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Sunday, July 24, 2011

Hey! You! Get Out of My Way! Part 19 Leaving Home

I walk around the corner and back into the kitchen just in time to see Laura’s father coming down the stairs from the upstairs bathroom. He is still singing “How to Handle a Woman” but has given it a Merengue beat. He is shaking his hands as if they were tambourines on either side of his head.

He comes to the bottom of the stairs and faces me; stopping dead in his tracks. “Who the hell are you, and why are you in my house?” he barks at me. I look into his face, it is pinched and angry. His singing and hand shaking has stopped, both hands are now held in fists down at his side. He has taken the stance that one takes if at a Mexican Standoff. His eyebrows are large and wiry; he has let them grow wild.

His eyes are growing larger and his face more pinched with every breath. I believe I am being put on, no one is this crazy. “That’s Laura’s friend Geoff,” Laura’s mother chimes in “Remember; we talked about him last night at dinner?” He starts thinking and I can actually see the wheels in his brain turn. Suddenly his face brightens. “Anyone who lives in this house contributes to society,” he yells taking his index finger and poking me in the chest. With that said he continues to walk on by, hands shaking in the air now whistling “How to Handle a Woman.”

He walks down the hallway, turns into a room and slams the door behind him. I stare. “What the fuck was that?” I think to myself. I turn back into the kitchen hoping to get some sort of answer. Laura is standing by the sink, soaking wet with a towel wrapped around her body eating string beans out of a colander. 

“He’s an asshole,” Laura says to her mother. Laura’s mother nervously smiles. “Keep your voice down,” her mother responds to Laura, looking over her shoulder at me. She smiles and pushes her glasses back up with her shoulder. “Is she afraid that I will think he is an asshole as well?” “Is that why she has shushed Laura?” “Is his being an asshole a secret?” I have a lot to ponder over dinner.

“Why doesn’t everyone go sit at the table,” Laura’s mother says in a sing song way. Laura still wrapped in a towel continues to eat beans out of the sink. Realizing that no one is moving she sighs and looks at Laura. “Laura, go get your father,” she asks in a quiet and soft voice. Without moving one step in any direction, Laura screams out “Dad, dinners ready.” 

Laura’s mother looks at me and a nervous smile crosses her face. I’m convinced, this family is nuts.

Laura turns on her heel and walks back up the stairs and I walk into the dining room. I sit on the side of the table furthest away from the kitchen with my back to one of the glass cabinets. Down the hall a door is quickly opened and slammed, her father rushes into the dining room and immediately sits at the head of the table.

He turns to me with a smile on his face and rests his face on his hands. Through clenched teeth he looks at me and says “I’m the head of this family.” We stare at each other for a good five minutes, he never breaks his gaze. I am not sure if I am required to respond to this statement or not.

To be continued………………

Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writting "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Hey! You! Get Out of My Way! Part 18 Leaving Home

At the top of the stairs is Laura’s bedroom that she used to share with her sister. Across the hall is the bathroom with a stand up shower.  I turn my head as far as I can to look up the stairs. Laura’s Mother stands in front of me, now just staring at the cabinets. She has paused in time.

I see Laura walk out of her bedroom and into the bathroom; she is only wearing her panties.  The shower starts but the door to the bathroom never closes. I can hear the shower curtain being pulled back.

“I’ll need to make something for dinner,” Laura’s Mother suddenly announces coming back to life. I think of the Tin Man being given an espresso instead of an oil can. She suddenly begins to busy herself, opening cabinets and rooting through drawers. Upstairs Laura sings softly to herself as she showers.

“Here, put these on the dining room table,” Laura’s Mother says, placing cloth place mats, silverware and dishes in front of me. She goes immediately back to fussing all the while muttering “Oh my,” to herself while glancing at the kitchen clock. 

I stand up; taking what has been set in front of me and walk into the dining room. I begin to set the table. There is four of everything.
 
The room is surrounded by cabinets that clearly contain family heirlooms. 

Well, heirlooms that haven’t been needed or used in some time. They clearly haven’t been dusted in years. I walk over and though the glass, I see pictures of Laura and her sisters with pigtails and buckteeth, smiling out of old silver frames. Pictures of various moments deemed important in the life of her family, all staged here to show how happy they are.

While standing there, staring into the cabinet, I hear the door into the kitchen burst open. I then hear a masculine voice singing. This voice is a cross between Dudley Dooright and someone pretending to be an opera singer. I hear Laura’s Mother say “Hello, Dear.” I assume that Laura’s father has come home. The song he is singing at the top of his lungs is from Camelot. The song is “How to Handle a Woman.”

I continue laying down the dinner plates and the singing continues. I then hear Laura scream from the upstairs bathroom “Close the fucking curtain, you fucking freak.” I hear Laura’s father stop singing, giggle and respond with “Oh my, pardon me,” and then continues singing “How to Handle a Woman.”

