Things Fall Apart

These fights continued for years, as did my fear of them.  I feared my mother was going to kill my father.   I heard her say "I'll kill you" on more than one occasion, not because he was ever violent toward her, but because she couldn't have her way. Never once did I see my father strike my mother, never once did I ever see him raise a hand to her except in self defense.  Yet she would tell anyone who listened that he beat her, but apparently these mysterious "assaults" only happened when no one was watching.  But the witnessed instances where she repeatedly attacked him "never happened" either. As an adult, whenever I brought them up I was "crazy" and making stuff up and just trying to support my father who 'never did anything for me'   This too was a pattern that was to be repeated.

In the late seventies, after fifteen years of marriage, my parents separated.  My father moved into a nearby apartment.  He kept copious notes during the separation.  I think he still believed at this time that rational rules could be applied to people like my mother, and that truth would always be a defense and would always win out.

Link to My Father's Notes

My mother wanted everything.  She had never worked a full-time job in fifteen years, in fact, to my knowledge never worked one in her entire life.  She wanted to be supported, and to own the house, to keep the cars, to have it all, and have my father work while paying to provide for everything.  She told him that after the divorce was final, he could move back into the house.  But she wanted the divorce on paper.   It didn't make any sense to my father, but it does to me.  What she wanted was to possess everything, and control everything.  She wanted all they had to be hers, because she believed she deserved it, and so that no one could ever take it away from her.

One night when I was about seven I remember my mother coming to me and telling me what a bad man my father was.  I don't know if this was the beginning of this behavior, or if it was a continuation of a pattern that had been long established, and that this is only my first and lasting memory.  I know it never ended.  That was the night she told me that my father didn't love anyone.   That he didn't love me, or my brother or my sister.  That he was the kind of person who only wanted to possess people.   I remember this instance clearly, because I had to ask her to explain "possess" in the context she was using it.  Now, looking back, I realize she was applying her own mental and emotional shortcomings to my father.  She was the one who wanted to possess.  All things were just possessions to her, just things to surround herself with.  She would prove just how little she valued her children later, in several ways, particularly with myself and my sister.

Her intentional attempt to alienate me from my father was also the clearest sign of her selfishness one could ever find.  Because of her anger toward my father, she was trying to destroy his relationship with his children, just to hurt him.  That her actions would not only harm him, but the children as well, made no difference to her.  And it is in this lack of human capacity to care about anything or anyone beyond herself and her petty desires that characterize her life.

Additional lies she would tell were that my father didn't care enough about me to come to my baseball practices, that he wouldn't buy us food, wouldn't buy us clothes.  These are ridiculous lies she told to gain sympathy.  The fact that my baseball practices were held during his work hours didn't mean anything to her.  I never once remembered not having a decent meal, not having decent clothes, until years later when she was the sole "provider" (if you call spending a welfare check providing).  The fact that my father was working full time at a newspaper, plus an additional part time job from 5 am to 8am, plus working as a volunteer firefighter, didn't make a difference.  That he did all this to try and support his family made no difference.  What apparently did was that she had to get a part time job. A job that meant she had to drive around Orange County for a few hours each morning, instead of spending her time at home. This was his sin.  And for that sin she would try to convince his son that his father didn't care. 

Another thing I remember with clarity during that time was that although my father didn't make it to afternoon baseball practices, he did spend a considerable amount of time with me on weekends and when he was home in the evenings.  We were always going somewhere or doing something as a family. Or he was reading to me on the couch. Or taking me with him on errands, letting me shift the car or sit on his lap and drive (something you could do in a quiet neighborhood back then without fear of a ticket).   And that's what mattered to him.   During that same time, I remember that days home with my mother were empty, except for the fear of beatings, which could come at any time for any reason.  There was no way to avoid it.  As with many physical abusers, the same thing that got me beaten one day would be ignored the next.  And never did she spend any "quality time" with me.

What Jean did do was entertain a lot of guests.  And oddly, I remember that many of them were young and male, and many times she would put me down for a nap while they "chatted".  I still remember my brother being in his crib when this began, so I must have been only five or six.   That pattern with entertaining young men never changed either.

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