childhood and how it ends
Christmas Eve 1984
My mom was at work that day. My step-father spent most of the day in the back room, the farthest point from the front door in our house, the bar where we kept the pool table and every year at Christmas we put a red sock on the nose of the deer head on the wall and called it Rudolph.
My father stopped at the house on his way to spend the holiday with his middle son, my half brother, the only one of his three sons that kept his name. My brother has two daughters. There would be no sons to carry our father's name.
My Dad stayed for close to an hour. I think I may have made him a cup of coffee. I don't remember. We talked about school. He told me about various relatives he had seen lately. I don't remember the details of the conversation. It was just trivia.
He gave me a gift. A case to hold cassette tapes. A Christmas card.
He told me my step-mother was waiting for him in the car. I wondered why she hadn't gotten impatient and either come into the house to retrieve my father or started honking the horn to get his attention like a spoiled child left in the car too long by a parent. That was the kind of woman she was. Rather annoying. I was grateful that she hadn't made a scene as I was terrified that my step-father was going to come out to the kitchen and find my father there. They hated each other and I did not want to deal with that nightmare. Thankfully my step-parents were both on good behavior, my step-father because he didn't know this man he hated was in his house and my step-mother because perhaps she had been told by my father to behave herself, I will never know.
When my mother returned home I told her that my dad had been there. I showed her the nice gift and told her how both step-parents had stayed out of the way so I could have a nice visit with my father. A rare thing, really.
Christmas passed quietly.
It was time to go back to school, it was a Wednesday, the 2nd of January. I went to school and came home and did my chores and homework and my step-father came home from whichever bar he had spent the day in. He came home in a mood, what my mother would describe as "on the fight". Just looking for a reason to yell and shout and make someone else feel bad so he could feel good, the usual thing mean drunks with low self esteem issues do. He lit into me for some infraction. I didn't light the fireplace correctly, I didn't stack the wood for the Franklin stove correctly, who the hell knows what set him off. He wanted a fight and it was a day my Mom worked late and I was the only one left to yell at.
He accused me of not appreciating my home and the roof over my head provided for me. He told me he was throwing me out of the house and I could go live with my father if I was such an ungrateful bitch.
I was fifteen. A Freshman in High School. My father and step-mother lived in a one room apartment where I slept on the couch when I visited in the Summer. I hated my step-mother and couldn't stand her jealous behavior in relation to my father. She told me once not to sleep with him. I don't know what fucked up universe she grew up in, but I was not interested in sleeping with my father, not in any sense of the concept of "sleeping with". She was a very strange woman. I did not want to live with her.
I cried until I couldn't breathe anymore, and then hyperventilated. Then cried some more. I cried until my voice was so hoarse that I couldn't talk. I hid in the closet.
When my mother came home, late, she found the place a disaster, my step-father passed out and me in the closet.
She assured me that I was not being thrown out of the house.
She stayed up most of the night. When my step-father woke, very late, they fought. I hid in the closet.
In the morning, she woke me for school. My step-father was passed out again.
I went to school. I spent most of the day in a state of shock. I had never been yelled at like that. I had never been verbally attacked like that. My parents were very silent people. They fought a war of silence. My Mom and my step-father were loud, yelling, shouting, loud loud loud. This was the first time I had ever experienced either being involved in an argument or being attacked verbally by an adult. It was very very frightening. I spent some of that day crying in my teacher's office. I spent most of it numb.
My last class of the day was History. I loved that class. I loved my teacher. He was my Speech Team coach. By the end of the day I would have a pile of books on my desk because I usually took all the books I needed for class with me all afternoon long, as I hated going to my locker located as it was in the AG territory. (AG, for those of you city kids, is short for the shop/FFA/cowboy conglomerate)
I am sitting in class, not paying a lot of attention, because, I mean, I had an A in that class without trying, so why worry.
The Principal's secretary came into class. This is equal to a visitation from the queen. The Principal's secretary Does Not Leave the Office. She guards the Door to His office like Cerberus. If someone is needed in the office, that is what the intercom is for, summoning to the Lair by the Voice of Doom.
She came in and told me to come with her. Now, realize that I was the perfect teacher's pet, I never got in trouble and I never EVER got summoned by the Voice of Doom from the Intercom.
I got up to follow. She told me very quietly to bring my books. I told her I had speech practice in this room after class, couldn't I leave them? "I think you will need them," she said.
My teacher and I exchanged puzzled looks and I gathered my books and followed her out to the hall.
Suddenly, I was afraid that she had come to get me because DPASS (called DCF now I think) was there to get me because my step-father had followed through on his threat to kick me to the curb.
But we got to the office and she told me to leave my books on the chair outside Mr.Lane's door. She would watch my things. I looked in the window at my principal, and he looked very sad. I opened the door and saw my parents, my Mom and step-father, looking sickly. And I knew.
Before my mother could tell me, I knew my father was dead. The knowledge was just there, in my head, certain and real even before spoken.
To this day I do not know if my step-father looked so sick from a hangover, from what he had said to me the night before or from the knowledge that my presence in his life was now permanent.
My father was killed in a car wreck on January 3, 1985. The first traffic fatality in Wyoming that year. He was driving a Salt Creek Freightways truck and hit black ice. He had his faults. He was human.
