Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Analyzing the Beginning

I guess I am going to try this again.  I have gone the blog route once before, and well...  I'd post 1, and then done.  But I have alot to say these days, and I am no longer afraid to put it out there.  Mainly as these days I feel like I have nothing more to hide.  My life is in a better place and seems to just keep getting better, despite a wickedly terrible 2012, and 2013 not starting off so hot.  Someone once said to me that I should let the bridges I burn light my way forward.  That is how I am going to have to look at it, despite what an asshole I have been the last year, in all senses of the word.  The light at the end of the tunnel, does not any longer feel like the train (of consequences) baring down on me.

To begin, I lost my mother to a long fight of health problems, and when I say long, I mean going back to 1981.  She died on Valentines day this year, and while I wasn't surprised of her passing, and there was very little shock there, the strained relationship I have had with her over the years made me think that when it eventually happened, I would not be as taken aback as I was.  I in fact was lost in a whirlwind of memories and thoughts, and anger at some of the things that died with her, never to be revealed to me.  But it wasn't until going through pictures for her memorial service that it really hit me.  My mom, in her late teens, and early 20's was beautiful.  This was something that I either did not see through the constant illness that she had, or forgot about from my youth. 

Several years ago, I wrote a piece about a car accident that her, my sister and myself were involved in.  July 5th, 1981 to be exact, when a drunk driver changed our lives, and in my mind somehow recreated a beginning.  While I have some memories of the times before that, they are cloudy and sort of not really there.  The car accident, which disfigured and fairly crippled my mother at the time, became my beginning.  It also fixed the way I have seen my mom over the last 32 years.  Forever sickly, always limping, always some malady of sorts... and that last malady is what ended her life at a young age of 62. 

Below is that short story of that day.  As I said, I wrote this a few years ago, and for time sake, I'm not going to proof it.  I plan on expanding on it in the future, or at least I hope to. So here it is, the beginning.

It was a day at the beach, literally, Wallace Lake in the Cleveland Metro-parks.  The divorce was sort of history, two years ago at this point.  Mom and Dad were trying to do the friend thing, and had us both for a day of swimming after the holiday.  The specifics, the fun, and the what-have-you's escape me.  I just remember being at the lake, and then dinner afterwards at Red Lobster. 

Dinner began calmly as it usually did, and then the drinks he was consuming began to take effect and things began to change as they too always did with him.  Mom was impatient by this time, she was in a hurry to rush out and do an errand for her boyfriend at the time.  Dad knew this so he intentionally did everything to try and keep her there.  He was the jealous type, regardless of divorce, and she tried to pretend like it was a big secret and he didn't know  Funny his name was Gary too.  Dad's mood fed off of her impatient clock watching and he began to get loud and hostile, also part of the general routine.  Rude to the waitresses, insulting to mom, overbearing to me and a proud father to my sister.  it was always the same thing with him.  It wouldn't of been the first time we were asked to leave a restaurant, but it didn't happen that way today, the wait staff must of been extremely tolerant this afternoon, or perhaps this drunk and family qualified for entertainment value.

I was particularly thrilled this day as I got to order the Shirley Temple and have a drink like my dad, and besides that this was Red Lobster where the cherry was speared with a pirate sword, not just a toothpick or floating in the glass like they do at the bar down the street from the house.  In my lap was my western revolver cap gun.  I wasn't allowed to play with it in the restaurant, so I was careful to keep it out of sight. 

    "You understand me Brian? keep it in your lap"  he said.
   
    "Yes"

    "Yes...what"?  questioning back, grabbing my chin to make sure I was looking at him.

    "Yes sir".  I said back softly, I always forgot to say sir.

    "This isn't fucking play time, it's dinner time"  he said, and turning back to my mom "why'd you let him bring the fucking thing in in the first place, you let him walk all over you".

Dinner ended as it usually did too, mom telling dad to keep his voice down.  Dad now on my sister Lisa's case cause she hadn't yet finished her food.

