“David?‘’ my brother whispered, breaking my concentration.
“Hey, man.” I cut him off. “Don’t sweat it; you’re eighteen, right? Don’t worry, they’ll serve ya. I know my way around these places. Tip ’em a fin and they’ll keep ’em coming. Come on, man, relax, you only live twice,” I advised, jabbing Russell’s shoulder. For once in my life, I threw caution to the wind and lived for the moment. I was a regular guy with no problems, living outside my shell. “Come on, man, don’t be a killjoy.”
“David, listen to me,” Russell barked, “they don’t serve beer.”
“Get the—” I responded.
“This is Salt Lake City, Utah, get it? No bars.”
As my younger brother educated me on the local customs, the look from the bartender confirmed my blunder. By the man’s intense red face, I knew I had, once again, stepped out of bounds. I muttered to the older man, “I’m sorry. I truly am. I in no way mean to be rude, sir.” Whatever adrenaline I had had moments before ebbed away. I politely asked for two Cokes, left a massive tip, and took a table in the back beyond the hard gaze of the construction workers playing pool.
“As you can see, I’m still working on my social graces,” I confessed.
“Don’t get out much?” Russell chided.
“Bingo,” I said after taking a swallow. It was time to move on to something else. “Man, I just can’t get over it. You look great. So, how’s things?”
“Better,” Russell sighed, “now that I’m out of that house!” I instantly picked up on his meaning. “Man, you have no idea what she’s like. I don’t mean to say you had it easy, but believe me, you got off pretty good. It’s become a lot worse.” Russell was ready to pour out his soul. “I tell ya, sometimes she’d chase me around the house. I told her if she ever laid a hand on me . . . I just couldn’t take it anymore,” he said with a heavy sigh. “If she’s not on some rampage, then she’s constantly complaining about everyone, everything, every second of the day.
“When she’s done with me as a sounding board, Mom makes the rounds to Grandma and even Ron and his wife, Linda. No one’s safe. Ron doesn’t even take her calls, but Mom just doesn’t get it.” Russell paused to collect his thoughts. “And Stan thinks he’s a he-man. I mean, what’s he gonna do? He’s bummed; he knows he needs Mom for financial help, and he hates it. If something ever happened to her, he’d never make it. He really thinks he’s Mr. Fix-it. Bob Villa Jr.” Russell smiled.
“I understand,” I replied, thinking of what Grandmother had told me.
“I’m not trying to down him, but some of his electrical wiring projects almost started a few fires in the lower part of the house. Mom, of course, used to think that Ron and I were picking on him, but Stan can’t do half the things Mom thinks he can, and she’s so drunk she can’t tell the difference. Stan just doesn’t understand. It ain’t his fault, but Mom’s smothered him so much.”
“What about Kevin?” I asked.
“He drinks so much Coke all the time that he’s practically lost all his teeth.”
“What?” I asked. “No way!”
“You don’t get it, man. The whole setup: it’s all normal to him. Kevin’s a kid, he’s oblivious. He doesn’t know anything else.”
The more Russell described the situation, the more I realized how on the mark he was. I was indeed the lucky one. I had been Mother’s outlet as a child, and once I was taken away, psychologically she became a wounded animal, attacking anyone who crossed her path. The main difference was that by then my brothers were older and knew better than to take Mother’s physical abuse, but unfortunately they had to put up with her psychological torture and self-destructive lifestyle.
And yet it all seemed surreal to me, how Mother could turn her hatred against her other children. Part of me had always feared for them. As a young boy surviving in darkness, I had known what to expect from Mother, to the point that I could predict her moods. Thinking ahead, staying a step or two ahead of her, not only kept me alive and gave me a protective armor, but became a way of life for me. Before Kevin was born, I was never sure if Mother would suddenly strike out against Ron, Russell, or even Stan. Before I was taken away, as I sat on my hands in the basement, I would cringe whenever I heard my brothers come through the front door and walk into the house as if they were entering a minefield. With every step Mother could, without warning, detonate, spreading her shrapnel-like fury in every direction. Weeks prior to my rescue I became so cold inside, I was nearly obsessed with hatred toward Ron, Stan, and especially Russell—who used to be Mother’s little brainwashed Nazi—but at the same time I’d still pray for their safety.