I miss him.
My mom was at work that day. My step-father spent most of the day in the back room, the farthest point from the front door in our house, the bar where we kept the pool table and every year at Christmas we put a red sock on the nose of the deer head on the wall and called it Rudolph.
My father stopped at the house on his way to spend the holiday with his middle son, my half brother, the only one of his three sons that kept his name. My brother has two daughters. There would be no sons to carry our father's name.
My Dad stayed for close to an hour. I think I may have made him a cup of coffee. I don't remember. We talked about school. He told me about various relatives he had seen lately. I don't remember the details of the conversation. It was just trivia.
He gave me a gift. A case to hold cassette tapes. A Christmas card.
He told me my step-mother was waiting for him in the car. I wondered why she hadn't gotten impatient and either come into the house to retrieve my father or started honking the horn to get his attention like a spoiled child left in the car too long by a parent. That was the kind of woman she was. Rather annoying. I was grateful that she hadn't made a scene as I was terrified that my step-father was going to come out to the kitchen and find my father there. They hated each other and I did not want to deal with that nightmare. Thankfully my step-parents were both on good behavior, my step-father because he didn't know this man he hated was in his house and my step-mother because perhaps she had been told by my father to behave herself, I will never know.
When my mother returned home I told her that my dad had been there. I showed her the nice gift and told her how both step-parents had stayed out of the way so I could have a nice visit with my father. A rare thing, really.
Christmas passed quietly.
It was time to go back to school, it was a Wednesday, the 2nd of January. I went to school and came home and did my chores and homework and my step-father came home from whichever bar he had spent the day in. He came home in a mood, what my mother would describe as "on the fight". Just looking for a reason to yell and shout and make someone else feel bad so he could feel good, the usual thing mean drunks with low self esteem issues do. He lit into me for some infraction. I didn't light the fireplace correctly, I didn't stack the wood for the Franklin stove correctly, who the hell knows what set him off. He wanted a fight and it was a day my Mom worked late and I was the only one left to yell at.
He accused me of not appreciating my home and the roof over my head provided for me. He told me he was throwing me out of the house and I could go live with my father if I was such an ungrateful bitch.
I was fifteen. A Freshman in High School. My father and step-mother lived in a one room apartment where I slept on the couch when I visited in the Summer. I hated my step-mother and couldn't stand her jealous behavior in relation to my father. She told me once not to sleep with him. I don't know what fucked up universe she grew up in, but I was not interested in sleeping with my father, not in any sense of the concept of "sleeping with". She was a very strange woman. I did not want to live with her.
I cried until I couldn't breathe anymore, and then hyperventilated. Then cried some more. I cried until my voice was so hoarse that I couldn't talk. I hid in the closet.
When my mother came home, late, she found the place a disaster, my step-father passed out and me in the closet.
She assured me that I was not being thrown out of the house.
She stayed up most of the night. When my step-father woke, very late, they fought. I hid in the closet.
In the morning, she woke me for school. My step-father was passed out again.
I went to school. I spent most of the day in a state of shock. I had never been yelled at like that. I had never been verbally attacked like that. My parents were very silent people. They fought a war of silence. My Mom and my step-father were loud, yelling, shouting, loud loud loud. This was the first time I had ever experienced either being involved in an argument or being attacked verbally by an adult. It was very very frightening. I spent some of that day crying in my teacher's office. I spent most of it numb.
My last class of the day was History. I loved that class. I loved my teacher. He was my Speech Team coach. By the end of the day I would have a pile of books on my desk because I usually took all the books I needed for class with me all afternoon long, as I hated going to my locker located as it was in the AG territory. (AG, for those of you city kids, is short for the shop/FFA/cowboy conglomerate)
I am sitting in class, not paying a lot of attention, because, I mean, I had an A in that class without trying, so why worry.
The Principal's secretary came into class. This is equal to a visitation from the queen. The Principal's secretary Does Not Leave the Office. She guards the Door to His office like Cerberus. If someone is needed in the office, that is what the intercom is for, summoning to the Lair by the Voice of Doom.
She came in and told me to come with her. Now, realize that I was the perfect teacher's pet, I never got in trouble and I never EVER got summoned by the Voice of Doom from the Intercom.
I got up to follow. She told me very quietly to bring my books. I told her I had speech practice in this room after class, couldn't I leave them? "I think you will need them," she said.
My teacher and I exchanged puzzled looks and I gathered my books and followed her out to the hall.
Suddenly, I was afraid that she had come to get me because DPASS (called DCF now I think) was there to get me because my step-father had followed through on his threat to kick me to the curb.
But we got to the office and she told me to leave my books on the chair outside Mr.Lane's door. She would watch my things. I looked in the window at my principal, and he looked very sad. I opened the door and saw my parents, my Mom and step-father, looking sickly. And I knew.
Before my mother could tell me, I knew my father was dead. The knowledge was just there, in my head, certain and real even before spoken.
To this day I do not know if my step-father looked so sick from a hangover, from what he had said to me the night before or from the knowledge that my presence in his life was now permanent.
My father was killed in a car wreck on January 3, 1985. The first traffic fatality in Wyoming that year. He was driving a Salt Creek Freightways truck and hit black ice. He had his faults. He was human.
I miss him.