I’d get a pat on the back. Because no daughter of his was going to be labeled a pussy. I would get not one ass whipping, but two. That hardly seemed fair to me and I said as much. And he replied with a sage bit of wisdom that, even after hearing him say it millions of times and hating him for it, I’ve actually used myself: “If yer gonna be dumb, ya better be tough.”
And I was dumb. I can’t count the number of times I was suspended from the bus or written up for talking back. I usually got the belt in those instances. But all of that changed when I became a teenager: the rules, the punishments, the attitude...everything. He had the strangest opinions and my friends were baffled by my restrictions.
I wasn’t allowed to wear pants that “dragged the ground” or nail polish in “funky” colors (namely blue, green, and black). I was rarely allowed to spend the night with anyone that wasn’t a relative and my comings and goings were monitored not only by family, but by dad’s numerous spies. When I was grounded he didn’t just take away my things. He moved me into the guest room where I wasn’t allowed to read anything that wasn’t school related and there was nothing but a dresser and a bed. The list goes on and on.
When I turned 15 and started driving I was chomping at the bit, craving freedom. He started including me in his outings. I wasn’t allowed to stay at a friend’s house, but I could go mud digging and drink a case of wine coolers and smoke a joint with dad and his friends. (I drank the wine coolers. They drank beer. If he ever read this, he’d be angrier at the implied girliness than anything else.) My mom was livid. The tables turned and when he brought me home drunk and laughing, she finally got the balls to attempt a real punishment. He, of course, put a stop to that. No one overruled the king.
Now he’s given up his throne and moved 1200 miles away to harass someone else. I’ve become an adult, moved back home and have my own child to parent. Now I talk to him about the injustices I suffer from his ex because, funnily enough, with his distance, my meek and mild mom has at last found punishments to dole out that suit her. And he finds it hilarious. You would think that being my age would save me from having to worry about that sort of thing, but no. Her methods aren’t physical, but rather psychological beatings by way of guilt, blackmail, and her most formidable: plain old calculated aggravation.
She is Queen of the “One of these days I’m going to die and you’re going to be sorry” club. Sometimes she succeeds in making me feel guilty, but lately it’s gotten old. If guilt were a horse, she’d have beaten that motherfucker to death, shredded the meat off its bones and broken her arm in the process.
Her antics to send me over the edge are, I admit, often amusing. But she’s like a possessed child with a big rubber mallet in her hands, playing Whack-A-Mole and dancing with glee when she hits her mark, swinging with more frenzy if she doesn’t. It gets tiresome.
The other night, before we had a fight about virtually nothing and I left in a huff for four days, she came home in a terrible mood. I was sitting in the living room, minding my own business, when she put her bare ass in front of my face. A large, plum colored bruise that closely resembled a shoe print was on her left cheek.
“Touch it”, she said. Her brows were knit together and I could tell that laughing and/or demanding she remove her ass from the vicinity of my face wouldn’t be a good idea.
“Go on, touch it,” my sister parroted.
I looked from one to the other, then back at the bruise. Sighing, I stuck out one finger and touched her ass. There was no help for it – if I hadn’t caved she would have harassed me all night. I prodded the center.
“It’s soft on one side and there’s a huge knot on the other”, my sister offered.
She was right. The knot was the size of an apple. And really, I’d never seen that shade of purple on a bruise before.
“Good gawd”, I said.
“Yeah! Yeah”, mom yelled at me over her shoulder, glaring in accusation.
I suppose it was partially my fault. She was picking up the slip-n-slide mess I’d left in the yard and fell down the stairs trying to haul it all up to the porch. So she’s been limping around for days – bitching, moaning, and sending pictures of her ass to my Aunt. It’s been quite horrendous. And it’s not like I wasn’t going to pick up the damn slide, I told her I would. I just didn’t do it fast enough for her liking.
She even harasses me “inadvertently”.
