I Hate People Who Hate People Who Eat Hair

It is usually a safe bet your Holiday is officially shitty when you spot the tree stuck in the trash on Christmas Eve.  That was the sight that greeted Daddy and me while driving up to my mother’s house.  I barely could make out the tinsel glimmering in the fading light as Daddy told me to be careful because he spotted glass from broken ornaments on the sidewalk.  Even though I was wearing my good winter boots, he still felt the need to give me a warning – that was his style.  What he probably was thinking in a metaphorical sense, being an amateur poet and all, was how I needed to be careful around my mother and her new husband - almost as if they were the broken Christmas balls smashed on the cement willing to cut me if I was careless.

Snow was in the forecast, but so far only a few flakes occasionally blew in my face offering only a vague promise of snow.  At the time, I remember being confused about wanting a blizzard or not.  My grandma, whom Daddy and I lived with, said that it was the best thing in the world to have a white Christmas.  She then went on and told several stories from Christmases long ago when she lived on a farm with her seven siblings.  She made rural poverty sound like fun.

I wanted it to snow for her sake.  She had promised that if it did she would be outside first thing on Christmas morn to make snow angels on the ground, despite her arthritis.  Since I was seven, I believed her.

Yet, in truth, I was concerned about the possibility of accumulation.  It would mean I would have to spend extra time with my mother and new stepfather.  The combination of both I hadn’t experienced since their wedding in September.  Even at the age of seven (and despite my infrequent visits) I knew one had to be careful around them because things (in the sense of objects and emotions) sort of exploded as if every day was really another excuse for fireworks (literally and figuratively).

Further, I knew Daddy hated driving in the snow.  He had been in a car wreck the previous winter and broke his leg, which resulted in a phobia of inclement weather he has carried with him up until the present.  He still fusses about driving even if it is only misting outside, assured in his thinking that people drive way too fast when the roads are wet.  “They don’t believe the highways are slick, but when you combine moisture with the oil that naturally leaks from people’s engines then you have a disaster in the making.”

Daddy had warned me that this might be a difficult Christmas.  While in the car he explained my mother’s alcoholism to me, and in some ways, justified it by telling me stories of the childhood hardships she had suffered.  His examples were too raw for someone my age to comprehend, and I didn’t really understand much of the emotional turmoil until I was much older.  Yet, even then I realized that he was still in love with her.

Daddy would often tell me adult oriented things because I was a confidant of his - that’s what my Aunt Susie used to tell me.  She didn’t think it was proper the way he talked to me sometimes and often she told him that he needed to make friends his own age.  She would remind him that just because I came off as much older I was still very young.  Many people said I was seven going on forty, this despite the fact I was small for my age and actually could physically pass for much younger.

I was the sort of kid that other kids thought was too tiny (I fell into the uncomfortable play category of too small for friend, too big for toy).  Even if I hadn’t skipped second grade, I would have been small for my class, but since I did skip it, I resembled a long haired Tom Thumb in the land of giant third graders.  Adults were always tripping over me because I tended not to make a lot of noise if I was standing behind them.  The school year was only half over and already my teacher claimed I had given her three heart attacks just because she didn’t hear me “creeping up” on her.  The last time she was kissing the janitor before school started and she made me swear not to tell any other adult, especially Mrs. Jenkins the principal.

I heard yelling coming from the house and I hesitated.  I could see the look on Daddy’s face and knew he was in turmoil.  My mother and he had to get married when both of them were in college because of me.  I was their mistake.  Daddy had to choose between his scholarship or marriage since one of the specifications of his scholarship was that the young man receiving it had to remain single in order to go to some far flung nation after graduation and “give something back to the world.”  He said that marrying my mother was only the proper thing to do.

Mother was flunking most of her classes so it made little difference to her academically speaking.  She too was attending Kansas State University on a scholarship, but hers was granted after placing second in some beauty contest, the rest of her tuition was paid by some wealthy relative nearing 90 who thought she might actually make something of herself.  Besides her troubled grades, she accidentally started a fire in one of the Home Economic kitchens, which destroyed the room.  So getting knocked up and married almost seemed dignified considering the alternative was expulsion.  Plus, there was someone who had to officially help change my diapers.  In the long term, a marriage meant she could eventually divorce, ergo it meant she was entitled to spousal support until she remarried.

