The mind is a wondrous thing. By compressing memories of horror and pain into an instant, it makes the worst parts of your life seem as if they happened in a dream, in one long dark night - even if the living of your life seemed to take forever at the time. Most of what I can recall now is knotted in a ball so tight that I cannot pull out individual threads... it is as if time at this point is happening the way Einstein posits... simultaneously.
The facts, as I can recall, are these. A decision is made to sell the house we were living in, and to buy another in town. They bought a lovely 2 story home near the lakefront, and furnished it with french provincial furniture. I changed schools, scandal once again followingme.
As to the sheriff and thier interest in child sexual abuse, it was made clear to me that no one believed me, no one ever would believe me, and if I did not recant my story I would be placed in a Juvinile detention facility. Of course, it wasn't the sheriffs office that said this - they had my stepfathers criminal record - it was my family. I had no choice, so I recanted. I did not want to go to jail - and telling the truth meant just that... further punishment.
Then, my stepfather leaves my mother - for my brothers 18 year old girlfreind. Mom begins drinking - a lot. One day, my mother attempts suicide... I come in from a day of riding my bicycle, and there is a note from my brother on the table, saying he would be back, and leaving me cigarettes. Now, being that my brother is never nice to me, I know something horrible has happened. I run into the bathroom, and there is blood, everywhere. I run out the door, and I run to the hospital. Mom has been admitted to the psychiatric ward for observation. There she obtains breast implant surgery, covered by insurance. Her psychaitirst claims it is medically necessary in order to bolster her self esteem.
I move in with my birth father, my stepmother and my two little brothers. I am clearly told that I am not welcome there. I become hugely depressed, and my father refuses to allow me access to my psychologist.
John breaks up with me.
I move back home with my mother - I am terrified that she will kill herself. I love her, and I want to protect her. My stepmother is in a rage, and tells my little brothers that I have left because I do not love them. My birth father was impotent, a scientific miracle in being the first bipedal hominid without a spine.
I return to my mothers home. Much of my time is spent cleaning vomit off the carpets after she would be sick, or in rising at 5 am to go find her car outside of whatever bar it was left at so she could get to work the next day.
There are another 2 or 3 or 4 suicide attempts, truly I have lost count. There are many nights spent with my mother, drunken, and blaming me for her pain - and times where I offered to go buy her a gun so the next time she wants to die she can just get it over with.
Somewhere in this mix, there are moments of happiness. There is a boy named Fred, who at 20 was the epitome of mature to me at that age. He spent part of my 16th summer listening to my dreams, introducing me to smart people, letting me see that there would be a life after. I was enamored of him, and he broke my heart... but he gave me a vision of a future that could be brighter, he believed in me, and encouraged me to follow my dreams.
There was my best friend, Jim, who let me come to live with him so I could try and finish high school, and who would take me on road trips when the going got too hard for me to shoulder alone.
Then there was Brett, 18 going on 45, with a trans-am and a real family who truely wanted to kill my mother for what she was doing to me.
Finally, there was Glen and his parents, who took me in when I finally had no where else to go.
These boys, each in thier own way, loved and nurtured me, and without them I may have perished. I reached for boys to be my friends, because girls simply weren't to be trusted. Except for Betty, and for my high school drama teacher, I had no women I could count on. Boys were simple - and to this day, I consider myself to be as much boy as girl.
My grades at this point shot from A's to F's and back again, depending on how heavily mom was drinking. I was competing at the state level in speech, was choir president, and was active in competitive theatre. I tried as desperately as possible to appear to be a normal bright eyed college bound student. I tried to be engaged, but I really didn't belong anywhere. I taught sunday school, and was active in my church. I took ballet classes. There was the life I was living, and the life I wanted to be living, and they were mutually exclusive, but I tried hard for the life I wanted rather than the life I had.
An example - and those of you with Alcoholic parents will probably laugh at similar memories of your own. Its only funny, of course in retrospect. I was competing in a theatre competion. We were performing a play called "Not enough Rope" by Elaine May. Ironically enough, it is a 35 minute one act wherein the lead character tries desperately to kill herself, but doesn't have enough rope. She tries to persuade her next door neighbor to help her. (My drama teacher - after discovering all the fun in my home - offered to change the piece, but I demurred).
One day, after rehearsal my co-actor drove me home. He was a nice boy, very clean cut and in love with Doris Day. Being a rather old fashioned boy, he insists on walking me to the door. I had forgotten my housekey, and had to ring to be let in. My mother - in all her glory - nude as the day she was born, with a bottle in her hand answered. She was very gracious, and asked him in for a drink. He declined. Oh my.
The situation at my home was spinning out of control. I came down with a case of chronic bronchitis, and was becomming desperately depressed. My home was becomming dangerous, with bouts of drinking, frequently followed by driving.
Finally, the Christmas Eve when I was 16 years old, the situation had gotten well out of hand. My mother, drunk, insisted on confronting her husband and the little girl he was living with. She was so drunk that I had to take her car keys away. Finally, after physically fighting with her, I offered to drive her where she wanted to go.
We drive to the tenament where my stepfather and his sweetheart live, and I follow my mother up the stairs. Screaming and banging ensue. I lean against the stair rail, impassive in the insanity. Finally, after five or so minutes, the little girl, Laurie was her name, opens the door, and she has a gun.
The two ladies commence to screaming at each other. My mother calls her a whore, and Laurie slaps my mother. Now, no one slaps my mother... and I fly at her. I tackle her to the ground... and she shoots me. My only response to this is.... "You Shot Me, You Bitch." I have never been in a fight before, and certainly never in one where I win. But I go wild, and am eventually pulled off of her by a neighbor.
I am taken to the hospital to have the bullet removed from my leg. The police are fighting with my mother in the hallway, my father, I believe has been called, and there is chaos in the corridor. I am alone in the treatment room, waiting to be seen by the doctor.
To my great dismay, and general relief, the nurse on duty is the director of the Sunday School. In tears, I ask her to make sure my small charges do good in the Church Christmas pageant, as I do not think I will be able to make it.
Peace on Earth, Goodwill towards Men.
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