Disintanglement

Mom's anger became more ferocious during that first year in Moses Lake.  One day, upon entering my cluttered and toy strewn bedroom, she became enraged.  Stooping down to pick up Barbie's motor home, she hurled it across the room where it landed with a crash against the far wall.  "Pick this room up," she screamed at me.  

I began to spend more and more time alone.  My reading had improved greatly, and I was now in a special program for 'gifted' kids.  That year, I read Laura Ingalls Wilder's 'Little House on the Prairie' and began an infatuation with Nancy Drew that was to last several years.  I also spent more time at school, often after hours, surrounded by the teachers I loved and admired.  The school was located on a grassy plateau that had several clover fields and I knew just where I could find a four leaf clover.  I called it my lucky spot.  One day, after having lost track of time in Ms. Utzinger's class talking about books and art, Mom marched by the classroom windows, sternly dragging my sister along.  She barely acknowledged my teacher upon entering the room, instead choosing to focus her rage entirely on me.  "Let's go now."

Shortly after relocating to Washington, my grandparents came for a visit.  They said they were touring the country in their new motor home.  But I had the feeling that they came to check in on us.  I introduced Grandpa to the Muppet Show, which quickly became a favorite.  My grandparents continued to be my favorite people on earth, and I wished that they could stay with us forever.  My grandfather's parents had immigrated to the US from Norway, and had landed in a small community in Minnesota where they started a family that included 10 children.  Shortly before the war, they relocated to San Jose and moved into a house that was right next door to my grandmother's house.  My grandmother's family had been part of the Oregon Trail migration, and spent several generations farming in a small Oregon valley.  My grandmother's father was also an alcoholic, and when he and my great grandmother, Nana, separated, the family moved to California.  Grandma and Grandpa married during the war, shortly before Grandpa shipped off to the European campaign.  

They were both fascinating in their own ways.  Grandma had been born a twin, and a premature one at that.  Unfortunately her twin died at birth.  She was so tiny that her parents cradled her in a shoe box to keep her cozy.  Later, she would excel at performing various poses in which she would bend her head back and rest it against her ankles, or pull one leg over her shoulder.  Her contortion act could be seen on the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk during the late 1930's.  And Grandpa could do anything.  Everyone liked him, and his family called him 'Bud' even though that wasn't his real name.  And he was everybody's bud.  He was always the first person anyone would call when they needed a helping hand, whether it was digging a stuck car out of a snow bank or volunteering at the fire department.

During that visit, we learned that my dad was sick and in the hospital, and that the prognosis was not good.  Just a few short days later, we learned that he had died of a brain tumor.  We traveled back to California with Grandma and Grandpa so that Mom could attend the funeral.  As we were children, it was considered inappropriate for sister and I to attend.  But since I never got the chance to say goodbye to my dad, I wondered if he was really dead.  What if he were alive?  What if he came to rescue me from the endless screaming and lonely, wakeful nights?  I would often lie awake wishing that he would come to find me, just as I had once lain awake wishing that my real mother would come to find me.  But there was no one to come and find me, no one to rescue me from the hell that life had become.

Soon we moved to a house of our own.  Mom and Joe had bought a double wide and we were now the proud owners of a prefab house in a mobile home park community.  They spent hours on the yard, building a front porch out of stonework, a wide lawn bordered by floxglove and petunias.  Joe's presence was increasingly more infrequent.  Often, he had jobs which took him to nearby communities.  Sometimes he would even stay the night so that he could get up early and finish quickly.  When he did come home, he was often drunk.  One evening he found he couldn't get his key in the lock of the front door, and he was sure that Mom had changed the locks, so he began howling and pounding on the aluminum door.  Another time, while attempting to park his work truck in the driveway, he slammed his front bumper into Mom's new baby blue Ford Pinto station wagon.  He put the truck in reverse, slowly backing out of the driveway and made another attempt to swing the front end of his vehicle into the empty space beside the Pinto.  But he just ended up hitting it again in the exact same spot.  He left the truck in the middle of the street, got out, and went to bed.  That morning, I recall my friend asking, "Why is your dad's truck parked int he middle of the street?" 

"He's not my dad," I responded.

Even though I had friends at school and in our mobile home community, I was never allowed to invite them over to stay the night.  Joe's behavior was too unpredictable.  One evening he brought a puppy home that he found stranded on the street.  Another time it was a guy he met at the bar.  He and Mom would argue for what seemed like hours right outside my bedroom door, which was adjacent to the 'family room.'  I heard words that I'd never heard before, like 'fuck'...as in, "Get that fucking dog out of my house!"  As if my insomnia weren't bad enough from preventing me from getting adequate sleep, Joe's antic's kept me awake for hours on end, night after night.  If he and Mom weren't fighting, the phone would be ringing from the jail in the middle of the night.  When I would fall asleep, I would often have the same recurring dream where I was riding in a jeep down the highway with Mom and sister, who were both sitting in the front seats.  In the way back of the jeep, were 2 German Shephards, growling and barking right behind me.  I could see their mouths foaming and feel their hot dog breath against my skin.  I felt terrified.