    "You better eat everything on that plate or I'm going to..."

    "Gary, keep your voice down, there are other people in the restaurant"

    "Fuck em!  Now you listen to me little girl, YOU WILL EAT EVERYTHING ON YOUR PLATE"

    "GARY!" she hissed while peering around at the staring people in the restaurant.

The food eventually made it to the doggy bag, and the argument over who was driving would begin, it was always like clockwork.  The drive back to the house on Virginia Avenue went with out incident with mom behind the wheel, and dad literally pouting in the passenger seat.  Once at the house, Lisa was transferred to the front seat, and I stayed in the back on the passenger side.  Dad stormed up the drive to the garage and hopped on his motorcycle, firing it up as he rolled it back throttling it hard.  Mom in a hurry made her way back around to the driver side in the car and backed down and out of the driveway before she even got the door closed. 

We got almost all the way down the street and from behind us you could hear the bike racing to catch us, he didn't stop behind, but pulled up next to the driver side.  Mom cranked the window down annoyed, and he just looked in at her, the expression was anger, well it was always anger, but more than that it was contemptuous.

    "Gary I have to go..." she stared back at him questioningly , he didn't say a word, but just stood there looking in at her, and then he just took off to the left.  He didn't look, he just went, the bikes engine screaming into each gear you could hear it's growl even after he was out of sight.      

We turned right onto W 54th street and headed in the direction of Gary's house.  My sister reclined her seat all the way back unexpectedly and I squawked at her about it.  Giggling she brought it back up half way, and I popped a cherry lifesaver in my mouth.  Looking around the backseat, my silver toy revolver was sitting there and I picked up the cocktail sword I had with my Shirley Temple earlier today, looking it over and thinking about which of my toy Star Wars figures would be using it later.  A few blocks up the road I was crunching and chewing on the Lifesaver, mom was saying how you were supposed to suck on them and I'd probably ruin my teeth.  The day of sun, swimming and dinner had caught up to me, and I was starting to doze off in the back seat. 

After that day I would not allow myself to sleep in a car for decades to come.

I don't know what woke me up, there was so much commotion happening as I opened my eyes that sunny late afternoon in July.  I was being lifted, out of the car's backseat by a stranger asking me if I was okay, I was confused, couldn't formulate words and my head hurt.  The smell of steamed radiator fluid hung in the air, and as I was carried further away from the car towards the guardrail on the side of the road.  I could see the steam in the air, and what was left of our car over the shoulder of the Samaritan who pulled me from the car.  The Front end of the car had disintegrated and there were pieces of steel, plastic and shattered glass scattered all over the four lane road.  There was a fire truck there and several of the firemen were huddled around the driver side of our silver Toyota Corolla.  Several more were around the passenger side of the car and that's when the sounds in my head began to separate, I could now here the sound of screams from my sister coming from the two or three firemen as they gathered around her on that side of the car, the wail of the ambulance siren as it pulled ahead of the wreckage, I heard my mom talking, rather begging that they get her kids out of the car.  The firemen were reassuring her that the kids were safe as one of them was holding her hand.  I couldn't see her, just her hand sticking out the window covered in blood.  I was sat on the guardrail and the Samaritan was looking me over asking me things, where were you going, how do you feel, can you squeeze my hand? 

My attention was focused on the paramedics who had arrived to the group attending to my sister and I could see them lifting her out of the car and onto a stretcher, still screaming as they moved her gently and I caught a glimpse of her, the right side of her head and face covered from top to bottom in blood, her hair matted to the side of her face, her mouth and nose a mess of red, and streams of tears running the blood down her face to her shirt. 

Now there was a paramedic in front of me asking me questions, dabbing my forehead with a cloth and stinging me the smell of alcohol strong in my nose, asking me if I knew where I was at, where were we going.  I focused through to him and told him we were going to Gary's house to let out his mom's dog, all the while watching the fireman bring out what looked like a giant mechanical pair of scissors.  Shining a flashlight in my eyes, opening my eyelids and giving me a once over, he hollered to the other paramedics to bring a stretcher for me.  Aside from my head hurting, I didn't think I needed a stretcher.

