not a dad

When we got back from Alaska, my future step dad, the guy my mom met on the plane, called a lot and they started going on dates. He was gaga for my mom from the beginning. Who could blame him. I mean, she was still pretty young, cute, she had lost all of this weight from being so depressed and she is super funny my mom – funny, witty and charming. And so no wonder this guy was so into her because this guy was butt ugly. I’m not kidding you. UGLY. I hope he reads this one day. He was a total milk toast. Homely. No chin. He was boring. He was cocky. He was a conservative Christian. He was a racist. He was uptight. He was a fuckwad. And worst of all, the very worst of all – the most horrible thing – he was not funny. He was so unfunny that he was anti-funny. He was a funny vacuum. A void of hilarity. A chuckle free zone. At one point he layed down the rule that my sister and I were not allowed to say the word “fart”. Telling my sister that she can't say “fart” is like telling a bird it can no longer fly.

So, He started taking my mom out on all of these dates and she was just going along with it. I mean I know that she didn’t really like him, let alone love him…. honestly, I don’t know what she was thinking. I think she was just relieved at the notion that her life might go on and I’m sure she was enjoying the attention she was getting from him. She was in so much pain and I think it was nice for her to have a distraction. I also think that she thought my sister and I needed a father figure and I also think that she thought that because her marriage had been so successful, that she could have another successful relationship just as easily, like she was just good at having relationships. I also think that she was still in such shock that she had no idea what she was doing. She was in no position to be making major decisions but she was making them. Boy oh boy was she making them.

Personally, I just couldn’t believe it was happening and when I say that I couldn’t believe it was happening I mean that I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT WAS HAPPENING. How could she possibly be giving this guy the time of day let alone - - - KISS HIM? It made me want to vomit every ten minutes.

I was pissed and I wasn’t shy about it. This was the beginning of about a five year stint of me pissed off as hell. They say there are stages to dealing with the death of a loved one and I hung around in the “anger” stage for a long time. I pitched a tent and built a base camp. It was war. I was the good guy and this other guy (it pained me to even call him anything with the word “dad” in it – so I usually called him “my mom’s husband”) he was the enemy.

One of the worst things my mom did was let this dude drive my dad’s car. My dad was really into cars but we couldn’t afford really nice ones or anything. If you scroll down to “The first part” post I did, you can see this picture of him when he was young next to that little convertible that he had for a while (before I was born). When we were young though, he always had used, beater cars. A truck with a camper shell for a while, then no car at all, he had a scooter that he went back and forth to work in while my mom drove us around in a little Honda civic that she had forever. For a period he drove this white El Camino that he got for $200.00 after someone couldn’t get it out of the parking lot at his work. He loved that El Camino. He loved it but not nearly as much as the prized possession he bought about a year before he died – his Eddie Bauer Edition Ford Bronco. He LOVED this car. I believe he had to finance this sucker too and my dad always paid in full for even major purchases. We didn’t even have credit cards. He would have to save his money before he bought anything and pay cash for it. He was a very cheap man. But this, he sort of splurged on. He decided to go for it, get all the bells and whistles. It was a nice vehicle. He washed and polished it like twice a week. I can still picture him in our driveway washing it, staring at it with such love and admiration.

The first time my mom brought her future second husband around the house to hang out with my sister and me, I refused to be a part of it. I refused to even be there when he came. I went across the street to the neighbors while he took my mom and my sister to the movies or to dinner or some other such stupid boring shit. My sister was much more compliant than I was. She was also less angry and more compassionate towards my mom. Don’t get me wrong, my sister didn’t like this guy either, we were in full cahoots on this one, she was just trying to be good for my mom. She knew what a hard time my mom was having and she wanted to make it easier for her on any level that she could. I chose the opposite tactic.

When he got there, I staked the whole thing out from the window of our neighbor’s house across the street. We were very close with them and still are and they were all watching with me as my mom, my sister and my mom’s future husband walked out of the house and instead of getting into his crappy little piece of shit car, my mom gave him the keys the FUCKING BRONCO. He took the keys, opened the door, got into the drivers seat, my mom and sister got in after him and they all drove away. Like it was no big deal.

