Waterworks and a tip of the scales

Tipping the Scales

A few weeks had passed since my dad asked me to move into the river house. I had talked about it to my mom and she let me know it was my decision and wouldn’t stand in whatever I decided. Later in life I learned that she did put up a fight, but chose to spare me the trauma of going through the courts.  

I was like a dry sponge, I was wrung out, I needed soaking up, and I needed something quick. Emotionally and spiritually malnourished I floundered. I needed advice and I didn’t know where to look. I went to a catholic school but got very little direction there, my connection with the nuns was less than ideal having been labeled a problem child, a nickname which I was perversely proud of at the time and excelled at maintaining. The monsignor and priests weren’t my friends; I did the altar boy thing but only to get a hold of the sacramental wine, drink until I got a little dizzy and give out “communion” in the school yard until one of the girls ratted me out. Again… I was ratted out for small misdemeanors quite frequently.

So with nowhere to turn I turned to the only place I had left. Inside. Being a day dreamer it was easy for me to imagine what life might be like on the river. There was a girl who lived next to the Miamiville Tavern who I flirted with, horses, driving the truck up and down the dirt road, guns and motorcycles. No rules, but my future was uncertain out there. I knew I’d have to sleep in that creepy room with the nearly constantly damp floor and I knew I wouldn’t have a dresser or a bed. I’d be sleeping on a folding chaise lounge with nylon strapping missing; I’d be sleeping on an oversized pillow that looked like cow skin on the living room floor. I knew I could eat, go to bed, wake and pretty much do what I wanted anytime I wanted. I also knew I wouldn’t have my mother and that was the hardest knew of all.

After my folks got divorced they both remarried, both for different reasons and I hope they both where happy. My dad left town with the baby sitter and was sort of black listed for a while from her family and his. Running off with a minor even in those days apparently was frowned upon. My mom, I guess married the best thing coming down the pike that life had to offer her. I was completely confused and bewildered by her choice. Maybe he was the best that that specific time and place had to offer. How they met I don’t know, I didn’t get it, I feel like I could repeatedly whack myself in with a tennis racket until I was nearly unconscious trying to figure this one out a. Even today.

Maybe it was the fact that he was a complete polar opposite from my father that created the attraction. By all outward appearances he seemed to be a normal fellow. Tall, strong, had a job, car, drank beer, had kids of his own. Everything a woman could want in the mid 70’s; we’d be a real Brady Bunch family, minus Alice and the dog, Mr. B didn’t like dogs. There’s a strike.

Mr. B, wow, Mr. B. I could write a few stories about him, my step dad. I don’t think we liked each other from the first time we met. I remember him coming over to pick my mom up for a date, or maybe he was coming over just to get to know us. Whatever the reason first impression count and boy did he leave one on me. As the screen door swung open and shut with a slam his silhouette blocked all incoming light. He cast a long shadow, walking further into the room and towering over us kids all the oxygen was completely sucked, flowers wilted, paint and paper peeled off the walls, panes of glass shattered, dogs cowered and old ladies shielded their eyes. Babies within a two block radius started crying spontaneously and when we rode It’s a Small World at Disney the ride stopped working and all the characters popped bolts, sprung springs, fell off their tracks and started singing Helter Skelter and reciting Mein Kampf.

Of course I’m kidding, he wasn’t that bad, it was just the over exaggerated impression of a little kid. He certainly was grim, not very smiley and couldn’t appreciate the value of a good fart or boner joke. He was sterile, ignorant, not gentle or fun. Didn’t like animals or playing with food at the table, I knew corn catapult would be completely out of the question. If my mother’s soul was the color of capiz shining brightly his was void of any color, a black hole that sucked all the life and light out of the room.

