My parents got divorced when I was 3 years old. There were three of us left in the mess. My mother won custody. Why, I will never know. We were already living in the projects in Toledo, OH. The difference was that Dad was there to provide income and food. Now it was just the three kids and one very meek single mother with no job, no skills, no ambition, and no hope. I'm not sure what Dad was doing or why we didn't get child support but well, it was the 80's during the recession, things were tough. Anyway, we didn't see Dad that often. Mom wasn't working from what I can gather. Just living off of the Government like any good family in the projects.
What I do remember is that we were poor. Dirt poor. We had nothing. Even in the projects you see people with decent cars, stereos, tv's, and what not. We had nothing. There was this cornfield behind out apartment, owned by some big corporation, and mom would send my older brother and sometimes me, over the fence to pick corn, so that we could have dinner. I remember eating tomato sandwiches and even mayo sandwiches. I remember splitting a can of beans between four people. Things they were rough, but at least I had my mother.
Then The Big White Boss showed up. Mom found a lover, a man, to help support us. He moved in and he was pure evil in my mind. He made us call him The Big White Boss. The earliest form of physical abuse I ever knew I knew because of him. He hated me. Singled me out. He had a son my age, who he never saw, and I guess, he hated me for it. I can remember waking up to him beating me. I was 4 years old by the way. In college we were asked to write a poem on one of our earliest memories. Mine was about him. I will share it with you.
The Hand that You Fear
The night was crisp
the air was clean-
I slept like a newborn
after its first meal-
I dreamed of toys
and picnics
as a cold man would dream of a coat.
This last solitude
away from reality
suddenly abrupt by
a freight train of pain.
I awoke to find
the eyes of a
monster
staring at me
as if I had thrust
sunlight into it’s
content darkened world.
My mother’s beau,
this monster-
tossing me about like
a useless hunk of rotted meat-
His voice-
piercing my ears to the point of
deafness.
Lash!
Lash!
“WHY?”
my final word
as the night drew to a close-
-my lips silenced
by the hand
of a drunken beast.
He walked away proud
and I sat searching for a hold on reality-
My mother, she gave me life,
but her lover,
offered me only fear of it.
So this was my life for the next year or so. I turned 5 years old. I remember getting a big wheel with a break on it from my Dad. I also remember it getting broke by my older brother and his friends the same day. Good times. Anyway, life moved on like this. I'm scared of the Big White Boss, I think all three of us kids were. All the while I am wondering where my Daddy is. Why do I only get to see him every few weeks or so? Why won't he save me from The Big White Boss? Why won't my mother? When you are a child you don't understand that things shouldn't be the way they are. You think everyone knows about it. So you don't say anything about it. I thought Dad knew. He didn't. But I didn't know that then. At least I had my mother though. At least she was there to love me and hold me and tell me everything was going to be ok.
Well in November of 1984 that all changed. My mother decided for whatever her reasons may be that she was going to leave us three kids and run away with the Big White Boss never to be seen again. And she did. The plan was to leave us with the babysitter, their friend who was in on it all, and after about 4-5 hours she was to call our father and tell him that my mom and the Big White Boss never came home and that she found a letter. Well, its amazing how things never go as planned. Dad was out of town. So the babysitter had no way to reach him. She started freaking out. She eventually became the person that sat us down to tell us our mother had deserted us. Awesome. I'm sure it was heartfelt. Sarcasm. Anyway, she is freaking out, with no way to get a hold of mom or my dad, she panicked. I don't recall what happened next, but somehow we ended up at my Dad's house where my Grampa also lived. He, I guess, watched us until Dad could get home.
My whole life changed in an instant. My enemy was gone. No more pain from him. But at what cost? I lost my mother to the monster. Imagine a 5 year old trying to comprehend his mother, the one light in his life, running away with his arch nemesis. I still to this day don't get it. It really did a number on me. I am left with a lifetime of abandonment issues and a distrust of mothers. Here is the kicker.