Overall, my parent’s union was a bad thing for my father from beginning to end to the continued drama with my mother.  Besides, having to leave college without a degree, he had to take financial care of me, and to top it all off, he had to take physical care of me as well.  Something that was akin to on the job training.

Until I came around Daddy had never taken care of a baby; his two sisters were both decades older than him and only Aunt Mully had children and she had lived in Portland since Daddy was five.  Add to the fact Grandma was in poor health and her doctor said she couldn’t pick up anything weighting over twenty pounds. So there it was, I was totally a Daddy’s girl.

Since my mother’s wedding to Morgan (that’s my stepfather’s name and what I still call him since any father derivative has never seemed applicable) I was aware that the man I called Daddy might not actually be my real father.  One of my cousins told me during the rehearsal dinner that my biological father (yes, he used the word “biological”) was actually one of the groomsmen – a short man with lots of facial hair.  My mother being a whore (yes, he used the word “whore”) was able to swindle my father into marrying her.  My cousin said my Daddy was an easy mark because he had lost his virginity to my mother.  I had to look up virginity in the dictionary.

I suppose my Daddy was very much like the Virgin Mary before meeting my mother.  Kind, innocent, willing to help out humanity.  Funny how these things play out, Daddy may have been a virgin, but it is my mother, who after marrying Morgan, acquired the name was Mary Virgin.

Daddy grabbed my hand.  I know he was tempted to turn around and take me home with him.  He always said he loved me “more than pearls and rubies,” thus never wanted to knowingly put me in danger.  He didn’t trust my mother (he had little reason to).  If it snowed as predicted then it might be a good three to four days I could be stuck with her and Morgan…and Morgan’s daughter from his second marriage.  Of course, if Daddy turned around with me in tow he would be violating the custody order the judge had issued the previous summer.

Mother took him to court after it was a certainty Morgan and she were going to “get hitched” as Morgan described it.  Her lawyer argued that every little girl should live with her mother (he implied that little girls needed their mothers as role models) but I didn’t want to live with my mother…most days I didn’t even like her much.  I cried in the courtroom despite the fact that I always hated to cry, but my aunt said she could tell that was what turned things around for my father’s case even though Daddy had deliberately kept me from visiting my mother for the last year and a half.  He did it to protect me from her trifling ways.  That is what he told me, plus, one time, after he had three beers (it was unusual for him to drink more than one, maybe two on the weekend) he confessed his heart still ached because Mother did not love him as much as he had loved her.

I am sure you have guessed; my mother left him.  It was a gradual thing.  A few months following my birth, she started to hang out with the friends she had before their marriage.  “A troubling lot of misfits, the type of women whose bra straps are always showing,” was how Aunt Susie described them.  Mother would leave me home with Daddy without regard that she was supposed to be breast-feeding me.  A night with the “bra strap showing girls” started to turn into a weekend with the “troubling lot” and then somehow the “misfits” were dropped from the equation.   My mother had started to date Morgan and eventually moved in with him after Daddy confirmed to her that he would be working full time at the factory.  Aunt Susie told me my mother waited until she was certain Daddy could pay her a proper alimony.  He agreed to all of her terms as long as he retained physical custody of me.  Funny, Mother had never expressed an interest in actually having me live under her roof until... she got pregnant.

Like history, fate repeated itself and Morgan was forced to marry my mother.  Now since it was December, she was due to give birth any day.  This was not a good thing for me.  If she acted like she used to when I spent the weekends with her then I could look forward to her leaving me at home while Morgan and she went out - except now if they went drinking, I would to take care of the baby.  At least Mother was always good about leaving the number for the bar she planned to do most of her celebrating and I was sure I could look up the hospital’s number in the phonebook if the baby started to turn purple as my Aunt Susie told me they sometimes did.

I put on a brave face despite the feeling that all I wanted to do was run into my Daddy’s arms and cry.  I didn’t because I knew all of this was killing him.  I also knew if I didn’t go into that house there was a chance I would be forced to move from his home into hers permanently.  The judge was very specific about me spending Christmas with her.  I didn’t want to live with my mother for obvious reasons (she never made me feel like she loved me above pearls and rubies) that and I thought I was too young to raise her baby by myself.