To be continued………


Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writting "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Hey! You! Get Out of My Way! Part 17 Leaving Home

Laura’s Mother bounds around the corner as we walk into the living room. She is in her late 40’s, soft brown curly hair that is gently graying. Her face is slightly hidden behind a pair of oval glasses; her eyes immediately crinkle at the corners when she smiles. “Hello!” she yells, throwing her arms around me. She pulls me in close as she hugs then with both arms then shoots me back to standing in front of her.

“You must be Geoff,” she says cocking her head to one side. She has now taken my hands, one in each of hers. “I am,” I say. “You are,” she says giggling. Her head is still tilted to one side. We stand there staring at each other, she bobs her head as if she got it stuck when she nodded and now it is skipping like a record.

“Well,” she says and then sighs loudly. She is trying to tell me that she understands everything without actually telling me. I feel the therapist in her just busting at the seams. She shakes her head again, turns me towards the door and wraps her arms around my shoulder. She then brings me into an embrace; my face is smushed against hers. Laura’s Mother now begins to sob. It feels as if she is reliving the pain that happens when someone steals your baby. Her sobs become guttural cries but she is trying not to make a sound. I want to run for my life.

I look out of the corner of my eye at Laura. She seems oblivious to what’s going on; something tells me that this is normal for this house. Slowly I am being forced to walk forward by Laura’s Mother; she is leading me back into the kitchen. She grabs a hand towel on her way by and blows her nose in it.

Laura follows behind me and isn’t really paying that much attention to what’s going on. Laura’s Mother gently pushes me down to sitting on a kitchen chair.  She walks over to the cabinets, opens them and asks me “If she can fix me a snack.” 

Boomer walks over and pushes her elbow up with his head. She smiles a meek smile at him and bursts back into tears. “We’re having a casserole,” she says glancing back over her shoulder at me. ‘Nice,” I say. I am really wondering what kind of drugs the casserole will be laced with. Forgive me but I think Laura’s Mother is a woman on the edge, the edge of sanity, the edge of reality and The Edge of Night.

I resist the urge to run again, it is a strong one in me but I need to hold on. Unfortunately, I have nowhere to run.  This is it, at least for tonight.

Holding onto two of the cabinets she begins to open and close them, slowly at first and then faster and faster. Laura walks through the kitchen and starts to go up the stairs. “I’m going to take a shower,” she yells without looking back. As she walks up the stairs she unbuttons her shirt and pushes it off her shoulders. 

I stare up the stairs after her; she is now standing in a white bra and pants. She leans forward unbuttons her pants and slides them to her ankles. Her Mother is still opening and closing the cabinets.

To be continued……….

Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writting "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Hey! You! Get Out of My Way! Part 16 Now it begins

I spent a couple of nights at Beth’s house and would travel to school with her in the morning. So many people at school seemed to know about my life and what I was going through. 

My immediate concern was turning out to be that I couldn’t find a permanent solution to my problem. I needed a place to live on a permanent basis. I was afraid to call the group home in Saratoga as I was sure that they had been told all about what had happened at the Equinox shelter and that I would no longer be welcome.

My friend Laura came to me one day and told me that she had spoken to her parents on my behalf. It seemed that they would be happy to open their house to me and give me a more permanent place to live. Laura’s Mom, a new age therapist, had started a group for teens at her church hoping to keep them out of trouble. One of her slogans was “Kids are goats, Children are people.”

We scheduled a night for us to all meet three days later. I was going to go over to her house and have dinner with her family. Laura had 2 older sisters who were off at college, so it would just be her, her parents and me. My time at Beth’s house was up, even though Beth’s mother told me repeatedly that I could stay. I thought that it was for the best, I valued my friendship with Beth too much to overstay my welcome.

Three nights later Laura waited for me after school in the parking lot to drive me to her house. On the ride she told me a little bit about her parents. Her Mom was a stay at home Mom who was working on her degree to become a therapist. Her father had a full time job but was a musical theatre performer on the side. He had appeared in various community theatre productions in the area. Laura complained that he walked around the house naked belting show tunes all the time. 

We arrived at her house and I was a little nervous to go in and I asked Laura if we could sit in the car for a minute. I knew that I would have to tell the story of what happened to me and I was not looking forward to it. “My Dad is not home yet, just my Mother is,” Laura said as she shut off the car. I looked up at Laura’s house and thought that here is another chapter about to start, as I imagined her Father singing in the buff.

About ten minutes later I was feeling better and ready to go in. I figured that I couldn’t sit outside in the car all night. Laura took me through the garage and we climbed the stairs that entered through a side door and directly into the kitchen. We were immediately greeted by Laura’s dogs. Two black and white retrievers ran directly up to us at full speed. Laura laughed and held her arms high in the air, making the dogs jump at her.

One of her dogs was ancient and looked at me through white cloudy eyes. She moved as if her legs didn’t bend and barked incessantly into the air and at us. Her second dog named Bear was about two years old kept jumping on me and running into the next room. “She wants you to follow her,” said Laura. 

Sitting on the counter watching all of this was Laura’s orange and white tabby named Boomer.

To be continued…….

Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writting "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.

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