She began writing to us, with no return address of course. She would write me things like, "I'm coming for you my sweet boy. I'm going to take you away from all of that. I will be in a big red van and I will come for you." I would just wait in the front yard for her, for days, and for hours. She never came. And it was hard. Dad and I did not get along. I was a shy little momma's boy, but my momma was gone. I was the middle child. I have always been the scapegoat and very misunderstood, and once again, all I wanted was my momma, but momma was gone. Oh but she kept sending me letters. And she never came.
I spent my next years with a brand new horror. Another physical abuser, my step grampa. Not my dad's dad, who was living with him when we moved in (he died a few months later), but his step father, his childhood abuser. That is a story for another time. But I spent the next years dealing with that, just wishing and hoping that my secret angel, my mother, was going to come save me. I went from wishing my Dad would come save me from the Big White Boss to wishing my mommy would save me from my step grampa and my lack of a relationship with my dad. But, she never came, at least not yet.
So years later, I was 11 or 12. She shows up. Finally my mother, she's here. No red van, but I'll take it! She was coming to take me away! Boy was I wrong. I noticed something was wrong with her stomach. She said she was pregnant and married now. And then, out of the car stepped, you guessed it, The Big White Boss, who is now officially my step father. Fan-fucking-tastic. On top of that, she wasn't here to take us, she was there to say she was moving to Cleveland, OH. An hour or so drive from Toledo. This began years of scattered visiting times, an odd relationship with my mother, and more fun abuse with the Big White Boss, who turned it from physical abuse when I was a kid, to verbal and mental abuse as a teenager. Mom continued on with her ever familiar pattern of choosing him over us. When the physical abuse from my step grampa became apparent, Mom stepped in like the Calvary and said she wanted to take us back. Dad always thought we needed a mother, and so he agreed to it on a trial basis.
Let me tell you. We never even made it through her door. I was maybe 12-13 at this point. We got to the door at her and her husband's apartment and before we walked in, The Big White Boss took mom aside and said he changed his mind. Told my mom, in front of us, that he didn't want us living there and that she needed to decide between us and him. Without skipping a beat my mother grabbed us and our stuff and put us back into the car and took us back to our dad's. This was a pattern that continues to this day even though she and the Big White Boss have since divorced, he is still a part of her life and still controls this very weak, co-dependent person. Not as much mind you, but still does. The only good to come from him was my little brother. He is one of my best friends and would not be here if it wasn't for the Big White Boss.
So what is the point to all of this? Hell, I don't know, I lost focus four paragraphs ago. I will say one thing though. I don't regret it. Any of it. It may bring me sadness when I think about it, but I am who I am because of a lot of that. Hell most actors have had some sort of tragic upbringing, the need for attention and all, I know it contributes to why I like being on the stage. I don't regret. Everything happens for a reason. I tell you now, I will never leave my children if I have any. I will be the best father I can be. I will love them, treat them with respect and understanding. I will nurture them and be there as much as I humanly can. I don't know if I want to because of what happened to me or because it has always been who I am, but I refuse to do anything less.
3 comments:
*hugs* from your pseudomom...it took balls to write this, kid. love, me
It was harder than I thought actually. Balled my eyes out a few times. hugs back.
That is a very PG version of our childhood, and thankfully so. Who wants to relive that horror? It's awful that choices made by others effect you for the rest of your life. It's bullshit, to say the least. The good thing is, we're grown up now and making decisions for ourselves. Decisions that can reshape our future. A late bloomer thing, I guess. But as every other lucky knucklhead who had a deservingly kind childhood is now trying to figure out how to do this whole "adult thing," that you and I & Tricia have been doing so since we were kids. We know who we are and do what we love for the rest of our lives, which is exponentially many more years than those lost in our childhood. In a very sordid way, it was our gift. And, by the way, I think you'd be a fantastic dad. I love it more than my art. They are living art. They are loved and do not live in fear. That choice makes me feel so accomplished and thankful. I look forward to what we will look like in the future. We are on our way to greatness in anything we choose. Many different temperaments, talents, and convictions that we've accumulated over the years via adaptation. It's very beautiful in an obscure sense. Hope you're well, my brother. And as good ole Henry Valentine Miller once so eloquently stated, "Happy is the man that does what he loves ... he'll never work a day in his life." Strong arms, brother.
As ever,
Sir Salty Highgrass
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