Every couple months she has what we call an “episode”. She gets violently ill with vomiting and diarrhea and can’t move much for 24 – 48 hours. She’s had every test known to man and still no one really knows what causes it. Though they’ve slacked off a bit this past year.
I’m a very squeamish person. Just hearing, smelling, or being in the general vicinity of vomiting and/or diarrhea makes me green. She knows this, yet every time she has one of her episodes she comes to get me. Usually while I’m sleeping.
I’ve always been a heavy sleeper: sometimes four alarms and a punch in the stomach wouldn’t even do it. But somehow, when she’s on her way to wake me during one of her spells, I’m up instantly. It’s her walk.
My door will be closed, the house dark and silent, and suddenly I’ll wake...and I’ll hear the unmistakable sound of impending doom: StompStompStompStompStompStompStompStompStompStomp. Then my door will fly open and she’ll stage whisper, voice laced with theatrical agony, “Al! Al, come quick! I’m dying!” And then she’s off back the way she came: StompStompStompStompStompStompStompStompStomp, sometimes calling over her shoulder, “Al! Hurry!”
The stomping is caused by the strangest walk I’ve ever seen. Her legs are spread, about shoulder width apart, and she somehow manages, in that position, to waddle very fast with her arms pumping like pistons. I’m usually too cranky at the time it’s happening to laugh, but I often imitate it and laugh later.
Anyway, once I’ve been summoned, if I don’t trudge after her immediately, she’ll start calling from the toilet. “Al! Al!” And she won’t stop. So I have to get up, go to her room, crawl in her bed, and go to sleep there while she sits in her attached bathroom making noises no one should ever have to hear. She claims that she just wants me in the room “in case something happens” or “in case she dies”. I know this to be only partially true.
I’ve tried to reason with her. I’ve tried to explain that it doesn’t matter whether I’m in my bed or her bed, “something” is already happening and I most definitely don’t need to be a participant. Not only that, but once I lie down in her bed (which is 10 times more comfortable than mine), I’m out for the count again. I won’t be waking up without heavy artillery. If she died I wouldn’t find her for hours. My sister would be the logical choice: she doesn’t get squeamish, she’s got the “nurturing gene”, she’s a light sleeper, and she wouldn’t laugh at her stomping waddle. Instead of saying, “Be quiet, you’re not dying! Shut that damn door, it stinks in here!” my sister would say, “Are you ok” 50 times and hold her hair back. The only logical explanation is that she is less afraid of dying than she is in need of torturing me.
Maybe I should have given a better example, one that didn’t make me out to be a complete asshole. (Still, it’s nothing short of the truth.) Let’s see: She also rifles through my personal belongings, listens to my conversations, undermines my parenting – thus causing the kid to be a confused and unmanageable shit head, deliberately embarrasses me with stories of past wrongdoings in front of friends and strangers, and calls for me in the shrill voice she usually reserves for the animals, “ALICE!” And sometimes, “ASSHOLE!”
My name is not Alice.
I have a few theories as to the reasons for her behavior. Firstly, I am a lot like my father and she hates that. I don’t mean I snort coke off of poker machines or anything like that. He has a few good qualities. Like we both make friends easily and we aren’t wall flowers at parties. Mom has always been uncomfortable around people she doesn’t know. He and I both take chances and...Actually, maybe we aren’t so much alike. My vivacity is not chemically induced. Usually.
Second, she’s used to the drama that surrounded her relationship with my dad. And I, being the family screw up, moved back home and gave her the perfect solution to make her feel normal again. She seems to actually enjoy baiting me and causing conflict.
And lastly, I really am a lazy asshole.
The true answer is likely a combination of all three.
Regardless, I know for certain I’ve learned (and am still learning) incredible lessons from both of them, intentional or not.
And ironically, those quick and simple punishments that I was so afraid of in my youth are far more welcome than adult consequences and endless heckling. And sometimes people just need a good spanking.
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