I’m sure we each represented what the other disliked the most on this earth. If Mr. B thought I was a greasy haired, smart mouthed, no respecting, slacking little fucker, he wasn’t far from the truth. I pegged him as an ignorant, uncreative, unimaginative, smelling of cleanser and oil, central Ohio hick whose only value was knowing which way to turn a screw. He was mechanical and could drive a nail, lay a plumb line and change the oil in his Plymouth Duster and Dodge Super Bee, the coolest things the dude had going for him. On the other hand I represented my dad and I was fiercely loyal defending him when someone was talking smack and I wasn’t going to be won over by some modern day dust bowler regardless how good his intentions might have been. In my eyes he was trying to take my father’s place, a position no one was good enough to fill. Our relationship was doomed from the start and neither of us seemed to give a shit, especially since I generally got the shorter end of the stick and he came out on top.

Pressure was on and I had to choose between two camps, two life styles. On the one hand it’d be a free wheel’n, keep on truck’n, mad magazine flying freak brothers extravaganza. Then, my other choice was living in a sterile middle class environment surrounded by upholstery and drapes that represented my step dad’s rural sensibilities and general lack of originality. In bed by 8:30, regardless of the night of the week, no choices, no negotiating, just goose stepping towards false cleanliness to the sounds of Pat Boone and Bo Donaldson’s version of Billy Don’t be a Hero. Mass on Sundays which he refused to attend with the rest of the fam, “I warship gawd my owhn way”, yeah, sleeping in on Sundays, I’d like to worship that way too.  Family entertainment was anything Doris Day, Hee Haw and the Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. “Don’t touch that channel!” If you happened to be home during the week and Mr. B was home, the Price is Right was a must see and don’t even think about talking over the Bob. Hanging out with the snot nosed tattle tale of cop’s kids that lived across the street wasn’t a picnic either. Their idea of a good time was chasing each other and you with a booger ended finger and trying to get you to drink piss they’d dyed with food coloring.

As my twelfth year birthday started closing in I started looking for someone to tell me what the right and smart thing to do was. I knew what I wanted to do, but for the first time in a while I also wanted to do what was the right thing. I couldn’t talk about it with either of my parents; they were the ones fighting over me. Most adults at that time spoke down to me rather than at me so they weren’t to be respected or regarded. As double d date approached (Decision Date) my step father tried to do the right thing and have a man to man talk with me. We were given our space in the living room where I generally wasn’t allowed to sit on the furniture, but the severe tone of our conversation merited me the honor to sit on washed out flowery yellow couch. No real treat considering all the grease marks left from Mr. B’s head imprint with the indelible scent of Royal Crown Pomade. It grossed me out. We talked about school, awkward silence, he let me know I could sit behind the wheel of the Duster anytime I wanted, awkward silence, told me he loved my mother, awkward silence and he told me he tried to be my friend. He told me how much my mother loved me and how much it would hurt her if I moved out. Sobbing, I knew that, that’s why I couldn’t make a decision. If there was one thing that was pure and good and nice and sweet on this earth it was my mother. I there were two, it was my mother and grandmother.

Guilt! That’s why the fuck I couldn’t make a decision. The shadow of guilt. The worst kind of guilt, a son betraying his mother. We’re not talking about shop lifting some penny candy, no breaking into the neighbor’s house while they’re on vacation, or poking someone in the eye with a stick.  We’re not talking about dipping and stirring the end of your step dad’s new water pick into a piss and turd filled toilette, it’ not even on the same scale of breaking into a black powder warehouse and making pipe bombs. Out of all the different stages of guilt turning your back on a family member, let alone your mother is the worst kind of guilt possible. That’s something you’re going to carry around for a while.

Mr. B made it clear that I was welcome in this house and that maybe we could have a fresh start. Kids have a great bullshit detector and that’s exactly what I smelled coming out of his mouth, his central Ohio red neck twang might have been laying it out, but I wasn’t buying it. A fresh line of crap. Sweet words spoken with a sweet deep accent, like poison that smelled of lavender and lilacs. Too much water under the bridge. I stood up, wiped my eyes, shaking I shook his hand and said good night.

