Chapter 13
“We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in
the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. The writer's job is
to turn the unspeakable into words - not just into any words, but if we can,
into rhythm and blues.”
― Anne Lamott
A month after my suicide, I was a
patchwork of emotions, struggling to pull and hold myself together all the while sensing
that something foreboding was waiting for me somewhere off on the horizon and was looming ever coming closer with each passing day. I was afraid, but I also knew whatever was
heading my way was something I would have to endure and that in time it would
make me stronger, better.
 |
| The Grant County Fair |
I had been working the night shift
at Burger King and like most people’s first jobs I hated it. But it wasn't the
grease burns, or the late hours, getting home every morning around two or three
am and having to wash with lava soap just to get the smell of burgers and fries
off me. I hated it because my life just felt worthless, I couldn't see my dad
because I was often working and I was seeing my friends less and less. The
situation was made worse by my mother who would come and bang on my door every
morning at ten am, screaming at me to not sleep the day away, even though I had
just got home, showered and unwound just a few hours before. I felt like I was
becoming a zombie, just going through the motions. Wake up tired, shower again,
eat a little breakfast and watch my little brothers before going in to work at
seven. I was nineteen and already felt
myself falling into a boring and lonely routine.
As if
sensing my growing frustrations, my two best friends started visiting me at my
work, often waiting hours after we've closed just to give me a ride home, since
I had yet been able to procure a car. (Well I did technically get a car from my
grandpa for my last birthday, but unbeknownst to me my mother gifted it to my
older brother, until he was done with it and got a new car himself, allowing
her to sell the car that was meant for me.)
 |
| Matt and his lovely wife. |
But Matt
and Steven were like the brothers I never had, they enjoyed having me around
and often went out of their way to make me feel accepted and loved. (which I so
desperately needed, I didn't know it then, but looking back now, I know I was
looking to fill those holes my family have left in me. So they became my
family, filling in those holes I so desperately wanted…needed to be filled.
Because family to me is what you say it is and doesn't always have to be
defined by blood or marriage.)
Then one night after they picked me
up from work and we sat around Matt’s pool discussing the summer and how his
would be coming to a close because he was going into the Marines and would soon
be leaving our little crew behind to protect and serve our country, discussing
the possibility of this moment being the one moment in time that would never
again come around, that this was it, the days of our youth was steadily winding
down and we had to do something to commemorate this event and so we decided to
have one last hurrah.
Our plan was to go attend the Grant
County Fair, but for all of us to go in Goth, because we lived in a closed
minded, back water little town, populated mostly by hillbillies and country
bumpkins. Also for me at least it’s always been easier for me to act carefree
when I’m dressed up and adopt the characteristics of someone else. I no longer
cared what any of these people thought or would say to me, so in a way I guess
we were just trying to make a statement against conformity, to be someone else
other than ourselves. Once there Matt decided
to have a little fun by staging a fake fight with another one of our friend,
John and being young and stupid we all agreed it’ll be fun to see and it was
and almost resulted in us being booted out of the fair. But once everyone
figured out it was all faked, everything was well and good, with the rest of
the night becoming most memorable indeed.
Although I must confess, the whole time I kept an eye out for Sherry,
hoping to see her somewhere in the sea of people there at the Grant County
Fair.
 |
| Steven |
It took three days for word of our
shenanigans to get around to my mother and Chris (My step-father.) and they
none too pleased and I had been asleep for a mere five and a half hours when
they came banging on my door, screaming at me to open up the door. Bleary eye
and sleep deprived from working even later than I usually did, I opened the
door just to be immediately shoved inside as they forced their way into my
room, with the accusations already flying.
Immediately they began questioning
me about the fair and I answered honestly, thinking it was no big deal and did
my best to explain the situation for what it was, our one last hurrah before we
risked never seeing our friend again. But they weren’t having it, instead I
found myself being accused of being in a suicidal cult and how I was tarnishing
Chris’s good name as a police officer and for the first time in my life I found
the conviction to finally stand up for myself and cry, “Bullshit!” and reminded
them that I never once gotten in any kind of trouble, I never once broke the
law, or drank, did any drugs and I never caused any problems at school.
But my mother wouldn't have it, she
stepped to me and started jabbing me in the chest with her finger, telling me I
was to call Matt, Steven and the others and tell them how I could no longer be
friends with them. An act I couldn't find more humiliating and so I stood my
ground and defiantly told her no.
She
hadn't expected my answer and I knew from her body language that she had
expected me to give in, that I would cave as I always did. But I didn’t and
when she asked what I meant I told her.
“Look,
my friends and I all graduated High-School,
and none of them have ever been in any kind of trouble, or been
arrested, none of them smoke or do drugs, they’re good and they’ve been good to
me and they’ve been there for me than you ever were. They’re my family and have
been my family in all the ways you never could be, I won’t turn my back on them
for you. “
“I
don’t care,” She says, “You either call
your friends up right now and tell them you can’t be friends with them-“
“Mom,”
I interrupt, “I’m nineteen, I’m not my brother and my friends aren’t his
friends, mine are better.”
