LJ Idol Season 11: Open Topic Top 14
This is for LJ Idol's Season 11 Open Topic and it does deal with the topic of drugs. If you like this story, please consider voting for me when the polls go up on Tuesday night (I won't be able to post the link as I will have most likely just given birth to baby Squishy) and please check out everyone else's awesome stories!
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I had a revealing conversation with my father several years ago via telephone; maybe a year or so after he was deported. He called me to catch up and talk as he normally does and began to tell me about his sleeping problems. My Aba does tend to struggle with normal sleep schedules as he spends so much time overanalyzing and losing himself in his memories. He told me he had a lot on his mind so I told him to tell me what he was thinking about. His answer: “Hillary, drugs are bad, you know.”
Really Sherlock? You don’t say. Curious about where he was going with this subject, I snarkily prodded him with “Yes, I know. Are you going to give me a drug lesson now that I’m an adult?”
He chuckled, “no really. I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. Hear me out.”
He told me what I already had gathered from my mother and family members. “I was a good child,” he informed me proudly. “I did everything in the world for my mother and father. They asked me of something and I wouldn’t think twice to do it for them. I was never the child to talk back to my parents (which is true even to this day - he abhors it when he hears children talk rudely to their parents and both my parents made sure to raise me to treat them with respect), I listened to my parents and to my teachers. I did well in school and I had a lot of friends growing up. I went to the army and I was proud to serve my country.”
“You ran away from the army once,” I reminded him. An 18 year old in Israel is automatically required to enlist in the army (unless you meet one of the exceptions to the rule). Like most young Israelis, he was quite proud to enlist and serve in the army. My uncles fought in the Six Day War of 1967 but by the time my father enlisted, the war was over and life was relatively calm (he would come to the United States a year before the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and thus has never fought during war time). By the time he was 18 though, his parents and brothers had decided to follow his sister and her husband and move to America. He was all alone except for an aunt and a girlfriend. The army in turn provided him an extra stipend for being what is known as a lonely soldier. He did a lot of border patrol work which according to him wasn’t very exciting and played poker to pass the time with his buddies. One day, he decided he would request a leave from the army for a few days to go visit his aunt and his girlfriend. The army refused to grant him his leave…thus he left on his own. Who is the army of all people to tell my father what to do? He hid at his aunt’s and his girlfriend’s house for several weeks enjoying his stay. Eventually the sergeant came knocking at the door searching for him and he gave himself up voluntarily. His punishment: jail time. That would be his first jail time but certainly not his last.
“Eh, big deal,” he brushed that aside. “I served my country regardless and I’m proud of my time served. I was a good person. Money came easy to me because of my parents, my brothers and sister, and then with the army and maybe I took advantage of that. But in general, I was a good person.” He placed emphasis on the fact that he was a good person.
“Fair enough. So what changed?”
“Drugs.”
“What about them?” I had known he smoked weed before, that he had a pill problem when he had met my mother, and he had made previous comments in the past to smoking crack but I wanted to know where he was going with his line of thinking. I wanted to hear the words from him rather than making my own inferences.
“They fuck you up, Hillary.”
“Yes, yes, they do. Continue with your story, Aba! I know you said you smoked cigarettes when you were in the army. Did you do anything else during that time?”
“Not in the army but after.”
I remembered conversations in the past of references made to easy access to weed in the 1970s. I questioned him about this. “Oh yeah,” he replied. “I used to have an ice cream truck that I would drive around selling ice cream to the neighborhood children. I would drive all around Baltimore selling ice cream to kids but I’d sell weed to the adults who would come to the truck. Everyone smoked; your aunts and uncles, ex-wife, friends. It was easy access. Eventually though, weed was not enough.”
“They say weed is a gateway drug,” I commented inanely based on my limited knowledge of drugs.
“They’re right. Had it not been for weed, I probably wouldn’t have tried other drugs. But as I said, weed wasn’t enough. Eventually I started with Quaaludes which your mother found out and got angry with me about. It was hard but I broke that habit…only to start with crack. I kept it a secret for a long time. Eventually, your mother found that out too.”