My mom was waiting for me in the bedroom I shared with my brother. She was sitting on the bed and gestured for me to sit next to her. I plopped down and again, the waterworks started as she told me how much she loves me, how she thought it was probably a bad idea but she would understand if I left and would love me as much then as she did that day and the day I was born. Did I mention guilt? She wasn’t laying a guilt trip on me, just being honest and forthright. But there is no way an eleven year old kid can feel anything but remorse and shame. I couldn’t even say the words, wasn’t a man enough and I didn’t have the stones to utter them. I could not say “I want to move in with my dad.” She actually had to come out and ask me if I wanted to move in with my father. I trembled, sobbed and nodded my head. She helped me change into my pj’s for the last time, waited for me to brush my teeth, tucked me into bed and said “Goodnight, sweet dreams and I’ll always love you.”

A horse named Blue, a dog named Boo and a Judge named Cheryl

So life went on at the river house for a few years or months or whatever it was with its ups and downs. We had our adventures in the woods and fields riding horses, breaking into the old Kroger estate and trying to sell the rancid tulip bulbs in front of the post office. Fights broke out; nights where spent in pick up beds under stars and around fire pits. Siblings getting lost in the woods for hours and hours; an aresole can explosion popping open my brother’s hand, nothing a little rubbing alcohol and a popsicle won’t take care of. There was the occasional horse bite or kick, a cow’s birth and always the permeating smell of horse shit. Still, my favorite of favorites of smells, right up there with bacon cooking. It’s said they aromas can take you back into time quicker and more intensely than any others senses and my experience that this is a true fact. It’s not scientific but based on the number of times I’ve driven passed a horse pasture and smelling that slightly sickly sweet odor has taken me back into time to a muggy July day around the horses of my childhood.

A lot happened in the big world too, Nixon got re-elected, my uncle got elected mayor, folks started coming back from Viet Nam, Fisher beat Spassky, Watergate broke and the Supreme Court legalized abortion and I’m pretty sure something happened on, near or around the moon. The Exorcist came out and I snuck into a showing at Hyde Park Square, shit my pants and ran out of the theatre. George Carlin was arrested for seven deadly words and my family discovered the beauty of light beers.  Yep, from where I was sitting it was a good year.

Weekend life out on the camp was just right for me, one day I’d be playing cowboys and Indians with real horses, hatchets (tomahawks) and b.b. guns, riding wildly bare back and bare chested, we would find ourselves building forts and river rafts, hiking in the woods, breaking into abandoned houses and building the occasional fire that’d grow out of control as we dashed off. The next day I’d be playing burned out hippy kid, trying to memorize the words to Harrison’s Bangladesh Album while eating spam sandwiches and drinking the remains of canned beers and watered down cocktails from the night before. I was mesmerized by the picture of that little kid on the front of the Album cover, I wanted to reach in and pull him out and share my canned meat and egg sandy on rye. I dreamt of getting a team of recon specialists and ex Viet Nam do gooders, going to Bangladesh and rescuing that little fucker, teaching him the ways of the west and capitalism. Dressing him in Chuck T’s, Levi’s and a cool ass oversized army jacket.    Idealism came easy to a kid that was nearly always stoned.

One grey day I found myself and Dad walking across the railroad trestle from Miamiville. We’d went over to get some bologna and a few scratch tickets and we stopped into the tavern to knock back a couple of beers while we were there. Oddly though, my dad seemed pensive and broodish as we crossed over the river. He was obviously engrossed in his own thoughts as he took the trestle tracks one by one and I tight-rope walked along one of the rails, arms out for balance, sea-saw occasionally on purpose to make it feel a wee bit more dangerous. It rained recently and misted a bit so the river was running faster and higher than usual but I was always okay as long as I didn’t look down to the running water 40 feet below me. The nerves of steel kid.

Once we reached the safety of the other side, he seemed to loosen up a bit and asked if I wanted to continue walking the track rather than work our way down the scree of the embankment and on to the river house. Of course I want to continue walking, it’s not often I have my dad all to myself. We chatted about how much he loved me and how he came back from California to be with us kids; about love in general and how sometime it’s a beautiful thing and how sometimes it isn’t so great and things just don’t work out. We talked about Cat Steven’s, why Jonathon Livingston Seagull had such a long name for a bird where chili came from and we decided that Colby Cheddar was the best cheese and not Limburger.