“Are you going to be okay?” Daddy asked in a voice barely masking the pain registered on his face.

“I’ll be fine Daddy.” I said trying to sound a little like Pippi Longstocking although I fail to live up to her spunk.

“That’s my brave little cricket,” he said referring to Jiminy Cricket of ‘Pinocchio’ fame.  People often said my Daddy looked like Jiminy Cricket and took to calling me his little cricket when I was a kid.  I didn’t know if they knew he wasn’t really my biological father.

A curtain moved in the picture window and soon the door opened.  My mother shouted, “Shut the fuck up Morgan, my daughter’s here!” it wasn’t until that moment that I realized just how big pregnant women could get.  My mother reminded me of Godzilla knocking down the cardboard buildings of Tokyo.  I was startled by her size in the frame of the doorway.  The smells of alcohol, and what I would later know as pot, could not have escaped Daddy’s notice.

“Oh, hello Paul, I didn’t expect you to be here,” my mother purred in that deep voice of hers that she used when drunk but trying to act sober.  A thought passed through my mind, exactly whom did she think was going to deliver me to her doorstep besides Daddy?  Santa, perhaps?

Daddy instinctively took a step back but still held my gloved hand.  He tried to sound casual as if he is making conversation, “Mary, why have you thrown away the Christmas tree?”

“Oh that thing.  It was a fire hazard.”  She looked at me, “But that doesn’t mean Santa didn’t come and deliver gifts!  Ho, ho, ho” she hiccupped.

I wanted to confront her.  I wanted her to tell her that even though I was only seven I already didn’t believe in Santa Clause, and if I did, I would know that it was much too early for him to deliver gifts to all the good little boys and girls because St. Nick usually makes the drop off around midnight.  I wanted to tell her these things, but I couldn’t.  Both her personality and size frightened me.  So instead, I turned around and hugged my Daddy goodbye.  Hopefully, if it didn’t snow, I would see him tomorrow.  If it did snow, I could look forward to my grandmother’s Christmas snow angels to greet me once I got home. 

Daddy let go of my hand not because he didn’t love me or because he believed it is the morally right thing to do…he did it because it is the legally right thing to do.

I walked up to the door and then stood my ground.  I watched my father get into his car and drive away before I finally entered my mother’s home.  In the brief time since she first told him to “shut the fuck up,” Morgan has passed out on the sofa.  I visually followed the trail of broken bulbs until I spotted where the tree should have been standing.  Near it, crouched with the TV to her back, was who I presumed was Morgan’s daughter from his second marriage.  She was better dressed than me but since she had been there longer her hair was disheveled and she appeared stunned stupid while trying to figure out how to pick up all the broken glass without cutting herself.

My mother without apology made the introductions in an abrupt manner as if she had to do them under five seconds, “Patsy, this is Tiffany, she is Morgan’s daughter from his second marriage.”  I nodded a greeting.  “Patsy,” my mother’s shrill voice continued, “help Tiffany pick up the rest of the broken glass.  God knows she isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.”  My mother then left us staring at each other as she went to the couch and kicked it.  Morgan stirred and she hissed, “I want to talk to you privately.”  He rolled off the sofa and stepped on a piece of broken bulb.  He yelped like an injured dog until spying the look of rage on my mother’s face.  He swallowed the rest of the pain as he followed her into the other room.  I noticed there was some blood on the carpet where he had stepped.

Tiffany hadn’t moved since my mother first addressed her.  She was very pretty and reminded me of a Cinderella that didn’t know the first thing about cleaning.  I wanted to say something comforting to her since we were in the same boat but I didn’t know what that would be so instead I blurted, “I am only seven but I am in the third grade.  If I do well on my year-end testing, my principal might move me to fifth grade next year.”  I paused for dramatic affect,  “Mrs. Jenkins thinks I am a genius.”

We heard something splat against the wall.  It sounded like a heavy book was thrown.  It was enough to make Tiffany cry (or should I say, cry again).  Her face was swollen and her nose looked like it has been running for some time, plus I saw the evidence from where she was wiping it on her sleeves.  “Here, I’ll finish cleaning up,” I volunteered.  It was the least I could do since in the drawer of life I was the sharper knife.