“Not surprised,” I commented.
“No, she has that way about her.” We both laughed, thinking about her and her penchant for getting information.
“Were you on drugs around me?” I asked curiously. “Not that it matters now.”
“I honestly don’t think so. Maybe? I didn’t do it around you if that’s what you’re asking. But I can’t tell you if all the times you and your mother came to pick me up from the Villa if I was or not.”
The Villa was a house in College Park that his friend owned that he stayed at from time to time. His friend was a short, friendly, Greek man who said the house reminded him of his days in Greece and thus the house got the name. I don’t remember much about the house except that there were random people my dad knew that would come and go, living there for short bursts of time (and apparently doing a lot of drugs while staying there).
“Is that what you did at the Villa?”
“Mostly,” he was quiet. “Stupid, isn’t it? If it weren’t for the Villa…”
“Would you go back and do it differently?”
“Yes…. no. I don’t know. I’d like to think I would. I should want to do it differently if I could. For me, for you, for your mother. I’d have more money that’s for sure.” I smirked as I thought back to when friends and family used to comment that if he only used his brain in the right manner, he would be a millionaire and how much he would brush that comment aside. “What does it matter though? You can’t go back in time.”
“No, but you can learn and change.”
“The problem is that it’s not that easy to learn and change. And you have to want to.”
“You didn’t want to…. You don’t want to.”
“I live a good life and I have everything that I need,” he said proudly. I rolled my eyes. At this point, not only had he been deported but at the time, was living in a tent in the middle of Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. He was doing it because he was homeless, but it was also the middle of the housing protests where other people were protesting by setting up tents in the middle of the street so it wasn’t like he was the only one living in a tent (also how I assume he got his hands on a tent because I can’t picture him camping otherwise). “Why would I change now?”
“Why indeed,” I murmured. We hung up a few minutes later and I laid there in bed pondering if only he had been willing to change...just a little bit, how different our lives would have been.
My Aba (on the left) at 18 or 19 with an army buddy.
My Aba and his girlfriend that he ran away from the army to spend time with (both pictures are courtesy of the girlfriend who I am friends with on Facebook who was kind enough years ago to post these pics for me - they actually got back together for a short awhile after he returned to Israel but that didn't last).
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I had a revealing conversation with my father several years ago via telephone; maybe a year or so after he was deported. He called me to catch up and talk as he normally does and began to tell me about his sleeping problems. My Aba does tend to struggle with normal sleep schedules as he spends so much time overanalyzing and losing himself in his memories. He told me he had a lot on his mind so I told him to tell me what he was thinking about. His answer: “Hillary, drugs are bad, you know.”
Really Sherlock? You don’t say. Curious about where he was going with this subject, I snarkily prodded him with “Yes, I know. Are you going to give me a drug lesson now that I’m an adult?”
He chuckled, “no really. I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. Hear me out.”
He told me what I already had gathered from my mother and family members. “I was a good child,” he informed me proudly. “I did everything in the world for my mother and father. They asked me of something and I wouldn’t think twice to do it for them. I was never the child to talk back to my parents (which is true even to this day - he abhors it when he hears children talk rudely to their parents and both my parents made sure to raise me to treat them with respect), I listened to my parents and to my teachers. I did well in school and I had a lot of friends growing up. I went to the army and I was proud to serve my country.”
“You ran away from the army once,” I reminded him. An 18 year old in Israel is automatically required to enlist in the army (unless you meet one of the exceptions to the rule). Like most young Israelis, he was quite proud to enlist and serve in the army. My uncles fought in the Six Day War of 1967 but by the time my father enlisted, the war was over and life was relatively calm (he would come to the United States a year before the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and thus has never fought during war time). By the time he was 18 though, his parents and brothers had decided to follow his sister and her husband and move to America. He was all alone except for an aunt and a girlfriend. The army in turn provided him an extra stipend for being what is known as a lonely soldier. He did a lot of border patrol work which according to him wasn’t very exciting and played poker to pass the time with his buddies. One day, he decided he would request a leave from the army for a few days to go visit his aunt and his girlfriend. The army refused to grant him his leave…thus he left on his own. Who is the army of all people to tell my father what to do? He hid at his aunt’s and his girlfriend’s house for several weeks enjoying his stay. Eventually the sergeant came knocking at the door searching for him and he gave himself up voluntarily. His punishment: jail time. That would be his first jail time but certainly not his last.
