Years ago… after the Great Colorado Escapade, I found out something about my family that I never knew…
It was one of the worst times of my life… I had decided that I wanted to finish out High School after Mom and I had made the agreement that I would come home after my girl Amanda and I had driven all the way to Colorado to start a new life for ourselves…
We were going to do it on our own.
On the way to our 3000 mile destination, I realized… I wanted more. I wanted more out of myself. And I needed something special to happen in order to get it… So when mom called the place we were staying… and made me the promise that I could come home to finish school and possibly even go on to college, if I so choose too.
That… was exactly what I needed to hear at the exact right time.
However… when we got home… there were some interesting obstacles that needed to be overcome…
Straight off the set of Jerry fucking Springer…
Just before we left for Colorado, My Mom got married to my girfriend’s Dad…
Yea
That’s right
I was now fucking my step sister.
They got married after about 6 or 8 months of dating… which is less time than Amanda and I were together…
Anyway, the deal was that we came to live with them at the old condo homes in Farmfield. So… I was going to be living with my Step Father and my Mother along with my Step Sister Girlfriend…
-sigh-
It took a little while to get adjusted to it all, but eventually, we got more used to the situation… Amanda had a few more credits than I did, so she ended up graduating a little bit early, where as I was toughing out my 5th year of high school and BARELY going to make it…
During the transition of her graduating first and me still going to school, Amanda was preparing to take classes in Miami University, Oxford Campus… it was about that time…
The Shit hit the Fan.
Amanda would tell me about how Mom would put all these responsibilities and expectations on her when I wasn’t around. From what I could tell, mom was being REAL fucking cool about us living there rent free, but Amanda hated it, she couldn’t stand the way mom was… and I understood, but I had grown so accustomed to it… I just sort of dealt with her abrasive personality.
Mom eventually told me all the details of how she kept finding home pregnancy tests in the trash, and how she would talk on the phone for hours to guys, some of which were my so-called-friends and some were not. She spoke of how she would have them in OUR room when I wasn’t home with the door shut and how she would disappear just before she knew I would be home…
Anyway
One night… things got REAL bad. As I recall, I was sleeping in my bed when I woke up to all kinds of yelling and screaming coming from the living room. By the time I had arrived on the scene, things had gotten so out of hand that I knew SOMETHING was going to give THAT night…
Mom and Amanda were fighting over something stupid, Mom was drunk and belligerent, her usual drunken self… when somehow, the idea that Amanda was to get her own cheap little apartment some place while she was going to go to college…
That would have been the end to a rough night…
But no
Mom was hell bent on leaving some emotional scars on me that night.
I begged her to stop, to please quit… I couldn’t bear to hear any more…
How bizarre that Amanda and I had just had a conversation about what it would have been like if I had a sibling… I couldn’t imagine how it would have worked out… I can’t imagine not being an only child all those years of strife and anguish I toughed it out with Mom… The shitty one bedroom apartments, the living in her friends basements, the travel and road trips we took… I just can’t imagine where there would have been room for anyone else.
I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone else…
That night…
It changed me forever.
I’ll never be the same…
Mom started ranting of how bad it was with my Dad and her…
“He beat me up when I was pregnant…”
I tried to ignore her banter… I attempted to blow it off as drunken idiotic behavior…
But there was a shrill truth in her voice… and I couldn’t help but hear her out… no matter how painful it was going to be…
At first I thought she was telling me that my Dad had beaten her up when she was pregnant with me…
But no
She was telling me… for the first time…
That she was pregnant before me… and Dad beat her, punched her in the stomach even…
Killing my older brother or sister…
Causing mom to miscarriage.
She even went as far to tell me that my grandmother, my dads mother, was the one that took her to the emergency room… and when she walked out, she said to her,
“You’re never to speak of this again, you understand?”
Being an emotional train wreck from the life I’ve had up to this point, with this fucked up living arrangement and a psycho drunk for a mom… and an ex-drug addict recovering alcoholic of a father…
Man
I fucking lost my mind.
I begged mom
Please
Stop
Just stop saying these things to me
Please
God damn it
STOP!
I had to get away from her
I had to RUN from her.
After I picked up myself off the floor in a sobbing mess, Amanda and I escaped to her Moms house… which I wasn’t exactly thrilled about… but at that point I was just thankful that I had an escape…
I couldn’t believe what I had just learned about my already FUCKED up family…
Damn man…
Does it ever stop?
WILL IT EVER FUCKING STOP?????????????
I spent a few days on the couch after that… not exactly motivated to live life…
I was bleeding inside.
I was a fucking mess…
And in a lot of ways…
I still am.
Some time had passed… and events unfolded…
Eventually I found out that Amanda was a lying manipulative whore, and I began to grow close to mom again after I had started going to college for a little while.
Under lesser extreme circumstances, mom told me about how Uncle Bobby had come out to our house to take my Dad out to blow off some steam. Mom and Dad had been married for a short time, just before Mom got pregnant with me… supposedly anyway…
But the accounts I’ve heard of the evening at hand went like this…
Dad had broken the screen door after being pissed off at mom again for being a stubborn ass impossible BITCH and Uncle Bobby came out to sort of save the day. My Mother and her brother Bobby has a special bond growing up, they were the youngest of the 4 children and had grown very close to each other. I guess it had become the norm for him to step in on ugly situations like this… Dad was a horrible drinker, and if it’s anything like it is now… he’ll NEVER be a very good drinker. Mom was pretty bad at it too…
I have always been told how much a like Bobby and I were… we had eye problems growing up, we both hated wearing glasses, we both liked having long hair, we both played guitar as kids, we had a lot of similar mannerisms and tastes… similar habits…
Bobby came and took my dad out to party that night, they ended up getting TRASHED and from what I gather and Dad had found a ride home from the party while Bobby kept on keeping on GANGSTA style.
I just learned a few weeks ago when my Uncle Jack was in town from “Midwest” staying with my Other Uncle Jim for the Cincinnati Bengals vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers football game, that Bobby ALSO had a Volkswagen Beetle, it was an early 70’s model – but still…
It was extremely eerie to learn that fact… after all these years.
The story goes…
On the way home that night from partying down,
October 31st 1979,
Halloween Night
Uncle Bobby…
Passed out behind the wheel of his VW Beetle
And headed right underneath an on coming semi
Decapitating him
Killing him instantly.
I never got to meet Uncle Bobby
I was born about 2 weeks later on in the first week of March of 1980…
But he’s always been a part of my life due to moms constant fond memories of the good times they shared as kids growing up… wallowing in the grass of Millikin Woods, drunk as skunks.
It’s amazing how many events can parallel others in a lifetime.
It’s incredible the amount of guilt someone can carry…
There is something that I learned from the experience as a whole…
You can’t blame yourself for things that are out of your control.
But the next time you get in a fighting mood, think of a worst case scenario. Then look inside and see how bad you really want to start something with someone.
Mom was mad at dad, dad gets pissed off, uncle Bobby comes over to try to help the situation so nothing bad happens… again… They get bombed… Bobby passes out, and loses his life,
Fighting over petty bullshit is so worthless…
In the end…It’s never worth it.
#186963719
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