The immediate
answer in my mind to Jonathans question was “No way in hell.” That’s at least
what my first thought was, I never said it out loud.
“Maybe someday we
can, but for right now why don’t you go to sleep?” I said to him as I slid into
bed.
“She sure is
pretty,” Jonathan sighs again. I can hear him roll onto his side. “Goodnight,”
he says and immediately starts snoring.
“I hate him.” “I
hate him so much.” ” Jonathan is stupid and disgusting.” He follows me around
like a sick puppy, needing constant attention. He’s dirty and sloppy and has a
weird constant smell.
I get angrier
thinking about everything that has happened since I got here. I should have
stopped Leo from beating Jonathan and tying him to a tree, but something in me
is happy to hear the stories from Leo about pounding Jonathan. I am no better
than any of the bullies that I encountered in my life but somehow, I take a
perverse glee in Jonathan’s suffering. Is it because it’s not me?
I feel protected
by Leo. I feel that he has protected me from Jonathan and from this world I’m
living in. It’s true that deep inside he is a wild animal who strikes and
someday could turn on me.
I let my rage
start to grow as I think about how I got here. I try to think about my rage and
how it bubbles to the top and spills over. I certainly am no saint. Lying in
the dark I begin to reflect.
My thoughts turn
to my Mother. God I hate her. I hate her so much. The rage feel towards her is
all consuming. Things according to the family picture album started out good
enough. It was at about age 7, that there was a change. Mom was always nervous
and edgy. She lived by a set of rules that made little sense. If you questioned
her rules you would find yourself punished. If you questioned anything that was
said to you, you would find yourself punished.
Bad words would
get your mouth washed out with soap. You could be made to sit with a bar of
soap in your mouth for as long as 30 minutes. Finally, when you were drooling
foam that burned your throat, she would then remove the bar. I came to loath
Irish Spring.
My mother is
mentally ill. There is nothing more to this thought. She medicates it with
alcohol as most people did back then. My father was always absent; he used to
travel a lot for work. Whenever he was out of town my mother would strike and
it would always be worse than when he was there.
It was a pattern
that would repeat itself for years. It would start in the morning as I sat at
the breakfast table. Mom would wander into the room, cigarette dangling out of
her lips, Kleenex poking out of a sleeve in her bathrobe. Hung-over, she was
always looking to pick a fight. Alcoholics still scare me to this day. There is
no reasoning to anything that they do.
My parents had
spoken of divorce on several occasions. We kids, always thought that they were
going to split. We were sat down and they asked us who we would like to live
with in the future. We chose our Father which made my mother ballistic. She announced
that the question was nothing more than a popularity contest and stormed out of
the room.
That was my
mother’s usual cry.
The problem was
that my father took his vows seriously. I remember a fight so bad one time
between the two of them. Mom was screaming, Dad was leaving and we kids were
crying. My father made it as far as the front steps with my younger sister
hanging on his leg. There he sat thinking about what a hell he was living in
and decided that he had promised for better and worse. It was at this moment
that his world changed. He placed the blinders on his eyes and never looked
back.
My mother’s
mother was mentally ill and I wondered when did we first notice as kids that
something was off with her? Was it the time that my sister had to sit a doll at
the thanksgiving table so there wouldn’t be thirteen people sitting there? Was
it the piles and piles of articles, clipping and cartoons that she cut out of
newspapers and slid between the pages of scrapbooks placed in the bathroom in
stacks?
Was it her love above all others of her cat applies named Miss Cat?
Could it have been her constantly putting my mother down while praising my
uncle? Was it her taking to darkened rooms when she didn’t feel well or the
multiple pictures of Jesus Christ she placed around the house? My favorite
thing she did was to ignore us and my mother, pretending we weren’t there. She
would hold the cat close and talk about how much she loved her.
to be continued.......
Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writing "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.
Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writing "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.
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