Out of the blue, Into the black

My father reappears one fine afternoon out of the blue, and without explanation, takes me to live with him…I have had no clue as to where he was, what he was doing, or that he had gotten re-married, so it was all a big shock to me…after living in almost near bliss with my great-grandmother and grandfather for a year, he yanks me out without ceremony, giving me little time to pack or honorably say goodbye to them…as we drive, he gives me a very basic ‘here’s how it’s going to be’ speech (because he is uncomfortable with any damage he might have caused me, and sees the very act of mentioning it as a sign that he is guilty)…he never really puts into context why he had disappeared, made no contact with me in that time, or what had happened to my mom…it was as if someone just shows up one day and changes the channel on your life, and you are supposed to play the same character you were playing on the other show, exactly as if it was the same reality you had been living in all along…I never saw my great-grandmother or grandfather again…I do not know when she died, because no one has ever told me…I found out my grandfather died around age 8 when my grandmother, his wife, handed me an obituary clipping from the paper…she didn’t say anything, and it took me a moment to register that it was about him, because I saw my name mentioned in the article as the ‘loving grandson’…when I asked her when the funeral was, she said he had already been buried…she had paid for his wake and funeral herself, and sat silently for the entire 2 days at the funeral home as her final act of matrimony…she also said it was boring, because not one person came…

It it still light out when we pull up to the trailer park, and all the snow on the ground gives each motorhome the gentle appearance that they are quaint country cabins…walking in, I notice right away that everything seems much colder…I meet my father’s second wife, my step-mother, for the first time…she is small, around 5 feet tall just like my mother, but more petite…however, where my mother’s features are soft and dark, her features are angular and straight…she speaks in a clipped, overly affected tone, which on the surface one without a keen ear would easily mistake for graciousness, but secretly underneath hums the lower bell of controlled chaos…my welcome from her is neither welcoming or dismissive, but I can see straight away she is not happy I am here…I am also re-introduced to my brother, who is grown now into a cherubic, golden locked boy of 3…last I saw him he was still a toddling babe, but now moves through the space with the confidence of an only child, for it is his…I am shown the lay of the land, and directed as to where to find my bed, which is the bunk that straddles the top of the driving cab…and that is it, life moves on…

Because of my poor daily diet of junk food (while living at my great-grandmothers), I am completely emaciated,…so much so that when my father first sees me shirtless, he is absolutely stunned, pointing out my bony ribs and gutted abdomen…later, this same day, while walking past my brother with no shirt on, he attacks me by leaping from a chair and biting a huge chunk of flesh out of my back …for this act he is neither scolded nor punished…I scream bloody murder, but instead of being consoled, am vigorously asked what I had done to provoke him…as I was very used to my normal staple of food: cereal, hamburgers, fries, and ravioli, I do not like the dinner they serve, and simply ask for something else to eat…I am told that is not possible…I say them I don’t want to eat the food they do have because it is unfamiliar to me, to which my father says that I have no choice, that I must eat the food on the table or starve…he goes on to add that he doesn’t care if I do starve because then there will be more food for them to eat…so I sit blankly and watch them carry on as if I am not there…I eventually hold out for about 3 days until I am so weakened I give in, gorging on stale corn bread until I am sick…

my dad leaves almost every evening to play gigs, leaving me to sit in silence with these 2 hostile strangers…my step-mother is a totally different person when my father is not around, speaking in a cold monotone and exhibiting little patience for any questions I might have…the entire message is clear---’we don’t want you here, but we have no choice’…my brother sees me as his competition for my father’s affections, because he has grown so used to him all to himself…(this sadly sets up a self-defeating competition between us that would last for 20+ years)…but my sibling does not concern himself over my relationship to our step-mother, because he is her only son now, and she his only mother…he calls her mom, a sound I find strange…my father informs me that I must call her mom as well, even though the thought repulses me…if I try to retreat to my bunk to find solace, I am told by my step-mother that I am not allowed to be up there unless I am going to bed…naps are not allowed, so I sit uncomfortably in the booth seats that also serve as an ad-hoc breakfast table and try to keep busy…there are no toys or books of my own, so I go out and play in the snow a lot…