Things began to become clear to me as I looked around at everything on that street.  There were police directing cars around the scene.  There was a rusty orange colored land-yacht of an Old-mobile sort of cocked half way perpendicular in our lane facing the wrong way.  The front end was smashed and steam was also pouring out of it's front end.  There was an officer talking to an older man by it's side, he stood there his head in his hands shaking it or nodding it as the policeman talked to him.  Several other cars were parked on the side of the road, and people who I didn't recognize were standing there watching the fireman work the giant scissors on the roof of the car.  People were talking to me, as they came up to me and kneeled down in front of me, saying things as they would quickly glance back over their shoulder at what was left of our car. 

I could hear a familiar sound from the left of me, coming up the hill we were stopped on.  I turned my head to the sound, and I could see the silhouette of a man on a motorcycle, knees squeezing the tank, head and body down his hair blowing back as he raced up the hill to stop by the police cruiser blocking the lanes in our direction.  He was off the bike in a flash and running towards the mess on the road when two officers cut him off.

    "Thats my fucking wife and kids up there!" He said struggling against their hands on him.  To which they let go and he was up to me in a sprint looking me over by the side of the road.  Then I noticed my grandparents behind him, apparently they were following him up the road to us in their car.  He was up and holding his head looking around at the scene taking deep breaths as he looked from the car to the ambulance.

    "Where's your sister Bri?" he asked distracted looking at the ambulance, and I pointed to it, noticing now that there were paramedics waiting patiently by me to put me on the stretcher.  I didn't want to go on the stretcher, and I think they noticed my hesitation when they started to move me towards it, their grasps got firmer, and their voices stern and authoritative.  My grandma all the while reassuring me that everything would be okay. 

They put me on a hard board on the stretcher and they put straps on my head and I started to get scared, cause I couldn't look around, why were they strapping my head like that?  I started to cry, and it hurt my head when I tried to move it.  The Paramedics kept telling me to relax and my grandma had my hand and said she would ride to the hospital with me in the ambulance.  I didn't want to go, what was happening to my mom, I couldn't hear her talking anymore.  But then I heard my grandmother talking, she wasn't talking to me, she was talking to my mom.

    "How could you do this to your kids Elaine?  How could you!?"  she had said, looking over at what I could see out of the corner of my eye as another stretcher.  Grandma looked back at me patting my hands shaking her head with tears in her eyes and pursed lips. 

    "Hey kid-o, did you lose this?" and I felt cold metal in my hands, raising it up to where i could see it cause of the way my head was held, I was elated to see that it was my toy gun.  The fellow who pulled me out of the car had found it by the side of the road some 20 feet from where the car was, he patted me on the shoulders looking me in the eye's briefly, and then his face was gone for good.  I never saw him again.

    "Okay Brian, hold on, it's gonna be bumpy for a second." said one of the paramedics as they lifted the legs up from the bottom of the stretcher and rolled me into the ambulance.  My grandma hopped in, and the doors closed.  My sister lay on the stretcher next to me, and was still crying as the paramedic worked at cleaning her face up.  My grandmother, visibly shaken at seeing her granddaughter covered in blood and most of the teeth on the top row missing, her lip split wide open to the bottom of her nose, she began to squeeze my hand and cry too. 

I could feel the ambulance pull away, and the motion of the vehicle, and the sound of the siren's warble made me drowsy, and I fought off sleep as best as i could.  Who knew where I'd wake up this time.  I tried to piece together what had happened in my head.  I guess I understood we were in a car accident, but I don't remember it, aside from what I dreamed about in the short little nap that I had.  Or perhaps I wasn't dreaming.  It was all to confusing.  What happened to my mom, where was she, how did all this happen?  I began to cry myself, it all overloaded on me at this point, and I cried all the way to the hospital.


BRussu