As I sat in front of Russell now, I could not imagine the hellish nightmare Mother had put my brothers through. All I could do now was pray that whatever they had experienced would somehow not carry over into their future. Like a broken record, all I could hear in my head was, “Three down, two to go.” Every one of them had endured more from Mother than I ever possibly could. They were indeed the strong ones, while I was fortunate enough to be rescued.
“If this means anything,” I choked up, “I’m sorry . . . about everything. That’s no way to live. Maybe, maybe as a kid I drove her crazy. But,” I added with remorse, “she wasn’t always like this.” I smiled at distant memories, before Russell was born. Mommy had been the adoring parent who cherished her children, taking them on springtime picnics in the park, week-long camping adventures under the stars, glorious trips to the Russian River. Mommy had embellished her home with lights, candles, and ornaments during the Christmas season. “There were good times,” I confessed. “And for me, sometimes that’s enough to pull me through.”
“I could never understand what you could have done that was so bad,” Russell said. “All I could remember, since I was a kid, was . . . you were always in trouble. As if that was why she had to beat you,” Russell softly stated. “And that one summer . . . I remember when she . . . she threw the knife at you, right in front of me . . .”
I flashed back to a memory of Russell as a small child, clamped onto Mother’s leg, gently rocking as she swayed drunkenly. Mother had snatched up a knife, screaming that she would kill me if I did not finish washing the dinner dishes within the specified time. At the time, I knew she didn’t mean it. Afterward, as I regained consciousness in the bathroom, while blood poured from my chest, Mother announced to my dismay that she could never take me to hospital for fear of exposing the secret. Yet I knew what she meant. “It was an accident,” I boomed, startling the group of men around the bar.
Russell shook his head. “No way. It didn’t look like an accident to me.”
How could I tell him that I truly believed Mother never intended to stab me? I assumed, from Mother’s point of view, it was just another twisted game she had played to strengthen her position over me. Mother was a control freak who tried to dominate me through threatening and forbidding tactics. Mother would threaten me any way she could, but because of the bizarre nature of her ongoing progressive “games,” she had to constantly up the ante, at times to the point that she drove me to the brink of death. I went from being no longer a member of “the family” to The Boy to a child called It. As an adult, I believed Mother used those labels not just to demean me, but to somehow justify her treatment, to protect her psyche from some type of traumatic meltdown, from the fact that she was a mother who was brutalizing her own son.
Russell nervously rubbed his hands. “I asked her,” he said, “about when you were in her bedroom . . . she was beating you bad. I peeked through the door and . . . when she marched out, I remember her wiping her hands . . . like she just finished washing the dishes. I asked Mom why she beat you up, and without blinking she says, ‘Mommy loves It and wants It to be good.’ ”
I nearly lost my breath as I visualized the scene.
“With Dad gone,” Russell continued, “she’s worse. If Mom’s not on my case, then she’s on the phone with Ron and Linda, or Grandma . . . it never stops.”
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Changing the subject, I interrupted. “Can you get word to Stan and tell him I said hello? As kids, before you were born, before things were bad, we used to be tight. Ron and Stan saved my butt a few times.”
Russell merely nodded. “Okay, it’s just . . . Stan thinks he knows it all and that he’s the man of the house; you can’t tell him anything.”
“Well,” I said, “tell him I said hi. And can you get word to Ron?”
Russell hesitated. “I can give you his number.”
“I’d rather you give him a call first. I know it sounds stupid, but I’m kinda embarrassed. I don’t know, I mean, I haven’t seen or talked to him in years . . . with him being married and all . . . being he’s in the army. I don’t want to do anything that might mess with his head.” My heavy breathing made me stop for a moment to collect myself. “Man, what a family. What a waste. At least we made it out alive.”
“So,” Russell said, smiling, “the big question: You gonna see Mom?”
Swallowing hard, I muttered, “I dunno. In some odd sense, I want to. I know it sounds kinda weird, but . . . I dunno.” I paused. “I can’t explain it.”