After some months in the trailer park, we move to Cicero, Illinois, which is just south of Chicago, because the school year is approaching and we need a more permanent residence…(with the added attraction that my father’s mother lives close by us)…we live in the basement of a one story house …I like this much better than the motorhome because we live next to a high railroad embankment that is constantly busy with industrial trains that move by slow (I spend a great deal of effort trying to get the engineers to wave at me, or better yet, blow their whistle)…it is here on the sidewalk in front of our house that I learn how to ride my first bike, and suffer the first pangs of childhood cruelty…one neighborhood kid gets me to eat rock salt by telling me it is candy…another convinces me to pull my pants down, promising me I can ride his bike if I do this one favor (I am caught by my step-mother, and for this am beaten, grounded, and have my bike is taken away from me)…life is simple once school starts: one block down, school just to the right…since I already know how to read, write, and spell, the teacher enlists me to help others…school is more of a fun day because I already know the lessons…no one walks me to school or picks me up since it is so close by, so I do my best to avoid the older kids, who are bullies, along the way…once home, I try to stay busy and out of the way…because my father plays shows at night, he usually sleeps until 3 or 4 in the afternoon, so we must keep a very quiet house until he is awake…waking up my father for anything less than a nuclear bomb is never an option…we see him up and about for around 2 hours until dinner, and then he is out the door for the night…this gives me little contact with him, the person I know best (which is not saying much) and leaves me in the almost constant control of my step-mother…if my father is home, I am generally allowed to stay up a little later, and things tend to be more relaxed (once, when some of their friends are over, I am invited to play monopoly with the adults---I surprise everyone by winning)… day by day, I begin to detach slowly from the past, as the memory of living with my mother and my grandparents fades into the distance, and a dawning reality grows that this situation I am now in is not to be temporary like the others…I wish I could go somewhere, but I couldn’t tell you where…anywhere but here, I suppose…the entire time we are in Cicero, I do not see my mom or her relatives at all…and as is the custom, I am not allowed to speak of her…

Because my dad loves funk and soul music, he ends up being the only white guy in the black bands…my “uncles” are the men my father works with, and as is often the case with musicians (or I suppose anyone who works together), they tend to socialize as a group as well, coming over to the house at all hours…Cicero at this time is notoriously racist, but I don’t think it ever crosses his mind that these visits would be a problem until one day a man greets my father on the street by telling him that he had a beautiful wife and family…after my dad thanks the man, the stranger went on to add that he would “hate to see anything happen to (my dad’s) pretty wife and kids”…he explains that ‘they’ don’t take too kindly to my father’s friends, and that if the visits didn’t stop, something ‘bad was gonna happen’…so we moved not too long after that…

Our next and last stop is Glendale Heights, Illinois, population (approx) 10 to 15 thousand…this flatlands, with “no glen, no dale, no heights” is located in the western suburbs of Chicago, about one hour due west of downtown…Glendale Heights is a city with no downtown itself, and is part of the growing boom of city workers who move out to the wide open spaces of nowhere, essentially looking for cheaper places to live and find the infamous need for ‘quality of life’…to get to our new place, you go down a little hill, past a bunch of other shoddily built, quickly constructed townhomes until you reach the bottom…we are the corner unit to the left, which is good because we have a small side yard……most of our neighbors are lower middle-class families: white boomers, up and comers, hard working immigrants from Pakistan, India, and Vietnam…the neighbood is peaceful, quiet, and very normal looking, it’s isolation guranteed because there is no exit once you go down the hill…

As time has passed, my role in the family has settles in…I act essentially as an independent entity (think unwanted adopted child and you will get the picture)…my father lavishes praise on my brother, and my step-mother treats him as her own…I am tolerated, but it is made clear I must earn my position in the family, particularly by my step-mother…I must sweep the floors while my brother plays…I must clean up for the family after dinner because food is expensive…every move I make, every thing I do is given an assigned value against what I am costing the family…my father is distant, unable to deal with his prior abandoning of me…unable to deal with his own guilt, he treats me more like a buddy…it breaks my heart when he sends my brother hand drawn pictures from exotic locales and doesn’t even mention me in his letters…I feel invisible, but I cannot hide enough…everything I do is to not be seen, although there is nothing I want more in the world to be seen…school will soon will start, and I look forward to going every day to relieve living in this pressure cooker…I share a room with my brother, and spend a lot of time up there reading my new favourite book, “The Jungle Book”, by Rudyard Kipling…I want to close the door, but I am not allowed to by my step-mother (no explanation is given)…but when I read, I escape into a world without step-mothers and absent father’s and fairy tale mommies…