moving mountains

Before I get into the cheerleading saga, I feel that I must first tell you about how much trouble I got into my freshman year. There were two big events for which I became permanently grounded. Then there was a dramatic meltdown and finally…. the divorce.

The first time that I really got into big trouble was the time I totaled my step dad’s truck. I was fourteen and I didn’t have a driver’s license. We had moved into the new house. It was very big and sat facing an acre of land and to the back was the air strip where all of the local residents could take off and land their little airplanes. One family even had a helicopter (ouch). The house had five bedrooms and five bathrooms. I had my own bathroom, which was pretty amazing and I had the biggest room. It was very big but not big enough to contain me and my anger. That would be a very big room indeed.

When the house was first finished, there was this huge mound of garbage next to it. Not really garbage but refuse from the build, all sorts of scraps and materials. Mixed in with all of it was a bunch of wood and it was sitting out there rotting in the rain. My step dad (I’m going to call him this now because it take’s too long to type “the man my mom married”) decided that it would be a good idea to sift throught the pile and separate the wood from the rest of the garbage so that we could use it for fuel in our wood burning stove. This was a good idea, if you weren't the one doing the separating of the wood and the hauling of the wood and the stacking of the wood in the garage, which he wasn’t. This was a chore for the kids to do, like little slaves, his minions. God I hate him. He was one of these old school guys that grew up walking in ten feet of snow, ten miles to school, uphill both ways. No one knew the discipline and hardship he had to endure growing up and it did him a world of good and we were all going to benefit from some hard labor and discipline so that we could grow up and be mother-fucking assholes just like him.

We worked on the wood project for weeks, separating and stacking, all four of us (me, my sister, our step-sister and our step brother). One weekend day, my mom and step dad took the little plane out for a romantic day trip to have lunch in some cute little city and look at antiques or something similarly lovely and boring. The kids were to all stay home.

By this time my step dad had given up completely any notion of trying to “win me over” and had begun just trying to get avoid me whenever he could. As I mentioned, he was strict, especially with his own kids. His own kids were terrified of him but I was not. I challenged him at every turn and I swore like a sailor, which was like finger nails on the chalkboard to him. He would ask me to clear my plate from the table and I would respond, “Fuck you; you’re not my fucking dad.” With a look that said, “Watch your back because I will kill you in your sleep.” He eventually stopped asking me to do things like clear my plate. He thought I was a spoiled brat. He never considered what it was that I was going through, what my mom and sister and I were going through. He just wanted his house and his hangar and his kids living with him (they had been living with their mom because he couldn’t afford a house). He wanted this fantasy life that he had always dreamed of. My mom was his ticket and I was the only thing standing in his way. He hated me. If my mom wasn’t there watching, he would have beat the crap out of me. I’m sure of it. He came close to doing it too, a few months later.

So they left on their trip and we were all to stay home sorting and stacking the fucking wood like little soldiers. Just before they left though, I came up with an idea to help our chore go more quickly. I suggested to my step dad that he allow us to use his little pick up truck to aid us in our task. We would sit the pick up truck next to the pile, stack the bed full of wood, then back it up to the garage and unload it. This would finish the job in half the time. He was leery but he had to admit it was a good idea. It had been taking us much longer than he thought it would to get this job done, walking back and forth from the pile to the garage, a few boards at a time. He agreed to let us use the truck. I would be the one to drive, being that I was the oldest. I had had a few driving lessons already in my mom’s mini van.

We had sold my dad’s bronco by then. My sister and I protested but we weren’t listened to. When we were at the car lot, doing the trade in, my sister sweetly explained to my step dad, “We don’t want to sell the car because it reminds us of our dad.” And he replied very smugly, “that’s a pretty expensive memory to hold on to.” He put the nail in his own coffin with that statement. No one puts baby in a corner, if you know what I mean.

I had had some driving lessons but my mom’s mini van was an automatic and this little pick up was a stick. Before they flew away, my step dad gave me a quick lesson on how to put the car into reverse and then back into first and then back into reverse again without killing it. It was tricky but I got it well enough and they left us to it.

Before their plane was even a speck in the air, I announced my plan to the others, “We’re going for a ride kids.” My sister was down. She knew when I had suggested that he leave us the keys that this was what I was scheming towards. My step sister faltered but eventually gave in. She would do anything to be accepted by us. My step brother refused to go. He was the only one with half the sense god gave him in the group that day and his decision saved his life because I was suggesting that he ride in the back of the truck. He most certainly would have been killed if not permanently maimed if he had followed my suggestion. Thank god he didn’t go.

Off we went, little step brother stacking wood in the rear view mirror like a dutiful son and the three ladies crusing fast down the long driveway rocking ACDC in the tape deck. Free at last, free at last, god almighty….