I freaked. I did everything but run out into the street and lay down in front of the car (similar dramatics would come later). In retrospect, I should have run out in front of the street and layed down in front of the car, shown him what a nut job he was dealing with right off the bat. Instead I just riled around on the neighbors floor screaming in agony. How could she let him do it? How could she let him DRIVE MY DAD’S EDDIE BAUER EDDITION FORD BRONCO?! Was she insane? Was she fucking insane? Apparently yes. And from that moment on, the war was waged against both of them.

The courtship was not long and soon my mother announced that she would be marrying this man, selling the house and we would all be moving up to the ass crack of butt fuck egypt which is "the Claw". Again, disbelief. Could anyone stop this woman? I apparently, could not. I still to this day can not believe that someone of authority did not pull her aside and tell her that she was making a huge mistake. We were in family therapy at the time and even the therapist told my mom she thought it seemed okay. That therapist was a quack. She was horrible.

So, I spent the next few months throwing fits and refusing to go. It was all happening in a whirlwind. My mom sold the house and had moved by late May. There was a wedding, in Oregon? God I barely remember it. I do remember though, that my mom was crying at the wedding and they WERE NOT TEARS OF JOY. No, no, no. She was crying because she was sad that this was what her life had become. I would say things like, “don’t do this, you are making a huge mistake. You shouldn’t be crying at your wedding because you are sad. This is a bad sign.” But she wouldn’t listen. Why, oh why GOD wouldn’t she listen? I refused to go but my mom said I had to. Her compromise was that I could stay and live with my cousins until I had to start school, which I did. She went up with all of our stuff and my sister and I spent the summer with my Aunt, Uncle and cousins in the house behind our house. I watched the new people move in.

The summer I spent at my cousins was strange. I was enrolled in the sort of summer camp called “Jr. Life guards”. It was in Newport Beach and you just ran around in these red bathing suits, swam in the ocean, played games, learned to surf and stuff. It was pretty fun and I got super tan from it (this will come into play later when I arrive on the scene in Washington). I remember that summer as being really solitary though. I remember riding my bike to the beach (mint green beach cruiser – fucking rad bike) and listening to my headphones and just contemplating my existence a lot. The tapes I had in my headphones at the time: Guns 'N Roses - Appetite for Destruction, Poison - Open up and say.... Ahhhh and Bob Marley - Legend.

As moving day for me got closer and closer the idea of moving became more and more impossible to comprehend. I had just turned fourteen and I was about to start my freshman year in high school. I was super into my friends. Not only that but over the summer I had procured a boyfriend. Not just any boyfriend but the hottest guy in our grade, J.R. J.R. was so fucking hot that it still makes me hot to think about him. I saw him about four years ago at a party and guess what? He’s still totally hot. J.R. had always gone out with R.D. who was by far the most popular girl in the pack. But they had had some problems and for some reason, he decided to move on to me. Actually, as I type this, I realize that I have to admit that the only reason J.R. was probably into me is because by this time, we all knew I was moving away and he thought he could get a piece of ass with no strings attached. And HELLO, he was right. We screwed around a lot. I was too scared to have sex but we made out SERIOUSLY. I thought I was in love with him and then I had to leave him. It was so intense the way that only love in the eighth grade can be. He gave me his signature, white pooka-shell necklace to remember him by. When I got to Washington, I'd wear the necklace to school and write his name over and over on my pee chee folder but it didn’t last. Oh J.R., you total babe ………

Then I moved. I moved about two days before school started. There was a big party for me and lot of tears and one last attempt by J.R. to take my virginity (I kept it with me – saved it for some lucky hick) and I moved. In utter disbelief, I stepped of the plane and into my new life. The next four years are what my family and I still refer to as “the dark years”. I had no skills or training to prepare me for what lay ahead. The piles of cow shit, the gun racks, the country music, the chew spit, the perms – the horror….. the horror.

Well, I got us there didn’t I? We’re at least in the town where the story occurs. I had no idea, my small audience, how long it was going to take me to tell this. I think though, that I’m going to just take my time with it. I will get there eventually, I promise. It’s a great story.

xo,
la ketch