Tiffany watched me intently as if she was trying to memorize exactly how one cleans up a drunken Christmas…if our parents stayed married she might need it for future reference.  I swept everything up although being quite small it was difficult because brooms are made for adult-sized hands.  I put everything in the trash.  I would have lifted the trash bag up and put it out next to the Christmas tree in the garbage, but once again, my size prohibited it.  Tiffany appeared stronger than me, she was at least taller and if there was any hope for her to accomplish the task I would have asked her to do it, but I just knew if I did ask her, she would start crying again.

Without so much as a ‘good job cleaning up’ my mother entered the kitchen.  She opened a Jack Daniels bottle decorated with a red bow and poured herself a tall glass.  She then preceded to gulp it down like water.  I knew this was a taboo of some sort, although it would be a few years until people became more aware of fetal alcohol syndrome.

Mother had the same look in her eye as Uncle Toad (don’t ask) had when he was on a binge.  He was married to my Aunt Susie and from one week to the next, you never knew if they were still a couple because she would put him out of their house so often.  I had seen him drink whiskey from the bottle, but never like my mother just had.  She paused for a moment (pregnant pause if you don’t mind the obvious pun) she then looked as if she was going to say something to us, but instead poured herself another glass.  “For courage,” she mumbled.

Next thing I knew she was staring as if it was the first time she had laid eyes on Morgan’s daughter from his second marriage, “Well girls, I am going to have a baby.  What do you two say we go to the hospital?”  It was only then that I looked out the window and noticed it was snowing hard.

If someone tells you it is impossible for a woman in labor to drive herself to the emergency room in a blizzard, allow me to correct that fallacy.  Sure, we slid and nicked a few parked cars along the way, but didn’t really hit anything hard until we slammed into the pillar holding up the emergency room sign.  Perhaps it was a Christmas miracle.

I, being the designated brains of the operation, took it upon myself to go into the hospital and try to flag down the woman at the desk to tell her my mother, who had just crashed her car into their emergency room sign, was in labor.  It took awhile to catch her eye because she was listening to holiday music and appeared to be wandering in her own daydreams.  I had to jump three or four times waving my arms above my head before she got up from her chair and leaned over the desk to look down at me, “Oh honey, where is your mother?”  Her voice was soft with concern.

“Outside.  She is in labor and crashed into your sign!” I pointed.

“You got to be kidding me!” the woman was wearing a pink Santa hat and I assured her I wasn’t.

My mother was cursing about a lot of things by the time some of the staff followed me to the car.  Honestly, there was a lot worth cursing.  She was in labor, her husband refused to come with her, Tiffany wouldn’t stop crying, the car was totaled (which it wouldn’t have been if only Daddy had taught me how to drive like all those country kids know how to do – this nugget of info had been screamed at me three times during the journey).  Plus, Christmas was ruined, and she was drunk.  They helped her out of the car and put her in a wheelchair.  I was responsible for both the car keys and Tiffany.

By the fourth time I took Tiffany to the restroom one of the nurses commented that I was a “super trooper.”  She had kind eyes and for the next two hours, I imaged what it would be like for her to marry Daddy and be my Mommy.  All the while, the snow kept getting deeper.  Reports where coming in on how the Interstates were closed and the staff discussed amongst themselves just how they would be getting home to their awaiting families.

Tiffany had fallen asleep an hour before the doctor came out and asked for Morgan Virgin.  I laid her head to the other side of the chair and stood up and said that he wasn’t there but I was and so was his daughter from his second marriage.  I politely told the doctor, in case he was in doubt, that it was my mother who had been in labor and crashed into the emergency room sign.

The doctor did that head motion people used to do with me when they were trying to figure out if I was a child or talking troll.  He obviously had been wanting to use what he perceived was his witty line since my mother had delivered, and was sad when he realized his only audience would be a hobbit, yet he said it anyhow, “Congratulations!  Here it is officially Christmas Day and according to her name on the chart,” he slowed down for affect, ‘Virgin Mary’ this time has had twins!”

It was the first time I remember actually chewing on my hair. 

Copyright 2007 Westerfield