“Eh, big deal,” he brushed that aside. “I served my country regardless and I’m proud of my time served. I was a good person. Money came easy to me because of my parents, my brothers and sister, and then with the army and maybe I took advantage of that. But in general, I was a good person.” He placed emphasis on the fact that he was a good person.
“Fair enough. So what changed?”
“Drugs.”
“What about them?” I had known he smoked weed before, that he had a pill problem when he had met my mother, and he had made previous comments in the past to smoking crack but I wanted to know where he was going with his line of thinking. I wanted to hear the words from him rather than making my own inferences.
“They fuck you up, Hillary.”
“Yes, yes, they do. Continue with your story, Aba! I know you said you smoked cigarettes when you were in the army. Did you do anything else during that time?”
“Not in the army but after.”
I remembered conversations in the past of references made to easy access to weed in the 1970s. I questioned him about this. “Oh yeah,” he replied. “I used to have an ice cream truck that I would drive around selling ice cream to the neighborhood children. I would drive all around Baltimore selling ice cream to kids but I’d sell weed to the adults who would come to the truck. Everyone smoked; your aunts and uncles, ex-wife, friends. It was easy access. Eventually though, weed was not enough.”
“They say weed is a gateway drug,” I commented inanely based on my limited knowledge of drugs.
“They’re right. Had it not been for weed, I probably wouldn’t have tried other drugs. But as I said, weed wasn’t enough. Eventually I started with Quaaludes which your mother found out and got angry with me about. It was hard but I broke that habit…only to start with crack. I kept it a secret for a long time. Eventually, your mother found that out too.”
“Not surprised,” I commented.
“No, she has that way about her.” We both laughed, thinking about her and her penchant for getting information.
“Were you on drugs around me?” I asked curiously. “Not that it matters now.”
“I honestly don’t think so. Maybe? I didn’t do it around you if that’s what you’re asking. But I can’t tell you if all the times you and your mother came to pick me up from the Villa if I was or not.”
The Villa was a house in College Park that his friend owned that he stayed at from time to time. His friend was a short, friendly, Greek man who said the house reminded him of his days in Greece and thus the house got the name. I don’t remember much about the house except that there were random people my dad knew that would come and go, living there for short bursts of time (and apparently doing a lot of drugs while staying there).
“Is that what you did at the Villa?”
“Mostly,” he was quiet. “Stupid, isn’t it? If it weren’t for the Villa…”
“Would you go back and do it differently?”
“Yes…. no. I don’t know. I’d like to think I would. I should want to do it differently if I could. For me, for you, for your mother. I’d have more money that’s for sure.” I smirked as I thought back to when friends and family used to comment that if he only used his brain in the right manner, he would be a millionaire and how much he would brush that comment aside. “What does it matter though? You can’t go back in time.”
“No, but you can learn and change.”
“The problem is that it’s not that easy to learn and change. And you have to want to.”
“You didn’t want to…. You don’t want to.”
“I live a good life and I have everything that I need,” he said proudly. I rolled my eyes. At this point, not only had he been deported but at the time, was living in a tent in the middle of Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. He was doing it because he was homeless, but it was also the middle of the housing protests where other people were protesting by setting up tents in the middle of the street so it wasn’t like he was the only one living in a tent (also how I assume he got his hands on a tent because I can’t picture him camping otherwise). “Why would I change now?”
“Why indeed,” I murmured. We hung up a few minutes later and I laid there in bed pondering if only he had been willing to change...just a little bit, how different our lives would have been.
My Aba (on the left) at 18 or 19 with an army buddy.
My Aba and his girlfriend that he ran away from the army to spend time with (both pictures are courtesy of the girlfriend who I am friends with on Facebook who was kind enough years ago to post these pics for me - they actually got back together for a short awhile after he returned to Israel but that didn't last).