(Which
was the truth, my brother’s friends have all been, or gone to prison…some still
are and almost all of them have either been expelled or dropped out of
high-school, with most of them already hooked drugs, or alcohol. Unlike my
friends who worked hard, kept their noses clean and help motivate and even
tutor me on their own when I was falling behind.
“Call
them, or we’re kicking you out!” She screamed and I smiled. Because I realized
her threats didn’t bother me anymore, I was free and my eyes were finally
opening to all the lies she ever told me. This was what my father had kept
trying to warn me would happen. My mother was going to kick me out because she
had no further need of me, no child support and me longer the prisoner she
always wanted me to be.
“Alright…I’m gone.” I rasp and I
pick up my phone as she asks me where I’m going to go and so I tell her, “I
think I’ll go live with my dad for a little while.”
She
watches me then as I pick up the phone and dial my dad’s number, telling him I
needed a place to stay that I was being kicked out and he told me he’d be on
his way.
When I
hung up my mother started going off on me, rattling off everything that was
wrong with me, how weak and pathetic I was, that I was nothing but an ugly
little coward. I didn’t expect any less from the very woman who told me much of
the same for my whole life and just quietly packed up my things as she followed
me around, accusing me of being a mischievous liar, always sneaking around and
how my dad wouldn’t put up with my attitude or behavior, along with every
little thing I did wrong since I was seven and how one day my father would end
up beating me to death. Which was when I
finally snapped.
“Enough!” I barked, “Just stop it
okay, seriously when does it does it stop with you? You won alright? I’m moving
out, you can stop blaming me and holding me accountable for things I did when I
was seven. Because believe it or not I was a good kid and despite what you
think, I was always just misunderstood. But still I grew up and I’ve changed,
I’m not being all sneaky and seeing what all I can get into any more, because
yes, I do remember how I used to sneak around and look in people’s cupboards, search rooms, look in closets and
sneak off, but you know what I was seven! That’s what kids do, I never stole or
took anything except for candy from candy jars, but I was a kid. And yes, I use
to lie so that I wouldn’t get in trouble and to avoid getting the paddle, but I
was eight years old and you act like it was yesterday. For crying out loud,
haven’t you noticed in the past ten years that I’ve always admitted to things
I’ve done and would only deny the things I hadn’t, letting you beat a false
confession out of me, that you would then use to further incriminate me for
things I hadn’t done, just so that you could have someone to blame for
everything that’s wrong.
“Josh
you’ve always been a liar and vindictive, trying to get back at me cause you
think you’ve been done wrong!” She snapped back.
“Are
you kidding me?” I asked, “And why would you think, that I would think that?
Could it be you know you’ve been treating me wrong all these years and you
think I’m like you and just been holding it all inside until I can get a little
payback? That’s sick and I think you’re sick.”
“Josh I
can’t believe you would say that,” she shot back.
Shrugging,
I shake my head,
“Do you
ever stop to wonder about why it is you think I’m such a horrible person? My
whole life all you ever done was blame me for things I didn’t do and whenever I
would try to plead my innocents you wouldn’t stop beating me until I confessed
and would always hold that confession against me, telling me it’s why you could
never believe me, because I confessed to you the last time after fervently
denying something I told you I didn’t do. But do you recall how many times and
how long it would take of you beating the hell out of me before I confessed?
Did you ever once stop to think that I would have admitted to anything if it
would have stopped you from hurting me, grounding me, punishing me and making
me go without dinner?
No matter what I did or what
happened you would judge me as being guilty before even speaking to me and automatically
assumed the worse about me when I gave you no grounds to do so. I’ve always been a good kid, stayed out of
trouble, always doing what I was told, what I should, so much so I often get
teased for always being so straight laced and afraid of ever doing anything
even remotely bad or wrong. But you see only what you want to see in me and I’m
tired of it. I’m tired of the threats, the accusations and being treated like a
second class citizen, so I’m done, you got your wish, and I’m no longer your
son.”
Then I
shook my head grabbed my bags and shoved my way past her, to wait out in the
driveway for my father to pick me up. My heart was still racing, I never spoken
to my mother like that before, heck until then I barely even stood up for
myself…like ever. It felt good, if not a little scary and hurtful, because I
finally admitted what I never had to courage to really face. Which was there
was nothing I could do, nothing I could ever say, my mother hated me and would
always see me as some stupid delinquent that she could bully and manipulate.
Although a part of me was already looking back, thinking about my little
brothers and how much I would miss them, imagining there reaction when they
would ask about me and dreading whatever lies my mother would feed them. But
this was something I had to do, I had to cut ties with my mother no matter how
much it hurt, otherwise I would simply drown.
But little did I know, that my mother's little rein of terror upon my life was far from over....
But little did I know, that my mother's little rein of terror upon my life was far from over....
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