“Man,” Russell howled, “you see Mom and Grandma’s gonna have a cow!”
“Trust me,” I laughed. “She’s having a litter of kittens as we speak. Gram gave me so much static over seeing you. It’s like . . . if something’s not her idea, you shouldn’t do it. I mean, I feel for Grandma and I know she did a lot for us when we were kids and all, but I just can’t help but think that when it comes to dealing with Mom, she doesn’t help the situation any.”
“Man, you’re not there to see it,” Russell broke it. “I’m not pointing fingers, but it’s like they feed off each other. The more miserable one can make the other, the happier they think their world will be.”
Clutching my Coke, I nodded in agreement.
“So, you gonna see her?” Russell again asked.
Feeling gutless, I said, “It ain’t worth it, maybe next time. . . .” My voice trailed off.
“Yeah,” Russell replied, “I understand, maybe next time.”
We drifted to other matters, until I dropped Russell off hours later. Back at Grandmother’s, she gave me the cold shoulder. The next day I aggravated our situation further when I told Grandmother that I had invited Russell on the trip Grandmother and I had planned to the border of Idaho. Hours later, I again made her upset when I was shopping at a bookstore, buying a novel for Kevin. Grandmother became impatient, announcing she had had enough and stormed out of the mall. Part of me felt bad for her—she had driven Russell and me to Idaho and fed us a nice picnic lunch—but yet I felt I was somehow being manipulated again. No matter what anyone was doing, if Grandmother wanted to go, everyone had to leave at once.
All I could do was continue to wait in line, make my purchase, and sprint after her, for I felt she would leave without me. But in a small sense I was giving Grandmother a message: I would respect her and be polite, but I was not a child whom she could snap her fingers at whenever it pleased her. As I entered Grandmother’s two-door sedan—with the engine running and her clutching the steering wheel—I proudly held Kevin’s book in my hand.
My last afternoon at Grandmother’s, I phoned the air force office that was handling my cross training request of becoming an air crew member. As hectic as my military leave had been, at least I felt that I stood a good chance of fulfilling my lifelong dream. When the sergeant recognized my name, his tone seemed positive. “Ah, yes, Sergeant Pelzer. I saw your file. I got it right here somewhere, hang on. . . . Yep, ah, give me a second.” I could feel my excitement grow. “You’ve been at my heels for a while now, haven’t you? All righty now, here it is . . .” he triumphantly announced. “Everything seems to be in order . . . uh . . . um . . . hang on a second.”
My heart sank. “I don’t know how to say this,” the sergeant’s tone softened, “but it seems there’s been a mistake. Somehow your paperwork went to ground refueling, not mid-air refueling. Not to worry, this happens all the time—”
“Excuse me, sir,” I interrupted. “What does this mean? It’s fixable, right? I mean, you can correct it, especially since it’s not my fault?”
“I’m sorry,” he answered. “I know how bad you wanted it, but by the time I received your paperwork, it was too late; the slots had been filled. You just missed the cutoff. Don’t sweat it. If this is any consolation, I know in about eight, maybe nine months or so, we’ll have another batch of slots to fill. I can’t make any promises, but as much as you check in, I can advise you when to resubmit directly to my office. I have to be fair to everyone who applies, but I can guarantee you’ll get a fair shot.”
“But, Sergeant!” I pleaded, “I don’t have eight months! My enlistment is up in six, seven weeks! I don’t understand; I did everything. I took math, even trig. I studied planes inside and out. I’ve got good annual progress reports. I’ve got medals. I graduated jump school. I even got a letter from Kelly Johnson.” I was yammering like an idiot. “I’ve wanted this forever. What else can I do?”
“Your package is not being questioned. It’s sound. If there was a slot open, I’d give it to you. But right now that’s not the issue. I am sorry. I feel for you, but there is nothing, nothing I can do.”
I stood in a frozen state, still clutching the phone. I had strongly believed I had a chance. I thought this time my hard work and determination would pay off. Ever since Father passed away, I had found something I could focus my efforts toward, a longtime dream that I could achieve for myself. For months, in the barracks on Friday and Saturday evenings, while the other guys would party outside on the building’s ledge, I’d dangle my legs over the same ledge and absorb my latest mathematical equation. Around the squadron, I’d discovered that peers that I didn’t really know were silently rooting for me, a mere cook, to cross over and become an air crew member.