We shivered and talked as we meandered down those tracks towards the School House restaurant; it was a happy moment, a moment frozen in time because we shared so few of those moments. Sort of a Pearl Harbor moment, I knew exactly where I was, the shade of my flimsy red wind breaker, how soggy my Convers had gotten, the color of the shrubs and which direction the rain was occasionally spitting. It was a misty and grey walk, but a happy walk, we’d push each other off the iron rails and laugh as we fake wind milled our arms. An overgrown pasture was on our right separated by a rusted wire fence, barbed wire and small locust trees and over grown shrubs that haven’t been manicured since the Kroger family moved on and out... Suddenly two horses galloped up and stuck there heads through a break in the thicket, one was a huge white appaloosa with blue grey spot that seemed as if his groom forgot him. His hair was tangled and matted, burrs where stuck in his tail and the remnants of his winter coat. His name was Blue and his was a beautiful horse, well cut, well defined and real spirited son of a bitch. I also knew for a fact that he liked to drink beer. Blues companion was a well-kept, well trained Palomino of no distinction as far as I was concerned. Too much of a lady for me, I liked Blue. We stopped and petted and put our arms around the necks, sort of hugging the animals and I just sort of wished that all our times together could be more like this.

Leaving the horses behind, my dad gestured that it was time to start heading back home for dinner. Unexpectedly my dad’s conversation turned from light hearted and silly to a more serious note. He abruptly, out of the blue said “You’re mother is trying to put me in jail.” I stopped dead in my tracks. I lost my breath; I had visions of going to the Norwood Jail to see him, separated by bars, how long would he be in jail? Days, months, years, was a life sentence looming? First things first I thought as I composed myself.

“Why?! I said.

“I’m not sure son, money. She’s looking for money and I don’t have none.”

After such a special moment this news hit especially hard. My throat started to burn; close up, my eyes started to water as I struggled to fight back the tears at the thought of not seeing my dad for who knows how long. No more walks, bologna sandwiches, no more motorcycles, driving the car by myself, no more sitting on the bar stool at the Miamiville Tavern drinking straight grenadine and mowing down Vienna sausages. No more nothing. I was getting pissed and as I struggled to rationalize what could possibly happen ‘I figured my Step Dad must somehow be behind this. But there was nothing I could do, he was grown up and I was just a little kid.

My dad continued “I’m supposed to send her money every week and I just don’t have it, we had to go see a judge and your mother pulled this out to show him.” It was my dad and step mom’s Christmas card. They were standing in front of a royal blue slat fence with a bunch of dogs, cats and horses around them. I knew that card very well; I would sometimes pretend that I was in that picture too. Sometimes I would include my brother and sister but mostly it as just me. And I actually remember looking for that photo once and it being gone from where I kept my copy. That must have been the one that made its way in front of the judge. I knew the names of every one of the animals; Jeanne, Sunfire, Bullet, Diane, Eli, Boo, Jason, Chelsea, Spencer, Levon, Geronimo, Spike the cow and her calf Flipper. . “She told the judge I had enough to keep these animals but not enough money to take care of my kids, so I might be going to jail.”

I cried and wailed and hugged my dad’s waste as we stumbled along. I think maybe he cried a little bit too.

“You know, there might be one thing….” his voice trailed off a little.

I shrugged and tried to catch my breath. “What’s that?” as I wiped my eyes on an already drenched red windbreaker.

“Your twelfth birthday is coming up and the judge will let you decide who you want to live with, all the kids get to decide. You could come with me and the animals or your Mom and B. Then, I wouldn’t have to pay as much money because we’d be taking care of you here and I could probably catch up on what I owe and wouldn’t have to go to jail.”

Brilliance! And I realized I had a big decision to make.  And it was a big decision that merited a lot of thought, mulling over and scrutinizing Unfortunately I didn’t possess the necessary capacity for reason and logic to pull this one off. I didn’t consider asking a priest, grown up, older kid or someone with more life experience. I just wanted to go where the party was, a theme that would follow me later in life.