As Grandmother came toward me, I could see she was not happy. I remembered that she had lectured me to keep the phone call short. I had been speaking to the sergeant for at least ten minutes, which I assumed was nine minutes too long. Besides being overly polite and careful where to tread, I felt my visit with Grandmother was not the tender homecoming I had imagined. I genuinely did not know this relative, and she did not know me.
“The phone,” she snipped.
I looked down at my hand grasping the phone. It felt ice cold. “Oh, yeah, sorry.” My eyes darted toward the floor as I replaced the phone in its cradle. Grandmother remained by my side, as if waiting for a report.
“So?” she asked.
I shook my head like a scolded puppy. “Oh . . . sorry,” I said. “It was nothing. Just air force stuff, no big deal. It’s nothing, nothing at all.” I wanted to tell her. To grab her frail body and open my heart to her. Not to necessarily moan about my latest futile crusade, but rather as a way to finally come to know Grandmother as a real person—her hopes, her dreams, her anxieties. To know of her life experiences as a child, as a woman, and a single parent who raised two children during hard times. There was much I admired about her. Grandmother was one of the original “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” people. In a way I still believed she and I were alike. The whole purpose of spending a few days with her was to get to know her better. All my life I had been led to believe that any sensitive matter was to be instantly buried. As an adult, I still knew nothing about my parents and how they came to be. Yet as I stood beside Grandmother, I knew that all we could manage was idle chitchat, at best, praying one of us didn’t step into forbidden territory.
“Well, then,” Grandmother heaved, breaking the tension, “did I tell you about the time I played golf with an officer from Hill Air Force Base? I think he’s a general . . . anyway . . .” And so did Grandmother and I kill time on my last evening, until we finally went to bed.
Early the next morning, I strapped my oversized green sleeping bag, my military backpack, and, upon Grandmother’s unwavering insistence, a coffee can containin
g her homemade snickerdoodle cookies onto my motorcycle. After an impassive departing embrace, I rode off. Hours later, in the blazing heat, as my body became numb and dehydrated from the miles of endless interstate, my sole thought was getting back to my Florida base, where I could begin my out-processing. I was quitting the air force.
CHAPTER
8
CHANGES
I barely made it back from Utah to Hurlburt Field in Florida. The chain from my motorcycle stretched so much from the cross-country trek, that nearly all the teeth from the rear sprocket sheared off, almost leaving me stranded in Texas at the height of a heat wave. By the time I limped through Mississippi, my rear tire became bald, and all I could do was disregard it. I had to spend the remainder of my funds filling up my gas tank, praying every mile I’d make it.
Hours after coasting into the base, I reported to the office that handled out-processing. As luck would have it, I no sooner came before a young airman—newly assigned, frantic, and confused—before he informed me to report to the section chief, pronto! Great, I thought, now what? I was exhausted, ready to give the next person I met a piece of my mind. As I stormed through the passageways, I felt betrayed. After four years, none of my efforts had paid off. Joining the air force to become a fireman was nothing more than a joke. I slaved away like I had years ago, but this time from the swamps of Florida to the Egyptian desert. And for what? I didn’t mind paying my dues, but for once, just once, I wished I could get lucky.
The more I felt myself getting hot under the collar, the more I tried to brush aside my ego. Okay, I was a cook, but one with jump wings who had actually seen the great pyramids. I’d had a chance to be reassigned to work in an office where I was appreciated, enabling me, a high school dropout, to go to college. I had a couple of bucks socked away, and for four years the air force had given me a home. In all, what did I really have to complain about? So I didn’t snatch the golden ring of becoming an air crew member; big deal. What truly mattered to me was that I had done my best. There was a sense of satisfaction knowing I hadn’t faltered. I had taken a few hard knocks and I never quit. By the time the receptionist ushered me into a captain’s office, I was back to my old self. Standing ramrod straight, I popped out a crisp salute. “Sergeant Pelzer reporting, sir!”